Arminian Magazine, For MAY 1796. REASONS for METHODISM, briefly stated, in three Letters to a Friend. HAT the late change which has taken place in my opinions and conduct, should have afforded matter of furprize to you and fome others of my friends, is no more than I expected. But that you in particular fhould exprefs fo much concern on the occafion, that you should even difpute the fincerity of my intentions, and attempt to intimidate me from purfuing the courfe I have begun, by painting in fuch glaring colours the confequences which you fuppofe likely to refult from fo fudden and unexpected an event, is to me likewise a source of uneafiness. I do not underftand why you thould be forrowful on an occafion which yields me the most abundant joy and fatisfaction; yet it is more ftrange that you fhould reflect upon the fincerity of my intentions, when at the fame time you affure me that I am purfuing a line of conduct which must inevitably expofe me to the ridicule of a great part of my friends, and the contempt of the gay and fashionable circles of fociety. To fatisfy your doubts, to leffer your astonishment, and to prevent the neceffity of any future application to me on the subject, I will lay before you as briefly as I well can, the caufes which have contributed to effect this change, and open to you the real ftate of my mind with refpect to matters which I conceive of the first importance to be believed and attended to. After which you are at liberty to make your own comments, and put any conftructions you please on what I shall have offered to your confideration. You cannot have been ignorant that I was at an early period of my life, initiated into the first principles of Religion; and as I was defigned for the Church during the greatest part of the time I remained at school, I received a fuitable education. I devoted great part of my leisure hours to the reading of religious books, and accustomed myself to make occafional extracts from fuch paffages as appeared moft worthy of regard. I never neglected my prayers, most of which were of my own compofition, and made it a point of reading a certain portion of Scrip. ture every day. By thefe means I acquired an habit of devotio VOL. XIX. May, 1796. and, and of ferious meditation, which proved a fource of real fatis faction, and the exercife of which conftituted at that time one of the highest pleasures I was capable of enjoying. By degrees however when I came to mix more in fociety, faw more into the manners, difpoftions, and purfuits of mankind, and being called to the study of a profeffion with which I was totally unacquainted, and very different from that which I had expected to have been brought up to, I became lefs fixed in my principles, and the things of time and fenfe began to engrofs a larger thare of my attention. Soon after fome of the writings of the late Dr. Jebb, Mr. Lindsay's Apology, and feveral of Dr. Priestley's works upon the fubject of natural and revealed Religion, were put into. my hands. The reafoning contained in thefe books feemed fo plaufible and even convincing to my mind, that I found no difficulty in rejecting as falfe and unreasonable, many of those opinions which I had hitherto held facred; I even ridiculed the doctrines of original fin, the atonement, and juftification by faith, with many others. In short, I became a perfect Socinian. As fuch I could no longer in confcience join with the fervice of the Church; and prudential motives preventing me from attending the Unitarian Chapel, I went to no place of public worship at all. I had not long adopted thefe principles, before an opportunity occurred to me of reading Helvetius, and a few of the deiftical writings of Voltaire. Thefe, together with the converfation of fome individuals of a fimilar perfuafion, prefently wrought in me another change. I rejected now the authority of the Scriptures entirely, looked upon every attempt to establish a revelation as an impofition on the credulity of mankind, and no fooner faw myfelf freed from the fhackles of Christianity, than I vainly applauded my courage, in having at length fhaken off the prejudices of education, and triumphed in my own fuperior difcernment, and what I thought were more juft and rational views of nature I continued in this ftate of mind for fome years, when one day I accidentally took up a book publifhed by the celebrated Neckar on the Importance of Religious Opinions. The high repute in which this author was held both at home and abroad, as Prime Minifter and as a Statefman, induced ine to. give it a perufal. I foon perceived the fuperior elegance of file, and the fpirit and energy with which it was written. The candour and liberality of fentiment which ran through the whole of it, recommended it ftrongly to my molt ferious attention. On reflection, I began to fee the errors I had been led into; his arguments convinced me of the beneficial influence of religion on our happiness, and on our conduct, and of its indifpenfible connection with public order and fecurity. But then, though my mind was convinced of the truth of thefe principles, yet 1 wanted power and refolution to reduce them to practice: wanted an adequate motive to produce the effect. The efforts of unaflifted I ་ unaffifted reafon I knew were ineffectual, the paffions were ftrong, the temptations to indulge them numerous and enticing. Even the conftant avocations of bufinefs co-operated to divert my thoughts into other channels; thus however good my inclinations might have been, the voice of confcience was ftifled, and I once more relapfed into a ftate of indifference, and lived as without God in the world. The laft March, reading as was my cuftom, the Analytical Review, my attention was directed to the character of a book, of which the most honourable mention was made; and the extracts there quoted, and which I perused with seriousness, impressed me with an idea of its extraordinary merit. I immediately ordered the Work, which was PALEY'S EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY; and though I prefently procured it, yet, from one caufe or another, it lay by me fome time unopened, from that time till the beginning of September. During the preceding month, I had had feveral converfations with fome friends on the fubject of religion in general; the exercifes of my profeffional duties afforded me an opportunity of affociating a good deal with people among the Methodists, who were kind and free enough to communicate to me their fentiments on matters of this nature. I be "The gan to think they were more comfortable and happy under the influence of their opinions than I was under the influence of mine, that their life was checquered with fewer evils, and their conduct throughout more confiftent with reafon and virtue. I even envied them their lot, and lamented my own inability to adopt their perfuafions. It was in vain that they talked to me of the comfortable affurances of the Holy Spirit, of the willingness of God to receive finners, and to anfwer the petitions of thofe who come in his SON's Name; it was to little purpose that they endeavoured to imprefs on my mind the efficacy of divine' grace, or the excellence of the Chriftian morality, when I denied the authority of the records themfelves from whence thefe doctrines are derived. I reafoned however thus with myself. fcheme of Chriftianity involves a fubject of importance, it is either true or falfe. A candid enquiry into its evidences is the most likely way of deciding the question. I have hitherto judged it falfe but on what grounds? Have I confidered attentively the nature and number of its evidences? I am fenfible I have not, I have only taken a partial and fuperficial view of the subject, and from a knowledge of this part I have condemned the whole; in other words, because I could not reconcile certain parts to my own reason, because I could not reduce them to a level with my own understanding, and make them accord with my ideas of the goodness and wifdom of God, I have had the audacity to reject the whole fyftem as fpurious. But furely this kind of reafoning founded on fo imperfect an acquaintance with the subject itself, must be altogether unfatisfactory and inconclufive, even when applied to matters of inferior moment. So that in the present 2 F 2 instance, |