He sums up the charges against him thus:—"That I am a papist and some will needs have me a Jesuite; that the access and interest I have been thought to have had with the king is thereto ascribed; that I have been a great caballer and councealor of those things that have been done for the advancement of the Romish interest and agrieving of the people: and thence have been a joint contriver with the Jesuit Peters and others; and that for this I have received advantages and money from the king, and so consequently am chargeable with the odium and censure that such doings merit." To this he replies, that he has been married eighteen years and has several children, which proves him no Jesuit; that for twenty-two years he has been no Papist, "without being under the least temptation to return to it again;" that he has always avowed his opposition to those principles "in the opinion of some more forwardly than prudently," when the catholic party was strong, "judging it," he adds sarcastically, "a fitter season then than now to show zeal for the Protestant religion." The only money ever paid to him from the treasury is acknowledged in the published accounts, and so on. But what is most daring is his charity towards the fallen monarch and his Catholic friends in the hour of their unpopularity. "For I must confess that the fatal stroaks the interest of the Church of Rome seems to have gotten in these nations does not a whitt increase my aversion to their religion, for that I judge truth and error is not rightly measured by such events; and as to the persons of Roman Catholics, as it never agreed with the notions I have of the Christian religion to hate these persons, so their present misfortunes are so far from embittering my spirit towards them that it rather increases tenderness and regard to them, while I consider the ingenerous spirit of those who cannot take a more effectual way to lessen the reputation of the Protestant religion."
"I come now to the great charge of my access to and interest with the king. And if I should ask whether that were a crime? I find few reasonable men, if any, would say so. But I am neither afraid nor ashamed to give a candid account of that matter." He then gives the occasion of their meeting in 1676, as narrated elsewhere, and proceeds:—"To do him right, I never found reason to doubt his sincerity in the matter of liberty of conscience.... After his happening to be in Scotland, giving me an opportunity of more frequent access, and that begetting an opinion of interest, I acknowledge freely that I was ready to use it to the advantage of my friends and acquaintances, what I esteemed just and reasonable for me to meddle in." Again he says, "In short I must own nor will I decline to avow that I love King James, that I wish him well, that I have been and am sensibly touched with a feeling of his misfortunes, and that I cannot excuse myself from the duty of praying for him that God may bless him, and sanctify His afflictions to him. And if so be His will to take from him an earthly crown, He may prepare his heart and direct his steps so that he may obtain through mercy an heavenly one, which all good Christians judge the most preferable."
The last two years of Robert Barclay's life seem to have been spent in social enjoyment and quiet usefulness at home. "There," we are told, "his mild and amiable virtues found their happiest sphere of exercise, and he enjoyed the esteem of his neighbours." But such serene happiness was not to last. In 1690, he travelled in the ministry in the north of Scotland, accompanied by another Quaker preacher named James Dickinson. Soon after his return home, he was seized with a violent fever, under which he soon sunk, and died on the 3rd of October, 1690. He was laid beside his father in the vault in the burial place in the beautiful grounds of Ury which his father had prepared. (Thither his descendants and namesakes were gathered one by one for 160 years, until in 1854, the last laird, Capt. Barclay-Allardice, after mortgaging his estates to their full value, and bringing sadness to the hearts of all who loved the name he bore, was brought there to his last rest.) There was great lamentation, especially in his own society, when the news got abroad. Fox, Penn, and others bore no grudging testimony to his gifts and services. The latter edited his works, with an ample preface, in which the subjects and merits of the different treatises are spoken of with judgment, yet with all the warmth of a personal friend.
Barclay's Apology has been spoken of as a system of Divinity. It is nothing of the kind, but simply an exhaustive treatise on the points in which Quakerism differs from the current evangelical Christianity of his day. The point is of importance, because otherwise the reader may be led astray both by the omissions from the work, and by the proportions allotted to different subjects. He must look elsewhere, for instance, for proofs that the early Friends were substantially orthodox in their views of the Trinity.
Much has been said about the Apology being framed on a plan similar to the Assembly's Catechism, and being indeed a reply to it. But that Catechism itself is on the plan of Calvin's Institutes, the trusted guide of Scotch orthodoxy. It would be an interesting point to trace the relation between the Institutes and the Apology. As to the Calvinistic controversy, a recent writer says, "No man ever gave Calvinism such mighty shakes as Barclay did. And he shook it from within. He understood it. As the religion of his country he had entered into it and made himself master of it. His controversy with Calvin was on fundamental principles." (Theological Review, 1874, p. 553). These assertions must be modified by remembering that, as we have seen, almost from childhood Barclay disliked Calvinism, so that whilst he might effectually combat some of its positions, he was little likely to do justice to its strong points, and can hardly be said to have shaken it from within. The Arminianism of the Catholic Church would strengthen his instinctive dislike, so that though he found the Quakers Arminians, he in nowise owed his convictions on this point to them.
The style of the Apology is beautifully clear. The best proof of its simplicity is to be found in the fact that many of the artisan class have so followed its reasonings as to be led to accept Quakerism by this book alone. Probably it has brought more converts to Quakerism than any other book that ever was written. It is grand in its efficient handling of great questions without any appearance of labour or effort. There is a cumulative power in many of the paragraphs that is very effective; epithet piled on epithet, clause following up clause like the waves of the incoming tide, until mind and heart are alike borne along by its rush. The thought is made to stand out not only boldly and clearly, but clothed with that subtle power which is only wielded by the transparently honest and the intensely earnest. At times the writer condescends to brusque vehemence or touching appeal to his own experience.
Whatever claim for originality of thought is advanced on behalf of Robert Barclay, must principally be based on his arguments in defence of Quakerism, and on his systematising of Quaker thought.[29] His namesake and descendant, the late Robert Barclay of Reigate, bestowed great pains and labour on investigations to find out how far the ideas of the Early Friends were known to the world before George Fox preached them. He has shewn in his "Inner Life of the Religious Societies of the Commonwealth" that to a large extent the religious phrases and tenets of the Friends, were those used and held by Caspar Schwenkfeld, and his followers amongst the Mennonite churches of Holland and Germany. Churches of their faith and order were established in York and Lincoln when George Fox began to preach, through which he may have received their views.[30]
[29] In the "Yorkshireman," a religious paper conducted by the eminent meteorologist, Luke Howard, F.R.S., before he left the Society of Friends, in consequence of their action in the "Beacon" controversy—there is (vol. III. pp. 8-14) an interesting enquiry as to Barclay's indebtedness to George Keith for his views as to the "hypothesis or system relating to the 'Seed or Birth of God in the soul, which makes it a distinct being or substance as the Vehiculum Dei, &c.'" The writer terms Barclay's view a Platonising doctrine. Certainly Keith felt very kindly towards Dr. Henry More, the great Platonist, and urged Friends to shew him loving sympathy "notwithstanding of his mistakes." Keith declared afterward that Barclay learnt the doctrine from him, and the writer produces proofs of this from Keith's writings. But the recent proofs of a common source in the writings of Schwenkfeld, makes the enquiry less interesting.
[30] The Mennonites condemned all oaths, all war, all adornment in dress, and frivolity in conduct and conversation. They had times for silent prayer in their worship; they had no paid ministry; they taught that a university training alone did not fit a man for the ministry. They also set the fatal example of excluding from their membership those who married either unconverted persons, or Christians of other denominations. They had circulating Yearly Meetings like the early Friends.
But the followers of Caspar Schwenkfeld were still more like Friends than were other Mennonites. The same authority says (p. 237):—"The teaching of Schwenkfeld and Fox was identical on three important points. First, on what is called the doctrine of the 'Inward Light, Life, Word, Seed, &c.' Secondly, on 'Immediate Revelation;' that is, that God and Christ in the person of the Holy Spirit, the Word of God, communicates with the human soul without the absolute necessity of the rites and ceremonies of the church, or of any outward means, acts or things, however important they may be.... Thirdly, that as a necessary consequence, no merely bodily act, such as partaking of the Lord's Supper or Baptism, can give the inward and spiritual reality and power of the Lord's 'body and blood,' or that of the spiritual 'washing of regeneration;' nor can the soul be maintained in spiritual union with him by bodily acts." Schwenkfeld and his followers therefore discarded baptism and the Lord's Supper.