THE METHODIST MAGAZINE, FOR FEBRUARY, 1818. BIOGRAPHY. MEMOIR OF MR. WILLIAM WILLIAMS. In another letter, dated Bristol, Feb. 1794, Mr. Williams lays open his views and feelings more fully as follows: "Dear Sister, "I have for some length of time thought it lay as a duty incumbent upon me, to offer to others what I have freely received of the things of God; and although the welfare of all who partake of the same common nature should certainly engage our attention, and interest our consideration, yet are there none to whom we find ourselves in general so much attached, and whose prosperity interweaves itself so incessantly with our best wishes, as those of our own home, age, and kindred. The dictates of nature here, should certainly be obeyed; and the sympathy created in our breasts may, without the least danger, be indulged and encou raged. "But still there is an evil which we should carefully guard our minds against, lest, by favouring nature's apparent beneficence in this respect, we unwittingly become the stumbling-blocks of that humility to which she is averse, and the ridiculous promoters of our own pride. How apt are we to take up ready praise, at least our own; and this self-esteem never appears with a more graceful air than under the solemn mask of piety. The glory of God, our country's good, the happiness of individuals, &c. are subjects of allowed importance, and consequently attach a proportionable degree of merit to the person who makes or professes to make them his study. A consciousness of this often swells the mind with elated thoughts of its own attainments in knowledge and virtue; while the intended good is hereby corroded and wormeaten, and the secret reserve openly foams out its own shame, in the imbecility of the performance, and the ill fortune that attends it. As this is frequently the case with those who write to please, and not to edify, I find my mind nearly cured of every degree of anxious solicitude about the reception this weak attempt may meet with; commending it therefore to the Giver of all inVOL. XLI. FEBRUARY, 1818. crease, and appealing to the candour of my friends, I hasten to inform you that my design in writing it is simply this, to prove the existence, and recommend the enjoyment of experimental religion; subjects of interesting moment to all, though but superficially considered by a vast majority of mankind. But in the prosecution of this design I must not imitate the folly of a person who draws his bow at a venture, and, having no certain object to aim at, ignorantly commits to blind chance the missile weapon of his warfare. It will therefore be proper to make an orderly arrangement in my ideas, of the different classes of people which compose the small circle of your acquaintance; and as they revolve in my mind, dispose them in the same order, and make suitable remarks on the different state of each. Strictly speaking, there are but two sorts of people in the world, believers and unbelievers; those who love God as their reconciled God and Father, and those who love him not, nor desire the knowledge of his ways. But it is common to consider the latter under the three-fold character of Deist, Pharisee, and Profane. Of the first description I suppose there are very few, if any, at Newport; but lest there should, it may not be amiss to remark, that as their ideas of the Divine Being are borrowed, as they pretend, merely from creation, in its various forms of existence; from the regular order and beautiful harmony of nature; from the invariable recession and succession of the varied seasons; from the periodical revolutions of those orbs of light which compose the planetary system; and (I would add) from the traditions of their predecessors in unbelief, independent of the sacred Scriptures; they cannot pos sibly have any unerring rule to direct their inquiries into the inflexible nature of his justice, when it dooms to eternal death for one transgression, nor be properly acquainted with the extent of his mercy, when it absolves from multiplied offences, to the justification of the soul that believeth on the great Mediator between God and man. For although the existence of the creatures demonstratively proves the existence of the Creator; yet there being no proportion between finite and infinite, between worms of the earth and the Lord Almighty, they cannot possibly form any just conception of his grandeur and holiness, as a sinavenging God, nor prove the sublime satisfaction of finding him out unto the perfection of Christian knowledge. Moral evil, they must acknowledge, every where abounds; fact and experience, the evidence of their own senses, for ever set at defiance all the objections that can be brought against it; and to suppose the fountain of purity capable of being the author of sin, is not less absurd and blasphemous, than to imagine him calling into existence a reverse of himself, endued with hellish principles, on purpose to arraign his goodness, and blaspheme his sacred name. This error, flagrant and wild, necessarily characterizes the flimsy system, inco DE herently spun out of the dangerous uncertainties of man's unassisted, unenlightened reason: but the moment they admit what we contend for, viz. that the justice and purity of the Divine Being obliged him to make man upright and just, holy and happy, and that he fell by transgression in the abuse of his moral free agency, that moment they tacitly acknowledge their own mistake-sap the very foundation of deism, or natural religion, and begin to build the first principles of the doctrine of Christ upon the ruins of their own infidel creed. For the whole gospel proceeds upon the supposition that man is a fallen, corrupt creature. Take this truth away, and you leave it without support-without any thing that deserves the name of gospel or glad tidings; yca, more than that, we undeify God, divest him of his essential wisdom, and necessarily attach to the name of Jesus, the design of the grand deceiver of mankind. "It may appear strange to you that I should dwell so long, on a point of this nature, and address it to persons who, perhaps, are as cordial in their belief of the historical truths of Christianity as myself; but you should allow for the difference of idea between town and country, and consider that in the polite and free-thinking circles of the former it is very common to meet with incredible numbers who measure their merit, as men of manners, wit, and understanding, by the above-mentioned mark of their impious incredulity. You will, therefore, pardon my prolixity in this instance, and permit me to go on remarking that as sin is a most complex science, and capable of much variety, we no sooner lose sight of it, and its destructive operations in one appearance, than it insults our vision in another form; not less fatal, but through the darkness of the human intellect, much more liable to gain our credit and conciliate our affections. The father of lies, when he cannot subvert the whole truth as it is in Jesus, will attempt to do it partially; and it matters not if he succeed in his hellish purposes to keep the soul from Christ. Accordingly we find him, as the god of this world, blinding the eyes of them who believe not; both as to the total weakness of their moral powers, the perverseness of their rebellious will, and the depravity of their desperately wicked hearts. Thus infatuated they go about labouring with the drudgery of the hand in the externals of religion, to establish their own righteousness, and supersede that of the Redeemer. The doctrine of the new birth they decry; the influences of the Divine Spirit they need not; and justification by faith, a free pardon for all that is past, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, they leave to the primitive Christians and the present Methodists, as doctrines that do not concern persons of so fair a character, of such untainted morals, and benevolent dispositions, as themselves. Poor souls! let me bring you out of this snare of the devil. To say nothing of that envy which withers at another's joy ;-of that avarice which gripes within, and makes your riches poor ;-of that jealousy which rankles in your breast, and feeds upon the vitals of your peace, puts malice into the heart of a friend, and misconstrues his noblest actions;-of that revenge which rages jike an implacable fury in the soul, runs to each avenue in eagerness of desire, to glut its hellish inclination on the person, character, or property, of an imaginary foe: to say nothing of your bitter prejudices against the excellent of the earth, the despised followers of the Crucified, your unconquerable aversion to their singularity as Christians, while they tread in the footsteps of their Lord and Master, and by manifestation of the truth, by fasting, prayer, and thanksgiving, display the bright testimonials of their espousals to the Sinner's Friend: to say nothing of your wretched adhesion to the world and its vanities-upon what other score of duty to God can you claim an interest in his favour, or pretend to recommend yourselves to it. You have no relish for religious enjoyments, and scarcely believe them real. Your hearts are averse to prayer, and enmity against God. The way, the light, and the life, concentring in the name of Jesus, form a dreadful triumvirate, stagger yourself-righteous pride, and shake the tottering basis of your presumptuous hopes! The doctrine of the cross, replete with consolation as it is, sounds in your ears not unlike the instruments of death to a condemned malefactor. Having never felt the killing force of the "ministration of condemnation," and being totally unacquainted with the nature of sin, the extent and effects of it in your souls, you refer the balmy truths to others, and thus judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life. When you talk of God as the Moral Governor of the world, by the happy art of accommodation, you draw the line of his conduct-adapt his infinite perfections to your humour or baseness-represent him as making a distinction between sinners, and qualifying the sins themselves. When he swears with the majesty of the Eternal Lawgiver, the soul that sinneth it shall die; and that cursed is every one who continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them; with what facility do you explain away the force of those solemn words, and with what precipitancy do you mitigate the sentence and partialize the sin. But who hath required this at your hands? and why will you suffer your soul to bleed and die upon a point so dangerous? Be open to conviction; let the bright beams of truth penetrate the darkness of your mind, and rouse, from their state of wretched stupefaction, the drowsy powers of your conscience. Guilt there is a reality, therefore the pardon that removes that guilt must be a reality too. A just sense of the one invariably leads to a clear perception and full enjoyment of the other; but where the former is not felt, the latter can neither be apprehended nor enjoyed. If we stumble at the first, we stumble at the threshold of Christianity, and all our religion is vain. |