of five months, during which he composed a treatise on ‘Universal Love,’ and wrote a letter of remonstrance to Archbishop Sharp.
After his release Barclay joined Penn and George Fox in a visit to Germany, and they had an interview with the Princess Palatine, which has been described by Penn. In 1679 Barclay was again arrested, but released after three hours' detention. By this time he, like Penn, was enjoying favour at court. He frequently saw the Duke of York during his government of Scotland, and was a friend and cousin of James's adherent, Perth. In 1679 he obtained a charter from the crown, in consideration of the services of himself and his father, constituting the lands of Ury a ‘free barony, with criminal and civil jurisdiction;’ and his charter was confirmed by an act of the Scotch parliament in 1685. He probably hoped to use the privilege on behalf of his sect. Another appointment was more useful for the same purpose. In 1682 a body of twelve quakers, under the auspices of his friend Penn, acquired the proprietorship of East New Jersey. In 1683 the Duke of York gave a patent of the province to the proprietors, who had added to their body twelve associates, including Perth and Barclay. Barclay was appointed nominal governor, with right to appoint a deputy at a salary of 400l. a year, and with a share of 5,000 acres of land. One of his brothers, John, settled in the province, and another, David, died on his passage thither. The constitution of the province was intended to be a practical application of the quaker theory of toleration, and to provide an asylum to the persecuted.
Barclay continued to reside at Ury, where his father died, 12 Oct. 1686. He continued to have much influence with James. In a ‘Vindication,’ written in 1689 (Reliquiæ Barclaianæ), he defends himself against the suspicion, explicable by his intimacy with James and Perth, of being a Jesuit and a catholic. His wife and seven children were a sufficient proof that the first suspicion was groundless, and he denies that he had any leaning to catholicism, though he confessed to loving many catholics. He says that he never saw James till 1676; but he believed in the sincerity of James's zeal for liberty of conscience, and, he adds, ‘I love King James, and wish him well.’ Barclay admits that he used his influence with James on behalf of his friends, but denies that he had ever spoken of public affairs. He had received no pecuniary favour, except a sum of 300l. in payment of a debt incurred by his father on behalf of Charles I. He disowns, he says, all political bias; but he held that every established government would be found to favour the doctrine of passive obedience maintained by the quakers. It is said that Barclay visited James at the time when William was expected. Barclay asked whether no terms of accommodation could be arranged; and James replied that he could consent to anything not unbecoming a gentlemen, except the abandonment of liberty of conscience. (This is stated on the authority of his widow in the Genealogical Account, p. 86.) Barclay visited the seven bishops in the Tower, to justify a statement of which they had complained, that they had been the cause of the death of quakers, but assured them that the statement should not be used to raise prejudice against them.
In his later years Barclay seems to have published nothing except (in 1686) an English version of a letter to a Herr Paets in defence of the quaker theory of personal inspiration, originally written in Latin in 1676. It has been praised as a pithy exposition of his principles.
He died at Ury 3 Oct. 1690. He left three sons and four daughters, who were all alive fifty years after his death. His wife died 14 Dec. 1722, in the seventy-sixth year of her age.
Barclay's great book, ‘The Apology,’ is remarkable as the standard exposition of the principles of his sect, and is not only the first defence of those principles by a man of trained intelligence, but in many respects one of the most impressive theological writings of the century. In form it is a careful defence of each of the fifteen theses previously published. It is impressive in style; grave, logical, and often marked by the eloquence of lofty moral convictions. It opens with a singularly dignified letter to the king, dated 25 Nov. 1675. The essential principle (expressed in the second proposition) is that all true knowledge comes from the divine revelation to the heart of the individual. He infers that the authority of the scriptures gives only a ‘secondary rule,’ subordinate to that of the inward light by which the soul perceives the truth as the eyes perceive that the sun shines at noonday. The light is given to every man, though obscured by human corruption, and therefore the doctrine of reprobation is ‘horrible and blasphemous.’ All men, christian or heathen, may be saved by it. The true doctrines of justification, perfection, and perserverance are then explained and distinguished from the erroneous doctrines of catholics and protestants which, according to him, imply rather a change in the outward relation than the transformation of the soul which accepts
