But it is time to follow you to your 14th section page 31. “The pious cruelty of _corporal severities_, or mortification by tormenting the flesh, is another common method of gaining a reputation for sanctity. Such as long and rigorous fastings, gashing and flaying the body with scourges, armed with rowels and sharp tags, and rolling naked in thorns and thistles.” But these last particulars, you say, “Our own _disciplinarians_ cannot, in any tolerable measure, pretend to come up to.” What occasion was there then for mentioning them? Only to cast a popular odium upon these enthusiastical Methodists. _Hoc est æerugo mera._ “However, something of this kind we have from their own relation.” And something of this kind we have in the Evangelist’s relation of the life of JESUS of _Nazareth_; who, as we are informed, before he came out into his public ministry, underwent a long and rigorous fasting, even of forty days and forty nights. And something of this kind we have in the relation that disciplinarian the Apostle _Paul_ gives of himself; for he tells us he was in fastings often. It is true he does condemn (as you observe, page 33.) that ἀφειδία σώματος, the not sparing of the body, as useless and superstitious, when done in order to recommend us to the favour of GOD, or put in the place, or joined with the merits of JESUS CHRIST. Yet elsewhere, he informs us, that he made it his common practice to keep his body under, (ὑπωπιάζω) and bring it into subjection: and think you all this was only to “gain a reputation for sanctity?” If you will believe himself, it was for a nobler and more important end, “Lest while he preached to others, he himself should be a cast-away.” And how do you know but these Methodists might, at their first setting out, have used, and even now may use abstinence for the same purpose? Nay, that this very motive led them into some extremes in it, which however must be esteemed an error of the right side? Why will you still persist in taking the keys out of the hands of Omniscience, and presumptuously judge the intentions of people’s hearts? If we had a mind to imitate you in this rash way of judging, might not we suspect, (as your pamphlet came out in that season) that in order to wound our church governors through the sides of the Methodists, you intended this part of your pamphlet as a burlesque upon them, for enjoining such a _long and rigorous fasting_, as that of forty days, commonly called _Lent_?
I should now proceed, in order, to the examination of your 15th, 16th, and 17th sections; but as these, together with ♦the 19th, wholly refer to Mr. _Wesley_, I shall leave you to his correction, if he thinks proper to take you in hand. However, there is something so extraordinary in your 17th section, that, I think, it calls for a cursory remark. “But, previous to this elevated state, that we may not wander too far from the saints progress, comes their _conversion_; which, as another instance of fanatical peculiarities, they represent as sudden and _instantaneous_.” Instantaneous conversion, a fanatical peculiarity! I presume instantaneous regeneration must be a _fanatical peculiarity_ also. What then becomes of that _Diana_ of the present age, _baptismal regeneration_? Which must be instantaneous, and that always too, if every child is really regenerated when baptized?
♦ removed duplicate word “the”