law contained in the Scriptures is a rule of life for believers Having considered this system in all its bearings, we are th less surprised at the disgusting obscenity, mingled with blas phemy, which is to be met with in the theological tracts of the German count.*

The next system of delusion which I shall mention, as pro ceeding from the fatal principle of an interior rule of faith though framed in England, was also the work of a foreign nobleman, the Baron Swedenborgh. His first supposed revelation was at an eating-house in London, about the year 1745. "Af ter I had dined," says he, "a man appeared to me sitting in the corner of the room, who cried out to me with a terrible voice, Don't eat so much. The following night the same man appeared to me, shining with light, and said to me, I am the Lord, your Creator and Redeemer: I have chosen you to explain to men the interior and spiritual sense of the Scriptures: I will dictate to you what you are to write.† His imaginary communications with God and the angels were as frequent and familiar as those of Mahomed, and his conceptions of heavenly things were as gross and incoherent as those of the Arabian impostor. Suffice it to say, that his God is a mere man, his angels are male and female, who marry together and follow various trades and professions. Finally, his New Jerusalem, which is to be spread over the whole earth, is so little different from this sublunary world, that the entrance to it is imperceptible. So far is true, that the New Jerusalemites are spread throughout England, and have chapels in most of its principal towns.§

salvation by works. Some of our English brethren (Moravians) say: you will never have faith till you leave off the church and the sacraments: as many go to hell by praying as by thieving." Journal, 1740.-John Nelson in his journal tells us, that the Moravians call their religion The Liberty of the Poor Sinnership; adding, that they "sell their prayer-books, and leave off reading and praying, to follow the Lamb."

* See Maclaine's Hist. vol. vi. p. 23, and Bishop Warburton's Doctrine of Grace, quoted by him.

+ Barruel's Hist. du Jacobinisme, tom. iv. p. 118.

Ibid.

§ Since the above letter was written, another sect, the Joannites, or disciples of Joanna Southcote, have risen to notice by their number and the singularity of their tenets. This female apostle has been led by her spirit to believe herself to be the woman of Genesis, destined to crush the head of the infernal spirit, with whom she supposes herself to have had daily battles, to the effusion of his blood. She believes herself to be, likewise, the woman of the Revelations crowned with twelve stars, which are so many ministers of the Established Church. In fact, one of these, a richly beneficed rector, and of a noble family, acts as her secretary in writing and sealing passports to heaven, which she supposes herself authorized to issue, to the number of 144,000, at a very moderate price. One of these passports in due form is in the writer's possession. It is sealed with three seals. The first exhibits two stars, namely, the morning star, to represent Christ, the evening star to

I am sorry to be obliged to enter upon the same list with. these enthusiasts, a numerous class, many of them very respectable, of modern religionists, called Methodists; yet, since their avowed system of faith is, that this consists in an instantaneous illapse of God's Spirit into the souls of certain persons, by which they are convinced of their justification and salvation, without reference to Scripture or any other proof, they cannot be placed, as to their rule of faith, under any other denomination. This, according to their founder's doctrine, is the only article of faith; all other articles he terms opinions, of which he says, "the Methodists do not lay any stress on them, whether right or wrong. He continues, "I am sick of opinions; I am weary to bear them; my soul loathes this frothy food." Conformably with this latitudinarian system, Wesley opens heaven indiscriminately to Churchmen, Presbyterians, Independents, Quakers, and even to Catholics. Addressing the last named, he exclaims, "O that God would write in your hearts the rules of self-denial and love laid down by Thomas à Kempis; or that you would follow, in this and in good works, the burning and shining light of your own church, the Marquis of Renty.§ Then would all who know and love the truth, rejoice to acknowledge you as the church of the living God."||

At the first rise of Methodism in Oxford, A.D. 1729, John Wesley and his companions were plain, serious, Church-ofEngland-men, assiduous and methodical in praying, reading, fasting, and the like. What they practised themselves, they preached to others both in England and in America; till becoming intimate with the Moravian brethren, and particularly with Peter Bohler, one of their elders, John Wesley "became convinced of unbelief, namely, a want of that faith whereby alone we are saved." Speaking of his past life and ministry, he says, "I was fundamentally a Papist, and knew it not." **** represent herself. The second seal exhibits the lion of Juda, supposed to allude to the insane prophet, Richard Brothers. The third shows the face of Joanna herself. Of late her inspiration has taken a new turn: she believes herself to be pregnant of the Messiah, and her followers have prepared silver vessels of various sorts for his use, when he shall be born. * Wesley's Appeal, P. iii. p. 134.

+ Appeal.

† Ibid. p. 135.

His life is written in French, by Père St. Jure, a Jesuit, and abridged in English by J. Wesley.

In his Popery Calmly Considered, p. 20, Wesley writes: "I firmly believe that many members of the Church of Rome have been holy men, and that many are so now." He elsewhere says, "Several of them (Papists) have attained to as high a pitch of sanctity, as human nature is capable of arriving at."

¶ Whitehead's Life of John and Charles Wesley, vol. ii. p. 68.

** Journal, A. D. 1739.-Elsewhere Wesley says: "O what a work has

'Soon after this persuasion, namely, on May 24, 1739, "Goin into a society in Aldersgate-street," he says, "whilst a perso was reading Luther's preface to the Romans, about a quarte before nine, I felt my heart strangely warmed; I felt I di trust in Christ, in Christ alone for salvation, and an assu rance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine and saved me from the law of sin and death."*

What were, now, the unavoidable consequences of a diffu sion of this doctrine among the people at large? Let us hear them from Wesley's most able disciple and destined successor Fletcher of Madeley. "Antinomian principles and practices," he says, "have spread like wild-fire among our societies. Many persons, speaking in the most glorious manner of Christ, and their interest in his complete salvation, have been found living in the greatest immoralities.-How few of our societies, where cheating, extorting, or some other evil hath not broke out, and given such shakes to the ark of the Gospel, that, had not the Lord interposed, it must have been overset! I have seen them who pass for believers, follow the strain of corrupt nature; and when they should have exclaimed against Antinomianism, I have heard them cry out against the legality of their wicked hearts, which, they said, still suggested that they were to DO something for their salvation."‡ "How few of our celebrated pulpits, where more has not been said for sin than against it! The same candid writer, laying open the foulness of his former system, charges Richard Hill, Esq., who persisted in it, with maintaining that, "Even adultery and murder do not hurt the pleasant children, but rather work for their good." "God sees no sin in believers, whatever sin they commit. My sins might displease God; my person is always acceptable to him. Though I should outsin Manasses, I should not be less a pleasant child, because God always views me in

God begun since Peter Bohler came to England! such a one as shall never come to an end, till heaven and earth pass away."

* Vide Whitehead, vol. ii. p. 79. In a letter to his brother Samuel, John Wesley says: 66 By a Christian I mean one who so believes in Christ, that death hath no dominion over him, and in this obvious sense of the word I was not a Christian till the 24th of May, last year." Ibid. 105. + Checks to Antinom. vol. ii. p. 22. Ibid. vol. ii. p. 200.

§ Ibid. p. 215.

Fletcher's Works, vol. iii. p. 50. Agricola, one of Luther's first disci ciples, is called the founder of the Antinomians. These hold that the faith ful are bound by no law, either of God or man, and that good works of every kind are useless to salvation; while Amsdorf, Luther's pot-companion, taught that they are an impediment to salvation. Mosheim's Eccles. Hist. by Maclaine, vol. iv. p. 35, p. 328. Eaton, a puritan, in his Honeycomb of Justification, says: "Believers ought not to mourn for sin, because it was pardoned before it was committed."

Christ. Hence, in the midst of adulteries, murders, and incests, 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 and not according to the person. Though I 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."+

66

These doctrines and practices, casting great disgrace on Methodism, alarmed its founder. He therefore held a synod of his chief preachers, under the title of a conference, in which he and they unanimously abandoned their past fundamental principles, in the following confession which they made. Quest. 17. Have we not, unawares, leaned too much to Calvinism. Ans. We are afraid we have. Q. 18. Have we not also leaned too much to Antinomianism? A. We are afraid we have. Q. 20. What are the main pillars of it? A 1. That Christ abolished the moral law: 2. That Christians therefore are not obliged to observe it: 3. That one branch of Christian liberty is liberty from observing the commandments of God," &c. The publication of this retractation, in 1770, raised the indignation of the more rigid Methodists, namely the Whitfieldites, Jumpers, &c., all of whom were under the particular patronage of Lady Huntingdon : accordingly her chaplain, the Hon. and Rev. Walter Shirley, issued a circular letter by her direction, calling a general meeting of her connection, as it is called, at Bristol, to censure this "dreadful heresy," which, as Shirley affirmed, injured the very fundamentals of Christianity.§ Having exhibited this imperfect sketch of the errors, contradictions, absurdities, impieties, and immoralities, into which numberless Christians, most of them, no doubt, sincere in their belief, have fallen, by pursuing phantoms of their imagination for Divine illuminations, and adopting a supposed, immediate, and personal revelation, as the rule of their faith and conduct, I would request any one of your respectable society, who may still adhere to it, to re-consider the self-evident maxim laid down in the beginning of this letter; namely, That cannot be the rule of faith and conduct which is liable to lead us, and has led very many well-meaning persons, into error and impiety; I would remind him of his frequent mistakes and illusions respecting things of a temporary nature; then, painting to his

* Fletcher, vol. iv. p. 97.

+ Quoted by Fletcher. See also Daubeny's Guide to the Church, p. 82. Apud Whitehead, p. 213. Benson's Apology, p. 208.

§ Fletcher's Works, vol. ii. p. 5. Whitehead. Nightingale's Portraiture of Methodism, p. 463.

mind the all-importance of ETERNITY, that is, of happiness or misery inconceivable and everlasting, I would address him in the words of St. Augustin, "What is it that you are trusting to, poor, weak soul, and blinded with the mists of the flesh: what is it you are trusting to?"

DEAR SIR

JOHN MILNER.

LETTER VII.-TO JAMES BROWN, ESQ., &c.

OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.

I HAVE just received a letter from Friend Rankin of Wenlock, written much in the style of George Fox, and another from Mr. Ebenezer Topham of Brosely. They both consist of objections to my last letter to you, which they had perused at New Cottage; and the writers of them both request, that I would address whatever answer I might give them, to your villa.

Friend Rankin is sententious, yet civil; he asks, 1st, whether "Friends at this day, and in past times, and even the faithful servant of Christ, George Fox, have not condemned the vain imaginations of James Naylor, Thomas Bushel, Perrot, and the sinful doings of many others through whom the word of life was blasphemed in their day among the ungodly?" He asks, 2dly, whether "numberless follies, blasphemies, and crimes have not risen up in the Roman Catholic, as well as in other churches?" He asks, 3dly, whether "learned Robert Barclay, in his glorious Apology, hath not shown forth, that The testimony of the Spirit is that alone by which the true knowledge of God hath been, is, and can be revealed and confirmed, and this not only by the outward testimony of Scripture, but also by that of Tertullian, Hierom, Augustin, Gregory the Great, Bernard, yea also by Thomas à Kempis, F. Pacificus Baker,* and many others of the Popish communion, who, says Robert Barclay, 'have known and tasted the love of God, and felt the power and virtue of God's Spirit working within them for their salvation ?" "+

I will first consider the arguments of Friend Rankin. I grant him then, that his founder, George Fox, does blame certain extravagancies of Naylor, Perrot, and others his followers, at the same time that he boasts of several committed by himself, by Simpson, and others. But how does he confute them, and guard others against them?-Why, he calls their authors

* An English Benedictine monk, author of "Santa Sophia," which is quoted at length by Barclay. † Apology, p. 351.

See Journal of G. Fox, passim.