the test of its being thus agreeable, we would take, not our own private and individual judgments, but that of the Universal Church, as attested by the Catholic Fathers and Ancient Bishops.'

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"Nor do we, in this, nor did they, approximate to Romanism but rather they herein took the strongest and the only unassailable position against it. Rome and ourselves have alike appealed to the authority of the Church;' but, in the mouth of a Romanist, the Church means, so much of the Church as is in communion with herself, in other words, it means herself: with us, it means the Universal Church, to which Rome, as a particular Church, is subject, and ought to yield obedience. With Rome, it matters not whether the decision be of the Apostolic times, or of yesterday; whether against the teachers of the early Church, or with it; whether the whole Church universal throughout the world agree in it, or only a section, which holds communion with herself: she, as well as Calvin, makes much of the authority of the Fathers, when she thinks that they make for her; but she, equally with the founder of the Ultra-Protestants, sets at naught their authority, so soon as they tell against her: she unscrupulously sets aside the judgment of all the Ancient Doctors of the Church, unhesitatingly dismisses the necessity of agreement even of the whole Church at this day, and proudly taking to herself the exclusive title of Catholic, sits alone, a Queen in the midst of the earth, and dispenses her decrees from herself. No, my Lord! they ill understand the character of Rome, or their own strength who think that she would really commit herself, as Cranmer did, to Christian Antiquity, or who would not gladly bring her to that test! What need has she of Antiquity who is herself infallible, except to allure mankind to believe her so?"

"Oh, that we knew," says Mr. Newman, "Oh, that we knew our own strength as a Church! Oh, that instead of keeping on the defensive, and thinking it much not to lose our remnant of Christian light and holiness, which is getting less and less, the less we use it: instead of being

mid, and cowardly, and suspicious, and jealous, and panicstruck, and grudging, and unbelieving, we had a heart to rise, as a Church, in the attitude of the Spouse of Christ, and the Dispenser of His grace; to throw ourselves into that system of truth which our fathers have handed down, even through the worst of times, and to use it like a great and understanding people! Oh, that we had the courage, and the generous faith, to aim at perfection, to demand the attention, to claim the submission of the world! Thousands of hungry souls, in all classes of life, stand around us: we do not give them what they want, the image of a true Christian people, living in that Apostolic awe and strictness which carries with it an evidence that they are the Church of Christ! This is the way to withstand, and repel, the Romanists: not by cries of alarm, and rumours of plots, and dispute and denunciation, but by living up to the precepts and doctrines of the Gospel, as contained in the Creeds, the Services, the Ordinances, the Usages of our own Church, without fear of consequences, without fear of being called Papists; to let matters take their course freely, and to trust to God's good providence for the issue."

The Tractarians advocate a more reverential and careful observance of all the ceremonies and requirements of the church, and especially a more frequent participation of the Lord's Supper. Their peculiar views appear to have gained ground rapidly among the clergy of the established church in England; and they have, in this country, numerous adherents. Much controversy has grown, and is still likely to grow, out of the agitation of the opinions which they have revived or originated.

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CHAPTER VIII.

WESLEYAN, OR EPISCOPAL METHODISTS-WHITEFIELD METHOT ISTS-PROTESTANT, AND INDEPENDENT METHODISTS--MO

RAVIANS.

EPISCOPAL METHODISTS.

THE body of Christians to whom the name of Methodists is chiefly applied, are the followers of the late John Wesley, the founder of this numerous sect; hence called Wesleyan Methodists. But the term bears a more extensive meaning, being applied also to several bodies or sections of Christians, who have seceded or withdrawn from the Wesleyan denomination.

The origin of the Methodist Society took place at Oxford in 1729. After the Revolution, when the principles of religious toleration were recognised amid the progress of free inquiry, the clergy of the Established Church were thought by some to have sunk into a state of comparative lukewarmness and indifference. This alleged indifference was observed with pain by John Wesley and his brother Charles, when students at the University of Oxford; and being joined by a few of their fellow-students who were intended for the ministry in the Established Church, they formed the most rigid and severe rules for the regulation of their time and studies, for reading the Scriptures, for self-examination, and other religious exercises. The ardent piety and austere observance of system in everything connected with the new opinions displayed by the Wesleys and their adherents, as well as in their college studies, which they never neglected, attracted the notice and excited the jeers of the various members of the University, and gained for them the appellation of Methodists; in allusion to the Methodoci, a class of physicians at Rome, who practiced only by theory.

In the meantime, Wesley took orders in the Established Church, and acted for a few months as assistant to his father, who was rector of Epworth, in Lincolnshire. After the death of the latter, he was induced (1735), in company with his brother Charles and two other friends, to accept of an offer to go to Georgia, in North America, to preach the gospel to the Indians. On his return to England in 1737, Wesley officiated in several of the established churches. But the higher ranks were offended at his declamatory and enthusiastic mode of preaching; and the clergy having disclaimed some of his doctrines, the churches in general were soon shut against him. It was his desire, however, to be allowed to officiate in the pulpit of his native church. His object, in truth, was to effect a reformation in the church, not to recede from connexion with it; and the rules he observed himself, and imposed upon his followers, were designed as supplementary to the established ritual, not as superseding it. But the circumstances to which we have referred threw his labours into a different and ultimately an opposite channel; and, in short, without having at first intended it, he became the founder of the most numerous class of Dissenters in Great Britain.

Being thus virtually excluded from the Established Church, he preached in dissenting chapels in London and other places where he could obtain admission. In course of time, and owing to the vast multitudes that crowded to listen to his ministrations, he adopted the expedient of officiating in the open air, and commenced field-preacher. He first formed his followers into a separate society in 1738, the year after his return from America, though he referred the establishment of Methodism to a prior date.

From this period, Wesley devoted his time and his great talents exclusively to the propagation of what he regarded the doctrines of the Gospel, and to the extension of that sect, of which he was the founder. His labours were chiefly confined to England; but he also paid visits to Scotland and Ireland, in the former of which his success

was inconsiderable. But while he confined his own labours to Great Britain and Ireland, he was not inattentive to the spiritual necessities of other countries, and by means of a succession of missionaries, propagated his doctrines to a very great extent in America and many of the West India Islands.

The unparalleled success which attended his great missionary exertions was not gained without much obloquy and persecution, particularly in the United Kingdom. Owing to the intelligence and liberality of the age, neither himself nor any of his missionaries were exposed to stripes and imprisonment; but all of them met with violent opposition on the part, not merely of the clergymen, both Established and Dissenting, and the wealthier classes, but also of the people; and some of them were beset with mobs, assailed by showers of stones and other missiles, and sometimes dragged through the streets as raving enthusiasts and as disturbers of the public peace.

Finding his societies rapidly increasing, and having been refused assistance from the established clergy, Wesley was induced to have recourse to lay preachers; an expedient which he was at first exceedingly adverse to adopt, but which he afterwards found most efficient in promoting the triumph of his views. He was thus enabled to exercise superintendance over all his followers, and greatly to extend his sphere of action.

Like Luther, he knew the importance of the press, and kept it teeming with his publications. His itinerant preachers were good agents for their circulation. "Carry them with you through every round," he would say; "exert yourselves in this; be not ashamed, be not weary, leave no stone unturned." His works, including abridgments and translations, amounted to about two hundred volumes. These comprise treatises on almost every subject of divinity, poetry, music, history, natural, moral, metaphysical, and political philosophy. He wrote as he preached, ad populum; and his works have given to his people, especially in Great Britain, an elevated tone of intelligence as well as of piety. He may, indeed, be con