This last is a really able and impressive book--far the most reasoned exposition even yet, I believe, of the principles of early Quakerism.

Though not written till twenty years after our present date, it was the first accurate and articulate expression, I believe, of the principles that had really, though rather confusedly, pervaded the Quaker teachings and writings at that date .-- There are many particles of information about the early Quakers, and about other contemporary English sects, in _The Inner Life of the Religious Societies of the Commonwealth_, published in 1878, the posthumous work of a second Robert Barclay, two hundred years after the first.

But the book, though laborious, is very chaotic, and shows hardly any knowledge of the time of which it mainly treats.] Such were the more recent sects and heresies for which, as well as for those older and more familiar, the First Parliament of the Protectorate had been, with the help of Dr.Owen and his brother-divines, preparing a strait-jacket.

Of that Parliament, however, and of all its belongings, the Commonwealth was to be rid sooner than had been expected.
It had been the astute policy of the Parliament to concentrate all their attention upon the new Constitution for the Protectorate, and to neglect and postpone other business until the Bill of the Constitution had been pushed through and presented to Cromwell for his assent.

In particular they had postponed, as much as possible, all supplies for Army and Navy and for carrying on the Government.