629 



BARCLAY, EGBERT. 



BARCLAY, ROBERT. 



630 



where it is said of the Jews of Berea, " That they received the word 

 with all readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily, whether 

 those things were so." He was bom at Muthill in Perthshire, in 1734, 

 and studied at the University of St. Andrews, where he took the 

 degree of A.M. While attending the course of divinity taught at 

 that university, he became conspicuous as a supporter of Dr. Archibald 

 Campbell, a promulgator of doctrines which his enemies charged with 

 savouring of Socinianism. In 1759 he was licensed as a probationer 

 by the Presbytery of Auchterarder, and was for some time assistant 

 to Mr. Jobson, minister of the parish of Errol in Perthshire; but 

 after some acrimonious discussion, arising apparently from Barclay's 

 inculcating his own peculiar views from the pulpit, that connection 

 was broken. ID 1763 he became assistant of the minister of Fetter- 

 cairn in Forfarshire. Here he became the popular preacher and 

 religious leader of the district, and attracted crowds of auditors from 

 the neighbouring parishes. In 1766 he published a paraphrase of the 

 Book of Psalms, with 'A Dissertation on the best means of interpreting 

 that portion of Scripture.' Some tenets supposed to lurk in this 

 production brought upon him the censure of his presbytery. He sub- 

 sequently published pamphlets calculated to fan the flame he had 

 created against himself. On the death of the clergyman to whom he 

 was assistant, in 1772, the presbytery not only defeated his attempt 

 to be appointed successor, but refused him the necessary testimonials 

 for accepting a benefice elsewhere, and he then left the Church of 

 Scotland , and became the leader of the sect called Bereans, of which 

 a few congregations still exist. He preached for some time in Edin- 

 burgh, and subsequently in London and Bristol. In London he kept 

 open a debating society, where he supported his doctrines against all 

 iinpugners. He died on the 29th of July 1798. He published several 

 works in which he expounded his peculiar doctrines. Barclay was a 

 man of ardent and restless temper and strong dialectic powers. 



BARCLAY, ROBERT, a distinguished writer of the Society of 

 Friends, was born December 23, 1648, at Gordonstown, in the shire of 

 Moray, and not in Edinburgh, as stated by William Penn. His father, 

 Colonel David Barclay, of Ury, was the lineal representative of a family 

 which traced its ancestry to Theobald de Berkely, a gentleman of 

 Norman extraction. The grandfather of Robert Barclay having become 

 impoverished by his extravagances, was obliged to sell estates which 

 had been in the family for upwards of 500 years. Upon these reverses, 

 David, who was the eldest of several eons, went into the army, and 

 nerved as a volunteer under Gustavus Adolphus, kin? of Sweden. 

 Having attained the rank of major, he remained abroad till the civil 

 wars broke out in his own country, when he returned home, and 

 became Colonel of a Royalist regiment of horse. On the accession of 

 Cromwell's party to power, he retired from his military employments, 

 married, and purchased a house at Ury, near Aberdeen, which became 

 the seat of the family. 



David Barclay had three sous. Robert, the eldest, after receiving 

 the rudiments of his education in his native country, was sent to 

 Paris to pursue his studies under the direction of his uncle, who was 

 rector of the Scots College in that capital. " Being ambitious of 

 knowledge, and having a certain felicity of understanding," to use his 

 own expressions, his proficiency was so considerable as to obtain him 

 the notice and commendation of the professors. At the same time, 

 his deportment and character so endeared him to his uncle, that he 

 offered to make him his heir, and to settle a large estate immediately 

 upon him, if ho would remain in France. When he found however 

 that his father was opposed to his continuance in a country where he 

 had been won over to the Roman Catholic faith, no temptation could 

 shake his resolution to return home, and he declined the offer which 

 ItU uncle had made. When he left Paris he was in his 15th year. 



While the son was deserting Calvinism for Popery, the father's 

 opinions were undergoing an equally remarkable change. During a 

 short imprisonment, from which he was liberated without anything 

 being laid to his charge, he was converted to the views of the Society 

 of Friends, a sect which had then existed only ten years. 



After an interval of a few years Robert followed the example of his 

 father, and in the year 1667 avowed himself a Quaker. This change 

 of opinion gave a decided bias to his future studies. He learned the 

 Greek and Hebrew languages, in addition to the Latin and French, in 

 which he had made great proficiency in France. To his other acquire- 

 ments he added an acquaintance with the writings of the fathers, and 

 with ecclesiastical history. He soon found profitable use for his 

 knowledge and abilities in defence of his new associates. The Friends, 

 :it tlieir origin, did not adopt any peculiar marks; they only dressed 

 like all the strictly religious people of that day, and abstained from all 

 extravagances; they however adhered closely to this plainness, when 

 other people cast it aside, after the restoration of Charles II., under 

 tbo stigma of puritanism. But the vicinity of Aberdeen was not 

 more free than other parts of Britain from that spirit which affected 

 to discover, under this garb and plainness of manners, a deep-rooted 

 aversion to religion and civil government. The meetings of the society 

 were prohibited, and those who attended them were taken before 

 magistrates, and committed to prison. From such intolerance even 

 the family respectability of the Barclays did not preserve them. They 

 bore their share in the sufferings of those times. 



Robert Barclay no sooner saw how much of this ill-will arose from 

 the misapprehensions of the public concerning the principles of the 



Bioo. DIV. VOL. I. 



Quakers, than he set himself to correct them. A be ok having been 

 written by a Scotch clergyman, embodying the principal charges which 

 had been brought against the doctrines and views of the Quakers, he 

 endeavoured to vindicate them, in a treatise published at Aberdeen in 

 the year 1670, under the title of 'Truth cleared of Calumnies.' A 

 reply being made to this publication, in which all the offensive state- 

 ments were repeated, Barclay put forth an able and learned rejoinder, 

 entitled ' William Mitchell Unmasked.' In 1670 he married Christian 

 Mollison, a lady whose character is highly spoken of. In 1672 he took 

 the extraordinary resolution of walking through the streets of Aberdeen 

 clothed in sackcloth and ashes, to which he states that he was enforced 

 by " the command of the Lord," that the inhabitants of Aberdeen might 

 be warned and exhorted to immediate repentance. 



Barclay believed, as the Society of Friends now do, that divine reve- 

 lation is not incompatible with right reason, yet he believed, as the 

 Friends also now do, that the faculty of reason alone, unassisted by 

 divine illumination, is unable to comprehend or receive the sublime 

 truths relative to that redemption and salvation which came by Jesus 

 Christ. To show that the tenets held by the society were capable of 

 a rational vindication, Barclay employed all the powers of his intellect, 

 and produced a succession ofworks, designed and calculated to accom- 

 plish this object. The first was an exposition of the doctrines and 

 principles of the Quakers, bearing the following title, ' A Catechism 

 and Confession of Faith, approved of and agreed unto by the General 

 Assembly of the Patriarchs, Prophets, and Apostles, Christ himself 

 chief Speaker in and among them: ' iu which the answers are all given 

 in the language of the Bible. This was followed by a more scholastic 

 work, called ' Theses Theological,' comprising, in fifteen propositions, 

 the doctrines maintained by the Quakers ; and as it met with a favour- 

 able reception, he made these propositions the heads of a more elabo- 

 rate treatise, brought out two years later, under the title of 'An 

 Apology for the true Christian Divinity as the same is held forth and 

 practised by the people called, in scorn, Quakers.' Both these per- 

 formances were originally printed in Latin, and afterwards translated 

 by the author and published in English. In style and execution they 

 have been deservedly admired. The effect produced by them iu 

 altering the tone of public opinion was not immediately visible; but 

 it waa proved that this proscribed sect professed a system of theology 

 that was capable of being defended by strong if not unanswerable 

 arguments. Some portions of it became tho subject of controversial 

 discussion, tho assumption of inward light being supposed by many 

 to set aside the superior authority of Scripture, and the denial of the 

 perpetuity of baptism and the Lord's Supper occasioning a suspicion 

 of infidelity. On this supposed tendency of the system it was acri- 

 moniously attacked by John Brown, in a work to which he gave the 

 title of ' Quakerism the Pathway to Paganism,' now little known and 

 less read. 



The propositions in the 'Apology' being enunciated and maintained 

 with logical acuteness, were much canvassed in various seats of learn- 

 ing. In the Netherlands they met with an antagonist iu Nicholas 

 Arnold, a professor in the University of Franeker, who published his 

 objections, to which Barclay replied : and in the same year they gave 

 rise to an oral discussion between some students in the University of 

 Aberdeen, on the one side, and the author, assisted by his friend George 

 Keith, on the other. No part of the 'Apology' was controverted by 

 so many opponents as that in which the necessity of an inward aud 

 immediate revelation was insisted upon. It was the only portion of 

 the work which could be considered original. The other doctrines 

 contained in it had all been maintained by abler defenders; their 

 arrangement in the Quaker system of theology being the only point 

 iu which they differed from the Arminian scheme. None of the 

 numerous publications in which this leading tenet of this new faith 

 was attempted to be disproved, called forth a reply from the writer; 

 but hav'ng been requested by Adrian Paets, an ambassador from the 

 court of the Netherlands, with whom he had some conversation on 

 the principles of the Friends, to re-consider the strength of some 

 objections which he had advanced against them, Barclay addressed 

 him in Latin on the subject, while he was iu the prison at Aberdeen, 

 reviewed his former arguments, and declared himself more convinced 

 of their truth than he had ever been. The translation of this letter 

 into English was his last literary labour. 



The discipline, or church government, of the Society of Friends wan 

 as much defamed as their religious opinions. It could not be denied, 

 that iu their forms of worship, of marriage, and of burial, there was 

 a wide departure from the customary ceremonial ; and it was generally 

 understood that tho society carried its interference to a great extent 

 in the private concerns of those who belonged to its communion. 

 These regulations were vindicated by Barclay in a work wherein he 

 contrasts the internal government of the Quakers with the anarchy 

 of the Ranters, atfd the hierarchy of the Romanists, justifying the 

 discipline of his sect, and defending its members " from those who 

 accuse them of confusion and disorder, and from such as charge them 

 with tyranny and imposition." The publication of this treatise en- 

 gaged its author in a long altercation with some persons of his own 

 persuasion, who took offence at various parts of it, as tending to 

 violate the rights of private judgment and to restrain the operations 

 of the Spirit. Their opposition, being discountenanced by the society, 

 soon passed away, and the work itself rose into such favour among 



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