and, in humility of heart, to walk closely with him, both that we may, as far as in us lies, answer his great loving-kindness to us-ward, and receive from him daily strength and ability to stand, and withstand the assaults and temptations of the enemy, and escape his snares, wherewith he is, at this time, as busy and industrious to betray, and draw aside from the simplicity of the truth, as ever he was.

with the fairest colours they could, to allure and draw others to join with them."

This publication excited the resentment of George Keith, who, after having in vain demanded its suppression by the Society, opposed it with what he styled "A Loving Epis tle;" in which he charged the author with fifty perversions; and in a short time after he "For, friends, ye know we have a restless brought forward what he called proofs of adversary to watch against, and to war with; those perversions, and at the same time exone that sometimes walks about as a roaring pressed his unalterable attachment to the lion, seeking whom he may devour; and Society. This was speedily followed by a sometimes creeps about as a subtle serpent, rejoinder from Thomas Ellwood, entitled "A seeking whom he may betray; whom in each further discovery of that spirit of contention appearance, it is our duty and interest to resist, and division, which hath appeared of late in steadfast in the faith which overcomes. George Keith, &c., wherein his cavils are anneed not recount unto you, my friends, the swered, his falsehood is laid open, and the many winds and floods, storms and tempests, guilt and blame of the breach and separation of open and cruel persecutions, which this roar-in America, &c., are fixed faster on him; ing adversary hath often raised, and caused written by way of epistle, and recommended to beat upon us, to have driven us, if possible, as a further warning to Friends." from off our foundation; ye cannot have forgotten it, nor that noble arm of the Lord, which was made bare for our preservation; and, by preserving us against the most furious shocks, gave evidence even to the world, that we are that people whose house is founded and built upon that immovable rock, Christ Jesus.

I

The subject of George Keith's differences was resumed by the yearly meeting in 1695, and issued in his final separation from the Society, that body confirming the proceedings against him, by which he had been disowned in America. Soon after he published some observations on that decision, &c., which again furnished employment for Thomas Ellwood's pen, and were met by his "Truth Defended, and the Friends thereof cleared from the false charges, foul reproaches, and envious cavils, cast upon it and them by George Keith, an apostate from them, in two books by him lately published; one called 'A true Copy of a Paper delivered into the yearly meeting,' &c.; the other the pretended Yearly meeting's nameless Bull of Excommunication.'"

"At this sort of fighting the enemy hath been foiled; which hath made him shift his hand, and, like a cunning hunter, spread his nets, set his snares, lay his baits, to catch the simple and unwary ones. Thus wrought this subtle enemy in the early times of Christianity, sometimes stirring up the rulers, both Jews and Gentiles, to fall with violent and bloody hands upon the little flock of Christ; and sometimes, in the intermissions of those George Keith retained for a short time some storms, covering his hooks with the taking baits adherents, consisting of persons who had seof pleasure, profit and preferment, he catched parated from the Society; and after being desome, perhaps of those that had withstood the serted by them, formed a congregation who strongest storm of outward persecution, and met in Turner's hall, Philpot lane, London, made them instruments for himself to work and were for some time very numerous; but by to betray others. Such was Diotrephes declined on his manifesting an inclination to of old, whose aspiring mind, loving and seek-join the established church. Turner's hall he ing pre-eminence, laboured to make a schism also made the theatre of violent declamations in the church, prating against even the elders against his late fellow professors and their thereof with malicious words, &c. What principles; and gave public notice of a meetmischief the wicked one hath wrought in our ing to be held there in the fourth month, day by such ambitious spirits, I need not re- 1696, "to discover the Quakers' errors." Of count, nor is it pleasing to me to remember: this meeting he soon after published a narraye know it, to your grief, as well as I. But tive, which was followed by a reply from this in all such cases is observable, that such Thomas Ellwood's pen, entitled: "An Answer as have made disturbances in the church, to George Keith's Narrative of his Proceedand have run into divisions and separations ings at Turner's hall, &c., wherein his charges from friends, have framed to themselves some against divers of the people called Quakers, specious pretence or other, as the inducement in that and another book of his, called Gross to their undertaking, which they have indus- Errors, &c., are fairly considered, examined triously spread abroad, and varnished over and refuted." VOL. VII.-No. 11.

54

The following quotation will give some idea least as regarded the doctrines in dispute, of the character of the meeting.

styled, "Satan Disrobed from his disguise of light, in reply to T. Ellwood's Answer to G. Keith's Narrative, 1697." T. Ellwood made considerable progress in a reply, but relinquished the further prosecution of it.

George Keith "having published many books against us, and in defence of those books wrangled with us for a while in print, till he found himself too closely pinched, to Towards the close of the year 1698, several be able to give an answer fit to be seen in clergymen of Norfolk, in consequence of a print, hath at length bethought himself of a meeting held by some Friends near the resi wile to excuse himself from answering; which dence of one of them, which produced an was, to set up a kind of judicial court of his increase of members in that neighbourhood, own head, and by his own authority, in a challenged the Friends to a public dispute at place at his own command, on a day of his West Dereham in that county; the issue of own appointing, there to charge and try divers which not being satisfactory to the clerical of us who are called Quakers, whether pre-party, they endeavoured to avail themselves sent or absent, concerning matters of faith of more powerful weapons than their argu and doctrine; and that the rude multitude ments, and accordingly promoted the presenta. might not be wanting to his assistance there, he gave public notice of it some time before, by an advertisement in print, and therein a sort of summons to some of us by name, to others by designation to be present. This arbitrary proceeding, and usurped authority, as we judged it unreasonable in him to impose, so we did not think fit to submit to, or own, and therefore forbore to appear at that time and place by him appointed. Yet, lest any whom he should draw thither, might mistake the cause of our not appearing, the reasons thereof, drawn up in short heads, were sent thither to be read and given among the people, which they were. However, according to his before declared intention to proceed whether any of us were there or no, he being judge of his own court, over-ruled our reasons, and went on to arraign and convict us absent.

"The pageantry of this day's work, as acted there by himself, he hath since published with his name to it, under the title of An exact Narrative of the proceedings at Turner's hall, &c., together with the disputes and speeches there, between G. Keith and other Quakers, differing from him in some religious principles.' How idle is this in him, to pretend in his title to give an account of disputes and speeches between him and other Quakers, whereas his narrative itself gives no account of any dispute there, nor any thing like it; and of that little that was said by any of those few Quakers that were present, most was to the people, tending to show them the unreasonableness of his undertaking, and desiring them to reserve one ear for the other side."

G. Keith, feeling probably some difficulty in openly opposing those principles of which he had so lately been a zealous defender, declined again meeting his opponent in propria persona, but found a ready champion in the author of "The Snake in the Grass," who produced a vindication of his cause, as far at

tion to parliament, of two petitions against the Society. Thomas Ellwood published, early in the following year, "A Sober Reply on behalf of the people called Quakers, to two Petitions against them, the one out of Norfolk, and the other from Bury in Suffolk, being some brief observations upon them." The publication of this, with the activity of Friends resident in the metropolis, in furnishing members with correct information on the subject, by personal attendance on the house, as well as through the medium of the press, was attended with the desired effect, and the efforts of their opponents proved fruitless.

George Keith continued to hold annually a meeting at Turner's hall, for discussing the principles and practices of Friends; and William Penn, who had recently returned to his province in the New World this year, became the principal object of his invectives, which were followed up shortly afterwards by a publication, of which Keith was the avowed author, entitled, "The Deism of William Penn and his brethren, destructive to the Christian religion, exposed."

To this work Thomas Ellwood commenced a reply, in which he had made considerable progress, when he was induced to relinquish his design, deeming the necessity of his labour superseded, by the publication of a Friend of Bristol, entitled, "Honesty the truest Policy: showing the sophistry, envy, and perversion of George Keith, in his three books: viz. his 'Bristol Quakerism,' Bristol Narrative,' and his Deism."

Though the writings of William Penn contain unanswerable refutations of this calumny, the following extracts from Thomas Ellwood's vindication of his principles may be acceptable to the reader, as collateral evidence of the soundness of that distinguished member of our Society, as well as of his contemporary fellow professors, in regard to the fundamental doctrines of the gospel.

"Now herein G. Keith's both injustice and malice are the greater, in charging W. Penn, and his brethren the Quakers, with deism; inasmuch as he assuredly knows, which some adversaries have not had the like opportunity to know, as he hath had, by certain experience, drawn by so many years intimate conversation with W. Penn and the Quakers, in free and familiar conferences, and in reading their books, that W. Penn and the Quakers, both in word and writing, publicly and privately, have always, and on all occasions, confessed, acknowledged, owned, as well as believed, the incarnation of Christ, according to the Holy Scriptures, viz.-That the Word was made flesh. That when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law.-That Christ Jesus, being in the form of God, and thinking it no robbery to be equal with God, made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. That Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day, according to the Scriptures. That he was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification. That he is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world. That he ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.-That he is the one Mediator between God and men. That he is at the right hand of God, and maketh intercession for us; and is our advocate with the Father.-And that it is He which was ordained of God, to be the Judge of quick and dead.

by W. Penn, though the tendency of it is to assert and defend the divinity of Christ, and his spiritual appearance by his divine light in the hearts of men; yet there is enough said concerning his manhood, his outward appearance, and his sufferings in the flesh, to free W. Penn from the imputation and suspicion of Deism.

:

"No longer ago than in the year 1692, nineteen years after that book of W. Penn's, called, A Discourse of the general Rule of Faith and Life,' was in print, G. Keith, in his serious Appeal, page 7, says, According to the best knowledge I have of the people called Quakers, and those most generally owned by them, as preachers and publishers of their faith, of unquestioned esteem among them, and worthy of double honour, as many such there are, I know none that are guilty of any such heresies and blasphemies as thou accusest them and I think I should know, and do know, those called Quakers better than C. Mather [against whom he then wrote] or any of his brethren; having been conversant with them, in public meetings, as well as in private discourse, with the most noted and esteemed among them, for above twenty-eight years past, and that in many places of the world, in Europe, and for these divers years in America.' I say, all this considered, how will G. Keith, upon the charges he now makes against W. Penn, acquit himself from having been a professed deist, all the while he was among the Quakers? Yet he himself well knows, that neither he, nor William Penn, nor any of the Quakers, ever were deists; ever did deny, disown, or disbelieve the coming, incarnation, sufferings, and death of Christ, as man outwardly in the flesh, his resurrection, ascension, and mediatorship; and he himself has undesignedly acquitted William Penn "These things, I say, G. Keith certainly from his present charge of deism, by a story knows have been constantly held, believed, he told in his first Narrative, page 38, that professed, and owned by W. Penn and his upon some urging him to give an instance of brethren the Quakers in general, both private- one English Quaker that he ever heard pray ly and publicly, in word and writing. These to Christ, William Penn, being present, said, things are so often testified of in our meetings, I am an Englishman, and a Quaker; and I and have been so fully and plainly asserted own I have often prayed to Christ Jesus, even and held forth in our books, that we might call him that was crucified' " in almost as many witnesses thereof, as have frequented our meetings, or attentively read our books.

"The book of W. Penn's, called, A Discourse of the general Rule of Faith and Life,' to which G. Keith's Deism is an answer, G. Keith tells us in his preface, was first printed in the year 1673, as an appendix to William Penn's part of the Christian Quaker-a folio book in two parts; the former written by W. Penn, the latter by G. Whitehead. In that former part of the Christian Quaker, written

Before taking leave of George Keith, we may remark, that his congregation at Turner's hall, and his reputation among other dissenters, gradually declined, on their perceiving a change in his religious tenets, which soon approximated to those of the establishment; and after having, as we have seen, relinquished the Presbyterian habiliments, and successively assumed the garb of Quakerism, and other modes of dissent, his last transformation exhibits him in the sacerdotal robes of Episcopal

Orthodoxy; in which character he performed, the Old and New Testament: the former of in 1702, an unsuccessful embassy to the west- which is the subject of this volume. ern hemisphere, with the design of restoring "Of the matter nothing need be said, noother dissenters to the bosom of Mother Church. thing perhaps can be said, to add to the excelAfter his return, he obtained the living of El-lency or credit thereof; but of the motive or burton parish, in Sussex, where he continued to maintain a violent opposition against Friends, till near the close of his mortal career, which terminated in 1715.

The author does not adhere generally to the words of the sacred Text, and has availed himself of the observation of biblical critics, to whose works he had access, particularly the learned Grotius, in elucidating difficult passages, or those in which he deemed the "If any shall think the undertaking needauthorized version to be erroneous. The gos- less, because the history is already extant in pel history embraces the discourses of our the Bible; I entreat such to consider, that Lord, and is preceded by a biographical sketch although the Bible be, or may be, in every of the historical writers of the New Testa-hand, and ought to be read by all that can

"What Cicero saith of history in general, namely, that it is, Temporum testis, lux veritatis, vita memoriæ, magistra vitæ, et nuncia The biographer of Thomas Ellwood, in the antiquitatis; i. e. The witness of time, the Supplement which has been usually published light of truth, the life of memory, the mistress with his own memoir, gives his estimate of this of life, and the messenger of antiquity, cannot work in the following terms: "A work indeed be so well verified of any particular history, it is both pleasant and profitable; containing as of that which, being written by divinely such judicious observations, and witty, though inspired penmen, is contained in the books of grave, turns on passages and things, as make

devoted some leisure hours, for a considerable number of years, without any view to publication.

it, as well as his other writings, not only pleasant to read, but profitable to the reader. A work that will remain a monument of his worth and ingenuity to generations to come." In a postscript to his "Supplement," Joseph In 1707 Thomas Ellwood closed his con- Wyeth says: "I have understood that our troversial labours, by a work designed to friend T. Ellwood, after he had finished and evince the spirituality of the Christian dispen- published 'Davideis,' signified that he had but sation, and its abrogation of types and cere- one thing more which lay upon his mind, and monies, in answer to a recent publication, that was, to add something to his journal; entitled, "A Divine Treatise, written by way which was chiefly to give an account of his of essay, to demonstrate, according to the books and writings." His accomplishment of Mosaical philosophy, that water baptism, im- this desire was probably prevented by the deposition of hands, and the commemoration of bilitated state of his bodily powers, in consethe death and passion of our ever blessed quence of an asthmatic disorder, to which he Lord and Saviour, under the species of bread was subject during the last few years of his and wine, are suitably and homogeneally life: previously to this affection he appears to adapted to the present and imperfect state of have enjoyed, with but little interruption, that nature, as man consists of body, soul and spirit. His answer was entitled, "The glorious brightness of the gospel day, dispelling the shadows of the legal dispensation, and whatsoever else of human invention hath been super-added thereunto."

About the same time Thomas Ellwood was involved, with three other friends, in a suit for tithes, which was attended with much trouble and expense, from the circumstance of the claimants, instead of distraining by warrant, having instituted a process in the Court of Exchequer. This was peculiarly cruel and unchristian with respect to Thomas Ellwood, the demand against him being only twelve shillings, for the obtaining of which there was a clear and summary process pointed out by law.

John Penington, one of the three Friends, living in Buckinghamshire, the attachment obtained would not reach him, the others residing in Hertfordshire. In consequence the prosecution, as to him, proved null and void. The claim on Thomas Ellwood and his two other friends, Abraham Butterfield and William Catch, amounted to £ 32 14s. 10d. and the costs to £71 17s. 8d. together £104 12s. 6d. to defray which, goods were distrained from Thomas Ellwood, amounting to £24 108. and from his two fellow sufferers to the amount of £107 16s. 8d. making a total of £132 68. 8d. which exceeded the original demand by £99 11s. 10d.

In the year 1710, Thomas Ellwood was engaged in preparing for the press, an account of Oliver Sansom, of Abingdon, Berkshire, committed to him during the life of the author, and to which he prefixed a pertinent testimony respecting him.

The year following, he ushered into the world the last, but not least, effort of his muse, entitled-" Davideis: the life of David, king of Israel-A sacred poem, in five books;" to the composition of which he had occasionally

uniform state of good health, which is the usual attendant of a vigorous constitution, preserved by moderation and temperance. On the 23rd of second month, 1713, he was attacked by a paralytic seizure, which he survived only about a week. During this time. he frequently expressed his love to his friends, and the pleasure he derived from their company-his desire for the welfare of the Society, and especially for that portion of it with which he had been more immediately connectedand the resignation, peace, and joy, which attended his mind in the prospect of a speedy transition to a never ending state of being. This took place on the 1st of third month, 1713, in the seventy-fourth year of his age. His remains were interred at Jordan's burying ground, where they were attended by a large company of his fellow professors, and many of other persuasions, by whom he appears to have been held in much esteem. He had suffered the loss of his wife, who occupied the station of a minister, about five years previous to his decease. They do not appear to have had any offspring. Their residence was at Hunger Hill, near Amersham, where he seems to have led a life of retirement, unencumbered with much, if any, commercial engagement.

Thomas Ellwood's station in the church was that of an elder; though he did sometimes "appear as a minister." "In those meetings set apart for the affairs of Truth," one of his contemporaries remarks, "he often appeared in great wisdom, having an extraordinary talent given of the Lord for that work, more than many other brethren; and faithful he was in watching for instruction from God, to improve the same to his glory and the church's advantage."* The loss of his valuable services in the exercise of Christian discipline, was deeply felt by his friends, as is

*Richard Vivers' Testimony concerning T. Ellwood.