pamphlets, challenges peculiar attention. We shall examine it with as much precifion as pofsible, and with the more impartiality, as strict justice shall be done to all parties. Mr. Wesley knows that we are all Adam's children, who feel the fatal impreffions of our origin, and that ambition which took its rife in Heaven itself, often lurks in a corner of the fanctuary where the minifters of religion offer up their prayers, as well as in the cabinets of kings, where fhrewd courtiers form their intrigues. At a time, then, when ambition, that infatiable defire of elevation, that worm which ftings the heart, and never leaves it at reft, prefented the universe with the extraordinary fight of three prelates reviving the reftlefs fpirit of the Roman triumvirate, and disturbing the peace of mankind as much with their fpiritual weapons, as Octavius, Anthony, and Lepidus had disturbed it with their armed legions. At a time when the broachers of new doctrines were kindling up the fire of fedition, and after fhaking the foundations of what was then the established religion, were fhaking the foundations of thrones and empires. At that critical time, in fourteen hundred and fourteen, was held the council of Conftance, with a defign, as the fathers of that council exprefs themselves, to reform the church in her head and members; and put an end to the calamities which the reftlefs pride of

three

three bishops, affuming the titles of popes by the names of Gregory the twelfth, Benedict the thirteenth, and John the twenty-third, had brought on Europe, fplit into three grand factions by the ambition of the above-mentioned competitors. Such tranfactions in the minifters of a religion that preaches up peace and humility as the folid foundations on which the ftructure of all Chriftian, virtues is to be raised, may startle the unthinking reader, and give him an unfavourable idea of religion; but we are never to confound the weakness of the minifter with the holiness of his ministry.-We refpect the fanctuary in which Stephen officiated, though Nicholas profaned it, we revere the place from whence Judas fell,-and to which Matthias was promoted: the scriptures refpect the chair of Mofes,-though they cenfure feveral pontiffs who fat in it; and no Catholic canonizes the vices of popes,-though he refpects their station and dignity. The pontifical throne is ftill the fame, whether it be filled by a cruel Alexander the fixth, or a benevolent Ganganelli,

To the council of Conftance was cited then John Hufs, a Bohemian, famous for propagating errors tending to tear the mitre from the heads of bishops, and wreft the fceptre from the hands of kings: in a word, he was obnoxious

Q2

noxious to church and ftate; and if Mr. Wefley and I preached up his doctrine in the name of God, we would be condemned in the name of the king. The Proteftant and Catholic divines would banish us from their universities, and the judges of affize would exterminate us from civil fociety. Such a doctor had no indulgence to expect from a council, which, after depofing two rivals for the popedom, condemned a third for contumacy, and elected another in his

room,

But in mentioning John Hufs, whofe trial and execution at Conftance have given rife to the foul charge of violation of faith with heretics, let none imagine that I am an apologift for the fiery execution of perfons, on the fcore of religious opinions Let the legiflators who were the first to invent the cruel method of punishing the errors of the mind with the excruciating tortures of the body, anfwer for their own laws. I am of opinion, that the true religion, propagated by the effufion of the blood of its martyrs, would fill triumph without burning the flesh of heretics; and that the Proteftant and Catholic legiflators who have fubftituted the blazing pile in the room of Phalaris's brazen bull, might have pointed out a

more

The Imperial laws which condemned heretics to the flames, have been put into execution by Calvin, queen Elizabeth, James the first, &c.

more lenient punishment for victims who, in their opinion, had no profpect during the interminable space of a boundless eternity, but that of passing from one fire into another. If in enacting fuch laws, they had confulted the true fpirit of religion, I believe the reformation of their own hearts would have been a more acceptable facrifice to the Divinity, than hecatombs of human victims. "No God nor man," fays Tertullian, "fhould be pleased with a "We are not to perfecute "those whom God tolerates," fays St. Augus tine. That faith is fictitious which is inspired by the edge of the fword,

"forced fervice."

But ftill the nature of fociety is fuch, that when once the common land-marks are set up, it opposes the hand of the individual that attempts to remove them. Where one common mode of worship is established, and fenced by the laws of the ftate, whoever attempts to overthrow it, muft expect to meet with oppofition and violence, until cuftom foftens the rigour of early prejudices, and reconciles us to men whofe features and lineaments are like our own, but still seem strange to us because their thoughts are different.

How far oppofition to religious innovations is juftifiable, is not our business to difcufs. But

the experience of ages evinces the fact; and in diffimilar circumstances, Mr. Wefley has made the trial. In kingdoms, where, as in the Roman Pantheon, every divinity had its altars, fpeculative deviations from the religion eftablifhed by law, the fingularity of love-feasts and nocturnal meetings, fo unusual among the modern Chriftians of every denomination, roused the vigilance of the magiftrate, and influenced the rage of the rabble. Now, that custom has rendered Mr. Wefley's meetinghouses and mode of worship familiar, and that all denominations enjoy a fhare of that religious liberty, whereof he would fain deprive his Roman Catholic neighbour, his matin hymns give no uneafinefs either to the magistrate, or his neighbours. But had Mr. Wefley raised his notes on the high key of civil discordance— had he attempted by his fermons, his writings and exhortations, to deprive the bishops of the eftablished religion, of their crofters; kings of their thrones; and magiftrates of the sword of juftice; long ere now would his pious labours. have been crowned with martyrdom, and his name registered in the calendar of Fox's faints. Such, unfortunately, was the cafe of John Hufs. Not fatisfied with overthrowing what was then the established religion, and levelling the fences of ecclefiaftical jurifdiction, he ftrikes at the root of all temporal power, and civil au

thority.