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‘VOL. I.
“HH DEVIZ 9°)
AMONG THE METUODISTS.
—— :
i (By a Member of the Methodist Episcopalian Church.)
Once, the’ preachers went from house to house,
preaching the wonder-working Gospel of Jesus Christ;
and the word was attended ‘with such amazing power,
that many fell down like men, mortally wounded in
the field of battle. . Now, we very seldom have a ser-
* mon, except in a certain large building called a church ;
here we may hear them three or four times a week,
but nobody. cries for mercy, nobody falls down under
_ the soul-piercing power of the word; so far from this,
that some sleep soundly, Once, the Methodist
preachers used to work with their own hands for their
support; now they must’ be supported by their bre-
ihren. Once, if they had food and raiment, they
were therewith content ; now, they must have fine
carpets, mahogany tables, and gilded chairs. _ Once,
to be a Methodist preacher, was to be as the filth and
offscouring of all things, and to be hated and de-
spised of all men, for His name’s sake; (O the glori-
ous Legacy !)' Now, it is, “the Reverend Mr. 8. has
. kindly offered to deliver a Discourse in the Presbyteri-
f : an church in Wall-street.” . Once, the Methodists held
I: their public worship in private houses among the poor
. | in barns, and in the open fields and highways. Now,
y they must-have a goodly number of churches, and
’ some of these must be pretty dashy inside—though
they should have to go in debt for the same, and never
pay ; and some others must have tall steeples,and sell
their pews to pay for them.. Once, the Methodists
| loved one another, with a love that many waters could
not quench; ,and their. hearts were knit together .in
this love, like the hearts of David and Jonathan. Now,
they bite and devour each other; brother goeth to
law with brother, and that too before unbelievers.—
Once, they sang in their devotions like the . angels
; above, and their simple songs made ‘sweet melody in
i Heaven, because they all sang together in the Spirit.
Now, the singing is by no means general in a congre-
gation; it is done mostly by. a few, who sit together
in what is called the gallery, who are taught the art
of singing, from time to time, by a kind of captain
singer among them, being kindly assisted on certain
occasions, (inteaded as seasons of instruction) by a
huge fiddle!» What would Paul have said to this non-
descript worship.? Notwithstanding many -of ‘their
poor. brethren, more spiritually minded; are grieved
with this practice, yet they persevere. Once, the Me-
‘thodists were a plain-dressing people, contented and
-happy jn cheap and homely clothes; looking down
twith holy contempt upon all the fashions and gayeties
of this poor deluded world, Now, very many dress
like the children of this world, and a few females,
though they do. wear plain hats, yet these, together
' \with the other parts of their dress, are costly, and
-their ribs squeezed into sosmalla compass by corsets,
that they can scarcely breathe. Are they learning of
Him who was meek and lowly in heart, when they
‘are girting themselves up with these engines of misery
and death? Once, the Methodists, when in prayer in
the great congregation, were mighty, having power,
with Elijah’s God, and prevailed... Yes, when only a
; few of these poor despised people assembled for pray-
Bey .er the great King of kings himself. would descend
from Ieaven, and walk with terrible majesty through
, 4 -the congregation, filling some hearts with : heavenly
/ |. comfort and unspeakable joy, and others* with ama-
j
.zing grief and anguish of spirit. O, the mingled
sounds of joyful sinners just converted—of weeping
-mourners, and the shouts of saints! ° This is Heaven
. .begun below. But O, the mournful contrast now !—
‘| These seasons are seldom, or hardly everseen. There
: is not that travail of soul for the conversion of sinners,
_and the consequent wrestling with God for this end,
‘ ‘There is too much formality; too much cold hearted
singing; too much exhorting and preaching by those
who need converting over again themselves: indeed,
people in this dayare killed with preaching: too many
cold, long, grammatical, heartless, faithless prayers ;
.and quite too few of them that are dictated and warm-
ed by the Holy Ghost.’ And what proves the awful
\and dangerous state of the. preachers and people is,
that such a proportion of them cry peace, when sud-
‘den destruction is near; and if you represent these
facts, they will perhaps insult you, or say, as Thomas
*. Mason, a Methodist minister, did to a person some
_»-tme ago, who stated that the Methodists were rapidly
..¢) @elining in religion; said he, “ You are under a*de-
:)/lsion of the devil? “In short, they have now. be.
ey er ee
|
Fa Pee
Ae /, eane so dark, that they rise up against the truth, as
i _ «> .ya have daily instances of, since you commenced
{ | °7 (|. yor publication, Truly may itbe said “that all flesh
bo . hav corrupted their way before the Lord: and when
a '. Chist comes, ag the Apostle asks, shall he find faith
i: on he earth,” et Fe
8
po mere
Fe camps 36S
eye Crug eller. |
COBLETL ON THD REFORMIATIGN.
—
History of the Protestant “ Reformation,” in England and Ire-
Jand; in a series of Letters, addressed to all sensible and just
Englishmen. ; By Wietiam Coppett. | . .
: . (Continued from our last.)
: -» LETTER UL
' 88. As to the Pope's interference with the authority
of the King or state, the sham plea set up was, andis,
that he divided the government with the King, to
whom belonged the sole ‘supremacy with regard to
every thing within his realm. his doctrine, pushed
home, would shut out Jesus Christ himself, and make
the King an object of adoration. . Spiritual and tempo-
ral authority are perfectly distinctin their nature, and
ought so to be kept in their exercise; and ‘that, too
not only for the sake ofreligion, but also for the sake
of civil liberty. It is curious enough that the Protest-
ant sectarians, while they most cordially unite with the
established Clergy in crying out against the Pope for
“usurping” the King’s authority, and against the
Catholics for countenancing that “usurpation,” take
special care to deny, that this same King has any spir-
itual. supremacy over themselves /., The Presbyterians
have their synod, the Methodists their conference,
and all the other motley mungrels some head or other
of their own. Even the “ meek” and money-making
followers of George Fox have their Elders and Yearly
Meeting. All these heads exercise an absolute pow-
er over their members. They give or refuse their
sanction to the appointment of the bawlers ; they re-
move them, or break them, at pleasure. We have re-
cently seen the Synod in Scotland ordering a preach-
er of the name of Fiercuer to cease preaching in
London, ' He appears not to have obeyed; but the
whole congregation has, it seems, been thrown into
confusion in consequence of this disobedience, Strange
enough, or rather, impudent enough, is it, in these
sects, to refuse to acknowledge any spiritual suprema-
cy in the King, while they declaim against the Catho-
lics, because they will not take an oath acknowledg-
ing that supremacy: and is it not,. then, . monstrous
that persons belonging to these sects can sit in Parlia-
ment, can sit in the Kings council, can be generals or
admirals or judges, while from all ‘these’ posts, and
many others, the Catholics are excluded, and that too,
only because their consciences, their honourable ad-
herence to the religion of their fathers, will not allow
them to acknowledge this supremacy ;. but bids them
to belong to the “ one fold and the one shepherd,” and
to know none other than “one Lord, one faith and
one baptism?” |
89. But the Pope was a forcigner exercising spirit-
ual power in England; and this the hypocrites pre-
tended was a degradation to the King and country,—
This was something to tickle Jonn Buii, who has, and
I dare say, always has had, an instinctive dislike to
foreigners, But, in the first place, the Pope might be
an Enalishnan, and we have, in paragraph 42, seen
one instance of this., Then, how could it bea thing
degrading to this nation, whenthe same thing existed
with regard to all other nations?» Was King Atrrep,
and were all the long line of kings, for 900 years de-
graded beings? Did those who really conquered
France, not by subsidies and bribes, but by arms ; did
they notunderstand what was degrading, and what was
not?) Does not the present King of France, and do
not the present French people, understand this mat-
ter? Are the sovereignty of the former and the free-
dom of the latter Jess perfect because the papal supre-
macy is. distinctly acknowledged, and has full effect in
France? And if the Synod in Scotland can exercise
its supremacy in England, and the Conference in En-
gland exercise its supremacy in Scotland, in Ireland,
and in the Colonies 3 if this can be without any de-
gradation of king or people, why are we to look upon
the exercise of the papal supremacy as degrading to
either? cel A Pe ed
90, Aye ; but there was the zeney, The money of
England went to the Pope. Popes cannot live, and
keep courts and ambassadors, and maintain great state
without moncy, any more than other people.’ \ A part
of the money of England went to the Popes but a
part also of that of every other Christian nation took
the same direction. This money’ was not, however,
thrown away. It was so much given for the. preser-
vation of unity of faith, peace, good will and . charity,
and morality, We shall, in the broils that ensued
and in the consequent subsidies and bribes to foreign-
ers, soon see that the money, which went to the Pope,
was extremely well laid out. But, how we Protestants
strain at a gnat, while we swallow camels’ by whole
caravans!’ Mr, Perceval gave more to joreigners
in one single year than the Popes ever received from
‘
j
V7
any more than one of our workhouse paupers, and who
had not oné drop of English blood in his veins ; and
we now send annually to Hanoverians and other for-
eigners, under the name of half-pay, more money than
was ever sent to the Pope intwenty-years. From the
time of the “ Glorious Revolution,” we have beén pay-
ing two thousand pounds a year to the heirs of “Mar-
SHAL Scuomperc,” who came over to help the Durca-
MAN} and this is, mind, to be paid as long as there’ °
are such heirs of Marsan SctomBerc, which, touse”” ."
the elegant and logical and philosophical phrase of our —
great,“ Reformation”-Poet, will, 1 dare say, be “ for »,
ever and a day.” And have we. forgotten ‘the Ben-
Tincks and all the rest of the Dutex tribe, who had:
estates of the Crown heaped upon them: and do we
talk, then, of the degradation and the loss of money * *
occasioned by tlie supremacy ofthe Pope! It is ano-
torious fact, that not a German soldier would have
been wanted in this kingdom, during the last war, had +
it not been for the disturbed and dangerous’ state of
Ireland, in which the German troops were very much ,,
employed. We have long been paying, and have now
to pay, and shall long have to pay, upwards of a hun-)
dred thousand pounds a year to the half-pay officers
of these troops, one single penny of which we now
should not have had to pay, if we had dispensed with
the oath of supremacy from thé Catholics. . Every one
to his taste; but, for my part, If I must pay foreigners
for keeping me in order, [would rather pay “pence to
Perer” than pounds to Hessian Grenadiers, . Alien
Priories, the establishment of which was for the pur-
pose of inducing learned persons to come and live in
England, have been a copious source of declamatory
complaint, . But, leaving their utility out of the ques-
tion, I, for my particular part, prefer ‘Alien Priories to
‘Alien Armies, from which latter this country has ne-
ver been, except for very short intervals, wholly free,
from the day that the former were suppressed. I wish
not to’set mysclf up as a dictator in matters of taste ;
but, I must take loave to say, that I prefer the cloister
to the barrack ; the chaunting of matins to the reveille
by the drum ; the cowl to the brass-fronted hairy cap 5
the shaven crown to the mustachio, though the latter
be stiffened with black-ball; the rosary, with the cross
appendant, to the belt with its box of bullets; and, be-
yond all measure, I prefer the penance to the point of
the bayonet; One or the other of these sets of things
it would seem, we must have; for, before the “ Re-
formation”? ,England knew, and never, dreamed, of
such a thing as a standing soldier ; since that event
she has never, in reality, known what it was to be with-
out such soldiers: till, at last, a thundering standing
army, even in time of profound peace, is openly avow-
ed to be necessary to the “preservation of our happy
constitution in Cauncu axp SraTe!? .
91. However, this money part of the affair is now
over, with regard to the Pope. | No one proposes to
give him any money at all, in any shape whatever.
‘The Catholics believe, that the unity of their church ~
would be destroyed, that they would,. in short, cease
to be Catholics, ifthey were to abjure his supremacy }
and, therefore, they will not abjure it: they. insist
that their teachers shall receive their authority frome
him : and what, do they; with regard to the Pope, in- '-
sist apon more than is insisted upon and acted upon by
the Presbyterians, with regard to their synod? . ;
92. Lastly, as to this supremacy of the Pope, what
was its effect with regard to civil liberty 3 that is to
say, with.regard to the security, the rightful enjoy-
ment, of men’s property aud lives? We shall, by-
and-by, sce, that civil liberty fell by the same tyran-
nical hands that suppressed the Pope’s supremacy.
But, Whence came our civil liberty? Whence came
those laics of Exgland, which Lorp Coxs calls “ the
birthright” of Englishmen, and which each of the
States of America, declare, in their constitutions, to
be “the birth-right of the people thereof?” Whena
came. these laws? .Are they of protestant origin?
The bare question ought to make the rivals of the
Catholics hang their heads for shame. Did protest-
ants establish the three courts and the twelve Judges,
to which establishment, though, like all other human
institutions, it has sometimes worked evil, England
owes so large a portion of her .fame and her great-
ness? Oh,no! This institution arose when the Pope’s
supremacy was in full vigour. | It was nota gift from
Scotchmen nor Dutchmen nor Hessians; from Lu-
therans, Calvanists, or Hugonots; but was the work
of our own brave and wise English Catholie .ances-
tors: and Caer Justicé Apsorr is the heir, in an
unbroken linc of succession, to that Benen, which
was erected by Atrrep, who was, at the very same
time, most zealously engaged in .the founding of
churches and of mouasterifs, * :
.
our ancestors in four centurics, We have bowed, for
years, to a Durcuman, who was no heir to the crown
93. If, however, we still insist, that the Pope’s sa-
premacy and. its accompanying circumstances, p:v-
po Perera tt cent s secettime satel
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