them completely guilty, and absolutely condemned in a certain robe of unrighte ousness, woven thousands of years ago by one of their ancestors. This dreadful sanbenito his majesty hath thought fit to put upon them by imputation, and in it, it is his good pleasure that they shall hang in adamantine chains, or burn in fire unquenchable. "Finally, as foreigners are dangerous people, and may stir up his majesty's subjects to rebellion, the English are informed, that if any of them, were he to come over from Geneva itself, shall dare to insinuate, that his most gracious gospel-proclamation is not according to equity, morality and godliness, the first Englishman that meets him, shall have full leave to brand him as a papist, without judge or jury, in the forehead or on the back, as he thinks best; and that, till he is further proceeded with according to the utmost severity of the law, the chosen people shall be informed, in the Gospel Magazine, to beware of him, as a man who scatters firebrands, arrows, and deaths,' and makes universal havoc of every article of this sweet gospel-proclamation. Given at Geneva, and signed by four of his majesty's principal secretaries of state for the predestinarian department." JOHN CALVIN, The Author of P. Q. DR. CRISP, NOTE XXXI. Page 278. Arminianism described by the Calvinists. "SCARCE had our first parents made their appearance, when Satan, the first Arminian, began to preach the peruicious doctrine of free-will to them; which so pleased the old gentleman and his lady, that they (like thousands of their foolish offspring in this our day) adhered to the deceitful news, embraced it cordially, disobeyed the command of their Maker; and by so doing, launched their whole posterity into a cloud of miseries and ills. But some, perhaps, will be ready to say that Arminianism, though an error, cannot be the root of all other errors; to which I answer, that if it first originated in Satan, then I ask, from whence springs any error or evil in the world? Surely Satan must be the first moving cause of all evils that ever did, do now, or ever will, make their appearance in this world consequently he was the first propagator of that cursed doctrine above-mentioned. Hence Arminianism begat Popery, and Popery begat Methodism, and Methodism begat Moderate Calvinism, and Moderate Calvinism begat Baxterianism, and Baxterianism begat Unitarianism, and Unitarianism begat Arianism, and Arianism begat Universalism, and Universalism begat Deism, and Deism begat Atheism; and living and dying in the embracement of every of the above evils or isms, where Christ is, they never can come. Thus I consider that Arminianism is the original of all the pernicious doctrines that are propagated in the world, and Destructionism will close the whole of them." Gospel Magazine, 1807, p. 16. "Of the two (says Hunt-ington the S. S.) I would rather be a Deist than an Arminian; for an established Deist sears his own conscience, so that he goes to hell in the easy chair of insensibility; but the Arminian who wages war with open eyes against the sovereignty of God, fights most of his battles in the very fears and horrors of hell."--Hunt-ington's Works, vol. i. p. 363. "The sons of bondage," says a red-hot Antinomian, who signs himself Rufus, ❝like Satan and his compeers, are unsatisfied with slavery themselves, unless they can entice others into the same dilemma. They are for ever forging their accursed fetters for the sons of God in the hot flames of Sinai's fiery vengeance; and in the hypocritical age of the nineteenth century, pour forth whole troops of work-mongers, commonly known by the name of Moderate Calvinists, who, under an incredible profession of sanctity, lie in wait to deceive; and by their much fair speeches entrap the unwary pilgrims into the domains of Doubting castle, binding them within those solitary ruins to the legal drudgery of embracing the moral or preceptive law, as the rule of their lives." Upon the subject of election, there is a tremendous rant by a writer who calls himself Ebenezer. "Before sin cau destroy any one of God's elect it must change the word of truth into a lie-strip Jesus Christ of all his merit-render his blood inefficacious pollute his righteousness-contaminate his nature-conquer his omnipotence-cast him from his throne-ard sink him in the abyss of perdition; it must turn the love of God into hatred-nullify the council of the Most High-destroy the everlasting covenant-and make yoid the oath of Jehovah-may, it must raise discord amongst the divine attributes-make Father, Son, and Spirit, unfaithful to each other, and set them at variance-change the divine nature→→→ wrest the sceptre from the band of the Almighty-dethrone him-and put a period to his existence. Till it has done all this, we boldly say unto the redeemed, fear not, for we shall not be ashamed; neither be dismayed, for you shall not be confounded."-Gospel Magazine, 1804, p. 287. NOTE XXXII. Page 290. Young Grimshaw. "HE too," says Mr. Wesley, "is now gone into eternity! So, in a few years, the family is extinct. I preached in a meadow, near the house, to a numerous congregation; and we sang with one heart Let sickness blast and death devour, If Heaven will recompence our pains; NOTE XXIII. Page 306. Wesley's Doctrine concerning Riches. UPON this subject, Mr. Wesley has preserved a fine anecdote. "Beware," be says, "of forming a hasty judgment concerning the fortune of others. There may be secrets in the situation of a person, which few but God are acquainted with. Some years since, I told a gentleman, Sir, I am afraid you are covetous. He asked me, What is the reason of your fears? I answered, A year ago, when I made a collection for the expense of repairing the Foundry, you subscribed five guineas. At the subscription made this year, you subscribed only half a guinea. He made no reply; but after a time asked, Pray, Sir, answer me a question-why do you live upon potatoes, (I did so between three and four years.) I replied, It has much conduced to my health. He answered, I believe it has. But did you not do it likewise to save money? I said, I did, for what I save from my own meat, will feed another that else would have none.— But, Sir, said he, if this be your motive, you may save much more. I know a man that goes to the market at the beginning of every week. There he buys a pennyworth of parsnips, which he boils in a large quantity of water. The parsnips serve him for food, and the water for drink the ensuing week, so his meat and drink together cost him only a penny a week. This he constantly did, though he had then two hundred pounds year, to pay the debts which he had contracted, before he knew God!--And this was he, whom I had set down for a covetous man." To this affecting anecdote I add an extract from Wesley's Journal, relating to the subject of property. "In the evening one sat behind me in the pulpit at Bristol, who was one of our first masters at Kingswood. A little after he left the school, he likewise left the society. Riches then flowed in upon him; with which, having no relations, Mr. Spencer designed to do much good-after his death. But God said unto him, Thou fool! Two hours after he died intestate, and left all his money to be scrambled for. "Reader! if you have not done it already, make your will before you sleep.” -Journal, xix. 8. I know a person, who upon reading this passage took the advice. NOTE XXXIV. Page 372. The Covenant. IF proof were wanting to confirm the opinion which I have advaneed of the perilous tendency of this fanatical practice, William Huntington, S. S. a personage sufficiently notorious in his day, would be an unexceptionable evidence. He thus relates his own case, in his "Kingdom of Heaven taken by Prayer." "Having got a little book that a person had lent me, which recommended vows to be made to God, I accordingly stripped myself naked, to make a vow to the Almighty, if he would enable me to cast myself upon him. Thus I bound my soul with numerous ties, and wept over every part of the written covenant which this book contained. These I read naked on my knees, and vowed to perform all the conditions that were therein proposed. Having made this covenant, I went to bed, wept, and prayed the greatest part of that night, and arose in the morning pregnaut with all the wretched resolutions of fallen nature. I now manfully engaged the world, the flesh, and the devil in my own strength; and I had bound myself up with so many promised conditions, that, if I failed in one point, I was gone for ever, according to the tenour of my own covenant, provided that God should deal with me according to my sins, and reward me according to mine iniquity. "But, before the week was out, I broke through all these engagements, and fell deeper into the bowels of despair than ever I had been before. And now, seemingly, all was gone: I gave up prayer, and secretly wished to be in hell, that I might know the worst of it, and be delivered from the fear of worse to come. I was now again tempted to believe that there is no God, and wished to close in with the temptation, and be an established or confirmed atheist; for I knew, if there was a God, that I must be damned; therefore I laboured to credit the temptation, and fix it firm in my heart. But, alas! said I, how can I? If I credit this, I must disbelieve my own existence, and dispute myself out of common sense and feeling, for I am in hell already. There is no feeling in hell but what I have an earnest of. Hell is a place where mercy never comes: I have a sense of none. It is a separation from God: I am without God in the world. It is a hopeless state: I have no hope. It is to feel the burthen of sin : I am burthened as much as mortal can be. It is to feel the lashes of conscience I feel them all the day long. It is to be a companion for devils; I am harassed with them from morning till night. It is to meditate distractedly on an endless eternity: I am already engaged in this. It is to sin and rebel against God I do it perpetually. It is to reflect upon past madness and folly; this is the daily employ of my mind. It is to labour under God's unmixed wrath; this I feel continually. It is to lie under the tormenting sceptre of everlasting death: this is already begun. Alas! to believe there is no God, is like persuading myself that I am in a state of annihilation."--Huntington's Works, vol. i. p. 193. NOTE XXXV. Page 375. : The Value of a good Conscience. UPON this subject the Methodist Magazine affords a good illustration. A poor Cornishman, John Nile by name, had been what is called under conviction twelve months,-in a deplorable state, walking disconsolate, while his brethren were enjoying their justification. One night, going into his fields, he detected one of his neighbours in the act of stealing his turnips, and brought the culprit quietly into the house with the sack which he had nearly filled. He made him empty the sack, to see if any of his seed turnips were there, and finding two or three large ones which he had intended to reserve for that purpose, he laid them aside, bade the man put the rest into the sack again, helped him to lay it on his back, and told him to take them home, and if at any time he was in distress, to come and ask and he should have; but he exhorted him to steal no more. Then shaking him by the hand, he said, I forgive you, and may God for Christ's sake do the same. What effect this had upon the thief is not stated; but John Nile was that night" filled with a clear evidence of pardoning love," with an assurance, that having forgiven his brother his trespasses, his heavenly Father also had forgiven him."-Did the feeling proceed from his faith, or his good works? "The Scriptures," says Priestley, "uniformly instruct us to judge of ourselves and others, not by uncertain and undescribable feelings, but by evident actions. As our Saviour says, by their fruits shall ye know men. For where a man's conduct is not only occasionally, but uniformly right, the principle upon which he acts must be good. Indeed the only reason why we value good principles, is on account of their uniform operation in producing good conduct. This is the end, and the principle is only the means."-Preface to Original. Letters by Wesley and his Friends. VOL. II. MR. WESLEY'S EPITAPHS. ON THE TOMB-STONE. To the Memory of THE VENERABLE JOHN WESLEY, A. M. (By the singular Providence of God) The Pure, Apostolical DOCTRINES and PRACTICES of THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH: Of the Rev. JOHN WESLEY, M. A. In Zeal, Ministerial Labours, and extensive Usefulness, Since the days of ST. PAUL. Regardless of Fatigue, personal Danger, and Disgrace, And Preaching the GOSPEL of Peace. He was the Founder of the Methodist Societies; By whose aid he extended the Plan of Itinerant preaching The WEST INDIES and AMERICA, With unexampled Success. He was born June 17th, 1703, In sure and certain hope of Eternal Life, Through the Atonement and Mediation of a Crucified Saviour. He was sixty-five Years in the Ministry, And a thousand Local Preachers, Raised up from the midst of his own People: And eighty thousand Persons in the Societies under his care. Of the Gospel of CHRIST. Soli Deo Gloria. Not long after Mr. Wesley's death a pamphlet was published, entitled, An Impartial Review of his Life and Writings. Two love-letters were inserted as having been written by him to a young lady in his eighty-first year; and, "to prevent all suspicion of their authenticity," the author declared that the original letters, in the hand writing of Mr. Wesley, were then in his possession, and that they should be open to the inspection of any person who would call at a given place to examine them. "With this declaration," says Mr. Drew, " many were satisfied; but many who continued incredulous, actually called. Unfortunately, however, they always happened to call, either when the author was engaged, or when he was from home, or when these original letters were lent for the inspection of others! It so happened, that though they were always open to examination, they could never be seen." In the year 1801, however, the author, a Mr. J. Collet, wrote to Dr. Coke, confessing that he had written the letters himself, and that most of the pretended facts in the pamphlet were equally fictitious. The Ex-Bishop Gregoire has inserted one of these forged letters in his History of the Religious Sects of the last Century. He reckons among the Methodists Mr. Wilberforce, who, he says, has defended the principles of Methodism in his writings, and le poete Sir Richard Hill, Baronnet. But the most amusing specimen of the Ex-Bishop's accuracy is, where enumerating among the contro verted subjects of the last century, La Reforme du Symbole Athanasien, he adds, a cette discussion se rattache la Controverse Blagdonienne entre le cure de Blagdon, pres de Bristol, et Miss Hannah More. ADDITIONAL NOTES CONCERNING MR. WESLEY'S FAMILY. BARTHOLOMEW WESLEY is said to have been the fanatical minister of Charmouth, in Dorsetshire, who had nearly been the means of delivering Lord Wilmot and Charles II. to their enemies. Lord Clarendon's account, however, differs from this; he says that the man was a weaver, and had been a soldier; but Mr. Wesley had received an University education. Samuel Wesley, the elder, was a student in a dissenting academy, kept by Mr. Veal, at Stepney; and, according to John Dunton, was "educated upon charity" there; an invidious expression, meaning nothing more than that the friends of his parents assisted in giving him an education which bis mother could not have afforded. He distinguished himself there by his facility in versifying; and the year after his removal to Oxford, published a volume entitled, "Maggots, or poems on several subjects never before handled." A whimsical portrait of the anonymous author was prefixed, representing him writing at a table, crowned with laurel, and with a maggot on his forehead: underneath are these words: In 's own defence the author writes, Which makes him make so sad a face, Unsight, unseen to buy it. It was by the profits of this work, and by composing elegies, epitaphs, and epithalamiums, for his friend John Dunton, who traded in these articles, and kept a stock by him ready made, that Mr. Wesley supported himself at Oxford; not as I have erroneously stated (after Dr. Whitehead) by what he earned in the University itself. "He usually wrote too fast," says Dunton, "to write well. Two hundred couplets a day are too many by two-thirds to be well furnished with all the beauties and the graces of that art. He wrote very much for me both in prose and verse, though I shall not name over the titles, in regard I am altogether as unwilling to see my name at the bottom of them, as Mr. Wesley would be to subscribe his own." Dunton and Wesley were brothers-in-law, and when the former wrote his "Life and Errors," they were not upon amicable terms. Dunton could not forgive him for having published a letter concerning the education of the Dissenters in their private academies. It appears, however, by his own account, that Mr. Wesley, little as he had to spare, had lent him money in his distresses; and Dunton, even while he satirizes him, acknowledges that he was a generous, good humoured, and pious man. Mr. Nichols (Literary Anecdotes, vol. ii. p. 84.) says that Mr. Wesley's house was burnt twice. John, however, only says, that the villains several times attempted to burn it. He had made great progress in his laborious work upon the Book of Job, having collated all the copies he could meet with of the original, and the Greek and other versions and editions. All these labours were destroyed; but in the decline of life he resumed the task, though oppressed with gout and palsy through long habit of study. Among other assistances, he particularly acknowledges that of his three sons, and his friend Maurice Johnson. The book was printed at Mr. Bowyer's press. How much is it to be wished that the productions of all our great presses had been recorded with equal diligence! The Dissertationes in Librum Jobi, I have never seen; but I learn from Mr. Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, (vol. v. p. 212.) that a curious emblematical portrait of the author is prefixed to the volume. It" represents Job in a chair of state, dressed in a robe bordered with fur, sitting beneath a gateway, on the arch of which is written JOB PATRIARCHA. He bears a sceptre in his hand, and in the back ground are seen two of the Pyramids of Egypt. His position exactly corresponds with the idea given us by the Scriptures in the book of Job, |