tion has he not met with from the civil magiftrates! with what infults from the rabble! broken benches, dead cats, and pools of water bear witness! Was he then the trumpeter of perfecution? Was his pulpit changed into Hudibrafs's "drum ecclefiaftic ?" Did he abet banifhment and profcription on the score of confcience? Now that his tabernacle is established in peace, after the clouds having borne teftimony to his miffion, he complains in his fecond letter, wherein he promifes to continue the fire which he has already kindled in England, that people of exalted ranks in church and ftate have refufed entering into a mean confederacy against the laws of nature, and the rights of mankind. In his first letter, he difclaims perfecution on the fcore of religion," and, in the same breath, ftrikes out a creed of his own for the Roman Catholics, and fays, "that "they should not be tolerated even amongst the "Turks." Thus, the fatyr in the fable breathes hot and cold in the fame blaft, and a lamb of peace is turned inquifitor. "But is not that "creed mentioned by Mr. Wefley, the creed "of the Roman Catholics ?" By right it fhould be theirs, as it is fo often beftowed on them, and that, according to the civil law, a free gift

See an abridgment of Wefley's journal, wherein he fays, that in preaching one day at Kinfale, a cloud pitched over him.

becomes

becomes the property of the perfon to whom it is bestowed, if there be no legal difqualification on either fide. But the misfortune is, that the Catholics and the framers of the fictitious creed fo often refuted, and ftill forced on them, refemble the Frenchmen and the blunderer in the comedy; one forces into the other's mouth a food which he cannot relifh, and against which his ftomach revolts.

Mr. Wesley places in the front of his lines, the general council of Conftance, places the pope in the centre, and brings up the rere of his fquadrons with a confabulation between a prieft and a woman, whilft his letters are fkirmifhing on the wings. Let us march from the rere to the front, for obferve order.

religious warriors feldom

A prieft then faid to a woman whom Mr. Wefley KNOWS, "I fee you are no heretic : "you have the experience of a real Chriftian." "And would you burn me ?" faid fhe. "God "forbid," replied the priest, " except for the "good of the church." Now this priest muft be defcended from fome of those who attempted to blow up a river with gunpowder, in order to drown a city *. Or he must

Among other plats attributed to the Roman Catholics in. the reign of Charles the firft, this extraordinary one was charged upon them.-See Hume. have

have taken her for a witch; whereas, by his own confeflion, "fhe was no heretic." Α gentleman whom I know declared to me upon his honour, that he heard Mr. Wesley repeat in a fermon, preached by him in the city of Cork, the following words: "A little bird "cried out in Hebrew,-O Eternity! Eter"nity! Who can tell the length of Eternity?" I am then of opinion, that a little Hebrew bird gave Mr Wefley the important information about the prie and the woman: one story is as interefting as the other; and both are equally alarming to the Proteftant intereft. Hitherto it is a drawn battle between us; from the rere then, let us let us advance to the van, and try if the general council of Conftance, which Mr. Wefley places at the head of his legions, be impenetrable to the fword of truth.

After reading the ecclefiaftical history concerning that council, and Doctor Hay's anfwer. to Archibald Drummond, I have gone thro' the drudgery of examining it all over in St. Patrick's library, when Mr. Wefley's letters made their appearance. The refult of my refearches is, a conviction that there is no fuch doctrine as "Violation of faith with heretics," authorized by that council. Pope Martin V. whom the fathers of that council elected, published a bull, wherein he declares, "That it is

❝ not

"not lawful for a man to perjure himself on

any account, even for the faith." Subfequent pontiffs have lopped off the excrefcences of relaxed cafuiftry.

The pope's horns then are not fo dangerous as to induce Mr. Wefley to fing the lamentations of Jeremiah the prophet, deploring the lofs of Jerufalem, or to fend us from London an Hebrew elegy to be modulated on the key of the Irish Ologone. "Their fouls are pained, "and their hearts tremble for the ark of God *. "Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the "ftreets of Afkelon; left the daughters of the "Philiftines rejoice, left the daughters of the "uncircumcifed triumph."

This fame elegy refounded through Great Britain a little before the ark of England was deftroyed, the fceptre wrefted out of the hands of her king, her pontiffs deprived of their mitres, and her noblemen banished from her fenate. Thus, as the Delphian fword flaughtered the victim in honour of the Gods, and dispatched the criminal on whom the sentence of the law was paffed, the fcripture is made fubfervient to profane, as well as facred purposes. It recommends and enforces fubordination, and, at the fame time, becomes an arsenal

* Defence of the Proteftant Affociation, p. 14.

from

from whence faction takes its arms. Like Boi leau's heroes, in the Battle of the Books, we ranfack old councils; we difturb the bones of old divines, who, wrapped up in their parchment blankets, fleep at their ease on the shelves of libraries, where they would fnore for ever, if the noise of the gun-powder upon an anniversary day, or the restless hands of pamphlet writers, industrious in inflaming the rabble, did not rouse them from their flumber. Peace to their manes! The charity fermon preached in Dublin by Doctor Campbell, the anniverfary sermon preached in Cork laft November by Doctor la Malliere, and the discourse to the Echlinville volunteers, by Mr. Dickson, have done more good in one day, either by procuring relief for the diftreffed, or by promoting benevolence, peace, and harmony amongst fellow-fubjects of all denominations, than the folios written on pope Joan have done in the fpace of two hundred years.

I must now found the retreat, with a defign to return to the charge, and to attack Mr. Wefley's first battery, on which he has mounted the tanons of the council of Conftance. If I cannot fucceed from want of abilities, but not from want of the armour of truth, I am fure of making a retreat, in which it is impoffible to cut me off. For in the very fuppofition that the council of Conftance, and all the councils of

the