However, taking this for granted, will you aver in cool blood, that every one who dies a Quaker, a Baptist, an Independent, or a Presbyterian, is as infallibly damned as if he died in the act of murder or adultery? Surely you start at the thought; it makes even nature recoil: how then can you reconcile it to the love that hopeth all things? But whatever state they are in who causelessly separate from the church of England, it affects not those of whom we are speaking, for they do not separate from it at all." Mr. Wesley proves this assertion by the following arguments: -1. That a great part of the Methodists went to no church at all formerly, and made no more pretensions to belong to the church of England than to the church of Muscovy: and therefore if they went to no church now, they would be no farther from the church than they were before. 2. That those who did sometimes go to church before, went now three times as often: therefore they do not separate from the church. 3. Those who never went to church at all before, now went to church at all opportunities. And he asks, therefore, will common sense allow any one to say these are separated from the church? He then very feelingly complains of many who had used all the power and wisdom they had, to hinder thousands from hearing the gospel, which they might have found to be the power of God unto salvation. "Their blood," says he," is upon your heads. By inventing, or countenancing, or retailing lies, some refined, some gross and palpable, you hindered others from profiting by what they did hear. You are answerable to God for these souls also. Many, who began to taste the good word, and run the way of God's commandments, you, by various methods, prevailed on to hear it no more: so they soon drew back to perdition. But know, that for

every one of these also, God will require an account of you at the day of judgment." But thousands were still found in the good and right way; and says he, "what a harvest then might we have seen before now, if all who say they are on the Lord's side, had come, as in all reason they ought, to the help of the Lord against the mighty. Yea, had they only not opposed the work of God, had they only refrained from his messengers, might not the trumpet of God have been heard long since in every corner of our land? And thousands of sinners, in every county, been brought to fear God and honour the king."

Judge of what immense service we might have been, even in this single point, both to our king and country. All who hear and regard the word we preach," honour the king" for God's sake. They render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, as well as unto God the things that are God's, They have no conception of piety without loyalty, knowing that "the powers that be are ordained of God."

Yet, tell it not in Gath! At the very time that Mr. Wesley was publishing the above paragraphs, and manifesting such loyalty of disposition, his friends were treated as conspirators against the person and government of the king. "Just now," says Mr. Wesley," (on the 4th of this instant December, 1745,) the Reverend Mr. Henry Wickham, one of his Majesty's Justices of the Peace for the West Riding of Yorkshire, writes an order to the Constable of Keighley, commanding him "to convey the body of Jonathan Reeves, (whose. real crime is the calling sinners to repentance) to his Majesty's gaol and castle of York; suspected (saith the precept) of being a spy among us, and a dangerous man to the person and government of his Majesty King George."

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ye Yorkshire Methodists! who now sit so securely under your own vine and fig tree, and are raised from lying among the pots to sit among the princes of God's people, see what it cost to lay the foundation of your present privileges. Prize your blessings, hold them fast, and be sure to make a proper use of them.

I ought, perhaps, again to apologize to the reader, for spending so many pages upon the contents of Mr. Wesley's" Appeals to Men of Reason and Religion;" but as that work is one of the best he ever wrote, and as it embraces the strength and substance of the general objections to Methodism, with suitable and masterly answers, I conceived that nothing could be more calculated to give a just idea of Methodism: so that while I am sketching the history, I am also drawing the picture of it. But after so many paragraphs of statements and explanations we must now go on. -At the time when Mr. Wesley wrote these Appeals, the whole of the Methodists did not amount to much above seven thousand. In 1769, which was twenty-four years after, the number in the different societies was 28,263; and the increase has been nearly in the same proportion ever since. Seven years after 1769, in 1776, the year before Dr. Coke came into the Connexion, the number of the Methodists was 40,071, including 3148 in the United States of America. And thirty-eight years after that, namely, in 1814, the year in which the Doctor died, the total number of the Methodists was 436,327.

From the period when Mr. Wesley wrote the Appeals, to the time that Dr. Coke joined him, a space of thirty-two years, we have no particular historical records, except Mr. Wesley's Journal. In the midst of much opposition, and many difficulties, the work maintained its ground, and upon

the average, was still increasing. And yet it is right to observe, that while the body at large has generally been on the increase, many individual places have been, at least for a season, on the decrease: and this is still the case to the present day. And those who form a general opinion from what falls under their own individual notice, sometimes indulge and propagate the idea that the whole body is on the decline, because, for the moment at least, it happens to decline where they reside.

The lawfulness and expediency of separating from the church was a subject repeatedly debated at the Conferences, and otherwise, during the life of Mr. Wesley. Some joined the society who had been brought up among the Dissenters; some who had been brought up in the church, imbibed the notions of Dissenters; and above all, the unkind, uncharitable, and irritating, persecuting conduct of many of the clergy towards the Methodists, made numbers of them wish for a separation from the established church. A formal and total separation, at that period, would not have been a wise measure; nor would I recommend such a separation now. The peculiar call of Methodism is, to become all things to all descriptions of men, so far as the scriptures will warrant, in order to do the more abundant good. To have formed a separation at an early or any subsequent period, would have greatly contracted the spread and influence of Methodism, or, in other words, of truth and piety. There are still many places in the nation which may give us an impressive idea of the inexpediency of such a measure, even at the present day.

There are many other places, where it seems to be highly expedient, if not absolutely necessary, to have service in canonical hours, and to admi

nister the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's supper in the Methodist chapels. And there are some other places, where something of a middle course seems to be the most excellent way.. Could the church of England, as a hierarchy, be proved to be so completely built upon the scripture, that it would be a sinful transgression to deviate from it, then the Methodists ought most firmly, uniformly, and tenaciously, to cling to it. On the other hand, if it could be proved to be so unscriptural, that all conscientious persons ought to comé out of it, and be separate, then certainly the Methodists ought fully and avowedly to forsake it. But with its undeniable mixture of good and evil, perfection and imperfection, the Methodists are at full liberty to do as occasion may serve; they may calculate upon advantages and disadvantages, and act accordingly; and in all this commit no sin or folly.

About the years 1761 and 1762, there was a great revival among the Methodists, and a great increase of their numbers, and especially in London and Bristol. But the work was considerably disgraced by a good deal of wild fire which mingled itself with the sacred flame. Mr. Wesley laboured hard to separate the evil from the good; but some have thought that his extreme lenity upon this occasion gave too much advantage to the cause of enthusiasm and disorder.

In the year 1770, in consequence of some propositions which Mr. Wesley inserted in the minutes of the Conference, which gave great umbrage to the Calvinists, they, and particularly Lady Huntingdon, and her intimate friends, declared open hostilities against him, and sent a circular letter through the nation, calling upon all who -saw those minutes in the same light that they did, to assemble in Bristol, where the next Con