Very good.
Ib. p. 115-16.
These high-strained pretenders to G.o.dliness, who deny the power of the sinner to help himself, take good care always to attribute his "saving change" to the blessed effect of some sermon preached by some one or other of "their" Evangelical fraternity. They always hold "themselves"
up to the mult.i.tude as the instruments producing all those marvellous conversions which they relate. No instance is recorded in their Saints" Calendar of any sinner resolving, in consequence of a reflective and serious perusal of the Scriptures, to lead a new life.
No instance of a daily perusal of the Bible producing a daily progress in virtuous habits. No, the "Gospel" has no such effect.--It is always the "Gospel Preacher" who works the miracle, &c.
Excellent and just. In this way are the Methodists to be attacked:--even as the Papists were by Baxter, not from their doctrines, but from their practices, and the spirit of their Sect. There is a fine pa.s.sage in Lord Bacon concerning a heresy of manner being not less pernicious than heresy of matter.
Ib. p. 118.
But their Saints, who would stop their ears if you should mention with admiration the name of a Garrick or a Siddons;--who think it a sin to support such an "infamous profession" as that through the medium of which a Milton, a Johnson, an Addison, and a Young have laboured to mend the heart, &c.
Whoo! See Milton"s Preface to the Samson Agonistes.
Ib. p. 133.
In the Evangelical Magazine is the following article: "At----in Yorkshire, after a handsome collection (for the Missionary Society) a poor man, whose wages are about 28s. per week, brought a donation of 20 guineas. Our friends hesitated to receive it * * when he answered *
*--"Before I knew the grace of our Lord I was a poor drunkard: I never could save a shilling. My family were in beggary and rags; but since it has pleased G.o.d to renew me by his grace, we have been industrious and frugal: we have not spent many idle shillings; and we have been enabled to put something into the Bank; and this I freely offer to the blessed cause of our Lord and Saviour." This is the second donation of this same poor man to the same amount!" Whatever these Evangelists may think of such conduct, they ought to be ashamed of thus basely taking advantage of this poor ignorant enthusiast, &c.
Is it possible to read this affecting story without finding in it a complete answer to the charge of demoralizing the lower cla.s.ses? Does the Barrister really think, that this generous and grateful enthusiast is as likely to be unprovided and poverty-stricken in his old age, as he was prior to his conversion? Except indeed that at that time his old age was as improbable as his distresses were certain if he did live so long.
This is singing "Io Paean"! for the enemy with a vengeance.
Part II. p. 14.
It behoved him (Dr. Hawker in his Letter to the Barrister) to show in what manner a covenant can exist without terms or conditions.
According to the Methodists there is a condition,--that of faith in the power and promise of Christ, and the virtue of the Cross. And were it otherwise, the objection is scarcely appropriate except at the Old Bailey, or in the Court of King"s Bench. The Barrister might have framed a second law-syllogism, as acute as his former. The laws of England allow no binding covenant in a transfer of goods or chattels without value received. But there can be no value received by G.o.d:--"Ergo", there can be no covenant between G.o.d and man. And if Jehovah should be as courteous as the House of Commons, and acknowledge the jurisdiction of the Courts at Westminster, the pleading might hold perhaps, and the Pentateuch be quashed after an argument before the judges. Besides, how childish to puff up the empty bladder of an old metaphysical foot-ball on the "modus operandi interior" of Justification into a shew of practical substance; as if it were no less solid than a cannon ball!
Why, drive it with all the vehemence that five toes can exert, it would not kill a louse on the head of Methodism. Repentance, G.o.dly sorrow, abhorrence of sin as sin, and not merely dread from forecast of the consequences, these the Arminian would call means of obtaining salvation, while the Methodist (more philosophically perhaps) names them signs of the work of free grace commencing and the dawning of the sun of redemption. And pray where is the practical difference?
Ib. p. 26.
Jesus answered him thus--"Verily, I say unto you, unless a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of G.o.d".--The true sense of which is obviously this:--Except a man be initiated into my religion by Baptism, (which "at that time" was always "preceded by a confession of faith") and unless he manifest his sincere reception of it, by leading that upright and "spiritual" life which it enjoins, "he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven", or be a partaker of that happiness which it belongs to me to confer on those who believe in my name and keep my sayings.
Upon my faith as a Christian, if no more is meant by being born again than this, the speaker must have had the strongest taste in metaphors of any teacher in verse or prose on record, Jacob Behmen himself not excepted. The very Alchemists lag behind. Pity, however, that our Barrister has not shown us how this plain and obvious business of Baptism agrees with ver. 8. of the same chapter: "The wind bloweth where it listeth", &c. Now if this does not express a visitation of the mind by a somewhat not in the own power or fore-thought of the mind itself, what are words meant for?
Ib. p. 29.
The true meaning of being "born again", in the sense in which our Saviour uses the phrase, implies nothing more or less, in plain terms, than this:--to repent; to lead for the future a religious life instead of a life of disobedience; to believe the Holy Scriptures, and to pray for grace and a.s.sistance to persevere in our obedience to the end. All this any man of common sense might explain in a few words.
Pray, then, (for I will take the Barrister"s own commentary,) what does the man of common sense mean by grace? If he will explain grace in any other way than as the circ.u.mstances "ab extra" (which would be mere mockery and in direct contradiction to a score of texts), and yet without mystery, I will undertake for Dr. Hawker and Co. to make the new birth itself as plain as a pikestaff, or a whale"s foal, or Sarah Robarts"s rabbits.
Ib. p. 30.
So that they go on in their sin waiting for a new birth, &c.
"So that they go on in their sin!"--Who would not suppose it notorious that every Methodist meeting-house was a cage of Newgate larks making up their minds to die game?
Ib.
The following account is extracted from the Methodist Magazine for 1798: "The Lord astonished "Sarah Roberts" with his mercy, by "setting her at liberty, while employed" in the necessary business of "washing"
for her family, &c.
N. B. Not the famous rabbit-woman.--She was Robarts.
Ib. p. 31.
A washerwoman has "all her sins blotted out" in the twinkling of an eye, and while reeking with suds is received in the family of the Redeemer"s kingdom. Surely this is a most abominable profanation of all that is serious, &c.
And where pray is the absurdity of this? Has Christ declared any antipathy to washerwomen, or the Holy Ghost to warm suds? Why does not the Barrister try his hand at the "abominable profanation," in a story of a certain woman with an issue of blood who was made free by touching the hem of a garment, without the previous knowledge of the wearer?
"Rode, caper, vitem: tamen hinc c.u.m stabis ad aras, In tua quod fundi cornua possit, erit".
Ib. p. 32.
The leading design of John the Baptist * * was * this:--to prepare the minds of men for the reception of that pure system of moral truth which the Saviour, by divine authority, was speedily to inculcate, and of those sublime doctrines of a resurrection and a future judgment, which, as powerful motives to the practice of holiness, he was soon to reveal.
What then? Did not John the Baptist himself teach a pure system of moral truth? Was John so much more ignorant than Paul before his conversion, and the whole Jewish nation, except a few rich freethinkers, as to be ignorant of the "sublime doctrines of a resurrection and a future judgment?" This, I well know, is the strong-hold of Socinianism; but surely one single unprejudiced perusal of the New Testament,--not to suppose an acquaintance with Kidder or Lightfoot--would blow it down, like a house of cards!
Ib. p. 33.
--their faiths in the efficacy of their own rites, and creeds, and ceremonies, and their whole train of "subst.i.tutions" for "moral duty", was so entire, and in their opinion was such a "saving faith", that they could not at all interpret any language that seemed to dispute their value, or deny their importance.
Poor strange Jews! They had, doubtless, what Darwin would call a specific "paralysis" of the auditory nerves to the writings of their own Prophets, which yet were read Sabbath after Sabbath in their public Synagogues. For neither John nor Christ himself ever did, or indeed could, speak in language more contemptuous of the folly of considering rites as subst.i.tutions for moral duty, or in severer words denounce the blasphemy of such an opinion. Why need I refer to Isaiah or Micah?
Ib. p. 34.
Thus it was that this moral preacher explained and enforced the duty of repentance, and thus it was that he prepared the way for the greatest and best of teachers, &c.
Well then, if all this was but a preparation for the doctrines of Christ, those doctrines themselves must surely have been something different, and more difficult? Oh no! John"s preparation consisted in a complete rehearsal of the "Drama didactic.u.m", which Christ and the Apostles were to exhibit to a full audience!--Nay, prithee, good Barrister! do not be too rash in charging the Methodists with a monstrous burlesque of the Gospel!
Ib. p. 37.
--the logic of the new Evangelists will convince him that it is a contradiction in terms even to "suppose" himself "capable of doing any thing" to help "or bringing any thing to recommend himself to the Divine favour".