The doctrines of the Society of Friends have beet, variously represented, but we shall give the reader an account of their tenets nearly in their own words, leaving him to judge for himself.
I. They believe that God is one, and there is none other besides him, and that this one God is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, as in Matt. xxviii. 19. (R. Claridge.) To the assertion that the Quakers, deny the Trinity, William Penn answers, " Nothing less. They believe in the Holy Three, or the Trinity of Father, Word, and Spirit, according to the Scripture : but they are very tender of quitting Scripture terms and phrases for schoolmen's, such as distinct and separate persons and subsistencies, &c. from whence people are apt to enter tain gross ideas and notions of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost," kc.
2. They believe that Christ is both God and man, in wonderful union, not a God by creation or office, as some hold, nor man by the assumption of a human body only, without a reasonable soul, as others, or that the man hood was swallowed up of the godhead, as a third sort grossly fancy ; but God untreated, (see, John i. 1, 3. Coloss. i. 17, &c.) the true God, (1 John, v. 20,) the great God, (Tit. ii. 13, &c.) And man, conceived by the Holy Ghost, and born of the Virgin Mary, (see Luke i. 31, 35,) who suffered for our salvation, and was raised again for our justification, and ever liv eth to make intercession for us. In reply to the charge, that " the quakers deny Christ to be God." William Penn says, " a most untrue and uncharitable censure; for their great and cbaracteristic principles being this, that Christ, as the divine word, lighteth the souls of all men that come into the world with a spi ritual and saving light, according to John i. 8, 9, 12, (which nothing but the Creator of souls can do,) it does sufficiently show they believe him to be God, for they truly and expressly own him to be, accord ing to the Scripture, viz. in him was life, and the life was the light of men, and he is God over all, bless ed for ever." And to the objection, that "the quakers deny the human nature of Christ," he answers, " we never taught, said, or held so gross a thing. For, as we belive him to be God over all, blessed for ever, so do we truly believe him to be of the seed of Abraham and David after the flesh, and therefore truly and pro perly man, like us in all things, sin only excepted." (William Penn.) 3. On the Scriptures.--,They believe them to be of di vine authority, given by the inspiration of God through holy men; that they are a declaration of those things most surely believed by the primitive Christians, and that they contain the mind and will of God, and are his commands to us, and therefore are obligatory on us, ?rid are profitable for doctrine, for reproof, &c. They
love and prefer them before all other books in the world, rejecting all principles or doctrines whatsoever that are repugnant thereunto; indeed, no society of Christians in the world can have a more reverend and honourable esteem for them than they have. (William Penn.) Nevertheless, they object to calling the Scrip tures the word of God, as being a name applied to Christ as the eternal word by the sacred writers them selves, though too often misunderstood, and therefore misapplied, by those who extol the Scripture above the immediate teaching of Christ's spirit in the heart; whereas, without the last, the first cannot be profitably understood.
4. On the Resurrertion.—They believe the resurrec tion according to the Scripture, not only from sin, but also fium death and the grave; they most steadfastly believe, that as our Lord Jesus Christ was raised from the dead by the power of the Father, and was the first fruits of the resurrection, so every man in his own or der shall arise, they that have done well to the resur rection of eternal life, but they that have done evil to everlasting condemnation; and as the celestial bodies do far excel the terrestrial, so they expect our spiritual bodies in the resurrection shall far excel what our bo dies now arc, (William Penn and William Sewell.) 5. On the Original and Present State of Man.—Wil ham Penn says "the world began with innocency, all was then good that God had made; man in paradise, the, beast in the field, the fowl in the air, &c. worshipped, praised, and exalted his power, wisdom, and goodness. But this happy state lasted not long; for man, the crown and glory of the whole, being tempted to aspire above his place, fell below it; but the divine image, the wis dom, power, and purity he was made in, by which, being no longer fit for paradise, he was expelled that garden of God, and was driven out as a poor vaga bond, from the presence of the Lord, to wander in the earth." Respecting the present state of man, Robert Barclay observes, " we cannot suppose that men, who are come of Adam naturally, can have any good thing in their nature as belonging to it, which lie, from whom they derive their nature, had not himself to communi cate to them. If then we may affirm, that Adam did not retain in his nature (as belonging thereunto) any will or light capable to give him knowledge in spiritual things, then neither can his posterity; for whatsover real good any man doth, it proceeds, not from his nature, as he is man or the son of. Adam, but from the seed of God in him, as a new visitation of life, in order to bring him out of his natural condition.