What can I think of fuch a Church? Can 'I regard her as a pillar and ground of the ⚫ truth? Can I reverence her, who fo grofsly ⚫ deluded me by a vifionary regeneration, and threw an impenetrable veil over that, which alone is effectual? Who taught me to think that I was in the way of falvation, when I → had not yet paffed the threshold? Who made 'me believe I was a child of God, when I was ftill a child of the Devil? Who treated 'me as a Chriftian, when I was nothing but á baptized heathen?" Away with fuch an unfcriptural Church! With fuch a mother of ⚫ deceit and falfehood! Away with such a • monster from the earth! What too fhall I think of the Minifter, who inftructed me, according to the Liturgy ' and Articles of that Church, of which he is too faithful a fon? He recited to me her opi'nions in words of her own providing; and ⚫he pretended to fupport them from the pulpit on the authority of the Bible. But he is blind; he is ignorant; he faw for me visions ' of peace, when there was no peace; he spoke of my having been quickened by the Holy Spirit, who had infufed into me a new principle of life, when I was ftill dead in trefpaffes and fins. Can fuch an one be a preacher of the Gospel? What again fhall I think of baptism;^ of that which I have been wont to confider as the laver of regeneration; of that, which I have been taught is a facrament, confifting of an outward vifible fign, and an inward fpiritual grace? Truly it doth not regenerate; it conveys no effectual regeneration; it is def ◄titute of an inward fpiritual grace; it is no facrament; it is a non-effential.' It will not have appeared perhaps that a fyllable has been here fuggefted, more than would probably be uttered, or than probably has been in effect uttered, by perfons in the fituation that I have fuppofed. And if a And if a man can bring his mind to think thus meanly of bap tism, ordained as it was by Chrift himself, with a promife of falvation annexed to its legitimate administration; what will he think of Christ's other ordinances? What of the other facrament, the holy communion of Chrift's body and blood? If the fpiritual part of baptifm be denied, why should the fpiritual part of the communion be allowed? If water be not really the laver of regeneration, why should bread and wine be fpiritually the body and blood of Christ, and convey ftrength and refreshment to the foul? Surely it is not too much to affirm, that the stripping of one of God's ordinances of that, which conftitutes its effential value, has a natural tendency to bring the efficacy of the others into queftion, and to diminish at leaft, if not to annihilate, a man's respect for them as means of fpiritual grace. In this condition perhaps he will continue, fometimes exulting in hope, and sometimes funk in defpondency; waiting for an extraordinary impulfe of the Holy Spirit, and neglecting the means of procuring his ordinary fanctifying graces; until the moment approach, in which, under the influence of fome powerful preacher, whofe word is fharper than a twoedged fword, he is to undergo his myfterious regeneration; a regeneration, wherein, instead of being born himself of water and of the Spirit, Chrift is to be "born in his heart as he 66 was born in the Virgin's womb1;" a regeneration, without undergoing the pangs of which he is taught that "he may flatter himself that "he mry go to heaven, but will certainly find "himself miferably mistaken in the end":" when, having experienced a ftate of horror, agony, and despair, which mocks the language of description, and which it were too painful, if it were poffible, to describe; a state of pangs and travails, which is neceffary to be sustained by every one ere Chrift be formed in him; a ftate, which has been compared by those who have felt its horrors, to the agonies of death, Whitefield's Eighteen Sermons, p. 307. C C the pains of hell, and tortures inflicted by infuriate devils"; he fancies that he is begotten again! that he is born of the Holy Spirit of. God! What will be the future life of a man thus regenerated, I do not venture to pronounce. But in noticing fome evil confequences of a doctrine, which, for the fpiritual grace attendant upon the holy ordinance of Chrift, fubftitutes a wild and fanciful regeneration of man's invention, we may be allowed to fpeculate on the effects likely to be produced in one thus initiated to the new birth. To fpeculate, did I fay, on probable effects? Rather to call to mind effects which have notorioufly enfued, and to confider whether they are not fuch as fober reafon might have forefeen. The history of fome popular modern fects does ftrictly tally with the expectations of reafon and if among the regenerated of later days, who have been thus tormented into the new birth, many have fubfequently been driven through every fpecies of extravagance to the very extreme of irrecoverable madness'; if many, after a temporary exultation in the love of God fhed abroad in their hearts, have re Wefley's Journals, and Enthusiasm of Methodists, &c. vol. iii. p. 23. and following pages. О See an inftance in Wetley's Journals, N°. V. p. 81. Enthufiaim of Methodists, &c. vol. iii. p. 11-14. lapfed into intolerable perplexities, distraction, and despair; if many, after fancying themfelves purified even as Chrift is pure, have turned back, and become twofold more the children of hell than before; if many, who - pretended to be conformed to the image of Chrift, have at that very inftant continued under the dominion of grievous fins; if many, who imagine themfelves thoroughly renewed in the image of the meek and lowly Jefus, fwell with pharifaical pride, thanking God that they are not as other men are; and if almost all regard their lefs favoured brethren with fcorn, and " fay, Stand by thyself, come ❝not near to me, for I am holier than thou;" and condemn thofe, who admit not their pretenfions and difcountenance their conceits, as unconverted unregenerate finners; it is no more than might have been expected from men, who depreciate God's holy ordinance, deny its fanctifying efficacy, and convert the workings of a feverish brain, or the impulse of vifionary feelings, into the operation of the Spirit of truth. Such a doctrine the Enthufiaft may teach, and the deluded multitude may follow. But it was a very different regeneration, for which Enthusiasm of Methodifts, &c. vol. ii. p. 3, 140. |