and nien, assiduous and methodical in praying eading, fasting and the like. What they practised themselves they preached to others both in England and America, till becoming intimate with the Moravia' brethren, and particularly with Peter Bohler, one of their elders, John Wesley, "became convinced of unbeief, namely, a want of that faith whereby alone we are saved "* Speaking of his past life and ministry, he says, "I was fundamentally a Papist, and knew it not." Soon after this pers sion, namely, on May 24, 1739," Going into a society in Aidersgate street," he says, "whilst a person was reading Luther's Preface to the Romans, about a quarter before nine, I felt my heart strangely warmed: I felt I did trust in Christ, in Christ alone for salvation, and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death." What were now the unavoidable consequences of a diffusion of this doctrine among the people at large? Let us hear them from Wesley's most able disciple and destined successor, Fletchur, of Madeley." Antinomian principles and practices," he says, “have spread like wild-fire among our societies. Many persons, speaking in the most glorious manner of Christ and their interest in his complete salvation, have been found living in the greatest immoralities.-How few of our societies, where cheating, extorting, or some other evil hath not broke out, and given such shakes to the ark of the Gospel, that, had not the Lord interposed, it must have been overset!"-"I have seen them who pass for believers, follow the strain of corrupt nature; and when they should have exclaimed against Antinomianism, I have heard them cry ont against the legality of their wicked hearts, which they said, still suggested that they were to do something for their salvation."-"How few of our celebrated pulpits, where more has not been said for sin than against it!"-The same candid writer, laying open the foulness of his former system, charges Sir Richard Hill, who persisted in it, with maintaining that, "Even adultery and murder do not hurt the pleasant chil * Whitehead's Life of John and Charles Wesley, vol. ii p. 68 + Journal, A. D. 1739. Elsewhere, Wesley says, "O what a work has God begun since Peter Bohler came to England! such a one as shall never come to an end, till heaven and earth pass away." Vide Whitehead, vol. ii. page 79. In a letter to his brother Samuel, John Wesley says, "By a Christian, I mean one who so believes in Christ Inat death hath no dominion over him, and in this obvious sense of the word I was not a Christian till 24th of May, last year." Ibid. 105. 1. Ibid. page 200. Checks to Antinom. vol. i.. p. 22 Ibid page 215. "God sees no sin in dren, but rather work for their good."*. Delievers, whatever sin they commit. My sins might displease God; ny person is always acceptable to him. Though I should outsin Manasses, I should not be less a pleasant child, because God always views me in Christ. Hence, in the midst of adulteries, murders and incests, he can address me with, Thou art all fair my love, my undefiled, there is no spot in thee."—" It is a most pernicious error of the schoolmen to distinguish sins accor ding to the fact, and not according to the person."—"Though I blame those who say, Let us sin that grace may abound, yet adultery, incest, and murder, shall, upon the whole, make me holier on earth, and merrier in heaven." These doctrines and practices, casting great disgrace on Me thodism, alarmed its founder. He therefore held a synod of his chief preachers, under the title of a Conference, in which he and they unanimously abandoned their past fundamental principles, in the following confession which they made.--" Quest. 17. Have we not unawares, leaned too much to Calvanism? Ans. We are afraid we have. Quest. 18. Have we not also leaned too much to Antinomianism? Ans. We are afraid we have. Quest. 20. What are the main pillars of it? Ans. 1. That Christ abolished the moral law: 2. That Christians therefore are not obliged to observe it: 3. That one branch of Christian liberty, is liberty from observing the commandments of God," &c. The publication of this retraction, in 1770, raised the indignation of the more rigid Methodists, namely, the Whitefieldites, Jumpers, &c. all of whom were under the particular patronage of lady Huntingdon accordingly her chaplain, the Hon. and Rev. Walter Shirley, issued a circular letter by her direction, calling a general meeting of her connexion, as it is called, at Bristol, to censure this "dreadful heresy," which, as Shirley affirmed, "injured the very fundamentals of Christianity." || * Fletcher's Works, vol. iii. page 50. Agricola, one of Luther's first disciples, is called the founder of the Antinomians. These hold that the faithful are bound by no law, either of God or man, and that good works of every kind are useless to salvation; while Amsdorf, Luther's pot-companion, taught that they are an impediment to salvation. Mosheim's Eccles. Hist. by Maclaine, vol. iv. p. 35. p. 328. Eaton, a Puritan, in his Honeycomb of Justification, says, "Believers ought not to mourn for sin, because it was pardoned before it was committed." + Fletcher, vol. iv. p. 97. Quoted by Fletcher. See also Daubeny's Guide to the Church, p. 82. Fletcher's Works, vol. ii. p. 5. Whitehead. Nightingale's Portrai f Meth 'ism, p 463. Having exhibited this imperfect sketch of the errors, contra dictions, absurdities, impieties, and immoralities, into which numberless Christians, most of them, no doubt, sincere in thei belief, have fallen, by pursuing phantoms of their imagination for divine illuminations, and adopting a supposed immediate and personal revelation as the rule of their faith and conduct, I would request any one of your respectable society, who may, still ad here to it, to reconsider the self-evident maxim laid down in the beginning of this letter; namely, that cannot be the rule of faith and conduct which is liable to lead us, and has led very many well meaning persons int› error and impiety; I would remind him of his frequent mistakes and illusions respecting things of a temporary nature; then, painting to his mind the all-importance of ETERNITY, that is of happiness or misery inconceivable and everlasting, I would address him in the words of St. Augustine, What is it you are trusting to, poor, weak soul, and blinded with the mists of the flesh: what is it you are trusting to? . J. M DEAR SIR. LETTER VII. To JAMES BROWN, Esq fc. OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. I HAVE just received a letter from Friend tankin of Wenlock, written much in the style of George Fox and another from Mr. Ebenezer Topham, of Brozeley. They both consist of objections to my last letter to you, which they had perused at New Cottage; and the writers of them both request that I would address whatever answer I might give them, to your villa. Friend Rankin is sententious, yet civil. He asks, first, Whether "Friends at this day and in past times, and ever the faithful servant of Christ, George Fox, have not condemned the vain imaginations of James Naylor, Thomas Bushel, John Perot, and the sinful doings of many others, through whom the word of life was blasphemed in their day among the ungodly?" He asks, secondly," Whether numberless follies, blasphemies, and crimes, have not risen up in the Roman Catholic as well as in other churches?" He asks, thirdly, Whether the "learned Robert Barclay in his glorious Apology, hath not shown forth, that the testimony of the spirit is that alone by which the true knowledge of God, hath been, is, and can be revealed and confirmed; and this not only by the outward testimony of Scripture, but also by that of Tertullian, Hierom, Augustin, Gregory the Great, Bernard, yea also by Thomas à Kempis, F. Pacificus Baker,* and many others of the Popish communion, who, says Robert Barclay, have known and tasted the love of God, and felt the power and virtue of God's spirit working within them for their salvaion ?"t I will first consider the arguments of Friend Rankin. I grant him, then, that his founder, George Fox, does blame certain extravagancies of Naylor, Perot, and others, his followers, at the same time that he boasts of several committed by himself by Simpson, and others. But how does he confute them, and guard others against them? Why, he calls their authors ranters, and charges them with running out! Now what kind of argument is this in the mouth of G. Fox against any fanatic, however furious, when he himself has taught him, that he is to listen to the spirit of God within himself, in preference to the authority of any man and of all men, and even of the Gospel? G. Fox was not more strongly moved to believe that he was the messenger of Christ, than J. Naylor was to believe that he himself was Christ: nor had he a firmer conviction that the Lord forbade hat-worship, as it is called, out of prayer, than J. Perot and his company had that they were forbidden to use it in prayer. Secondly, with respect to the excesses and crimes commited by many Catholics, of different ranks, as well as by other men, in all ages, I answer, that these have been committed, not in virtue of their rule of faith and conduct, but in direct opposition to it, as will be more fully seen, when we come to treat of that rule; whereas the extravagancies of the Quakers were the immediate dictates of the imaginary spirit which they followed as their guide. Lastly, when the doctors of the Catholic church teach An English Benedictine Monk, author of Sancta Sophia, which is quoted at length by Barclay. + Apology, p. 351. + See Journal of G. Fox, passim. § Speaking of James Naylor he says, "I spake with him, for I saw he was out and wrong; he slighted what I said, and was dark and much out." Journ. p. 220. | Journ. p. 310. This and another friend, John Love, went on a mission to Rome, to convert the Pope to Quakerism; but his Holiness not understanding English, when they addressed him with some coarse English epithets in St. Peter's church, they had no better success than a female friend, Mary Fisher, had, who went into Greece to convert the Great Turk. See Sewel's ist. "Now he (Fox) found also that the Lord forbade him to put off his hat to any men either high or low; and he required to Thou and Thee every man and woman, without distinction, and not to bid people Good morrow, of Good evening; neither might he bow, or scrape with his leg' Sewel Hist. p. 18. See there a Dissertation on Hat-worship. us, after the inspired writers, not to extinguish, but to walk in the spirit of God, they tell us, at the same time, that this holy spirit invariably and necessarily leads us to hear the church, and to practise that humility, obedience, and those other virtues, which she constantly inculcates: so that, if it were possible for an angel from heaven to preach another Gospel than what we have received, he ought to be rejected, as a spirit of darkness. Even Luther, when the Anabaptists first broached many of the leading tenets of the Quakers, required them to demonstrate their pretended commission from God, by incontestable miracles, or submit to be guided by his appointed ministers. I have now to notice the letter of Mr. Topham.† Some of his objections have already been answered, in my remarks on Mr. Rankin's letter. What I find particular, in the former, is the following passage: "Is it possible to go against conviction and facts? namely, the experience that very many serious Christians feel, in this day of God's power, that they are made partakers of Christ and of the Holy Ghost? Of very many that hear him saying to the melting heart, with his still, small, yet penetrating and renovating voice, Thy sins are forgiven thee. be thou clean thy faith hath made thee whole? If an exterior proof were wanting, to show the certainty of this interior conviction, I might refer to the conversion and holy life of those who have experienced it."-To this I answer, that the facts and the conviction which your friend talks of, amount to nothing more than a certain strength of imagination and warmth of sentiment, which may be natural, or may be produced by that lying spirit, whom God permits sometimes to go forth, and to persuade the presumptuous to their destruction. 1 Kings xxii. 22. I presume Mr. Topham will allow, that no experience he has felt or witnessed exceeds that of Bockhold, or Hacket, or Naylor, mentioned above, who, nevertheless, were confessedly betrayed by it into most horrible blasphemies and atrocious crimes. The virtue most necessary for enthusiasts, because the most remor from them, is an humble diffidence in themselves When Oliver Cromwell was on his death-bed, Dr. Godwin beng presen among other ministers, prophesied that the ProLector would recover: death, however, almost immediately enuing, the Puritan, instead of acknowledging his error, cast the * Sieidan. It was originally intended to inse: these and the other letters of the me description: but as this would nave rendered the work too bulky, and as the whole of the objections may be gathered from the answers ti them, that intentior. has been abandoned. |