Letters to a Friend

general denomination, and yet humiliating as a special badge, for every thing that ignorance and folly may mistake for fanaticism, or that malice may "wilfully assign to it. Whenever a grave formalist "feels it his duty to sneer at those operations of religion on the passions which he never felt, he has

only to call them methodistical; and notwithstanding "that the word is both so trite and so vague, he feels "as if he had uttered a good pungent thing. There “is satiric smartness in the word, though there be none "in the man. In default of keen faculty in the mind, "it is delightful thus to find something that will do "as well, ready bottled up in odd terms. It is equally "convenient to a profligate, or a coxcomb, whose

propriety of character is to be supported by laughing "indiscriminately at all the symptoms of religion; the "one to evince that his courage is not sapped by con"science, the other to make the best advantage of his "instinct of catching at impiety as a substitute for 66 sense. Each feels that he has manfully set them "down, when he has called them methodism. Such "terms have a pleasant facility of throwing away the "matter in question to scorn, without any trouble of making a definite, intelligible charge of extravagance "or delusion, and attempting to prove it." (s)

Others, to give vent to their contempt, may characterise you as evangelical. And "such is the new meaning now assigned to old terms, that we doubt "if the application of the epithet in question would "not excite a sneer, if not a suspicion, in some minds (8) Foster's Essays, vol. ii. Lett. 1.

"gelical Prophet.

against the character of Isaiah himself, were we to "name him by his ancient denomination, The EvanThis laconic term includes a "diatribe in a word. It is established into a sweeping "term of derision of all serious Christians, and its 66 compass is stretched to such an extent as to involve "within it every shade and shape of real or fictitious piety from the elevated, but sound and sober Chris66 tian, to the wildest and most absurd fanatic; its large enclosure takes in all, from the most honour“able heights of erudition to the most contemptible depths of ignorance. Every man who is serious, and every man who is silly; every man who is holy, and

every man who is mad, is included in this compre“hensive epithet. We see perpetually that solidity, "sublimity, and depth, are not found a protection against the magic mischief of this portentous appel"lation." (t)

The men, who are so fond of employing terms of reproach to designate those who think that religion is something more than a mere matter of speculation, seem to have forgotten that the first and most indispensable requisite in religion is seriousness; and that levity in religion upon religious topics, or sneering at men who are in earnest whenever such topics are introduced, has a very prejudicial effect upon those who indulge in such practices. Of such you may call the attention to the sentiments of a late venerable moralist and divine, as exhibited in the passage below. "The turn which this levity usually takes is in (t) Mrs. More's Christian Morals, vol. ii. p. 81.

jests and raillery upon the opinions, or the pecu"liarities, or the persons, of men of particular sects, "or who bear particular names: especially if they "happen to be more serious than ourselves. And of "late this loose, and I can hardly help calling it pro"fane, humour has been directed chiefly against the "followers of methodism. But against whomsoever "it happens to be pointed, it has all the bad effects, "both upon the speaker and the hearer, which we have "noticed; and as in other instances, so in this, give "me leave to say that it is very much misplaced. In "the first place, were the doctrines and sentiments "of those who bear this name ever so foolish and ex"travagant (I do not say that they are either), this "proposition I shall always maintain to be true, viz. "that the wildest opinion that ever was entertained, "in matters of religion, is more rational than unconcern about these matters. Upon this subject "nothing is so absurd as indifference: no folly so

contemptible as thoughtlessness and levity. In the "next place, do methodists deserve this treatment? "Be their particular doctrines what they may, the professors of these doctrines appear to be in earnest "about them: and a man who is in earnest about

religion cannot be a bad man, still less a fit subject "for derision. I am no methodist myself. In their "leading doctrines I differ from them. But I contend "that sincere men are not for these, or indeed any, "doctrines, to be made laughing-stocks to others. I "do not bring in the case of the methodists for the purpose of vindicating their tenets, but for the pur

pose of observing (and I wish that the observation may weigh with all my readers) that the custom of "treating their characters and persons, their preaching "or their preachers, their meetings or worship, with scorn, has the pernicious consequence of destroying "our own seriousness, together with the seriousness of "those who hear, or join in, such conversation; especially if they be young persons; and I am per"suaded that much mischief is actually done in this 66. very way." (v)

Leaving these admirable sentiments to make their full impression on your mind, or to steel you against the puny attacks of those who imagine burlesque and buffoonery are the proper instruments to correct what they deem fanatical eccentricities, while others may class them among religious excellencies:

May 30, 1811.

I remain,

Dear Sir,

Your sincere Friend.

(v) Dr. Paley's Posthumous Sermons, Ser. 1: On "Seriousness in "Religion indispensable above all other Dispositions."

VOL. II.

LETTER XIII.

On the Fall of Man, and the Depravity of Human Nature.

PLATO, as you will doubtless recollect, defined man, in his time, a biped without feathers: and DIOGENES, in order to show what he deemed the absurdity of this definition, plucked all the feathers from a cock, and placing it in the midst of the academy, exclaimed, "There is one of Plato's men!" Diogenes, it seems, was not aware that Plato's definition was suggested by a tradition which had reached him, that man was once in a far superior state with regard to morals, but had been degraded by vice, and was now so lowered as to become, with respect to his former condition, what a bird would be when stripped of his feathers, so as to be no longer able to fly. In conformity with this, the Platonists in general believed a pre-existent state, in which all souls had sinned, and thus lost their wings, whereby they were once capable of ascending; and so they sunk into these bodies partly as a punishment for former follies. This was called in their form of speech Tтерoppunσis, or a moulting of their wings. Their daily experience in themselves, and their wise observance of others, convincing them that all mankind come into the world with a propensity to vice rather than to virtue; and that man is not such a creature now as he came from his Maker's hand, but is some way or

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