Read
but that most affecting and instructive anecdote selected from the Hindostan Missionary Account by the Quarterly Review
4
. Again let me say I am not giving my own opinion on this very difficult point; but of one thing I am convinced, that the 'I am sorry for it, that's enough'—men mean nothing but regret when they talk of repentance, and have consciences either so pure or so callous, as not to know what a direful and strange thing remorse is, and how absolutely a fact
sui generis!
I have often remarked, and it cannot be too often remarked (vain as this may sound), that this essential heterogeneity of regret and remorse is of itself a sufficient and the best proof of free will and reason, the co-existence of which in man we call conscience, and on this rests the whole superstructure of human religion—God, immortality, guilt, judgment, redemption. Whether another and different superstructure may be raised on the same foundation, or whether the same edifice is susceptible of important alteration, is another question. But such is the edifice at present, and this its foundation: and the Barrister might as rationally expect to blow up Windsor Castle by discharging a popgun in one of its cellars, as hope to demolish Calvinism by such arguments as his.
Ib.p. 35, 36.
"And behold a certain lawyer stood up and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I doto inherit eternal life?""He said unto him,What is written in the law? How readest thou?""And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and withall thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.""And he said unto him, Thouhast answered right. This do, and thou shall live."Luke x. 25-28.
So would Bunyan, and so would Calvin have preached;—would both of them in the name of Christ have made this assurance to the Barrister—
This do, and thou shalt live.
But what if he has not done it, but the very contrary?
And
what if the Querist should be a staunch disciple of Dr. Paley: and hold himself "morally obliged" not to hate or injure his fellow-man, not because he is compelled by conscience to see the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and to abhor sin as sin, even as he eschews pain as pain,—no, not even because God has forbidden it;—but ultimately because the great Legislator is able and has threatened to put him to unspeakable torture if he disobeys, and to give him all kind of pleasure if he does not
5
? Why, verily, in this case, I do foresee that both the Tinker and the Divine would wax warm, and rebuke the said Querist for vile hypocrisy, and a most nefarious abuse of God's good gift, intelligible language. What! do you call this '
oving the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and all your mind,—and your neighbour as yourself?
Whereas in truth you love nothing, not even your own soul; but only set a superlative value on whatever will gratify your selfish lust of enjoyment, and insure you from hell-fire at a thousand times the true value of the dirty property. If you have the impudence to persevere in mis-naming this "love," supply any one instance in which you use the word in this sense? If your son did not spit in your face, because he believed that you would disinherit him if he did, and this were his main moral obligation, would you allow that your son loved you—and with all his heart, and mind, and strength, and soul?—Shame! Shame!
Now the power of loving God, of willing good as good, (not of desiring the agreeable, and of preferring a larger though distant delight to an infinitely smaller immediate qualification, which is mere selfish prudence,) Bunyan considers supernatural, and seeks its source in the free grace of the Creator through Christ the Redeemer:—this the Kantean also avers to be supersensual indeed, but not supernatural, but in the original and essence of human nature, and forming its grand and awful characteristic. Hence he calls it
die Menschheit
—the principle of humanity;—but yet no less than Calvin or the Tinker declares it a principle most mysterious, the undoubted object of religious awe, a perpetual witness of that God, whose image
Greek: eikôn
it is; a principle utterly incomprehensible by the discursive intellect;—and moreover teaches us, that the surest plan for stifling and paralyzing this divine birth in the soul (a phrase of Plato's as well as of the Tinker's) is by attempting to evoke it by, or to substitute for it, the hopes and fears, the motives and calculations, of prudence; which is an excellent and in truth indispensable servant, but considered as master and primate of the moral diocese precludes the possibility of virtue (in Bunyan's phrase, holiness of spirit) by introducing legality; which is no cant phrase of Methodism, but of authenticated standing in the ethics of the profoundest philosophers—even those who rejected Christianity, as a miraculous event, and revelation itself as far as anything supernatural is implied in it. I must not mention Plato, I suppose,—he was a mystic; nor Zeno,—he and his were visionaries:—but Aristotle, the cold and dry Aristotle, has in a very remarkable passage in his lesser tract of Ethics asserted the same thing; and called it "a divine principle, lying deeper than those things which can be explained or enunciated discursively."
Ib.p. 45, 46.
Sure I am that no father of a family that can at all estimate the importance of keeping from the infant mind whatever might raise impure ideas or excite improper inquiries will ever commend the Pilgrim's Progress to their perusal.
And in the same spirit and for the same cogent reasons that the holy monk Lewis prohibited the Bible in all decent families;—or if they must have something of that kind, would propose in preference Tirante the White! O how I abhor this abominable heart-haunting impurity in the envelope of modesty! Merciful Heaven! is it not a direct consequence from this system, that we all purchase our existence at the price of our mother's purity of mind?
See
what Milton has written on this subject in the passage quoted in the Friend in the essays on the communication of truth
6
.
Ib.p. 47
Let us ask whether the female mind is likely to be trained to purity by studying this manual of piety, and by expressing its devotional desires after the following example. "Mercy being ayoungandbreedingwomanlongedfor something," &c.
Out upon the fellow! I could find it in my heart to suspect him of any vice that the worst of men could commit!
Ib.pp. 55, 56.
As by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.The interpretation of this text is simply this:—As by following the fatal example of one man's disobedience many were made sinners; so by that pattern of perfect obedience which Christ has set before us shall many be made righteous.
What may not be explained thus? And into what may not any thing be thus explained? It comes out little better than nonsense in any other than the literal sense. For let any man of sincere mind and without any system to support look round on all his Christian neighbours, and will he say or will they say that the origin of their well-doing was an attempt to imitate what they all believe to be inimitable, Christ's perfection in virtue, his absolute sinlessness? No—but yet perhaps some particular virtues; for instance, his patriotism in weeping over Jerusalem, his active benevolence in curing the sick and preaching to the poor, his divine forgiveness in praying for his enemies?—I grant all this. But then how is this peculiar to Christ? Is it not the effect of all illustrious examples, of those probably most which we last read of, or which made the deepest impression on our feelings? Were there no good men before Christ, as there were no bad men before Adam? Is it not a notorious fact that those who most frequently refer to Christ's conduct for their own actions, are those who believe him the incarnate Deity—consequently, the best possible guide, but in no strict sense an example;—while those who regard him as a mere man, the chief of the Jewish Prophets, both in the pulpit and from the press ground their moral persuasions chiefly on arguments drawn from the propriety and seemliness—or the contrary—of the action itself, or from the will of God known by the light of reason? To make St. Paul prophesy that all Christians will owe their holiness to their exclusive and conscious imitation of Christ's actions, is to make St. Paul a false prophet;—and what in such case becomes of the boasted influence of miracles? Even as false would it be to ascribe the vices of the Chinese, or even our own, to the influence of Adam's bad example. As well might we say of a poor scrofulous innocent: "See the effect of the bad example of his father on him!" I blame no man for disbelieving, or for opposing with might and main, the dogma of Original Sin; but I confess that I neither respect the understanding nor have confidence in the sincerity of him, who declares that he has carefully read the writings of St. Paul, and finds in them no consequence attributed to the fall of Adam but that of his bad example, and none to the Cross of Christ but the good example of dying a martyr to a good cause. I would undertake from the writings of the later English Socinians to collect paraphrases on the New Testament texts that could only be paralleled by the spiritual paraphrase on Solomon's Song to be found in the recent volume of "A Dictionary of the Holy Bible, by John Brown, Minister of the Gospel at Haddington:" third edition, in the Article, Song.
Ib.p. 63, 64.
Call forth the robber from his cavern, and the midnight murderer from his den; summon the seducer from his couch, and beckon the adulterer from his embrace; cite the swindler to appear; assemble from every quarter all the various miscreants whose vices deprave, and whose villainies distress, mankind; and when they are thus thronged round in a circle, assure them—not that there is a God that judgeth the earth—not that punishment in the great day of retribution will await their crimes, &c. &c.—Let every sinner in the throng be told that they will standjustifiedbefore God; that therighteousnessofChristwill be imputed tothem, &c.
Well, do so.—Nay, nay! it has been done; the effect has been tried; and slander itself cannot deny that the effect has been the conversion of thousands of those very sinners whom the Barrister's fancy thus convokes. O shallow man! not to see that here lies the main strength of the cause he is attacking; that, to repeat my former illustration, he draws the attention to patients in that worst state of disease which perhaps alone requires and justifies the use of the white pill, as a mode of exposing the frantic quack who vends it promiscuously! He fixes on the empiric's cures to prove his murders!—not to forget what ought to conclude every paragraph in answer to the Barrister's Hints; "and were the case as alleged, what does this prove against the present Methodists as Methodists?" Is not the tenet of imputed righteousness the faith of all the Scotch Clergy, who are not false to their declarations at their public assumption of the ministry? Till within the last sixty or seventy years, was not the tenet preached Sunday after Sunday in every nook of Scotland; and has the Barrister heard that the morals of the Scotch peasants and artizans have been improved within the last thirty or forty years, since the exceptions have become more and more common?—Was it by want of strict morals that the Puritans were distinguished to their disadvantage from the rest of Englishmen during the reigns of Elizabeth, James I. Charles I. and II.? And that very period, which the Barrister affirms to have been distinguished by the moral vigor of the great mass of Britons,—was it not likewise the period when this very doctrine was preached by the Clergy fifty times for once that it is heard from the same pulpits in the present and preceding generation? Never, never can the Methodists be successfully assailed, if not honestly, and never honestly or with any chance of success, except as Methodists;—for their practices, their alarming theocracy, their stupid, mad, and mad-driving superstitions. These are their property
in peculio
; their doctrines are those of the Church of England, with no other difference than that in the Church Liturgy, and Articles, and Homilies, Calvinism and Lutheranism are joined like the two hands of the Union Fire Office:-the Methodists have unclasped them, and one is Whitfield and the other Wesley.
Ib.p. 75.
"For the same reason that a book written in bad language should never be put into the hands of a child that speaks correctly, a book exhibiting instances of vice should never be given to a child that thinks and acts properly." (Practical Education. By Maria and R.L. Edgeworth.)
How mortifying that one is never lucky enough to meet with any of these 'virtuosissimos', fifteen or twenty years of age. But perhaps they are such rare jewels, that they are always kept in cotton! The Kilcrops! I would not exchange the heart, which I myself had when a boy, while reading the life of Colonel Jack, or the Newgate Calendar, for a waggon-load of these brilliants.
Ib.p. 78.
"When a man turns his back on this world, and is in good earnest resolved for everlasting life, his carnal friends, and ungodly neighbours, will pursue him with hue and cry; but death is at his heels, and he cannot stop short of the city of Refuge." (Notes to the Pilgrim's Progress by Hawker, Burder, &c.) This representation of the state of real Christians is as mischievous as it is false.
Yet Christ's assertion on this head is positive, and universal; and I believe it from my inmost soul, and am convinced that it is just as true A.D. 1810, as A.D. 33.
Ib.p. 82.
The spirit with which all their merciless treatment is to be borne is next pointed out. * * "Patient bearing of injuriesis true Christian fortitude, and will always be more effectual todisarm our enemies, and to bring others to the knowledge of the truth, than allargumentswhatever."
Is this Barrister a Christian of any sort or sect, and is he not ashamed, if not afraid, to ridicule such passages as these? If they are not true, the four Gospels are false.
Ib.p. 86.
It is impossible to give them credit for integrity when we behold the obstinacy and the artifice with which they defend their system against the strongest argument, and against the clearest evidence.
Modest gentleman! I wonder he finds time to write bulky pamphlets: for surely modesty, like his, must secure success and clientage at the bar. Doubtless he means his own arguments, the evidence he himself has adduced:—I say doubtless, for what are these pamphlets but a long series of attacks on the doctrines of the strict Lutherans and Calvinists, (for the doctrines he attacks are common to both,) and if he knew stronger arguments, clearer evidence, he would certainly have given them;—and then what obstinate rogues must our Bishops be, to have suffered these Hints to pass into a third edition, and yet not have brought a bill into Parliament for a new set of Articles? I have not heard that they have even the grace to intend it.
Ib.p. 88.
On this subject I will quote the just and striking observations of an excellent modern writer. "In whatever village," says he, "the fanatics get a footing, drunkenness and swearing,—sins which, being more exposed to the eye of the world, would be ruinous to their great pretensions to superior sanctity—will, perhaps, be found to decline; but I am convinced, from personal observation, that every species of fraud and falsehood—sins which are not so readily detected, but which seem more closely connected with worldly advantage—will be found invariably to increase." (Religion without Cant; by R. Fellowes, A.M. of St. Mary's Hall, Oxford.)
In answer to this let me make a "very just observation," by some other man of my opinion, to be hereafter quoted "from an excellent modern writer;"—and it is this, that from the birth of Christ to the present hour, no sect or body of men were zealous in the reformation of manners in society, without having been charged with the same vices in the same words. When I hate a man, and see nothing bad in him, what remains possible but to accuse him of crimes which I cannot see, and which cannot be disproved, because they cannot be proved? Surely, if Christian charity did not preclude these charges, the shame of convicted parrotry ought to prevent a man from repeating and republishing them. The very same thoughts, almost the words, are to be found of the early Christians; of the poor Quakers; of the Republicans; of the first Reformers.—Why need I say this? Does not every one know, that a jovial pot-companion can never believe a water-drinker not to be a sneaking cheating knave who is afraid of his thoughts; that every libertine swears that those who pretend to be chaste, either have their mistress in secret, or far worse, and so on?
Ib.p. 89.
The same religious abstinence from all appearance of recreation on the Lord's day; and the same neglect of the weightier matters of the moral law, in the course of the week, &c.
This sentence thus smuggled in at the bottom of the chest ought not to pass unnoticed; for the whole force of the former depends on it. It is a true trick, and deserves reprobation.
Ib.p. 97.
Note. It was procured, Mr. Collyer informs us, by the merit of his "Lectures on Scripture facts." It should have been "Lectures onScripturalFacts." What should we think of the grammarian, who, instead ofHistorical, should present us with "Lectures onHistoryFacts?"
But Law Tracts? And is not
Scripture
as often used semi-adjectively?
Ib.p. 98.
"Do you really believe," says Dr. Hawker, "that, because man by his apostacy hath lost his power and ability to obey, God hath lost his right to command? Put the case that you were called upon, as a barrister, to recover a debt due from one man to another, and you knew the debtor had not the ability to pay the 'creditor', would you tell your client that his debtor was under no legal or moral obligation to pay what he had no power to do? And would you tell him that the very expectation of his just rightwas as foolish as it was tyrannical?" * * * I will give my reply to these questions distinctly and without hesitation. * * * Suppose A. to have lent B. a thousand pounds, as a capital to commence trade, and that, when he purchased his stock to this amount, and lodged it in his warehouse, a fire were to break out in the next dwelling, and, extending itself to 'his' warehouse, were to consume the whole of his property, and reduce him to a state of utter ruin. If A., my client, were to ask my opinion as to his right to recover from B., I should tell him that this his right would exist should B. ever be in a condition to repay the sum borrowed; * * * but that to attempt to recover a thousand pounds from a man thus reduced by accident to utter ruin, and who had not a shilling left in the world, would beas foolish as it was tyrannical.
But this is rank sophistry. The question is: —Does a thief (and a fraudulent debtor is no better) acquire a claim to impunity by not possessing the power of restoring the goods? Every moral act derives its character (says a Schoolman with an unusual combination of profundity with quaintness)
aut voluntate originis aut origine voluntatis.
Now the very essence of guilt, its dire and incommunicable character, consists in its tendency to destroy the free will;—but when thus destroyed, are the habits of vice thenceforward innocent? Does the law excuse the murder because the perpetrator was drunk? Dr. Hawker put his objection laxly and weakly enough; but a manly opponent would have been ashamed to seize an hour's victory from what a move of the pen would render impregnable.
Ib.p. 102, 3.
When at this solemn tribunal the sinner shall be called upon to answer for the transgression of thosemorallaws, on obedience to which salvation was made to depend, will it be sufficient that he declares himself to have been taught to believe that the Gospelhad neither terms nor conditions,and that his salvation was secured by a covenant which procured him pardon and peace,from all eternity: a covenant, the effects of which no folly orafter-act whatevercould possibly destroy?—Who could anticipate the sentence of condemnation, and not weep in agony over the deluded victim of ignorance and misfortune who was thus taught a doctrine so fatally false?
What then! God is represented as a tyrant when he claims the penalty of disobedience from the servant, who has wilfully incapacitated himself for obeying,—and yet just and merciful in condemning to indefinite misery a poor "deluded victim of ignorance and imposture," even though the Barrister, spite of his antipathy to Methodists, would "weep in agony" over him! But before the Barrister draws bills of imagination on his tender feelings, would it not have been as well to adduce some last dying speech and confession, in which the culprit attributed his crimes—not to Sabbath-breaking and loose company,—but to sermon-hearing on the 'modus operandi' of the divine goodness in the work of redemption? How the Ebenezerites would stare to find the Socinians and themselves in one flock on the sheep-side of the judgment-seat,—and their cousins, and fellow Methodists, the Tabernaclers, all caprifled—goats every man:—and why? They held, that repentance is in the power of every man, with the aid of grace; while the goats held that without grace no man is able even to repent. A. makes grace the cause, and B. makes it only a necessary auxiliary. And does the Socinian extricate himself a whit more clearly? Without a due concurrence of circumstances no mind can improve itself into a state susceptible of spiritual happiness: and is not the disposition and pre-arrangement of circumstances as dependent on the divine will as those spiritual influences which the Methodist holds to be meant by the word grace? Will not the Socinian find it as difficult to reconcile with mercy and justice the condemnation to hell-fire of poor wretches born and bred in the thieves' nests of St. Giles, as the Methodists the condemnation of those who have been less favoured by grace? I have one other question to ask, though it should have been asked before. Suppose Christ taught nothing more than a future state of retribution and the necessity and sufficiency of good morals, how are we to explain his forbidding these truths to be taught to any but Jews till after his resurrection? Did the Jews reject those doctrines? Except perhaps a handful of rich men, called Sadducees, they all believed them, and would have died a thousand deaths rather than have renounced their faith. Besides, what is there in doctrines common to the creed of all religions, and enforced by all the schools of philosophy, except the Epicurean, which should have prevented their being taught to all at the same time? I perceive, that this difficulty does not press on Socinians exclusively: but yet it presses on them with far greater force than on others. For they make Christianity a mere philosophy, the same in substance with the Stoical, only purer from errors and accompanied with clearer evidence:—while others think of it as part of a covenant made up with Abraham, the fulfilment of which was in good faith to be first offered to his posterity. I ask this only because the Barrister professes to find every thing in the four Gospels so plain and easy.
Ib.p. 106.
The Reformers by whom those articles were framed were educated in the Church of Rome, and opposed themselves rather to the perversion of its power than the errors of its doctrine.
An outrageous blunder.
Ib.p. 107.
Lord Bacon was the first who dedicated his profound and penetrating genius to the cultivation of sound philosophy, &c.
This very same Lord Bacon has given us his
Confessio Fidei
at great length, with full particularity. Now I will answer for the Methodists' unhesitating assent and consent to it; but would the Barrister subscribe it?
Ib.p. 108.
We look back to that era of our history when superstition threw her victim on the pile, and bigotry tied the martyr to his stake:—but we take our eyes from the retrospect and turn them in thankful admiration to that Being who has opened the minds of many, and is daily opening the minds of more amongst us to the reception of these most important of all truths, that there is no true faith but in practical goodness, and that the worst of errors is the error of thelife.Such is the conviction of the most enlightened of our Clergy: the conviction, I trust, of the far greater part * * *. They deem it better to inculcate the moral duties of Christianity in the pure simplicity and clearness with which they are revealed, than to go aside in search ofdoctrinal mysteries. For as mysteries cannot be made manifest, they, of course, cannot be understood; and that which cannot be understood cannot be believed, and can, consequently, make no part of any system of faith: since no one, till he understands a doctrine, can tell whether it be true or false; till then, therefore, he can have no faith in it, for no one can rationally affirm that he believes that doctrine to be true which he does not know to be so; and he cannot know it to be true if he does not understand it. In the religion of a true Christian, therefore, there can be nothing unintelligible; and if the preachers of that religion do not make mysteries, they will never find any.
Who? the Bishops, or the dignified Clergy? Have they at length exploded all "doctrinal mysteries?" Was Horsley "the one red leaf, the last of its clan," that held the doctrines of the Trinity, the corruption of the human Will, and the Redemption by the Cross of Christ? Verily, this is the most impudent attempt to impose a naked Socinianism on the public, as the general religion of the nation, admitted by all but a dunghill of mushroom fanatics, that ever insulted common sense or common modesty! And will "the far greater part" of the English Clergy remain silent under so atrocious a libel as is contained in this page? Do they indeed solemnly pray to their Maker weekly, before God and man, in the words of a Liturgy, which, they know, "cannot be believed?" For heaven's sake, my dear Southey, do quote this page and compare it with the introduction to and petitions of the Liturgy, and with the Collects on the Advent, &c.
Ib.p. 110.
We shall discover upon an attentive examination of the subject, that all those laws which lay the basis of our constitutional liberties, are no other than the rules of religion transcribed into the judicial system, and enforced by the sanction of civil authority.
What! Compare these laws, first, with Tacitus's account of the constitutional laws of our German ancestors, Pagans; and then with the Pandects and
Novellæ
of the most Christian Justinian, aided by all his Bishops. Observe, the Barrister is asserting a fact of the historical origination of our laws,—and not what no man would deny, that as far as they are humane and just, they coincide with the precepts of the Gospel. No, they were "transcribed."
Ib.p. 113.
Where a man holds a certain system of doctrines, the State is bound to tolerate, though it may not approve, them; but when he demands alicense to teachthis system to the rest of the community, he demands that which ought not to be granted incautiously and without grave consideration. This discretionary power is delegated in trust for the common good, &c.
All this, dear Southey, I leave to the lash of your indignation. It would be oppression to do—what the Legislature could not do if it would—prevent a man's thoughts; but if he speaks them aloud, and asks either for instruction and confutation, if he be in error, or assent and honor, if he be in the right, then it is no oppression to throw him into a dungeon! But the Barrister would only withhold a license! Nonsense. What if he preaches and publishes without it, will the Legislature dungeon him or not? If not, what use is either the granting or the withholding? And this too from a Socinian, who by this very book has, I believe, made himself obnoxious to imprisonment and the pillory—and against men, whose opinions are authorized by the most solemn acts of Parliament, and recorded in a Book, of which there must be one, by law, in every parish, and of which there is in fact one in almost every house and hovel!
Part IV. p. 1.
The religion of genuine Christianity is a revelation so distinct and specific in its design, and so clear and intelligible in its rules, that a man of philosophic and retired thought is apt to wonder by what means the endless systems of error and hostility which divide the world were ever introduced into it.
What means this hollow cant—this fifty times warmed-up bubble and squeak? That such parts are intelligible as the Barrister understands? That such parts as it possesses in common with all systems of religion and morality are plain and obvious? In other words that ABC are so legible that they are legible to every one that has learnt to read? If the Barrister mean other or more than this, if he really mean the whole religion and revelation of Christ, even as it is found in the original records, the Gospels and Epistles, he escapes from the silliness of a truism by throwing himself into the arms of a broad brazenfaced untruth. What! Is the sixth chapter of St. John's Gospel so distinct and specific in its design, that any modest man can wonder that the best and most learned men of every age since Christ have deemed it mysterious? Are the many passages concerning the Devil and demoniacs so very easy? Has this writer himself thrown the least light on, or himself received one ray of light from, the meaning of the word Faith;—or the reason of Christ's paramount declarations respecting its omnific power, its absolutely indispensable necessity? If the word mean only what the Barrister supposes, a persuasion that in the present state of our knowledge the evidences for the historical truth of the miracles of the Gospel outweigh the arguments of the Sceptics, will he condescend to give us such a comment on the assertion, that had we but a grain of mustard seed of it, we might control all material nature, without making Christ himself the most extravagant hyperbolist that ever mis-used language? But it is impossible to make that man blush, who can seriously call the words of Christ as recorded by St. John, plain, easy, common sense, out of which prejudice, artifice, and selfish interest alone can compose any difficulty. The Barrister has just as much right to call his religion Christianity, as to call flour and water plum pudding:—yet we all admit that in plum pudding both flour and water do exist.
Ib.p. 7.
Socinus can have no claim upon my veneration: I have never concerned myself with what he believed nor with what he taught &c.The Scripture is my authority, and on no other authority will I ever, knowingly, lay the foundation of my faith.
Utterly untrue. It is not the Scripture, but such passages of Scripture as appear to him to accord with his Procrustean bed of so called reason, and a forcing of the blankest contradictions into the same meaning, by explanations to which I defy him to furnish one single analogy as allowed by mankind with regard to any other writings but the Old and New Testament. It is a gross and impudent delusion to call a Book his authority, which he receives only so far as it is an echo of his own convictions. I defy him to adduce one single article of his whole faith, (creed rather) which he really derives from the Scripture. Even the arguments for the Resurrection are and must be extraneous: for the very proofs of the facts are (as every
tyro
in theology must know) the proofs of the authenticity of the Books in which they are contained. This question I would press upon him:—Suppose we possessed the Fathers only with the Ecclesiastical and Pagan historians, and that not a page remained of the New Testament,—what article of his creed would it alter?
Ib.p. 10.
If the creed of Calvinistic Methodism is really more productive of conversions than the religion of Christianity, let them openly and at once say so.
But Calvinistic Methodism? Why Calvinistic Methodism? Not one in a hundred of the Methodists are Calvinists. Not to mention the impudence of this crow in his abuse of black feathers! Is it worse in a Methodist to oppose Socinianism to Christianity, that is, to the doctrines of Wesley or even Whitfield, which are the same as those of all the Reformed Churches of Christendom, and differ only wherein the most celebrated divines of the same churches have differed with each other,—than for the Barrister to oppose Methodism to Christianity (his Christianity)—that is, to Socinianism, which in every peculiar doctrine of Christianity differs from all divines of all Churches of all ages? For the one tenet in which the Calvinist differs from the majority of Christians, are there not ten in which the Socinian differs from all? To what purpose then this windy declamation about John Calvin? How many Methodists, does the Barrister think, ever saw, much less read, a work of Calvin's? If he scorns the name of Socinus as his authority, and appeals to Scripture, do not the Methodists the same? When do they refer to Calvin? In what work do they quote him? This page is therefore mere dust in the eyes of the public. And his abuse of Calvin displays only his own vulgar ignorance both of the man, and of his writings. For he seems not to know that the humane Melancthon, and not only he, but almost every Church, Lutheran or Reformed, throughout Europe, sent letters to Geneva, extolling the execution of Servetus, and returning their thanks. Yet it was a murder not the less: Yes! a damned murder: but the guilt of it is not peculiar to Calvin, but common to all the theologians of that age; and, 'Nota bene,' Mr. Barrister, the Socini not excepted, who were prepared to inflict the very same punishment on F. Davidi for denying the adorability of Christ. If to wish, will, resolve, and attempt to realize, be morally to commit, an action, then must Socinus and Calvin hunt in the same collar. But, O mercy! if every human being were to be held up to detestation, who in that age would have thought it his duty to have passed sentence 'de comburendo heretico' on a man, who had publicly styled the Trinity "a Cerberus," and "a three-headed monster of hell," what would the history of the Reformation be but a list of criminals? With what face indeed can we congratulate ourselves on being born in a more enlightened age, if we so bitterly abuse not the practice but the agents? Do we not admit by this very phrase "enlightened," that we owe our exemption to our intellectual advantages, not primarily to our moral superiority?