All this is mere calumny and wilful misstatement of the tenets of Wesley, who never doubted that we are bound to improve our ‘talents’, or, on the other hand, that we are equally bound, having done so, to be equally thankful to the Giver of all things for the power and the will by which we improved the talents, as for the original capital which is the object of the improvement.  The question is not whether Christ will say, ‘Well done thou good and faithful servant’, &c.;—­but whether the servant is to say it of himself.  Now Christ has delivered as positive a precept against our doing this as the promise can be that he will impute it to us, if we do not impute it to our own merits.

Ib. p. 60.

The complaints of the profligacy of servants of every class, and of the depravity of the times are in every body’s hearing:—­and these Evangelical tutors—­the dear Mr. Lovegoods of the day—­deserve the best attention of the public for thus instructing the ignorant multitude, who are always ready enough to neglect their moral duties, to despise and insult those by whom they are taught.

All this is no better than infamous slander, unless the Barrister can prove that these depraved servants and thieves are Methodists, or have been wicked in proportion as they were proselyted to Methodism.  O folly!  This is indeed to secure the triumph of these enthusiasts.

Ib.

It must afford him (Rowland Hill) great consolation, amidst the increasing immorality * * * that when their village Curate exhorts them, if they have ‘faith’ in the doctrine of a world to come, to add to it those ‘good works’ in which the sum and substance of religion consist, he has led them to ridicule him, as ’chopping a new-fashioned’ logic.

That this is either false or nugatory, see proved in The Friend.

Ib. p. 68.

  Tom Payne himself never laboured harder to root all virtue out of
  society.—­Mandeville nor Voltaire never even laboured so much.

Indeed!

Ib.

  They were content with declaring their disbelief of a future state.

In what part of their works?  Can any wise man read Mandeville’s Fable of the Bees, and not see that it is a keen satire on the inconsistency of Christians, and so intended.

Ib. p. 71.

When the populace shall be once brought to a conviction that the Gospel, as they are told, has neither terms nor conditions * * *, that no sins can be too great, no life too impure, ’no offences too many or too aggravated’, to disqualify the perpetrators of them for —­salvation, &c.

Merely insert the words “sincere repentance and amendment of heart and life, and therefore for” salvation,—­and is not this truth, and Gospel truth?  And is it not the meaning of the preacher?  Did any Methodist ever teach that salvation may be attained without sanctification?  This Barrister