Robert Barclay

Robert Barclay appears in Thomas Paine’s argument as a standard of religious consistency. Paine invokes Barclay’s address to Charles II to challenge Quaker ministers who condemn American resistance while, in Paine’s view, failing to confront the authority and conduct responsible for the war.

Role in Paine’s Argument

Paine contrasts the Quakers’ criticism of defensive arms with the military force used against the colonies. He argues that initiating war is more culpable than taking up arms in unavoidable defense, and asks the ministers to publish their doctrine to their enemies as well as to the people resisting them. Barclay supplies the example for this demand: if the ministers possessed Barclay’s moral courage, Paine says, they would preach repentance to the king and warn him of the consequences of his actions.

Paine’s appeal makes Barclay a measure of impartiality, not simply a revered name. The proper minister, as Paine presents the matter, would rebuke rulers and military authorities as well as the injured people who resist them. His accusation is that the Quakers have directed their testimony against the latter while sparing the former; Barclay’s example exposes the imbalance.

Address to Charles II

The note attached to Paine’s appeal identifies its source as Barclay’s address to Charles II. In the passage reproduced there, Barclay recalls the king’s experience of prosperity and adversity, banishment from his native country, being overruled and ruling, and being set upon the throne. Those reversals, Barclay argues, ought to have taught him how hateful oppression is to God and humanity.

Barclay warns that forgetting God after having been remembered in distress, and surrendering to lust and vanity, would bring severe condemnation. He also cautions the king against people who might encourage him in wrongdoing. The remedy he commends is attention to the light of Christ shining in the conscience, which cannot flatter or allow a person to remain at ease in sin.

Significance

The example joins religious counsel to political accountability. Barclay’s address speaks directly to a king, using his changing fortunes as grounds for warning him against becoming an oppressor. Paine turns that precedent outward: a sincere testimony against bearing arms, he argues, must also confront those who wage war and the authority under which they act.

Barclay’s importance in the passage rests on this contrast between professed conscience and its consistent practice. Paine does not present him as a participant in the American conflict; he cites his address to Charles II as evidence that religious criticism should not stop at the people resisting violence. The historical example therefore becomes a test of whether the Quakers’ testimony is impartial or selectively directed.