LETTER IX.

SIR,

You have asserted that the success of the modern enthusiasts is not to be attributed to the negligence of the established clergy, "as the church never possessed more learned, pious, and devout pastors, than she does in the present times, nor men who took more pains in the exercise of their ministry, or set better examples of holy living to their parishioners; so much so, that it is as difficult to point out one among their number, who has deviated from the strict path of duty he is expected to follow, as a minister of the gospel, as it is to find one among their opponents, whose conduct is wholly irreproachable."*-The friends of the church will cordially rejoice in the great number of learned, pious, and devout pastors who belong to her communion, and who take pains in the exercise of their ministry, and are examples of holy living to their parishioners. May the Governor and Head of his church constantly add to their number, and increase their graces, till

See Stranger, pages 140, 141.

the whole body of the clergy are, without exception, such as you have described them!

But, Sir, you have here said too much: your panegyric therefore, in relation to no small number of clergymen, will have the effect of the most severe censure. For if your book should happen to be read by a person who may know a clergyman of a different character from those you have described -if he should recollect any one who is not pious, who is not devout, who does not take great pains in the exercise of his ministry, or who does not set an example of holy living to his parishioners, the comparison of such a clergyman with a methodist or dissenting minister would be highly injurious to his official character. For, Sir, those ministers, whom you have improperly styled the opponents of the established clergy, and whom you have most impudently libelled, by asserting that it is difficult to find any one among them whose conduct is wholly irreproachable," must be, in some measure, what you have described the national clergy to be. The reason is evident:

for if any one of them were an opposite character to that which you have delineated, and were to manifest a want of that piety and devotion, that diligence and holiness, which you have noticed, and which are undoubtedly essential qualifications for every minister of the gospel-but more espe cially if he were a tippler, a sportsman, or a card-player-a frequenter of the tavern, the play

house, or the assembly-room-what would be the consequence? Why, Sir, neither Methodists nor Dissenters would receive such a man as this as their pastor, nor would he be suffered, were his cha racter known, to enter any of their pulpits as an occasional preacher.

Your next charge is, that "the rude and unlettered teachers" of the Reading Methodists "are all Anthropomorphites."-This is such a hard, break-tooth, word, that it cannot, without some difficulty, be pronounced; and I find it is necessary to have some knowledge of the Greek language in order to understand it. But as a large proportion of your readers are of course unacquainted with that tongue, and as those to whom it may be familiar may know nothing of the sect to which the word refers, I shall take the liberty of giving some short account of it.-The Anthropomorphites were a sect of the tenth century, so denominated from avlewwos-man, and μogon-shape. In the district of Vincenza, a considerable number, not only of the illiterate vulgar, but also of the sacerdotal order, fell into the notion that the Deity was clothed with a human form, and seated like an earthly monarch upon a throne of gold; and that his angelic ministers were men arrayed in white garments, and furnished with wings to render them more expeditious in executing their sovereign's orders. They take every thing spoken of God in scripture in a literal sense, particularly

that passage in Genesis, in which it is said that God made man after his own image. *—You have said that the teachers of the Methodists are all Anthropomorphites. There are many hundred persons of veracity in Reading, who can inform you that no minister holding these sentiments has ever preached in the chapel in Castle-street; to which may be added, that probably there is not an individual belonging to any religious society in the town of Reading who is an Anthropomor phite. The occasion of this charge, Sir, it is not at all difficult to discover. It arises from your enmity to that doctrine which is the pillar and the ground of the truth-the great mystery of godliness-salvation through IMMANUEL, GOD MANIFEST IN THE FLESH. Because the ministers of the gospel preach that important and essential doctrine of revelation, the union of the divine and human natures in the person of Jesus Christ, you endeavour to represent them all as Anthropomorphites. —“ O full of all subtlety and mischief, thou child of the Devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord ?"+

I close my strictures on your observations on the Methodists, with a remark on the concluding clause of the sentence in which you have described their preaching. They assert, "that all the chil

*See Hannah Adams's View of Religions.

↑ Acts 13. 10.

dren of Adam are destined to eternal misery, unless they are regenerated; and become members of their church." The former part of this quotation is as plain a truth as any revealed in the word of God; for the faithful and true Witness has declared with his own mouth, that "except a man" (ris-one, every one of the human race) "be born again, he cannot see nor enter into the kingdom of God." This is one of the reasons why we baptize infants. Our practice in this respect is founded on a conviction from the express decision of the word of God, that they must possess that spiritual regeneration of which baptism is an outward sign, before they can be admitted into the kingdom of heaven. Do not, however, Sir, misunderstand me. I do not mean to assert that every person who has been baptized possesses the thing signified by baptism. On the other hand, far be it from me to affirm that every one who is unbaptized is necessarily destitute of that essential prerequisite for an entrance into heaven, and for the enjoyment of its glories—regeneration. I do not absolutely connect salvation with baptism; but it is undoubtedly connected in the Scriptures of truth with that which baptism represents the new birth. The latter part of the sentence, in which you declare that the Methodists represent the Deity as consigning to eternal misery all persons who do not "become members of their church," is one of those many falsehoods which you have been assisted in