Note 44 — Chapter VIII

This being the last mention of Robert Barclay in these volumes, the following brief particulars may interest the reader who is not already acquainted with his history. He was the son of Colonel David Barclay, descended from the Barclays of Mathers, an ancient and honourable Scotch family, and of Katharine Gordon, from the Gordons of the house of the Duke of Gordon. He was born at Edinburgh in 1648, educated in France, and returned to Scotland in 1664. His father having joined the despised Quakers, Robert Barclay, though uninfluenced by him, soon followed his example, and came forth a zealous witness for the truth, receiving a gift in the ministry, in which he laboured to bring others to God. He was much exercised in controversy, from the many contradictions that fell upon truth, and upon him for its sake. He published several works in defence of the principles he had espoused, which he believed to be those of the New Testament, as promulgated by Christ and his apostles. His chief work was his Apology for the True Christian Divinity, which has gone through many editions, and remains uncontrovertible.

In common with the early Friends, Robert Barclay suffered imprisonments and ill-usage, which he bore with exemplary patience. He travelled extensively to spread the gospel of Christ, for he loved the truth above all the world; not ashamed of it before men, but bold and able in maintaining it, sound in judgment, strong in argument, of a pleasant disposition, yet solid and exemplary in his conversation. He was a learned man, a good Christian, an able minister, a tender and careful father, and a good and kind neighbour and friend. His last illness was short. James Dickenson of Cumberland, in his journey in Scotland, visiting him when on his deathbed, as he sat by him, the Lord’s power and presence bowed their hearts together, and Robert Barclay was sweetly melted in the sense of God’s love, and, with tears, expressed his love to all faithful brethren in England; and adding a message of love to dear George Fox, he said, “God is good still, and though I am under great weight of sickness and weakness as to my body, yet my peace flows, and this I know, whatever exercises may be permitted to come upon me, it shall tend to God’s glory and my salvation, and in that I rest.”

He died at his own house, at Ury, in Scotland, in 1690, aged forty-two, leaving behind him four sons and three daughters.