TRUE BASIS OF RELIGION. - METHODISM.

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TRUE BASIS OF RELIGION.

THE man who places religion upon a false basis is the greatest enemy to religion. — [E. R. 1808.]

PRACTICAL PIETY.

THE honest and the orthodox method is to prepare young people for the world, as it actually exists; to tell them that they will often find vice perfectly successful, virtue exposed to a long train of afflictions; that they must bear this patiently, and look to another world for its rectification.-[E. R. 1808.]

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METHODISM.

THE Methodists hate pleasure and amusements; no theatre, no cards, no dancing, no punchinello, no dancing dogs, no blind fiddlers; all the amusements of the rich and of the poor must disappear, wherever these gloomy people get a footing. It is not the abuse of pleasure which they attack, but the interspersion of pleasure, however much it is guarded by good sense and moderation; it is not only wicked to hear the licentious plays of Congreve, but wicked to hear Henry the Fifth, or the School for Scandal; - it is not only dissipated to run about to all the parties in London and Edinburgh, but dancing is not fit for a being who is preparing himself for Eternity. Ennui, wretchedness, melancholy, groans and sighs, are the offerings which these unhappy men make to a Deity, who has covered the earth with gay colours, and scented it with rich perfumes; and shown us, by the plan and order of his works, that he has given to man something better than

64 OVERWROUGHT PIETY.—BUOYANCY OF RELIGION.

a bare existence, and scattered over his creation a thousand superfluous joys, which are totally unnecessary to the mere support of life. [E. R. 1808.]

OVERWROUGHT PIETY.

MEN must eat, and drink, and work; and if you wish to fix upon them high and elevated notions, as the ordinary furniture of their minds, you do these two things; -you drive men of warm temperaments mad,- and you introduce, in the rest of the world, a low and shocking familiarity with words and images, which every real friend to religion would wish to keep sacred. — [E. R. 1808.]

MODERN FANATICISM.

THE fanaticism so prevalent in the present day, is one of those evils from which society is never wholly exempt: but which bursts out at different periods, with peculiar violence, and sometimes overwhelms everything in its course. The last eruption took place about a century and a half ago, and destroyed both Church and Throne with its tremendous force. Though irresistible, it was short; enthusiasm spent its force — the usual reaction took place; and England was deluged with ribaldry and indecency, because it had been worried with fanatical restrictions. [E. R. 1808.]

BUOYANCY OF RELIGION.

RELIGION is so noble and powerful a consideration it is so buoyant and so insubmergible - that it may be made, by fanatics, to carry with it any degree of error and of perilous absurdity. [E. R. 1808.]

CAUSE OF FANATICISM.-INROADS OF METHODISM. 65

CAUSE OF FANATICISM.

THE great and permanent cause of the increase of Methodism, is the cause which has given birth to fanaticism in all ages, — the facility of mingling human errors with the fundamental truths of religion. — [E. R. 1808.]

LOW ARTS OF FANATICS.

THE Tabernacle really is to the church what Sadler's Wells is to the Drama. There, popularity is gained by vaulting and tumbling, — by low arts, which the regular clergy are not too idle to have recourse to, but too dignified :—their institutions are chaste and severe they endeavour to do that which, upon the whole, and for a great number of years, will be found to be the most admirable and the most useful: it is no part of their plan to descend to small artifices, for the sake of present popularity and effect. The religion of the common people under the government of the Church may remain as it is for ever;-the enthusiasm must be progressive, or it will expire.—[E. R. 1808.]

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INROADS OF METHODISM.

THE Methodists have made an alarming inroad into the Church, and they are attacking the army and navy. The principality of Wales, and the East-India Company, they have already acquired. All mines and subterraneous places belong to them; they creep into hospitals and small schools, and so work their way upwards.-[E, R. 1808.]

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66 STATUTORY FAITH.-DESTRUCTION OF VERMIN.

STATUTORY FAITH.

Ir experience has taught us anything, it is the absurdity of controlling men's notions of eternity by acts of Parliament. [E. R. 1808.]

METHODISM.

In routing out a nest of consecrated cobblers, and in bringing to light such a perilous heap of trash as we were obliged to work through, speaking of the Methodists and Missionaries, we are generally conceived to have rendered an useful service to the cause of rational religion. In spite of all misrepresentation, we have ever been, and ever shall be, the sincere friends of sober and rational Christianity. We are quite ready, if any fair opportunity occur, to defend it, to the best of our ability, from the tiger-spring of infidelity; and we are quite determined, if we can prevent such an evil, that it shall 'not be eaten up by the nasty and numerous vermin of Methodism.-[E. R. 1808.]

DESTRUCTION OF VERMIN.

MR. JOHN STYLES should remember that it is not the practice with destroyers of vermin to allow the little victims a veto upon the weapons used against them. If this were otherwise, we should have one set of vermin banishing small tooth-combs; another protesting against mouse-traps; a third prohibiting the finger and thumb; a fourth exclaiming against the intolerable infamy of using soap and water. It is impossible, however, to listen to such pleas. They must all be caught, killed, and cracked, in the manner, and by the instruments

METHODIST GARMENTS.-CANT.

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which are found most efficacious to their destruction; and the more they cry out, the greater plainly is the skill used against them.-[E. R. 1808.]

METHODISTICAL LUBRICITY.

It is scarcely possible to reduce the drunken declamations of Methodism to a point, to grasp the wriggling lubricity of these cunning animals, and to fix them in one position.[E. R. 1808.]

METHODIST GARMENTS.

THERE is, at this moment, a man in London who prays for what garments he wants, and finds them next morning in his room, tight and fitting. This man, as might be expected, gains between two and three thousand a year from the common people, by preaching. Anna, the prophetess, encamps in the woods of America, with thirteen or fourteen thousand followers, and has visits every night from the prophet Elijah. Joanna Southcote raises the dead, &c. &c. Mr. Styles will call us atheists, and disciples of the French school, for what we are about to say; but it is our decided opinion, that there is some fraud in the prophetic visit; and it is but too probable, that the clothes are merely human, and the man measured for them in the common way.-[E. R. 1808.]

CANT.

Ir the choice rested with us, we should say,- Give us back our wolves again restore our Danish invaders curse us with any evil but the evil of a canting, deluded, and Methodistical populace.-[E. R. 1809.]