Rev. Mr. Shirley, chaplain to Lady Huntingdon, in a circular letter, written at her desire, declared against the dreadful heresy of Wesley, which, as he expresses himself, "injured the foundation of Christianity." He, therefore, summoned another conference, which severely censured Wesley. On the other hand, this patriarch was strongly supported, particularly by Fletcher of Madeley, an able writer, whom he had destined to succeed him, as the head of his connection. Instead of being offended at his master's change, Fletcher says: "I admire the candor of an old man of God, who, instead of obstinately maintaining an old mistake, comes down like a little child, and acknowledges it before his preachers, whom it is his interest to secure." The same Fletcher published seven volumes of Checks to Antinomianism, in vindication of Wesley's change in this essential point of his religion. In these he brings the most convincing proofs and examples of the impiety and immorality to which the enthusiasm of Antinomian Calvinism had conducted the Methodists. He mentions a highwayman, lately executed in his neighborhood, who vindicated his crimes upon this principle. He mentions other more odious instances of wickedness, which, to his knowledge, had flowed from it.* All these, he says, are represented by their preachers to be "damning sins in Turks and pagans, but only spots in God's children." He adds, "There are few of our celebrated pulpits, where more has not been said for sin than against it!" He quotes an honorable M. P., 66 once my brother," he says, "but now my opponent,' who in his published treatise, maintains, "that murder and adultery do not hurt the pleasant children, (the elected,) but work even for their good" adding, "My sins may displease God, my person is always acceptable to him.-Though I should out-sin Manasses himself, I should not be less a pleasant child, because God always views me in Christ.-Hence, in the midst of adulteries, murders, and incest, he can address me with: Thou art all fair, my love, my undefiled; there is no spot in thee. It is a most pernicious error of the schoolmen to distinguish sins according to the fact, not according to the person.Though I highly blame those who say, let us sin that grace may abound; yet adultery, incest, and murder, shall, upon the whole, make me holier on earth and merrier in heaven!" It only remains to show in what manner Wesley purified his religious system, as he thought, from the defilement of Antinomianism. To be brief, he invented a two-fold mode of justification, one without repentance, the love of God, or other works; the other, * See Fletcher, vol. ii. †The Hon. Richard Hill, in his Five Letters. See also Eaton's Honeycomb of Salvation. in which these works are essential: the former is for those who die soon after their pretended experience of saving faith, the latter for those who have time and opportunity of performing them. Thus, to say no more of the system, a Nero and a Robespierre might, according to its doctrine, have been established in the grace of God, and in a right to the realms of infinite purity, without one act of sorrow for their enormities, or so much as an act of their belief in God! DEAR SIR LETTER XX.-TO JAMES BROWN, ESQ. &c. ON THE MEANS OF SANCTITY. THE efficient cause of justification, or sanctity, according to the Council of Trent,* is the mercy of God through the merits of Jesus Christ; still, in the usual economy of his grace, he makes use of certain instruments or means, both for conferring and increasing it. The principal and most efficacious of these are THE SACRAMENTS. Fortunately, the Established Church agrees in the main sense with the Catholic and most other Christian churches, when she defines a sacrament to be "An outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace, given unto us, and ordained by Christ himself, as a means whereby we receive the same, and a pledge to assure us thereof."+ But though she agrees with other Protestant communions in reducing the number of these to two, baptism and the Lord's supper, she differs with all others in this particular, namely, with the Catholic, the Greek, the Russian, the Armenian, the Nestorian, the Eutychian, the Coptic, the Ethiopian, &c., all of which firmly maintain, and ever have maintained, as well since, as before their respective defections from us, the whole collection of the seven sacraments. This fact alone refutes the airy speculations of Protestants concerning the origin of the five sacraments which they reject, and thus demonstrates that they are deprived of as many divinely instituted instruments or means of sanctity.-As each of these seven channels of grace, * Sess. vi. cap. 7. + Catechism in Com. Prayer.-N. B. The last elause in this definition is far too strong, as it seems to imply, that every person who is partaker of the outward part of a sacrament, necessarily receives the grace of it, whatever may be his dispositions; an impiety which the Bishop of Lincoln calumniously attributes to the Catholics.-Elements of Theol. vol. ii. p. 436. This important fact is incontrovertibly proved in the celebrated work, La Perpetuité de la Poi, from original documents procured by Louis XIV., and preserved in the King's Library at Paris. Without such pretty gir though all supplied from the same fountain of Christ's merits, supplies each of them a separate grace, adapted to the different wants of the faithful, and as each of them furnishes matter of observation for the present discussion, I shall take a cursory view of them. 66 The first sacrament, in point of order and necessity, is baptism. In fact, no authority can be more express than that of the Scripture as to this necessity. "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit," says Christ, "he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." John, iii. 5. Repent," eries St. Peter, "and be baptized every one of you, in the name of Jesus, for the remission of sins." Acts, ii. 38. "Arise," answered Ananias to St. Paul, "and be baptized, and wash away thy sins." Acts, xxii. 16. This necessity was heretofore acknowledged by the Church of England, at least, as appears from her articles, and still more clearly from her Liturgy* and the works of her eminent divines.† Hence, as baptism is valid, by whomsoever it is conferred, the English church may be said to have been upon an equal footing with the Catholic Church, as much as concerns this instrument or means of holiness. But the case is different now, since that tacit reformation which is acknowledged to have taken place in her practice. This has nearly swept out of her both the belief of original sin and its necessary remedy, baptism. "That we are born guilty," the great authority, Dr. Balguy, says, "is either unintelligible or impossible." Accordingly, he teaches that "the rite of baptism is no more than a representation of our entrance into the church of Christ."-Elsewhere he says: "The sign (of a sacrament) is declaratory, not efficient." Dr. Hey says, the negligence of the parent, with respect to procuring baptism, "may affect the child: to say it will affect him, is to run into the error I am condemning."§ Even the Bishop of Lincoln calls it, "An unauthorized principle of papists, that no person whatsoever can be saved who has not been baptized." Where the doctrine of baptism is so lax, we may be sure the practice of it will not be more strict. Accordingly, we have abundant proofs that, from the frequent and long delays in the administration of this sacrament among Protestants, very many children die without receiving it, and that, *Common Prayer. † See B. Pearson on the Creed, Art. x. Hooker, Eccl. Polit. b. v. p. 60. Charge vii. pp. 298, 300. § Lectures in Divinity, vol. iii. p. 182. || Vol. ii. p. 470. The learned prelate can hardly be supposed ignorant that many of our martyrs, recorded in our Martyrology and our Breviary, are expressly declared not to have been actually baptized; or that our divines unanimously teach, that not only the baptism of blood by martyrdom, but also a sincere desire of being baptized, suffices, where the means of baptism are wanting. from the negligence of their ministers, as to the right matter and the form of words, many more children receive it invalidly. Look, on the other hand, at the Catholic Church: you will find the same importance still attached to this sacred rite, on the part of the people and the clergy, which is observable in the Acts of the Apostles and in the writings of the holy fathers; the former being ever impatient to have their children baptized, the latter equally solicitous to administer it in due time, and with the most scrupulous exactness. Thus, as matters now stand, the two churches are not upon a level with respect to this first means of sanctification; the members of the one having a much greater moral certainty of the remission of that sin in which we were all born, and of their having been heretofore actually received into the church of Christ, than the members of the other. It would be too tedious a task to treat of the tenets of other Protestants, on this and the corresponding matters: let it suffice to say, that the famous Synod of Dort, representing all the Calvinistic states of Europe, formally decided that the children of the elect are included in the covenant made with their parents, and thus are exempt from the necessity of baptism, as likewise of faith and morality, being thus insured, themselves and all their posterity, till the end of time, of their justification and salvation !* Concerning the second channel of grace, or means of sanctity, confirmation, there is no question. The Church of England, which, among the different Protestant societies, alone, I believe, lays claim to any part of this rite, under the title of The cercmony of laying on of hands, expressly teaches, at the same time, that it is no sacrament, as not being ordained by God, nor any effectual sign of grace. But the Catholic Church, instructed by the solicitude of the apostles, to strengthen the faith of those her children who had received it in baptism,‡ and by the lessons of Christ himself, concerning the importance of receiving that Holy Spirit, which is communicated in this sacrament, religiously retains and faithfully administers it to them, for the self-same purpose, through all ages. In a word, those who are true Christians, by virtue of baptism, are not made perfect Christians, except by virtue of the sacrament of confirmation, which none of the Protestant societies so much as lays a claim to. Of the third sacrament, indeed, the Lord's supper, as they call it, the Protestant societies, and particularly the Church of England, in her prayer-book, say great things: nevertheless, what is it, after all, upon her own showing ?-Mere bread and wine received in memory of Christ's passion and death, in order * Bossuet's Variat. book xiv. p. 46. Acts viii. 14.-xix. 2. + Art. xxv. to excite the receiver's faith in him: that is to say, it is a bare type or memorial of Christ. Any thing may be instituted to be the type or memorial of another thing; but certainly the Jews, in their paschal lamb, had a more lively figure of the death of Christ, and so have Christians in each of the four evangelists, than eating bread and drinking wine can be. Hence, I infer, that the communion of Protestants, according to their belief and practice in this country, cannot be more than a feeble excitement to their devotion, and an inefficient help to their sanctification. But, if Christ is to be believed upon his own solemn declaration, where he says, "Take ye and eat; this is my body-drink ye all of this; for this is my blood," "Matt. xxvi. 26;—" My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed," John, vi. 56; then the holy communion of Catholics is, beyond all expression and all conception, not only the most powerful stimulative to our faith, our hope, our love, and our contrition, but also the most efficacious means of obtaining these and all other graces from the Divine bounty. Those Catholics who frequent this sacrament with the suitable dispositions, are the best judges of the truth of what I here say: nevertheless, many Protestants have been converted to the Catholic Church from the ardent desire they felt of receiving their Saviour Christ himself into their bosoms, instead of a bare memorial of him, and from a just conviction of the spiritual benefits they would derive from this intimate union with him. The four remaining instruments of grace, penance, extreme unction, order, and matrimony, Protestants, in general, give up to us, no less than confirmation. The Bishop of Lincoln,* Dr. · Hey, and other controvertists, pretend that it was Peter Lombard, in the twelfth century, who made sacraments of them. True it is, that this industrious theologian collected together the different passages of the fathers, and arranged them, with proper definitions of each subject, in their present scholastic order: this he did not only with respect to the sacraments, but likewise to the other branches of divinity, on which account he is called the master of the sentences:—but Peter Lombard could as soon have introduced Mahometanism into the church, as the belief' of any one sacrament, which it had not before received as such. Besides, supposing him to have deceived the Latin Church into this belief, I ask by what means were the schismatical Greek churches fascinated into it? In short, though these holy rites had not been indued by Christ with a sacramental grace, yet, practised as they are in the Catholic Church, they would still be great helps to piety and Christian morality. *Elem. vol. ii. p. 414. + Lect. vol. iv. p. 199. |