Part 152

But, by this time, my dear friend, I imagine you would be glad to know against whom these _bruta fulmina_, this unscriptural artillery is levelled. Our Author shall inform you: “All modern pretenders to divine influence in general;” and you may be assured “the _poor Methodists_ (those scourges and eye-sores of formal, self-righteous, letter-learned professors) in particular.” To expose, and set these off in a ridiculous light, (a method that _Julian_, after all his various tortures, found most effectual) this writer runs from _Dan_ to _Beersheba_; gives us quotation upon quotation out of the Rev. Mr. _John Wesley_’s Journals; and to use his own simile upon another occasion, by a kind of _Egyptian_ husbandry, draws together whole droves of obscene animals, of his own formation, who rush in furiously, and then trample the Journals, and this sect, already every-where spoken against, under their feet. In reading this part of his work, I could not help thinking of the Papists dressing _John Huss_ in a cap of painted devils, before they delivered him up to the secular arm. For our Author calls the Rev. Mr. _John Wesley_, “Paltry mimick, spiritual empiric, spiritual martialist, meek apostle, new adventurer.” The Methodists, according to him, are “modern apostles, the saints, new missionaries, illuminated doctors, this sect of fanatics. Methodism itself is modern saintship. Mr. _Law_ begat it, and Count _Zinzendorff_ rocked the cradle; and the devil himself is man-midwife to their new birth.” And yet this is the man, my dear friend, who in his preface to this very book, lays it down, as an invariable maxim, “That truth is never so grossly injured, or its advocates so dishonoured, as when they employ the foolish arts of sophistry, buffoonery, and personal abuse in its defence.” By thy own pen thou shalt be tried, thou hapless, mistaken advocate of the christian cause. Nay, not content with dressing up this meek apostle, this spiritual empiric, these new missionaries, in bear-skins, in order to throw them out to be bated by an ill-natured world, he proceeds to rake up the very ashes of the dead; and, like the Witch of _Endor_, as far as in him lies, attempts to bring up and disquiet the ghosts of one of the most venerable sets of men that ever lived upon the earth; I mean the _good old Puritans_: “For these, (says our Author) who now go under the name of Methodists, in the days of our fore-fathers, under the firm reign of Queen _Elizabeth_, were called Precisians; but then, as a precious metal which had undergone its trial in the fire, and left all its dross, the sect, with great propriety, changed its name,” (a very likely thing, to give themselves a ♦nick-name, indeed) from Precisian to Puritan. Then, in the weak and distracted times of _Charles the First_, it ventured to throw off the mask, and under the new name of Independant, became the chief agent of all the dreadful disorders which terminated that unhappy reign.” So that according to this Author’s heraldic, genealogical fiction, “Methodism is the younger daughter to Independancy, and now a Methodist is an apostolic Independant;” (GOD grant he may always deserve such a glorious appellation) “But an Independant was then a _Mahometan_ Methodist.” Pages 142, 143, 144. What! an Independant a _Mahometan_ Methodist? What! the learned Dr. _Owen_, the great Dr. _Goodwin_, the amiable Mr. _Howe_, and those glorious worthies who first planted the _New-England_ churches, _Mahometan_ Methodists! Would to GOD, that not only this writer, but all who now profess to preach CHRIST in this land, were not only almost, but altogether such _Mahometan_ Methodists, in respect to the doctrine of divine influence, as they were! For I will venture to affirm, that if it had not been for such _Mahometan_ Methodists, and their successors, the free-grace dissenters, we should some years ago, have been in danger of sinking into Mahometan Methodism indeed; I mean, into a christianity destitute of any divine influence manifesting itself in grace and knowledge, and void of any spiritual aid in spiritual distresses. But from such a christianity, good LORD deliver this happy land! The design our author had in view in drawing such a parallel, is easily seen through. Doubtless, to expose the present Methodists to the jealousy of the civil government. For, says he, page 142, “We see methodism at present under a well established government, where it is obliged to wear a less audacious look. To know its true character, we should see it in all its fortunes.” And doth this writer then, in order to gratify a sinful curiosity of seeing methodism in all its fortunes, desire to have the pleasure of seeing the weak and distracted times of _Charles_ the first brought back again! Or dares he insinuate, that because, as he immediately adds, our country hath been productive of every strange thing, “that we are in the least danger now of any such distracting turn, since we have a King upon the throne, who in his first most gracious speech to both houses of parliament, declared, he would preserve the act of toleration inviolable? And that being the case, blessed be GOD, we are in no danger of any return of such weak and distracted times, either from the apostolic independants, Mahometan Methodists, or any religious sect or party whatsoever.” My dear friend, “if this is not gibetting up names with unregenerate malice, to everlasting infamy,” I know not what is. But it happens in this, as in similar cases, whilst men are thus busy in gibbeting up the names of others, they unwittingly, like _Haman_, when preparing a gallows for that apostolic Independent, that Mahometan Methodist, _Mordecai_, all the while are only erecting a gibbet for their own.