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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Christian Sects in the Nineteenth Century, by
+Caroline Frances Cornwallis
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Christian Sects in the Nineteenth Century
+
+
+Author: Caroline Frances Cornwallis
+
+
+
+Release Date: May 15, 2011  [eBook #36113]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRISTIAN SECTS IN THE NINETEENTH
+CENTURY***
+
+
+Transcribed from the 1846 William Pickering edition by David Price, email
+ccx074@pglaf.org
+
+
+
+
+
+                          CHRISTIAN SECTS IN THE
+                            NINETEENTH CENTURY
+                          IN A SERIES OF LETTERS
+                                TO A LADY
+
+
+                      [Picture: Decorative graphic]
+
+    “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye
+    have love one to another.”—JOHN xiii. 35.
+
+                      [Picture: Decorative graphic]
+
+                                  LONDON
+                            WILLIAM PICKERING
+                                   1846
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+    “Heaven and Hell are not more distant, than the benevolent spirit of
+    the Gospel, and the malignant spirit of party.  The most impious wars
+    ever made were called—‘Holy Wars.’”
+
+                                                                LYTTLETON.
+
+    “Let those ill-invented terms whereby we have been distinguished from
+    each other be swallowed up in that name which will lead us hand in
+    hand to heaven—the name of CHRISTIAN.”
+
+                                                             BISHOP RYDER.
+
+                       [Picture: Decorative header]
+
+The following letters grew out of a conversation between one of the
+editors of the “Small Books,” and a lady of his acquaintance; and as
+there are probably many who have felt the want of the information they
+contain, it has been thought that by publishing them in a collected form
+they may be useful.  The views of the writer are sufficiently explained
+in the letters themselves.  All lament the small sum of Christian charity
+to be found among religionists in general, but few when they begin to
+write have kept clear of a severity of comment which but prolongs
+differences.  The writer, himself a member of the Church of England, is
+anxious to show that it is possible to be attached to one persuasion
+without imputing either folly or ill intention to others; and it is with
+a view of promoting the loving fellowship of all whom God disdains not to
+create and support, that this slight sketch is given to the world.
+
+                      [Picture: Decorative graphic]
+
+
+
+
+LETTER I.
+
+
+You some time ago requested me to give you the result of my inquiries
+into the tenets of the different religious sects which I had been
+acquainted with; and respecting which we had at different times
+conversed.  In the time which has since elapsed I have been endeavouring,
+both to ascertain them more completely, and to compare them with what I
+conceive to be the true spirit of Christianity; but the subject has so
+grown as I proceeded, that even now I can only give you a very short, and
+I fear, in some cases, an imperfect notion of them.  Yet the subject is
+one of deep interest; and as I feel convinced that if we looked a little
+closer into the differences between the established church and those who
+separate from it, both parties would find them smaller and less important
+than they imagine, and that Christian charity would be increased by the
+examination, I do not shrink from the task however inadequately I may
+execute it.
+
+I propose therefore to show you by extracts from the works of the
+principal writers among the different religious sects, how they all agree
+in most of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity; at the same time
+that I point out the evil consequences which I conceive would ensue were
+some of their tenets _fully carried out_ into practice: and also to state
+wherein their peculiar opinions appear to me to be opposed to “the truth
+as it is in Christ Jesus,” so far as to prevent me from adopting them;
+though I can fully believe that those who hold these opinions in the
+abstract, may, notwithstanding, be excellent practical Christians.
+
+Firmly attached as I am to the Church of England, whose form of worship
+(allowing for the imperfections which naturally cling to all human
+institutions), I consider preferable to any other; I can still see much
+to admire in other persuasions and other ceremonies, mixed up, though it
+be, with some imperfections and error; and my love to the established
+church does not blind me to some matters which might be better otherwise,
+and which I shall point out as I proceed.
+
+“Of all the Christian graces,” says a quaint writer, “zeal is the most
+apt to turn sour;” and the observation is no less true than it is sad,
+for men too seldom remember that they must add to their faith knowledge,
+and that both are of no avail without the crowning gift of charity, {3}
+or in other words, brotherly love for all mankind.  The real Christian,
+it seems to me, should imitate the liberality of St. Paul, who, after
+having been bred up in the habits of the “strictest sect” of the Jews,
+scrupled not to quit all his former prejudices, in order to preach Christ
+to the Gentiles, without disgusting them by ceremonies which were no
+fundamental part of the religion he taught, and was content to become “as
+a Jew, that he might gain the Jews, and to them that were without law, to
+become as without law (being not without law to God), that he might by
+all means save some.” {4}
+
+We are too apt to hold each other accountable for all the consequences
+which can be logically deduced from an opinion, however extreme they may
+be: and then having persuaded ourselves that those abstract tenets which,
+by straining them to an extreme point, _may_ have an evil effect, _must_
+have an evil effect on all who profess them,—we avoid those who differ
+from us on religious subjects, because we have assumed that they are
+actually immoral by virtue of their opinions; and thus we miss the
+opportunity of convincing ourselves of our mistake by a more intimate
+knowledge of their lives.  “By their fruits ye shall know them,” says our
+Lord; but we seldom approach them closely enough to see the fruits.
+
+If we would be content to sink minor differences, and be satisfied that
+“in every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is
+accepted with him,” we should soon meet on better terms; for we do not
+hold at a distance from those on earth whom we expect to meet in heaven;
+and thanks be to God, there is no religious persuasion that cannot boast
+of many such as Cornelius.
+
+St. Paul recommends to the churches that they be “kindly affectioned one
+towards another, in honour preferring one another:” {5a} “by this shall
+men know that ye are my disciples,” says our Great Exemplar, “if ye have
+love one to another;” but alas! if we contemplate what is called the
+Christian world, where shall we find Christ’s _true_ disciples?  Grievous
+indeed it is, as has been well observed, that that religion, which
+“should most correct and sweeten men’s spirits, sours and sharpens them
+the most.”  But surely “_we_ have not so learned Christ.”  Let us for a
+moment contemplate His conduct towards those who differed from him in
+religious opinions; his compassion towards them; his meek reproofs not
+only to the Sadducees and the Samaritans, but even to the more hardened;
+{5b} and then let us turn to our own hearts and confess with shame that
+we have fallen miserably short of that charity without which “whosoever
+liveth is counted dead before God.”
+
+So clear is the command to exercise universal benevolence, that whatever
+obscurity there may be in other parts of Scripture, however men, even
+wise ones, may differ as to the real signification of certain passages in
+the Bible, _here_ at least there can be no cavilling.  It is intelligible
+to the most ignorant as well as the most learned, so that “the wayfaring
+man, though a fool, shall not err therein.”
+
+Archbishop Tillotson relates of Mr. Gouge, an eminent nonconformist, that
+he allowed men to differ from him in opinions that were “_very dear_ to
+him;” and provided men did but “fear God and work righteousness,” he
+loved them heartily, how distant soever from him in judgment about things
+less necessary: “in all which,” observes the Archbishop, “he is very
+worthy to be a pattern to men of all persuasions.”  “I abhor two
+principles in religion,” says William Penn in a letter to the same
+archbishop, “and pity them that own them.  The first is obedience upon
+authority without conviction; and the other, destroying them that differ
+from me for God’s sake: such a religion is without judgment, though not
+without truth.  Union is best, if right; if not, charity.”
+
+I have given the opinion of these two eminent men of different
+persuasions, partly to show that the evil I complain of is one of long
+standing; partly to justify my own opinion as to the remedy; namely, the
+paying _more_ attention to the fundamental doctrines of Christianity;
+_less_, to those minor differences which, from the very obscurity of the
+texts on which they are founded, come more frequently under discussion,
+and thus, from a mental operation somewhat analogous to that of the laws
+of perspective, seem large and important because they are close under our
+eyes, though they are in fact minute in comparison with those which we
+have not been examining so closely.  Thus men inadvertently reverse the
+order of things, and zeal for the maintenance of peculiar tenets too
+often supersedes the far more important virtue of Christian benevolence,
+to the scandal of all good Christians and the mockery of unbelievers.
+
+The Quakers, in their address to James II. on his accession, told him
+that they understood he was no more of the established religion than
+themselves.  “We therefore hope,” said they, “that thou wilt allow us
+that liberty which thou takest thyself:” and it would be well if we took
+a hint from this, and reflected that we differ as much from other sects
+as they do from us, {8} and that the greatest heresy is, as a Christian
+Father declared it to be long ago—“a wicked life.”
+
+It is, however, needful to distinguish between the Christian spirit of
+forbearance towards those who differ from us in religious opinions, which
+Christ and his apostles so strongly inculcate, and the indolent
+latitudinarianism which induces many to declare that “a man cannot help
+his belief,” that “sincerity is everything,” that “all religious sects
+are alike,” &c.: positions which, as you well observed on one occasion,
+ought rather to be reversed; for when men are _not_ sincere, all sects
+certainly _are_ alike: for then it is but a lip service which will never
+influence the life, and it matters not what opinion is professed; it will
+be equally powerless.
+
+Sincere belief must be the consequence of proof, without which we cannot
+believe truly; with it, we must.  If then we content ourselves with the
+mere _ipse dixit_ of others without seeking proof, our belief is the
+result of indolence, and for that indolence we shall be accountable when
+we are called on to give an account of the talent committed to our
+charge, if error has been consequent upon it.  He, on the contrary, whose
+education or whose means have not put proof within his reach, although he
+may wish earnestly for it, _may_ be wrong in understanding, but he will
+never be wrong in heart: his tenets may be wrong, but his life will be
+right.  It behoves us therefore to be cautious how we pass sentence on
+one another in religious matters, since, as has been well observed, we
+are ourselves amenable to a tribunal where uncharitable conduct towards
+others, will bring down a just and heavy sentence on ourselves.  We are
+not to erect ourselves into judges of other men’s consciences, {10} but
+leave them to the judgment and disposal of ONE who alone can see into the
+heart of men, and alone can ascertain the real nature and ultimate
+consequence of all questions which admit of “doubtful disputation.”
+
+There will be some danger of losing our way among the almost numberless
+divisions and subdivisions of sects, which present themselves as soon as
+we begin to consider the subject at all narrowly.  I therefore propose to
+simplify my task, and make our course a little plainer, by adopting the
+two great divisions into which the reformed churches may have been said
+to have arranged themselves at the era of the Reformation, as a
+foundation for the classification of Christian sects at present.  Calvin
+and Melancthon may be considered as the prototypes and heads of these two
+divisions, which however they may sometimes vary and sometimes
+intermingle, are continually reproduced, because they are grounded upon
+two great natural divisions of human kind, the stern and the gentle.  My
+own leaning is to the latter, because it appears to me most in accordance
+with the spirit of that gospel whose great Promulgator made universal
+benevolence the test of his disciples; but at the same time I must
+acknowledge, and shall indeed prove before I have done, that the sterner
+theoretical view may coexist in the mind with a large share of true
+Christian charity and benevolence.  Be the abstract belief of the
+Christian what it may, if he be really at heart a disciple, the example
+of his mild Master will always influence his life and feelings, and he
+will tread in the steps of his Lord, even if his judgment should
+sometimes have mistaken the true meaning of some of his words.
+
+These two views of the Divine dispensations towards man were first
+arrayed in actual hostility at the Synod of Dort in 1618, where the
+doctrines of James Arminius, professor of divinity in the University of
+Leyden, who had followed the opinions of Luther and Melancthon, were
+condemned, and those of the Calvinistic church of Geneva affirmed.  From
+that time the various sects of the reformed church have generally been
+known as Arminian or Calvinistic, according as they embraced the peculiar
+tenets of either party on the subject of man’s salvation: I shall
+therefore thus distinguish the two classes into which I propose to
+arrange them, though they may not follow out either in the whole of their
+opinions.
+
+                              I.  ARMINIAN.
+
+1.  Quakers.
+
+2.  Socinians and Unitarians.
+
+3.  Wesleyan Methodists.
+
+4.  General Baptists, Moravians, Swedenborgians, Plymouth Brethren.
+
+                            II.  CALVINISTIC.
+
+1.  Presbyterians, Independents.
+
+2.  Particular Baptists, Sub and Supralapsarians, Sandemanians.
+
+3.  Calvinistic Methodists.  Evangelical or Low Church.
+
+                      [Picture: Decorative graphic]
+
+
+
+
+LETTER II.
+QUAKERS.
+
+
+The sect which I have placed first upon my list, arose about the middle
+of the seventeenth century, when a number of individuals withdrew from
+the communion of every _visible_ church “to seek,” {14} as they expressed
+it, “the Lord, in retirement:” and George Fox, their leader, or as they
+termed him, their “honourable elder,” went about preaching their opinions
+in fairs and markets, in courts of justice, and steeple houses, i.e.
+churches.  He denounced the state worship as “superstitious,” and warned
+all to obey the Holy Spirit, speaking by him.  He was in consequence
+brought before two justices of the peace in Derbyshire in 1650, one of
+whom, Mr. Bennet, called Fox, and his hearers “Quakers,” in derision of
+their frequent admonitions to “_tremble_ at the Word of God;” and this
+appellation soon became general, though they themselves took then, and
+still preserve, the title of “the Society of Friends.”
+
+The rigid peculiarities of phrase, &c. which Fox added to his religious
+sentiments; the regular discipline which he enforced; and the zeal with
+which he maintained and propagated his tenets gave consistency to this
+sect, although he was not, as has been supposed, the originator of their
+doctrines.  He conceived himself forbidden by divine command to pull off
+his hat to any one, or to address any one excepting in the singular
+number, or to “call any man master;” and for these peculiarities as well
+as for the refusal to give or accept titles of honour, or to take an
+oath, the “Friends” suffered the most cruel persecutions; for we are told
+that “they tortured with cruel whippings the bodies of both men and women
+of good estate and reputation;” {15a} and were further punished by
+impounding of their horses; by distress of goods; by fines,
+imprisonments, whipping, and setting in the stocks: {15b} yet,
+notwithstanding these severities, the sect increased and spread far and
+wide, and great numbers of people were drawn together, many out of
+animosity, to hear them.
+
+The Declaration of Indulgence in 1663 stopped for a short time the
+persecution of the Quakers, but by the Conventicle Act of 1664, numbers
+of them were condemned to transportation: in 1666, however, their
+condition improved, when the celebrated William Penn, the son of Admiral
+Penn, joined them.
+
+The discipline of this society is kept up by monthly meetings, composed
+of an aggregate of several particular congregations, whose business it is
+to provide for the maintenance of their poor, and the education of their
+children; also to judge of the sincerity and fitness of persons desirous
+of being admitted as members; to direct proper attention to religion and
+moral duty; and to deal with disorderly members.  At each monthly meeting
+persons are appointed to see that the rules of their discipline are put
+in practice.  It is usual when any member has misconducted himself, to
+appoint a small committee to visit the offender, to endeavour to convince
+him of his error and induce him to forsake it.  If they succeed, he is
+declared to have “made satisfaction for his offence,” otherwise he is
+dismissed from the society.  In disputes between individuals, it is
+enjoined that the members of this sect should not sue each other at law,
+but settle their differences by the rules of the society.
+
+Marriage is regarded by the Quakers as a religious, not a mere civil
+compact.  Those who wish to enter into that state appear together, and
+state their intentions at one of the monthly meetings, and if not
+attended by parents or guardians must produce their consent in writing
+duly witnessed; and if no objections are raised at a subsequent meeting,
+they are allowed to solemnize their marriage, which is done at a public
+meeting for worship; towards the close of which the parties stand up and
+solemnly take each other for man and wife.  A certificate of the
+proceedings is then read publicly and signed by the parties, and
+afterwards by the relations as witnesses.  The monthly meeting keeps a
+register of the marriages as well as of the births and burials of the
+society.
+
+Children are named without any attending ceremony; neither is it held
+_needful_ that there should be any at burial, though the body followed by
+the relatives and friends is sometimes carried into a meeting house, and
+at the grave a pause is generally made to allow of a discourse from any
+friend attending if he be so inclined.
+
+The women have monthly, quarterly, and yearly meetings of their own sex,
+but without the power of making rules.  “As we believe,” they say, “that
+women may be rightly called to the work of the ministry, we also think
+that to them belongs a share in the support of Christian discipline; and
+that some parts of it wherein their own sex is concerned devolve on them
+with peculiar propriety.”
+
+But what, you will ask, are the religious tenets of this sect?  The
+question will perhaps best be answered by an extract from their “Rules of
+Discipline,” a work published under the sanction of the society.  “The
+original and immediate ground of the religious fellowship of the early
+Friends,” says the writer of this manual, “was _union of sentiment in
+regard to Christ’s inward teaching_.”  They were firm believers in all
+that is revealed in Holy Scripture respecting our Lord and Saviour Jesus
+Christ; nor would they have allowed that any one held the truth who
+denied his coming in the flesh, or the benefit to fallen man by his
+propitiatory sacrifice.  “We believe that, in order to enable mankind to
+put in practice the precepts of the gospel, every man coming into the
+world is endued with a measure of the light, grace, or good Spirit of
+Christ, by which, as it is alluded to, he is enabled to distinguish good
+from evil, and to correct the disorderly passions and corrupt
+propensities of his fallen nature, which _mere reason_ is altogether
+insufficient to overcome.  For all that belongs to man is fallible, and
+within the reach of temptation: but the divine grace, which comes by Him,
+i.e. Christ, who hath overcome the world, is, to those who humbly and
+sincerely seek it, an all-sufficient and present help in time of need . . .
+whereby the soul is translated out of the kingdom of darkness, and from
+under the power of Satan into the marvellous light and kingdom of the Son
+of God.  Now as we thus believe that the grace of God, which comes by
+Jesus Christ, is alone sufficient for salvation, we can neither admit
+that it is conferred upon a few only, while others are left without it;
+nor thus asserting its universality, can we limit its operation to a
+partial cleansing of the soul from sin even in this life.”
+
+Baptism and the Lord’s supper are regarded by this sect as mere types or
+shadows, representing in a figurative manner certain great particulars of
+Christian Truths, but not intended to be of permanent obligation.  They
+consider the former to have been superseded by the baptism of the Spirit:
+of the latter they say, “the emblem may be either used or disused as
+Christians may consider most conducive to the real advantage of the
+church: the only _needful_ supper of the Lord is altogether of a
+spiritual nature.”  They conceive that a reliance on the eucharist as a
+‘viaticum or saving ordinance,’ is a dangerous tenet, as well as the
+connecting the rite of baptism with regeneration.  They think that
+“ordinances so liable to abuse, and the cause of so many divisions and
+persecutions, cannot truly appertain to the law of God.”
+
+Quakers consider all holidays as “shadows” which ceased with the shadowy
+dispensations of the law, and that neither the first day of the week, nor
+any other, possesses any superior sanctity; {20} but as a society they
+have never objected to “a day of rest,” for the purpose of religious
+improvement.  They consider the Christian Dispensation to have superseded
+the use of oaths, and contend that our Lord’s precepts {21}extend even to
+the swearing of witnesses in courts of law.  War they hold to be
+altogether inconsistent with the spirit and precepts of the gospel, and
+urge that the primitive Christians during two centuries maintained its
+unlawfulness.  They object on the same principle to capital punishments,
+and the slave trade.
+
+The members of the society are bound by their principles to abstain
+entirely “from profane and extravagant entertainments,” from excess in
+eating and drinking; from public diversions; from the reading of useless,
+frivolous, and pernicious books; from gaming of every description; and
+from vain and injurious sports (such as hunting or shooting for
+diversion); from unnecessary display in funerals, furniture, and style of
+living: from unprofitable, seductive, and dangerous amusements, among
+which are ranked dancing and music; and generally from all “such
+occupations of time and mind as plainly tend to levity, vanity, and
+forgetfulness of our God and Saviour,” and they object to all
+complimentary intercourse.
+
+In the sketch I have now given of the tenets of this sect, you cannot
+have failed to observe how closely their notions with regard to the
+fundamental doctrines of Christianity tally with those of the great body
+of the church; the differences being all on points of minor import, if we
+except the ceremonies of baptism and the Lord’s supper; which, being the
+appointment of Christ himself, we are not at liberty to reject.  And yet,
+be it observed, the Quaker does not presumptuously reject them, but
+merely acts upon, as we suppose, an erroneous view of their nature.
+
+On points of minor difference it may be observed, that He who was the
+PRINCE OF PEACE, and came to establish it, never specifically forbad war,
+(for there may be cases where it is merely self defence,) but left it to
+the spirit of the gospel to remove the _causes_ of war. {22}  We all know
+the appellation bestowed on the Centurion, Cornelius: and when soldiers
+came to John the Baptist saying, “What shall we do?” he merely sought to
+retrench the disorders and injustice which those who follow the
+profession of arms might be tempted to commit; but did not condemn their
+necessary employments.  We may therefore fairly conclude that the
+sweeping condemnation of _all_ war by the Quakers, is not warranted by
+Scripture, although it is in many and indeed most instances, entered upon
+far too carelessly.
+
+One of the main distinctions of the Quakers is the rejection of certain
+amusements and pursuits, which others on the contrary consider as
+innocent, believing that the religion of Christ rather encourages than
+forbids a cheerful spirit, and allows by the example of the Saviour, a
+participation in social pleasures: and that “an upright, religious man,
+by partaking in such pleasures, may be the means of restraining others
+within due bounds, and by his very presence may prevent their
+degenerating into extravagance, profligacy, and sin;” {24a} and such do
+not feel in their hearts that _these_ {24b} are the “pomps and vanities
+of the world,” which by their baptismal vow they renounce.  But surely it
+is possible that different persons may regard the same pursuits and
+amusements in a very different light, and yet both may be conscientious
+in their views, and both, whether in abstaining or enjoying, be equally
+doing that which is lawful and right in the sight of God.  That very
+amusement or pursuit which is a snare to one, and therefore to be avoided
+by him, may be a source of innocent, and perhaps profitable recreation to
+another.  It is the intention, the _animus_ with which an act is done,
+and not the act itself which constitutes the sin.  “Let not him that
+eateth despise him that eateth not; and let not him that eateth not judge
+him that eateth: to his own master he standeth or falleth.”
+
+“Christianity,” says an excellent prelate of our church, “forbids no
+necessary occupation, no reasonable indulgences, no innocent relaxation.
+It allows us to ‘use’ the world, provided we do not ‘abuse’ it.  It does
+not spread before us a delicious banquet, and then come with a ‘Touch
+not, taste not, handle not:’ all it requires is that our liberty
+degenerate not into licentiousness; our amusements into dissipation; our
+industry into incessant toil; our carefulness into extreme anxiety and
+endless solicitude.  When it requires us to be ‘temperate in all things,’
+it plainly tells us that we _may_ use all things temperately. {26}  When
+it directs us to ‘make our moderation known unto all men,’ this evidently
+implies that within the bounds of moderation we may enjoy all the
+reasonable conveniences and comforts of this present life.”
+
+I have noticed this, in my opinion, erroneous practice of the Quakers at
+the more length, because it is not confined to them.  Asceticism, of
+which this is one branch, has been the bane of the church and of
+Christianity generally; and few sects are entirely free from the notion
+that holiness requires a withdrawal from amusements, and a certain degree
+of seclusion from the world.  Yet, if the world is to be improved, the
+leaven must be placed _in_ it; and a good man probably never does his
+Father’s work more effectually than when he spreads the sanctifying
+influence of his example through all the relations of life; showing that
+there is no position in society where Christianity does not add a grace
+and a relish unknown without it: spreading refinement of manners and
+delicacy of thought, and insensibly rendering social intercourse more
+polished, and more delightful, by banishing from it all that can offend.
+
+The Quakers adduce Matt. v. 33–37, James v. 12, &c. in support of their
+objection to all oaths, even judicial ones, and consider that the
+Christian dispensation abrogated their use.  But in answer to this we may
+observe that even the Almighty is represented as confirming his promises
+by a solemn oath.  “Because,” says the apostle, “He could swear by no
+higher, He sware by Himself;” and St. Paul on particular occasions
+expresses himself thus, “As God is true:” “Before God I lie not:” “God is
+my record,” &c. all which expressions undoubtedly contain the essence and
+formality of an oath; and the Apostle upon some occasions mentions this
+solemn swearing with approbation, “an oath for confirmation is the end of
+all strife:” the swearing, therefore, which our Saviour absolutely
+forbids, is common or unnecessary swearing, and we are recommended to
+affirm or deny in common conversation without imprecations.  “Let your
+conversation be yea, yea,—nay, nay.”
+
+The repugnance entertained by the Quakers against paying tithes appears
+to me to arise from an error in their mode of viewing the question.  The
+assertion made by them “that all the provision made for ministers of the
+gospel in the first ages was made by the love of their flocks,” is true,
+though that love very soon produced endowments, even before Christianity
+was established as the law of the empire.  But allowing this, it does not
+follow, as they go on to assert, that “since we are under the same
+dispensation of love as the Apostles were, the principles which governed
+the church then are to govern it now.”  Tithes were originally given to
+the church as a corporation, by the owners of the soil; and since that
+time estates have been transferred from hand to hand subject to that
+charge, till no man has any plea for refusing it.  The question is not
+one of religion but of property.  If my estate devolve to me chargeable
+with an annuity payable either to a corporation or an individual, I have
+no right to set up his religious opinions in bar of his claim: for I have
+paid less for the purchase in consequence of the existence of that claim,
+which in common honesty therefore I am bound to satisfy, be the annuitant
+who he may. {29}
+
+Having now noticed the points wherein I consider the peculiar tenets of
+the Quakers to be erroneous, I shall conclude with the more agreeable
+part of my task, and prove by extracts from one of their writers how much
+of true Christian feeling exists among them.  The following is from a
+little book given me by a Quaker, from the pen of J. Gurney, entitled “An
+Essay on Love to God.”
+
+“Still more completely than the provisions of nature fall in with our
+bodily state, and supply our temporal wants; still more properly than the
+air agrees with the functions of the lungs, and the light with those of
+the eye, does the gospel of our Redeemer suit the spiritual condition of
+man.  We are a fallen race, alienated from God by our sins, justly liable
+to his wrath: in the gospel we have pardon, peace and restoration.
+‘Christ made all things new,’ says Grotius, ‘and the latter creation is
+_more divine_ than the former.’  If then the first creation of mankind
+and all the bounties of nature are the result of Love, that attribute is
+far more gloriously displayed in the scheme of redemption and in the
+works of grace.—The love of God the Father is ever represented in
+Scripture as the origin of all our hopes,—as the eternal, unfathomable
+spring of the waters of life and salvation, and this love is plainly
+described as extending to the whole world.  ‘God so loved the world, &c.
+{30a}  God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself’ {30b}—‘God
+would have all men to be saved, &c.’ {30c}  Do we ask for an overwhelming
+evidence of the love of God?  Let the Apostle satisfy our inquiry.  ‘In
+this was manifested the love of God towards us, because God sent his only
+begotten Son into the world that we might live by him.  Herein is love;
+not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the
+propitiation for our sins.’ {31a}  Do we ask whether God thus loved the
+whole or only a part of the world?—Let the same Apostle answer: ‘He
+tasted death for _every man_—He gave himself a ransom for _all_, &c.’
+Even the Gentiles, who were without the benefit of an outward revelation,
+were by no means destitute of an inward knowledge of the law of God, and
+some of them showed ‘the work of the law written on their hearts, their
+consciences also bearing witness.’ {31b}  ‘Christ is the true light which
+lighteth every man that cometh into the world.’ {31c}  Hence we may
+reasonably infer that as God appointed the death of Christ to be a
+sacrifice for the sins of the _whole_ world, so _all_ men receive through
+Christ a measure of moral and spiritual light, and all have their day of
+gracious visitation.  If the light in numberless instances be extremely
+faint, if the darkness fail to comprehend it, we may rest in the
+conviction that God is not only just but equitable, and that those ‘who
+know not their Master’s will and do it not shall be beaten with few
+stripes.’ {32}  The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, as it is revealed in
+the Holy Scriptures, is intended for the benefit of the whole world: it
+is adapted to men of every condition, clime, and character: all are
+invited to avail themselves of its benefits: all who _will_ come _may_
+come, and ‘take the water of life freely.’”
+
+                       [Picture: Decorative header]
+
+
+
+
+LETTER III.
+SOCINIANS AND UNITARIANS.
+
+
+When the first great movement which led to the Reform of a large part of
+the Christian Churches in Europe, awakened men’s minds from the lethargy
+in which they had slept whilst learning was confined to the cloister, the
+questions with regard to the nature of the Deity which had distracted the
+early church began again to be mooted; and as early as the year 1524,
+“the divinity of Christ was openly denied by Lewis Hetyer, one of the
+wandering and fanatical Anabaptists, who was put to death at Constance.”
+{33a}  He was succeeded by Michael Servede or Servetus, a Spanish
+physician; who, for his wild notions on the same subject, was apprehended
+on his road through Switzerland at the instigation of Calvin, accused of
+blasphemy, and condemned to the flames. {33b}  But doctrines were never
+yet crushed by persecution, unless indeed it were so wholesale as to
+exterminate all who held them; and though these opinions were thus fatal
+to their professors, the main points were reproduced by others; and
+finally assumed form as a sect, under the titles above named.  The term
+Socinian was taken from two of its most distinguished promoters, Lælius
+and Faustus Sozinus, or Socinus.  They were of an illustrious family at
+Siena in Tuscany, and Lælius, the uncle of Faustus, having taken a
+disgust to popery, travelled into France, England, &c. to examine into
+their religious creed, in order, if possible, to come at the truth.  He
+was a man distinguished for his genius and learning, no less than for his
+virtuous life; he settled at last at Zurich, embraced the Helvetic
+confession of faith, and died at Zurich in 1562, before he had reached
+his fortieth year.  His sentiments, or rather doubts as to certain
+points, were embodied, and more openly propagated by his nephew Faustus;
+who, as is supposed, drew up from his papers the religious system
+afterwards known under the name of Socinianism.  There is however a
+considerable degree of obscurity hanging over the rise of this sect, and
+no one has given a satisfactory history of it.
+
+The first appearance of Unitarians, as a distinct congregation, was in
+Poland, where they obtained a settlement in the city of Cracow in the
+year 1569; and in 1575 they published at Cracow the “Catechism or
+Confession of the Unitarians;” {35a} but Faustus Socinus having settled
+among them in the year 1579, soon obtained so much influence as finally
+to remodel the whole religious system of the sect, and a new form drawn
+up by Socinus himself, was substituted for the old Catechism.
+
+The following is an abstract of the doctrines taught in this Catechism.
+After affirming that the Christian religion is “a road for arriving at
+eternal life, divinely made known,” the pupil is told that the will of
+God on points essential to salvation was revealed by Jesus Christ.  The
+Catechism then goes on to affirm the entire unity of the Deity; since if
+he is one essence, then must he also be individually one, {35b} and
+therefore Christ cannot he truly said to be a _separate_ person or
+individual, partaking of the _essentia_ of the Deity, since that
+_essentia_ is necessarily one.  That the Spirit of God, being an
+essential part of the Deity, cannot be a separate individual (for in this
+sense the Catechism interprets the word _persona_ {36}), any more than
+his wisdom or his goodness is a separate individual, and that therefore
+the manifestations of the Spirit of God are manifestations of the Deity
+himself.
+
+“Christ,” says the Catechism, “is a man, according to Rom. v. 15,
+conceived by a virgin, through the power of the Divine Spirit, without
+the intervention of man in the ordinary course of generation.  He was
+first subject to suffering and death—afterwards impassible and immortal,
+Rom. vi. 9.  It is in the sense of his existence derived immediately from
+God, that he, though man, is called the Son of God—as Adam is so termed
+from the same cause.  Jesus Christ was the immediate instrument of God’s
+communications to man; and being, whilst on earth, the voice of God, he
+is now the anointed King, or Christ, over the people of God.”
+
+The passages where he is said to have existed from the beginning: to have
+created all things, &c. are laboriously explained away, as referring to
+the regeneration, or new state of things introduced by Christ’s mission
+on earth: and in this part there is much forced interpretation.  I shall
+annex some of the passages in the language of the original, {37} as a
+proof that I have given a fair account of the real Socinian doctrine,
+which is very little understood at present.  Writers from whom we might
+expect greater accuracy, have very generally confounded Socinians and
+Arians, although Faustus Socinus was at the pains to write a laboured
+refutation of the Arian doctrine, and although a reference to the
+doctrines of the two sects would show that they are the antipodes of each
+other.  Arius taught that Christ was not of _the same_ nature
+(ὁμοούσιος), with the Father, but of _a like_ nature (ὁμοιούσιος) and
+therefore individually separate—separate in will, and capable of
+differing.  This is a direct assertion of two Gods.  Socinus on the
+contrary strenuously asserts the unity of the Deity to the extent of
+denying the pre-existence of Christ: which Arius though acknowledging
+that there was a time when he began to exist, nevertheless refers to a
+period remote beyond human calculation.  Thus upon their characteristic
+doctrines, the two sects are diametrically opposed to each other.
+
+Having now given you the real opinions of Socinus, from his own works,
+for the book is lying beside me as I write, I shall pursue my plan of
+examining how far they accord with what was taught by those who certainly
+ought to be best informed on the subject, namely, Christ himself, his
+Apostles, and their immediate successors; as well as with the deductions
+of reason.  The unity of the Deity is so frequently and so decidedly
+asserted in Scripture, that it is impossible to consider any man as
+unorthodox who professes to make this the groundwork of his belief—so far
+therefore the Socinian is in accordance both with Scripture and the
+general voice of the Christian church, for the early Apologists for
+Christianity, who had to address polytheists, are full of declarations
+that they worship One only Deity, who by various manifestations has made
+himself, at different times, known to mankind. {39a}  There is not a
+writer of the first and second centuries who does not anxiously assert
+the one-ness of the God whom the Christians worship: but then they as
+anxiously assert the identity of their Teacher and Lord with that God.
+From Christ himself, who says, “Before Abraham was, I am;” {39b} “I and
+the Father are one;” {39c} “He who hath seen me hath seen the Father;”
+“the Father that dwelleth in me, He doeth the works;” {39d} to St. Paul,
+who tells us that “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself,”
+{39e} down to the fathers of the early church, to whom I may refer
+_passim_ for the same doctrine; all have distinctly asserted that the
+message of peace to man was delivered by God himself, making use of a
+human form as the mode of communication with his creatures, and dwelling
+in “the man Christ Jesus,” {39f} as in a temple built up for his especial
+use; the human nature, to use the expression of the church, “having been
+taken into God,” not the Godhead circumscribed in man.  I will not swell
+the length of my letter with quotations from the fathers which may be
+found elsewhere; I think the texts I have quoted with many more of the
+same purport, which you will readily call to mind, suffice to prove that
+when Socinus asserted the Christ to be _merely_ a man, he erred; for
+though Jesus “the Carpenter’s son,” as his contemporaries called him, was
+to all intents and purposes a man “of a reasonable soul and human flesh
+subsisting;” {40} and though this may be proved from numberless passages
+in the Scripture, where the man Jesus speaks of his inferiority to the
+Father and bestower of his human frame and spirit,—yet if we do not
+entirely distort the meaning of words, _that man_ at times uttered
+declarations of divine power which could only have proceeded from the
+indwelling Deity, otherwise they must have been the assertions of
+imposture, which Socinus by no means teaches to have been the case.  I
+know not, therefore, how the believer in the Gospel can avoid
+acknowledging that Christ was a compound being:—perfectly a man, and
+speaking as such on some occasions; but, at the same time, the temple of
+the Ever-living God, whose words flowed from his lips like the answer
+from the Mercy seat: “Heaven and the heaven of heavens” no doubt “cannot
+contain” the Infinite; and no true believer will assert that God can be
+circumscribed in a human body—but, if so mean a comparison may be
+permitted—as the crater of the volcano is but the mouthpiece of the
+mighty agents operating within for the fashioning of the earth,—so the
+manifestation of the Deity in the form, and from the lips of a man, is
+but that spot of the material creation where the ever blessed Divinity
+allows himself, as it were, a vent; and gives forth a visible and
+tangible sign of his existence.
+
+“He that has seen me has seen the Father,” says _the Christ_.  “I can of
+my own self do nothing” {41} says _the man_: and this distinction which
+the Christ who necessarily knew something of the composition of his own
+nature so frequently asserts, has probably been the groundwork of the
+mistaken views of this class of Christians, and we may well look with
+charitable indulgence on the errors of men, who dreading lest they should
+incur the penalty of giving the incommunicable glory of the Mighty God to
+another, have not allowed their due weight to the passages, which assert
+that Mighty God to have undertaken the task of bringing his creature man
+back to Himself.
+
+Having thus given you a fair account of the creed of Socinus, I must next
+notice the modern Unitarians, who on some points differ from him.  Where
+there is no acknowledged creed or catechism, {42} which may be quoted as
+authority, it is difficult to give the doctrines of a sect with any
+precision; but as far as it is possible to judge from the writings most
+in repute among the Unitarians, they disclaim the notion of the
+miraculous conception, and believe Christ to have been to all intents and
+purposes _a mere man_.  At the same time they allow him to have been so
+inspired and guided by God, that it is difficult to see where they draw
+the line between their own creed and that of the church, which allows the
+perfect humanity of Jesus, but asserts that “God and man make one
+Christ,” namely, that the message of peace was that of God speaking by
+human lips, and that the Anointed prophet who declared it, was, when so
+anointed, the temple and place of manifestation of the living God.  They
+disclaim the doctrine of atonement, and believe that the mission of
+Christ had for its object the reform of the world, and the restoration of
+man to a sense of his true relation towards God, and even here Scripture
+and the early church speak a language which differs not very greatly from
+theirs.  For the language in which our redemption is spoken of, is that
+of a master purchasing a slave, as will be seen on a reference to Rom.
+vi. in the original.  The ransom by which man was purchased to be the
+servant of holiness instead of that of sin, was paid to his former
+master, sin; by the purchaser; and the purchaser is God.  “I speak after
+the manner of men,” says St. Paul, “because of the infirmity of your
+flesh.” i.e. I adopt the phraseology of a common transaction because your
+minds are not sufficiently accustomed to the contemplation of higher
+things to understand them without a metaphor; but the Unitarian forgets,
+when asserting that the ransom was not paid _to_ God, that it was paid
+_by_ God: and that man, the slave, was bought from sin, the master, at no
+less a price than the condescension of the Deity himself to the infirmity
+of our flesh, by making himself visibly and tangibly known to his
+creatures, through the medium of a human form.
+
+I have now endeavoured to give a dispassionate view of the doctrines of
+these sects, hitherto so much misunderstood, and having marked the points
+wherein they appear to me to recede from Christian truth, I have the
+pleasanter task before me, of showing by extracts from their writings,
+how large a portion of the religion which we all profess, they still
+retain, and I may say from experience, on most occasions conscientiously
+act upon.
+
+“If with the Apostle we glory in the cross of Christ, or in that religion
+which could not have been confirmed without his death, let us not only be
+careful to govern our lives by the precepts of it in general, but more
+particularly be prepared to suffer what the strictest profession of it
+may call us to.  Let us remember that our Saviour hath said, if any man
+will be his disciple he must “take up his cross, and follow him.”  That
+is, he must be ready to do it rather than abandon the profession of the
+Gospel, or whatever the strictest purity of it may require.  A true
+Christian is no more _of this world_ than his Lord and Master was of it.
+With him every thing here below is but of secondary consideration,
+&c.—but this we must remember for our consolation, that if, in time of
+persecution “He that keepeth his life shall lose it,” “He that loseth his
+life” for the profession of the Gospel “shall keep it to life eternal.”
+“If we suffer with Christ, we shall also reign with him and be glorified
+together.” {47}
+
+“The truths which relate to Jesus himself are among the _most important_
+which the Gospel reveals.  ‘We preach Christ,’ says the Apostle, ‘warning
+every man and teaching every man, that we may present every man perfect
+in Christ Jesus.’  From this passage we derive a most important
+sentiment, confirmed by the whole New Testament—that the great design of
+all the doctrines and precepts of the Gospel, is, to exalt the
+character,—to promote eminent purity of heart and life, to make men
+‘perfect as their Father in heaven is perfect.’  We must preach not to
+make fiery partizans, and to swell the number of a sect; not to overwhelm
+the mind with fear, or to heat it with feverish rapture; not to form men
+to the decencies of life, to a superficial goodness, which will secure
+the admiration of mankind.  All these effects fall infinitely short of
+the great end of the Christian ministry.  We should preach that we may
+make men perfect Christians: perfect, not according to the standard of
+the world, but according to the law of Christ; perfect in heart and in
+life, in solitude and in society, in the great and in the common concerns
+of life.  Here is the purpose of Christian preaching.  In this, as in a
+common centre, all the truths of the Gospel meet; to this they all
+conspire; and no doctrine has an influence on salvation, any farther than
+it is an aid to the perfecting of our nature.” {48}
+
+“Christ is a great Saviour, as he redeems or sets free the mind,
+cleansing it from evil, breathing into it the love of virtue, calling
+forth its noblest faculties and affections, enduing it with moral power,
+restoring it to order, health and liberty.” * * * * “Christ has revealed
+to us God as the Father, and as a Father in the noblest sense of that
+word.  He hath revealed Him as the author and lover of all souls,
+desiring to redeem all from sin, and to impress his likeness more and
+more resplendently on all; as proffering to all that best gift in the
+universe, his ‘holy Spirit;’ as having sent his beloved Son to train us
+up and to introduce us to an ‘inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled, and
+unfading in the heavens.’” {49}
+
+“I confess when I can escape the deadening power of habit, and can
+receive the full import of such passages as the following, ‘Come unto me,
+all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’  ‘I am
+come to seek and to save that which was lost.’  ‘He that confesseth me
+before men, him will I confess before my Father in heaven.’  ‘Whosoever
+shall be ashamed of me before men, of him shall the Son of Man be
+ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of the Father with the holy angels.’
+‘In my Father’s house are many mansions; I go to prepare a place for
+you;’ I say, when I can succeed in realizing the import of such passages,
+I feel myself listening to a being, such as never before and never since
+spoke in human language.  I am awed by the consciousness of greatness
+which these simple words express; and when I connect this greatness with
+the proofs of Christ’s miracles which I gave you in a former discourse, I
+am compelled to speak with the Centurion, ‘Truly this was the Son of
+God.’ {50a}
+
+“In reading the Gospels I feel myself in the presence of one who speaks
+as man never spake; whose voice is not of the earth; who speaks with a
+tone of reality and authority altogether his own; who speaks of God, as
+conscious of his immediate presence, as enjoying with him the intimacy of
+an only Son; and who speaks of heaven, as most familiar with the higher
+states of being.” {50b}
+
+“Go to Jesus Christ for guidance, inspiration, and strength in your
+office.” * * * “The privilege of communing with such a spirit is so
+great, and the duty of going from man to Christ is so solemn, that you
+must spare no effort to place yourself nearer and nearer to the Divine
+Master.”  “My brother, go forth to your labours with the spirit and power
+of Him who first preached the Gospel to the poor.” {50c}
+
+“To Jesus the conqueror of death we owe the sure hope of immortality.” *
+* *  “Is that teacher to be scorned, who in the language of conscious
+greatness says to us, ‘I am the resurrection and the life’?” {51a}
+
+“What are we to understand by the Divinity of Christ?  In the sense in
+which many Christians, and perhaps a majority interpret it, we do not
+deny it, but believe it as firmly as themselves.  We believe firmly in
+the Divinity of Christ’s mission and office, that he spoke with Divine
+authority, and was a bright image of the Divine perfections.  We believe
+that God dwelt in him, manifested himself through him, taught men by him,
+and communicated to him his spirit without measure.  We believe that
+Jesus Christ was the most glorious display, expression, and
+representative of God to mankind, so that in seeing and knowing him, we
+see and know the invisible Father; so that when Christ came, God visited
+the world and dwelt with men more conspicuously than at any former
+period.  In Christ’s words, we hear God speaking; in his miracles, we
+behold God acting; in his character and life, we see an unsullied image
+of God’s purity and love.” {51b}
+
+                       [Picture: Decorative header]
+
+
+
+
+LETTER IV.
+WESLEYAN METHODISTS.
+
+
+Towards the beginning of the last century, two young men at Oxford, the
+one a fellow of Lincoln College, struck by the thoughtlessness or
+lukewarmness of those about them, resolved to devote themselves to closer
+and more profitable study.  They were brothers, by name John and Charles
+Wesley; and two other students joined them in their evening readings of
+the New Testament in the Greek: the elder of the brothers was at this
+time about twenty-six. {52}  After a year of this kind of life, they
+admitted two or three of the pupils of the elder brother, and one of
+those of the younger, to their meetings; and the following year, being
+joined by yet more of the students, the regularity of their lives
+obtained for them the title of _Methodists_ from those who were not
+inclined to follow their example.
+
+In 1735 another name was added to their number, which has also become
+celebrated: this was George Whitfield of Pembroke College, then in his
+eighteenth year; but of him I shall have occasion to speak by and by.  I
+shall therefore confine myself to the Wesleys.  A difference of opinion
+on the subjects of Freewill and Predestination separated them from their
+younger coadjutor in 1741, and their respective friends, adopting
+strongly the distinctive opinions of the two, the grand division of the
+sect, which sprung up from their preaching, into Wesleyan or Arminian,
+and Whitfieldian or Calvinistic Methodists, ensued.  All three received
+holy orders according to the ceremonial of the Church of England, and
+Wesley never ceased to hold his spiritual mother in high estimation.
+“The Church of England,” he says in one place, “is the purest in
+Christendom.”  But the singularity of their proceedings raised suspicion,
+and though both brothers continued to profess the fullest assent to the
+articles and liturgy of the established church, yet their manner of
+preaching and form of worship had something in it which led the bishops
+and clergy in general to consider them as verging on Sectarianism.  In
+many places they were refused the use of the pulpit; and then, in the
+perhaps enthusiastic belief that they were the appointed instruments of
+rekindling religion in hearts where it had been dead hitherto, they began
+a system of field preaching.
+
+There were at that time large districts slumbering in utter darkness and
+ignorance of the saving truths of the Gospel: and it was to these that
+the Wesleys especially directed their attention, with a success
+proportioned to their zeal; and had the then heads of the church availed
+themselves of the assistance of these earnest men in the way they might
+have done, by sanctioning their missionary labours among the poor and the
+uninstructed, the benefit would have been incalculable.  But the harsh
+treatment {54} they met with, drove John Wesley at last into complete
+schism: and then the ambition, which had perhaps animated his first
+exertions almost unknown to himself, assumed a bolder flight, and he
+aspired to the distinction of being the head and leader of a sect which
+grew so rapidly, that at the time of his death in 1791, “the number of
+members in connexion with him in Europe, America, and the West Indian
+Islands, was 80,000.  And at the last conference in 1831 the numbers
+returned were, in Great Britain, 249,119; in Ireland, 22,470; in the
+Foreign Missions, 42,743.  Total 314,332.  Exclusive of more than half a
+million of persons in the Societies in the States of America.” {55}
+
+You are probably aware that, besides the public preaching, Wesley
+instituted among his people several kinds of private meetings.  To the
+public prayer meetings, which were generally held in private houses,
+persons not of this sect were often invited, and on these occasions a
+hymn was first sung, then they all knelt, and the first who felt “moved”
+made an extempore prayer: when he had finished, another commenced, and so
+on for about two hours.  These prayer meetings were held in such high
+esteem among the Methodists, that they asserted more were “born again”
+and “made free,” as they termed it, “from all the remains of sin” than at
+any other meetings, public preachings, &c.
+
+There was much in this kind of meeting which was likely to lead to
+enthusiasm, which is universally found to be most easily awakened where
+numbers are congregated; and according to an author formerly of their
+persuasion, {56} the consequence was such as might have been expected.
+“It is impossible,” says he, “to form any just idea of those assemblies
+except you had been present at them.  One coaxes the Divine Being,
+another is amorous, and a third will tell the Deity, ‘He must be a liar
+if he does not grant all they ask.’  They thus go on working up each
+other’s imagination until they become as it were spiritually intoxicated,
+and while in this state they sometimes recollect a text or two of
+Scripture, such as ‘Thy sins are forgiven thee’—‘Go and sin no more’—‘Go
+in peace,’ &c. and then declare themselves to be ‘born again’ or
+‘sanctified.’”
+
+The love feast is also a private meeting of as many members of the
+community as choose to attend; and they generally assemble from all parts
+within several miles of the place where the feast is held.  They then
+alternately sing and pray, and some among them, who think that their
+experience, as they term it, is remarkable, stand up, and narrate all the
+transactions which they say have taken place between God, the devil, and
+their souls.
+
+There is a curious propensity to egotism in human nature which frequently
+shews itself in religious matters.  Men love to talk of themselves: and
+the Romanist finds pleasure in the power of pouring forth all his
+feelings and thoughts to his father confessor, whenever he is strongly
+excited by passion: of this I have become aware from personal knowledge.
+Other enthusiasts enjoy no less satisfaction in talking of the interior
+conflicts they have sustained; for all ungoverned feeling loves to vent
+itself in speech, and the lover who talks of his mistress, or the
+penitent who talks of his sins, is for the time being in the same state
+of restless excitement.  _Governed_ feeling, on the contrary, as far as
+my experience goes, is silent.
+
+In these Love Feasts those present have buns to eat, which are mutually
+broken between each “Brother and Sister,” and water to drink, which they
+hand from one to another.  These meetings commence about seven o’clock,
+and last till nine or ten.
+
+Each society is divided into smaller companies called “classes” according
+to their respective places of abode.  There are about twelve persons in
+every class, one of whom is styled “the Leader,” whose business it is to
+see each person in his class, at least once a week, to advise, comfort,
+or exhort, as occasion may require, and to receive what each is willing
+to give towards the support of the Gospel.
+
+It is expected that every member should continue to evince his desire of
+salvation by abstaining from “the taking of the name of the Lord in
+vain”; “the profaning of the Lord’s day, either by ordinary work thereon,
+or by buying and selling”; “drunkenness, buying or selling spirituous
+liquors, or drinking them, unless in cases of extreme necessity;
+fighting, quarreling, brawling; going to law with a brother; returning
+evil for evil, or railing for railing; the using many words in buying or
+selling. {59a}  The buying or selling uncustomed goods; the giving or
+taking things on usury, i.e. unlawful interest; the putting on of gold or
+costly apparel; the taking such diversions as cannot be used in the name
+of the Lord Jesus Christ; the singing those songs or reading those books,
+that do not tend to the knowledge or love of God;—softness and needless
+self-indulgence, &c. {59b}
+
+Among the duties expected and required of the members are all kinds of
+beneficence, diligence, frugality, {59c} self-denial, and attendance on
+all the ordinances of God, among which is specifically mentioned fasting.
+If any member habitually break any of these rules he is admonished; and
+if he do not then repent, expulsion follows.  “Marrying with
+unbelievers,” and bankruptcy, if the party has not kept fair accounts,
+are also followed by expulsion.
+
+No one I think can doubt that much good was effected by the first
+preaching of Wesley and his disciples, for at that time our church was in
+a lethargic state, and the lower orders shamefully neglected in spiritual
+matters in many parts of England.  Yet there are some things which excite
+one’s regret in their practices, and of these none displeases me more
+than the familiar use of Scripture language, which when properly and
+judiciously applied is striking and solemn; but to hear every notion of
+enthusiastic ignorance, every rise and fall of the animal spirits,
+expressed in the language of the Apostles and Evangelists, and even of
+our Lord himself; to witness their familiarity with the Almighty, their
+full trust and confidence in the reality of small miracles wrought at
+their request;—must always be painful to a soberly religious mind.  In a
+book entitled “The Bank of Faith,” the author asserts, that a dog brought
+him mutton to eat, that fish died at night in a pond on purpose to be
+eaten by him in the morning, and that money, clothes, &c. in short every
+thing he could desire he attained by prayer. {61}
+
+An old woman of Wesley’s society, named Mary Hubbard, would often wash
+her linen, hang it out to dry, and go away to work in the fields or to
+Taunton Market four miles from her house, and when blamed for thus
+leaving her linen unprotected, she would reply that “the Lord watched
+over her and all that she had, and that he would prevent any person from
+stealing her two old smocks, or if He permitted them to be stolen, He
+would send her two new ones in their stead.”  I seriously assure you,
+says the author who relates this tale, and who at one time went even
+greater lengths {62} than this old woman, “that there are many thousand
+Mary Hubbards among the Methodists.”
+
+It may be added, that their strict abstinence from the common amusements
+of the world, even where innocent in themselves, has its evils, as I have
+already noticed when speaking of the Quakers; for the mind cannot always
+be kept in a state of tension, and if we refuse ourselves recreation
+altogether, there is danger that we shall find the yoke of Christ a
+wearisome instead of an easy one, and cast it off in disgust; nay, I am
+afraid that if we were to inquire closely, we should find instances
+enough of this result to demonstrate, what indeed wants but little proof,
+i.e. that God knows better than we do “whereof we are made,” and that it
+is not wisdom to bind a heavy burthen on our shoulders when Christ
+himself has declared that his is light.  Still, though tinged with a
+degree of enthusiasm which we may regret, the doctrine of the Wesleyan
+Methodists retains the fundamental parts of Christianity, and after
+reading the following extracts from Wesley’s Sermons, I think you will
+hardly forbear asking, Why is this a separate sect?
+
+“Justifying Faith implies not only a Divine ελεγχος, evidence or
+conviction, that ‘God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself,’
+but a sure trust and confidence that Christ died for _my_ sins, that he
+loved _me_, and gave himself for me; and the moment a penitent sinner
+believes this, God pardons and absolves him.” {64a}  “Christian
+perfection does not imply, as some men seem to have imagined, an
+exemption either from ignorance, or mistake, or infirmities, or
+temptations; indeed it is only another term for holiness: thus every one
+that is holy, is in the Scripture sense ‘perfect.’  We may yet observe
+that neither in this respect is there absolute perfection on earth.”
+{64b}  “If the Scriptures are true, those who are holy or religious in
+the judgment of God himself, those who are endued with the faith that
+purifies the heart, that produces a good conscience; those who live by
+faith in the Son of God; those who are sanctified by the blood of the
+Covenant may nevertheless so fall from God as to perish everlastingly,
+therefore let him who thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.”  “In
+strictness neither our faith nor our works justify us, i.e. _deserve_ the
+remission of our sins, but God himself justifies us of his own mercy
+through the merits of his Son only.” {65}
+
+                       [Picture: Decorative header]
+
+
+
+
+LETTER V.
+GENERAL BAPTISTS, MORAVIANS, SWEDENBORGIANS, PLYMOUTH BRETHREN.
+
+
+Among the sects which arose about the period of the Reformation of the
+church in the sixteenth century, we find the Anabaptists {66} playing
+rather a conspicuous part, by exciting political tumults in Saxony and
+the adjacent countries.  For this, Munzer, their leader, after the defeat
+of his forces, was put to death, and the sect generally was proscribed,
+and the profession of its doctrines punished capitally.  What those
+doctrines were is not easy, nor is it essential now, to state, since the
+modern sect, which we now term Baptists, retain only so much of them as
+relates to baptism by immersion, and of adults only, and the rejection of
+episcopal church government.
+
+The more modern sect is subdivided into General and Particular Baptists.
+The General or Arminian Baptists admit “much latitude in their system of
+religious doctrine, which consists in such general principles, that their
+communion is accessible to Christians of almost all denominations, and
+accordingly they tolerate in fact, and receive among them persons of
+every sect, who profess themselves Christians, and receive the Holy
+Scriptures as the source of truth, and the rule of faith.” {67}  They
+agree with the PARTICULAR BAPTISTS in this, that they admit to baptism
+adults only, and administer that sacrament either by dipping or total
+immersion; but they differ from them in another respect, for they repeat
+the administration of baptism to those who had received it, either in a
+state of infancy, or by aspersion instead of dipping: for if the common
+accounts may be believed, the Particular Baptists do not carry matters so
+far.
+
+The General Baptists consider their sect as the only true church; in
+baptism they dip only once and not three times as was the practice in the
+primitive church: and they consider it a matter of indifference whether
+that sacrament be administered in the name of Father, Son, and Holy
+Ghost, or in that of Christ alone: {68a} they adopt the doctrine of Menno
+with regard to the Millennium; many of them also embrace his particular
+opinion concerning the origin of Christ’s body. {68b}  They look upon the
+precept of the Apostles prohibiting the use of blood and of things
+strangled, as a law that was designed to be in force in all ages and
+periods of the church: they believe that the soul, from the moment that
+the body dies until its resurrection at the last day, remains in a state
+of perfect insensibility: they use the ceremony of extreme unction, and
+finally, to omit matters of a more trifling nature, several of them
+observe the Jewish as well as the Christian Sabbath. {68c}  In some of
+their churches they have three distinct orders separately ordained, i.e.
+messengers, elders, and deacons; and their general assembly (where a
+minister preaches, and the churches are taken into consideration), is
+held annually in London on the Tuesday in Whitsun week, and they
+afterwards dine together.  They have met thus for upwards of a century.
+
+The propriety of the exclusive application of the term “Baptists” to
+those who baptize adults by immersion, has been questioned; and for this
+reason they are by many styled Antipædobaptists, {69} namely, opposers of
+infant baptism; but the term Anabaptist should not be applied to them, it
+being a term of reproach.
+
+The old General Baptists have been on the decline for many years; their
+churches are principally in Kent and Sussex.  The English and most
+foreign Baptists consider a personal profession of faith, and immersion
+in water, essential to baptism: this profession is generally made before
+the church at a church meeting.  Some have a creed, and expect the
+candidate for baptism to assent to it, and give a circumstantial account
+of his conversion: others only require him to profess himself a
+Christian.  The former generally consider baptism as an ordinance which
+initiates persons into a particular church, and they say, that without
+breach of Christian liberty, they have a right to expect an agreement in
+articles of faith in their own societies.  The latter think that baptism
+initiates into the Christian religion generally, and therefore think that
+they have no right to require an assent to their creed from such as do
+not join their churches.  They quote the baptism of the Eunuch in Acts
+viii. in proof.
+
+The first mention of the Baptists in English History is as the subject of
+persecution in the reign of Henry VIII.  During that of Edward VI. a
+commission was issued to bishops and other persons “to try all
+Anabaptists, heretics, and despisers of the common prayer,” and they were
+empowered, in the event of their contumacy, to commit them to the flames.
+The same inhuman policy was persisted in under Elizabeth.  The last
+Baptist martyr burned in England was Edward Wightman; he was condemned by
+the bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, {70a} and burned at Lichfield April
+11, 1612. {70b}
+
+The celebrated Whiston became a Baptist towards the close of his life,
+retaining nevertheless his Arian belief.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+The MORAVIANS are supposed to have derived their origin from Nicholas
+Lewis, Count Zinzendorf, a German nobleman, who died in 1760.  The
+society however assert that they are descended from the old Moravian and
+Bohemian Brethren, who existed as a distinct sect sixty years prior to
+the Reformation.  No sooner had these Moravian Brethren heard of Luther’s
+bold testimony to the truth, and of the success which attended his
+labours, than they sent in the year 1522 two deputies to assure him of
+“the deep interest which they took in his work;” giving him, at the same
+time, an account of their own doctrine and constitution.  They were most
+kindly received; and both Luther, and his colleague Bucer, recognised the
+Moravians as holding the same faith; and bore honourable testimony to the
+purity of their doctrine, and the excellence of their discipline.  The
+chief doctrine of the Moravian society is, that “by the sacrifice for sin
+made by Jesus Christ, and by that alone, grace and deliverance from sin
+are to be obtained for all mankind:” and they stedfastly maintain the
+following points:
+
+1.  The divinity of Christ.
+
+2.  The atonement and satisfaction made for us by Jesus Christ; and that
+by his merits alone we receive freely the forgiveness of sin, and
+sanctification in soul and body.
+
+3.  The doctrine of the Holy Spirit, and the operations of his grace.
+That it is he who worketh in us conviction of sin, faith in Christ, and
+pureness of heart.
+
+4.  That faith must evidence itself by willing obedience to the
+commandments of God from love and gratitude.
+
+The internal constitution of the ancient church of the Moravians, which
+is still substantially adhered to, was originally adopted in 1457, and
+more definitely settled in 1616 by the Synod of Zerawitz.  Its principal
+peculiarities are,
+
+1.  Every church is divided into three classes, i.e. 1. _Beginners_ or
+_Catechumens_.  2.  _The more advanced_ or _communicants_, who are
+considered as members of the church.  3. _The perfect_, consisting of
+such as have persevered for some time in a course of true piety.  From
+this last class are chosen in every church _the Elders_, from three to
+eight in number.
+
+2.  Every congregation is directed by a board of elders, whose province
+it is to have a watchful eye over its members with respect to the
+doctrine and deportment.  Once in three months these elders are bound to
+visit the houses of the brethren, in order to observe their conduct, and
+to ascertain whether every one is labouring diligently in his calling,
+&c. of which they make a report to the pastor.  They also are required to
+visit the sick, and assist the poorer brethren with money, contributed by
+the members of the church, and deposited in an alms box.
+
+3.  The ministration of the Word and Sacrament is performed either by
+members who have received ordination from the bishops of the church of
+the brethren, or by those who have received that of the Calvinist or
+Lutheran church.  The deacons, according to the ancient constitution of
+the church, are the chief assistants of the pastors, and are considered
+as candidates for the ministry.  The bishops, who are nominated by the
+ministers, appoint the pastors to their stations, and have the power of
+removing them when they think fit, and of ordaining the deacons as well
+as the ministers.  Every bishop is appointed to superintend a certain
+number of churches, and has two or three co-bishops, who, if necessary,
+supply their place.  The ancient church appointed some of its members to
+the business of watching over the civil affairs of the congregation,
+under the name of _Seniores Civiles_, who were ordained with imposition
+of hands.  This office is still continued.  The synods, which are held
+every three or four years, are composed of the bishops and their
+co-bishops the Seniores Civiles, and of “such servants of the church and
+of the congregation as are called to the synod by the former elders’
+conference, appointed by the previous synod, or commissioned to attend it
+as deputies from particular congregations.”  Several female elders also
+are usually present at the synods, but they have no vote.  All the
+transactions of the synod are committed to writing, and communicated to
+the several congregations.
+
+A liturgy, peculiar to the Brethren, is regularly used as a part of the
+morning service on the Sabbath; on other occasions the minister offers
+extempore prayer.  The singing of hymns is considered as an essential
+part of worship, and many of their services consist entirely of singing.
+At the baptism of children, both the witnesses and the minister bless the
+infant, with laying on of hands immediately after the rite.  The Lord’s
+Supper is celebrated every month: love feasts are frequently held, i.e.
+the members eat and drink together in fellowship: cakes and tea are
+distributed during the singing of some verses by the congregation.  The
+washing of feet is practised at present only at certain seasons by the
+whole congregation, and on some other occasions in the choirs.  Dying
+persons are blessed for their departure by the elders, during prayer and
+singing a verse with imposition of hands.  At funerals, the pastor
+accompanies the corpse to the burial place with the singing of hymns; and
+an address is delivered at the grave.  Marriages are, by general
+agreement, never contracted without the advice and concurrence of the
+elders. {75a}  The casting of lots is used among them to know, as they
+express it, “The will of the Lord.” {75b}
+
+With regard to discipline, “the Church of the Brethren have agreed upon
+certain rules and orders.  These are laid before every one, that desires
+to become a member of the church, for his consideration.  Whoever after
+having voluntarily agreed to them, does not act conformably, falls under
+congregation discipline.”  This has various degrees, and consists in
+admonitions, warnings, and reproofs, continued until genuine repentance
+and a real conversion become evident in the offender, when he is
+readmitted to the holy communion, or reconciled to the congregation,
+after a deprecatory letter has been read, expressing the offender’s
+sorrow for his transgression, and asking forgiveness.  The Brethren
+assert that the church government in the established Protestant churches
+“does not apply to the congregations of the Brethren, because they never
+were intended to form a national establishment: for their design is no
+other than to be a true and living congregation of Jesus Christ, and to
+build up each other as a spiritual house of God, to the end that the
+kingdom of Jesus Christ may be furthered by them.”  Hence the doctrine of
+Jesus and his Apostles, and the order and practice of the Apostolic
+churches, are the models by which they wish to be formed.  It may be
+added, that they are generally the most successful Missionaries, and that
+their society seems the most nearly to realize the practice of the early
+Christians, of any sect now remaining.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+The SWEDENBORGIANS take their name from Emmanuel Swedenborg, who was born
+at Stockholm in 1683.  His father was Jasper Swedberg, bishop of West
+Gothland.  He received his education chiefly in the University of Upsala;
+and in 1716 was appointed by Charles XII. Assessor of the Royal College
+of Sciences; he was ennobled by Queen Ulrica Eleonora, and received the
+name of Swedenborg.  He published scientific works on various subjects,
+but in 1747 he resigned his office, in order, as he himself states, that
+he might be more at liberty to attend to that new function which he
+considered himself called to, and the rest of his life was spent in
+composing and publishing the voluminous works which contain his peculiar
+doctrines.  He died in 1772.  He was a man of blameless life and amiable
+deportment, and was distinguished for his attainments in mathematics and
+mechanics.
+
+His writings are so very obscure, that it is difficult to state what are
+the opinions contained in them; he taught, however, that by the New
+Jerusalem which came down from heaven, was intended a new church as to
+doctrine, and that he was the person to whom this doctrine was revealed,
+and who was appointed to make it known to the world.  Swedenborg made no
+attempt to found a sect; but after his death, his followers, in 1788,
+formed themselves into a society under the denomination of “The New
+Jerusalem Church.”  They have several places of meeting, both in London
+and Manchester, and send delegates to a “General Conference,” under whose
+direction a liturgy has been prepared, from which I shall make a few
+extracts to shew the peculiar doctrines of this sect.
+
+The following are some of the questions asked of the candidate for
+ordination, which is performed by imposition of hands, of course of a
+minister of their own communion.
+
+“_Min._  Dost thou believe that Jehovah God is One both in Essence and in
+Person; in whom, nevertheless, is the Divine Trinity of Father, Son, and
+Holy Spirit; and that these are, his Essential Divinity, his Divine
+Humanity, and his Divine Proceeding, which are the three Essentials of
+One God, answering to the soul, the body, and the operative energy, in
+man, and that the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is that God?
+
+Dost thou believe that by his temptations, the last of which was the
+passion of the cross, the Lord united, in his Humanity, Divine Truth to
+Divine Good, or Divine Wisdom to Divine Love, and so returned into his
+Divinity in which he was from eternity, together with, and in, his
+Glorified Humanity?
+
+Dost thou believe that the sacred Scripture, or Word of God, is Divine
+Truth itself, and that it contains a spiritual and celestial sense,
+heretofore unknown, whence it is divinely inspired and holy in every
+syllable; as well as a literal sense, which is the basis and support of
+its spiritual and celestial sense?
+
+Dost thou believe that the books which have the internal sense and are
+truly the Word of God are,—the five books of Moses, Joshua, Judges, the
+two books of Samuel, the two books of Kings, the Psalms of David, the
+prophets, including the Lamentations of Jeremiah, the four Gospels, and
+the Revelation?” {79}
+
+It is further stated in their eleventh article of faith, “That
+immediately after death, which is only a putting off of the material
+body, never to be resumed, man rises again in a spiritual or substantial
+body, in which he continues to live to eternity.”
+
+On these doctrines it may be observed that the forms of worship founded
+on them are not such as Christ and his apostles ordered.  The doxology
+is, “To Jesus Christ be glory and dominion for ever and ever;” the
+blessing, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.”  The
+prayers are addressed to the “blessed Lord Jesus.”  Whereas Christ, when
+he gave us a form of prayer, bade us address “our Father in heaven;” and
+bade us ask of the Father in his name; and the form of the apostolic
+doxology is, “To God only wise be glory through Jesus Christ for ever”;
+{80a} and the blessing, “Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father,
+and from the Lord Jesus Christ.” {80b}  As at this time Christ had
+ascended from the earth, had the human nature been entirely merged in the
+Divine, as this sect asserts, Paul the Apostle would not have made this
+distinction, which implies that the Lord Jesus still existed somewhere in
+his human form as the everlasting visible temple of the Invisible father
+of all things, for “no man hath seen God at any time,” says the beloved
+Apostle, {81a} and this is confirmed by Christ himself. {81b}  If the man
+then be lost in the Deity, it follows that the Lord Jesus exists no more
+for us.  I am aware that this consequence is denied by the sect, but it
+is a self evident proposition: for their creed runs thus, “I believe in
+one God in whom is a Divine Trinity, &c., and that this God is the Lord
+and Saviour Jesus Christ who is Jehovah in a glorified human form.”  Now
+a human form must have some properties of matter; it must be visible, and
+circumscribed, or it is not form; and what is circumscribed and visible
+cannot be God, who, of necessity, is uncircumscribed, and therefore
+invisible.  The infinite Eternal Omnipotent Deity _must_ be where that
+glorified body is not; therefore, the Great Father of all things must
+always be the object of worship, through Jesus Christ, who is the
+_visible_ image of his glory.  The _form_ of baptism is retained by this
+sect, though they assert that the rite was “constantly administered by
+the Apostles in the name of Christ alone”; an assertion contradicted by
+the whole testimony of antiquity from the earliest times; adding,
+“nevertheless it is well to use the express words of the Lord, when it is
+known and acknowledged in the church that the Father and the Son and the
+Holy Spirit are not three separate persons but three Divine Essentials,
+constituting the single Divine Person of our Lord Jesus Christ.” {82}
+With regard to the “internal sense” of Scripture it is sufficient to
+observe that if “every syllable” were to be considered as inspired and
+holy, the long list of various readings would grievously shake our faith,
+though these are quite immaterial as to the general meaning.
+
+There are serious objections to the distinctive tenets of this sect, yet,
+in justice to them, it must be allowed that the unguarded language of
+some preachers does so split up the Deity into separate individuals as to
+make the doctrine so taught a complete tritheism, and that a serious mind
+returning to the express declaration of the Scripture, that God is One,
+may be so far shocked by such unmeasured expressions, as to run into the
+extreme which I have condemned.  Unitarianism on the one hand, and the
+doctrine of Swedenborg on the other, have equally sprung from a want of
+proper caution when speaking of the different manifestations of the
+Deity, and an unmeasured itch for the definition of things too far beyond
+the reach of our finite faculties to admit of any precision of terms.
+_Words_ were formed for the things pertaining to earth; how then can they
+ever exactly express the nature of the Deity?
+
+Notwithstanding the faith professed by this sect, their teaching,
+nevertheless, returns to the doctrine of the Gospel.  In a tract “on the
+true meaning of the intercession of Jesus Christ,” published at
+Manchester by their own religious tract society, we have the following
+passage: “The Humanity named Jesus is the medium whereby man may come to
+God, because the Father, _heretofore invisible_, is manifested and made
+_visible_ and _approachable_ in him.  This is meant by _our coming unto
+God by him_;” and elsewhere, as we cannot obtain this “light of life”
+without following the Lord, and doing his will, as he did the will of the
+Father, agreeably to his own saying, “If ye keep my commandments, even as
+I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love;” so neither
+can we obtain that divine food by which our spiritual life is to be
+sustained, unless we labour for it, as the Lord himself instructed us
+when he said “Labour for the meat which endureth unto everlasting life”;
+and is it not of the greatest importance clearly to understand what this
+labour implies?  Let the reader be assured that he must labour in that
+spiritual vineyard which the Lord desires to plant in his soul, in order
+that it may bear abundant fruits of righteousness to the glory of his
+heavenly father.” {84}  Thus we see again that the fundamental doctrines
+of Christianity _will_ find their way, however men may speculatively
+disclaim them.  Why then do we differ outwardly, when at heart we agree?
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+The PLYMOUTH BRETHREN, so called probably from the place where this
+society first arose, do not allow themselves to be a sect, though in
+their practices they differ considerably from those of the Established
+Church.  They meet together on the morning of the first day of the week
+to celebrate the Lord’s Supper, when any “Brother” is at liberty to speak
+for mutual edification.  In the afternoon and evening, when they have
+preachers, the services are similar to those in the Congregational
+Churches (Independents): the desk, however, for they condemn pulpits, is
+not occupied by one man, but used as a convenient place for speaking,
+being alternately occupied by the “Brother,” who reads the hymn, the one
+who prays, and the one who teaches or preaches the Word.  There are also
+“Meetings for Prayer,” and what are technically called “reading
+meetings;” when a chapter is read, and those “Brethren” who have made it
+matter of reflection, speak upon it clause by clause for their mutual
+instruction.
+
+Before a person is acknowledged a “Brother,” his name is announced at one
+of the times of “meeting together to break bread,” as it is termed, and
+if nothing occurs in the interval, he takes his seat with them the next
+Sunday.{85}  Any one is admitted to their communion whom they believe to
+be “a child of God;” but they do not receive or acknowledge him as a
+brother, “while in actual connection with any of the various forms of
+worldliness,” i.e. the other churches of Christ.  Their preachers move
+about from place to place, forming different congregations, which they
+again leave for other places where their services are required.  None of
+their ministers receive any _stipulated_ charity.  The “Brethren”
+disapprove of any association of Christians for any purpose whatever,
+whether civil or religious, and therefore discountenance all Sunday
+School, Bible, Missionary, or even purely Benevolent, Societies.  They do
+not disapprove of sending either Bibles or Missionaries to the heathen;
+but they say that if they go at all, “God and not the church must send
+them.”  They do not think that the Gospel is to convert the world, but
+that it is to be “preached as a witness to” or rather against “all
+nations.”  The world, they say, “is reserved for judgment, and therefore
+it is wholly contrary to the character of a Christian to have any thing
+to do with it or its government.”  When a child of God is born again, “he
+lays,” say they, “all his worldly relations down at the feet of Christ,
+and he is at liberty to take up none but those which he can take up in
+the Lord.”  They neither pray for pardon of sin, nor for the presence and
+influence of the Spirit, and carefully exclude such petitions from their
+hymns.  Many of them think it inconsistent with the Christian character
+to amass wealth, or to possess furniture or clothing more than is
+_necessary_ for health and cleanliness; and very great sacrifices have
+been made by the more wealthy of them.
+
+These are most of them unimportant peculiarities; but the great feature
+of this sect, for so notwithstanding their protest, I must call these
+“Brethren,” is a degree of self approbation and uncharity for others,
+which, to say the least, is not what Christ taught.  “No sect,” says
+Rust, {87a} “is more Sectarian, and none more separate from Christians of
+all denominations than “The Plymouth Brethren.”  The Church of Rome they
+consider “bad.”  The Church of England “bad.”  “A popish priest and a
+parish priest, both bad;” “but infinitely worse,” says one of the
+Brethren (a Captain Hall), “is a people’s preacher.”  They occasionally
+indulge in what they term “biting jests and sarcastic raillery,” of the
+ministers of our church, and of those who differ from them, which evince
+but little of the meek and peaceable spirit of the Gospel; {87b} for, as
+Lord Bacon has well observed, “to intermix Scripture with scurrility in
+one sentence;—the majesty of religion and the contempt and deformity of
+things ridiculous,—is a thing far from the reverence of a devout
+Christian, and hardly becoming the honest regard of a sober man.”  If I
+have appeared to speak harshly of this sect, it is because they seem to
+me to have abandoned so much of the spirit of the Gospel.  “If the tenets
+of the Plymouth Brethren be consistent with themselves,” observes Mr.
+Rust, “they necessarily withdraw them from all society, and every
+existing form of Christianity, shutting them out from all co-operation
+with the holy and benevolent, for the relief and blessing of their poor
+or sinful fellow creatures, making it sinful to fulfil the duties of a
+subject, a citizen, &c.”  But I hope and believe that these tenets must
+be and are counteracted by the instinctive love of our kind, which for
+the benefit of the world God has implanted in man.  The human race is so
+essentially social that they who endeavour to dissociate mankind, stand
+in much the same situation as he would do who should hope to dam up the
+ocean.  It is in fact to these silent tendencies of human nature, whose
+force we never know till we attempt to check them, that we owe much of
+the innocuousness of false or overstrained opinions: the reason is
+deluded, but the feelings which the Creator has made a part of our very
+being, generally correct the false argument; and the man, if not
+previously corrupted by vice, acts right though he argues wrong.
+
+                       [Picture: Decorative header]
+
+
+
+
+LETTER VI.
+CALVINISM.
+
+
+I have already noticed that the sects into which the reformed churches
+are split, may be classified generally under two great divisions, the one
+adopting mainly the milder views of Melancthon, whose advice was much
+used in the reform of the Anglican church; the other following those of
+Calvin, which were chiefly carried out, at Geneva, the birthplace of that
+reformer, and among the Huguenots of France.  It may be well, therefore,
+before we proceed to notice the particular sects which profess to combine
+in a greater or less degree the doctrines usually termed Calvinistic, to
+examine what the opinions are which pass under that name. {90}
+
+It was at the Synod of Dort, which was assembled in the year 1618, that
+these opinions received a decided form; for James Arminius, professor of
+divinity in the University of Leyden, having rejected some part of the
+Genevan doctrine respecting predestination and grace, this synod was
+called in order to settle the disputed points.  After much debate the
+opinions of Arminius were condemned, and the doctrine of Calvin was
+summed up in five points, which gave name to what has been called the
+Quinqueticular controversy between the Calvinistic and Anti-calvinistic
+divines of Holland.  They related to,
+
+1.  Predestination or Election.
+
+2.  The extent of redemption.
+
+3.  Moral depravity and impotency. {91}
+
+4.  Effectual calling.
+
+5.  Final perseverance of the sanctified.
+
+Calvinists are understood to maintain that predestination is absolute;
+redemption limited; moral impotency total; grace inevitable; and the
+salvation of the believer, certain.  But among Calvinistic as among
+Arminian divines, there are many shades of difference indicated by the
+terms _high_ Calvinist, and _moderate_ Calvinist, _sub_ lapsarian and
+_supra_ lapsarian, _scholastic_ Calvinism and _popular_ Calvinism; which
+latter has been described as “the Augustinian theology strained off from
+its mathematics.”  These all differ so materially that Bishop Horsley
+found it necessary to admonish his clergy “to beware how they aimed their
+shaft at Calvinism before they knew what it is, and what it is not;” a
+great part of what ignorantly goes under that name, being “closely
+interwoven with the very rudiments of Christianity.”  I believe, however,
+that though differences may subsist among Calvinists themselves, as to
+the explication of their doctrines, they generally allow,
+
+1.  That God has chosen a certain number in Christ, to everlasting glory
+before the foundation of the world, according to his immutable purpose,
+and of his free grace and love; without the least foresight of faith,
+good works, or any conditions performed by the creature; and that the
+rest of mankind he was pleased to pass by, and ordain them to dishonour
+and wrath for their sins to the praise of his vindictive justice.
+
+2.  That Christ by his death and sufferings made an atonement only for
+the sins of the elect. {93a}
+
+3.  That mankind are _totally_ depraved in consequence of the fall.
+
+4.  That all whom God has predestined to life, he is pleased in his
+appointed time effectually to call by his Word and Spirit out of that
+state of sin and death in which they are by nature, to grace and
+salvation by Jesus Christ.
+
+5.  That those whom God has effectually called and sanctified by his
+Spirit, shall never finally fall from a state of grace.
+
+The prominent feature then, of the Calvinistic system, {93b} is the
+election of some, and reprobation of others from all eternity; but to
+this we may answer, that if all mankind are really appointed to sin and
+punishment, holiness and salvation irrespectively to any act of their
+own, then they will be judged in exact opposition to our Saviour’s
+declaration, that he will reward every man _according to his works_:
+{95a} and again, that it is “not the will of ‘our’ Father which is in
+heaven that one of those little ones,” i.e. children, “should perish.”
+{95b}  These declarations would, I think, sufficiently prove that St.
+Paul’s expressions on the subject relate to national, and not individual
+election, even had the Apostle himself left his meaning unexplained: for
+the servant is not greater than his master, and it is not possible that
+an inspired Apostle should preach a doctrine different from that of Him
+who commissioned him; but if I mistake not, he has himself taken especial
+care that his meaning on this important subject should _not_ be
+misunderstood.  For first, it is a notorious fact, though often
+overlooked in argument, that the very passage, “I will have mercy on whom
+I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have
+compassion,” which is the main support claimed for the doctrine of
+absolute decrees, is quoted from Exodus, and forms the assurance given by
+God himself to Moses, that He had separated _the Hebrew nation_ from all
+the people on the face of the earth. {96a}  Again St. Paul has asserted
+that God will render to _every_ man _according to his deeds_, for there
+is _no respect of persons_ with God. {96b}  God will have _all men_ to be
+saved, &c. &c.
+
+God forbid that we should consider that a man may not be a sincere
+Christian, who believes himself irrevocably called, “elect,” and
+inevitably secure of his salvation; or declare that a strict Calvinist
+cannot be attached to our church: but St. Paul teaches that “Christ died
+for all;” that grace instead of being irresistible may be received in
+vain; that those who have been once justified instead of being _sure_ of
+“final perseverance” and salvation, _may_ “sin wilfully after they have
+received the knowledge of the truth,” and “draw back to perdition,” so
+that it behoves every one “who thinketh he standeth to take heed lest he
+fall.” {96c}
+
+In regard to “irresistible” (special) “grace,” Scripture assures us that
+grace sufficient for salvation is denied to none; for St. Paul in every
+passage of the Epistles, which relates to grace, declares that the Spirit
+works in the souls of _all_, enabling them, if they do not obstinately
+resist it, “to work out their salvation.”  The following passage is taken
+from the work of a teacher of the doctrine of Special Grace.  “The reign
+of sin consists not in the multitude, greatness or prevalency of sins,
+for all these are consistent with a state of grace, and may be in a child
+of God, in whom sin doth not and cannot reign; but in the in-being of sin
+without grace, whether it act more or less violently, yea, whether it
+acts at all or no: yet if the habit of sin possess the soul without any
+principle of grace implanted, which is contrary to it, that man may be
+said to be still under the dominion of sin.  This mortification then of
+sin, as to its reigning power, is completed in the first act of
+conversion and regeneration.” {98a}  But this language is by no means
+that of St. Paul: for the writer makes grace the test of holiness;
+whereas the apostle, following therein the doctrine of his master,—“by
+their fruits ye shall know them,”—makes holiness the test of grace.
+Indeed the obscurity and perplexing nature of the doctrine above quoted,
+stands in no favourable contrast with the simple and clear declaration of
+the Saviour, that we “do not gather grapes of thorns, nor figs of
+thistles,”—and that therefore the heart must be known by the words and
+actions: and the no less decided and simple exposition of the doctrine of
+Christ, by the beloved disciple, “Little children, let no man deceive
+you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous . . . he that committeth
+sin is of the devil.  Whosoever is born of God _doth not commit sin_ . . .
+whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God.” {98b}
+
+The doctrine of the _total_ depravity of human nature, it appears to me,
+cannot be proved from Scripture any more than the two former.  St. John,
+whilst asserting that no man is wholly without sin, exhorts to efforts,
+and supposes a possible state of Christian perfection in his converts,
+wholly incompatible with a state of entire corruption: and St. Paul,
+though he clearly states that sin has brought all men under condemnation,
+and that the unspirituality of the flesh can only be successfully opposed
+by the influence of the Holy Spirit, does not declare the consequences of
+the Fall in terms such as we find in the Calvinistic writers—as “Man,
+instead of the image of God, was now become the image of the Devil;
+instead of the citizen of heaven, he was become the bond-slave of hell,
+having in himself no one part of his former purity, but being altogether
+spotted and defiled—now he seemed to be nothing else but a lump of sin.”
+And again: “Man is of his own nature fleshly and corrupt, &c. without any
+spark of goodness in him; only given to evil thoughts and evil deeds.”
+Even human nature, if closely examined, does not bear testimony to this
+as truth: for either the grace of God is accorded in such large measure
+to man from his birth, that none can be considered as wholly bad; or the
+utter corruption preached by Calvin does not exist.  All experience may
+be appealed to on this point, even that of the persons who use the above
+language; for if they search their own hearts in sincerity, they will
+become conscious of amiable affections, and admiration of what is good
+and right: neither, probably, are they guilty of any such gross and
+habitual sins, as must mark a nature so wholly depraved.  The Calvinist
+therefore can only use these strong phrases with certain grains of
+allowance: and he would be wiser if he were to avoid offending his—if he
+prefer so to call him—weaker brother, by technical terms which he himself
+cannot use in their _full force_ before the Searcher of hearts.
+
+                       [Picture: Decorative header]
+
+
+
+
+LETTER VII.
+PRESBYTERIANS.  INDEPENDENTS.
+
+
+When the preaching of Luther and his coadjutors had effectually called
+men’s attention to the affairs of the church, it was natural that
+questions with regard to its government no less than its doctrine, should
+be freely mooted.  The usurpations of Rome had a tendency to disgust the
+Reformers with episcopal government, and accordingly we find both Calvin
+and Luther establishing a more republican form; and instead of giving the
+ecclesiastical power into the hands of one man, they judged it proper to
+delegate it to the elders (presbyters) of each church respectively;
+subject only to the control of the majority of a general synod.  Such was
+the origin of what we now term Presbyterians as a sect: for in _England_
+more moderate councils, and the circumstance that the reformed tenets
+were embraced by many of the bishops, led to retaining the Episcopal form
+of church government.  In _Scotland_, after a struggle, the Presbyterian
+form was finally established, and the church or kirk of that part of
+Great Britain is regulated upon that system.  A secession has lately
+taken place on the question of the right of presentation to livings, but
+the _doctrine_ taught in both is nearly similar, i.e. that of the
+Calvinistic churches.
+
+The General Synod of Ulster (originally a branch of the established kirk
+of Scotland), is the principal body of Presbyterians considered as
+dissenters from the establishment: and there also, there is a
+Presbyterian Synod, or Church of “the Apostolic Seceders,” formed by
+seceders from the General Synod, which is thoroughly Calvinistic, and
+which maintains the same discipline that is usually observed among the
+seceding “Scottish Presbyterians.”  In the reign of Geo. I. Arianism
+{102} was openly embraced by some of the more speculative of the
+Presbyterian ministers in Ireland, and in consequence, a theological
+controversy was carried on for twenty years (from 1705 to 1725), which
+ended in the secession of eight Arian ministers, and the formation of the
+Presbytery of Antrim.  Some who were secretly inclined to Arianism had
+not the courage to follow the example of the eight seceders, and the
+leaven continued to spread among the general body during the latter part
+of the eighteenth century, till at length inquiries were instituted in
+the Synod, which led to a fresh separation.  Seventeen at length seceded
+out of thirty-seven ministers, holding Arian or Socinian tenets in the
+year 1830, and they subsequently formed themselves into a distinct Synod,
+under the name of “the Remonstrant Synod of Ulster,” and the Presbytery
+of Antrim has now become incorporated with this Synod.  These Arian
+congregations are chiefly situated in the counties of Antrim and Down, in
+the north and eastern part of the province.  There are ten or twelve
+congregations in the south of Ireland forming the Synod of Munster, which
+were also, till within a few years, Arian or Socinian.  The total number
+of Remonstrant and Socinian congregations is between thirty and forty.
+_All_ the Presbyterian bodies,—Orthodox and Arian, share in the
+Government grants known under the name of “Regium Donum.”  This royal
+bounty was originally dispensed among the Presbyterian clergy of Ulster
+in lieu of the tithes which were taken from them at the Restoration, and
+bestowed upon the Episcopal conformists.  It was withdrawn towards the
+close of the reign of Charles II.; but at the Revolution, letters patent
+passed the great seal of Ireland, granting £1200 per annum to seven
+Presbyterian ministers, during pleasure, for the use of the ministers of
+the north of Ireland, to be paid quarterly out of any of the revenues of
+the kingdom.  This grant was renewed, under certain limitations, in the
+reign of Queen Anne: and in the reign of Geo. I. £800 per annum was
+divided in equal shares between the ministers of the Ulster Synod and
+those of the Southern Association.  In 1784 an additional grant was made
+to the Ulster Synod of £1000 per annum.  In 1792 the grant was augmented
+to £5000 to be divided among the ministers of the Synod,—the Presbytery
+of Antrim,—the Seceders,—the Southern Association,—and the ministers of
+the French church, Dublin.  In 1803 some fresh regulations were made, by
+which the distribution of the bounty was taken immediately into the hands
+of Government, and the Presbyterian clergy were thus rendered more
+ostensibly what they had previously been only in effect, i.e.,
+stipendiaries of the state.  The congregations under the care of the
+several Synods and Presbyteries are now arranged in three classes
+according to the number of families and the stipend of each minister; and
+the allowance to the ministers of the three classes was fixed at £50,
+£75, and £100 per annum.  The members of the congregation feel under no
+obligation to contribute much, if anything, to their pastor’s support,
+who is therefore often compelled to have recourse to farming, grazing, or
+some other secular employment, for the support of his family.
+
+“In 1834 the ascendant party in the Synod succeeded in carrying a
+resolution enforcing unqualified subscription to the “Confession of
+Faith,” which had not previously been enforced.  The ostensible motive
+for this is a desire to bring about a closer union with the Established
+Church of Scotland.  The Irish Synod being now so far connected with the
+state as to form a species of ecclesiastical establishment, a feeling has
+been generated in favour of the established church of both countries: a
+strong protest, however has been made against the decision, but without
+avail.” {106}
+
+The increase of the Presbyterians in Ireland from whatever cause has
+borne no due proportion to that of the general population.
+
+“Presbyterianism received as a scheme of policy, though admirably adapted
+to the exigencies of the times in which it originated, partakes of the
+essential defectiveness of the incipient reformation of the sixteenth
+century, embodying these erroneous principles which were adopted by the
+founders of most of the Protestant churches, and which soon proved not
+less fatal to the cause of scriptural truth than to the internal peace of
+the Christian communities.”
+
+The first Presbyterian church was founded in Geneva by John Calvin, about
+A.D. 1541, and the system afterwards introduced into Scotland, with
+modifications by John Knox, about the year 1560, but not _legally_
+established there till 1592.  It has never flourished greatly in England,
+and the Unitarian doctrine has now been almost universally received among
+the quondam Presbyterian congregations.
+
+The _theory_ of discipline in the SCOTTISH CHURCH does not differ very
+widely from that of the English episcopacy, but the _practice_ of the two
+churches, as modified by the habits of the two nations, is totally
+different.  In order to reconcile the Anglican and Scottish confessions
+of faith, it would be requisite that the Church of England should consent
+to suppress Articles III. VII. XXXV. and XXXVI. also that part of Art.
+VI. which sanctions the public reading of the Apocrypha, and the first
+clause of Art.  XX, attributing to the church a power to decree rites and
+ceremonies, as well as authority in controversies of faith.  Agreeing, as
+the English and Scottish Churches do _substantially_ in the doctrines of
+the Protestant faith, they nevertheless differ widely,
+
+1.  As to the nature of holy orders and the power of ordination.
+
+2.  As to the hierarchical constitution of the Anglican Church.
+
+3.  As to matters of ritual, especially the use of liturgies which the
+Church of Scotland rejects.
+
+4.  As to the doctrines of sacramental grace and sacerdotal absolution,
+implied in the offices of the Anglican Church.
+
+5.  As to the whole system of discipline, Ecclesiastical Courts, &c.
+
+6.  As to certain points of Calvinistic theology.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+The INDEPENDENTS differ from the Presbyterians chiefly in three points,
+namely:
+
+1.  As to ordination, and the liberty of preaching.
+
+2.  As to the political form and constitution of church government, and
+the conditions of church communion.
+
+3.  As to the grounds and limits of religious liberty.
+
+“Ordination alone,” say the Independents, “without the precedent consent
+of the Church by those who formerly have been advanced by virtue of that
+power they have received by their ordination, doth not constitute any
+person a church officer, or communicate office power unto him.”  The
+Presbyterians on the other hand deny that the mere invitation and choice
+of the people could confer the pastoral office, or that it was even a
+pre-requisite.  The Independents seem to have identified the ministerial
+function with the pastoral office; and argued that it was absurd to
+ordain an officer without a province to exercise the office in.  Their
+opponents viewed the Christian ministry more as an order invested with
+certain inherent powers; a faculty or profession endowed with peculiar
+privileges, the admission into which required to be jealously guarded;
+and this power and authority they conceive could be transmitted by those
+of the order.  All approved candidates for the ministerial office among
+the Presbyterians, are ordained without reference to any local change;
+among the Independents no probationer is ordained till he has been
+appointed to the pastoral office.  The first Independent or
+Congregational Church in England was established by a Mr. Jacob, A.D.
+1616, though it is asserted that a Mr. Robinson was the founder of this
+sect, of which Dr. John Owen, Dr. Isaac Watts, Dr. Doddridge, and Job
+Orton were members.
+
+The following extracts are from the discourses of Robert Hall, who,
+though a Baptist, dissented from most of his brethren on the subject of
+strict communion.  He was a preacher both of Baptist and Independent
+congregations, but he did not hesitate to avow that “he had more
+fellowship of feeling for an Independent or a Presbyterian than for a
+close communion Baptist.”  His system of theological tenets was on the
+model of what has come to be denominated “Moderate Calvinism.”  With
+regard to the distinctive Calvinistic doctrine of Predestination, “I
+cannot,” says his biographer, “answer for the precise terms in which he
+would have stated it, but I presume he would have accepted those employed
+by the Church of England.  In preaching he very rarely made any express
+reference to that doctrine.”
+
+“Jesus Christ did not come, let it be remembered, to establish a mere
+external morality, that his followers might be screened from human laws
+and human justice, for human laws will take care of this.  The holy
+institution of Christianity has a nobler object, that of purifying our
+hearts and regulating our behaviour by the love of God.  In the most
+practical accounts of the proceedings of the last day given in the
+Scriptures, the excellency which is represented as being a criterion and
+distinguishing feature of the disciple of Christ, and which He will
+acknowledge, is: Christian benevolence—love to man manifested in the
+relief of the poor.  The Apostle St. John has given us a most sublime
+description of the love of God, when he says, ‘God is love;’ love is not
+so much an attribute of His nature as His _very essence_; the spirit of
+Himself.  Christian benevolence is not only the ‘image of God,’ but is
+peculiarly an imitation of Christ.”  “I do not ask, my brethren, what
+particular virtue you have, but _how much are you under the influence of
+Him_? for just so much virtue we have, as we have of His spirit and
+character.”  “Our Saviour places the acceptance of men, not upon their
+dispositions, but upon their actions; upon what _they have done_, not
+upon what they have _merely believed_ or _felt_, or in any undefined
+state of mind.”—“I am persuaded that the cause of the ruin of professing
+Christians does not arise so much from a mistake of the doctrines of
+Christianity as from a low idea of Christian morals; in abstaining from
+certain crimes and disorders through fear of the loss of character and of
+punishment, without reflecting on the spirit of that holy religion which
+we profess.”—“Christ went about doing good, not as an _occasional_
+exercise, but as his _employment_; it was the one thing which he did.
+Though possessed of infinite power, he never employed it in resenting or
+retaliating an injury.  He was pre-eminently devout.  His was an active
+life; it was not the life of a solitary monk.  That devotion which
+terminates in itself is a luxury which sometimes perverts the principles
+of benevolence to a pernicious purpose.  Let us rather recede from being
+called Christians than forget the great symbol of our profession, love to
+one another.”
+
+                       [Picture: Decorative header]
+
+
+
+
+LETTER VIII.
+PARTICULAR BAPTISTS, SUB AND SUPRALAPSARIANS, SANDEMANIANS.
+
+
+Having now given some account of the principal Calvinistic sects, I shall
+conclude by mentioning a few of those less numerous societies, which,
+whilst agreeing in the peculiar doctrines of Calvin, differ upon other
+points.  THE PARTICULAR BAPTISTS, agreeing with the General Baptists on
+most other practices and doctrines, differ from them on this.  The
+separation took place in the year 1616, when a controversy on the subject
+of infant baptism having arisen among the Baptists, one portion calling
+itself the “Independent Congregation” seceded, embraced the Calvinistic
+doctrine, and became the first Particular Baptists: others, who were in
+general attached to the opinions of Calvin, concerning the decrees of God
+and Divine Grace, were not entirely agreed concerning the manner of
+explaining the doctrine of the Divine decrees.  The greater part believed
+that God only _permitted_ the first man to fall into transgression,
+without particularly predetermining his fall: these were termed
+SUBLAPSARIANS.  But others again maintained that “God in order to
+exercise and display his justice and his free mercy, had decreed from all
+eternity the transgression of Adam, and so ordered the course of events,
+that our first parents could not possibly avoid their fall.  These were
+termed SUPRALAPSARIANS.
+
+There is a modern sect that originated in Scotland about 1728, termed
+Glassites, from its founder Mr. John Glass, who was expelled by the Synod
+from the Church of Scotland, for maintaining that “the kingdom of Christ
+was not of this world.”  His adherents then formed themselves into
+churches, conformable in their institution and discipline to what they
+apprehended to be the plan of the first churches recorded in the New
+Testament.  Soon after the year 1755, Mr. John Sandeman (an elder in one
+of these congregations in Scotland) attempted to prove that “Faith is
+neither more nor less than a simple assent to the Divine testimony,
+concerning Jesus Christ delivered for the offences of men and raised
+again for their justification, as recorded in the New Testament.”  He
+also mentioned that the word _Faith_ or _Belief_, is constantly used by
+the Apostles to signify what is denoted by it in common conversation,
+i.e. a persuasion of the truth of any proposition, and that there is no
+difference between believing any common testimony, and believing the
+apostolic testimony, except that which results from the testimony itself,
+and the Divine authority on which it rests.  This led to controversy
+among the Calvinists and Sandemanians, concerning the nature of
+justifying faith; and the latter formed themselves into a separate sect.
+They administer the sacrament of the Lord’s supper weekly, and hold “love
+feasts,” of which every member is not only allowed but required to
+partake, and which consists of their dining together at each other’s
+houses, in the interval between the morning and afternoon service.  They
+interpret literally the precept respecting the “kiss of charity,” which
+they use on the admission of a new member, as well as on other occasions,
+when they deem it necessary or proper: they make a weekly collection
+before the sacrament of the Lord’s supper; use mutual exhortation;
+abstain from blood and things strangled; wash each other’s feet; hold
+that every one is to consider all that he possesses to be liable to the
+calls of the poor and the church, and that it is unlawful to “lay up
+treasure upon earth,” by setting them apart for any future use.  They
+allow of public and private diversions, so far as they are not connected
+with circumstances really sinful; but apprehending a lot to be sacred,
+they disapprove of lotteries, playing at cards, dice, &c.  They maintain
+the necessity of a plurality of elders, pastors, or bishops in each
+church, and the necessity of the presence of two elders in every act of
+discipline, and at the administration of the Lord’s supper.  Second
+marriages disqualify for the office of elder.  The elders are ordained by
+prayer and fasting, imposition of hands, and giving the “right hand of
+fellowship.”  In their discipline they are strict and severe, and in
+every transaction esteem unanimity to be absolutely necessary.
+
+                       [Picture: Decorative header]
+
+
+
+
+LETTER IX.
+CALVINISTIC METHODISTS.  EVANGELICAL OR SERIOUS CHRISTIANS.
+
+
+I noticed the name of George Whitfield when speaking of Wesley and his
+followers, for during a time they acted in unison; Whitfield, however,
+soon embraced the Calvinistic tenets, and then the friends separated with
+much of unkindly feeling.  Wesley held the doctrines of Calvin in
+abhorrence, as altogether unchristian and unfounded in Scripture.  “I
+defy you to say so hard a thing of the Devil,” said he with
+characteristic earnestness, when speaking of the notion that God could
+arbitrarily create any for eternal reprobation.  This separation between
+the leaders soon extended to their congregations, and from that time
+Calvinistic and Wesleyan Methodists became distinct sects, differing,
+however, but little on any other point, excepting in the greater tendency
+to enthusiasm among the followers of Whitfield.
+
+“Wesley and Whitfield,” says Mr. Sidney in his life of Rowland Hill,
+“were men of widely different characters, both in respect to their
+natural dispositions as well as the discipline of their minds; and
+painful frailties were visible in the midst of their true greatness.  An
+ambitious love of power was evidently the besetting weakness of John
+Wesley; aspiration to the _honours_ when he had no prospect of the
+_suffering_ of martyrdom, was that of Whitfield.”  In his letters to
+Rowland Hill, it is evident how he courted and enjoyed persecution; and
+whenever “_the fire_ (to use his own expression) was kindled in the
+country;” he was not satisfied unless “honoured” by being scorched a
+little in its flame.  This was a wrong spirit, and did injury to his own
+mind, and to his followers, by encouraging a morose and morbid carriage
+towards the world, giving needless offence, and provoking animosity in
+those who might have been attracted and endeared to truth by the lovely
+graces of pure Christianity.”
+
+At the time when he, and his early friends the Wesleys began their
+ministry, the piety of all classes was at a very low ebb.  The
+earnestness of these men gave a new impulse to religious feeling, and
+after a time a considerable number of other episcopally ordained
+ministers of the church, together with a portion of the laity, became
+influenced by the same sentiments.  Without seceding, they formed a party
+in the church, leaning to Calvinism to the extent they thought justified
+by the XXXIX Articles; and this party soon became designated by several
+distinguishing terms.  They called themselves _Evangelical_ first,
+afterwards when that became a cant term of misapplied reproach, they took
+the title of _Serious_ Christians, and by others were called _Low
+Church_, and _Methodistical_.  Besides distinguishing themselves by an
+especial name, they avoided public amusements, used a peculiar
+phraseology, and seemed to delight in wearing their religion externally
+in the sight of all men, thinking perhaps to reform the thoughtless by
+the example of their greater strictness.  But herein, in my opinion, they
+made a net for their own feet, for that very aspiration after greater
+exaltation which is implanted in us as a spur to strive after glory and
+immortality, is soon by mismanagement perverted into a love of earthly
+distinction.  Hence comes ambition; but the ambition for worldly honours
+has in it this alleviation, that the man who toils after a title or a
+fortune, knows that he is, after all, seeking but a mean object; and if
+ever his mind is awakened at all to a sense of the world to come, the
+soul springs back to its true ambition, and launches into the career
+natural to it: but the man who seeks to be distinguished among his
+brethren for superior holiness, and wears it externally, that it may be
+seen and honoured by men, blinds his better nature, and fetters it to
+earth by chains forged in heaven; he sees not that he is ambitious; he is
+not aware that while seeking, as he imagines, to honour God in his life,
+he is enjoying at his heart’s core the respectful homage of men; and
+whilst attending to his outward deportment, and making a display even of
+his humility, he too frequently leaves the inner heart unchastened.  Our
+Saviour knew the frailties of man, and his injunction that our religion
+should chiefly be manifested by our benevolent feelings towards our
+fellow creatures, while the communing with God should be carried on in
+silence and secrecy, is the only safe guide in these matters.
+
+I have no doubt that there are many of the Low Church party, whose
+conscientiousness sets at defiance the dangers of the system they have
+adopted: indeed my own private friendships warrant me in saying so: but
+it is not well to lead others into dangerous paths where our own skill
+indeed may enable us to walk safely, but where the hindmost, whom we are
+not leading by the hand, are in continual hazard of deviating from the
+true course; and therefore whilst honouring individual virtues, I
+continue to consider the whole system erroneous: one whose tendency is to
+create spiritual pride, and lower the standard of Christian benevolence
+by restricting to a party that fellowship which should be universal.  It
+does but substitute the excitement of the crowded church where a popular
+preacher charms with all the graces of rhetoric, of the committee room,
+of the speakers at Exeter Hall, for the ball room and the theatre; with
+this difference, that in the first case the instinct which makes the mind
+seek this excitement, is overlooked; the man believes himself performing
+a meritorious action, and looks with some contempt on his weaker
+brethren, who cannot exist without worldly amusements; on the other he
+knows what he is about, and if he be well-intentioned, guards against
+excess.  It would be wiser therefore to acknowledge the instinct; not bad
+in itself, for God implanted it, and if it be denied a due indulgence,
+the mind sinks into hopeless imbecility; and not to blame those who seek
+other, but innocent means of gratifying it. {122a}
+
+The extracts that I am about to give, from the writings of two men of
+note, in that party, distinguished also for their genuine Christian
+feeling, will show that they saw the dangers I have pointed out, and were
+anxious to guard against them.  The following extracts are given in Mr.
+Sidney’s “Life of the Rev. Rowland Hill.” {122b}
+
+“I hate dry doctrinal preaching, without warm, affectionate, and
+experimental applications.  Oh! ’tis most pleasant to love one another
+with pure hearts fervently.  Love is of God, for ‘God is love.’  The
+summit of our happiness must be the perfection of our holiness.  By this
+blessed grace we have the brightest evidence that we are ‘born of God.’
+If we allow that little shades of difference may exist, we ought to ‘love
+as brethren,’ and where Christian candour and love are found to reign,
+the odious sin of schism, according to its general interpretation, cannot
+exist.”  “It is no sign that we value the blessings of God, if we can
+part with them” (i.e. dear friends) “without regret.  That mind is badly
+framed that prefers stoical indifference to Christian sensibility, and
+though the pain is abundantly more acute where those finer feelings of
+the mind are found to exist; yet who deserves the name of a human being
+who is without them?”  “While a soul within our reach is ignorant of a
+Saviour, we must endeavour to win it to Christ.  How weary I am of a
+great deal of what is called the ‘_religious world_!’  High and Low
+Church Sectarianism seems to be the order of the day; we are much more
+busy in contending for _parties_ than for _principles_.  These evils are
+evidences of a lack of genuine Christianity.  Oh! when shall that happy
+day dawn upon us, when real Christians and Christian ministers of all
+denominations shall come nearer to each other.”
+
+The next extracts shall be from the writings of one who was scarcely
+appreciated by the world in general, but of whose excellencies I was
+enabled to judge, during my residence at Cambridge; Mr. Simeon.
+
+“Religion appears in its true colours when it regulates our conduct in
+social life; your religion must be seen, not in the church, or in the
+closet only, but in the shop, the family, the field: it must mortify
+pride and every other evil passion, and must bring faith into exercise.
+Try yourselves by this standard: see what you are as husbands or wives,
+parents or children, masters or servants.” {124}
+
+“The self-righteous, self-applauding moralist can spy out the failings
+and infirmities of those who profess a stricter system of religion; but
+let me ask such an one, ‘Are there not in thee, even in thee, sins
+against the Lord thy God?’  Verily if thou wouldst consult thy own
+conscience, thou wouldst see little reason, and feel little inclination
+too, to cast stones at others.  Professors of religion also are but too
+guilty of this same fault, being filled with an overweening conceit of
+their own excellencies, and a contemptuous disregard of their less
+spiritual neighbours.  But I would ask the professed follower of Christ,
+Are there not sins with thee too as well as with the pharisaic formalist?
+Are there not great and crying evils in the religious world, which prove
+a stumbling block to those around them?  Are there not often found among
+professors of religion the same covetous desires, the same fraudulent
+practices, the same deviations from truth and honour, as are found in
+persons who make no profession?  Are there not many whose tempers are so
+unsubdued, that they make their whole families a scene of contention and
+misery?  Yes!  Though the accusations which are brought against the whole
+body of religious people as ‘hypocrites,’ are a gross calumny, there is
+but too much ground for them in the conduct of many.”  “Nothing is more
+common, and nothing more delusive than a noisy, talkative religion.  True
+religion is a humble, silent, retired thing; not affecting public notice,
+but rather wishing to approve itself to God.  It is not in _saying_
+‘Lord, Lord!’ but in _doing_ the will of our heavenly Father, that we
+shall find acceptance at the last day.  Happy would it be if many who
+place all their religion in running about and hearing sermons, and
+talking of the qualifications of ministers, would attend to this hint,
+and endeavour to acquire more of that wisdom which evinces its Divine
+origin by the excellence of its fruits.” {126}
+
+                       [Picture: Decorative header]
+
+
+
+
+LETTER X.
+ON ROMANISM AND CEREMONIAL RELIGION.
+
+
+I promised that as the completion of my task, I would notice those
+differences which have occurred in the bosom of the church itself, even
+though they can scarcely be called _sects_; I therefore propose to
+conclude my correspondence with a short survey of the above-named, which
+I think should rather be viewed as the working out of great principles,
+than as parties distinguished by particular creeds or opinions on
+abstract subjects.  I may run counter to some prejudices, perhaps, in so
+doing; but the truth is well worth running a tilt for:—you may sit by as
+umpire, and decide when I have done, whether I have carried my spear in a
+knightly fashion.
+
+Though I shall not think it necessary, like Racine’s advocate in Les
+Plaideurs, to go back to the Assyrians and the Babylonians to illustrate
+my proposition, yet I must begin from a very distant period, in order to
+make my views thoroughly comprehensible.  I must therefore beg you to
+notice that the tendency of man’s mind always is, and always has been,
+towards the visible and the tangible.  The pure abstraction of a
+Governing Will without any perceptible presence, has in it something too
+remote from the common habits, powers, and feelings of human nature, ever
+to be thoroughly embraced by the heart of man; and we find that the Deity
+has always condescended so far to the weakness of his creatures, as to
+give the imagination some resting place.  Thus the patriarch had his
+altar of sacrifice, where the fire from heaven marked the present
+Deity—and the Israelite had first the pillar of the cloud, and then the
+tabernacle, where the mysterious Shechinah dwelt over the mercy seat.
+Yet even this indistinct representation of an embodied Deity, did not
+satisfy the people: they required a _form_, tangible, visible, and Aaron
+yielded to the wish; because he thought it a prudent and allowable
+compliance with the weakness of human nature.  He was wrong, and was
+punished for it; and this transaction we shall find the type and
+foreshadowing of every thing that has since happened in the world with
+regard to religion.  The Almighty gives man just enough to rest his
+thoughts upon: it is the fire on the altar, the cloud, the temple, and
+last of all _the man_, in whom our devotion may find also an object of
+affection: but he requires that we shall not go beyond this.  We must not
+return to earth, and make for ourselves a worship less spiritual than he
+has instituted; on the contrary, he requires us to pierce through the
+veil as we advance in knowledge, and discern the spiritual through the
+visible.  Hence the perpetual denunciations of the prophets against the
+Jews for their adherence to forms, which latterly they did adhere to,
+instead of giving attention to the purification of their hearts.
+
+Among all but the Israelites, the progress of the tangible was much more
+rapid: idolatry, with all its gross rites, had established itself among
+_the people_, at any rate, in Egypt, at a very early period; and spread
+from that old and luxurious empire, through the more simple states which
+sprang up around and from it.  The Exodus was a warning from on high,
+that there was a Being, unseen and intangible, whose fiat governed all
+things: and this lesson was not wholly without fruit: yet still the human
+race reverted to the objects of the senses, till, in God’s good time, he
+sent his Son: presented a tangible form on which the mind could
+dwell—then removed it from the earth, and said, “You may now think on
+this, and give your imagination a resting place: this form you shall see
+again; but in mean time you must purify your hearts from earthly desires:
+that form will only greet your eyes when you have cast off the burthen of
+the flesh, and have entered upon a spiritual existence.”  The first
+Christians remembered and loved the man; his precepts, his example, his
+smallest words or actions were recurred to with the fondness of personal
+friendship; and this carried Christianity through the first two
+centuries; but then this remembrance began to have a character of
+abstraction, and again the human heart called for tangibility.  Then
+came, step by step, gorgeous ceremonies, pictures, representations of the
+personal presence and sufferings of the Saviour.  The very requirements
+of those who quitted the splendid and sensual rites of heathenism for the
+faith of Christ, led the Christian doctors to endeavour to replace the
+festival of the idol by something analogous in the Christian church: and
+thus without well knowing what they were tending to, the heads of the
+church yielded one point of spiritualism after another; sought to
+captivate and awe the people by impressive ceremonies; and finished by
+the sin of Aaron: they set up the image and said, “These be thy Gods, O
+Israel! that brought thee out of the land of Egypt.” {131a}  For be it
+observed here, that Aaron set up this image merely as a tangible
+representation of the true Deity; _a help to the devotion of the people_,
+who could not worship without seeing something.
+
+This then is Romanism; it is not transubstantiation, nor the mediation of
+the Virgin and the Saints, {131b} nor the infallibility of popes and
+councils; these are natural consequences indeed, but the distinctive
+character of the Romish church is _tangibility_.  “There is the actual
+flesh,” it says, “there is the representation of the actual human
+presence of saints and martyrs; there is the actual man enthroned, who
+represents the power of God:” but it might have fifty other ways of
+satisfying this restless craving of the human mind, and it would be
+equally pernicious in any of these forms.  Man’s great struggle has
+always been between the animal and the spiritual nature, and when
+religion goes one step farther towards tangibility than the Deity himself
+has allowed, the animal nature gains strength; and vice and
+licentiousness follow as naturally, among the mass of the people, as rain
+follows the cloud.
+
+Observe, I do not here deny that many may profess a religion of sense,
+and remain spiritually-minded themselves: Heathenism had its Socrates,
+its Xenocrates, &c.—Romanism has its Pascal, its Fenelon, and a train of
+other great names: but look at the _people_ during that period, and the
+account will be very different.  When an ignorant man imagines that he
+can remove the Divine anger by a sacrifice or a penance, he avoids the
+trouble of curbing his passions, and compounds, as he thinks, for
+indulgence of the one, by the performance of the other; but when he is
+told that purity of life and thought is the only road to Divine favour,
+if he sins, he sins at least with some feelings of compunction, some
+dread that he may not have it in his power to remove the stain he is
+incurring.  The preaching of Wesley reformed multitudes, all enthusiastic
+as it was; but it would be difficult to find a parallel in the annals of
+Romanism.  As great a movement of the public mind was made by the
+preaching of Peter the Hermit; but how different was the object and the
+result!  The personal pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre, as a mode of
+wiping out sin, was undertaken by thousands, who perished miserably, or,
+if they lived, came back not better men than they went: under a system of
+less tangibility, and a preaching as effective, they might have staid in
+their homes, and glorified God by a life such as Christ came to teach and
+to exemplify.
+
+It is so much easier to make a pilgrimage, or endure a long fast, than to
+subdue and tame the animal nature till it becomes obedient to the
+rational will, and seconds instead of resisting its wishes, that it is
+not surprising that in all ages a religion of outward observance should
+be more popular than one of inward purification.  Those even which set
+off with the highest pretensions in this way have degenerated, and the
+outward and visible form is too often substituted for the inward and
+spiritual grace, which it was intended to _represent_ not to _supersede_.
+That religion therefore has the best chance of influencing the soul,
+which, as far as is possible, renounces outward demonstrations which
+human indolence is so glad to rely on, and preaches boldly and
+effectually the uselessness of ceremonies, farther than as they tend to
+preserve the remembrance of HIM who came to call the world back to
+HIMSELF, to trample on the sensual and the animal, and to raise man to
+his pristine, or rather, to what is to be his future state.  A public
+acknowledgment of Christ as our Master and Lord, and a compliance with
+his own few and simple ordinances; are all that Christian duty requires,
+and nearly as much as Christian prudence will permit.  The rest is a
+matter of worldly expediency, and should be so regarded.
+
+No doubt rests on my own mind—I leave others to think as they may—that
+Episcopacy was the established form of the Church as soon as the
+Christian communities began to assume enough of regularity to admit of
+any settled order; and I think it a wise form.  As far as any institution
+can, it secures unity and decency in the church: and as far as any
+institution can, that was not positively established by Christ himself,
+it possesses, in my mind, the sanction of antiquity.  It gives the
+concentration of purpose and regularity of effort which is bestowed by
+the discipline of an army; for as in an army a detachment acts upon the
+same system of tactics, and obeys officers constituted by the same
+authority, and thus assists the efforts of the main body, and falls into
+rank with it when they meet; so the church, under such a form, may send
+detachments to the ends of the earth, who may meet after long years, as
+brothers of the same communion, and find that though the individuals have
+passed away, others have stepped into their place in the ranks, and are
+teaching what their predecessors taught.  The benefit of church
+discipline, therefore, in my mind is great; but I do not suppose that
+salvation depends on it, because God has repeatedly declared that Christ
+died _for all_, {135a} and that he is not willing that any should perish;
+{135b} consequently he can hardly have made our eternal state dependent
+on what no man can accomplish for himself.  A person may not have it in
+his power to receive baptism from an ordained priest, but he may live as
+Christ taught; or, having never heard of Christ even, he may, like the
+gentiles, win glory and immortality, {135c} if, having not the law, he be
+a law unto himself.  I would not receive Christ’s ordinances from the
+hands of any but an ordained priest, myself, because if a doubt exist in
+my mind, I sin in doing the doubtful thing; but herein I speak only for
+myself; let every man do as he is “persuaded in his mind” {136} in
+matters of secondary import, as all ceremonial matters must be.
+
+You will now be prepared for my opinion with regard to the late movement
+made in the church by the Anglo-Catholics, as they term themselves;
+Puseyites, or Newmanites, as they have been termed by others.  They have
+been thought to have introduced innovations—they have not:—there is not
+one of the ceremonies or practices which they have recommended, which was
+not very early practised in the church; but it was from the undue
+importance attached to these ceremonies, which came to be regarded with
+reverence from having been instituted by apostles and martyrs, that the
+after growth of Roman superstition sprang up so rankly.  I believe the
+first promoters of this movement were as remote from actual Romanism as I
+am, when they first began it; but when once reason is submitted to any
+human dictum, in matters of religion, there is no resting place till we
+arrive at the “infallible” guide which the Romish church claims to be.
+There alone can the soul which will not think for itself, find a ready
+and confident director.  Accordingly, we find that some of those very men
+who but a few years back exposed the errors of Romanism, have now yielded
+themselves blindfold to the guidance of that very church, which, as long
+as they allowed themselves to reason, they acknowledged to have departed
+from the truth.  Yet it is perhaps fortunate for the people generally,
+that this declension of its pastors has been as rapid and complete as it
+has been:—they were going back towards the sin of Aaron—they were
+insisting on ceremonies as necessary to salvation, thus rendering
+religion gross and tangible, and the people thus taught would soon have
+forgotten what those ceremonies were intended to represent, and have
+depended for salvation on what could not avail them in the hour of need:
+for the repetition of prayer is not necessarily praying, nor is the
+reception of the eucharist necessarily sanctification, though these may
+be the outward and visible signs of the inward and spiritual grace which
+is working in the heart.  Once teach a man that _any_ ceremony is
+_requisite_ to salvation, and he will soon go a step further by himself,
+and think the outward ceremony sufficient without the inward grace.  This
+indeed is but a necessary corollary; for if the ceremony be requisite to
+salvation, then the inward grace working purity of life, avails not
+without the ceremony; and thus purity of life is no longer a substantive
+virtue; it cannot stand alone; and the prop which it requires being so
+very strong, why should not the prop itself be all in all?  This will be
+the course of ratiocination in the mind of the mass of mankind, whether
+avowed or not; and however the promoters of a ceremonial religion may
+shrink from such a consequence, it is so certain, as all experience
+shows, that they might as well throw a man who cannot swim into the
+water, and recommend him not to drown, as give a half instructed man a
+ceremony, which he is told is requisite to salvation, and expect that he
+will not cling to that, as the more convenient and least difficult
+observance; and whilst perfect in complying with every ordinance of the
+church, forget that he has overlooked the weightier matters of the
+law—judgment, justice, and mercy.
+
+This may sound harsh, but it is true; and I appeal to the calm judgment
+even of the excellent Dr. Pusey himself, who has so unintentionally drawn
+many into a course from which, haply, he would now gladly draw them back,
+whether it be not so?  His learning will show him how, through all ages,
+the spiritualism taught from heaven, has been counteracted by the visible
+and the tangible contrived by man; and in the step from the patriarchal
+religion, to the idolatry of Greece and Rome; from Christianity as
+preached by Christ and his Apostles, to the gross superstitions of the
+twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, he may see a type of what
+would be the consequence of again enforcing a ceremonial religion.
+
+                       [Picture: Decorative header]
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+
+The following are extracts from the “Christianæ Religionis Institutio,”
+of Faustus Socinus:
+
+_Q_.  Quid igitur de Dei natura, sive essentia, nosse omnino nos debere
+statuis?
+
+_R_.  Hæc duo in summa.  Quod sit et quod unus tantum sit.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+_Q_.  Verum quid quæso saltem de Spiritu Sancto nunc mihi dicis de quo
+isti similiter affirmant eum esse divinam personam, nempe tertiam, et
+unum atque eundem numero Deum cum Patre et Filio?
+
+_R_.  Nempe illum non esse personam aliquam a Deo cujus est spiritus,
+distinctam, sed tantum modo (ut nomen ipsum _Spiritus_, quod flatum et
+afflationem, ut sic loquar, significat, docere potest) ipsius Dei vim et
+efficaciam quandam, id est eam, quæ secum sanctitatem aliquam afferat.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+_Q_.  Quid censes de Christi natura sive essentia nobis cognitii esse
+necessarium?
+
+_R_.  Id, ut antea dixi, sine cujus cognitione voluntas Dei erga nos per
+ipsum Christum patefacta, a nobis vel sciri, vel servari nequeat.
+
+_Q_.  Quid igitur ex iis quæ ad Christi naturam sive essentiam pertinent,
+ejusmodi esse censes?
+
+_R_.  Vix quidquam.  Nam quædam, quæ ad ipsius Christi personam alioqui
+pertinent, et nobis omnino ob prædictam causam cognita esse debent, non
+naturalia illi sunt, sed a Deo postmodum ipsi data et concessa, et sic ad
+Dei voluntatem sunt referenda, et quidem ad primam quam fecimus ejus
+partem, id est ad Dei operationes.
+
+_Q_.  Quæ nam sunt ista?
+
+_R_.  Divinum imperium quod in nos habet.  Rom. xiv. 9.; et suprema illa
+majestas.  Ephes. i. 20, &c.; qua quidquid usquam est, aut excogitari
+potest, præter unam tantum ipsius Dei majestatem longe excellit.  1 Cor.
+xv. 27.  Phil. ii. 8, 9.  Heb. ii. 9.  Hæc enim Christo haud naturalia
+esse, sed a Deo Patre illi data fuisse, ipsumque ea per et propter mortem
+atque obedientiam et resurrectionem suam adeptum esse, apertissime
+scriptura testatur.
+
+_Q_.  Cur vero hæc de Christo cognoscere omnino debemus?
+
+_R_.  Quia, ut Christum divino cultu officiamus vult Deus.  Joh. v. 25.
+Psal. xlv. 12.  Heb. i. 6.  Philip. ii. 10.; ejus generis, inquam, cultu
+cujus is est, quem ipsi Deo exhibere debemus.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+_Q_.  Quid de ipsa tamen Christi essentia seu natura statuis?
+
+_R_.  De Christi essentia ita statuo, illum esse hominem.  Rom. v. 15.;
+in virginis utero, et sic sine viri ope, divini spiritus vi conceptum ac
+formatum.  Matt. i. 20. 23.  Luc. i. 35.; indeque genitum, primum quidem
+patibilem ac mortalem. 2 Cor. xiii. 4.; donec, scilicet munus sibi a Deo
+demandatum hie in terris obivit; deinde vero postquam in cœlum ascendit,
+impatibilem et immortalem factum.  Rom. vi. 9.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+_Q_.  Quid enim primum sibi vult, quod innuis hoc quod Christus Dei
+filius sit proprius et unigenitus non omnino ad ejus naturam pertinere?
+
+_R._  Divina ista Christi filiatio, eatenus tantum ad ejus naturam aliquo
+modo referri potest, quatenus id respicit quod Christus divini Spiritus
+vi sine viri ope in virginis utero conceptus et formatus fuit.  Nam
+hujusce rei causa eum Dei filium vocatum ire, ipsius Dei Angelus ipsimet
+virgini, ex qua natus est, prædixit.  Luc. i. 35; et quidem consequenter
+Dei filium proprium et unigenitum, cum nemo alius hac ratione, et ab ipso
+primo ortu Dei films unquam extiterit.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+_R_.  Quod attinet ad primum testimonium quod habetur (i.e. of
+præexistence) Joh. i. 3.  Dictio universalis _omnia_ non prorsus
+universaliter accipienda est, sed ad subjectam materiam restringenda, ut
+scilicet ea tantum omnia complectatur, quæ ad Evangelium pertinent.
+
+_Q_.  Sed quid dices, quod in loco isto apud Johannem additur; sine
+verbo, id est Deo filio, nihil esse factum?
+
+_R_.  Immo cum certum esse videatur, mox sequentia verba _quod factum
+est_ (quidquid nonnulli contra sentiant) cum additione ista conjungenda
+esse: dicendum potius videtur, voluisse Evangelistam cum ista addidit
+indicare se de quibusdam nunquam antea et nova ac mirabili ratione factis
+loqui.  Nam ad docendum simpliciter se loqui de iis quæ sunt facta nec
+semper fuerunt, satis habebat illa verba addere, _et sine ipso factum est
+nihil_.  Itaque mysterio non videtur carere, quod præterea addit _quod
+factum est_; subaudi novum et mirabile, ad mundi ipsius statum pertinens,
+&c. &c.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+Jam dictum est (est de pœnis persolvendis primum agamus) pœnam quam
+uniusquisque nostrum propter delicta sua pendere tenebatur, mortem
+æternam esse.  Hanc profecto Christus non subiit; et si cam subiisset,
+universi salutis nostræ et liberationis a peccatorum pœna spes, et ratio
+funditus eversa fuisset.  Immo si jam Christus non resurrexisset, vana,
+ut inquit Paulus.  1 Cor. xv. 14, 17.; esset Evangelii prædicatio, et nos
+adhuc essemus in peccatis nostris.  Et tamen, si idcirco nos servasset
+Christus, quod pœnas nostris peccatis debitas ipse sustinuisset, et nobis
+ejus rei fides quoad ejus fieri poterat facienda fuisset; eum nunquam
+resurgere, sed in morte perpetuo manere oportuisset: Op. Vol. p. 197,
+fol. Edit.
+
+Ac dicitis, ut conjeci potest, animadvertendum esse, aliam in ipsa
+essentia divina personam patris esse, aliam personam filii: et Patri
+potuisse a Filio satisfieri seu ut satisfierat, vim suppeditari: nec
+tamen aliquid quod satisfactioni per solutionem facienda adversetur,
+committi.  Sed dicite obsecro, nonne ipsius filii personæ non minus quam
+patris satisfaciendum fuisse affirmatis.  Si filius patri satisfacit, hoc
+est, quod illi debetur solvit: quis ipsi filio, quod ipsi debetur, dabit?
+Respondebitis, ut arbitror, si patri satisfactum fuit, filio quoque
+satisfactum esse; cum eadem sit utriusque voluntas . . . Quomodo patri a
+filio quidquam ullo parto solvi potuisset si quod unius aut est, aut fit,
+alterius reipsa esse necesse foret? . . . At vero quis deinde ambigere
+queat filium patri nihil dare posse: cum quidquid filius habet patris
+revera sit, et ipse Christus disertè dixerit, Joh. xvii. 10, omnia quæ
+sua erant patris esse?  Annon ex ipsa disciplina vestra, hoc est Dei
+essentiam non distinguere, sed partiri: si præter personarum
+proprietates, aliquid unam personam habere velitis quod alia non habeat.
+Filii autem personam proprietates suas patris personæ pro peccatorum
+nostrorum satisfactione solvisse, cui unquam in mentem venire poteret?
+Ib. p. 202.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                                  FINIS.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                      CHARLES WHITTINGHAM, CHISWICK.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+
+
+
+Footnotes.
+
+
+{3}  αγαπη which is the word generally translated _charity_ in the New
+Testament means _affectionate regard_.  The distinction between charity
+and almsgiving is well laid down by St. Clement of Alexandria.
+“Charity,” says he, “leads to the sharing our good things with others;
+but this is not in itself charity, but only our outward sign of that
+feeling.”
+
+{4}  See 1 Cor. ix. 19, 20.
+
+{5a}  Rom. xii. 10.
+
+{5b}  “No national prejudices, no religious differences could hinder our
+Saviour from doing good.  We should consider that men’s understandings
+naturally are not all of the same size and capacity, and that this
+difference is greatly increased by different education, different
+employments, different company, and the like.  No man is infallible.  We
+are liable to errors perhaps as much as others.  The very best men may
+sometimes differ in opinion, as St. Paul ‘withstood St. Peter to the
+face;’ and if there was such a difference between two of the chiefest of
+the Apostles, well may there be between inferior mortals.  About modes of
+faith there will always be dispute and difference; but in acts of mercy
+and kindness all mankind may and should agree.”—_Newton_.
+
+{8}  “In fact, all the religious persecutions in the world, all the
+penalties and inflictions upon those who differ from ourselves, however
+conscientiously, take their rise from an imperfect and erroneous notion
+of what really constitutes the glory of God, and the manner in which we
+best can assist its display and extension.  The angels at the birth of
+Christ sang that the glory of God was in unison with ‘Peace on earth, and
+good will towards men.’—‘No!’ said the Schoolman, ‘the glory of God
+consists in thinking of the Deity as we think.’—‘No!’ said the
+Inquisitor, ‘the glory of God consists in worshiping as we
+prescribe.’—‘No!’ said the Covenanters, ‘the glory of God consists in
+exterminating those whom we call his enemies.’  Mistaken men! who _thus_
+propose to honour the God and Father of the universe, the merciful God,
+and the gracious Father of all his rational creatures!  Instead of
+perusing with delight and conviction the plain declaration contained in
+our Sacred records, too many Christians have in almost every age passed
+over the characteristics of kind design throughout nature: they have
+mistaken or forgotten the clear delineations of Divine Mercy and Goodness
+in the Book of Grace, and have had recourse to the narrowed circle of
+their own prejudices.”—_Maltby’s Sermons_.
+
+{10}  It would be well if Rom. xiv. were more attentively studied and
+more universally practised among Christians.
+
+{14}  They have in consequence been sometimes called “Seekers.”
+
+{15a}  Gough’s History of the Quakers.  Vol. i. p. 139.
+
+{15b}  Probably their resolute refusal to pay tithes and other dues
+brought on them some of these punishments.
+
+{20}  “Keep the Sabbath holy,” says Luther, “for its use both to body and
+soul; but if any where the day is made holy for the mere day’s sake; if
+any where any one sets up its observance upon a _Jewish_ foundation, then
+I order you to work on it, to ride on it, to dance on it, to feast on it,
+to do any thing that shall remove this encroachment on the Christian
+spirit and liberty.”  This is language which may be easily misunderstood
+and perverted from Luther’s meaning; but it was uttered by him from a
+jealousy of Sabbatical superstition.
+
+{21}  Matt. v.
+
+{22}  “There is an unreasonable, uncharitable, and superstitious notion
+that a soldier, so far as his profession is concerned, is ‘of the world;’
+and that a man who dies in the field of battle is _necessarily_ less
+prepared for his change than one who dies in his bed.  These feelings,
+which have sadly tended to degrade and impoverish the mind of modern
+Europe . . . to make armies what they are told they _must_ be; and
+therefore to make them dangerous by depriving them of any high
+restraining principles, have been greatly encouraged by the tone which
+religious men of our day have adopted from the Quakers.”  _Maurice’s
+Kingdom of Christ_.
+
+{24a}  Moral education, in spite of all the labours of direct
+instruction, is really acquired in hours of recreation.  Sports and
+amusements are, and must be the means by which the mind is insensibly
+trained: ‘Men are but children of a larger growth;’ they will have their
+pleasures; and unless care be taken, the sermon of the church or chapel
+will be neutralized by the association of the tavern and the raceground.
+There must be safety valves for the mind, i.e. there must be means for
+its pleasurable, profitable, and healthful exertion; those means it is in
+our power to render safe and innocent; in too many instances they have
+been rendered dangerous and guilty.”  _Dr. Taylor_.
+
+{24b}  Every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused if it be
+received with thanksgiving. (1 Tim. iv. 4.)  Extend this maxim, apply it
+to the several means of enjoyment, either supposed or real, that the
+world presents to us.  Those pleasures from which we cannot unreservedly
+arise, and thank our Maker; those pursuits which mar our devotions, and
+render us unwilling or afraid to come before Him, cannot be innocent.  It
+would be no easy matter to lay down, as applicable to all, a rule as to
+how far conformity with the world is admissible, and where the Christian
+must stop: for as the habits and tempers and propensities of men differ,
+so also do their temptations and their danger.  Thus through the rule by
+which one would stand securely, another would as certainly fall.
+_Lectures on the Church Catechism_.
+
+{26}  See 1 Tim. iv. 4.
+
+{29}  “A reverend Doctor in Cambridge was troubled at his small living at
+Hoggenton (Oakington) with a peremptory Anabaptist, who plainly told him,
+‘It goes against my conscience to pay you tithes except you can show me a
+place of Scripture whereby they are due unto you.’  The Dr. returned,
+‘Why should it not go as much against my conscience that you should enjoy
+your nine parts for which you can show no place in Scripture?’  To whom
+the other rejoined, ‘But I have for my land deeds and evidences from my
+fathers, who purchased and were peaceably possessed thereof by the laws
+of the land.’  ‘The same is my title,’ said the Doctor, ‘tithes being
+confirmed unto me by many statutes of the land, time out of mind.’”
+_Fuller’s Church History_, _Book II_.
+
+{30a}  John iii. 16.
+
+{30b}  2 Cor. v. 19.
+
+{30c}  1 Tim. ii. 4.
+
+{31a}  1 John iv. 9, 10.
+
+{31b}  Rom. ii. 15.
+
+{31c}  John i. 9.  See also 1 John ii. 1, 2.  2 Heb. ii. 9.
+
+{32}  Luke xii. 48.
+
+{33a}  Mosh. Ecc. Hist. Cent. xvi. Sect. iii.
+
+{33b}  Ib.
+
+{35a}  Some of the passages of this Catechism are quoted by Mosheim,
+which differ very little from the doctrine of the primitive church: all
+that can be noticed is, that they omit a distinct recognition of the
+divinity of Christ.
+
+{35b}  “Fausti Socini Senensis Opera omnia,” vol. i. p. 561.  These works
+form a part of the “Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum qui Unitarii
+appellantur.”  Irenopoli post anno dom. 1656.
+
+{36}  It is remarkable that _persona_ should so often be confounded with
+individual.  _Persona_ in its original sense was the mask of the actor,
+_through which the sound_ came.  The same actor might wear many
+_personæ_.  If Socinus had recollected this, he might have spared himself
+the trouble of controverting a notion never maintained by the orthodox,
+i.e. that the Deity was _individually divided_.
+
+{37}  Vide Appendix.
+
+{39a}  Small Books &c.  No. VII. p. 21, &c.
+
+{39b}  πρἰν Άβραὰμ γενέσθαι ἐγώ είμι.
+
+{39c}  John. x. 30.
+
+{39d}  John xiv. 9, 10.
+
+{39e}  2 Cor. v. 19.
+
+{39f}  1 Tim. ii. 5.
+
+{40}  Athanasian Creed.
+
+{41}  John v. 30.
+
+{42}  The following are extracts from the “Book of Common Prayer
+reformed,” professing to have been a selection made by “the late Rev.
+Theophilus Lindsey for the use of the congregation in Essex Street”—and
+as a liturgy is generally allowed to be a fair exponent of the doctrines
+of those who use it—perhaps we may assume that the violent and
+reprehensible expressions made use of by some few persons of this
+persuasion, are not such as would be acknowledged by the congregations of
+Unitarians in general.
+
+Form of baptism.  “I baptize thee into (εἰς) the name of the Father and
+of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
+
+“Almighty and ever blessed God, by whose providence the different
+generations of mankind are raised up to know thee and to enjoy thy favour
+for ever; grant that this child now dedicated to thee as the disciple of
+thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord, may be endued with heavenly virtues . . .
+and that we may daily proceed in all virtue and goodness of living, till
+we come to that eternal kingdom which thou hast promised by Christ our
+Lord.”
+
+Order for the administration of the Lord’s Supper.  Confession, the same
+as in the liturgy of the English church as far as “we do heartily repent
+and are heartily sorry for these our misdoings, the remembrance of which
+is grievous unto us.  Have mercy upon us, have mercy upon us, most
+merciful Father; forgive us all that is past: and grant that we may ever
+hereafter serve and please thee in newness of life to the honour and
+glory of thy name.”  The absolution is the same with the trifling change
+of _us_ for _you_.  The sentences following are the same till “Hear also
+what St. John saith,” where the text 1 John i. 8, 9, is substituted.
+
+Prayer before the minister receives the communion.  “Almighty God, our
+heavenly Father, by whose gracious assistance and for our benefit, thy
+beloved Son our Lord Jesus Christ, was obedient even to the death upon
+the cross; who did institute, and in his holy gospel command us to
+continue, a perpetual memorial of his death until his coming again; hear
+us, we most humbly beseech thee; and grant that we may receive this bread
+and wine in grateful remembrance of his death and sufferings, and of thy
+great mercy to mankind in sending him, thy chosen messenger, to turn us
+from darkness to light, from vice to virtue, from ignorance and error to
+the knowledge of thee, the only true God, whom to know is life
+everlasting.”
+
+Form of administration.  “Take and eat this bread in remembrance of
+Christ”—“Take and drink this wine in remembrance of Christ.”
+
+In the daily service many prayers are omitted, so as to make the service
+much shorter.  The exhortation and confession are the same; for the
+absolution is substituted “Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open,
+all desires known and from whom no secrets are hid; purify the thoughts
+of our hearts that we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy
+holy name through Christ our Lord.”—It would be useless to multiply
+extracts—enough has been given to show the doctrine of the Unitarian
+congregations who use this liturgy.
+
+{47}  Priestly’s “Discourses on Various Subjects,” p. 419.  See also p.
+14, &c. and Prefatory Discourse, p. 93.
+
+{48}  Channing’s Discourse on preaching Christ.
+
+{49}  Channing’s Works.  On the great purpose of Christianity.
+
+{50a}  Channing’s Character of Christ.
+
+{50b}  Channing’s Sunday School.
+
+{50c}  Channing’s Charge at the Ordination of Rev. R. C. Waterston.
+
+{51a}  Channing On Infidelity.
+
+{51b}  Channing’s System of Exclusion.
+
+{52}  John Wesley was born in 1703.
+
+{54}  “I rode over to a neighbouring town,” says Wesley, “to wait upon a
+justice of peace, a man of candour and understanding; before whom I was
+informed their angry neighbours had carried a whole waggon load of these
+new heretics.”  But when he asked, “what they had done,” there was a deep
+silence, for that was a point their conductor had forgot.  At length one
+said, “Why they pretend to be better than other people, and besides they
+pray from morning till night.”  Mr. S--- asked, “But have they done
+nothing besides?”  “Yes, Sir,” said an old man, “an’t please your worship
+they have _convarted_ my wife; till she went among them she had such a
+tongue, and now she is as quiet as a lamb.”  “Carry them back,” replied
+the justice, “and let them convert all the scolds in the town.”—(Wesley’s
+Journal.)
+
+{55}  Watson’s Life of Wesley, page 484.
+
+{56}  Lackington.
+
+{59a}  “Who does as he would be done by, in buying or selling?
+particularly selling horses?  Write him a knave that does not, and the
+Methodist knave is the worst of all knaves.”—_Wesley’s Large Minutes_, Q.
+13.
+
+{59b}  Snuff-taking and drams are expressly forbidden.
+
+{59c}  In May 1776, an order was made in the House of Lords, “That the
+Commissioners of His Majesty’s Excise do write circular letters to all
+such persons whom they have reason to suspect to have plate, as also to
+those who have not paid regularly the duty on the same.”  In consequence
+of this order the Accountant-general for household plate sent a copy of
+it to John Wesley.  The answer was as follows:
+
+    Sir,
+
+    I have _two_ silver teaspoons in London and two at Bristol: this is
+    all the plate which I have at present, and I shall not buy any more
+    while so many round me want bread.
+
+                                       I am Sir, your most humble servant,
+                                                              JOHN WESLEY.
+
+{61}  “I used my prayers,” says the author of the ‘Bank of Faith,’ “_as
+gunners do swivels_; _turning them every way_ as the cases required.”
+Wesley relates in his Journal that “By prayer he used to cure a violent
+pain in his head,” &c.
+
+{62}  This writer, the celebrated Lackington the bookseller, relates the
+following occurrence soon after he turned Methodist.  “One Sunday morning
+at eight o’clock, my mistress seeing her sons set off, and knowing they
+were gone to a Methodist meeting, determined to prevent me from doing the
+same, by locking the door; on which in a superstitious mood I opened the
+Bible for direction what to do, and the first words I read were these,
+“He shall give his angels charge concerning thee, lest at any time thou
+dash thy foot against a stone.”  This was enough for me, so without a
+moment’s hesitation I ran up two pair of stairs to my own room, and out
+of the window I leapt to the great terror of my poor mistress.  My feet
+and ancles were most intolerably bruised, so that I was obliged to be put
+to bed; and it was more than a month before I recovered the use of my
+limbs.  I was then ignorant enough to think that _the Lord had not used
+me very well_; and I resolved _not to put so much trust in him_ for the
+future.  My rash adventure made a great noise in the town, and was talked
+of many miles round.  Some few admired my prodigious strength of faith;
+but the major part pitied me as a poor ignorant, deluded, and infatuated
+boy.”
+
+{64a}  Wesley’s Works, vol. xii. p. 49.  Some of Wesley’s expressions,
+when confronted with each other, appear incompatible; in such cases the
+main drift of the writer must always be considered; for it is much more
+usual to fail in expressing our meaning than to express contradictory
+opinions: since the latter implies a cerebral defect verging on insanity,
+the former merely results from a faulty style.  Scripture does not any
+where warrant us in saying “_the moment_ a penitent sinner,” &c.; but
+requires from us a proof of this belief by actions conformable to it.
+God has promised us immortality through his Son, only if we not merely
+believe, but “do that which is lawful and right.”
+
+{64b}  Wesley censured some of his preachers for pushing the doctrine of
+perfection too far.
+
+{65}  Wesley’s Works, vol. viii. p. 219. and vol. xi. p. 415.
+
+{66}  So called from their habit of rebaptizing those who entered their
+communion.  They were afterwards called _Antipædobaptists_, from their
+objection to _pædo_ or infant baptism; and finally, the English habit of
+abbreviation of words at all commonly used, contracted the word into
+_Baptist_.
+
+{67}  Mosheim. Ecc. Hist. Cant. XVI. Sect, iii. Part 2.
+
+{68a}  Milton belonged to the class of Anti-Trinitarian General Baptists.
+
+{68b}  That the body of Jesus was not derived from the substance of the
+blessed Virgin, but created in her womb by an omnipotent act of the Holy
+Spirit.
+
+{68c}  V. Mosheim’s Ecc. Hist.
+
+{69}  All who baptize infants may be termed pædo-baptists; the word is
+derived from the Greek πάις a child or infant, and βὰπτω to baptize.
+
+{70a}  Yet the bishop ought to have known that baptism by immersion was
+practised in the church for many centuries, and the rubric of our common
+prayer leaves the option of immersion or aspersion.
+
+{70b}  Condor’s View. p. 380.
+
+{75a}  Marriage is enumerated in one of the Moravian hymns amongst the
+services of danger, for which the United Brethren are “to hold themselves
+prepared.”
+
+    “You as yet single are but little tried,
+    Invited to the supper of the bride,
+    That like the former warrior each may stand
+    Ready for land, sea, marriage, at command.”
+
+{75b}  See Latrobe’s edition of Spangenburgh’s Exposition of Christian
+Doctrine.
+
+{79}  Litany of the New Church.  Office of ordination, p. 151.
+
+{80a}  Rom. xxi. 27.
+
+{80b}  1 Cor. i. 3.
+
+{81a}  John i. 18.
+
+{81b}  John vi. 46.
+
+{82}  Liturgy of the New Church Office of Baptism, p. 58.
+
+{84}  “Jesus the Fountain of Life and Light,” p. 12.
+
+{85}  In some places it is not till the end of a fortnight.
+
+{87a}  Examination of the opinions of the Plymouth Brethren.
+
+{87b}  The following is a sample from one of their published works: “The
+first eclogue of Virgil has always appeared to me to express most
+felicitously the pleasures of a _pastoral_ life as we too frequently see
+it in these days.  With what force the following lines describe the
+grateful feeling of a _young clergyman_, who is recounting the benefits
+conferred on him by his patron:
+
+    O Melibœe, Deus nobis hæc otia fecit.
+    Namque erit ille mihi semper Deus—
+    Ille meas errare boves, ut cernis, et ipsum
+    Ludere, qæe vellem, calamo permisit agresti.
+
+My patron shall always be a divinity to me, for he put me into this life
+of ease when he gave me this _gem_, _the prettiest living in England_.
+He gave me this _easy duty_, so that I can let my flock wander
+wheresoever it may please them, as you see they do; while I myself do
+just what 1 like, and occasionally amuse myself with a _pianoforte_ by
+Stoddart, that cost eighty-five guineas.”
+
+“He (the congregational minister) is now, in his own opinion, the ONE MAN
+of the whole body of believers in all the services of the sanctuary.  He
+utters all their sentiments of faith and doctrine, and offers up all
+their prayers!  How can he justify the position he has assumed as _an
+usurper_? yea as a _grievous wolf_! in that he has swallowed up _all the
+gifts of the Holy Ghost_ in the _voracity of his selfishness_,” &c.  It
+is not thus that the “unity of the church,” which they profess to desire
+is likely to be cemented.
+
+{90}  Bishop Jewel, in his “Defence of his apology for the Church of
+England,” says, that “the term _Calvinist_ was in the first instance
+applied to the Reformers and the English Protestants as a matter of
+reproach by the Church of Rome.”
+
+{91}  Whatever difference may have subsisted between Luther and Calvin on
+the subject of Divine decrees, no language can be stronger than that in
+which Luther insists upon the moral impotence of man’s depraved nature in
+opposition to the Pelagian doctrine of freewill.
+
+{93a}  It is difficult to reconcile this doctrine with 2 Cor. v. 14, 15.
+1 Tim. ii. 6.  2 Pet. iii. 9.  Rom. viii. 32.  1 Tim. iv. 10. &c.
+
+{93b}  The best account of their system is to be found in “The Assembly’s
+Catechism,” which is taught their children.  To this sect belongs more
+particularly the doctrine of _Atonement_, or, “that Christ by his death
+made satisfaction to the Divine justice for the _Elect_; appeasing the
+anger of the Divine Being, and effecting on his part a reconciliation.”
+That thus Christ had, as they term it, “the sin of the Elect laid upon
+him.”  But some of their teachers do not hold this opinion, but consider
+Christ’s death as simply a medium through which God has been pleased to
+exercise mercy towards the penitent.  “The sacrifice of Christ,” says Dr.
+Magee, “was never deemed by any (who did not wish to calumniate the
+doctrine of atonement), to have made God placable: but merely viewed as
+the means appointed by Divine wisdom by which to bestow forgiveness.”  To
+this it may be further added, that the language used throughout the
+Epistles of St. Paul with regard to the redemption of man, is that of the
+then familiar slave market.  Man is “bought with a price” from his former
+master, Sin, for the service of God.  The scholar who will consult Romans
+vi. will see immediately that all the metaphors used are those of
+purchase for military service; “Your members,” says he, ver. 13, “shall
+not be the arms (ὄπλα) of unrighteousness used for the service of sin;
+but the arms (ὄπλα) of righteousness for God.”  And ver 23, τὰ γὰρ ὀψώνια
+τῆς ὰμαρτίας, θάνατος· τὸ δὲ χαρισμα τοῦ θεοῦ, ζωὴ, αἰώνιος ἐν Χριτῷ
+Ιησοῦ τῷ κυρίῳ ἠμῶν. i.e. The rations of sin are death, but the donative
+of God is eternal life, by means of Jesus Christ our Lord.  It is
+impossible to express more clearly that it was not the wrath of God which
+required to be appeased by the great sacrifice—the slave was _bought by
+Him for Himself_—the price was of course paid to another.  Much
+misunderstanding has arisen from the careless interpretation of these and
+the like passages, whose phraseology has become obsolete along with the
+practice of buying and selling slaves, at least in this country.
+
+{95a}  Matt. xvi. 27.
+
+{95b}  Matt. xviii. 14.
+
+{96a}  Vide Exod. xxxiii. 14, et seq.
+
+{96b}  According to the Calvinistic doctrine above stated, character has
+no concern whatever with their call; ergo, if this is right, St. Paul is
+wrong, and mankind _are_ called with respect of persons.
+
+{96c}  “This system (Calvinism) by setting aside the idea of a human
+will, leaves the doctrine of Divine Will barren and unmeaning; the idea
+of a personal ruler disappears, and those most anxious to assert the
+government of the Living God have been the great instruments in
+propagating the notion of an atheistical necessity.”  _Maurice’s Kingdom
+of Christ_.
+
+{98a}  Hopkins on the New Birth.
+
+{98b}  1 John iii. 7–10, see also v. 21 of the same chapter, where our
+confidence towards God is shown to depend on the judgment of our own
+consciousness of wrong or well doing.  The whole chapter is well worth
+the study of every Christian.
+
+{102}  I take this from books, not having personal acquaintance with the
+Presbyterians of Ireland: and such is the confusion generally made by
+authors between Arianism, Socinianism, and Unitarianism, that it is
+difficult to know which is meant.  As a large proportion of the modern
+Presbyterians have embraced Unitarian doctrines, it seems improbable that
+the Irish should have adopted those of Arius, though my author uses the
+term Arian as applied to the doctrine of the seceders.
+
+{106}  See “The Use and Abuse of Creeds and Confession of Faith,” by the
+Rev. Charles James Carlile, Dublin, 1836.  “The Irish Church and
+Ireland,” p. 66–68, and “A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Associate
+Synod in Ireland and Scotland in the affair of the Royal Bounty,” by
+James Bryce.  Belfast, 1816.
+
+{122a}  Although the excellent Bishop Heber’s mind was deeply imbued with
+devotional feelings, he considered a moderate participation in what are
+usually called worldly amusements, to be allowable and blameless.  “He
+thought,” says his biographer, “that the strictness which made no
+distinction between things blameable only in their abuse, and the
+practices which were really immoral, was prejudicial to the interests of
+true religion; and on this point his opinion remained unchanged to the
+last.  His own life indeed was a proof that amusement so participated in,
+may be perfectly harmless, and no way interfere with any religious or
+moral duty.”
+
+{122b}  “Rowland Hill, in his theological opinions, leaned towards
+Calvinism, but what is called Hyper-calvinism, he could not endure.  In a
+system of doctrine he was follower of no man, but drew his sermons fresh
+from a prayerful reading of the Bible.  He was for drawing together all
+the people of God wherever they could meet, and was willing to join in a
+universal communion with Christians of every name.  When, on one
+occasion, he had preached in a chapel, where none but baptized adults
+(i.e. baptized after attaining years of discretion), were admitted to the
+sacrament, he wished to have communicated with them, but was told
+respectfully, ‘You cannot sit down at _our_ table.’  He calmly replied,
+‘I thought it was the Lord’s table.’”  Sidney’s Life of R. Hill, p. 422,
+3rd Edit.
+
+{124}  Simeon’s Works, Vol. III. p. 101, &c.
+
+{126}  Simeon’s Works, Vol. III. p. 333.
+
+{131a}  Exod. xxxii. 4.
+
+{131b}  Vide Colossians ii. 18, 19.
+
+{135a}  2 Cor. v. 15.  1 Tim. ii. 6.
+
+{135b}  2 Pet. iii. 9.
+
+{135c}  Rom. ii. 6–11.
+
+{136}  Rom. xiv. 5.
+
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRISTIAN SECTS IN THE NINETEENTH
+CENTURY***
+
+
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+
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Christian Sects in the Nineteenth Century, by
+Caroline Frances Cornwallis
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
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+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Christian Sects in the Nineteenth Century
+
+
+Author: Caroline Frances Cornwallis
+
+
+
+Release Date: May 15, 2011  [eBook #36113]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRISTIAN SECTS IN THE NINETEENTH
+CENTURY***
+</pre>
+<p>Transcribed from the 1846 William Pickering edition by David
+Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p>
+<h1>CHRISTIAN SECTS IN THE<br />
+NINETEENTH CENTURY<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">IN A SERIES OF LETTERS</span><br />
+<span class="GutSmall">TO A LADY</span></h1>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p0a.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Decorative graphic"
+title=
+"Decorative graphic"
+src="images/p0a.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;By this shall all men know that ye are my
+disciples if ye<br />
+have love one to another.&rdquo;&mdash;<span
+class="smcap">John</span> xiii. 35.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p0bb.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Decorative graphic"
+title=
+"Decorative graphic"
+src="images/p0bs.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p style="text-align: center">LONDON<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">WILLIAM PICKERING</span><br />
+<span class="GutSmall">1846</span></p>
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<blockquote><p><a name="pageiv"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+iv</span>&ldquo;Heaven and Hell are not more distant, than the
+benevolent spirit of the Gospel, and the malignant spirit of
+party.&nbsp; The most impious wars ever made were
+called&mdash;&lsquo;Holy Wars.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span
+class="smcap">Lyttleton</span>.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Let those ill-invented terms whereby we have been
+distinguished from each other be swallowed up in that name which
+will lead us hand in hand to heaven&mdash;the name of <span
+class="smcap">Christian</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Bishop
+Ryder</span>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p style="text-align: center"><a name="pagev"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. v</span>
+<a href="images/p0c.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Decorative header"
+title=
+"Decorative header"
+src="images/p0c.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>The following letters grew out of a conversation between one
+of the editors of the &ldquo;Small Books,&rdquo; and a lady of
+his acquaintance; and as there are probably many who have felt
+the want of the information they contain, it has been thought
+that by publishing them in a collected form they may be
+useful.&nbsp; The views of the writer are sufficiently explained
+in the letters themselves.&nbsp; All lament the small sum of
+Christian charity to be found among religionists in general, but
+few when they begin to write have kept clear of a severity of
+comment which but prolongs differences.&nbsp; The writer, himself
+a member of the Church of England, is anxious to show that it is
+possible to be attached <a name="pagevi"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. vi</span>to one persuasion without imputing
+either folly or ill intention to others; and it is with a view of
+promoting the loving fellowship of all whom God disdains not to
+create and support, that this slight sketch is given to the
+world.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p0db.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Decorative graphic"
+title=
+"Decorative graphic"
+src="images/p0ds.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<h2><a name="page1"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 1</span>LETTER
+I.</h2>
+<p>You some time ago requested me to give you the result of my
+inquiries into the tenets of the different religious sects which
+I had been acquainted with; and respecting which we had at
+different times conversed.&nbsp; In the time which has since
+elapsed I have been endeavouring, both to ascertain them more
+completely, and to compare them with what I conceive to be the
+true spirit of Christianity; but the subject has so grown as I
+proceeded, that even now I can only give you a very short, and I
+fear, in some cases, an imperfect notion of them.&nbsp; Yet the
+subject is one of deep interest; and as I feel convinced that if
+we looked a little closer into the differences between the
+established church and those who separate from it, both parties
+would find them smaller and less important than <a
+name="page2"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 2</span>they imagine,
+and that Christian charity would be increased by the examination,
+I do not shrink from the task however inadequately I may execute
+it.</p>
+<p>I propose therefore to show you by extracts from the works of
+the principal writers among the different religious sects, how
+they all agree in most of the fundamental doctrines of
+Christianity; at the same time that I point out the evil
+consequences which I conceive would ensue were some of their
+tenets <i>fully carried out</i> into practice: and also to state
+wherein their peculiar opinions appear to me to be opposed to
+&ldquo;the truth as it is in Christ Jesus,&rdquo; so far as to
+prevent me from adopting them; though I can fully believe that
+those who hold these opinions in the abstract, may,
+notwithstanding, be excellent practical Christians.</p>
+<p>Firmly attached as I am to the Church of England, whose form
+of worship (allowing for the imperfections which naturally cling
+to all human institutions), I consider preferable to any other; I
+can still see much to admire in other persuasions and other
+ceremonies, mixed up, though it be, with some imperfections and
+error; and my love to the established church does not blind me to
+some matters which might <a name="page3"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 3</span>be better otherwise, and which I shall
+point out as I proceed.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Of all the Christian graces,&rdquo; says a quaint
+writer, &ldquo;zeal is the most apt to turn sour;&rdquo; and the
+observation is no less true than it is sad, for men too seldom
+remember that they must add to their faith knowledge, and that
+both are of no avail without the crowning gift of charity, <a
+name="citation3"></a><a href="#footnote3"
+class="citation">[3]</a> or in other words, brotherly love for
+all mankind.&nbsp; The real Christian, it seems to me, should
+imitate the liberality of St. Paul, who, after having been bred
+up in the habits of the &ldquo;strictest sect&rdquo; of the Jews,
+scrupled not to quit all his former prejudices, in order to
+preach Christ to the Gentiles, without disgusting them by
+ceremonies which were no fundamental part of the religion he
+taught, and was content to become &ldquo;as a Jew, that he might
+gain the Jews, and to them that were without law, to become as <a
+name="page4"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 4</span>without law
+(being not without law to God), that he might by all means save
+some.&rdquo; <a name="citation4"></a><a href="#footnote4"
+class="citation">[4]</a></p>
+<p>We are too apt to hold each other accountable for all the
+consequences which can be logically deduced from an opinion,
+however extreme they may be: and then having persuaded ourselves
+that those abstract tenets which, by straining them to an extreme
+point, <i>may</i> have an evil effect, <i>must</i> have an evil
+effect on all who profess them,&mdash;we avoid those who differ
+from us on religious subjects, because we have assumed that they
+are actually immoral by virtue of their opinions; and thus we
+miss the opportunity of convincing ourselves of our mistake by a
+more intimate knowledge of their lives.&nbsp; &ldquo;By their
+fruits ye shall know them,&rdquo; says our Lord; but we seldom
+approach them closely enough to see the fruits.</p>
+<p>If we would be content to sink minor differences, and be
+satisfied that &ldquo;in every nation he that feareth God and
+worketh righteousness is accepted with him,&rdquo; we should soon
+meet on better terms; for we do not hold at a distance from those
+on earth whom we expect to meet in heaven; and thanks be to God,
+there <a name="page5"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 5</span>is no
+religious persuasion that cannot boast of many such as
+Cornelius.</p>
+<p>St. Paul recommends to the churches that they be &ldquo;kindly
+affectioned one towards another, in honour preferring one
+another:&rdquo; <a name="citation5a"></a><a href="#footnote5a"
+class="citation">[5a]</a> &ldquo;by this shall men know that ye
+are my disciples,&rdquo; says our Great Exemplar, &ldquo;if ye
+have love one to another;&rdquo; but alas! if we contemplate what
+is called the Christian world, where shall we find Christ&rsquo;s
+<i>true</i> disciples?&nbsp; Grievous indeed it is, as has been
+well observed, that that religion, which &ldquo;should most
+correct and sweeten men&rsquo;s spirits, sours and sharpens them
+the most.&rdquo;&nbsp; But surely &ldquo;<i>we</i> have not so
+learned Christ.&rdquo;&nbsp; Let us for a moment contemplate His
+conduct towards those who differed from him in religious
+opinions; his compassion towards them; his meek reproofs not only
+to the Sadducees and the Samaritans, but even to the more
+hardened; <a name="citation5b"></a><a href="#footnote5b"
+class="citation">[5b]</a> <a name="page6"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 6</span>and then let us turn to our own hearts
+and confess with shame that we have fallen miserably short of
+that charity without which &ldquo;whosoever liveth is counted
+dead before God.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So clear is the command to exercise universal benevolence,
+that whatever obscurity there may be in other parts of Scripture,
+however men, even wise ones, may differ as to the real
+signification of certain passages in the Bible, <i>here</i> at
+least there can be no cavilling.&nbsp; It is intelligible to the
+most ignorant as well as the most learned, so that &ldquo;the
+wayfaring man, though a fool, shall not err therein.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Archbishop Tillotson relates of Mr. Gouge, an eminent
+nonconformist, that he allowed men to differ from him in opinions
+that were &ldquo;<i>very dear</i> to him;&rdquo; and provided men
+did but &ldquo;fear God and work righteousness,&rdquo; he loved
+them heartily, how distant soever from him in judgment about
+things less necessary: &ldquo;in all <a name="page7"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 7</span>which,&rdquo; observes the Archbishop,
+&ldquo;he is very worthy to be a pattern to men of all
+persuasions.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;I abhor two principles in
+religion,&rdquo; says William Penn in a letter to the same
+archbishop, &ldquo;and pity them that own them.&nbsp; The first
+is obedience upon authority without conviction; and the other,
+destroying them that differ from me for God&rsquo;s sake: such a
+religion is without judgment, though not without truth.&nbsp;
+Union is best, if right; if not, charity.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>I have given the opinion of these two eminent men of different
+persuasions, partly to show that the evil I complain of is one of
+long standing; partly to justify my own opinion as to the remedy;
+namely, the paying <i>more</i> attention to the fundamental
+doctrines of Christianity; <i>less</i>, to those minor
+differences which, from the very obscurity of the texts on which
+they are founded, come more frequently under discussion, and
+thus, from a mental operation somewhat analogous to that of the
+laws of perspective, seem large and important because they are
+close under our eyes, though they are in fact minute in
+comparison with those which we have not been examining so
+closely.&nbsp; Thus men inadvertently reverse the order of
+things, and zeal for the maintenance of peculiar tenets too often
+supersedes <a name="page8"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+8</span>the far more important virtue of Christian benevolence,
+to the scandal of all good Christians and the mockery of
+unbelievers.</p>
+<p>The Quakers, in their address to James II. on his accession,
+told him that they understood he was no more of the established
+religion than themselves.&nbsp; &ldquo;We therefore hope,&rdquo;
+said they, &ldquo;that thou wilt allow us that liberty which thou
+takest thyself:&rdquo; and it would be well if we took a hint
+from this, and reflected that we differ as much from other sects
+as they do from us, <a name="citation8"></a><a href="#footnote8"
+class="citation">[8]</a> and that the greatest heresy is, as a
+Christian Father declared it to be long ago&mdash;&ldquo;a wicked
+life.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>It is, however, needful to distinguish between the Christian
+spirit of forbearance towards those who differ from us in
+religious opinions, which <a name="page9"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 9</span>Christ and his apostles so strongly
+inculcate, and the indolent latitudinarianism which induces many
+to declare that &ldquo;a man cannot help his belief,&rdquo; that
+&ldquo;sincerity is everything,&rdquo; that &ldquo;all religious
+sects are alike,&rdquo; &amp;c.: positions which, as you well
+observed on one occasion, ought rather to be reversed; for when
+men are <i>not</i> sincere, all sects certainly <i>are</i> alike:
+for then it is but a lip service which will never influence the
+life, and it matters not what opinion is professed; it will be
+equally powerless.</p>
+<p>Sincere belief must be the consequence of proof, without which
+we cannot believe truly; with it, we must.&nbsp; If then we
+content ourselves with the mere <i>ipse dixit</i> of others
+without seeking proof, our belief is the result of indolence, <a
+name="page10"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 10</span>and for that
+indolence we shall be accountable when we are called on to give
+an account of the talent committed to our charge, if error has
+been consequent upon it.&nbsp; He, on the contrary, whose
+education or whose means have not put proof within his reach,
+although he may wish earnestly for it, <i>may</i> be wrong in
+understanding, but he will never be wrong in heart: his tenets
+may be wrong, but his life will be right.&nbsp; It behoves us
+therefore to be cautious how we pass sentence on one another in
+religious matters, since, as has been well observed, we are
+ourselves amenable to a tribunal where uncharitable conduct
+towards others, will bring down a just and heavy sentence on
+ourselves.&nbsp; We are not to erect ourselves into judges of
+other men&rsquo;s consciences, <a name="citation10"></a><a
+href="#footnote10" class="citation">[10]</a> but leave them to
+the judgment and disposal of <span class="smcap">One</span> who
+alone can see into the heart of men, and alone can ascertain the
+real nature and ultimate consequence of all questions which admit
+of &ldquo;doubtful disputation.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>There will be some danger of losing our way <a
+name="page11"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 11</span>among the
+almost numberless divisions and subdivisions of sects, which
+present themselves as soon as we begin to consider the subject at
+all narrowly.&nbsp; I therefore propose to simplify my task, and
+make our course a little plainer, by adopting the two great
+divisions into which the reformed churches may have been said to
+have arranged themselves at the era of the Reformation, as a
+foundation for the classification of Christian sects at
+present.&nbsp; Calvin and Melancthon may be considered as the
+prototypes and heads of these two divisions, which however they
+may sometimes vary and sometimes intermingle, are continually
+reproduced, because they are grounded upon two great natural
+divisions of human kind, the stern and the gentle.&nbsp; My own
+leaning is to the latter, because it appears to me most in
+accordance with the spirit of that gospel whose great Promulgator
+made universal benevolence the test of his disciples; but at the
+same time I must acknowledge, and shall indeed prove before I
+have done, that the sterner theoretical view may coexist in the
+mind with a large share of true Christian charity and
+benevolence.&nbsp; Be the abstract belief of the Christian what
+it may, if he be really at heart a disciple, the example of his
+mild Master will always influence <a name="page12"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 12</span>his life and feelings, and he will
+tread in the steps of his Lord, even if his judgment should
+sometimes have mistaken the true meaning of some of his
+words.</p>
+<p>These two views of the Divine dispensations towards man were
+first arrayed in actual hostility at the Synod of Dort in 1618,
+where the doctrines of James Arminius, professor of divinity in
+the University of Leyden, who had followed the opinions of Luther
+and Melancthon, were condemned, and those of the Calvinistic
+church of Geneva affirmed.&nbsp; From that time the various sects
+of the reformed church have generally been known as Arminian or
+Calvinistic, according as they embraced the peculiar tenets of
+either party on the subject of man&rsquo;s salvation: I shall
+therefore thus distinguish the two classes into which I propose
+to arrange them, though they may not follow out either in the
+whole of their opinions.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">I.&nbsp; <span
+class="smcap">Arminian</span>.</p>
+<p>1.&nbsp; Quakers.</p>
+<p>2.&nbsp; Socinians and Unitarians.</p>
+<p>3.&nbsp; Wesleyan Methodists.</p>
+<p>4.&nbsp; General Baptists, Moravians, Swedenborgians, Plymouth
+Brethren.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page13"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 13</span>II.&nbsp; <span
+class="smcap">Calvinistic</span>.</p>
+<p>1.&nbsp; Presbyterians, Independents.</p>
+<p>2.&nbsp; Particular Baptists, Sub and Supralapsarians,
+Sandemanians.</p>
+<p>3.&nbsp; Calvinistic Methodists.&nbsp; Evangelical or Low
+Church.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p13b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Decorative graphic"
+title=
+"Decorative graphic"
+src="images/p13s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<h2><a name="page14"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 14</span>LETTER
+II.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">QUAKERS.</span></h2>
+<p>The sect which I have placed first upon my list, arose about
+the middle of the seventeenth century, when a number of
+individuals withdrew from the communion of every <i>visible</i>
+church &ldquo;to seek,&rdquo; <a name="citation14"></a><a
+href="#footnote14" class="citation">[14]</a> as they expressed
+it, &ldquo;the Lord, in retirement:&rdquo; and George Fox, their
+leader, or as they termed him, their &ldquo;honourable
+elder,&rdquo; went about preaching their opinions in fairs and
+markets, in courts of justice, and steeple houses, i.e.
+churches.&nbsp; He denounced the state worship as
+&ldquo;superstitious,&rdquo; and warned all to obey the Holy
+Spirit, speaking by him.&nbsp; He was in consequence brought
+before two justices of the peace in Derbyshire in 1650, one of
+whom, Mr. Bennet, called Fox, and his hearers
+&ldquo;Quakers,&rdquo; in derision of their frequent admonitions
+to &ldquo;<i>tremble</i> at the Word of God;&rdquo; <a
+name="page15"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 15</span>and this
+appellation soon became general, though they themselves took
+then, and still preserve, the title of &ldquo;the Society of
+Friends.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The rigid peculiarities of phrase, &amp;c. which Fox added to
+his religious sentiments; the regular discipline which he
+enforced; and the zeal with which he maintained and propagated
+his tenets gave consistency to this sect, although he was not, as
+has been supposed, the originator of their doctrines.&nbsp; He
+conceived himself forbidden by divine command to pull off his hat
+to any one, or to address any one excepting in the singular
+number, or to &ldquo;call any man master;&rdquo; and for these
+peculiarities as well as for the refusal to give or accept titles
+of honour, or to take an oath, the &ldquo;Friends&rdquo; suffered
+the most cruel persecutions; for we are told that &ldquo;they
+tortured with cruel whippings the bodies of both men and women of
+good estate and reputation;&rdquo; <a name="citation15a"></a><a
+href="#footnote15a" class="citation">[15a]</a> and were further
+punished by impounding of their horses; by distress of goods; by
+fines, imprisonments, whipping, and setting in the stocks: <a
+name="citation15b"></a><a href="#footnote15b"
+class="citation">[15b]</a> yet, notwithstanding these severities,
+<a name="page16"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 16</span>the sect
+increased and spread far and wide, and great numbers of people
+were drawn together, many out of animosity, to hear them.</p>
+<p>The Declaration of Indulgence in 1663 stopped for a short time
+the persecution of the Quakers, but by the Conventicle Act of
+1664, numbers of them were condemned to transportation: in 1666,
+however, their condition improved, when the celebrated William
+Penn, the son of Admiral Penn, joined them.</p>
+<p>The discipline of this society is kept up by monthly meetings,
+composed of an aggregate of several particular congregations,
+whose business it is to provide for the maintenance of their
+poor, and the education of their children; also to judge of the
+sincerity and fitness of persons desirous of being admitted as
+members; to direct proper attention to religion and moral duty;
+and to deal with disorderly members.&nbsp; At each monthly
+meeting persons are appointed to see that the rules of their
+discipline are put in practice.&nbsp; It is usual when any member
+has misconducted himself, to appoint a small committee to visit
+the offender, to endeavour to convince him of his error and
+induce him to forsake it.&nbsp; If they succeed, he is declared
+to have &ldquo;made satisfaction for his offence,&rdquo;
+otherwise he is dismissed <a name="page17"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 17</span>from the society.&nbsp; In disputes
+between individuals, it is enjoined that the members of this sect
+should not sue each other at law, but settle their differences by
+the rules of the society.</p>
+<p>Marriage is regarded by the Quakers as a religious, not a mere
+civil compact.&nbsp; Those who wish to enter into that state
+appear together, and state their intentions at one of the monthly
+meetings, and if not attended by parents or guardians must
+produce their consent in writing duly witnessed; and if no
+objections are raised at a subsequent meeting, they are allowed
+to solemnize their marriage, which is done at a public meeting
+for worship; towards the close of which the parties stand up and
+solemnly take each other for man and wife.&nbsp; A certificate of
+the proceedings is then read publicly and signed by the parties,
+and afterwards by the relations as witnesses.&nbsp; The monthly
+meeting keeps a register of the marriages as well as of the
+births and burials of the society.</p>
+<p>Children are named without any attending ceremony; neither is
+it held <i>needful</i> that there should be any at burial, though
+the body followed by the relatives and friends is sometimes
+carried into a meeting house, and at the grave a <a
+name="page18"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 18</span>pause is
+generally made to allow of a discourse from any friend attending
+if he be so inclined.</p>
+<p>The women have monthly, quarterly, and yearly meetings of
+their own sex, but without the power of making rules.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;As we believe,&rdquo; they say, &ldquo;that women may be
+rightly called to the work of the ministry, we also think that to
+them belongs a share in the support of Christian discipline; and
+that some parts of it wherein their own sex is concerned devolve
+on them with peculiar propriety.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But what, you will ask, are the religious tenets of this
+sect?&nbsp; The question will perhaps best be answered by an
+extract from their &ldquo;Rules of Discipline,&rdquo; a work
+published under the sanction of the society.&nbsp; &ldquo;The
+original and immediate ground of the religious fellowship of the
+early Friends,&rdquo; says the writer of this manual, &ldquo;was
+<i>union of sentiment in regard to Christ&rsquo;s inward
+teaching</i>.&rdquo;&nbsp; They were firm believers in all that
+is revealed in Holy Scripture respecting our Lord and Saviour
+Jesus Christ; nor would they have allowed that any one held the
+truth who denied his coming in the flesh, or the benefit to
+fallen man by his propitiatory sacrifice.&nbsp; &ldquo;We believe
+that, in order to enable mankind to put in practice the precepts
+of the gospel, every <a name="page19"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 19</span>man coming into the world is endued
+with a measure of the light, grace, or good Spirit of Christ, by
+which, as it is alluded to, he is enabled to distinguish good
+from evil, and to correct the disorderly passions and corrupt
+propensities of his fallen nature, which <i>mere reason</i> is
+altogether insufficient to overcome.&nbsp; For all that belongs
+to man is fallible, and within the reach of temptation: but the
+divine grace, which comes by Him, i.e. Christ, who hath overcome
+the world, is, to those who humbly and sincerely seek it, an
+all-sufficient and present help in time of need . . . whereby the
+soul is translated out of the kingdom of darkness, and from under
+the power of Satan into the marvellous light and kingdom of the
+Son of God.&nbsp; Now as we thus believe that the grace of God,
+which comes by Jesus Christ, is alone sufficient for salvation,
+we can neither admit that it is conferred upon a few only, while
+others are left without it; nor thus asserting its universality,
+can we limit its operation to a partial cleansing of the soul
+from sin even in this life.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Baptism and the Lord&rsquo;s supper are regarded by this sect
+as mere types or shadows, representing in a figurative manner
+certain great particulars of Christian Truths, but not intended
+<a name="page20"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 20</span>to be of
+permanent obligation.&nbsp; They consider the former to have been
+superseded by the baptism of the Spirit: of the latter they say,
+&ldquo;the emblem may be either used or disused as Christians may
+consider most conducive to the real advantage of the church: the
+only <i>needful</i> supper of the Lord is altogether of a
+spiritual nature.&rdquo;&nbsp; They conceive that a reliance on
+the eucharist as a &lsquo;viaticum or saving ordinance,&rsquo; is
+a dangerous tenet, as well as the connecting the rite of baptism
+with regeneration.&nbsp; They think that &ldquo;ordinances so
+liable to abuse, and the cause of so many divisions and
+persecutions, cannot truly appertain to the law of
+God.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Quakers consider all holidays as &ldquo;shadows&rdquo; which
+ceased with the shadowy dispensations of the law, and that
+neither the first day of the week, nor any other, possesses any
+superior sanctity; <a name="citation20"></a><a href="#footnote20"
+class="citation">[20]</a> but as a society they have never <a
+name="page21"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 21</span>objected to
+&ldquo;a day of rest,&rdquo; for the purpose of religious
+improvement.&nbsp; They consider the Christian Dispensation to
+have superseded the use of oaths, and contend that our
+Lord&rsquo;s precepts <a name="citation21"></a><a
+href="#footnote21" class="citation">[21]</a>extend even to the
+swearing of witnesses in courts of law.&nbsp; War they hold to be
+altogether inconsistent with the spirit and precepts of the
+gospel, and urge that the primitive Christians during two
+centuries maintained its unlawfulness.&nbsp; They object on the
+same principle to capital punishments, and the slave trade.</p>
+<p>The members of the society are bound by their principles to
+abstain entirely &ldquo;from profane and extravagant
+entertainments,&rdquo; from excess in eating and drinking; from
+public diversions; from the reading of useless, frivolous, and
+pernicious books; from gaming of every description; and from vain
+and injurious sports (such as hunting or shooting for diversion);
+from unnecessary display in funerals, furniture, and style of
+living: from unprofitable, seductive, and dangerous amusements,
+among which are ranked dancing and music; and generally <a
+name="page22"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 22</span>from all
+&ldquo;such occupations of time and mind as plainly tend to
+levity, vanity, and forgetfulness of our God and Saviour,&rdquo;
+and they object to all complimentary intercourse.</p>
+<p>In the sketch I have now given of the tenets of this sect, you
+cannot have failed to observe how closely their notions with
+regard to the fundamental doctrines of Christianity tally with
+those of the great body of the church; the differences being all
+on points of minor import, if we except the ceremonies of baptism
+and the Lord&rsquo;s supper; which, being the appointment of
+Christ himself, we are not at liberty to reject.&nbsp; And yet,
+be it observed, the Quaker does not presumptuously reject them,
+but merely acts upon, as we suppose, an erroneous view of their
+nature.</p>
+<p>On points of minor difference it may be observed, that He who
+was the <span class="smcap">Prince of Peace</span>, and came to
+establish it, never specifically forbad war, (for there may be
+cases where it is merely self defence,) but left it to the spirit
+of the gospel to remove the <i>causes</i> of war. <a
+name="citation22"></a><a href="#footnote22"
+class="citation">[22]</a>&nbsp; We <a name="page23"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 23</span>all know the appellation bestowed on
+the Centurion, Cornelius: and when soldiers came to John the
+Baptist saying, &ldquo;What shall we do?&rdquo; he merely sought
+to retrench the disorders and injustice which those who follow
+the profession of arms might be tempted to commit; but did not
+condemn their necessary employments.&nbsp; We may therefore
+fairly conclude that the sweeping condemnation of <i>all</i> war
+by the Quakers, is not warranted by Scripture, although it is in
+many and indeed most instances, entered upon far too
+carelessly.</p>
+<p>One of the main distinctions of the Quakers is the rejection
+of certain amusements and pursuits, which others on the contrary
+consider as innocent, believing that the religion of Christ
+rather encourages than forbids a cheerful spirit, and allows by
+the example of the Saviour, a <a name="page24"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 24</span>participation in social pleasures:
+and that &ldquo;an upright, religious man, by partaking in such
+pleasures, may be the means of restraining others within due
+bounds, and by his very presence may prevent their degenerating
+into extravagance, profligacy, and sin;&rdquo; <a
+name="citation24a"></a><a href="#footnote24a"
+class="citation">[24a]</a> and such do not feel in their hearts
+that <i>these</i> <a name="citation24b"></a><a
+href="#footnote24b" class="citation">[24b]</a> are the
+&ldquo;pomps and vanities of the world,&rdquo; which by their
+baptismal vow they renounce.&nbsp; But surely it is possible that
+different persons may regard the same pursuits and amusements in
+a very different light, and yet both may be conscientious in
+their views, and both, whether in abstaining or enjoying, be
+equally doing that which is lawful <a name="page25"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 25</span>and right in the sight of God.&nbsp;
+That very amusement or pursuit which is a snare to one, and
+therefore to be avoided by him, may be a source of innocent, and
+perhaps profitable recreation to another.&nbsp; It is the
+intention, the <i>animus</i> with which an act is done, and not
+the act itself which constitutes the sin.&nbsp; &ldquo;Let not
+him that eateth despise him that eateth not; and let not him that
+eateth not judge him that eateth: to his own master he standeth
+or falleth.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Christianity,&rdquo; says an excellent prelate of our
+church, &ldquo;forbids no necessary occupation, no reasonable
+indulgences, no innocent relaxation.&nbsp; <a
+name="page26"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 26</span>It allows us
+to &lsquo;use&rsquo; the world, provided we do not
+&lsquo;abuse&rsquo; it.&nbsp; It does not spread before us a
+delicious banquet, and then come with a &lsquo;Touch not, taste
+not, handle not:&rsquo; all it requires is that our liberty
+degenerate not into licentiousness; our amusements into
+dissipation; our industry into incessant toil; our carefulness
+into extreme anxiety and endless solicitude.&nbsp; When it
+requires us to be &lsquo;temperate in all things,&rsquo; it
+plainly tells us that we <i>may</i> use all things temperately.
+<a name="citation26"></a><a href="#footnote26"
+class="citation">[26]</a>&nbsp; When it directs us to &lsquo;make
+our moderation known unto all men,&rsquo; this evidently implies
+that within the bounds of moderation we may enjoy all the
+reasonable conveniences and comforts of this present
+life.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>I have noticed this, in my opinion, erroneous practice of the
+Quakers at the more length, because it is not confined to
+them.&nbsp; Asceticism, of which this is one branch, has been the
+bane of the church and of Christianity generally; and few sects
+are entirely free from the notion that holiness requires a
+withdrawal from amusements, and a certain degree of seclusion
+from the world.&nbsp; Yet, if the world is to be <a
+name="page27"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 27</span>improved, the
+leaven must be placed <i>in</i> it; and a good man probably never
+does his Father&rsquo;s work more effectually than when he
+spreads the sanctifying influence of his example through all the
+relations of life; showing that there is no position in society
+where Christianity does not add a grace and a relish unknown
+without it: spreading refinement of manners and delicacy of
+thought, and insensibly rendering social intercourse more
+polished, and more delightful, by banishing from it all that can
+offend.</p>
+<p>The Quakers adduce Matt. v. 33&ndash;37, James v. 12, &amp;c.
+in support of their objection to all oaths, even judicial ones,
+and consider that the Christian dispensation abrogated their
+use.&nbsp; But in answer to this we may observe that even the
+Almighty is represented as confirming his promises by a solemn
+oath.&nbsp; &ldquo;Because,&rdquo; says the apostle, &ldquo;He
+could swear by no higher, He sware by Himself;&rdquo; and St.
+Paul on particular occasions expresses himself thus, &ldquo;As
+God is true:&rdquo; &ldquo;Before God I lie not:&rdquo;
+&ldquo;God is my record,&rdquo; &amp;c. all which expressions
+undoubtedly contain the essence and formality of an oath; and the
+Apostle upon some occasions mentions this solemn swearing with
+approbation, &ldquo;an oath for confirmation is the end of all
+strife:&rdquo; <a name="page28"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+28</span>the swearing, therefore, which our Saviour absolutely
+forbids, is common or unnecessary swearing, and we are
+recommended to affirm or deny in common conversation without
+imprecations.&nbsp; &ldquo;Let your conversation be yea,
+yea,&mdash;nay, nay.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The repugnance entertained by the Quakers against paying
+tithes appears to me to arise from an error in their mode of
+viewing the question.&nbsp; The assertion made by them
+&ldquo;that all the provision made for ministers of the gospel in
+the first ages was made by the love of their flocks,&rdquo; is
+true, though that love very soon produced endowments, even before
+Christianity was established as the law of the empire.&nbsp; But
+allowing this, it does not follow, as they go on to assert, that
+&ldquo;since we are under the same dispensation of love as the
+Apostles were, the principles which governed the church then are
+to govern it now.&rdquo;&nbsp; Tithes were originally given to
+the church as a corporation, by the owners of the soil; and since
+that time estates have been transferred from hand to hand subject
+to that charge, till no man has any plea for refusing it.&nbsp;
+The question is not one of religion but of property.&nbsp; If my
+estate devolve to me chargeable with an annuity payable either to
+a corporation <a name="page29"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+29</span>or an individual, I have no right to set up his
+religious opinions in bar of his claim: for I have paid less for
+the purchase in consequence of the existence of that claim, which
+in common honesty therefore I am bound to satisfy, be the
+annuitant who he may. <a name="citation29"></a><a
+href="#footnote29" class="citation">[29]</a></p>
+<p>Having now noticed the points wherein I consider the peculiar
+tenets of the Quakers to be erroneous, I shall conclude with the
+more agreeable part of my task, and prove by extracts from one of
+their writers how much of true Christian feeling exists among
+them.&nbsp; The following is from a little book given me by a
+Quaker, from the pen of J. Gurney, entitled &ldquo;An Essay on
+Love to God.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><a name="page30"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+30</span>&ldquo;Still more completely than the provisions of
+nature fall in with our bodily state, and supply our temporal
+wants; still more properly than the air agrees with the functions
+of the lungs, and the light with those of the eye, does the
+gospel of our Redeemer suit the spiritual condition of man.&nbsp;
+We are a fallen race, alienated from God by our sins, justly
+liable to his wrath: in the gospel we have pardon, peace and
+restoration.&nbsp; &lsquo;Christ made all things new,&rsquo; says
+Grotius, &lsquo;and the latter creation is <i>more divine</i>
+than the former.&rsquo;&nbsp; If then the first creation of
+mankind and all the bounties of nature are the result of Love,
+that attribute is far more gloriously displayed in the scheme of
+redemption and in the works of grace.&mdash;The love of God the
+Father is ever represented in Scripture as the origin of all our
+hopes,&mdash;as the eternal, unfathomable spring of the waters of
+life and salvation, and this love is plainly described as
+extending to the whole world.&nbsp; &lsquo;God so loved the
+world, &amp;c. <a name="citation30a"></a><a href="#footnote30a"
+class="citation">[30a]</a>&nbsp; God was in Christ reconciling
+the world to himself&rsquo; <a name="citation30b"></a><a
+href="#footnote30b" class="citation">[30b]</a>&mdash;&lsquo;God
+would have all men to be saved, &amp;c.&rsquo; <a
+name="citation30c"></a><a href="#footnote30c"
+class="citation">[30c]</a>&nbsp; Do we ask for an overwhelming <a
+name="page31"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 31</span>evidence of
+the love of God?&nbsp; Let the Apostle satisfy our inquiry.&nbsp;
+&lsquo;In this was manifested the love of God towards us, because
+God sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live
+by him.&nbsp; Herein is love; not that we loved God, but that he
+loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our
+sins.&rsquo; <a name="citation31a"></a><a href="#footnote31a"
+class="citation">[31a]</a>&nbsp; Do we ask whether God thus loved
+the whole or only a part of the world?&mdash;Let the same Apostle
+answer: &lsquo;He tasted death for <i>every man</i>&mdash;He gave
+himself a ransom for <i>all</i>, &amp;c.&rsquo;&nbsp; Even the
+Gentiles, who were without the benefit of an outward revelation,
+were by no means destitute of an inward knowledge of the law of
+God, and some of them showed &lsquo;the work of the law written
+on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness.&rsquo;
+<a name="citation31b"></a><a href="#footnote31b"
+class="citation">[31b]</a>&nbsp; &lsquo;Christ is the true light
+which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.&rsquo; <a
+name="citation31c"></a><a href="#footnote31c"
+class="citation">[31c]</a>&nbsp; Hence we may reasonably infer
+that as God appointed the death of Christ to be a sacrifice for
+the sins of the <i>whole</i> world, so <i>all</i> men receive
+through Christ a measure of moral and spiritual light, and all
+have their day of gracious visitation.&nbsp; If the light in
+numberless <a name="page32"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+32</span>instances be extremely faint, if the darkness fail to
+comprehend it, we may rest in the conviction that God is not only
+just but equitable, and that those &lsquo;who know not their
+Master&rsquo;s will and do it not shall be beaten with few
+stripes.&rsquo; <a name="citation32"></a><a href="#footnote32"
+class="citation">[32]</a>&nbsp; The gospel of our Lord Jesus
+Christ, as it is revealed in the Holy Scriptures, is intended for
+the benefit of the whole world: it is adapted to men of every
+condition, clime, and character: all are invited to avail
+themselves of its benefits: all who <i>will</i> come <i>may</i>
+come, and &lsquo;take the water of life freely.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p33b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Decorative header"
+title=
+"Decorative header"
+src="images/p33s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<h2><a name="page33"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 33</span>LETTER
+III.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">SOCINIANS AND UNITARIANS.</span></h2>
+<p>When the first great movement which led to the Reform of a
+large part of the Christian Churches in Europe, awakened
+men&rsquo;s minds from the lethargy in which they had slept
+whilst learning was confined to the cloister, the questions with
+regard to the nature of the Deity which had distracted the early
+church began again to be mooted; and as early as the year 1524,
+&ldquo;the divinity of Christ was openly denied by Lewis Hetyer,
+one of the wandering and fanatical Anabaptists, who was put to
+death at Constance.&rdquo; <a name="citation33a"></a><a
+href="#footnote33a" class="citation">[33a]</a>&nbsp; He was
+succeeded by Michael Servede or Servetus, a Spanish physician;
+who, for his wild notions on the same subject, was apprehended on
+his road through Switzerland at the instigation of Calvin,
+accused of blasphemy, and condemned to the flames. <a
+name="citation33b"></a><a href="#footnote33b"
+class="citation">[33b]</a>&nbsp; But <a name="page34"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 34</span>doctrines were never yet crushed by
+persecution, unless indeed it were so wholesale as to exterminate
+all who held them; and though these opinions were thus fatal to
+their professors, the main points were reproduced by others; and
+finally assumed form as a sect, under the titles above
+named.&nbsp; The term Socinian was taken from two of its most
+distinguished promoters, L&aelig;lius and Faustus Sozinus, or
+Socinus.&nbsp; They were of an illustrious family at Siena in
+Tuscany, and L&aelig;lius, the uncle of Faustus, having taken a
+disgust to popery, travelled into France, England, &amp;c. to
+examine into their religious creed, in order, if possible, to
+come at the truth.&nbsp; He was a man distinguished for his
+genius and learning, no less than for his virtuous life; he
+settled at last at Zurich, embraced the Helvetic confession of
+faith, and died at Zurich in 1562, before he had reached his
+fortieth year.&nbsp; His sentiments, or rather doubts as to
+certain points, were embodied, and more openly propagated by his
+nephew Faustus; who, as is supposed, drew up from his papers the
+religious system afterwards known under the name of
+Socinianism.&nbsp; There is however a considerable degree of
+obscurity hanging over the rise of this sect, and no one has
+given a satisfactory history of it.</p>
+<p><a name="page35"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 35</span>The
+first appearance of Unitarians, as a distinct congregation, was
+in Poland, where they obtained a settlement in the city of Cracow
+in the year 1569; and in 1575 they published at Cracow the
+&ldquo;Catechism or Confession of the Unitarians;&rdquo; <a
+name="citation35a"></a><a href="#footnote35a"
+class="citation">[35a]</a> but Faustus Socinus having settled
+among them in the year 1579, soon obtained so much influence as
+finally to remodel the whole religious system of the sect, and a
+new form drawn up by Socinus himself, was substituted for the old
+Catechism.</p>
+<p>The following is an abstract of the doctrines taught in this
+Catechism.&nbsp; After affirming that the Christian religion is
+&ldquo;a road for arriving at eternal life, divinely made
+known,&rdquo; the pupil is told that the will of God on points
+essential to salvation was revealed by Jesus Christ.&nbsp; The
+Catechism then goes on to affirm the entire unity of the Deity;
+since if he is one essence, then must he also be individually
+one, <a name="citation35b"></a><a href="#footnote35b"
+class="citation">[35b]</a> and <a name="page36"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 36</span>therefore Christ cannot he truly said
+to be a <i>separate</i> person or individual, partaking of the
+<i>essentia</i> of the Deity, since that <i>essentia</i> is
+necessarily one.&nbsp; That the Spirit of God, being an essential
+part of the Deity, cannot be a separate individual (for in this
+sense the Catechism interprets the word <i>persona</i> <a
+name="citation36"></a><a href="#footnote36"
+class="citation">[36]</a>), any more than his wisdom or his
+goodness is a separate individual, and that therefore the
+manifestations of the Spirit of God are manifestations of the
+Deity himself.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Christ,&rdquo; says the Catechism, &ldquo;is a man,
+according to Rom. v. 15, conceived by a virgin, through the power
+of the Divine Spirit, without the intervention of man in the
+ordinary course of generation.&nbsp; He was first subject to
+suffering and death&mdash;afterwards impassible and immortal,
+Rom. vi. 9.&nbsp; It is in the sense of his existence derived
+immediately from God, that he, though man, is called the Son of
+God&mdash;as Adam is so <a name="page37"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 37</span>termed from the same cause.&nbsp;
+Jesus Christ was the immediate instrument of God&rsquo;s
+communications to man; and being, whilst on earth, the voice of
+God, he is now the anointed King, or Christ, over the people of
+God.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The passages where he is said to have existed from the
+beginning: to have created all things, &amp;c. are laboriously
+explained away, as referring to the regeneration, or new state of
+things introduced by Christ&rsquo;s mission on earth: and in this
+part there is much forced interpretation.&nbsp; I shall annex
+some of the passages in the language of the original, <a
+name="citation37"></a><a href="#footnote37"
+class="citation">[37]</a> as a proof that I have given a fair
+account of the real Socinian doctrine, which is very little
+understood at present.&nbsp; Writers from whom we might expect
+greater accuracy, have very generally confounded Socinians and
+Arians, although Faustus Socinus was at the pains to write a
+laboured refutation of the Arian doctrine, and although a
+reference to the doctrines of the two sects would show that they
+are the antipodes of each other.&nbsp; Arius taught that Christ
+was not of <i>the same</i> nature
+(&#8001;&mu;&omicron;&omicron;&#973;&sigma;&iota;&omicron;&sigmaf;),
+with the Father, but of <i>a like</i> nature
+(&#8001;&mu;&omicron;&iota;&omicron;&#973;&sigma;&iota;&omicron;&sigmaf;)
+and therefore individually separate&mdash;separate in <a
+name="page38"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 38</span>will, and
+capable of differing.&nbsp; This is a direct assertion of two
+Gods.&nbsp; Socinus on the contrary strenuously asserts the unity
+of the Deity to the extent of denying the pre-existence of
+Christ: which Arius though acknowledging that there was a time
+when he began to exist, nevertheless refers to a period remote
+beyond human calculation.&nbsp; Thus upon their characteristic
+doctrines, the two sects are diametrically opposed to each
+other.</p>
+<p>Having now given you the real opinions of Socinus, from his
+own works, for the book is lying beside me as I write, I shall
+pursue my plan of examining how far they accord with what was
+taught by those who certainly ought to be best informed on the
+subject, namely, Christ himself, his Apostles, and their
+immediate successors; as well as with the deductions of
+reason.&nbsp; The unity of the Deity is so frequently and so
+decidedly asserted in Scripture, that it is impossible to
+consider any man as unorthodox who professes to make this the
+groundwork of his belief&mdash;so far therefore the Socinian is
+in accordance both with Scripture and the general voice of the
+Christian church, for the early Apologists for Christianity, who
+had to address polytheists, are full of declarations <a
+name="page39"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 39</span>that they
+worship One only Deity, who by various manifestations has made
+himself, at different times, known to mankind. <a
+name="citation39a"></a><a href="#footnote39a"
+class="citation">[39a]</a>&nbsp; There is not a writer of the
+first and second centuries who does not anxiously assert the
+one-ness of the God whom the Christians worship: but then they as
+anxiously assert the identity of their Teacher and Lord with that
+God.&nbsp; From Christ himself, who says, &ldquo;Before Abraham
+was, I am;&rdquo; <a name="citation39b"></a><a
+href="#footnote39b" class="citation">[39b]</a> &ldquo;I and the
+Father are one;&rdquo; <a name="citation39c"></a><a
+href="#footnote39c" class="citation">[39c]</a> &ldquo;He who hath
+seen me hath seen the Father;&rdquo; &ldquo;the Father that
+dwelleth in me, He doeth the works;&rdquo; <a
+name="citation39d"></a><a href="#footnote39d"
+class="citation">[39d]</a> to St. Paul, who tells us that
+&ldquo;God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself,&rdquo;
+<a name="citation39e"></a><a href="#footnote39e"
+class="citation">[39e]</a> down to the fathers of the early
+church, to whom I may refer <i>passim</i> for the same doctrine;
+all have distinctly asserted that the message of peace to man was
+delivered by God himself, making use of a human form as the mode
+of communication with his creatures, and dwelling in &ldquo;the
+man Christ Jesus,&rdquo; <a name="citation39f"></a><a
+href="#footnote39f" class="citation">[39f]</a> as in a temple
+built up for his especial use; the human nature, <a
+name="page40"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 40</span>to use the
+expression of the church, &ldquo;having been taken into
+God,&rdquo; not the Godhead circumscribed in man.&nbsp; I will
+not swell the length of my letter with quotations from the
+fathers which may be found elsewhere; I think the texts I have
+quoted with many more of the same purport, which you will readily
+call to mind, suffice to prove that when Socinus asserted the
+Christ to be <i>merely</i> a man, he erred; for though Jesus
+&ldquo;the Carpenter&rsquo;s son,&rdquo; as his contemporaries
+called him, was to all intents and purposes a man &ldquo;of a
+reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting;&rdquo; <a
+name="citation40"></a><a href="#footnote40"
+class="citation">[40]</a> and though this may be proved from
+numberless passages in the Scripture, where the man Jesus speaks
+of his inferiority to the Father and bestower of his human frame
+and spirit,&mdash;yet if we do not entirely distort the meaning
+of words, <i>that man</i> at times uttered declarations of divine
+power which could only have proceeded from the indwelling Deity,
+otherwise they must have been the assertions of imposture, which
+Socinus by no means teaches to have been the case.&nbsp; I know
+not, therefore, how the believer in the Gospel can avoid
+acknowledging that Christ was a compound being:&mdash;<a
+name="page41"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 41</span>perfectly a
+man, and speaking as such on some occasions; but, at the same
+time, the temple of the Ever-living God, whose words flowed from
+his lips like the answer from the Mercy seat: &ldquo;Heaven and
+the heaven of heavens&rdquo; no doubt &ldquo;cannot
+contain&rdquo; the Infinite; and no true believer will assert
+that God can be circumscribed in a human body&mdash;but, if so
+mean a comparison may be permitted&mdash;as the crater of the
+volcano is but the mouthpiece of the mighty agents operating
+within for the fashioning of the earth,&mdash;so the
+manifestation of the Deity in the form, and from the lips of a
+man, is but that spot of the material creation where the ever
+blessed Divinity allows himself, as it were, a vent; and gives
+forth a visible and tangible sign of his existence.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He that has seen me has seen the Father,&rdquo; says
+<i>the Christ</i>.&nbsp; &ldquo;I can of my own self do
+nothing&rdquo; <a name="citation41"></a><a href="#footnote41"
+class="citation">[41]</a> says <i>the man</i>: and this
+distinction which the Christ who necessarily knew something of
+the composition of his own nature so frequently asserts, has
+probably been the groundwork of the mistaken views of this class
+of Christians, and we may well look with charitable <a
+name="page42"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 42</span>indulgence on
+the errors of men, who dreading lest they should incur the
+penalty of giving the incommunicable glory of the Mighty God to
+another, have not allowed their due weight to the passages, which
+assert that Mighty God to have undertaken the task of bringing
+his creature man back to Himself.</p>
+<p>Having thus given you a fair account of the creed of Socinus,
+I must next notice the modern Unitarians, who on some points
+differ from him.&nbsp; Where there is no acknowledged creed or
+catechism, <a name="citation42"></a><a href="#footnote42"
+class="citation">[42]</a> which may be quoted as authority, it is
+<a name="page43"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 43</span>difficult
+to give the doctrines of a sect with any precision; but as far as
+it is possible to judge from the writings most in repute among
+the Unitarians, they disclaim the notion of the miraculous <a
+name="page44"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 44</span>conception,
+and believe Christ to have been to all intents and purposes <i>a
+mere man</i>.&nbsp; At the same time they allow him to have been
+so inspired and guided by God, that it is difficult to see where
+they draw the line between their own creed and that of the
+church, which allows the perfect humanity of Jesus, but asserts
+that &ldquo;God and man make one Christ,&rdquo; namely, that the
+message of peace was that of God speaking by human lips, and that
+the Anointed prophet who declared it, was, when so anointed, the
+temple and place of manifestation of the living God.&nbsp; They
+disclaim the doctrine of atonement, <a name="page45"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 45</span>and believe that the mission of
+Christ had for its object the reform of the world, and the
+restoration of man to a sense of his true relation towards God,
+and even here Scripture and the early church speak a language
+which differs not very greatly from theirs.&nbsp; For the
+language in which our redemption is spoken of, is that of a
+master purchasing a slave, as will be seen on a reference to Rom.
+vi. in the original.&nbsp; The ransom by which man was purchased
+to be the servant of holiness instead of that of sin, was paid to
+his former master, sin; by the purchaser; and the purchaser is
+God.&nbsp; &ldquo;I speak after the manner of men,&rdquo; says
+St. Paul, &ldquo;because of the infirmity of your flesh.&rdquo;
+i.e. I adopt the phraseology of a common transaction because your
+minds are not sufficiently accustomed to the contemplation of
+higher things to understand them without a metaphor; but the
+Unitarian forgets, when asserting that the ransom was not paid
+<i>to</i> God, that it was paid <i>by</i> God: and that man, the
+slave, was bought from sin, the master, at no less a price than
+the condescension of the Deity himself to the infirmity of our
+flesh, by making himself visibly and tangibly known to his
+creatures, through the medium of a human form.</p>
+<p><a name="page46"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 46</span>I have
+now endeavoured to give a dispassionate view of the doctrines of
+these sects, hitherto so much misunderstood, and having marked
+the points wherein they appear to me to recede from Christian
+truth, I have the pleasanter task before me, of showing by
+extracts from their writings, how large a portion of the religion
+which we all profess, they still retain, and I may say from
+experience, on most occasions conscientiously act upon.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If with the Apostle we glory in the cross of Christ, or
+in that religion which could not have been confirmed without his
+death, let us not only be careful to govern our lives by the
+precepts of it in general, but more particularly be prepared to
+suffer what the strictest profession of it may call us to.&nbsp;
+Let us remember that our Saviour hath said, if any man will be
+his disciple he must &ldquo;take up his cross, and follow
+him.&rdquo;&nbsp; That is, he must be ready to do it rather than
+abandon the profession of the Gospel, or whatever the strictest
+purity of it may require.&nbsp; A true Christian is no more <i>of
+this world</i> than his Lord and Master was of it.&nbsp; With him
+every thing here below is but of secondary consideration,
+&amp;c.&mdash;but this we must remember for our consolation, that
+if, in time of persecution &ldquo;He that <a
+name="page47"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 47</span>keepeth his
+life shall lose it,&rdquo; &ldquo;He that loseth his life&rdquo;
+for the profession of the Gospel &ldquo;shall keep it to life
+eternal.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;If we suffer with Christ, we shall
+also reign with him and be glorified together.&rdquo; <a
+name="citation47"></a><a href="#footnote47"
+class="citation">[47]</a></p>
+<p>&ldquo;The truths which relate to Jesus himself are among the
+<i>most important</i> which the Gospel reveals.&nbsp; &lsquo;We
+preach Christ,&rsquo; says the Apostle, &lsquo;warning every man
+and teaching every man, that we may present every man perfect in
+Christ Jesus.&rsquo;&nbsp; From this passage we derive a most
+important sentiment, confirmed by the whole New
+Testament&mdash;that the great design of all the doctrines and
+precepts of the Gospel, is, to exalt the character,&mdash;to
+promote eminent purity of heart and life, to make men
+&lsquo;perfect as their Father in heaven is perfect.&rsquo;&nbsp;
+We must preach not to make fiery partizans, and to swell the
+number of a sect; not to overwhelm the mind with fear, or to heat
+it with feverish rapture; not to form men to the decencies of
+life, to a superficial goodness, which will secure the admiration
+of mankind.&nbsp; All these effects fall infinitely short of the
+great end of <a name="page48"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+48</span>the Christian ministry.&nbsp; We should preach that we
+may make men perfect Christians: perfect, not according to the
+standard of the world, but according to the law of Christ;
+perfect in heart and in life, in solitude and in society, in the
+great and in the common concerns of life.&nbsp; Here is the
+purpose of Christian preaching.&nbsp; In this, as in a common
+centre, all the truths of the Gospel meet; to this they all
+conspire; and no doctrine has an influence on salvation, any
+farther than it is an aid to the perfecting of our nature.&rdquo;
+<a name="citation48"></a><a href="#footnote48"
+class="citation">[48]</a></p>
+<p>&ldquo;Christ is a great Saviour, as he redeems or sets free
+the mind, cleansing it from evil, breathing into it the love of
+virtue, calling forth its noblest faculties and affections,
+enduing it with moral power, restoring it to order, health and
+liberty.&rdquo; * * * * &ldquo;Christ has revealed to us God as
+the Father, and as a Father in the noblest sense of that
+word.&nbsp; He hath revealed Him as the author and lover of all
+souls, desiring to redeem all from sin, and to impress his
+likeness more and more resplendently on all; as proffering to all
+that best gift in the universe, his &lsquo;holy Spirit;&rsquo; as
+having sent his beloved Son <a name="page49"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 49</span>to train us up and to introduce us to
+an &lsquo;inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled, and unfading in
+the heavens.&rsquo;&rdquo; <a name="citation49"></a><a
+href="#footnote49" class="citation">[49]</a></p>
+<p>&ldquo;I confess when I can escape the deadening power of
+habit, and can receive the full import of such passages as the
+following, &lsquo;Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy
+laden, and I will give you rest.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;I am come to
+seek and to save that which was lost.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;He that
+confesseth me before men, him will I confess before my Father in
+heaven.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Whosoever shall be ashamed of me
+before men, of him shall the Son of Man be ashamed, when he
+cometh in the glory of the Father with the holy
+angels.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;In my Father&rsquo;s house are many
+mansions; I go to prepare a place for you;&rsquo; I say, when I
+can succeed in realizing the import of such passages, I feel
+myself listening to a being, such as never before and never since
+spoke in human language.&nbsp; I am awed by the consciousness of
+greatness which these simple words express; and when I connect
+this greatness with the proofs of Christ&rsquo;s miracles which I
+gave you in a former discourse, I am compelled to speak <a
+name="page50"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 50</span>with the
+Centurion, &lsquo;Truly this was the Son of God.&rsquo; <a
+name="citation50a"></a><a href="#footnote50a"
+class="citation">[50a]</a></p>
+<p>&ldquo;In reading the Gospels I feel myself in the presence of
+one who speaks as man never spake; whose voice is not of the
+earth; who speaks with a tone of reality and authority altogether
+his own; who speaks of God, as conscious of his immediate
+presence, as enjoying with him the intimacy of an only Son; and
+who speaks of heaven, as most familiar with the higher states of
+being.&rdquo; <a name="citation50b"></a><a href="#footnote50b"
+class="citation">[50b]</a></p>
+<p>&ldquo;Go to Jesus Christ for guidance, inspiration, and
+strength in your office.&rdquo; * * * &ldquo;The privilege of
+communing with such a spirit is so great, and the duty of going
+from man to Christ is so solemn, that you must spare no effort to
+place yourself nearer and nearer to the Divine
+Master.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;My brother, go forth to your labours
+with the spirit and power of Him who first preached the Gospel to
+the poor.&rdquo; <a name="citation50c"></a><a href="#footnote50c"
+class="citation">[50c]</a></p>
+<p>&ldquo;To Jesus the conqueror of death we owe the sure hope of
+immortality.&rdquo; * * *&nbsp; &ldquo;Is that <a
+name="page51"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 51</span>teacher to be
+scorned, who in the language of conscious greatness says to us,
+&lsquo;I am the resurrection and the life&rsquo;?&rdquo; <a
+name="citation51a"></a><a href="#footnote51a"
+class="citation">[51a]</a></p>
+<p>&ldquo;What are we to understand by the Divinity of
+Christ?&nbsp; In the sense in which many Christians, and perhaps
+a majority interpret it, we do not deny it, but believe it as
+firmly as themselves.&nbsp; We believe firmly in the Divinity of
+Christ&rsquo;s mission and office, that he spoke with Divine
+authority, and was a bright image of the Divine
+perfections.&nbsp; We believe that God dwelt in him, manifested
+himself through him, taught men by him, and communicated to him
+his spirit without measure.&nbsp; We believe that Jesus Christ
+was the most glorious display, expression, and representative of
+God to mankind, so that in seeing and knowing him, we see and
+know the invisible Father; so that when Christ came, God visited
+the world and dwelt with men more conspicuously than at any
+former period.&nbsp; In Christ&rsquo;s words, we hear God
+speaking; in his miracles, we behold God acting; in his character
+and life, we see an unsullied image of God&rsquo;s purity and
+love.&rdquo; <a name="citation51b"></a><a href="#footnote51b"
+class="citation">[51b]</a></p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p52b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Decorative header"
+title=
+"Decorative header"
+src="images/p52s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<h2><a name="page52"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 52</span>LETTER
+IV.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">WESLEYAN METHODISTS.</span></h2>
+<p>Towards the beginning of the last century, two young men at
+Oxford, the one a fellow of Lincoln College, struck by the
+thoughtlessness or lukewarmness of those about them, resolved to
+devote themselves to closer and more profitable study.&nbsp; They
+were brothers, by name John and Charles Wesley; and two other
+students joined them in their evening readings of the New
+Testament in the Greek: the elder of the brothers was at this
+time about twenty-six. <a name="citation52"></a><a
+href="#footnote52" class="citation">[52]</a>&nbsp; After a year
+of this kind of life, they admitted two or three of the pupils of
+the elder brother, and one of those of the younger, to their
+meetings; and the following year, being joined by yet more of the
+students, the regularity of their lives obtained for them the
+title of <i>Methodists</i> from those who were not inclined to
+follow their example.</p>
+<p><a name="page53"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 53</span>In 1735
+another name was added to their number, which has also become
+celebrated: this was George Whitfield of Pembroke College, then
+in his eighteenth year; but of him I shall have occasion to speak
+by and by.&nbsp; I shall therefore confine myself to the
+Wesleys.&nbsp; A difference of opinion on the subjects of
+Freewill and Predestination separated them from their younger
+coadjutor in 1741, and their respective friends, adopting
+strongly the distinctive opinions of the two, the grand division
+of the sect, which sprung up from their preaching, into Wesleyan
+or Arminian, and Whitfieldian or Calvinistic Methodists,
+ensued.&nbsp; All three received holy orders according to the
+ceremonial of the Church of England, and Wesley never ceased to
+hold his spiritual mother in high estimation.&nbsp; &ldquo;The
+Church of England,&rdquo; he says in one place, &ldquo;is the
+purest in Christendom.&rdquo;&nbsp; But the singularity of their
+proceedings raised suspicion, and though both brothers continued
+to profess the fullest assent to the articles and liturgy of the
+established church, yet their manner of preaching and form of
+worship had something in it which led the bishops and clergy in
+general to consider them as verging on Sectarianism.&nbsp; In
+many places they were refused the <a name="page54"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 54</span>use of the pulpit; and then, in the
+perhaps enthusiastic belief that they were the appointed
+instruments of rekindling religion in hearts where it had been
+dead hitherto, they began a system of field preaching.</p>
+<p>There were at that time large districts slumbering in utter
+darkness and ignorance of the saving truths of the Gospel: and it
+was to these that the Wesleys especially directed their
+attention, with a success proportioned to their zeal; and had the
+then heads of the church availed themselves of the assistance of
+these earnest men in the way they might have done, by sanctioning
+their missionary labours among the poor and the uninstructed, the
+benefit would have been incalculable.&nbsp; But the harsh
+treatment <a name="citation54"></a><a href="#footnote54"
+class="citation">[54]</a> <a name="page55"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 55</span>they met with, drove John Wesley at
+last into complete schism: and then the ambition, which had
+perhaps animated his first exertions almost unknown to himself,
+assumed a bolder flight, and he aspired to the distinction of
+being the head and leader of a sect which grew so rapidly, that
+at the time of his death in 1791, &ldquo;the number of members in
+connexion with him in Europe, America, and the West Indian
+Islands, was 80,000.&nbsp; And at the last conference in 1831 the
+numbers returned were, in Great Britain, 249,119; in Ireland,
+22,470; in the Foreign Missions, 42,743.&nbsp; Total
+314,332.&nbsp; Exclusive of more than half a million of persons
+in the Societies in the States of America.&rdquo; <a
+name="citation55"></a><a href="#footnote55"
+class="citation">[55]</a></p>
+<p>You are probably aware that, besides the public preaching,
+Wesley instituted among his people several kinds of private
+meetings.&nbsp; To the public prayer meetings, which were
+generally held in private houses, persons not of this sect were
+often invited, and on these occasions a hymn <a
+name="page56"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 56</span>was first
+sung, then they all knelt, and the first who felt
+&ldquo;moved&rdquo; made an extempore prayer: when he had
+finished, another commenced, and so on for about two hours.&nbsp;
+These prayer meetings were held in such high esteem among the
+Methodists, that they asserted more were &ldquo;born again&rdquo;
+and &ldquo;made free,&rdquo; as they termed it, &ldquo;from all
+the remains of sin&rdquo; than at any other meetings, public
+preachings, &amp;c.</p>
+<p>There was much in this kind of meeting which was likely to
+lead to enthusiasm, which is universally found to be most easily
+awakened where numbers are congregated; and according to an
+author formerly of their persuasion, <a name="citation56"></a><a
+href="#footnote56" class="citation">[56]</a> the consequence was
+such as might have been expected.&nbsp; &ldquo;It is
+impossible,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;to form any just idea of those
+assemblies except you had been present at them.&nbsp; One coaxes
+the Divine Being, another is amorous, and a third will tell the
+Deity, &lsquo;He must be a liar if he does not grant all they
+ask.&rsquo;&nbsp; They thus go on working up each other&rsquo;s
+imagination until they become as it were spiritually intoxicated,
+and while in this state they sometimes recollect a text or two <a
+name="page57"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 57</span>of Scripture,
+such as &lsquo;Thy sins are forgiven thee&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Go
+and sin no more&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Go in peace,&rsquo; &amp;c.
+and then declare themselves to be &lsquo;born again&rsquo; or
+&lsquo;sanctified.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The love feast is also a private meeting of as many members of
+the community as choose to attend; and they generally assemble
+from all parts within several miles of the place where the feast
+is held.&nbsp; They then alternately sing and pray, and some
+among them, who think that their experience, as they term it, is
+remarkable, stand up, and narrate all the transactions which they
+say have taken place between God, the devil, and their souls.</p>
+<p>There is a curious propensity to egotism in human nature which
+frequently shews itself in religious matters.&nbsp; Men love to
+talk of themselves: and the Romanist finds pleasure in the power
+of pouring forth all his feelings and thoughts to his father
+confessor, whenever he is strongly excited by passion: of this I
+have become aware from personal knowledge.&nbsp; Other
+enthusiasts enjoy no less satisfaction in talking of the interior
+conflicts they have sustained; for all ungoverned feeling loves
+to vent itself in speech, and the lover who talks of his
+mistress, or the penitent who talks of his sins, is for the time
+<a name="page58"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 58</span>being in
+the same state of restless excitement.&nbsp; <i>Governed</i>
+feeling, on the contrary, as far as my experience goes, is
+silent.</p>
+<p>In these Love Feasts those present have buns to eat, which are
+mutually broken between each &ldquo;Brother and Sister,&rdquo;
+and water to drink, which they hand from one to another.&nbsp;
+These meetings commence about seven o&rsquo;clock, and last till
+nine or ten.</p>
+<p>Each society is divided into smaller companies called
+&ldquo;classes&rdquo; according to their respective places of
+abode.&nbsp; There are about twelve persons in every class, one
+of whom is styled &ldquo;the Leader,&rdquo; whose business it is
+to see each person in his class, at least once a week, to advise,
+comfort, or exhort, as occasion may require, and to receive what
+each is willing to give towards the support of the Gospel.</p>
+<p>It is expected that every member should continue to evince his
+desire of salvation by abstaining from &ldquo;the taking of the
+name of the Lord in vain&rdquo;; &ldquo;the profaning of the
+Lord&rsquo;s day, either by ordinary work thereon, or by buying
+and selling&rdquo;; &ldquo;drunkenness, buying or selling
+spirituous liquors, or drinking them, unless in cases of extreme
+necessity; fighting, quarreling, brawling; going to law with a
+brother; <a name="page59"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+59</span>returning evil for evil, or railing for railing; the
+using many words in buying or selling. <a
+name="citation59a"></a><a href="#footnote59a"
+class="citation">[59a]</a>&nbsp; The buying or selling uncustomed
+goods; the giving or taking things on usury, i.e. unlawful
+interest; the putting on of gold or costly apparel; the taking
+such diversions as cannot be used in the name of the Lord Jesus
+Christ; the singing those songs or reading those books, that do
+not tend to the knowledge or love of God;&mdash;softness and
+needless self-indulgence, &amp;c. <a name="citation59b"></a><a
+href="#footnote59b" class="citation">[59b]</a></p>
+<p>Among the duties expected and required of the members are all
+kinds of beneficence, diligence, frugality, <a
+name="citation59c"></a><a href="#footnote59c"
+class="citation">[59c]</a> self-denial, and attendance on all the
+ordinances of God, among which is specifically mentioned
+fasting.&nbsp; If any member habitually break any of these rules
+he is admonished; <a name="page60"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+60</span>and if he do not then repent, expulsion follows.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Marrying with unbelievers,&rdquo; and bankruptcy, if the
+party has not kept fair accounts, are also followed by
+expulsion.</p>
+<p>No one I think can doubt that much good was effected by the
+first preaching of Wesley and his disciples, for at that time our
+church was in a lethargic state, and the lower orders shamefully
+neglected in spiritual matters in many parts of England.&nbsp;
+Yet there are some things which excite one&rsquo;s regret in
+their practices, and of these none displeases me more than the
+familiar use of Scripture language, which when properly and
+judiciously applied is striking and solemn; but to hear every
+notion of enthusiastic ignorance, every rise and fall of the
+animal spirits, expressed in the language of the Apostles and
+Evangelists, and even of our <a name="page61"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 61</span>Lord himself; to witness their
+familiarity with the Almighty, their full trust and confidence in
+the reality of small miracles wrought at their
+request;&mdash;must always be painful to a soberly religious
+mind.&nbsp; In a book entitled &ldquo;The Bank of Faith,&rdquo;
+the author asserts, that a dog brought him mutton to eat, that
+fish died at night in a pond on purpose to be eaten by him in the
+morning, and that money, clothes, &amp;c. in short every thing he
+could desire he attained by prayer. <a name="citation61"></a><a
+href="#footnote61" class="citation">[61]</a></p>
+<p>An old woman of Wesley&rsquo;s society, named Mary Hubbard,
+would often wash her linen, hang it out to dry, and go away to
+work in the fields or to Taunton Market four miles from her
+house, and when blamed for thus leaving her linen unprotected,
+she would reply that &ldquo;the Lord watched over her and all
+that she had, and that he would prevent any person from stealing
+her two old smocks, or if He permitted them to be stolen, He
+would send her two new ones in their stead.&rdquo;&nbsp; I
+seriously assure you, <a name="page62"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 62</span>says the author who relates this
+tale, and who at one time went even greater lengths <a
+name="citation62"></a><a href="#footnote62"
+class="citation">[62]</a> than this old woman, &ldquo;that there
+are many thousand Mary Hubbards among the Methodists.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>It may be added, that their strict abstinence from the common
+amusements of the world, even where innocent in themselves, has
+its evils, <a name="page63"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+63</span>as I have already noticed when speaking of the Quakers;
+for the mind cannot always be kept in a state of tension, and if
+we refuse ourselves recreation altogether, there is danger that
+we shall find the yoke of Christ a wearisome instead of an easy
+one, and cast it off in disgust; nay, I am afraid that if we were
+to inquire closely, we should find instances enough of this
+result to demonstrate, what indeed wants but little proof, i.e.
+that God knows better than we do &ldquo;whereof we are
+made,&rdquo; and that it is not wisdom to bind a heavy burthen on
+our shoulders when Christ himself has declared that his is
+light.&nbsp; Still, though tinged with a degree of enthusiasm
+which we may regret, the doctrine of the Wesleyan Methodists
+retains the fundamental parts of Christianity, and after reading
+the following extracts from Wesley&rsquo;s Sermons, I think you
+will hardly forbear asking, Why is this a separate sect?</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Justifying Faith implies not only a Divine
+&epsilon;&lambda;&epsilon;&gamma;&chi;&omicron;&sigmaf;, evidence
+or conviction, that &lsquo;God was in Christ reconciling the
+world to himself,&rsquo; but a sure trust and confidence that
+Christ died for <i>my</i> sins, that he loved <i>me</i>, and gave
+himself for me; and the moment a penitent sinner believes <a
+name="page64"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 64</span>this, God
+pardons and absolves him.&rdquo; <a name="citation64a"></a><a
+href="#footnote64a" class="citation">[64a]</a>&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Christian perfection does not imply, as some men seem to
+have imagined, an exemption either from ignorance, or mistake, or
+infirmities, or temptations; indeed it is only another term for
+holiness: thus every one that is holy, is in the Scripture sense
+&lsquo;perfect.&rsquo;&nbsp; We may yet observe that neither in
+this respect is there absolute perfection on earth.&rdquo; <a
+name="citation64b"></a><a href="#footnote64b"
+class="citation">[64b]</a>&nbsp; &ldquo;If the Scriptures are
+true, those who are holy or religious in the judgment of God
+himself, those who are endued with the faith that purifies the
+heart, that produces a good conscience; those who live by faith
+in the Son of God; those who are sanctified <a
+name="page65"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 65</span>by the blood
+of the Covenant may nevertheless so fall from God as to perish
+everlastingly, therefore let him who thinketh he standeth take
+heed lest he fall.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;In strictness neither our
+faith nor our works justify us, i.e. <i>deserve</i> the remission
+of our sins, but God himself justifies us of his own mercy
+through the merits of his Son only.&rdquo; <a
+name="citation65"></a><a href="#footnote65"
+class="citation">[65]</a></p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p66b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Decorative header"
+title=
+"Decorative header"
+src="images/p66s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<h2><a name="page66"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 66</span>LETTER
+V.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">GENERAL BAPTISTS, MORAVIANS,
+SWEDENBORGIANS, PLYMOUTH BRETHREN.</span></h2>
+<p>Among the sects which arose about the period of the
+Reformation of the church in the sixteenth century, we find the
+Anabaptists <a name="citation66"></a><a href="#footnote66"
+class="citation">[66]</a> playing rather a conspicuous part, by
+exciting political tumults in Saxony and the adjacent
+countries.&nbsp; For this, Munzer, their leader, after the defeat
+of his forces, was put to death, and the sect generally was
+proscribed, and the profession of its doctrines punished
+capitally.&nbsp; What those doctrines were is not easy, nor is it
+essential now, to state, since the modern sect, which we now term
+Baptists, retain only so much of them as relates to baptism by
+immersion, <a name="page67"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+67</span>and of adults only, and the rejection of episcopal
+church government.</p>
+<p>The more modern sect is subdivided into General and Particular
+Baptists.&nbsp; The General or Arminian Baptists admit
+&ldquo;much latitude in their system of religious doctrine, which
+consists in such general principles, that their communion is
+accessible to Christians of almost all denominations, and
+accordingly they tolerate in fact, and receive among them persons
+of every sect, who profess themselves Christians, and receive the
+Holy Scriptures as the source of truth, and the rule of
+faith.&rdquo; <a name="citation67"></a><a href="#footnote67"
+class="citation">[67]</a>&nbsp; They agree with the <span
+class="smcap">Particular Baptists</span> in this, that they admit
+to baptism adults only, and administer that sacrament either by
+dipping or total immersion; but they differ from them in another
+respect, for they repeat the administration of baptism to those
+who had received it, either in a state of infancy, or by
+aspersion instead of dipping: for if the common accounts may be
+believed, the Particular Baptists do not carry matters so
+far.</p>
+<p>The General Baptists consider their sect as the only true
+church; in baptism they dip only once and not three times as was
+the practice in <a name="page68"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+68</span>the primitive church: and they consider it a matter of
+indifference whether that sacrament be administered in the name
+of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, or in that of Christ alone: <a
+name="citation68a"></a><a href="#footnote68a"
+class="citation">[68a]</a> they adopt the doctrine of Menno with
+regard to the Millennium; many of them also embrace his
+particular opinion concerning the origin of Christ&rsquo;s body.
+<a name="citation68b"></a><a href="#footnote68b"
+class="citation">[68b]</a>&nbsp; They look upon the precept of
+the Apostles prohibiting the use of blood and of things
+strangled, as a law that was designed to be in force in all ages
+and periods of the church: they believe that the soul, from the
+moment that the body dies until its resurrection at the last day,
+remains in a state of perfect insensibility: they use the
+ceremony of extreme unction, and finally, to omit matters of a
+more trifling nature, several of them observe the Jewish as well
+as the Christian Sabbath. <a name="citation68c"></a><a
+href="#footnote68c" class="citation">[68c]</a>&nbsp; In some of
+their churches they have three distinct orders separately
+ordained, i.e. messengers, elders, and deacons; and their general
+assembly (where a minister preaches, and the churches <a
+name="page69"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 69</span>are taken
+into consideration), is held annually in London on the Tuesday in
+Whitsun week, and they afterwards dine together.&nbsp; They have
+met thus for upwards of a century.</p>
+<p>The propriety of the exclusive application of the term
+&ldquo;Baptists&rdquo; to those who baptize adults by immersion,
+has been questioned; and for this reason they are by many styled
+Antip&aelig;dobaptists, <a name="citation69"></a><a
+href="#footnote69" class="citation">[69]</a> namely, opposers of
+infant baptism; but the term Anabaptist should not be applied to
+them, it being a term of reproach.</p>
+<p>The old General Baptists have been on the decline for many
+years; their churches are principally in Kent and Sussex.&nbsp;
+The English and most foreign Baptists consider a personal
+profession of faith, and immersion in water, essential to
+baptism: this profession is generally made before the church at a
+church meeting.&nbsp; Some have a creed, and expect the candidate
+for baptism to assent to it, and give a circumstantial account of
+his conversion: others only require him to profess himself a
+Christian.&nbsp; The former generally consider baptism as an
+ordinance which initiates persons into a particular church, <a
+name="page70"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 70</span>and they say,
+that without breach of Christian liberty, they have a right to
+expect an agreement in articles of faith in their own
+societies.&nbsp; The latter think that baptism initiates into the
+Christian religion generally, and therefore think that they have
+no right to require an assent to their creed from such as do not
+join their churches.&nbsp; They quote the baptism of the Eunuch
+in Acts viii. in proof.</p>
+<p>The first mention of the Baptists in English History is as the
+subject of persecution in the reign of Henry VIII.&nbsp; During
+that of Edward VI. a commission was issued to bishops and other
+persons &ldquo;to try all Anabaptists, heretics, and despisers of
+the common prayer,&rdquo; and they were empowered, in the event
+of their contumacy, to commit them to the flames.&nbsp; The same
+inhuman policy was persisted in under Elizabeth.&nbsp; The last
+Baptist martyr burned in England was Edward Wightman; he was
+condemned by the bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, <a
+name="citation70a"></a><a href="#footnote70a"
+class="citation">[70a]</a> and burned at Lichfield April 11,
+1612. <a name="citation70b"></a><a href="#footnote70b"
+class="citation">[70b]</a></p>
+<p>The celebrated Whiston became a Baptist <a
+name="page71"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 71</span>towards the
+close of his life, retaining nevertheless his Arian belief.</p>
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>The <span class="smcap">Moravians</span> are supposed to have
+derived their origin from Nicholas Lewis, Count Zinzendorf, a
+German nobleman, who died in 1760.&nbsp; The society however
+assert that they are descended from the old Moravian and Bohemian
+Brethren, who existed as a distinct sect sixty years prior to the
+Reformation.&nbsp; No sooner had these Moravian Brethren heard of
+Luther&rsquo;s bold testimony to the truth, and of the success
+which attended his labours, than they sent in the year 1522 two
+deputies to assure him of &ldquo;the deep interest which they
+took in his work;&rdquo; giving him, at the same time, an account
+of their own doctrine and constitution.&nbsp; They were most
+kindly received; and both Luther, and his colleague Bucer,
+recognised the Moravians as holding the same faith; and bore
+honourable testimony to the purity of their doctrine, and the
+excellence of their discipline.&nbsp; The chief doctrine of the
+Moravian society is, that &ldquo;by the sacrifice for sin made by
+Jesus Christ, and by that alone, grace and deliverance from sin
+are to be obtained for all mankind:&rdquo; and they stedfastly
+maintain the following points:</p>
+<p>1.&nbsp; The divinity of Christ.</p>
+<p><a name="page72"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+72</span>2.&nbsp; The atonement and satisfaction made for us by
+Jesus Christ; and that by his merits alone we receive freely the
+forgiveness of sin, and sanctification in soul and body.</p>
+<p>3.&nbsp; The doctrine of the Holy Spirit, and the operations
+of his grace.&nbsp; That it is he who worketh in us conviction of
+sin, faith in Christ, and pureness of heart.</p>
+<p>4.&nbsp; That faith must evidence itself by willing obedience
+to the commandments of God from love and gratitude.</p>
+<p>The internal constitution of the ancient church of the
+Moravians, which is still substantially adhered to, was
+originally adopted in 1457, and more definitely settled in 1616
+by the Synod of Zerawitz.&nbsp; Its principal peculiarities
+are,</p>
+<p>1.&nbsp; Every church is divided into three classes, i.e. 1.
+<i>Beginners</i> or <i>Catechumens</i>.&nbsp; 2.&nbsp; <i>The
+more advanced</i> or <i>communicants</i>, who are considered as
+members of the church.&nbsp; 3. <i>The perfect</i>, consisting of
+such as have persevered for some time in a course of true
+piety.&nbsp; From this last class are chosen in every church
+<i>the Elders</i>, from three to eight in number.</p>
+<p>2.&nbsp; Every congregation is directed by a board of elders,
+whose province it is to have a watchful eye over its members with
+respect to the <a name="page73"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+73</span>doctrine and deportment.&nbsp; Once in three months
+these elders are bound to visit the houses of the brethren, in
+order to observe their conduct, and to ascertain whether every
+one is labouring diligently in his calling, &amp;c. of which they
+make a report to the pastor.&nbsp; They also are required to
+visit the sick, and assist the poorer brethren with money,
+contributed by the members of the church, and deposited in an
+alms box.</p>
+<p>3.&nbsp; The ministration of the Word and Sacrament is
+performed either by members who have received ordination from the
+bishops of the church of the brethren, or by those who have
+received that of the Calvinist or Lutheran church.&nbsp; The
+deacons, according to the ancient constitution of the church, are
+the chief assistants of the pastors, and are considered as
+candidates for the ministry.&nbsp; The bishops, who are nominated
+by the ministers, appoint the pastors to their stations, and have
+the power of removing them when they think fit, and of ordaining
+the deacons as well as the ministers.&nbsp; Every bishop is
+appointed to superintend a certain number of churches, and has
+two or three co-bishops, who, if necessary, supply their
+place.&nbsp; The ancient church appointed some of its members to
+the business of watching over the civil <a
+name="page74"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 74</span>affairs of
+the congregation, under the name of <i>Seniores Civiles</i>, who
+were ordained with imposition of hands.&nbsp; This office is
+still continued.&nbsp; The synods, which are held every three or
+four years, are composed of the bishops and their co-bishops the
+Seniores Civiles, and of &ldquo;such servants of the church and
+of the congregation as are called to the synod by the former
+elders&rsquo; conference, appointed by the previous synod, or
+commissioned to attend it as deputies from particular
+congregations.&rdquo;&nbsp; Several female elders also are
+usually present at the synods, but they have no vote.&nbsp; All
+the transactions of the synod are committed to writing, and
+communicated to the several congregations.</p>
+<p>A liturgy, peculiar to the Brethren, is regularly used as a
+part of the morning service on the Sabbath; on other occasions
+the minister offers extempore prayer.&nbsp; The singing of hymns
+is considered as an essential part of worship, and many of their
+services consist entirely of singing.&nbsp; At the baptism of
+children, both the witnesses and the minister bless the infant,
+with laying on of hands immediately after the rite.&nbsp; The
+Lord&rsquo;s Supper is celebrated every month: love feasts are
+frequently held, i.e. the members eat and drink together in
+fellowship: cakes and <a name="page75"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 75</span>tea are distributed during the
+singing of some verses by the congregation.&nbsp; The washing of
+feet is practised at present only at certain seasons by the whole
+congregation, and on some other occasions in the choirs.&nbsp;
+Dying persons are blessed for their departure by the elders,
+during prayer and singing a verse with imposition of hands.&nbsp;
+At funerals, the pastor accompanies the corpse to the burial
+place with the singing of hymns; and an address is delivered at
+the grave.&nbsp; Marriages are, by general agreement, never
+contracted without the advice and concurrence of the elders. <a
+name="citation75a"></a><a href="#footnote75a"
+class="citation">[75a]</a>&nbsp; The casting of lots is used
+among them to know, as they express it, &ldquo;The will of the
+Lord.&rdquo; <a name="citation75b"></a><a href="#footnote75b"
+class="citation">[75b]</a></p>
+<p>With regard to discipline, &ldquo;the Church of the Brethren
+have agreed upon certain rules and orders.&nbsp; These are laid
+before every one, that <a name="page76"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 76</span>desires to become a member of the
+church, for his consideration.&nbsp; Whoever after having
+voluntarily agreed to them, does not act conformably, falls under
+congregation discipline.&rdquo;&nbsp; This has various degrees,
+and consists in admonitions, warnings, and reproofs, continued
+until genuine repentance and a real conversion become evident in
+the offender, when he is readmitted to the holy communion, or
+reconciled to the congregation, after a deprecatory letter has
+been read, expressing the offender&rsquo;s sorrow for his
+transgression, and asking forgiveness.&nbsp; The Brethren assert
+that the church government in the established Protestant churches
+&ldquo;does not apply to the congregations of the Brethren,
+because they never were intended to form a national
+establishment: for their design is no other than to be a true and
+living congregation of Jesus Christ, and to build up each other
+as a spiritual house of God, to the end that the kingdom of Jesus
+Christ may be furthered by them.&rdquo;&nbsp; Hence the doctrine
+of Jesus and his Apostles, and the order and practice of the
+Apostolic churches, are the models by which they wish to be
+formed.&nbsp; It may be added, that they are generally the most
+successful Missionaries, and that their society seems the most
+nearly to realize <a name="page77"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+77</span>the practice of the early Christians, of any sect now
+remaining.</p>
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>The <span class="smcap">Swedenborgians</span> take their name
+from Emmanuel Swedenborg, who was born at Stockholm in
+1683.&nbsp; His father was Jasper Swedberg, bishop of West
+Gothland.&nbsp; He received his education chiefly in the
+University of Upsala; and in 1716 was appointed by Charles XII.
+Assessor of the Royal College of Sciences; he was ennobled by
+Queen Ulrica Eleonora, and received the name of Swedenborg.&nbsp;
+He published scientific works on various subjects, but in 1747 he
+resigned his office, in order, as he himself states, that he
+might be more at liberty to attend to that new function which he
+considered himself called to, and the rest of his life was spent
+in composing and publishing the voluminous works which contain
+his peculiar doctrines.&nbsp; He died in 1772.&nbsp; He was a man
+of blameless life and amiable deportment, and was distinguished
+for his attainments in mathematics and mechanics.</p>
+<p>His writings are so very obscure, that it is difficult to
+state what are the opinions contained in them; he taught,
+however, that by the New Jerusalem which came down from heaven,
+was <a name="page78"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+78</span>intended a new church as to doctrine, and that he was
+the person to whom this doctrine was revealed, and who was
+appointed to make it known to the world.&nbsp; Swedenborg made no
+attempt to found a sect; but after his death, his followers, in
+1788, formed themselves into a society under the denomination of
+&ldquo;The New Jerusalem Church.&rdquo;&nbsp; They have several
+places of meeting, both in London and Manchester, and send
+delegates to a &ldquo;General Conference,&rdquo; under whose
+direction a liturgy has been prepared, from which I shall make a
+few extracts to shew the peculiar doctrines of this sect.</p>
+<p>The following are some of the questions asked of the candidate
+for ordination, which is performed by imposition of hands, of
+course of a minister of their own communion.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Min.</i>&nbsp; Dost thou believe that Jehovah God is
+One both in Essence and in Person; in whom, nevertheless, is the
+Divine Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; and that these
+are, his Essential Divinity, his Divine Humanity, and his Divine
+Proceeding, which are the three Essentials of One God, answering
+to the soul, the body, and the operative energy, in man, and that
+the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is that God?</p>
+<p>Dost thou believe that by his temptations, <a
+name="page79"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 79</span>the last of
+which was the passion of the cross, the Lord united, in his
+Humanity, Divine Truth to Divine Good, or Divine Wisdom to Divine
+Love, and so returned into his Divinity in which he was from
+eternity, together with, and in, his Glorified Humanity?</p>
+<p>Dost thou believe that the sacred Scripture, or Word of God,
+is Divine Truth itself, and that it contains a spiritual and
+celestial sense, heretofore unknown, whence it is divinely
+inspired and holy in every syllable; as well as a literal sense,
+which is the basis and support of its spiritual and celestial
+sense?</p>
+<p>Dost thou believe that the books which have the internal sense
+and are truly the Word of God are,&mdash;the five books of Moses,
+Joshua, Judges, the two books of Samuel, the two books of Kings,
+the Psalms of David, the prophets, including the Lamentations of
+Jeremiah, the four Gospels, and the Revelation?&rdquo; <a
+name="citation79"></a><a href="#footnote79"
+class="citation">[79]</a></p>
+<p>It is further stated in their eleventh article of faith,
+&ldquo;That immediately after death, which is only a putting off
+of the material body, never to be resumed, man rises again in a
+spiritual or <a name="page80"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+80</span>substantial body, in which he continues to live to
+eternity.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>On these doctrines it may be observed that the forms of
+worship founded on them are not such as Christ and his apostles
+ordered.&nbsp; The doxology is, &ldquo;To Jesus Christ be glory
+and dominion for ever and ever;&rdquo; the blessing, &ldquo;The
+grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.&rdquo;&nbsp; The
+prayers are addressed to the &ldquo;blessed Lord
+Jesus.&rdquo;&nbsp; Whereas Christ, when he gave us a form of
+prayer, bade us address &ldquo;our Father in heaven;&rdquo; and
+bade us ask of the Father in his name; and the form of the
+apostolic doxology is, &ldquo;To God only wise be glory through
+Jesus Christ for ever&rdquo;; <a name="citation80a"></a><a
+href="#footnote80a" class="citation">[80a]</a> and the blessing,
+&ldquo;Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father, and from
+the Lord Jesus Christ.&rdquo; <a name="citation80b"></a><a
+href="#footnote80b" class="citation">[80b]</a>&nbsp; As at this
+time Christ had ascended from the earth, had the human nature
+been entirely merged in the Divine, as this sect asserts, Paul
+the Apostle would not have made this distinction, which implies
+that the Lord Jesus still existed somewhere in his human form as
+the everlasting visible temple of the Invisible father of all
+things, for &ldquo;no man hath seen God at <a
+name="page81"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 81</span>any
+time,&rdquo; says the beloved Apostle, <a
+name="citation81a"></a><a href="#footnote81a"
+class="citation">[81a]</a> and this is confirmed by Christ
+himself. <a name="citation81b"></a><a href="#footnote81b"
+class="citation">[81b]</a>&nbsp; If the man then be lost in the
+Deity, it follows that the Lord Jesus exists no more for
+us.&nbsp; I am aware that this consequence is denied by the sect,
+but it is a self evident proposition: for their creed runs thus,
+&ldquo;I believe in one God in whom is a Divine Trinity, &amp;c.,
+and that this God is the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ who is
+Jehovah in a glorified human form.&rdquo;&nbsp; Now a human form
+must have some properties of matter; it must be visible, and
+circumscribed, or it is not form; and what is circumscribed and
+visible cannot be God, who, of necessity, is uncircumscribed, and
+therefore invisible.&nbsp; The infinite Eternal Omnipotent Deity
+<i>must</i> be where that glorified body is not; therefore, the
+Great Father of all things must always be the object of worship,
+through Jesus Christ, who is the <i>visible</i> image of his
+glory.&nbsp; The <i>form</i> of baptism is retained by this sect,
+though they assert that the rite was &ldquo;constantly
+administered by the Apostles in the name of Christ alone&rdquo;;
+an assertion contradicted by the whole testimony of antiquity
+from the earliest times; adding, &ldquo;nevertheless it is <a
+name="page82"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 82</span>well to use
+the express words of the Lord, when it is known and acknowledged
+in the church that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are
+not three separate persons but three Divine Essentials,
+constituting the single Divine Person of our Lord Jesus
+Christ.&rdquo; <a name="citation82"></a><a href="#footnote82"
+class="citation">[82]</a>&nbsp; With regard to the
+&ldquo;internal sense&rdquo; of Scripture it is sufficient to
+observe that if &ldquo;every syllable&rdquo; were to be
+considered as inspired and holy, the long list of various
+readings would grievously shake our faith, though these are quite
+immaterial as to the general meaning.</p>
+<p>There are serious objections to the distinctive tenets of this
+sect, yet, in justice to them, it must be allowed that the
+unguarded language of some preachers does so split up the Deity
+into separate individuals as to make the doctrine so taught a
+complete tritheism, and that a serious mind returning to the
+express declaration of the Scripture, that God is One, may be so
+far shocked by such unmeasured expressions, as to run into the
+extreme which I have condemned.&nbsp; Unitarianism on the one
+hand, and the doctrine of Swedenborg on the other, have equally
+sprung from a want of proper caution when speaking of <a
+name="page83"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 83</span>the different
+manifestations of the Deity, and an unmeasured itch for the
+definition of things too far beyond the reach of our finite
+faculties to admit of any precision of terms.&nbsp; <i>Words</i>
+were formed for the things pertaining to earth; how then can they
+ever exactly express the nature of the Deity?</p>
+<p>Notwithstanding the faith professed by this sect, their
+teaching, nevertheless, returns to the doctrine of the
+Gospel.&nbsp; In a tract &ldquo;on the true meaning of the
+intercession of Jesus Christ,&rdquo; published at Manchester by
+their own religious tract society, we have the following passage:
+&ldquo;The Humanity named Jesus is the medium whereby man may
+come to God, because the Father, <i>heretofore invisible</i>, is
+manifested and made <i>visible</i> and <i>approachable</i> in
+him.&nbsp; This is meant by <i>our coming unto God by
+him</i>;&rdquo; and elsewhere, as we cannot obtain this
+&ldquo;light of life&rdquo; without following the Lord, and doing
+his will, as he did the will of the Father, agreeably to his own
+saying, &ldquo;If ye keep my commandments, even as I have kept my
+Father&rsquo;s commandments, and abide in his love;&rdquo; so
+neither can we obtain that divine food by which our spiritual
+life is to be sustained, unless we labour for it, as the Lord
+himself instructed us when he <a name="page84"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 84</span>said &ldquo;Labour for the meat which
+endureth unto everlasting life&rdquo;; and is it not of the
+greatest importance clearly to understand what this labour
+implies?&nbsp; Let the reader be assured that he must labour in
+that spiritual vineyard which the Lord desires to plant in his
+soul, in order that it may bear abundant fruits of righteousness
+to the glory of his heavenly father.&rdquo; <a
+name="citation84"></a><a href="#footnote84"
+class="citation">[84]</a>&nbsp; Thus we see again that the
+fundamental doctrines of Christianity <i>will</i> find their way,
+however men may speculatively disclaim them.&nbsp; Why then do we
+differ outwardly, when at heart we agree?</p>
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>The <span class="smcap">Plymouth Brethren</span>, so called
+probably from the place where this society first arose, do not
+allow themselves to be a sect, though in their practices they
+differ considerably from those of the Established Church.&nbsp;
+They meet together on the morning of the first day of the week to
+celebrate the Lord&rsquo;s Supper, when any &ldquo;Brother&rdquo;
+is at liberty to speak for mutual edification.&nbsp; In the
+afternoon and evening, when they have preachers, the services are
+similar to those in the Congregational Churches (Independents):
+<a name="page85"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 85</span>the desk,
+however, for they condemn pulpits, is not occupied by one man,
+but used as a convenient place for speaking, being alternately
+occupied by the &ldquo;Brother,&rdquo; who reads the hymn, the
+one who prays, and the one who teaches or preaches the
+Word.&nbsp; There are also &ldquo;Meetings for Prayer,&rdquo; and
+what are technically called &ldquo;reading meetings;&rdquo; when
+a chapter is read, and those &ldquo;Brethren&rdquo; who have made
+it matter of reflection, speak upon it clause by clause for their
+mutual instruction.</p>
+<p>Before a person is acknowledged a &ldquo;Brother,&rdquo; his
+name is announced at one of the times of &ldquo;meeting together
+to break bread,&rdquo; as it is termed, and if nothing occurs in
+the interval, he takes his seat with them the next Sunday.<a
+name="citation85"></a><a href="#footnote85"
+class="citation">[85]</a>&nbsp; Any one is admitted to their
+communion whom they believe to be &ldquo;a child of God;&rdquo;
+but they do not receive or acknowledge him as a brother,
+&ldquo;while in actual connection with any of the various forms
+of worldliness,&rdquo; i.e. the other churches of Christ.&nbsp;
+Their preachers move about from place to place, forming different
+congregations, which they again leave for other places where
+their services are required.&nbsp; None of their <a
+name="page86"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 86</span>ministers
+receive any <i>stipulated</i> charity.&nbsp; The
+&ldquo;Brethren&rdquo; disapprove of any association of
+Christians for any purpose whatever, whether civil or religious,
+and therefore discountenance all Sunday School, Bible,
+Missionary, or even purely Benevolent, Societies.&nbsp; They do
+not disapprove of sending either Bibles or Missionaries to the
+heathen; but they say that if they go at all, &ldquo;God and not
+the church must send them.&rdquo;&nbsp; They do not think that
+the Gospel is to convert the world, but that it is to be
+&ldquo;preached as a witness to&rdquo; or rather against
+&ldquo;all nations.&rdquo;&nbsp; The world, they say, &ldquo;is
+reserved for judgment, and therefore it is wholly contrary to the
+character of a Christian to have any thing to do with it or its
+government.&rdquo;&nbsp; When a child of God is born again,
+&ldquo;he lays,&rdquo; say they, &ldquo;all his worldly relations
+down at the feet of Christ, and he is at liberty to take up none
+but those which he can take up in the Lord.&rdquo;&nbsp; They
+neither pray for pardon of sin, nor for the presence and
+influence of the Spirit, and carefully exclude such petitions
+from their hymns.&nbsp; Many of them think it inconsistent with
+the Christian character to amass wealth, or to possess furniture
+or clothing more than is <i>necessary</i> for health and <a
+name="page87"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 87</span>cleanliness;
+and very great sacrifices have been made by the more wealthy of
+them.</p>
+<p>These are most of them unimportant peculiarities; but the
+great feature of this sect, for so notwithstanding their protest,
+I must call these &ldquo;Brethren,&rdquo; is a degree of self
+approbation and uncharity for others, which, to say the least, is
+not what Christ taught.&nbsp; &ldquo;No sect,&rdquo; says Rust,
+<a name="citation87a"></a><a href="#footnote87a"
+class="citation">[87a]</a> &ldquo;is more Sectarian, and none
+more separate from Christians of all denominations than
+&ldquo;The Plymouth Brethren.&rdquo;&nbsp; The Church of Rome
+they consider &ldquo;bad.&rdquo;&nbsp; The Church of England
+&ldquo;bad.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;A popish priest and a parish
+priest, both bad;&rdquo; &ldquo;but infinitely worse,&rdquo; says
+one of the Brethren (a Captain Hall), &ldquo;is a people&rsquo;s
+preacher.&rdquo;&nbsp; They occasionally indulge in what they
+term &ldquo;biting jests and sarcastic raillery,&rdquo; of the
+ministers of our church, and of those who differ from them, which
+evince but little of the meek and peaceable spirit of the Gospel;
+<a name="citation87b"></a><a href="#footnote87b"
+class="citation">[87b]</a> for, <a name="page88"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 88</span>as Lord Bacon has well observed,
+&ldquo;to intermix Scripture with scurrility in one
+sentence;&mdash;the majesty of religion and the contempt and
+deformity of things ridiculous,&mdash;is a thing far from the
+reverence of a devout Christian, and hardly becoming the honest
+regard of a sober man.&rdquo;&nbsp; If I have appeared to speak
+harshly of this <a name="page89"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+89</span>sect, it is because they seem to me to have abandoned so
+much of the spirit of the Gospel.&nbsp; &ldquo;If the tenets of
+the Plymouth Brethren be consistent with themselves,&rdquo;
+observes Mr. Rust, &ldquo;they necessarily withdraw them from all
+society, and every existing form of Christianity, shutting them
+out from all co-operation with the holy and benevolent, for the
+relief and blessing of their poor or sinful fellow creatures,
+making it sinful to fulfil the duties of a subject, a citizen,
+&amp;c.&rdquo;&nbsp; But I hope and believe that these tenets
+must be and are counteracted by the instinctive love of our kind,
+which for the benefit of the world God has implanted in
+man.&nbsp; The human race is so essentially social that they who
+endeavour to dissociate mankind, stand in much the same situation
+as he would do who should hope to dam up the ocean.&nbsp; It is
+in fact to these silent tendencies of human nature, whose force
+we never know till we attempt to check them, that we owe much of
+the innocuousness of false or overstrained opinions: the reason
+is deluded, but the feelings which the Creator has made a part of
+our very being, generally correct the false argument; and the
+man, if not previously corrupted by vice, acts right though he
+argues wrong.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p90b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Decorative header"
+title=
+"Decorative header"
+src="images/p90s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<h2><a name="page90"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 90</span>LETTER
+VI.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">CALVINISM.</span></h2>
+<p>I have already noticed that the sects into which the reformed
+churches are split, may be classified generally under two great
+divisions, the one adopting mainly the milder views of
+Melancthon, whose advice was much used in the reform of the
+Anglican church; the other following those of Calvin, which were
+chiefly carried out, at Geneva, the birthplace of that reformer,
+and among the Huguenots of France.&nbsp; It may be well,
+therefore, before we proceed to notice the particular sects which
+profess to combine in a greater or less degree the doctrines
+usually termed Calvinistic, to examine what the opinions are
+which pass under that name. <a name="citation90"></a><a
+href="#footnote90" class="citation">[90]</a></p>
+<p><a name="page91"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 91</span>It was
+at the Synod of Dort, which was assembled in the year 1618, that
+these opinions received a decided form; for James Arminius,
+professor of divinity in the University of Leyden, having
+rejected some part of the Genevan doctrine respecting
+predestination and grace, this synod was called in order to
+settle the disputed points.&nbsp; After much debate the opinions
+of Arminius were condemned, and the doctrine of Calvin was summed
+up in five points, which gave name to what has been called the
+Quinqueticular controversy between the Calvinistic and
+Anti-calvinistic divines of Holland.&nbsp; They related to,</p>
+<p>1.&nbsp; Predestination or Election.</p>
+<p>2.&nbsp; The extent of redemption.</p>
+<p>3.&nbsp; Moral depravity and impotency. <a
+name="citation91"></a><a href="#footnote91"
+class="citation">[91]</a></p>
+<p>4.&nbsp; Effectual calling.</p>
+<p>5.&nbsp; Final perseverance of the sanctified.</p>
+<p>Calvinists are understood to maintain that predestination is
+absolute; redemption limited; <a name="page92"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 92</span>moral impotency total; grace
+inevitable; and the salvation of the believer, certain.&nbsp; But
+among Calvinistic as among Arminian divines, there are many
+shades of difference indicated by the terms <i>high</i>
+Calvinist, and <i>moderate</i> Calvinist, <i>sub</i> lapsarian
+and <i>supra</i> lapsarian, <i>scholastic</i> Calvinism and
+<i>popular</i> Calvinism; which latter has been described as
+&ldquo;the Augustinian theology strained off from its
+mathematics.&rdquo;&nbsp; These all differ so materially that
+Bishop Horsley found it necessary to admonish his clergy
+&ldquo;to beware how they aimed their shaft at Calvinism before
+they knew what it is, and what it is not;&rdquo; a great part of
+what ignorantly goes under that name, being &ldquo;closely
+interwoven with the very rudiments of Christianity.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+I believe, however, that though differences may subsist among
+Calvinists themselves, as to the explication of their doctrines,
+they generally allow,</p>
+<p>1.&nbsp; That God has chosen a certain number in Christ, to
+everlasting glory before the foundation of the world, according
+to his immutable purpose, and of his free grace and love; without
+the least foresight of faith, good works, or any conditions
+performed by the creature; and that the rest of mankind he was
+pleased to pass by, <a name="page93"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+93</span>and ordain them to dishonour and wrath for their sins to
+the praise of his vindictive justice.</p>
+<p>2.&nbsp; That Christ by his death and sufferings made an
+atonement only for the sins of the elect. <a
+name="citation93a"></a><a href="#footnote93a"
+class="citation">[93a]</a></p>
+<p>3.&nbsp; That mankind are <i>totally</i> depraved in
+consequence of the fall.</p>
+<p>4.&nbsp; That all whom God has predestined to life, he is
+pleased in his appointed time effectually to call by his Word and
+Spirit out of that state of sin and death in which they are by
+nature, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ.</p>
+<p>5.&nbsp; That those whom God has effectually called and
+sanctified by his Spirit, shall never finally fall from a state
+of grace.</p>
+<p>The prominent feature then, of the Calvinistic system, <a
+name="citation93b"></a><a href="#footnote93b"
+class="citation">[93b]</a> is the election of some, and <a
+name="page94"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 94</span>reprobation
+of others from all eternity; but to <a name="page95"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 95</span>this we may answer, that if all
+mankind are really appointed to sin and punishment, holiness and
+salvation irrespectively to any act of their own, then they will
+be judged in exact opposition to our Saviour&rsquo;s declaration,
+that he will reward every man <i>according to his works</i>: <a
+name="citation95a"></a><a href="#footnote95a"
+class="citation">[95a]</a> and again, that it is &ldquo;not the
+will of &lsquo;our&rsquo; Father which is in heaven that one of
+those little ones,&rdquo; i.e. children, &ldquo;should
+perish.&rdquo; <a name="citation95b"></a><a href="#footnote95b"
+class="citation">[95b]</a>&nbsp; These declarations would, I
+think, sufficiently prove that St. Paul&rsquo;s expressions on
+the subject relate to national, and not individual election, even
+had the Apostle himself left his meaning unexplained: for the
+servant is not greater than his master, and it is not possible
+that an inspired Apostle should preach a doctrine different from
+that of Him who commissioned him; but if I mistake not, he has
+himself taken especial care that his meaning on this important
+subject should <i>not</i> be misunderstood.&nbsp; For first, it
+is a notorious fact, though often overlooked in argument, that
+the very passage, &ldquo;I will have mercy on whom I will have
+mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have
+compassion,&rdquo; which is the main support claimed for the
+doctrine of <a name="page96"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+96</span>absolute decrees, is quoted from Exodus, and forms the
+assurance given by God himself to Moses, that He had separated
+<i>the Hebrew nation</i> from all the people on the face of the
+earth. <a name="citation96a"></a><a href="#footnote96a"
+class="citation">[96a]</a>&nbsp; Again St. Paul has asserted that
+God will render to <i>every</i> man <i>according to his
+deeds</i>, for there is <i>no respect of persons</i> with God. <a
+name="citation96b"></a><a href="#footnote96b"
+class="citation">[96b]</a>&nbsp; God will have <i>all men</i> to
+be saved, &amp;c. &amp;c.</p>
+<p>God forbid that we should consider that a man may not be a
+sincere Christian, who believes himself irrevocably called,
+&ldquo;elect,&rdquo; and inevitably secure of his salvation; or
+declare that a strict Calvinist cannot be attached to our church:
+but St. Paul teaches that &ldquo;Christ died for all;&rdquo; that
+grace instead of being irresistible may be received in vain; that
+those who have been once justified instead of being <i>sure</i>
+of &ldquo;final perseverance&rdquo; and salvation, <i>may</i>
+&ldquo;sin wilfully after they have received the knowledge of the
+truth,&rdquo; and &ldquo;draw back to perdition,&rdquo; so that
+it behoves every one &ldquo;who thinketh he standeth to take heed
+lest he fall.&rdquo; <a name="citation96c"></a><a
+href="#footnote96c" class="citation">[96c]</a></p>
+<p><a name="page97"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 97</span>In
+regard to &ldquo;irresistible&rdquo; (special)
+&ldquo;grace,&rdquo; Scripture assures us that grace sufficient
+for salvation is denied to none; for St. Paul in every passage of
+the Epistles, which relates to grace, declares that the Spirit
+works in the souls of <i>all</i>, enabling them, if they do not
+obstinately resist it, &ldquo;to work out their
+salvation.&rdquo;&nbsp; The following passage is taken from the
+work of a teacher of the doctrine of Special Grace.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;The reign of sin consists not in the multitude, greatness
+or prevalency of sins, for all these are consistent with a state
+of grace, and may be in a child of God, in whom sin doth not and
+cannot reign; but in the in-being of sin without grace, whether
+it act more or less violently, yea, whether it acts at all or no:
+yet if the habit of sin possess the soul without any principle of
+grace implanted, which is contrary to it, that man may be said to
+be still under the dominion of sin.&nbsp; This mortification then
+of sin, as to its reigning power, is completed in the first act
+of <a name="page98"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+98</span>conversion and regeneration.&rdquo; <a
+name="citation98a"></a><a href="#footnote98a"
+class="citation">[98a]</a>&nbsp; But this language is by no means
+that of St. Paul: for the writer makes grace the test of
+holiness; whereas the apostle, following therein the doctrine of
+his master,&mdash;&ldquo;by their fruits ye shall know
+them,&rdquo;&mdash;makes holiness the test of grace.&nbsp; Indeed
+the obscurity and perplexing nature of the doctrine above quoted,
+stands in no favourable contrast with the simple and clear
+declaration of the Saviour, that we &ldquo;do not gather grapes
+of thorns, nor figs of thistles,&rdquo;&mdash;and that therefore
+the heart must be known by the words and actions: and the no less
+decided and simple exposition of the doctrine of Christ, by the
+beloved disciple, &ldquo;Little children, let no man deceive you:
+he that doeth righteousness is righteous . . . he that committeth
+sin is of the devil.&nbsp; Whosoever is born of God <i>doth not
+commit sin</i> . . . whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of
+God.&rdquo; <a name="citation98b"></a><a href="#footnote98b"
+class="citation">[98b]</a></p>
+<p>The doctrine of the <i>total</i> depravity of human nature, it
+appears to me, cannot be proved from <a name="page99"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 99</span>Scripture any more than the two
+former.&nbsp; St. John, whilst asserting that no man is wholly
+without sin, exhorts to efforts, and supposes a possible state of
+Christian perfection in his converts, wholly incompatible with a
+state of entire corruption: and St. Paul, though he clearly
+states that sin has brought all men under condemnation, and that
+the unspirituality of the flesh can only be successfully opposed
+by the influence of the Holy Spirit, does not declare the
+consequences of the Fall in terms such as we find in the
+Calvinistic writers&mdash;as &ldquo;Man, instead of the image of
+God, was now become the image of the Devil; instead of the
+citizen of heaven, he was become the bond-slave of hell, having
+in himself no one part of his former purity, but being altogether
+spotted and defiled&mdash;now he seemed to be nothing else but a
+lump of sin.&rdquo;&nbsp; And again: &ldquo;Man is of his own
+nature fleshly and corrupt, &amp;c. without any spark of goodness
+in him; only given to evil thoughts and evil deeds.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+Even human nature, if closely examined, does not bear testimony
+to this as truth: for either the grace of God is accorded in such
+large measure to man from his birth, that none can be considered
+as wholly bad; or the utter corruption preached by Calvin does <a
+name="page100"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 100</span>not
+exist.&nbsp; All experience may be appealed to on this point,
+even that of the persons who use the above language; for if they
+search their own hearts in sincerity, they will become conscious
+of amiable affections, and admiration of what is good and right:
+neither, probably, are they guilty of any such gross and habitual
+sins, as must mark a nature so wholly depraved.&nbsp; The
+Calvinist therefore can only use these strong phrases with
+certain grains of allowance: and he would be wiser if he were to
+avoid offending his&mdash;if he prefer so to call
+him&mdash;weaker brother, by technical terms which he himself
+cannot use in their <i>full force</i> before the Searcher of
+hearts.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p101b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Decorative header"
+title=
+"Decorative header"
+src="images/p101s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<h2><a name="page101"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+101</span>LETTER VII.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">PRESBYTERIANS.&nbsp;
+INDEPENDENTS.</span></h2>
+<p>When the preaching of Luther and his coadjutors had
+effectually called men&rsquo;s attention to the affairs of the
+church, it was natural that questions with regard to its
+government no less than its doctrine, should be freely
+mooted.&nbsp; The usurpations of Rome had a tendency to disgust
+the Reformers with episcopal government, and accordingly we find
+both Calvin and Luther establishing a more republican form; and
+instead of giving the ecclesiastical power into the hands of one
+man, they judged it proper to delegate it to the elders
+(presbyters) of each church respectively; subject only to the
+control of the majority of a general synod.&nbsp; Such was the
+origin of what we now term Presbyterians as a sect: for in
+<i>England</i> more moderate councils, and the circumstance that
+the reformed tenets were embraced by many of the bishops, led to
+retaining the Episcopal form of church government.&nbsp; In
+<i>Scotland</i>, after a struggle, the Presbyterian <a
+name="page102"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 102</span>form was
+finally established, and the church or kirk of that part of Great
+Britain is regulated upon that system.&nbsp; A secession has
+lately taken place on the question of the right of presentation
+to livings, but the <i>doctrine</i> taught in both is nearly
+similar, i.e. that of the Calvinistic churches.</p>
+<p>The General Synod of Ulster (originally a branch of the
+established kirk of Scotland), is the principal body of
+Presbyterians considered as dissenters from the establishment:
+and there also, there is a Presbyterian Synod, or Church of
+&ldquo;the Apostolic Seceders,&rdquo; formed by seceders from the
+General Synod, which is thoroughly Calvinistic, and which
+maintains the same discipline that is usually observed among the
+seceding &ldquo;Scottish Presbyterians.&rdquo;&nbsp; In the reign
+of Geo. I. Arianism <a name="citation102"></a><a
+href="#footnote102" class="citation">[102]</a> was openly
+embraced by some of the more speculative of the Presbyterian
+ministers <a name="page103"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+103</span>in Ireland, and in consequence, a theological
+controversy was carried on for twenty years (from 1705 to 1725),
+which ended in the secession of eight Arian ministers, and the
+formation of the Presbytery of Antrim.&nbsp; Some who were
+secretly inclined to Arianism had not the courage to follow the
+example of the eight seceders, and the leaven continued to spread
+among the general body during the latter part of the eighteenth
+century, till at length inquiries were instituted in the Synod,
+which led to a fresh separation.&nbsp; Seventeen at length
+seceded out of thirty-seven ministers, holding Arian or Socinian
+tenets in the year 1830, and they subsequently formed themselves
+into a distinct Synod, under the name of &ldquo;the Remonstrant
+Synod of Ulster,&rdquo; and the Presbytery of Antrim has now
+become incorporated with this Synod.&nbsp; These Arian
+congregations are chiefly situated in the counties of Antrim and
+Down, in the north and eastern part of the province.&nbsp; There
+are ten or twelve congregations in the south of Ireland forming
+the Synod of Munster, which were also, till within a few years,
+Arian or Socinian.&nbsp; The total number of Remonstrant and
+Socinian congregations is between thirty and forty.&nbsp;
+<i>All</i> the Presbyterian bodies,&mdash;Orthodox and Arian,
+share <a name="page104"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 104</span>in
+the Government grants known under the name of &ldquo;Regium
+Donum.&rdquo;&nbsp; This royal bounty was originally dispensed
+among the Presbyterian clergy of Ulster in lieu of the tithes
+which were taken from them at the Restoration, and bestowed upon
+the Episcopal conformists.&nbsp; It was withdrawn towards the
+close of the reign of Charles II.; but at the Revolution, letters
+patent passed the great seal of Ireland, granting &pound;1200 per
+annum to seven Presbyterian ministers, during pleasure, for the
+use of the ministers of the north of Ireland, to be paid
+quarterly out of any of the revenues of the kingdom.&nbsp; This
+grant was renewed, under certain limitations, in the reign of
+Queen Anne: and in the reign of Geo. I. &pound;800 per annum was
+divided in equal shares between the ministers of the Ulster Synod
+and those of the Southern Association.&nbsp; In 1784 an
+additional grant was made to the Ulster Synod of &pound;1000 per
+annum.&nbsp; In 1792 the grant was augmented to &pound;5000 to be
+divided among the ministers of the Synod,&mdash;the Presbytery of
+Antrim,&mdash;the Seceders,&mdash;the Southern
+Association,&mdash;and the ministers of the French church,
+Dublin.&nbsp; In 1803 some fresh regulations were made, by which
+the distribution of the bounty was <a name="page105"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 105</span>taken immediately into the hands of
+Government, and the Presbyterian clergy were thus rendered more
+ostensibly what they had previously been only in effect, i.e.,
+stipendiaries of the state.&nbsp; The congregations under the
+care of the several Synods and Presbyteries are now arranged in
+three classes according to the number of families and the stipend
+of each minister; and the allowance to the ministers of the three
+classes was fixed at &pound;50, &pound;75, and &pound;100 per
+annum.&nbsp; The members of the congregation feel under no
+obligation to contribute much, if anything, to their
+pastor&rsquo;s support, who is therefore often compelled to have
+recourse to farming, grazing, or some other secular employment,
+for the support of his family.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;In 1834 the ascendant party in the Synod succeeded in
+carrying a resolution enforcing unqualified subscription to the
+&ldquo;Confession of Faith,&rdquo; which had not previously been
+enforced.&nbsp; The ostensible motive for this is a desire to
+bring about a closer union with the Established Church of
+Scotland.&nbsp; The Irish Synod being now so far connected with
+the state as to form a species of ecclesiastical establishment, a
+feeling has been generated in favour of the established <a
+name="page106"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 106</span>church of
+both countries: a strong protest, however has been made against
+the decision, but without avail.&rdquo; <a
+name="citation106"></a><a href="#footnote106"
+class="citation">[106]</a></p>
+<p>The increase of the Presbyterians in Ireland from whatever
+cause has borne no due proportion to that of the general
+population.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Presbyterianism received as a scheme of policy, though
+admirably adapted to the exigencies of the times in which it
+originated, partakes of the essential defectiveness of the
+incipient reformation of the sixteenth century, embodying these
+erroneous principles which were adopted by the founders of most
+of the Protestant churches, and which soon proved not less fatal
+to the cause of scriptural truth than to the internal peace of
+the Christian communities.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The first Presbyterian church was founded in Geneva by John
+Calvin, about <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 1541, and the
+system afterwards introduced into Scotland, with modifications by
+John Knox, about the year 1560, but not <i>legally</i>
+established there till <a name="page107"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 107</span>1592.&nbsp; It has never flourished
+greatly in England, and the Unitarian doctrine has now been
+almost universally received among the quondam Presbyterian
+congregations.</p>
+<p>The <i>theory</i> of discipline in the <span
+class="smcap">Scottish Church</span> does not differ very widely
+from that of the English episcopacy, but the <i>practice</i> of
+the two churches, as modified by the habits of the two nations,
+is totally different.&nbsp; In order to reconcile the Anglican
+and Scottish confessions of faith, it would be requisite that the
+Church of England should consent to suppress Articles III. VII.
+XXXV. and XXXVI. also that part of Art. VI. which sanctions the
+public reading of the Apocrypha, and the first clause of
+Art.&nbsp; XX, attributing to the church a power to decree rites
+and ceremonies, as well as authority in controversies of
+faith.&nbsp; Agreeing, as the English and Scottish Churches do
+<i>substantially</i> in the doctrines of the Protestant faith,
+they nevertheless differ widely,</p>
+<p>1.&nbsp; As to the nature of holy orders and the power of
+ordination.</p>
+<p>2.&nbsp; As to the hierarchical constitution of the Anglican
+Church.</p>
+<p>3.&nbsp; As to matters of ritual, especially the use of
+liturgies which the Church of Scotland rejects.</p>
+<p><a name="page108"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+108</span>4.&nbsp; As to the doctrines of sacramental grace and
+sacerdotal absolution, implied in the offices of the Anglican
+Church.</p>
+<p>5.&nbsp; As to the whole system of discipline, Ecclesiastical
+Courts, &amp;c.</p>
+<p>6.&nbsp; As to certain points of Calvinistic theology.</p>
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>The <span class="smcap">Independents</span> differ from the
+Presbyterians chiefly in three points, namely:</p>
+<p>1.&nbsp; As to ordination, and the liberty of preaching.</p>
+<p>2.&nbsp; As to the political form and constitution of church
+government, and the conditions of church communion.</p>
+<p>3.&nbsp; As to the grounds and limits of religious
+liberty.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ordination alone,&rdquo; say the Independents,
+&ldquo;without the precedent consent of the Church by those who
+formerly have been advanced by virtue of that power they have
+received by their ordination, doth not constitute any person a
+church officer, or communicate office power unto
+him.&rdquo;&nbsp; The Presbyterians on the other hand deny that
+the mere invitation and choice of the people could confer the
+pastoral office, or that it was even a pre-requisite.&nbsp; The
+Independents <a name="page109"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+109</span>seem to have identified the ministerial function with
+the pastoral office; and argued that it was absurd to ordain an
+officer without a province to exercise the office in.&nbsp; Their
+opponents viewed the Christian ministry more as an order invested
+with certain inherent powers; a faculty or profession endowed
+with peculiar privileges, the admission into which required to be
+jealously guarded; and this power and authority they conceive
+could be transmitted by those of the order.&nbsp; All approved
+candidates for the ministerial office among the Presbyterians,
+are ordained without reference to any local change; among the
+Independents no probationer is ordained till he has been
+appointed to the pastoral office.&nbsp; The first Independent or
+Congregational Church in England was established by a Mr. Jacob,
+<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 1616, though it is asserted that
+a Mr. Robinson was the founder of this sect, of which Dr. John
+Owen, Dr. Isaac Watts, Dr. Doddridge, and Job Orton were
+members.</p>
+<p>The following extracts are from the discourses of Robert Hall,
+who, though a Baptist, dissented from most of his brethren on the
+subject of strict communion.&nbsp; He was a preacher both of
+Baptist and Independent congregations, but he did not hesitate to
+avow that &ldquo;he had <a name="page110"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 110</span>more fellowship of feeling for an
+Independent or a Presbyterian than for a close communion
+Baptist.&rdquo;&nbsp; His system of theological tenets was on the
+model of what has come to be denominated &ldquo;Moderate
+Calvinism.&rdquo;&nbsp; With regard to the distinctive
+Calvinistic doctrine of Predestination, &ldquo;I cannot,&rdquo;
+says his biographer, &ldquo;answer for the precise terms in which
+he would have stated it, but I presume he would have accepted
+those employed by the Church of England.&nbsp; In preaching he
+very rarely made any express reference to that
+doctrine.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Jesus Christ did not come, let it be remembered, to
+establish a mere external morality, that his followers might be
+screened from human laws and human justice, for human laws will
+take care of this.&nbsp; The holy institution of Christianity has
+a nobler object, that of purifying our hearts and regulating our
+behaviour by the love of God.&nbsp; In the most practical
+accounts of the proceedings of the last day given in the
+Scriptures, the excellency which is represented as being a
+criterion and distinguishing feature of the disciple of Christ,
+and which He will acknowledge, is: Christian
+benevolence&mdash;love to man manifested in the relief of the
+poor.&nbsp; The Apostle St. John has given us a most sublime
+description <a name="page111"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+111</span>of the love of God, when he says, &lsquo;God is
+love;&rsquo; love is not so much an attribute of His nature as
+His <i>very essence</i>; the spirit of Himself.&nbsp; Christian
+benevolence is not only the &lsquo;image of God,&rsquo; but is
+peculiarly an imitation of Christ.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;I do not
+ask, my brethren, what particular virtue you have, but <i>how
+much are you under the influence of Him</i>? for just so much
+virtue we have, as we have of His spirit and
+character.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Our Saviour places the acceptance
+of men, not upon their dispositions, but upon their actions; upon
+what <i>they have done</i>, not upon what they have <i>merely
+believed</i> or <i>felt</i>, or in any undefined state of
+mind.&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;I am persuaded that the cause of the
+ruin of professing Christians does not arise so much from a
+mistake of the doctrines of Christianity as from a low idea of
+Christian morals; in abstaining from certain crimes and disorders
+through fear of the loss of character and of punishment, without
+reflecting on the spirit of that holy religion which we
+profess.&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;Christ went about doing good, not as
+an <i>occasional</i> exercise, but as his <i>employment</i>; it
+was the one thing which he did.&nbsp; Though possessed of
+infinite power, he never employed it in resenting or retaliating
+an injury.&nbsp; He was pre-eminently devout.&nbsp; His was <a
+name="page112"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 112</span>an active
+life; it was not the life of a solitary monk.&nbsp; That devotion
+which terminates in itself is a luxury which sometimes perverts
+the principles of benevolence to a pernicious purpose.&nbsp; Let
+us rather recede from being called Christians than forget the
+great symbol of our profession, love to one another.&rdquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p113b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Decorative header"
+title=
+"Decorative header"
+src="images/p113s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<h2><a name="page113"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+113</span>LETTER VIII.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">PARTICULAR BAPTISTS, SUB AND
+SUPRALAPSARIANS, SANDEMANIANS.</span></h2>
+<p>Having now given some account of the principal Calvinistic
+sects, I shall conclude by mentioning a few of those less
+numerous societies, which, whilst agreeing in the peculiar
+doctrines of Calvin, differ upon other points.&nbsp; <span
+class="smcap">The particular baptists</span>, agreeing with the
+General Baptists on most other practices and doctrines, differ
+from them on this.&nbsp; The separation took place in the year
+1616, when a controversy on the subject of infant baptism having
+arisen among the Baptists, one portion calling itself the
+&ldquo;Independent Congregation&rdquo; seceded, embraced the
+Calvinistic doctrine, and became the first Particular Baptists:
+others, who were in general attached to the opinions of Calvin,
+concerning the decrees of God and Divine Grace, were not entirely
+agreed concerning the manner of explaining the doctrine of the <a
+name="page114"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 114</span>Divine
+decrees.&nbsp; The greater part believed that God only
+<i>permitted</i> the first man to fall into transgression,
+without particularly predetermining his fall: these were termed
+<span class="smcap">sublapsarians</span>.&nbsp; But others again
+maintained that &ldquo;God in order to exercise and display his
+justice and his free mercy, had decreed from all eternity the
+transgression of Adam, and so ordered the course of events, that
+our first parents could not possibly avoid their fall.&nbsp;
+These were termed <span class="smcap">supralapsarians</span>.</p>
+<p>There is a modern sect that originated in Scotland about 1728,
+termed Glassites, from its founder Mr. John Glass, who was
+expelled by the Synod from the Church of Scotland, for
+maintaining that &ldquo;the kingdom of Christ was not of this
+world.&rdquo;&nbsp; His adherents then formed themselves into
+churches, conformable in their institution and discipline to what
+they apprehended to be the plan of the first churches recorded in
+the New Testament.&nbsp; Soon after the year 1755, Mr. John
+Sandeman (an elder in one of these congregations in Scotland)
+attempted to prove that &ldquo;Faith is neither more nor less
+than a simple assent to the Divine testimony, concerning Jesus
+Christ delivered for the offences of men and raised again for
+their <a name="page115"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+115</span>justification, as recorded in the New
+Testament.&rdquo;&nbsp; He also mentioned that the word
+<i>Faith</i> or <i>Belief</i>, is constantly used by the Apostles
+to signify what is denoted by it in common conversation, i.e. a
+persuasion of the truth of any proposition, and that there is no
+difference between believing any common testimony, and believing
+the apostolic testimony, except that which results from the
+testimony itself, and the Divine authority on which it
+rests.&nbsp; This led to controversy among the Calvinists and
+Sandemanians, concerning the nature of justifying faith; and the
+latter formed themselves into a separate sect.&nbsp; They
+administer the sacrament of the Lord&rsquo;s supper weekly, and
+hold &ldquo;love feasts,&rdquo; of which every member is not only
+allowed but required to partake, and which consists of their
+dining together at each other&rsquo;s houses, in the interval
+between the morning and afternoon service.&nbsp; They interpret
+literally the precept respecting the &ldquo;kiss of
+charity,&rdquo; which they use on the admission of a new member,
+as well as on other occasions, when they deem it necessary or
+proper: they make a weekly collection before the sacrament of the
+Lord&rsquo;s supper; use mutual exhortation; abstain from blood
+and things strangled; wash each other&rsquo;s feet; hold that
+every <a name="page116"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+116</span>one is to consider all that he possesses to be liable
+to the calls of the poor and the church, and that it is unlawful
+to &ldquo;lay up treasure upon earth,&rdquo; by setting them
+apart for any future use.&nbsp; They allow of public and private
+diversions, so far as they are not connected with circumstances
+really sinful; but apprehending a lot to be sacred, they
+disapprove of lotteries, playing at cards, dice, &amp;c.&nbsp;
+They maintain the necessity of a plurality of elders, pastors, or
+bishops in each church, and the necessity of the presence of two
+elders in every act of discipline, and at the administration of
+the Lord&rsquo;s supper.&nbsp; Second marriages disqualify for
+the office of elder.&nbsp; The elders are ordained by prayer and
+fasting, imposition of hands, and giving the &ldquo;right hand of
+fellowship.&rdquo;&nbsp; In their discipline they are strict and
+severe, and in every transaction esteem unanimity to be
+absolutely necessary.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p117b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Decorative header"
+title=
+"Decorative header"
+src="images/p117s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<h2><a name="page117"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+117</span>LETTER IX.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">CALVINISTIC METHODISTS.&nbsp; EVANGELICAL
+OR SERIOUS CHRISTIANS.</span></h2>
+<p>I noticed the name of George Whitfield when speaking of Wesley
+and his followers, for during a time they acted in unison;
+Whitfield, however, soon embraced the Calvinistic tenets, and
+then the friends separated with much of unkindly feeling.&nbsp;
+Wesley held the doctrines of Calvin in abhorrence, as altogether
+unchristian and unfounded in Scripture.&nbsp; &ldquo;I defy you
+to say so hard a thing of the Devil,&rdquo; said he with
+characteristic earnestness, when speaking of the notion that God
+could arbitrarily create any for eternal reprobation.&nbsp; This
+separation between the leaders soon extended to their
+congregations, and from that time Calvinistic and Wesleyan
+Methodists became distinct sects, differing, however, but little
+on any other point, excepting in the greater tendency to
+enthusiasm among the followers of Whitfield.</p>
+<p><a name="page118"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+118</span>&ldquo;Wesley and Whitfield,&rdquo; says Mr. Sidney in
+his life of Rowland Hill, &ldquo;were men of widely different
+characters, both in respect to their natural dispositions as well
+as the discipline of their minds; and painful frailties were
+visible in the midst of their true greatness.&nbsp; An ambitious
+love of power was evidently the besetting weakness of John
+Wesley; aspiration to the <i>honours</i> when he had no prospect
+of the <i>suffering</i> of martyrdom, was that of
+Whitfield.&rdquo;&nbsp; In his letters to Rowland Hill, it is
+evident how he courted and enjoyed persecution; and whenever
+&ldquo;<i>the fire</i> (to use his own expression) was kindled in
+the country;&rdquo; he was not satisfied unless
+&ldquo;honoured&rdquo; by being scorched a little in its
+flame.&nbsp; This was a wrong spirit, and did injury to his own
+mind, and to his followers, by encouraging a morose and morbid
+carriage towards the world, giving needless offence, and
+provoking animosity in those who might have been attracted and
+endeared to truth by the lovely graces of pure
+Christianity.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>At the time when he, and his early friends the Wesleys began
+their ministry, the piety of all classes was at a very low
+ebb.&nbsp; The earnestness of these men gave a new impulse to
+religious feeling, and after a time a considerable <a
+name="page119"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 119</span>number of
+other episcopally ordained ministers of the church, together with
+a portion of the laity, became influenced by the same
+sentiments.&nbsp; Without seceding, they formed a party in the
+church, leaning to Calvinism to the extent they thought justified
+by the <span class="smcap">xxxix</span> Articles; and this party
+soon became designated by several distinguishing terms.&nbsp;
+They called themselves <i>Evangelical</i> first, afterwards when
+that became a cant term of misapplied reproach, they took the
+title of <i>Serious</i> Christians, and by others were called
+<i>Low Church</i>, and <i>Methodistical</i>.&nbsp; Besides
+distinguishing themselves by an especial name, they avoided
+public amusements, used a peculiar phraseology, and seemed to
+delight in wearing their religion externally in the sight of all
+men, thinking perhaps to reform the thoughtless by the example of
+their greater strictness.&nbsp; But herein, in my opinion, they
+made a net for their own feet, for that very aspiration after
+greater exaltation which is implanted in us as a spur to strive
+after glory and immortality, is soon by mismanagement perverted
+into a love of earthly distinction.&nbsp; Hence comes ambition;
+but the ambition for worldly honours has in it this alleviation,
+that the man who toils after a title or a fortune, knows that he
+is, after all, <a name="page120"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+120</span>seeking but a mean object; and if ever his mind is
+awakened at all to a sense of the world to come, the soul springs
+back to its true ambition, and launches into the career natural
+to it: but the man who seeks to be distinguished among his
+brethren for superior holiness, and wears it externally, that it
+may be seen and honoured by men, blinds his better nature, and
+fetters it to earth by chains forged in heaven; he sees not that
+he is ambitious; he is not aware that while seeking, as he
+imagines, to honour God in his life, he is enjoying at his
+heart&rsquo;s core the respectful homage of men; and whilst
+attending to his outward deportment, and making a display even of
+his humility, he too frequently leaves the inner heart
+unchastened.&nbsp; Our Saviour knew the frailties of man, and his
+injunction that our religion should chiefly be manifested by our
+benevolent feelings towards our fellow creatures, while the
+communing with God should be carried on in silence and secrecy,
+is the only safe guide in these matters.</p>
+<p>I have no doubt that there are many of the Low Church party,
+whose conscientiousness sets at defiance the dangers of the
+system they have adopted: indeed my own private friendships
+warrant <a name="page121"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+121</span>me in saying so: but it is not well to lead others into
+dangerous paths where our own skill indeed may enable us to walk
+safely, but where the hindmost, whom we are not leading by the
+hand, are in continual hazard of deviating from the true course;
+and therefore whilst honouring individual virtues, I continue to
+consider the whole system erroneous: one whose tendency is to
+create spiritual pride, and lower the standard of Christian
+benevolence by restricting to a party that fellowship which
+should be universal.&nbsp; It does but substitute the excitement
+of the crowded church where a popular preacher charms with all
+the graces of rhetoric, of the committee room, of the speakers at
+Exeter Hall, for the ball room and the theatre; with this
+difference, that in the first case the instinct which makes the
+mind seek this excitement, is overlooked; the man believes
+himself performing a meritorious action, and looks with some
+contempt on his weaker brethren, who cannot exist without worldly
+amusements; on the other he knows what he is about, and if he be
+well-intentioned, guards against excess.&nbsp; It would be wiser
+therefore to acknowledge the instinct; not bad in itself, for God
+implanted it, and if it be denied a due indulgence, <a
+name="page122"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 122</span>the mind
+sinks into hopeless imbecility; and not to blame those who seek
+other, but innocent means of gratifying it. <a
+name="citation122a"></a><a href="#footnote122a"
+class="citation">[122a]</a></p>
+<p>The extracts that I am about to give, from the writings of two
+men of note, in that party, distinguished also for their genuine
+Christian feeling, will show that they saw the dangers I have
+pointed out, and were anxious to guard against them.&nbsp; The
+following extracts are given in Mr. Sidney&rsquo;s &ldquo;Life of
+the Rev. Rowland Hill.&rdquo; <a name="citation122b"></a><a
+href="#footnote122b" class="citation">[122b]</a></p>
+<p><a name="page123"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+123</span>&ldquo;I hate dry doctrinal preaching, without warm,
+affectionate, and experimental applications.&nbsp; Oh! &rsquo;tis
+most pleasant to love one another with pure hearts
+fervently.&nbsp; Love is of God, for &lsquo;God is
+love.&rsquo;&nbsp; The summit of our happiness must be the
+perfection of our holiness.&nbsp; By this blessed grace we have
+the brightest evidence that we are &lsquo;born of
+God.&rsquo;&nbsp; If we allow that little shades of difference
+may exist, we ought to &lsquo;love as brethren,&rsquo; and where
+Christian candour and love are found to reign, the odious sin of
+schism, according to its general interpretation, cannot
+exist.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;It is no sign that we value the
+blessings of God, if we can part with them&rdquo; (i.e. dear
+friends) &ldquo;without regret.&nbsp; That mind is badly framed
+that prefers stoical indifference to Christian sensibility, and
+though the pain is abundantly more acute where those finer
+feelings of the mind are found to exist; yet who deserves the
+name of a human being who is without them?&rdquo;&nbsp; <a
+name="page124"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+124</span>&ldquo;While a soul within our reach is ignorant of a
+Saviour, we must endeavour to win it to Christ.&nbsp; How weary I
+am of a great deal of what is called the &lsquo;<i>religious
+world</i>!&rsquo;&nbsp; High and Low Church Sectarianism seems to
+be the order of the day; we are much more busy in contending for
+<i>parties</i> than for <i>principles</i>.&nbsp; These evils are
+evidences of a lack of genuine Christianity.&nbsp; Oh! when shall
+that happy day dawn upon us, when real Christians and Christian
+ministers of all denominations shall come nearer to each
+other.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The next extracts shall be from the writings of one who was
+scarcely appreciated by the world in general, but of whose
+excellencies I was enabled to judge, during my residence at
+Cambridge; Mr. Simeon.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Religion appears in its true colours when it regulates
+our conduct in social life; your religion must be seen, not in
+the church, or in the closet only, but in the shop, the family,
+the field: it must mortify pride and every other evil passion,
+and must bring faith into exercise.&nbsp; Try yourselves by this
+standard: see what you are as husbands or wives, parents or
+children, masters or servants.&rdquo; <a
+name="citation124"></a><a href="#footnote124"
+class="citation">[124]</a></p>
+<p><a name="page125"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+125</span>&ldquo;The self-righteous, self-applauding moralist can
+spy out the failings and infirmities of those who profess a
+stricter system of religion; but let me ask such an one,
+&lsquo;Are there not in thee, even in thee, sins against the Lord
+thy God?&rsquo;&nbsp; Verily if thou wouldst consult thy own
+conscience, thou wouldst see little reason, and feel little
+inclination too, to cast stones at others.&nbsp; Professors of
+religion also are but too guilty of this same fault, being filled
+with an overweening conceit of their own excellencies, and a
+contemptuous disregard of their less spiritual neighbours.&nbsp;
+But I would ask the professed follower of Christ, Are there not
+sins with thee too as well as with the pharisaic formalist?&nbsp;
+Are there not great and crying evils in the religious world,
+which prove a stumbling block to those around them?&nbsp; Are
+there not often found among professors of religion the same
+covetous desires, the same fraudulent practices, the same
+deviations from truth and honour, as are found in persons who
+make no profession?&nbsp; Are there not many whose tempers are so
+unsubdued, that they make their whole families a scene of
+contention and misery?&nbsp; Yes!&nbsp; Though the accusations
+which are brought against the whole body of religious people as
+&lsquo;hypocrites,&rsquo; are a gross <a name="page126"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 126</span>calumny, there is but too much
+ground for them in the conduct of many.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Nothing is more common, and nothing more delusive than a
+noisy, talkative religion.&nbsp; True religion is a humble,
+silent, retired thing; not affecting public notice, but rather
+wishing to approve itself to God.&nbsp; It is not in
+<i>saying</i> &lsquo;Lord, Lord!&rsquo; but in <i>doing</i> the
+will of our heavenly Father, that we shall find acceptance at the
+last day.&nbsp; Happy would it be if many who place all their
+religion in running about and hearing sermons, and talking of the
+qualifications of ministers, would attend to this hint, and
+endeavour to acquire more of that wisdom which evinces its Divine
+origin by the excellence of its fruits.&rdquo; <a
+name="citation126"></a><a href="#footnote126"
+class="citation">[126]</a></p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p127b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Decorative header"
+title=
+"Decorative header"
+src="images/p127s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<h2><a name="page127"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+127</span>LETTER X.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">ON ROMANISM AND CEREMONIAL
+RELIGION.</span></h2>
+<p>I promised that as the completion of my task, I would notice
+those differences which have occurred in the bosom of the church
+itself, even though they can scarcely be called <i>sects</i>; I
+therefore propose to conclude my correspondence with a short
+survey of the above-named, which I think should rather be viewed
+as the working out of great principles, than as parties
+distinguished by particular creeds or opinions on abstract
+subjects.&nbsp; I may run counter to some prejudices, perhaps, in
+so doing; but the truth is well worth running a tilt
+for:&mdash;you may sit by as umpire, and decide when I have done,
+whether I have carried my spear in a knightly fashion.</p>
+<p>Though I shall not think it necessary, like Racine&rsquo;s
+advocate in Les Plaideurs, to go back to the Assyrians and the
+Babylonians to illustrate my proposition, yet I must begin from a
+<a name="page128"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 128</span>very
+distant period, in order to make my views thoroughly
+comprehensible.&nbsp; I must therefore beg you to notice that the
+tendency of man&rsquo;s mind always is, and always has been,
+towards the visible and the tangible.&nbsp; The pure abstraction
+of a Governing Will without any perceptible presence, has in it
+something too remote from the common habits, powers, and feelings
+of human nature, ever to be thoroughly embraced by the heart of
+man; and we find that the Deity has always condescended so far to
+the weakness of his creatures, as to give the imagination some
+resting place.&nbsp; Thus the patriarch had his altar of
+sacrifice, where the fire from heaven marked the present
+Deity&mdash;and the Israelite had first the pillar of the cloud,
+and then the tabernacle, where the mysterious Shechinah dwelt
+over the mercy seat.&nbsp; Yet even this indistinct
+representation of an embodied Deity, did not satisfy the people:
+they required a <i>form</i>, tangible, visible, and Aaron yielded
+to the wish; because he thought it a prudent and allowable
+compliance with the weakness of human nature.&nbsp; He was wrong,
+and was punished for it; and this transaction we shall find the
+type and foreshadowing of every thing that has since happened in
+the world with regard to religion.&nbsp; <a
+name="page129"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 129</span>The
+Almighty gives man just enough to rest his thoughts upon: it is
+the fire on the altar, the cloud, the temple, and last of all
+<i>the man</i>, in whom our devotion may find also an object of
+affection: but he requires that we shall not go beyond
+this.&nbsp; We must not return to earth, and make for ourselves a
+worship less spiritual than he has instituted; on the contrary,
+he requires us to pierce through the veil as we advance in
+knowledge, and discern the spiritual through the visible.&nbsp;
+Hence the perpetual denunciations of the prophets against the
+Jews for their adherence to forms, which latterly they did adhere
+to, instead of giving attention to the purification of their
+hearts.</p>
+<p>Among all but the Israelites, the progress of the tangible was
+much more rapid: idolatry, with all its gross rites, had
+established itself among <i>the people</i>, at any rate, in
+Egypt, at a very early period; and spread from that old and
+luxurious empire, through the more simple states which sprang up
+around and from it.&nbsp; The Exodus was a warning from on high,
+that there was a Being, unseen and intangible, whose fiat
+governed all things: and this lesson was not wholly without
+fruit: yet still the human race reverted to the objects of the
+senses, till, in <a name="page130"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+130</span>God&rsquo;s good time, he sent his Son: presented a
+tangible form on which the mind could dwell&mdash;then removed it
+from the earth, and said, &ldquo;You may now think on this, and
+give your imagination a resting place: this form you shall see
+again; but in mean time you must purify your hearts from earthly
+desires: that form will only greet your eyes when you have cast
+off the burthen of the flesh, and have entered upon a spiritual
+existence.&rdquo;&nbsp; The first Christians remembered and loved
+the man; his precepts, his example, his smallest words or actions
+were recurred to with the fondness of personal friendship; and
+this carried Christianity through the first two centuries; but
+then this remembrance began to have a character of abstraction,
+and again the human heart called for tangibility.&nbsp; Then
+came, step by step, gorgeous ceremonies, pictures,
+representations of the personal presence and sufferings of the
+Saviour.&nbsp; The very requirements of those who quitted the
+splendid and sensual rites of heathenism for the faith of Christ,
+led the Christian doctors to endeavour to replace the festival of
+the idol by something analogous in the Christian church: and thus
+without well knowing what they were tending to, the heads of the
+church yielded one point of <a name="page131"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 131</span>spiritualism after another; sought
+to captivate and awe the people by impressive ceremonies; and
+finished by the sin of Aaron: they set up the image and said,
+&ldquo;These be thy Gods, O Israel! that brought thee out of the
+land of Egypt.&rdquo; <a name="citation131a"></a><a
+href="#footnote131a" class="citation">[131a]</a>&nbsp; For be it
+observed here, that Aaron set up this image merely as a tangible
+representation of the true Deity; <i>a help to the devotion of
+the people</i>, who could not worship without seeing
+something.</p>
+<p>This then is Romanism; it is not transubstantiation, nor the
+mediation of the Virgin and the Saints, <a
+name="citation131b"></a><a href="#footnote131b"
+class="citation">[131b]</a> nor the infallibility of popes and
+councils; these are natural consequences indeed, but the
+distinctive character of the Romish church is
+<i>tangibility</i>.&nbsp; &ldquo;There is the actual
+flesh,&rdquo; it says, &ldquo;there is the representation of the
+actual human presence of saints and martyrs; there is the actual
+man enthroned, who represents the power of God:&rdquo; but it
+might have fifty other ways of satisfying this restless craving
+of the human mind, and it would be equally pernicious in any of
+these forms.&nbsp; Man&rsquo;s great struggle has always been
+between the animal <a name="page132"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+132</span>and the spiritual nature, and when religion goes one
+step farther towards tangibility than the Deity himself has
+allowed, the animal nature gains strength; and vice and
+licentiousness follow as naturally, among the mass of the people,
+as rain follows the cloud.</p>
+<p>Observe, I do not here deny that many may profess a religion
+of sense, and remain spiritually-minded themselves: Heathenism
+had its Socrates, its Xenocrates, &amp;c.&mdash;Romanism has its
+Pascal, its Fenelon, and a train of other great names: but look
+at the <i>people</i> during that period, and the account will be
+very different.&nbsp; When an ignorant man imagines that he can
+remove the Divine anger by a sacrifice or a penance, he avoids
+the trouble of curbing his passions, and compounds, as he thinks,
+for indulgence of the one, by the performance of the other; but
+when he is told that purity of life and thought is the only road
+to Divine favour, if he sins, he sins at least with some feelings
+of compunction, some dread that he may not have it in his power
+to remove the stain he is incurring.&nbsp; The preaching of
+Wesley reformed multitudes, all enthusiastic as it was; but it
+would be difficult to find a parallel in the annals of
+Romanism.&nbsp; As great a movement of the public <a
+name="page133"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 133</span>mind was
+made by the preaching of Peter the Hermit; but how different was
+the object and the result!&nbsp; The personal pilgrimage to the
+Holy Sepulchre, as a mode of wiping out sin, was undertaken by
+thousands, who perished miserably, or, if they lived, came back
+not better men than they went: under a system of less
+tangibility, and a preaching as effective, they might have staid
+in their homes, and glorified God by a life such as Christ came
+to teach and to exemplify.</p>
+<p>It is so much easier to make a pilgrimage, or endure a long
+fast, than to subdue and tame the animal nature till it becomes
+obedient to the rational will, and seconds instead of resisting
+its wishes, that it is not surprising that in all ages a religion
+of outward observance should be more popular than one of inward
+purification.&nbsp; Those even which set off with the highest
+pretensions in this way have degenerated, and the outward and
+visible form is too often substituted for the inward and
+spiritual grace, which it was intended to <i>represent</i> not to
+<i>supersede</i>.&nbsp; That religion therefore has the best
+chance of influencing the soul, which, as far as is possible,
+renounces outward demonstrations which human indolence is so glad
+to rely on, and preaches <a name="page134"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 134</span>boldly and effectually the
+uselessness of ceremonies, farther than as they tend to preserve
+the remembrance of <span class="smcap">Him</span> who came to
+call the world back to <span class="smcap">Himself</span>, to
+trample on the sensual and the animal, and to raise man to his
+pristine, or rather, to what is to be his future state.&nbsp; A
+public acknowledgment of Christ as our Master and Lord, and a
+compliance with his own few and simple ordinances; are all that
+Christian duty requires, and nearly as much as Christian prudence
+will permit.&nbsp; The rest is a matter of worldly expediency,
+and should be so regarded.</p>
+<p>No doubt rests on my own mind&mdash;I leave others to think as
+they may&mdash;that Episcopacy was the established form of the
+Church as soon as the Christian communities began to assume
+enough of regularity to admit of any settled order; and I think
+it a wise form.&nbsp; As far as any institution can, it secures
+unity and decency in the church: and as far as any institution
+can, that was not positively established by Christ himself, it
+possesses, in my mind, the sanction of antiquity.&nbsp; It gives
+the concentration of purpose and regularity of effort which is
+bestowed by the discipline of an army; for as in an army a
+detachment acts upon the same system of tactics, <a
+name="page135"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 135</span>and obeys
+officers constituted by the same authority, and thus assists the
+efforts of the main body, and falls into rank with it when they
+meet; so the church, under such a form, may send detachments to
+the ends of the earth, who may meet after long years, as brothers
+of the same communion, and find that though the individuals have
+passed away, others have stepped into their place in the ranks,
+and are teaching what their predecessors taught.&nbsp; The
+benefit of church discipline, therefore, in my mind is great; but
+I do not suppose that salvation depends on it, because God has
+repeatedly declared that Christ died <i>for all</i>, <a
+name="citation135a"></a><a href="#footnote135a"
+class="citation">[135a]</a> and that he is not willing that any
+should perish; <a name="citation135b"></a><a href="#footnote135b"
+class="citation">[135b]</a> consequently he can hardly have made
+our eternal state dependent on what no man can accomplish for
+himself.&nbsp; A person may not have it in his power to receive
+baptism from an ordained priest, but he may live as Christ
+taught; or, having never heard of Christ even, he may, like the
+gentiles, win glory and immortality, <a
+name="citation135c"></a><a href="#footnote135c"
+class="citation">[135c]</a> if, having not the law, he be a law
+unto himself.&nbsp; I would not receive Christ&rsquo;s ordinances
+from the hands of any but an ordained <a name="page136"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 136</span>priest, myself, because if a doubt
+exist in my mind, I sin in doing the doubtful thing; but herein I
+speak only for myself; let every man do as he is &ldquo;persuaded
+in his mind&rdquo; <a name="citation136"></a><a
+href="#footnote136" class="citation">[136]</a> in matters of
+secondary import, as all ceremonial matters must be.</p>
+<p>You will now be prepared for my opinion with regard to the
+late movement made in the church by the Anglo-Catholics, as they
+term themselves; Puseyites, or Newmanites, as they have been
+termed by others.&nbsp; They have been thought to have introduced
+innovations&mdash;they have not:&mdash;there is not one of the
+ceremonies or practices which they have recommended, which was
+not very early practised in the church; but it was from the undue
+importance attached to these ceremonies, which came to be
+regarded with reverence from having been instituted by apostles
+and martyrs, that the after growth of Roman superstition sprang
+up so rankly.&nbsp; I believe the first promoters of this
+movement were as remote from actual Romanism as I am, when they
+first began it; but when once reason is submitted to any human
+dictum, in matters of religion, there is no resting place <a
+name="page137"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 137</span>till we
+arrive at the &ldquo;infallible&rdquo; guide which the Romish
+church claims to be.&nbsp; There alone can the soul which will
+not think for itself, find a ready and confident director.&nbsp;
+Accordingly, we find that some of those very men who but a few
+years back exposed the errors of Romanism, have now yielded
+themselves blindfold to the guidance of that very church, which,
+as long as they allowed themselves to reason, they acknowledged
+to have departed from the truth.&nbsp; Yet it is perhaps
+fortunate for the people generally, that this declension of its
+pastors has been as rapid and complete as it has been:&mdash;they
+were going back towards the sin of Aaron&mdash;they were
+insisting on ceremonies as necessary to salvation, thus rendering
+religion gross and tangible, and the people thus taught would
+soon have forgotten what those ceremonies were intended to
+represent, and have depended for salvation on what could not
+avail them in the hour of need: for the repetition of prayer is
+not necessarily praying, nor is the reception of the eucharist
+necessarily sanctification, though these may be the outward and
+visible signs of the inward and spiritual grace which is working
+in the heart.&nbsp; Once teach a man that <i>any</i> ceremony is
+<i>requisite</i> to salvation, and he will soon <a
+name="page138"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 138</span>go a step
+further by himself, and think the outward ceremony sufficient
+without the inward grace.&nbsp; This indeed is but a necessary
+corollary; for if the ceremony be requisite to salvation, then
+the inward grace working purity of life, avails not without the
+ceremony; and thus purity of life is no longer a substantive
+virtue; it cannot stand alone; and the prop which it requires
+being so very strong, why should not the prop itself be all in
+all?&nbsp; This will be the course of ratiocination in the mind
+of the mass of mankind, whether avowed or not; and however the
+promoters of a ceremonial religion may shrink from such a
+consequence, it is so certain, as all experience shows, that they
+might as well throw a man who cannot swim into the water, and
+recommend him not to drown, as give a half instructed man a
+ceremony, which he is told is requisite to salvation, and expect
+that he will not cling to that, as the more convenient and least
+difficult observance; and whilst perfect in complying with every
+ordinance of the church, forget that he has overlooked the
+weightier matters of the law&mdash;judgment, justice, and
+mercy.</p>
+<p>This may sound harsh, but it is true; and I appeal to the calm
+judgment even of the excellent <a name="page139"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 139</span>Dr. Pusey himself, who has so
+unintentionally drawn many into a course from which, haply, he
+would now gladly draw them back, whether it be not so?&nbsp; His
+learning will show him how, through all ages, the spiritualism
+taught from heaven, has been counteracted by the visible and the
+tangible contrived by man; and in the step from the patriarchal
+religion, to the idolatry of Greece and Rome; from Christianity
+as preached by Christ and his Apostles, to the gross
+superstitions of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth
+centuries, he may see a type of what would be the consequence of
+again enforcing a ceremonial religion.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p140b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Decorative header"
+title=
+"Decorative header"
+src="images/p140s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<h2><a name="page140"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+140</span>APPENDIX.</h2>
+<p>The following are extracts from the &ldquo;Christian&aelig;
+Religionis Institutio,&rdquo; of Faustus Socinus:</p>
+<p><i>Q</i>.&nbsp; Quid igitur de Dei natura, sive essentia,
+nosse omnino nos debere statuis?</p>
+<p><i>R</i>.&nbsp; H&aelig;c duo in summa.&nbsp; Quod sit et quod
+unus tantum sit.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p>
+<p><i>Q</i>.&nbsp; Verum quid qu&aelig;so saltem de Spiritu
+Sancto nunc mihi dicis de quo isti similiter affirmant eum esse
+divinam personam, nempe tertiam, et unum atque eundem numero Deum
+cum Patre et Filio?</p>
+<p><i>R</i>.&nbsp; Nempe illum non esse personam aliquam a Deo
+cujus est spiritus, distinctam, sed tantum modo (ut nomen ipsum
+<i>Spiritus</i>, quod flatum et afflationem, ut sic loquar,
+significat, docere potest) ipsius Dei vim et efficaciam quandam,
+id est eam, qu&aelig; secum sanctitatem aliquam afferat.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p>
+<p><i>Q</i>.&nbsp; Quid censes de Christi natura sive essentia
+nobis cognitii esse necessarium?</p>
+<p><a name="page141"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+141</span><i>R</i>.&nbsp; Id, ut antea dixi, sine cujus
+cognitione voluntas Dei erga nos per ipsum Christum patefacta, a
+nobis vel sciri, vel servari nequeat.</p>
+<p><i>Q</i>.&nbsp; Quid igitur ex iis qu&aelig; ad Christi
+naturam sive essentiam pertinent, ejusmodi esse censes?</p>
+<p><i>R</i>.&nbsp; Vix quidquam.&nbsp; Nam qu&aelig;dam,
+qu&aelig; ad ipsius Christi personam alioqui pertinent, et nobis
+omnino ob pr&aelig;dictam causam cognita esse debent, non
+naturalia illi sunt, sed a Deo postmodum ipsi data et concessa,
+et sic ad Dei voluntatem sunt referenda, et quidem ad primam quam
+fecimus ejus partem, id est ad Dei operationes.</p>
+<p><i>Q</i>.&nbsp; Qu&aelig; nam sunt ista?</p>
+<p><i>R</i>.&nbsp; Divinum imperium quod in nos habet.&nbsp; Rom.
+xiv. 9.; et suprema illa majestas.&nbsp; Ephes. i. 20, &amp;c.;
+qua quidquid usquam est, aut excogitari potest, pr&aelig;ter unam
+tantum ipsius Dei majestatem longe excellit.&nbsp; 1 Cor. xv.
+27.&nbsp; Phil. ii. 8, 9.&nbsp; Heb. ii. 9.&nbsp; H&aelig;c enim
+Christo haud naturalia esse, sed a Deo Patre illi data fuisse,
+ipsumque ea per et propter mortem atque obedientiam et
+resurrectionem suam adeptum esse, apertissime scriptura
+testatur.</p>
+<p><i>Q</i>.&nbsp; Cur vero h&aelig;c de Christo cognoscere
+omnino debemus?</p>
+<p><i>R</i>.&nbsp; Quia, ut Christum divino cultu officiamus vult
+Deus.&nbsp; Joh. v. 25.&nbsp; Psal. xlv. 12.&nbsp; Heb. i.
+6.&nbsp; <a name="page142"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+142</span>Philip. ii. 10.; ejus generis, inquam, cultu cujus is
+est, quem ipsi Deo exhibere debemus.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p>
+<p><i>Q</i>.&nbsp; Quid de ipsa tamen Christi essentia seu natura
+statuis?</p>
+<p><i>R</i>.&nbsp; De Christi essentia ita statuo, illum esse
+hominem.&nbsp; Rom. v. 15.; in virginis utero, et sic sine viri
+ope, divini spiritus vi conceptum ac formatum.&nbsp; Matt. i. 20.
+23.&nbsp; Luc. i. 35.; indeque genitum, primum quidem patibilem
+ac mortalem. 2 Cor. xiii. 4.; donec, scilicet munus sibi a Deo
+demandatum hie in terris obivit; deinde vero postquam in
+c&oelig;lum ascendit, impatibilem et immortalem factum.&nbsp;
+Rom. vi. 9.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p>
+<p><i>Q</i>.&nbsp; Quid enim primum sibi vult, quod innuis hoc
+quod Christus Dei filius sit proprius et unigenitus non omnino ad
+ejus naturam pertinere?</p>
+<p><i>R.</i>&nbsp; Divina ista Christi filiatio, eatenus tantum
+ad ejus naturam aliquo modo referri potest, quatenus id respicit
+quod Christus divini Spiritus vi sine viri ope in virginis utero
+conceptus et formatus fuit.&nbsp; Nam hujusce rei causa eum Dei
+filium vocatum ire, ipsius Dei Angelus ipsimet virgini, ex qua
+natus est, pr&aelig;dixit.&nbsp; Luc. i. 35; et quidem
+consequenter Dei filium proprium et unigenitum, cum nemo alius
+hac ratione, et ab ipso primo ortu Dei films unquam
+extiterit.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p>
+<p><a name="page143"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+143</span><i>R</i>.&nbsp; Quod attinet ad primum testimonium quod
+habetur (i.e. of pr&aelig;existence) Joh. i. 3.&nbsp; Dictio
+universalis <i>omnia</i> non prorsus universaliter accipienda
+est, sed ad subjectam materiam restringenda, ut scilicet ea
+tantum omnia complectatur, qu&aelig; ad Evangelium pertinent.</p>
+<p><i>Q</i>.&nbsp; Sed quid dices, quod in loco isto apud
+Johannem additur; sine verbo, id est Deo filio, nihil esse
+factum?</p>
+<p><i>R</i>.&nbsp; Immo cum certum esse videatur, mox sequentia
+verba <i>quod factum est</i> (quidquid nonnulli contra sentiant)
+cum additione ista conjungenda esse: dicendum potius videtur,
+voluisse Evangelistam cum ista addidit indicare se de quibusdam
+nunquam antea et nova ac mirabili ratione factis loqui.&nbsp; Nam
+ad docendum simpliciter se loqui de iis qu&aelig; sunt facta nec
+semper fuerunt, satis habebat illa verba addere, <i>et sine ipso
+factum est nihil</i>.&nbsp; Itaque mysterio non videtur carere,
+quod pr&aelig;terea addit <i>quod factum est</i>; subaudi novum
+et mirabile, ad mundi ipsius statum pertinens, &amp;c.
+&amp;c.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p>
+<p>Jam dictum est (est de p&oelig;nis persolvendis primum agamus)
+p&oelig;nam quam uniusquisque nostrum propter delicta sua pendere
+tenebatur, mortem &aelig;ternam esse.&nbsp; Hanc profecto
+Christus non subiit; et si cam subiisset, universi salutis
+nostr&aelig; et liberationis a peccatorum p&oelig;na spes, <a
+name="page144"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 144</span>et ratio
+funditus eversa fuisset.&nbsp; Immo si jam Christus non
+resurrexisset, vana, ut inquit Paulus.&nbsp; 1 Cor. xv. 14, 17.;
+esset Evangelii pr&aelig;dicatio, et nos adhuc essemus in
+peccatis nostris.&nbsp; Et tamen, si idcirco nos servasset
+Christus, quod p&oelig;nas nostris peccatis debitas ipse
+sustinuisset, et nobis ejus rei fides quoad ejus fieri poterat
+facienda fuisset; eum nunquam resurgere, sed in morte perpetuo
+manere oportuisset: Op. Vol. p. 197, fol. Edit.</p>
+<p>Ac dicitis, ut conjeci potest, animadvertendum esse, aliam in
+ipsa essentia divina personam patris esse, aliam personam filii:
+et Patri potuisse a Filio satisfieri seu ut satisfierat, vim
+suppeditari: nec tamen aliquid quod satisfactioni per solutionem
+facienda adversetur, committi.&nbsp; Sed dicite obsecro, nonne
+ipsius filii person&aelig; non minus quam patris satisfaciendum
+fuisse affirmatis.&nbsp; Si filius patri satisfacit, hoc est,
+quod illi debetur solvit: quis ipsi filio, quod ipsi debetur,
+dabit?&nbsp; Respondebitis, ut arbitror, si patri satisfactum
+fuit, filio quoque satisfactum esse; cum eadem sit utriusque
+voluntas . . . Quomodo patri a filio quidquam ullo parto solvi
+potuisset si quod unius aut est, aut fit, alterius reipsa esse
+necesse foret? . . . At vero quis deinde ambigere queat filium
+patri nihil dare posse: cum quidquid filius habet patris revera
+sit, et ipse Christus disert&egrave; dixerit, Joh. xvii. 10,
+omnia <a name="page145"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+145</span>qu&aelig; sua erant patris esse?&nbsp; Annon ex ipsa
+disciplina vestra, hoc est Dei essentiam non distinguere, sed
+partiri: si pr&aelig;ter personarum proprietates, aliquid unam
+personam habere velitis quod alia non habeat.&nbsp; Filii autem
+personam proprietates suas patris person&aelig; pro peccatorum
+nostrorum satisfactione solvisse, cui unquam in mentem venire
+poteret?&nbsp; Ib. p. 202.</p>
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p style="text-align: center"><span
+class="GutSmall">FINIS.</span></p>
+<div class="gapspace"><a name="page146"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 146</span>
+&nbsp;
+</div>
+<div class="gapmediumline">&nbsp;</div>
+<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">CHARLES
+WHITTINGHAM, CHISWICK.</span></p>
+<div class="gapmediumline">&nbsp;</div>
+<h2>Footnotes.</h2>
+<p><a name="footnote3"></a><a href="#citation3"
+class="footnote">[3]</a>&nbsp; &alpha;&gamma;&alpha;&pi;&eta;
+which is the word generally translated <i>charity</i> in the New
+Testament means <i>affectionate regard</i>.&nbsp; The distinction
+between charity and almsgiving is well laid down by St. Clement
+of Alexandria.&nbsp; &ldquo;Charity,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;leads
+to the sharing our good things with others; but this is not in
+itself charity, but only our outward sign of that
+feeling.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><a name="footnote4"></a><a href="#citation4"
+class="footnote">[4]</a>&nbsp; See 1 Cor. ix. 19, 20.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote5a"></a><a href="#citation5a"
+class="footnote">[5a]</a>&nbsp; Rom. xii. 10.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote5b"></a><a href="#citation5b"
+class="footnote">[5b]</a>&nbsp; &ldquo;No national prejudices, no
+religious differences could hinder our Saviour from doing
+good.&nbsp; We should consider that men&rsquo;s understandings
+naturally are not all of the same size and capacity, and that
+this difference is greatly increased by different education,
+different employments, different company, and the like.&nbsp; No
+man is infallible.&nbsp; We are liable to errors perhaps as much
+as others.&nbsp; The very best men may sometimes differ in
+opinion, as St. Paul &lsquo;withstood St. Peter to the
+face;&rsquo; and if there was such a difference between two of
+the chiefest of the Apostles, well may there be between inferior
+mortals.&nbsp; About modes of faith there will always be dispute
+and difference; but in acts of mercy and kindness all mankind may
+and should agree.&rdquo;&mdash;<i>Newton</i>.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote8"></a><a href="#citation8"
+class="footnote">[8]</a>&nbsp; &ldquo;In fact, all the religious
+persecutions in the world, all the penalties and inflictions upon
+those who differ from ourselves, however conscientiously, take
+their rise from an imperfect and erroneous notion of what really
+constitutes the glory of God, and the manner in which we best can
+assist its display and extension.&nbsp; The angels at the birth
+of Christ sang that the glory of God was in unison with
+&lsquo;Peace on earth, and good will towards
+men.&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;No!&rsquo; said the Schoolman,
+&lsquo;the glory of God consists in thinking of the Deity as we
+think.&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;No!&rsquo; said the Inquisitor,
+&lsquo;the glory of God consists in worshiping as we
+prescribe.&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;No!&rsquo; said the Covenanters,
+&lsquo;the glory of God consists in exterminating those whom we
+call his enemies.&rsquo;&nbsp; Mistaken men! who <i>thus</i>
+propose to honour the God and Father of the universe, the
+merciful God, and the gracious Father of all his rational
+creatures!&nbsp; Instead of perusing with delight and conviction
+the plain declaration contained in our Sacred records, too many
+Christians have in almost every age passed over the
+characteristics of kind design throughout nature: they have
+mistaken or forgotten the clear delineations of Divine Mercy and
+Goodness in the Book of Grace, and have had recourse to the
+narrowed circle of their own
+prejudices.&rdquo;&mdash;<i>Maltby&rsquo;s Sermons</i>.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote10"></a><a href="#citation10"
+class="footnote">[10]</a>&nbsp; It would be well if Rom. xiv.
+were more attentively studied and more universally practised
+among Christians.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote14"></a><a href="#citation14"
+class="footnote">[14]</a>&nbsp; They have in consequence been
+sometimes called &ldquo;Seekers.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><a name="footnote15a"></a><a href="#citation15a"
+class="footnote">[15a]</a>&nbsp; Gough&rsquo;s History of the
+Quakers.&nbsp; Vol. i. p. 139.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote15b"></a><a href="#citation15b"
+class="footnote">[15b]</a>&nbsp; Probably their resolute refusal
+to pay tithes and other dues brought on them some of these
+punishments.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote20"></a><a href="#citation20"
+class="footnote">[20]</a>&nbsp; &ldquo;Keep the Sabbath
+holy,&rdquo; says Luther, &ldquo;for its use both to body and
+soul; but if any where the day is made holy for the mere
+day&rsquo;s sake; if any where any one sets up its observance
+upon a <i>Jewish</i> foundation, then I order you to work on it,
+to ride on it, to dance on it, to feast on it, to do any thing
+that shall remove this encroachment on the Christian spirit and
+liberty.&rdquo;&nbsp; This is language which may be easily
+misunderstood and perverted from Luther&rsquo;s meaning; but it
+was uttered by him from a jealousy of Sabbatical
+superstition.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote21"></a><a href="#citation21"
+class="footnote">[21]</a>&nbsp; Matt. v.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote22"></a><a href="#citation22"
+class="footnote">[22]</a>&nbsp; &ldquo;There is an unreasonable,
+uncharitable, and superstitious notion that a soldier, so far as
+his profession is concerned, is &lsquo;of the world;&rsquo; and
+that a man who dies in the field of battle is <i>necessarily</i>
+less prepared for his change than one who dies in his bed.&nbsp;
+These feelings, which have sadly tended to degrade and impoverish
+the mind of modern Europe . . . to make armies what they are told
+they <i>must</i> be; and therefore to make them dangerous by
+depriving them of any high restraining principles, have been
+greatly encouraged by the tone which religious men of our day
+have adopted from the Quakers.&rdquo;&nbsp; <i>Maurice&rsquo;s
+Kingdom of Christ</i>.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote24a"></a><a href="#citation24a"
+class="footnote">[24a]</a>&nbsp; Moral education, in spite of all
+the labours of direct instruction, is really acquired in hours of
+recreation.&nbsp; Sports and amusements are, and must be the
+means by which the mind is insensibly trained: &lsquo;Men are but
+children of a larger growth;&rsquo; they will have their
+pleasures; and unless care be taken, the sermon of the church or
+chapel will be neutralized by the association of the tavern and
+the raceground.&nbsp; There must be safety valves for the mind,
+i.e. there must be means for its pleasurable, profitable, and
+healthful exertion; those means it is in our power to render safe
+and innocent; in too many instances they have been rendered
+dangerous and guilty.&rdquo;&nbsp; <i>Dr. Taylor</i>.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote24b"></a><a href="#citation24b"
+class="footnote">[24b]</a>&nbsp; Every creature of God is good,
+and nothing to be refused if it be received with thanksgiving. (1
+Tim. iv. 4.)&nbsp; Extend this maxim, apply it to the several
+means of enjoyment, either supposed or real, that the world
+presents to us.&nbsp; Those pleasures from which we cannot
+unreservedly arise, and thank our Maker; those pursuits which mar
+our devotions, and render us unwilling or afraid to come before
+Him, cannot be innocent.&nbsp; It would be no easy matter to lay
+down, as applicable to all, a rule as to how far conformity with
+the world is admissible, and where the Christian must stop: for
+as the habits and tempers and propensities of men differ, so also
+do their temptations and their danger.&nbsp; Thus through the
+rule by which one would stand securely, another would as
+certainly fall.&nbsp; <i>Lectures on the Church
+Catechism</i>.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote26"></a><a href="#citation26"
+class="footnote">[26]</a>&nbsp; See 1 Tim. iv. 4.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote29"></a><a href="#citation29"
+class="footnote">[29]</a>&nbsp; &ldquo;A reverend Doctor in
+Cambridge was troubled at his small living at Hoggenton
+(Oakington) with a peremptory Anabaptist, who plainly told him,
+&lsquo;It goes against my conscience to pay you tithes except you
+can show me a place of Scripture whereby they are due unto
+you.&rsquo;&nbsp; The Dr. returned, &lsquo;Why should it not go
+as much against my conscience that you should enjoy your nine
+parts for which you can show no place in Scripture?&rsquo;&nbsp;
+To whom the other rejoined, &lsquo;But I have for my land deeds
+and evidences from my fathers, who purchased and were peaceably
+possessed thereof by the laws of the land.&rsquo;&nbsp;
+&lsquo;The same is my title,&rsquo; said the Doctor,
+&lsquo;tithes being confirmed unto me by many statutes of the
+land, time out of mind.&rsquo;&rdquo;&nbsp; <i>Fuller&rsquo;s
+Church History</i>, <i>Book II</i>.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote30a"></a><a href="#citation30a"
+class="footnote">[30a]</a>&nbsp; John iii. 16.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote30b"></a><a href="#citation30b"
+class="footnote">[30b]</a>&nbsp; 2 Cor. v. 19.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote30c"></a><a href="#citation30c"
+class="footnote">[30c]</a>&nbsp; 1 Tim. ii. 4.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote31a"></a><a href="#citation31a"
+class="footnote">[31a]</a>&nbsp; 1 John iv. 9, 10.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote31b"></a><a href="#citation31b"
+class="footnote">[31b]</a>&nbsp; Rom. ii. 15.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote31c"></a><a href="#citation31c"
+class="footnote">[31c]</a>&nbsp; John i. 9.&nbsp; See also 1 John
+ii. 1, 2.&nbsp; 2 Heb. ii. 9.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote32"></a><a href="#citation32"
+class="footnote">[32]</a>&nbsp; Luke xii. 48.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote33a"></a><a href="#citation33a"
+class="footnote">[33a]</a>&nbsp; Mosh. Ecc. Hist. Cent. xvi.
+Sect. iii.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote33b"></a><a href="#citation33b"
+class="footnote">[33b]</a>&nbsp; Ib.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote35a"></a><a href="#citation35a"
+class="footnote">[35a]</a>&nbsp; Some of the passages of this
+Catechism are quoted by Mosheim, which differ very little from
+the doctrine of the primitive church: all that can be noticed is,
+that they omit a distinct recognition of the divinity of
+Christ.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote35b"></a><a href="#citation35b"
+class="footnote">[35b]</a>&nbsp; &ldquo;Fausti Socini Senensis
+Opera omnia,&rdquo; vol. i. p. 561.&nbsp; These works form a part
+of the &ldquo;Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum qui Unitarii
+appellantur.&rdquo;&nbsp; Irenopoli post anno dom. 1656.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote36"></a><a href="#citation36"
+class="footnote">[36]</a>&nbsp; It is remarkable that
+<i>persona</i> should so often be confounded with
+individual.&nbsp; <i>Persona</i> in its original sense was the
+mask of the actor, <i>through which the sound</i> came.&nbsp; The
+same actor might wear many <i>person&aelig;</i>.&nbsp; If Socinus
+had recollected this, he might have spared himself the trouble of
+controverting a notion never maintained by the orthodox, i.e.
+that the Deity was <i>individually divided</i>.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote37"></a><a href="#citation37"
+class="footnote">[37]</a>&nbsp; Vide Appendix.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote39a"></a><a href="#citation39a"
+class="footnote">[39a]</a>&nbsp; Small Books &amp;c.&nbsp; No.
+VII. p. 21, &amp;c.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote39b"></a><a href="#citation39b"
+class="footnote">[39b]</a>&nbsp; &pi;&rho;&#7984;&nu;
+&#902;&beta;&rho;&alpha;&#8048;&mu;
+&gamma;&epsilon;&nu;&#941;&sigma;&theta;&alpha;&iota;
+&#7952;&gamma;&#974; &epsilon;&#943;&mu;&iota;.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote39c"></a><a href="#citation39c"
+class="footnote">[39c]</a>&nbsp; John. x. 30.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote39d"></a><a href="#citation39d"
+class="footnote">[39d]</a>&nbsp; John xiv. 9, 10.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote39e"></a><a href="#citation39e"
+class="footnote">[39e]</a>&nbsp; 2 Cor. v. 19.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote39f"></a><a href="#citation39f"
+class="footnote">[39f]</a>&nbsp; 1 Tim. ii. 5.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote40"></a><a href="#citation40"
+class="footnote">[40]</a>&nbsp; Athanasian Creed.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote41"></a><a href="#citation41"
+class="footnote">[41]</a>&nbsp; John v. 30.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote42"></a><a href="#citation42"
+class="footnote">[42]</a>&nbsp; The following are extracts from
+the &ldquo;Book of Common Prayer reformed,&rdquo; professing to
+have been a selection made by &ldquo;the late Rev. Theophilus
+Lindsey for the use of the congregation in Essex
+Street&rdquo;&mdash;and as a liturgy is generally allowed to be a
+fair exponent of the doctrines of those who use it&mdash;perhaps
+we may assume that the violent and reprehensible expressions made
+use of by some few persons of this persuasion, are not such as
+would be acknowledged by the congregations of Unitarians in
+general.</p>
+<p>Form of baptism.&nbsp; &ldquo;I baptize thee into
+(&epsilon;&#7984;&sigmaf;) the name of the Father and of the Son
+and of the Holy Spirit.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Almighty and ever blessed God, by whose providence the
+different generations of mankind are raised up to know thee and
+to enjoy thy favour for ever; grant that this child now dedicated
+to thee as the disciple of thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord, may be
+endued with heavenly virtues . . . and that we may daily proceed
+in all virtue and goodness of living, till we come to that
+eternal kingdom which thou hast promised by Christ our
+Lord.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Order for the administration of the Lord&rsquo;s Supper.&nbsp;
+Confession, the same as in the liturgy of the English church as
+far as &ldquo;we do heartily repent and are heartily sorry for
+these our misdoings, the remembrance of which is grievous unto
+us.&nbsp; Have mercy upon us, have mercy upon us, most merciful
+Father; forgive us all that is past: and grant that we may ever
+hereafter serve and please thee in newness of life to the honour
+and glory of thy name.&rdquo;&nbsp; The absolution is the same
+with the trifling change of <i>us</i> for <i>you</i>.&nbsp; The
+sentences following are the same till &ldquo;Hear also what St.
+John saith,&rdquo; where the text 1 John i. 8, 9, is
+substituted.</p>
+<p>Prayer before the minister receives the communion.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Almighty God, our heavenly Father, by whose gracious
+assistance and for our benefit, thy beloved Son our Lord Jesus
+Christ, was obedient even to the death upon the cross; who did
+institute, and in his holy gospel command us to continue, a
+perpetual memorial of his death until his coming again; hear us,
+we most humbly beseech thee; and grant that we may receive this
+bread and wine in grateful remembrance of his death and
+sufferings, and of thy great mercy to mankind in sending him, thy
+chosen messenger, to turn us from darkness to light, from vice to
+virtue, from ignorance and error to the knowledge of thee, the
+only true God, whom to know is life everlasting.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Form of administration.&nbsp; &ldquo;Take and eat this bread
+in remembrance of Christ&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;Take and drink this
+wine in remembrance of Christ.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>In the daily service many prayers are omitted, so as to make
+the service much shorter.&nbsp; The exhortation and confession
+are the same; for the absolution is substituted &ldquo;Almighty
+God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known and from
+whom no secrets are hid; purify the thoughts of our hearts that
+we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy holy name
+through Christ our Lord.&rdquo;&mdash;It would be useless to
+multiply extracts&mdash;enough has been given to show the
+doctrine of the Unitarian congregations who use this liturgy.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote47"></a><a href="#citation47"
+class="footnote">[47]</a>&nbsp; Priestly&rsquo;s
+&ldquo;Discourses on Various Subjects,&rdquo; p. 419.&nbsp; See
+also p. 14, &amp;c. and Prefatory Discourse, p. 93.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote48"></a><a href="#citation48"
+class="footnote">[48]</a>&nbsp; Channing&rsquo;s Discourse on
+preaching Christ.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote49"></a><a href="#citation49"
+class="footnote">[49]</a>&nbsp; Channing&rsquo;s Works.&nbsp; On
+the great purpose of Christianity.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote50a"></a><a href="#citation50a"
+class="footnote">[50a]</a>&nbsp; Channing&rsquo;s Character of
+Christ.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote50b"></a><a href="#citation50b"
+class="footnote">[50b]</a>&nbsp; Channing&rsquo;s Sunday
+School.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote50c"></a><a href="#citation50c"
+class="footnote">[50c]</a>&nbsp; Channing&rsquo;s Charge at the
+Ordination of Rev. R. C. Waterston.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote51a"></a><a href="#citation51a"
+class="footnote">[51a]</a>&nbsp; Channing On Infidelity.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote51b"></a><a href="#citation51b"
+class="footnote">[51b]</a>&nbsp; Channing&rsquo;s System of
+Exclusion.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote52"></a><a href="#citation52"
+class="footnote">[52]</a>&nbsp; John Wesley was born in 1703.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote54"></a><a href="#citation54"
+class="footnote">[54]</a>&nbsp; &ldquo;I rode over to a
+neighbouring town,&rdquo; says Wesley, &ldquo;to wait upon a
+justice of peace, a man of candour and understanding; before whom
+I was informed their angry neighbours had carried a whole waggon
+load of these new heretics.&rdquo;&nbsp; But when he asked,
+&ldquo;what they had done,&rdquo; there was a deep silence, for
+that was a point their conductor had forgot.&nbsp; At length one
+said, &ldquo;Why they pretend to be better than other people, and
+besides they pray from morning till night.&rdquo;&nbsp; Mr. S---
+asked, &ldquo;But have they done nothing besides?&rdquo;&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Yes, Sir,&rdquo; said an old man, &ldquo;an&rsquo;t please
+your worship they have <i>convarted</i> my wife; till she went
+among them she had such a tongue, and now she is as quiet as a
+lamb.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Carry them back,&rdquo; replied the
+justice, &ldquo;and let them convert all the scolds in the
+town.&rdquo;&mdash;(Wesley&rsquo;s Journal.)</p>
+<p><a name="footnote55"></a><a href="#citation55"
+class="footnote">[55]</a>&nbsp; Watson&rsquo;s Life of Wesley,
+page 484.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote56"></a><a href="#citation56"
+class="footnote">[56]</a>&nbsp; Lackington.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote59a"></a><a href="#citation59a"
+class="footnote">[59a]</a>&nbsp; &ldquo;Who does as he would be
+done by, in buying or selling? particularly selling horses?&nbsp;
+Write him a knave that does not, and the Methodist knave is the
+worst of all knaves.&rdquo;&mdash;<i>Wesley&rsquo;s Large
+Minutes</i>, Q. 13.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote59b"></a><a href="#citation59b"
+class="footnote">[59b]</a>&nbsp; Snuff-taking and drams are
+expressly forbidden.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote59c"></a><a href="#citation59c"
+class="footnote">[59c]</a>&nbsp; In May 1776, an order was made
+in the House of Lords, &ldquo;That the Commissioners of His
+Majesty&rsquo;s Excise do write circular letters to all such
+persons whom they have reason to suspect to have plate, as also
+to those who have not paid regularly the duty on the
+same.&rdquo;&nbsp; In consequence of this order the
+Accountant-general for household plate sent a copy of it to John
+Wesley.&nbsp; The answer was as follows:</p>
+<blockquote><p>Sir,</p>
+<p>I have <i>two</i> silver teaspoons in London and two at
+Bristol: this is all the plate which I have at present, and I
+shall not buy any more while so many round me want bread.</p>
+<p style="text-align: right">I am Sir, your most humble
+servant,<br />
+<span class="smcap">John Wesley</span>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p><a name="footnote61"></a><a href="#citation61"
+class="footnote">[61]</a>&nbsp; &ldquo;I used my prayers,&rdquo;
+says the author of the &lsquo;Bank of Faith,&rsquo; &ldquo;<i>as
+gunners do swivels</i>; <i>turning them every way</i> as the
+cases required.&rdquo;&nbsp; Wesley relates in his Journal that
+&ldquo;By prayer he used to cure a violent pain in his
+head,&rdquo; &amp;c.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote62"></a><a href="#citation62"
+class="footnote">[62]</a>&nbsp; This writer, the celebrated
+Lackington the bookseller, relates the following occurrence soon
+after he turned Methodist.&nbsp; &ldquo;One Sunday morning at
+eight o&rsquo;clock, my mistress seeing her sons set off, and
+knowing they were gone to a Methodist meeting, determined to
+prevent me from doing the same, by locking the door; on which in
+a superstitious mood I opened the Bible for direction what to do,
+and the first words I read were these, &ldquo;He shall give his
+angels charge concerning thee, lest at any time thou dash thy
+foot against a stone.&rdquo;&nbsp; This was enough for me, so
+without a moment&rsquo;s hesitation I ran up two pair of stairs
+to my own room, and out of the window I leapt to the great terror
+of my poor mistress.&nbsp; My feet and ancles were most
+intolerably bruised, so that I was obliged to be put to bed; and
+it was more than a month before I recovered the use of my
+limbs.&nbsp; I was then ignorant enough to think that <i>the Lord
+had not used me very well</i>; and I resolved <i>not to put so
+much trust in him</i> for the future.&nbsp; My rash adventure
+made a great noise in the town, and was talked of many miles
+round.&nbsp; Some few admired my prodigious strength of faith;
+but the major part pitied me as a poor ignorant, deluded, and
+infatuated boy.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><a name="footnote64a"></a><a href="#citation64a"
+class="footnote">[64a]</a>&nbsp; Wesley&rsquo;s Works, vol. xii.
+p. 49.&nbsp; Some of Wesley&rsquo;s expressions, when confronted
+with each other, appear incompatible; in such cases the main
+drift of the writer must always be considered; for it is much
+more usual to fail in expressing our meaning than to express
+contradictory opinions: since the latter implies a cerebral
+defect verging on insanity, the former merely results from a
+faulty style.&nbsp; Scripture does not any where warrant us in
+saying &ldquo;<i>the moment</i> a penitent sinner,&rdquo;
+&amp;c.; but requires from us a proof of this belief by actions
+conformable to it.&nbsp; God has promised us immortality through
+his Son, only if we not merely believe, but &ldquo;do that which
+is lawful and right.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><a name="footnote64b"></a><a href="#citation64b"
+class="footnote">[64b]</a>&nbsp; Wesley censured some of his
+preachers for pushing the doctrine of perfection too far.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote65"></a><a href="#citation65"
+class="footnote">[65]</a>&nbsp; Wesley&rsquo;s Works, vol. viii.
+p. 219. and vol. xi. p. 415.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote66"></a><a href="#citation66"
+class="footnote">[66]</a>&nbsp; So called from their habit of
+rebaptizing those who entered their communion.&nbsp; They were
+afterwards called <i>Antip&aelig;dobaptists</i>, from their
+objection to <i>p&aelig;do</i> or infant baptism; and finally,
+the English habit of abbreviation of words at all commonly used,
+contracted the word into <i>Baptist</i>.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote67"></a><a href="#citation67"
+class="footnote">[67]</a>&nbsp; Mosheim. Ecc. Hist. Cant. XVI.
+Sect, iii. Part 2.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote68a"></a><a href="#citation68a"
+class="footnote">[68a]</a>&nbsp; Milton belonged to the class of
+Anti-Trinitarian General Baptists.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote68b"></a><a href="#citation68b"
+class="footnote">[68b]</a>&nbsp; That the body of Jesus was not
+derived from the substance of the blessed Virgin, but created in
+her womb by an omnipotent act of the Holy Spirit.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote68c"></a><a href="#citation68c"
+class="footnote">[68c]</a>&nbsp; V. Mosheim&rsquo;s Ecc.
+Hist.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote69"></a><a href="#citation69"
+class="footnote">[69]</a>&nbsp; All who baptize infants may be
+termed p&aelig;do-baptists; the word is derived from the Greek
+&pi;&#940;&iota;&sigmaf; a child or infant, and
+&beta;&#8048;&pi;&tau;&omega; to baptize.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote70a"></a><a href="#citation70a"
+class="footnote">[70a]</a>&nbsp; Yet the bishop ought to have
+known that baptism by immersion was practised in the church for
+many centuries, and the rubric of our common prayer leaves the
+option of immersion or aspersion.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote70b"></a><a href="#citation70b"
+class="footnote">[70b]</a>&nbsp; Condor&rsquo;s View. p. 380.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote75a"></a><a href="#citation75a"
+class="footnote">[75a]</a>&nbsp; Marriage is enumerated in one of
+the Moravian hymns amongst the services of danger, for which the
+United Brethren are &ldquo;to hold themselves
+prepared.&rdquo;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;You as yet single are but little tried,<br
+/>
+Invited to the supper of the bride,<br />
+That like the former warrior each may stand<br />
+Ready for land, sea, marriage, at command.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p><a name="footnote75b"></a><a href="#citation75b"
+class="footnote">[75b]</a>&nbsp; See Latrobe&rsquo;s edition of
+Spangenburgh&rsquo;s Exposition of Christian Doctrine.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote79"></a><a href="#citation79"
+class="footnote">[79]</a>&nbsp; Litany of the New Church.&nbsp;
+Office of ordination, p. 151.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote80a"></a><a href="#citation80a"
+class="footnote">[80a]</a>&nbsp; Rom. xxi. 27.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote80b"></a><a href="#citation80b"
+class="footnote">[80b]</a>&nbsp; 1 Cor. i. 3.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote81a"></a><a href="#citation81a"
+class="footnote">[81a]</a>&nbsp; John i. 18.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote81b"></a><a href="#citation81b"
+class="footnote">[81b]</a>&nbsp; John vi. 46.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote82"></a><a href="#citation82"
+class="footnote">[82]</a>&nbsp; Liturgy of the New Church Office
+of Baptism, p. 58.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote84"></a><a href="#citation84"
+class="footnote">[84]</a>&nbsp; &ldquo;Jesus the Fountain of Life
+and Light,&rdquo; p. 12.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote85"></a><a href="#citation85"
+class="footnote">[85]</a>&nbsp; In some places it is not till the
+end of a fortnight.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote87a"></a><a href="#citation87a"
+class="footnote">[87a]</a>&nbsp; Examination of the opinions of
+the Plymouth Brethren.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote87b"></a><a href="#citation87b"
+class="footnote">[87b]</a>&nbsp; The following is a sample from
+one of their published works: &ldquo;The first eclogue of Virgil
+has always appeared to me to express most felicitously the
+pleasures of a <i>pastoral</i> life as we too frequently see it
+in these days.&nbsp; With what force the following lines describe
+the grateful feeling of a <i>young clergyman</i>, who is
+recounting the benefits conferred on him by his patron:</p>
+<blockquote><p>O Melib&oelig;e, Deus nobis h&aelig;c otia
+fecit.<br />
+Namque erit ille mihi semper Deus&mdash;<br />
+Ille meas errare boves, ut cernis, et ipsum<br />
+Ludere, q&aelig;e vellem, calamo permisit agresti.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>My patron shall always be a divinity to me, for he put me into
+this life of ease when he gave me this <i>gem</i>, <i>the
+prettiest living in England</i>.&nbsp; He gave me this <i>easy
+duty</i>, so that I can let my flock wander wheresoever it may
+please them, as you see they do; while I myself do just what 1
+like, and occasionally amuse myself with a <i>pianoforte</i> by
+Stoddart, that cost eighty-five guineas.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He (the congregational minister) is now, in his own
+opinion, the <span class="smcap">one man</span> of the whole body
+of believers in all the services of the sanctuary.&nbsp; He
+utters all their sentiments of faith and doctrine, and offers up
+all their prayers!&nbsp; How can he justify the position he has
+assumed as <i>an usurper</i>? yea as a <i>grievous wolf</i>! in
+that he has swallowed up <i>all the gifts of the Holy Ghost</i>
+in the <i>voracity of his selfishness</i>,&rdquo; &amp;c.&nbsp;
+It is not thus that the &ldquo;unity of the church,&rdquo; which
+they profess to desire is likely to be cemented.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote90"></a><a href="#citation90"
+class="footnote">[90]</a>&nbsp; Bishop Jewel, in his
+&ldquo;Defence of his apology for the Church of England,&rdquo;
+says, that &ldquo;the term <i>Calvinist</i> was in the first
+instance applied to the Reformers and the English Protestants as
+a matter of reproach by the Church of Rome.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><a name="footnote91"></a><a href="#citation91"
+class="footnote">[91]</a>&nbsp; Whatever difference may have
+subsisted between Luther and Calvin on the subject of Divine
+decrees, no language can be stronger than that in which Luther
+insists upon the moral impotence of man&rsquo;s depraved nature
+in opposition to the Pelagian doctrine of freewill.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote93a"></a><a href="#citation93a"
+class="footnote">[93a]</a>&nbsp; It is difficult to reconcile
+this doctrine with 2 Cor. v. 14, 15.&nbsp; 1 Tim. ii. 6.&nbsp; 2
+Pet. iii. 9.&nbsp; Rom. viii. 32.&nbsp; 1 Tim. iv. 10.
+&amp;c.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote93b"></a><a href="#citation93b"
+class="footnote">[93b]</a>&nbsp; The best account of their system
+is to be found in &ldquo;The Assembly&rsquo;s Catechism,&rdquo;
+which is taught their children.&nbsp; To this sect belongs more
+particularly the doctrine of <i>Atonement</i>, or, &ldquo;that
+Christ by his death made satisfaction to the Divine justice for
+the <i>Elect</i>; appeasing the anger of the Divine Being, and
+effecting on his part a reconciliation.&rdquo;&nbsp; That thus
+Christ had, as they term it, &ldquo;the sin of the Elect laid
+upon him.&rdquo;&nbsp; But some of their teachers do not hold
+this opinion, but consider Christ&rsquo;s death as simply a
+medium through which God has been pleased to exercise mercy
+towards the penitent.&nbsp; &ldquo;The sacrifice of
+Christ,&rdquo; says Dr. Magee, &ldquo;was never deemed by any
+(who did not wish to calumniate the doctrine of atonement), to
+have made God placable: but merely viewed as the means appointed
+by Divine wisdom by which to bestow forgiveness.&rdquo;&nbsp; To
+this it may be further added, that the language used throughout
+the Epistles of St. Paul with regard to the redemption of man, is
+that of the then familiar slave market.&nbsp; Man is
+&ldquo;bought with a price&rdquo; from his former master, Sin,
+for the service of God.&nbsp; The scholar who will consult Romans
+vi. will see immediately that all the metaphors used are those of
+purchase for military service; &ldquo;Your members,&rdquo; says
+he, ver. 13, &ldquo;shall not be the arms
+(&#8004;&pi;&lambda;&alpha;) of unrighteousness used for the
+service of sin; but the arms (&#8004;&pi;&lambda;&alpha;) of
+righteousness for God.&rdquo;&nbsp; And ver 23, &tau;&#8048;
+&gamma;&#8048;&rho; &#8000;&psi;&#974;&nu;&iota;&alpha;
+&tau;&#8134;&sigmaf;
+&#8048;&mu;&alpha;&rho;&tau;&#943;&alpha;&sigmaf;,
+&theta;&#940;&nu;&alpha;&tau;&omicron;&sigmaf;&#903; &tau;&#8056;
+&delta;&#8050; &chi;&alpha;&rho;&iota;&sigma;&mu;&alpha;
+&tau;&omicron;&#8166; &theta;&epsilon;&omicron;&#8166;,
+&zeta;&omega;&#8052;,
+&alpha;&#7984;&#8061;&nu;&iota;&omicron;&sigmaf; &#7952;&nu;
+&Chi;&rho;&iota;&tau;&#8183; &Iota;&eta;&sigma;&omicron;&#8166;
+&tau;&#8183; &kappa;&upsilon;&rho;&#8055;&#8179;
+&#7968;&mu;&#8182;&nu;. i.e. The rations of sin are death, but
+the donative of God is eternal life, by means of Jesus Christ our
+Lord.&nbsp; It is impossible to express more clearly that it was
+not the wrath of God which required to be appeased by the great
+sacrifice&mdash;the slave was <i>bought by Him for
+Himself</i>&mdash;the price was of course paid to another.&nbsp;
+Much misunderstanding has arisen from the careless interpretation
+of these and the like passages, whose phraseology has become
+obsolete along with the practice of buying and selling slaves, at
+least in this country.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote95a"></a><a href="#citation95a"
+class="footnote">[95a]</a>&nbsp; Matt. xvi. 27.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote95b"></a><a href="#citation95b"
+class="footnote">[95b]</a>&nbsp; Matt. xviii. 14.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote96a"></a><a href="#citation96a"
+class="footnote">[96a]</a>&nbsp; Vide Exod. xxxiii. 14, et
+seq.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote96b"></a><a href="#citation96b"
+class="footnote">[96b]</a>&nbsp; According to the Calvinistic
+doctrine above stated, character has no concern whatever with
+their call; ergo, if this is right, St. Paul is wrong, and
+mankind <i>are</i> called with respect of persons.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote96c"></a><a href="#citation96c"
+class="footnote">[96c]</a>&nbsp; &ldquo;This system (Calvinism)
+by setting aside the idea of a human will, leaves the doctrine of
+Divine Will barren and unmeaning; the idea of a personal ruler
+disappears, and those most anxious to assert the government of
+the Living God have been the great instruments in propagating the
+notion of an atheistical necessity.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+<i>Maurice&rsquo;s Kingdom of Christ</i>.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote98a"></a><a href="#citation98a"
+class="footnote">[98a]</a>&nbsp; Hopkins on the New Birth.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote98b"></a><a href="#citation98b"
+class="footnote">[98b]</a>&nbsp; 1 John iii. 7&ndash;10, see also
+v. 21 of the same chapter, where our confidence towards God is
+shown to depend on the judgment of our own consciousness of wrong
+or well doing.&nbsp; The whole chapter is well worth the study of
+every Christian.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote102"></a><a href="#citation102"
+class="footnote">[102]</a>&nbsp; I take this from books, not
+having personal acquaintance with the Presbyterians of Ireland:
+and such is the confusion generally made by authors between
+Arianism, Socinianism, and Unitarianism, that it is difficult to
+know which is meant.&nbsp; As a large proportion of the modern
+Presbyterians have embraced Unitarian doctrines, it seems
+improbable that the Irish should have adopted those of Arius,
+though my author uses the term Arian as applied to the doctrine
+of the seceders.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote106"></a><a href="#citation106"
+class="footnote">[106]</a>&nbsp; See &ldquo;The Use and Abuse of
+Creeds and Confession of Faith,&rdquo; by the Rev. Charles James
+Carlile, Dublin, 1836.&nbsp; &ldquo;The Irish Church and
+Ireland,&rdquo; p. 66&ndash;68, and &ldquo;A Narrative of the
+Proceedings of the Associate Synod in Ireland and Scotland in the
+affair of the Royal Bounty,&rdquo; by James Bryce.&nbsp; Belfast,
+1816.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote122a"></a><a href="#citation122a"
+class="footnote">[122a]</a>&nbsp; Although the excellent Bishop
+Heber&rsquo;s mind was deeply imbued with devotional feelings, he
+considered a moderate participation in what are usually called
+worldly amusements, to be allowable and blameless.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;He thought,&rdquo; says his biographer, &ldquo;that the
+strictness which made no distinction between things blameable
+only in their abuse, and the practices which were really immoral,
+was prejudicial to the interests of true religion; and on this
+point his opinion remained unchanged to the last.&nbsp; His own
+life indeed was a proof that amusement so participated in, may be
+perfectly harmless, and no way interfere with any religious or
+moral duty.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><a name="footnote122b"></a><a href="#citation122b"
+class="footnote">[122b]</a>&nbsp; &ldquo;Rowland Hill, in his
+theological opinions, leaned towards Calvinism, but what is
+called Hyper-calvinism, he could not endure.&nbsp; In a system of
+doctrine he was follower of no man, but drew his sermons fresh
+from a prayerful reading of the Bible.&nbsp; He was for drawing
+together all the people of God wherever they could meet, and was
+willing to join in a universal communion with Christians of every
+name.&nbsp; When, on one occasion, he had preached in a chapel,
+where none but baptized adults (i.e. baptized after attaining
+years of discretion), were admitted to the sacrament, he wished
+to have communicated with them, but was told respectfully,
+&lsquo;You cannot sit down at <i>our</i> table.&rsquo;&nbsp; He
+calmly replied, &lsquo;I thought it was the Lord&rsquo;s
+table.&rsquo;&rdquo;&nbsp; Sidney&rsquo;s Life of R. Hill, p.
+422, 3rd Edit.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote124"></a><a href="#citation124"
+class="footnote">[124]</a>&nbsp; Simeon&rsquo;s Works, Vol. III.
+p. 101, &amp;c.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote126"></a><a href="#citation126"
+class="footnote">[126]</a>&nbsp; Simeon&rsquo;s Works, Vol. III.
+p. 333.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote131a"></a><a href="#citation131a"
+class="footnote">[131a]</a>&nbsp; Exod. xxxii. 4.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote131b"></a><a href="#citation131b"
+class="footnote">[131b]</a>&nbsp; Vide Colossians ii. 18, 19.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote135a"></a><a href="#citation135a"
+class="footnote">[135a]</a>&nbsp; 2 Cor. v. 15.&nbsp; 1 Tim. ii.
+6.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote135b"></a><a href="#citation135b"
+class="footnote">[135b]</a>&nbsp; 2 Pet. iii. 9.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote135c"></a><a href="#citation135c"
+class="footnote">[135c]</a>&nbsp; Rom. ii. 6&ndash;11.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote136"></a><a href="#citation136"
+class="footnote">[136]</a>&nbsp; Rom. xiv. 5.</p>
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRISTIAN SECTS IN THE NINETEENTH
+CENTURY***</p>
+<pre>
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diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
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+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #36113 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36113)