in London, and to preach in that diocese is actual schism. In all likelihood it will come to the same all over England, if the Bishops have courage enough. They leave off the liturgy in the fields: though Mr. Whitefield expresses his value for it, he never once read it to his tatterdemalions on a common. Their societies are sufficient to dissolve all other societies but their own: will any man of common sense or spirit suffer any domestic to be in a bond engaged to relate every thing without reserve to five or ten people, that concerns the person's conscience, how much soever it may concern the family? Ought any married persons to be there, unless husband and wife be there together? This is literally putting asunder whom God hath joined together. As I told Jack, I am not afraid the church should excommunicate him, discipline is at too low an ebb; but that he should excommunicate the church. It is pretty near it. Holiness and good works are not so much as conditions of our acceptance with God. Love-feasts are introduced, and extemporary prayers and expositions of Scripture, which last are enough to bring in all confusion: nor is it likely they will want any miracles to support them. He only can stop them from being a formed sect, in a very little time, who ruleth the madness of the people. Ecclesiastical censures have lost their terrors, thank fanaticism on the one hand and atheism on the other. To talk of persecution therefore from thence is mere insult. Poor Brown who gave name and rise to the first separatists, though he repented every

vein of his heart, could never undo the mischief he had done."

Samuel Wesley died within three weeks after the date of this letter; and John says in his journal, "We could not but rejoice at hearing from one who had attended my brother in all his weakness, that several days before he went hence, God had given him a calm and full assurance of his interest in Christ. Oh! may every one who opposes it be thus t convinced that this doctrine is of God!" Wesley cannot be suspected of intentional deceit : yet who is there who upon reading this passage would suppose that Samuel had died after an illness of four hours?-well might he protest against the apprehension or the charity of those who were so eager to hold him up to the world as their convert. The state of mind which this good man enjoyed had nothing in common with the extravagant doctrine of assurance which his brothers were preaching with such vehemence during the ebullition of their enthusiasm; it was the sure and

* In the History of Dissenters by David Bogue and James Bennett, (vol. iii. p. 9.) Samuel Wesley is called "a worldly priest, who hated all pretence to more religion than our neighbours, as an infallible mark of a dissenter !!" The amiable spirit which is displayed in this sentence, its liberality, its charity, and its regard to truth, require no

comment.

This passage may probably have been the cause of the breach between John Wesley and his brother's family, and to that breach the preservation of Samuel's letters is owing. Wesley was very desirous of getting the whole correspondence into his possession," but the daughter and grand-daughter of Samuel being offended at his conduct, would never deliver them to him. It was taken for granted that he would have suppressed them. They gave them to Mr. Badcock with a view to their publication after Wesley's death, and Badcock dying before then, gave them to Dr. Priestley with the same intent."

certain hope of a sincere and humble Christian who trusted in the merits of his Saviour and the mercy of his God. He died as he had lived, in that essential faith which has been common to all Christians in all ages; -that faith wherein he had been trained up, which had been rooted in him by a sound education, and confirmed by diligent study, and by his own ripe judgement. And to that faith Wesley himself imperceptibly returned as time and experience taught him to correct his aberrations. In his old age he said to Mr. Melville Horne these memorable words: "When fifty years ago my brother Charles and I, in the simplicity of our hearts, told the good people of England, that unless they knew their sins were forgiven, they were under the wrath and curse of God, I marvel, Melville, they did not stone us! The Methodists, I hope, know better now: we preach assurance as we always did, as a common privilege of the children of God; but we do not enforce it, under the pain of damnation, denounced on all who enjoy it not."

At this time Wesley believed that he differed in no point from the Church of England, but preached her fundamental doctrines, as they were clearly laid down, both in her prayers, articles, and homilies. But from those clergy who in reality dissented from the church, though they owned it not, he differed, he said, in these points: they spoke of justification either as the same thing with sanctifi, cation, or as something consequent upon it; he believed justification to be wholly distinct from

sanctification, and necessarily antecedent to it. The difference would have been of little consequence had it consisted only in this logomachy: how many thousand and ten thousand Christians have taken, and will take, the right course to heaven, without understanding, thinking, or per-. haps hearing of these terms, but satisfied with the hope, and safe in the promise of their salvation! They spake of our own holiness or good works, he said, as the cause of our justification: he believed that the death and righteousness of Christ were the whole and sole cause. They spake of good works as a condition of justification, necessarily previous to it he believed no good work could be previous to it, and consequently could not be a condition of it; but that we are justified (being till that hour ungodly, and therefore incapable of doing any good work) by faith alone-faith without worksfaith including no good work though it produces all." They spake of sanctification as if it were an outward thing, which consisted in doing no harm, and in doing what is called good: he believed that it was the life of God in the soul of man; a participation of the divine nature; the mind that was in Christ; the renewal of our heart after the image of him that created us. They spake of the new birth as an outward thing; as if it were no more than baptism, or at most a change from a vicious to what is called a virtuous life: he believed that it was an entire change of our inmost nature, from the image of the devil wherein we are born, to the image of "There is, therefore," he says, " a wide,

God.

essential, fundamental, irreconcileable difference between us; so that if they speak the truth as it is in Jesus, I am found a false witness before God; but if I teach the way of God in truth, they are blind leaders of the blind." But where learnt he this exaggerated and monstrous notion of the in. nate depravity of man? and who taught him that man, who was created in the image of his Maker, was depraved into an image of the devil at birth? assuredly not He who said, Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.

True old Christianity, he tells us, was now every where spoken against, under the new name of Methodism. In reality, the good which Methodism might produce was doubtful, for there had been no time as yet to prove the stability of its converts; and it was, moreover, from its very nature, private, while the excesses and extravagances of the sect were public and notorious. Samuel Wesley, when he said that miracles would not be wanting to support them, foresaw as clearly what would be the natural progress of these things, as he did their certain tendency and inevitable end. Wesley was fully satisfied that the paroxysms which he caused in his hearers by his preaching, were relieved by his prayers; it was easy after this to persuade himself that he, and such of his disciples as had faith like him, could heal diseases and cast out devils. Accordingly he relates the case of a mad woman, as a fresh proof that whats r ye shall ask, believing, ye shall receive. This person