and explode the doctrines which we preach: that Priestcraft is the only support, as it was the origin of the establishment. With these, and a hundred other opinions, equally safe to the state, and respectful to the laws, they will favour you, without reluctance; always taking care to close them with the grand opinion of all, That there never will be peace and quietness in the land till Super stition and Priestcraft (their general titles for the Church of England) shall be totally abolished.-Are these things new? No-they have been proclaimed, they have been brought into action, not only in the cabals of the tavern, and by the juntos in the recesses of their tabernacles, but openly in broad day, in defiance of all obstacles, in every place where mischief may be done, in every house accessible to a mob, and from every press devoted to Sedition and Heresy. What has been done to stop this wild and daring folly? The Clergy have now done as they ever have done. They have refuted and exposed it to the contempt of the world. More they cannot do. But if there be any power of doing more, They, in whom that power is, have sitten at their ease enjoying as it were the folly of the fray," without stirring one step to save the Church and her ministers from general "contempt." Restless, and eager, and persevering, as the new Dissenters are, I repeat it, they are much less indebted for their success (indemnity is success in such a cause) to their own prowess, than to the permissive and oscitant patience, with which they have been heard, and endured."

66

The true limits of Toleration are well defined in the following paffage.

"That many learned and good men have been unable, after serious inquiry, to reconcile, some one doctrine, some another, and some, the discipline of the church, to their own notions of Christian verity, and of ecclesiastical propriety, we both acknowledge and deplore; but so far is the Church from desiring to persecute, that it pleads the cause of an honest conscience, by giving, in her own Articles, the rule which palliates undesigned error. The honest and conscientious dissenter is entitled to every kindness that Christian charity can prompt or perform; and if he do not presume to demand, that the church shall sacrifice her conscience to his scruples: if he do not suffer his zeal to render him blind to his duty as a subject: the church laments the defection of a worthy, though mistaken member. The Church of England has neither the will, nor the power, to persecute. But, if a Dissenter graft on his rights of conscience claims to civil power; his dissent is then no longer religious, but political; and he is an object of animadversion, not to the church for his faith, but to the state for his conduct. If a Christian living at Constantinople, were allowed the free exercise of his religion, the purity of his faith would hardly entitle him to an office in the state and should he, on that

account

account, cast public odium on the establishment which suffered him to enjoy free liberty of conscience, the Turkish government might justifiably resume the privileges which the Christian had abused: not because he is a Chiristian, but, because he is disobe dient to the laws. If the plea of conscience, which regards God alone, be used as a stalking-horse to aim at political power, the plea is an object of political regulation only; and until it can be proved, that a rancorous enemy to the Established Church, can be a true friend to the established government, the falshood and the hypocrisy of the plea being manifested in its application, the govern ment which is not true enough to itself to repeal or to restrain it, must be in state of constant perturbation, and finally fall."

The view of Methodifm is drawn with great accuracy, and the characters of its founders, particularly that of John Wefley, exhibited with equal judgment and candour. On the extraordinary benefits faid to have been produced by the labours of thefe men and their affociates, among the lowest orders of the community, the author obferves,

"There is no reason to doubt that some good was done: because it is hardly possible, that a man of tolerable natural parts and address, and animated with such zeal, of whatever sect he might be, should "reason of righteouness, temperance, and a judgment to come," without producing some good among his hearers. But what are the proofs which Mr. Wesley and his brethren bring of their blasphemous boast, That the power of God was visible in their tumultuous congregations?-Fits, convulsions, visions, extacies, ejaculations!-all the genuine symptoms of delusion and of imposture! All these they magnified, and believed, as divine attestations to the power of their own preaching. The modern Methodists have found that these things will not do; and accordingly the miraculous powers of instantaneous conversion are said to be much, though not quite, withdrawn. We are, however, still told of the original conversion of the colliers of the north, and of the west, and of the unabated spirit of Gospel purity, that still ob tains among them; insomuch that we might suppose drunkenness, profaneness, and brutality, to be entirely banished from the col lieries: every coal-pit to be a receptacle of piety: and not a pickaxe to be wielded, nor a bucket suspended, without praise and prayer. Having seen a little of those people, I take the liberty of believing my own eyes and ears, and of claiming a great abatement from the credit demanded. Doubtless the Methodists may have done good among them: but the raptures of panegyric will subside, on a view of their morals and conduct at this hour: for whatever miracles of conversion, and of preaching, may have been wrought among them, the generality of the colliers of Durham and of Kingswood, are still sufficiently remote, not only from the peaceableness of piety, but from the decencies of civilization, to

afford

afford a mortifying answer to their interested encomiasts. Sixty years, and more, have passed away, since the Methodists have been, according to their own accounts, the sole instructors of the colliers ; for the clergy, by the same accounts, have been backward in that, as in the other parts of their duty. SIXTY YEARS employed by apostles divinely inspired, to preach the gospel to the colliers! That preaching faithfully executed, (for They never flag in their duty), and preached too, not only "in spirit and in power" by every preacher, but the preacher changed, as often as possible, to add the charm of novelty to the dictates of inspiration! and yet, the colliers to be what they are!!-Surely this is a mi racle, on the wrong side.

"If a parish priest, who, on all hands, will be denied inspiration, and who has no circular assistants to diversify the amusement, should, in the course of three years, fail to reduce his flock to decency and piety, HE would be a lifeless drone-a dumb dog— and no gospel minister!"

The increase of Methodifm having been falfely, if not wickedly, attributed to the neglect of the parochial clergy and the bishops, our author vindicates both orders from the calumny, in the following unanswerable manner.

"In the parliamentary debates on the Residence Bill, in which debates were exhibited such decency, wisdom, and sound principle, as reflected prodigious honour on the orators, and afforded the most extraordinary instruction to the people :-in those debates, as reported in the newspapers, there appeared some reproaches on the Clergy; of which the purport was, that the encrease of Methodism was occasioned by Their wilful neglect alone. That such reproaches ever issued from the persons accused of uttering them is incredible; because they were neither wise, nor necessary, nor true and because if true, the persons accused of pronouncing them, had in their own hands, the power to correct such wilful neglect; and if they did not correct it, they were themselves neglectful of their own "bounden duty.' Besides, the Clergy have done all that they can do. They have refuted all the pretensions of Methodism to Truth: they have exposed its pretensions to superior sanctity; and they have attacked it in those places where it is most obnoxious, and most mischievous: and where some laymen, sufficiently lofty on other subjects, have been afraid to mention its name. If however Methodism had thriven through the neglect of the Clergy, we should have heard how the Clergy could suppress it by their diligence;-a point in which we ardently wish to be instructed. If Methodism were triumphant only where the Clergy have been negligent, it would be as ridiculous to make it a subject of danger to the Established Religion, as it is to talk of the Power of a parish-priest.

"Of that Power much has been said: but in what does it con sist? Can he compel his parishioners to come to Church, whether

they

they will or no? Can he prevent the erection of schism-shops within the precincts of his cure? Can he prevent the canting intruder, who vilifies himself and his ministry, from drawing the common people from the Church by all the arts of hypocrisy and falshood? "O yes, truly he may."-How?" By his life and doctrines." As to his life, let that speak for itself; and as to his doctrines, for them the Church shall answer. But the argument is shifted from the Power which can suppress, to the example and precepts which might reclaim. And is any man weak enough to suppose, that the contradictory doctrines of the different tribes of Methodists, could, by any possibility, be preached in the Church by any Clergyman worthy of his function? Can any man, at this time of day, think Methodism, however pious thousands of its votaries are, a religious confederacy? or that the Methodists, swarm only where theČlergy are negligent and worldly?

"But, from the inferiors, calumny delights to mount upwards. If the parish Priest can do nothing, why donot the BISHOPS exert their power? Here also we want to be informed, in what their power in this matter consists. Why, truly, in keeping a registry-office, in which conventicles, to any number, are entered at the price of sixpence each; and the Bishop can no more refuse to register these conventicles, than the court of quarter-sessions can refuse, for the same sum, to admit troops of the most ignorant of mankind, to take the oaths; by which they are lawfully qualified to pervert the Gospel, to distract the multitude, and to disparage and revile alike the legal or the sacred institutions of their country."

Copious as our extracts have been, we cannot difmifs this truly important article, without tranfcribing the conclufion

of the second letter.

"Thronged as the nation is, with legislators and reformers, it is by no means my ambition to figure in either of those characters. It may, indeed, be said that he who has detailed maladies, ought to suggest remedies: but my object is not to dictate what ought to be done, but to hint to others the necessity of doing it. My wish is, to prevail on those to think and to act, whose thinking and acting may be effectual:-but not to obtrude, on wiser men, the crude plans of an obscure individual. Insufficient however as I am, to attempt, or to recommend, remedies for numerous evils, on which I have already commented, as well as for others at present unnoticed, I scruple not to avow my conviction, that partial remedies will do no good, but will rather inflame them: and that whatever essential good may be devised, must be founded on the broad basis of the Church united to the State. The religious doctrines of the Church of England have never wanted, and, with God's grace, never will want competent defenders. But those doctrines are now out of the question. The Church, as an integral part of the State, calls for support and protection.

"We

"We have long been attributing the increase of the disorders which threaten us, to effects, rather than to causes. We have talked about non-resident ministers, and infidel societies, and sec taries, and enthusiasts, and impostors, &c. The real causes of the present crisis are of higher origin; they are to be found in the long continued, and systematical neglect, under which political faction has buried the religious establishment; in the total indifference of statesmen to its respectability; in their considering the church, and using it merely as an engine of party: and in the perfect indemnity with which those principles that identify the Church with the State have been openly violated and renounced by the orators of faction, as well as by their unprincipled adherents, the occasional conformists for power and place. It is not in the nature of things, that insult, contumely, and disgrace, could have been accumulated, to such an height, on any religious establishment, when duly honoured and protected by the State, as the Church of England and her ministers have, during many years, undergone. If this should be called bold speaking, it will be more easily censured than refuted and will certainly offend no man, who aims not at things, which he dares not to avow; or who chuses not to see, what he dares not to meet. In marking this source of evil, I mark the source from which the remedy must come. The people dress from their governors. Whatever institution the STATE publicly reveres, honours, and supports, never is, nor can be, despised or trodden under foot by the people: but that which the State publicly holds cheap, or which ministers of state will not deign to concern themselves about, must inevitably sink into such "neglect and contempt," that it will be almost as impracticable to restore it to honour, as to reanimate the dead.

JOSEPH'S CONSIDERATION: a Sermon preached in ClareHall Chapel, on Monday, February the 29th, 1808, being the Day of adminiftering the Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, at the Divifion of the Term. By the Rev. JAMES PLUMPIRE, M. A. Fellow of Clare-Hall. 8vo. pp. 32. 1s. Rivingtons.

THIS

HIS is a very ferious and a very impreffive fermon, upon a fubject, which we fear is not fo frequently treated either in the pulpit, or even in private inftruction, as its great importance and influence upon public morals, and individual happiness, demand. Mr. Plumptre points out the extreme finfulness of an illicit commerce between the fexes, he then fhews the fallacy of fome of the opinions of