and especially as they have more of sect and less of christianity. It is the very mind of anti-christ. And, Friends, allow me to ask, why will you labor, and metamorphose your humanity, and exhort or assist each other in upholding that excrescence of a darkling and troubled period, not half-reclaimed from the traditional popery of ages; why will you toil to uphold a system which can never uphold you? Let it alone; give it up. Take the religion of Jesus Christ just as HE has given it to us, and made it for us, in the holy scriptures. Conform to it; it is greater than you: and it will make you happy; it will save you. This, my dear fellow creatures and friends, I know by experience. I have proved it; I commend it to you. Will you not conform to christianity? Well! take the consequences then! This is all-and surely it is enough. There is no indecision in God. The alternative is before you. Christianity will never conform to you, not a jot or a tittle of it. Again, I say, IT NEVER WILLCONFORM TO YOU OR TO ANY MAN. Conform to it; to the whole of it; just as it is; cordially; confidentially; constantly; and you will be saved long enough before you get to glory! The salvation of Jesus Christ is a PRESENT salvation, as well as an ETERNAL one. "He that hath the Son, hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God, hath not life." Reader, is this possession yours! Take care of your title. Many will be disappointed for the want of a good one. Nothing but truth is indisputable.

This chapter shall conclude with the consideration of a passage, Col. 2: 20-23, on which the so

ciety are wont to lay much emphasis; as they do, most tenaciously, on any and every one that seems, in their light, to vindicate their views: so that I think it a good inference that they would adhere as closely to the whole volume, if they only liked it all, as well and as much as they seem to like some special passages, which they misunderstand and plausibly pervert. This real reason, for the selectness and delicacy of their scriptural taste, may possibly not be known to themselves. It is not in moneygetting or the principles of arithmetic, but in religion pre-eminently, that "the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked."

Every one can see the use to which Friends put it-to denounce the sacraments; warn and encourage themselves in the holy disobedience of rejecting them; and fix on consistent worshippers the charge of judaizing and formality. And truly they can throw over their version of it a cloud of speciosity in favor of their usages, as if it was written on purpose to sanction them.

Intending now to attempt its disabuse from their glosses and their mistakes, their ignorance and their inspiration, by showing its proper meaning; I observe,

1. That the passage is comparatively of difficult solution. Often have I witnessed its mistaken use in the pulpit, in religious publications, and in the noble speeches even of senatorial eloquence, engaged in the cause of TEMPERANCE and thundering in the capitol. On this account Friends ought to be treated with special lenience, just here, were it

not for their notorious inspiration when they preach! Inspiration deserves no quarters; needs none; and were more injured by the offer than the want. Still, of mere grace I will award it to them-thinking it a good instance in illustration of the nature of grace, as favor to the ill-deserving! for they always affect to know all about it, and all about every thing else almost, as inspiration might.

2. Much of the darkness and mistake which generally accompanies the passage may be traced to a demonstrable infelicity of our translation. I will render it, as seems just and necessary, thus: "If then ye have died with Christ from the elements of the world, why, as those that live with the world, do you subject yourselves to the arbitrary enactments of men? Thou shalt not eat, thou shalt not taste, thou shalt not handle; which things are all corrupting by abuse; according to human authority and inclination; which things have indeed the appearance of wisdom, by will-worship, and formal humiliation, and unsparing severity to the body, (though with no real profit) for the satisfaction of the flesh." That I have rendered the above perfectly as it should be, I do not affirm; but that the general sense is correctly given, I am confident. The learned reader may consult the original at his leisure. He may also ponder Dr. Macknight, Parkhurst, Robinson's Wahl, Schleusner and others, with advantage. The original is so densely written; so idiomatically, in the free style of Paul; that one may well confess in details its intrinsic difficulty,

after all.

To be inspired sometimes, would be vastly convenient; it would at least save many an honest student from the incessant toil and occasional headache of patient investigation.

3. The passage, so far from favoring Friends, is entirely opposed to them. It forbids christians to allow any human authority to speak to them with its own dogmas. Soyuarieσ0e. It will not allow δογματίζεσθε. them to be Pythagoreans, bowing to mere authority. It absolves them, as the subjects of Christ, from all the orders of men in religion. Col. 3: 23–25. It respects "ordinances" such possibly as these ; "Thou shalt use the plain language; thou shalt wear clothes of a precisely given description; thou shalt go to Friends' meetings only; thou shalt vilify all other ministers as "hirelings," and not learn even the truth from them; thou shalt believe, without any evidence, that there is, in thee and in all men, a certain inward 'light, seed, life, principle, fountain, power, grace, and portion of the divinity,' which is above all' and hath dominion over all,' by attending to the voice of which, thou mayest come to the full knowledge of salvation." Those obey it who refuse utterly to be "subject to ordinances" such as the above; and who continue to deny all the fleshly wisdom and presumptuous legislation of creatures in the church, of which JESUS CHRIST ALONE is the all-sufficient HEAD.

4. Suppose for a moment it did refer to "the ordinances" of baptism and the Lord's Supper, (1 Cor. 11: 2,) I beg leave to observe, doubt it who may, and I shall only observe, that then the scrip

tures would contradict themselves flatly and demonstrably-a consequence which in point of fact (not of words) seems to affect Friends very little.

5. The passage refers, from the previous context, it is thought, to all the desired innovations of heathen schoolmen and Jewish corrupters; while its principle is of universal application, exalting the authority of Jesus Christ alone and exclusively in the church "which he purchased with his own blood." It will not admit the philosophy of Pythagoras or Plato to domineer; or the enactments of Jewish impostors to deform. It allows no distinction of meats; it favors no will-worship, no maceration of the body, no strait vesture of religious singularity or clanship, no self-inflicted austerities, no profitless and mechanical observance. It pronounces all these to be human fabrications, fleshly wisdom, injurious, and tending to destruction in many ways. It will be perceived too that the inhibitory clause, rendered in our translation, "Touch not, taste not, handle not," is not plural, as if the apostle commanded it; is itself no integral part of the inspired scriptures, but a mere quotation by the apostle of a judaical mandate for the purpose of annulling it; and that it is often improperly used in the cause of TEMPERANCE-a cause too glorious and too affluent in resources to need any perversion for its assistance, since perversion alone sustains the arguments that oppose it. It is a cause too, I am happy to add, in which Friends have been nearly right from the beginning; and in which their example, taking precedency of others, has been comparatively excellent