righteousness, we wish them God speed; and we care not what are their opinions concerning the form of church-government, if the saving grace of God govern their hearts. "Neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature." The Methodists, therefore, labour to make real Christians of men of all sorts, and warn the wicked, whether churchmen or dissenters, to Repent and be converted, that their sins may be blotted out. We have no desire that the law should be revived which inflicted a penalty on every dissenter who did not attend the Established Church; nor, on the contrary, do we wish that the Book of Common Prayer should be abolished, and the Presbyterian Directory established in its place. We hope that we shall never see modern bishops possessed of the power and spirit of Laud, and we should equally dread a return of those times When oyster-women lock'd their fish up, And trudg'd away to cry, "No bishop." No wise man among the dissenters can be desirous of seeing a renewal of those contests between the Presbyterians and the Independents, which scandalized all real religion in the time of Oliver Cromwell. And if the Presbyterians thought that a toleration in religion would make the church of Christ, like Noah's Ark, a receptacle of all unclean beasts; and the Independents could applaud Colonel Pride's purge, as it was called, and the consequences which followed it, we see no reason, from these circumstances, to suppose that either Presbyterians or Independents would be more tolerant, or make a better use of power than the members of the Established Church. We see, indeed, in the writers of the history before us, far too much of the exclusive, violent spirit of bigotry, to be entrusted with power either in Church or State, and we are not sorry to know, that by wholesome laws, it is restrained in its operation and extent. Mr. David Bogue, and Mr. James Bennett, profess to be dissenters of evangelical principles, and those who know them will naturally expect to find an undisguised avowal of those principles, and some proof of the influence of them on their observations and conduct, throughout the history which they have undertaken to write. We have no hesitation, however, in saying that in those parts of their publication in which they speak of Mr. Wesley, and the Methodists, we discover but little of that evangelical charity which thinketh no evil, or of that gospel rule of action of doing to others as we would they should do to us. • Colonel Pride, environed the House of Commons with two regiments, and wized, in the passage, forty-one members of the Presbyterian party, and sent them to a lower room called Hell. Above one hundred and sixty members more were excluded, and none were allowed to enter the House, except the most furious and determined of the Independents. 1 We are quite at a loss indeed to account for the bitterness of these writers against the Methodists, as we believe that they have often received proofs of Christian kindness from them, which they cannot have forgotten; and if the Methodist Societies in their neighbourhood have lately increased, and many more persons attend the preaching of the Methodists, than the preaching of Mr. Bogue and Mr. Bennett, we are not surprised at it; but we will not suppose that this has raised their enmity, or excited them to defamation. People like to hear zealous, pious, Methodist Preachers who publish a free and full salvation to all men, and declare that Christ has died for all men, and would have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth; and they do not relish the miserable notions that Christ died only for two or three, here and there, and that all the rest were left in a state of reprobation, and must infallibly perish everlastingly. We will say little, however, of these, or any other doctrines of Calvinism, which dishonour the mercy and love of God our AntiSaviour towards man, and lead men into direct and open nomianism. The remembrance of the Antinomianism of Dr. Crisp, we hope, has now nearly perished, even among the Calvinistic dissenters, and we will not say one word to prolong its existence. We believe that no person in the present times will think it worth while to reprint the Doctor's works, and that we are in no danger of witnessing any controversy, concerning them, like that which arose between the Presbyterians and Independents soon after the Revolution. Our authors, however, when writing on that controversy, tell us with some degree of levity, that Dr. Crisp "perplexed and puzzled his brains about the divine purposes," and that he did not distinguish as he ought, between "God's secret will, in his decrees, and his revealed will in his covenant and promises." On which, we will only observe, that Dr. Crisp certainly might puzzle his brains all his life about God's secret will, for how should he know any thing of it? Secret things belong unto the Lord our God; and how could Dr. Crisp, or how can Mr. Bogue, or Mr. Bennett, know any thing of God's will, farther than it is revealed? Some men assume that God has a will suited to their own vain imagination, and that will, they call his secret will, although they pretend to know it, and it is not secret from them. We will speak only of God's revealed will, because of his secret will we know nothing, any more than Dr. Crisp, or Mr. Bogue, or Mr. Bennett, and it is gross presumption and folly to talk of it. Of the Presbyterians who were engaged in the controversy concerning Dr. Crisp's Antinomianism, Messrs. Bogue and Bennett remark that, perhaps there was not one, "who did not hold, what we account, the doctrines of the gospel;" and of the Inde pendents, they say, "What apology then shall be made in behalf of the Independents, for their stiff, unyielding, unaccommodating spirit, for their bitterness in charging their brethren with dangerous error," &c. "There is reason to conclude that many of them are narrow-minded men, and fierce for the singularities of their system, but who had not studied, as they ought, the enlarged, the humble, meek, and gentle spirit of the gospel, nor read to a valuable purpose the thirteenth chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians. May the beacon which the writers in this controversy erected, be seen, and the dangerous quicksands avoided, by all their successors from age to age. Our readers will highly approve of these sentiments, and will lament that the beacon which was erected in that controversy has blazed in vain to Mr. Bogue and Mr. Bennett, or has only been considered as a signal to make contumelious war on the Methodists. Very justly is it said of the persons who were parties in that controversy, "Had the whole strength of their souls been concentrated in preaching Christ, so as most effectually to turn sinners from the evil of their ways, and bring them to the Saviour, what glorious success might have resulted from their labours!" But we are informed that they entered into the pulpit to dispute about theological nicknacks, and to rouse the passions of their hearers against those of the opposite side. These theo logical nicknacks, it seems, were the subjects of disputation be tween the Presbyterian and Independent preachers in the pulpit, and the pulpit was prostituted to debates on nicknacks to the dis gust of all sober, serious Christians, who expected to have been fed with the bread of life. Sober, serious Christians in the present day, we have no doubt, will think that, in Mr. Bogue and Mr. Bennett's History, there is far too much disputation on nicknacks, on the veriest follies and fopperies of feverish dissent; and that such a History is not calculated to increase the credit of Dissenters, or conciliate the regard of Churchmen. We will leave to other persons to vindicate the Church of England from the musty and childish cavils of Mr. Bogue and Mr. Bennett, which have been answered a hundred times; but there is one gross misrepresentation of the doctrine of the Church, which is peculiarly their own, and which we shall mention in a subsequent part of our critique. Far too much of the spirit of Robert Brown, who has been called the father of the Independents, runs through a great part of the performance of Mr. Bogue and Mr. Bennett. But they have no reason to fear the punishments with which Brown was most unjustly pursued for his non-conformity. Messrs Bogue and Bennett might, however, have amused their readers with a little •Bogue and Bennett, Vol. I. p. 418. VOL. XXXVL JANUARY, 1813. •E more of the history of Brown, as ample materials, authentic and curious, were within their reach. At one time, this poor, unstable bigot, for bigotry is often changeable, thought that no fellowship ought to be had with Christian societies which were formed on principles different from his own; and this does not appear to be far from the opinion of Messrs. Bogue and Bennett. But Brown changed his mind, and left his friends to shift for themselves, took orders in the Church of England, which he greatly disgraced, and, at a very advanced age, died in Northampton jail, to which he was committed for striking a constable, who, oddly enough, happened to be his godson.* The dissenters in general recommend a sincere inquiry after truth, and the Methodists know that a sincere inquiry after the truth as it is in Jesus, is often accompanied with an awakened conscience, which precedes the enjoyment of saving gospel blessings. In the conduct of the first Methodists at Oxford, there were the most striking proofs of deep sincerity and anxious inquiry after divine and saving knowledge, at a time when there were very few persons indeed in the university, who were able to give them any advice or help on truly evangelical principles. At that time, the Established Church, as Messrs. Bogue and Bennett inform us, had been left a barren desart, when the sovereign Head of the Church interposed, and out of the Establishment, "raised up a host of faithful men, for whose labours the wilderness and solitary place should be glad, and the desart rejoice and blossom as the rose." Many of these faithful men fasted, and prayed, and daily sought instruction from God and man, as to the way in which they might save their own souls, and the souls of others. But after this, will not our pious readers be surprised to find that Messrs Bogue and Bennett attempt to hold up to ridicule these faithful men, these first Methodists at Oxford, and call them monkish Protestants, because they prayed at particular hours? Is this the way in which sincere souls, praying for divine light and life, ought to be treated by men professing godliness? Is the inanity of opposition to regular hours of prayer, and days of fasting, to be obtruded upon us, to the condemnation of these faithful men, who were crying to God under the burden of their awakened conscience, and as yet scarcely knowing what they should do to be saved? God grant that men may pray "at canonical hours," and at all hours; and when we hear of men who are praying without ceasing, we will give unceasing thanks to God on their behalf, and unite our prayers with their's, for all the blessings which are promised in the gospel. Another instance of most extraordinary perversion of sentiment, in men professing evangelical religion, we are naturally led to mention after the observations which we have just made. Our * Fuller's Eccles. History, Book IX, authors speak with as much disrespect of persons whom they call seekers, i. e. such as are seeking salvation in Christ Jesus, as they could well utter, if they were speaking of such Independents as were called seekers in the days of Oliver Cromwell. Of the two Wesleys, who they say had formed a close intimacy with "the celebrated mystic, Law," they inform us that, "two or three times in a year, these young seekers travelled about sixty miles (on foot, that they might save their money for the poor) to visit this oracle, and listen to its responses." Now we are certain that when Messrs. Bogue and Bennett sneer at seekers, they do not speak as the oracles of God; but, on the contrary, adopt the language of those who will not seek after God. We are not surprised, that the Wesleys, at that period of religious darkness, should visit Mr. Law, who, although not an oracle, as these men call him in contempt, was a man of celebrity, ability, and piety, and certainly few persons would condemn these young seekers, for travelling on foot to see him, when it is known that they went on foot in order to save money to give to the poor. We have no intention to defend Mr. Law's mysticism, nor will we desire Messrs. Bogue and Bennett to read any thing which Mr. Law wrote in defence of the Church of England, however excellent; but we will not hesitate to inform them that they may learn much from Mr. Law's Serious Call, of which the Methodists have printed and sold many thousands of copies. Dr. Johnson was a lax talker against religion till he went to Oxford; but "when at Oxford," says he, "I took up Law's Serious Call, expecting to find it a dull book, and perhaps to laugh at it. But I found Law quite an overmatch for On another occasion, when commending Law's Serious Call, he asserted that it was "the finest piece of hortatory theology in any language."+ We must, however, stop a few minutes longer to observe on what our authors say in a subsequent page, of persons who profess to be seeking salvation. All those hearers of the Methodists who wish to be considered as members of the Methodist society, Messrs. Bogue and Bennett inform us, are composed of such as profess to be seeking their salvation. This is undoubtedly true. If they do not profess this, at least, and evidence it by forsaking sin, they cannot be admitted as members of the society. They may have received the remission of their sins, and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit of God, and yet they may be seeking salvation. Indeed all real Christians are seeking salvation as long as they live. But after all, who, or what are seekers? Why, say Messrs. Bogue and Bennett, they are a tertium quid, of which the Scriptures know nothing." This astonishes us Bogue and Bennett. Vol. III. p. 8. + Boswell's Life of Johnson. |