Mr. Wesley's career, the less ostentatious and more salutary course of events. This omission we will endeavour briefly to supply. It is a topic to which Mr. Wesley frequently and joyfully recurs in his writings, that, after the neglect of ages, at length the poor 'had the gospel preached unto them.' And its prime and most essential object has been abundantly answered in the moral lives and triumphant deaths of thousands of these immortal beings, who have been reclaimed by Methodism from the lowest depths of degradation and crime. But as no religion could achieve these moral victories without carrying civilization along with it, there are other views of the subject, which would have presented themselves to the mind of a statesman of any candour. We have witnesses, however, at hand, in his lordship's absence, to depose to those points in the history of Methodism which credit her religious principles, by exhibiting the collateral benefits of civilization that flowed from their diffusion. The Christian ministry which Mr. Wesley provided for the lower orders is eulogized, among other of his contemporaries, by Dr. Priestley especially, who 'thought most highly' of it. And he bears testimony to the fact, to which he was a most competent witness, that it was 'civilizing and Christianizing that part of the community which is below the notice of your dignified clergy.* The latter circumstance, indeed, the want of intercourse between the clergy and that part of their flocks which Mr. Wesley folded, Lord John Russel himself unequivocally admits. And though he has been prevented by his prejudices from expatiating on other views of the subject more immediately interesting to a statesman, Dr. Southey has supplied the omission. This enlightened author, while he censures the government of that day for allowing barbarism to entrench itself in the very heart of cultivated society, has the candour to admit the humanizing and civilizing influences of Methodism. 'Bad as the consequences of this most culpable omission on the part of the government have been, they must have been far more hideous and appalling, if Methodism had not intervened, and carried with it humanity and civilization, as far as it has spread, among these poor perishing creatures.'t In confii mation of this important fact, it is usual to appeal to the well-known examples of the miners of Cornwall, the colliers of Kingswood and Newcastle, and the manufacturers of Yorkshire and Lancashire. But the lower orders every where felt the genial influences of the new religion, which introduced among them habits of economy, a taste for the comforts of civilization, and the more substantial benefits of education. The State, meanwhile, was advantaged by the means which improved the condition of its subjects. A literature, suited to their capacities, was assiduously employed by Mr. Wesley to elevate their minds. Two and forty years ago,' says he, 'having a desire to furnish poor people with cheaper, shorter, Prospects and Progress of * Dr. Priestley's Letter to Mr. Burke, p. 89. Society, vol. ii, p. 105. VOL. II.-January 1831. and plainer books than any I had seen, I wrote many small tracts, generally a penny apiece; and afterward several larger. Some of these had such a sale as I never thought of; and, by this means, I unawares became rich.'* The same motives induced him to publish a monthly Journal or Magazine; and to abridge the best works then extant on Natural Philosophy, as well as on Divinity and general literature. He thus provided a compendium of useful knowledge, suited to the circumstances of his followers, who at that time had not attained the opulence which would warrant the habitual indulgences of a more advanced passion for literature. A fact so illustrative of the beneficial tendencies of Mr. Wesley's labours will surely recommend itself to his lordship, whose patronage of our modern societies for the diffusion of, useful knowledge may be safely assumed. The only mortifying reflection is, that a man who has rendered himself obnoxious to the disciples of the modern school of liberalism, should have anticipated them in their very plans of general utility, and despoiled them of the claim and boast of a discovery! His lordship belongs, also, to a political sect, which is loud in its advocacy of the general principles of religious toleration. And in denying the persecutions of the early Methodists, one might suppose him jealous of any rival claims to the honour of having promoted their final triumph. But whether his lordship will allow it or not, it is matter of as valid history as any to be found in his volumes, that the hooted and persecuted Methodists were the pioneers in the march of religious freedom, and bore the brunt of the protracted contest with an enraged bigotry and intolerance; while the mere theorist on the rights of toleration prated his idle hour within the sanctuary of St. Stephen's. It was they who practically asserted these rights, and submitted their claims to the test of a sharp and fiery struggle. After the Reformation, few accessions were made to the cause of civil and religious liberty before the reign of William. But it was reserved for the house of Hanover to establish perfect toleration of all religions not detrimental to the State. And the meek endurance of persecution by the Methodists, whose wrongs excited a monarch's sympathy, and led to a freer discussion of the principles of toleration, hastened this crisis. Finally, the introduction of Methodism gave a great and salutary impulse to the human mind. While the theology of the new school in the Church was inimical to religious zeal, and sought to remedy the evils of society by the palliatives of an ethical morality, Methodism took profounder views of the moral condition of the species, traced those evils to their source, and saw in the obsolete and exploded doctrines of evangelical Christianity the only adequate remedy. 'There never was less religious feeling,' says Dr. Southey, either within the Establishment or without, than when Wesley blew his trumpet, and awakened those who slept.'t The impulse thus imparted led to the adoption of new schemes of * Wesley's Works, third edition, vol. vii, p. 9. † Prospects and Progress of Society, vol. ii, p. 54. civil and religious improvement. National education, the system of Sunday schools, and what has been called the 'portentous bibliolatry' of the age, with various other institutions, all the effect of that new order of principles and feelings which had been introduced into the nation,* arose in quick succession to beautify the surface of society with the hopeful verdure of a rich eventual moral harvest. The most important division of his lordship's remarks is devoted to a consideration of 'the nature of the sect which Wesley founded.' On proving its religious principles to be false, the theory of the empiricism of Methodism obviously hinges. The greatest zeal and care we might, therefore, expect to be expended on this forlorn hope of the whole enterprise. His lordship manifestly felt the difficulties of the task he had assigned to himself. Accordingly, he is perplexed by the discovery, that in nearly all, if not in all, his theological opinions, Wesley adhered to the Church. He differed neither upon the Trinity, nor any other great point of doctrine.' It required some ingenuity to neutralize this admission. 'But he had this peculiarity,' we are told; he fixed on a particular part of the Scriptures, gave it a new sense, and preached that part, if not to the exclusion of, yet in high dominion over, all the rest.' That the objection, however, was deficient in solidity, was probably felt by its author. He accordingly waives the attempt to demonstrate the departure of Mr. Wesley's scheme of doctrine from the analogy of faith. But he does this for a reason which effectually and for ever impugns his judgment as an authority on ecclesiastical subjects: Fortunately, an historian is not obliged to enter the labyrinth of theological controversy.' We consequently feel ourselves at liberty to treat less ceremoniously the severe strictures which follow on the peculiarities of Methodism, as confessedly the ebullition of a haughty dogmatism, than if his lordship had proposed them in the way of calm inquiry and dispassionate discussion. This convenient waiving of the nicety of discussion' is a favorite practice of the noble author. Hence, on another occasion, he gets rid of his subject, by flippantly remarking, that those who love the thorny paths of controversy must look for the merits of the case in the direction where they are to be found.' Such advice is admissible only where no judgment has been pronounced. Now, had his lordship's reading been less restricted to writers of a particular class in theology; had he been conversant with the old divines; and had he, moreover, familiarized himself with Mr. Wesley's writings, before he undertook to decide the peculiarity of his views, he would have ascertained that his doctrines were merely a restoration of scriptural Christianity. He would have learned, that the discrepancy in Mr. Wesley's scheme from the fashionable religion of the day, arose not so much from our reformer having exalted particular tenets to a high dominion over all the rest, as from the *Watson's Observations on Southey's Life of Wesley, p. 149. + Memoirs, &c, vol. ii, 4to, p. 573, more modern authorities in the English Church having depressed them below their just level, as held by the divines of the Reformation, and traced in the sacred writings themselves. The truth is, that Mr. Wesley found all the doctrines of the Reformation more or less obscured, and some almost wholly extinguished. It was natural, therefore, that while he laboured to recover them all from the desuetude into which they had fallen, he should betray an excessive solicitude for the restoration of those which were 6 well nigh lost and forgotten.' To this general reason for Mr. Wesley's scheme of doctrine may be added the fact, that, as a Christian philosopher of the highest order, equally conversant with the sacred oracles and the history of the Church, it was his object to ascertain from what neglected and adulterated principles of our common faith so many corruptions had at different periods flowed, and to secure his own system, as much as possible, from similar dangers. We are entitled, therefore, to proof, where his lordship deals only in assertion, of an unscriptural prominence given by Mr. Wesley to those doctrines which he urged with so much vehemence, as essential to the maintenance of a vital and efficient Christianity. His lordship's first objection to Mr. Wesley's scheme of doctrine is, its wide departure from the manners of that Church which it professes to improve and to restore.’* It will cost us nothing to admit the force of this objection. For the degree of the departure in question we hold to be the measure of the Church's own declension from primitive doctrine: and we maintain, in the absence of all proof to the contrary, that it is a deviation, not from the spirit which animated the English Church in the best periods of its history, but only from that corrupt order of things which has substituted forms for the substance of religion, and by a delusive interpretation of her doctrines wrested them from their original intention. His lordship himself admits, that Mr. Wesley 'seems to have had no objection, in theory at least, to the government and discipline of the national Church.' But he takes for granted, that the rites and discipline of the established religion of the country exert so great an influence on its members, as to render their sensible conversion unnecessary and he asks with much simplicity, in reference to the doctrine of the new birth, 'If no one is a Christian till he is blest with a vision of what eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, what becomes of baptism, confirmation, and the whole system of discipline prescribed and practised by the Church? We answer, that when this imposing ceremonial is unnaturally dislocated from those vital doctrines which were designed to make it efficient as well as impressive, it becomes, what Archbishop Leighton characterized it, ‘a fair carcass without a spirit.' To appeal to Mr. Wesley's repeated vindication of his system on the very ground of the wide departure of the Establishment, in this respect, from the purest models of antiquity, and, above all, those of apostolic times, might be deemed irrelevant. * Memoirs, &c, vol, ii, 4to, p. 577. † Memoirs, &c, vol. ii, 4to, p, 573. Let an enlightened member of the Establishment, therefore, himself a statesman, and one whose unsullied career has done honor to his principles, decide how far the doctrine of the new birth is applicable to the generality of her professing members. We make this assertion, of course, with those charitable correctives which that admirable writer himself supplies, and with the modifying admission of the increasing prevalence of evangelical principles among the clergy. In Mr. Wilberforce's 'Practical View,' however, a redundancy of proof is adduced to substantiate the contrast of real Christianity with the prevailing religious system of professed Christians in the higher and middle classes in this country. We have not space to admit the overwhelming evidence in question. Suffice it to say, that the national religion, in the adulterated form which Lord John Russel eulogizes, falls so infinitely short of the standard of genuine Christianity, as to leave thousands of its members in as great moral darkness and depravity as was ever the unhappy lot of Jew or Heathen. The necessity of the conversion of the one, therefore, stands on the same grounds as that of the other; and we concur with Mr. Wesley in the assertion, 'We are concerned for the substance of the work, not the circumstance. Let it be wrought at all, and we will not contend whether it be wrought gradually or instantaneously.' In the soundness of this conclusion, fortunately for our argument, we can adduce, in opposition to Lord John Russel's views, the authority of an eminent divine of the Church of England, and one who will not be suspected of enthusiasm,-Dr. Paley. That the reader may be more forcibly impressed by their widely-contrasted opinions, we will exhibit them in parallel columns : LORD JOHN RUSSEL. THAT the conversion of Jews and Heathens, who had hitherto lived in the twilight of form or the darkness of idolatry, to the sublime doctrines of Jesus Christ, should, by a strong metaphor, be called in Scripture a new birth, is no more than might be expected from the glowing and figurative language of the sacred records. But when the dogma of instantaneous conversion and sudden sanctification is adopted in a country where law, property, and opinion, all combine in support of Christianity, the whole system of established religion must be put aside; if no one is a Christian till he is blest with a vision of what eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, DR. PALEY. 'Ar this day we have not Jews and Gentiles to preach to; but persons in as really an unconverted state, as any Jew or Gentile could be in our Saviour's time. They are no more Christians, as to any actual benefit of Christianity to their souls, than the most hardened Jew, or the most profligate Gentile, was in the age of the Gospel. As to any difference in the two cases, the difference is all against them. These must be converted before they can be saved. The course of their thoughts must be changed, the very principle upon which they act must be changed. Considerations which never or hardly ever entered into their minds, |