Righteousness, Peace, and Joy in the Holy Ghoft; Now if Orthodoxy be any Part of this, (which in itfelf might admit of a Question) it is certainly a very flender Part; tho' it is a confiderable Help of Love, Peace, and Joy. Religion, in other Words, is the Love of God and Man, producing all Holiness of Converfation; now are right Opinions any more than a flender Part (if they be fo much) of this? Once more, Religion is the Mind that was in Chrift, and walking as Chrift walked; now how flender a Part of this are Opinions, how right foever?

By a Child of the Devil, I mean one that neither loves, fears, or ferves God, and has no true Religion at all; but it is certain fuch a Man may be ftill or thodox, may entertain right Opinions; and yet it is equally certain, these are no Parts of Religion in him that has no Religion at all.

PERMIT me, Sir, to fpeak exceeding plainly: Are you not an orthodox Man? Perhaps there is none more fo in the Diocese; yet poffibly you may have no Religion at all, if it be true that you frequently drink to Excess, you may have Orthodoxy, but you can have no Religion; if when you are in a Paffion you call your Brother, thou Fool, you have no Religion at all; you then even curfe and fwear, by taking God's Name in vain, you can have no other Religion but Orthodoxy; a Religion of which the Devil and his Angels have as much as you.

if

Ŏ! SIR, what an idle Thing it is for you to difpute about Lay-preachers! Is not a Lay-preacher preferable to a drunken Preacher, to a curfing, fwearing Preacher ? To the Ungodly, faith God, why takeft thou my Covenant in thy Mouth, whereas thou hateft to be reformed, and caft my Words behind thee? In tender Compaffion I speak this, may God apply it to your Heart, and then you will not receive this as an Affront, but as the trueft Inftance of Brotherly Love, from, Reverend Sir,

Yours, &c.

J. W.

LET

LETTER V.

A third Letter to Mr. WESLY.

Rev. Sir,

RECEIVED your Favour, dated from London the 18th inftant, and that very unexpectedly; because, though I did at firft defign to have fent the Letter to you, to which this comes as an Anfwer, yet finding you had left this Part of the Country, before I had an Opportunity of fending it to you, and (on account of the quickness of your Motions from one Place to another) not knowing whither to direct it for you, I took a Refolution of dropping all further epiftolary Correfpondence with you, foreseeing that the Difpute between us would, in the End, come to what I find, by this your last Favour, it has actually done; namely, that you would put me off with fome inconfiftent fophiftical Anfwers and fhuffling Evafions, or elfe, that when you had nothing elfe to fay for yourfelf, you would (like moft Difputants in the like Cir cumftances, have Recourfe to bare-faced Scandal and perfonal Reflection; both which, but especially of the laft, you have in a Manner very unbecoming a Gentleman or a Scholar, not to talk of the Christian or the Clergyman, given me fufficient Proof in this your laft Letter.

BUT because fome of your Difciples have, by fome clandeftine Means, procured a Copy of the Letter which I had defigned to have fent you, and tranfmited it to you to London, I will for this Time break thro' the Refolution I had taken, and will continue the Correfpondence; and fhall, because I defign it for the laft Effay, give you fo full and particular an Answer, Paragraph by Paragragh, as I hope may, if you are capable of it, convince you of your Errors, and make you ashamed of the ungentleman-like Treatment which,

out

"

out of your great and tender Compaffion, you have been pleased to afford me.

IN your firft Paragraph you excufe your not mentioning the Charge of Blafphemy exhibited against Langfton, becaufe, as you fay, he denied the Charge, and that you had not the Accufer and the Accufed Face to Face.

WHETHER Mr. Lang fton denied the Charge, or not, is best known to yourselves both; but then I think his denying it, instead of being a Reafon for your Silence about it, ought to be the only Motive to induce you to fay fomething of or concerning it, both in Juftice to him and Charity to me, as you could not but know, it was natural for me to take your Silence for Confent, and Acknowledgment of the Charge, and thereupon conclude him guilty. But, Sir, please to inform me, how came you, when Mr. Bermingham, in one of your Meetings at Castlebar, accused the fame Mr. Langfton of feveral heinous Crimes and Enormities, and offered to produce undeniable Evidences to fupport and prove the Accufation; how came you, I fay, to quash and fmother the Indictment, and not fuffer it to be brought to the Teft? I fuppofe, if an Accufer had appeared to prove the Charge of Blafphemy against him, he would meet with no better Encouragement or Reception than Mr. Bermingham did; fo tender were you of the Reputation of a blafphemous Lay-preacher of your own Society, and fo very ready to entertain a falfe and groundless Calumny against the Reputation of a Brother Clergyman.

AND here, Sir, you must give me Leave to put you in mind, that having told me in your firft Letter that Mr. Langton was no Preacher approved by you, I did, as I thought, very civilly intreat the Favour of you to let me know by what Authority you took upon you to approve or disapprove of Preachers, or who gave you that Authority? Or by what (more than pontifical) Authority you prefumed to fix Lay-preachers or Lead

ers

ers as you call them, in feveral Diftricts of the Country, in open Defiance to the chief Governors of the Church, to whom at your Ordination you vowed all due Submiffion and Obedience: But to this very civil Request you have given a deaf Ear, and not vouchfafed to return the leaft Word of Answer; either because you thought it beneath you to give me the Satiffaction I requested, or rather, more probably, because you were confcious to yourself, that you could not affign any Authority fufficient to juftify your Prefumption in fo irregular and altogether illegal a Conduct. I am afraid, Sir, I fhall have more Occafion to put you in mind of fome other more material Omiffions before I have done with you. But to return to Mr. Lang fton.

If the unhappy Man was guilty of the Blafphemy (I fear too truly) laid to his Charge, he may thank you, and no other, for it; for if ever he read your Serious Anfwer to Dr. Trap, and understood the Confequence of what he read, it was almoft impoffible for him, if he believed what he read to be true, not to fall into that, or fome other equivalent Blafphemy. For in that Answer, befides many bold, unwarrantable Propofitions, advanced by you concerning the Fall of Men and Angels, and which you yourself, or fomebody for you, acknowledge, with a Nota bene at the Bottom of the Page, to be deftitute of all Scripture Proof or Authority, I find the following Words: "As we are, fay you, earthly, corrupt, worldly "Men, by having the Life and Nature of the firft "Adam propagated in us; fo muft we become holy,

paradifaical, and heavenly Men, by having the "Nature and Life of the fecond Adam propagated "in us, or, as the Scripture fpeaks, by being born "again: Jefus Chrift therefore ftands as our Rege"neration to help us, by a fecond Birth from him, "to the fame holy, undefiled Nature, which he him

• Page 29, 30.

"felf

"felf affumed in the Womb of the bleffed Virgin "Mary, and which we should have received in Pa"radife from our firft Father before his Fall;" and you positively affirm," that if the "that if the very Life and identical Nature of Chrift be not propagated and deri"ved in us, he is not our Saviour.'

Now who can admire that Lang fton reading this Paffage, and taking all your Doctrines for Oracles, and in one of the Paroxyfms of his Enthufiafm fancying himself thus regenerated, who can admire, I fay, that he should thereupon believe that he had, by being fo regenerated, the very Nature, Life, and Spirit of Chrift derived and propagated in him; nay, that holy, undefiled, and paradifaical Nature which he affumed in the Womb of the holy Virgin; from which nothing could be more natural for him than to conclude, that he was thereupon become as righteous and free from Sin as ever Jefus Chrift was.

FOR if it be really true that by Regeneration, or the fecond Birth, we have the holy, fpotlefs, and paradifaical Nature of Chrift, even that undefiled Nature which he affumed in the Womb of the holy Virgin; if, I fay, we have this very Nature as truly and really derived and propagated in us by a fecond Birth, as we have the corrupted Nature of the first Adam propagated and derived in us by our first Birth, it seems evidently to follow, that upon this fecond Birth we become as righteous and free from Sin as ever Jefus Chrift was: For if we have his very identical Nature, Life, and Spirit propagated in us, we muft of Neceffity have his Righteoufnefs and Freedom from Sin, which are the neceffary Confequences of his holy, undefiled, and paradifaical Nature, propagated in us alfo. And thus, Sir, by a plain and neceffary Confequence from this Doctrine of yours, you were the (almost)

This Doctrine, befides its being directly contrary to the ninth Article of our Church, which affirms the Corruption of Nature to

remain