and in such a manner as to throw the advantage all on their side. • Of this I can adduce a very strong instance in which the attack is made personally upon me. The reader must first be informed that a magazine set on foot by John Wesley under the title of the Arminian Magazine is now continued by his followers under the title of the Methodist Magazine: and that the publication of it is as regularly provided for at the annual conference of that sect, as any other of their most important objects. In this magazine there is a partieular department inscribed by them, "The truth of God defended," in which publications inimical to their connexion are reviewed. To this ordeal, such as it is, was subjected (in January and February 1807) a sermon which I preached before the archdeacon of Bucks in the spring preceding; and in which I had touched shortly upon the points which are the subject of the present discourses. For this good deed the heads of the sect have raved against me most furiously in every possible way. They have attacked the style as well as the matter of the sermon; and represented me as equally ignorant of facts and unsound in doctrine. Their objection to me as a bad writer seems to consist in this, that I have called the publication of a sermon a thing; that I have said that to have added notes to a sermon would "in some degree have altered the nature of the thing," and that I have construed the word "church" with the neuter pronoun "it" and not with the feminine "she." I had said that we should "particularly direct our attention to the situa"tion of the church as well to the attacks with which it is or may be threatened as to the means by which they may be re"pelled," &c. And these gentlemen, meaning to be witty, refer the pronoun "it" to "situation" instead of to "church," in order to make me talk nonsense. They go on to throw out all manner of insinuations against me and the rest of the clergy, charitably recommending to us Mr. Simeon's "Helps to Composition," and thus proving most decidedly what they pretend to deny, their hostility to the establishment, as well as the peculiarity of their preaching. They next are very angry with me as charging them with what I never meant to extend to the followers of Wesley, 66 66 : That any encouragement should be given to such a sort of preaching, that language any way namely the doctrines of absolute decrees. I was writing in Buckinghamshire, where those doctrines almost exclusively prevail with the church, as well as other, Methodists. They then justify the doctrine of sudden, that is, instantaneous, conversions, from the versicle and response of our church, "O God make speed to save "us," "O Lord make haste to help us!" and in this as in other parts indulge very freely in such jokes as "gentle dulness ever "loves." Lastly they proceed to the most gross misrepresentation. "In conclusion," say they," Mr. Le Mesurier reverts to the "false but favourite doctrine of merit," (these Italics are theirs) "and says that if there be those to whom the Lord has vouchsafed 46 an assurance of salvation it can be only to such as have merited "that happiness by a long and uniform course of piety and virtue.” "Here we would observe," they go on, "that the Methodists "have believed and preached, with every true church of England man, that 'we are accounted righteous before God only for the "merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by faith and not by "our own works or deserving," &c. Thus in fact accusing me most pointedly of holding false doctrines respecting merits. Now the candid reader would immediately see that the word "merited," is not used by me in the strict theological, but in the ordinary and popular sense. I was not talking at all of the doctrine of merit strictly speaking. And this Dr. Coke, or whoever wrote this article, must have known. He could not neither be ignorant of my real opinions. For in the beginning of the very same paragraph from which he quotes, I had thus stated them, "Let us," I say, addressing myself to my brethren the regular clergy, "not be sparing in setting forth the great truths of our religion, and in par"ticular, shewing an entire and sole dependence on the one sacri"fice of Christ. Let us be as explicit as possible in disclaiming "all merit of our own," &e. Now could it have been believed, if it were not thus shewn, that any man could be so lost to all sense of decency as well as justice, as after this to charge me with contradicting the doctrine of our articles? Is there any sort of means which will be neglected, any sort of scandal which will not be similar to that which is used by those intruders should be adopted by any member of the establishment, I must lament, because it appears to me that any approximation or countenance given to such doctrine can never promote the ends of true religion. I must lament it too for the reason which I have formerly mentioned that it has greatly conduced to the increase of schism without the church; if it has not also created a schism of its own within the pale: for surely to adopt any distinctive appellation, such as that of gospel or evangelical ministers, in opposition to others who are thus by implication arraigned as deficient in the necessary requisites of their office, cannot but tend to disturb the harmony which should subsist among all the individuals of the same communion. We have however by the explanations to which the assumption of this title has given rise, and in the course of which the real and genuine doctrine of the church has been fully vindicated and asserted, obtained this advantage for ourselves the more moderate and cool dispensers of the word, that we may now quietly be allowed to enjoy our claim to at least an employed against the clergy, by those who can be guilty of such bare-faced falsehood; and that in the very moment when they are arrogantly and presumptuously giving themselves out as "defending the truth of God?" equal participation in the character of true churchmenR. If I have spoken freely and without reserve upon this head, it is because I am strongly impressed with the importance which should be attached to this point; it is because here in my judgment the strong hold of schism is to be found. I will add, that there is no man of a sober mind who will not acknowledge that much detriment has accrued to religion by the manner in which the topics to which I allude have been handled in the pulpit whether of the church or of the meeting house. We know particularly as to the latter, that the absurd and ridiculous, as well as unscriptural language, in which what may be called the amusement rather than the instruction of the day is dealt out, has been pushed to that degree of extravagance as to supply topics for all manner of ludicrous composition, and even for the stage. On the other hand the assertion of Mr. Toplady and his fellows, that their tenet of absolute decrees was the doctrine of the church, has also furnished the Unitarians with some of their most plausible arguments against the sup • I need hardly mention the several answers which have been given to Mr. Overton's book by Mr. Daubeny, Mr. Pearson, and others: as also Dr. Laurence's Bampton Lectures before referred to. There have been also some able articles in the British Critic and other Reviews upon the subject. posed irrationality and absurdity which they impute to the orthodox faith. Such have been some of the consequences of that unbounded liberty, which in, pursuance of the modern and, as they are called, more enlarged ideas of toleration, has been of late exercised in admitting every man indiscriminately, whatever may be his qualification or way of life, to deliver his notions of the gospel, and to set up for a "master" or "teacher in Israel." It has bred a sort of fanaticism which has in fact been to the full as destructive to the old sects of dissenters, as it can have been prejudicial to the church herself. And perhaps to this more than to any other cause may be ascribed the apparent decay, if not in numbers, yet in learning and respectability, among the dissenters; more especially that class of dissenters to whom the name originally and more properly belonged. To many of their predecessors from the days of Cartwright down to those of Doddridge; nay, to some few in our time, the general cause of Christianity, and even of orthodoxy in doctrine has been greatly indebted: but (I say it with no invidious meaning) it does appear to me that we have no great promise of that sort at this On the contrary those who have distinguished themselves in the literary world in these days have been almost without exception of the Unitarian description: that is of the moment. |