of all ages?  For the one tenet in which the Calvinist differs from the majority of Christians, are there not ten in which the Socinian differs from all?  To what purpose then this windy declamation about John Calvin?  How many Methodists, does the Barrister think, ever saw, much less read, a work of Calvin’s?  If he scorns the name of Socinus as his authority, and appeals to Scripture, do not the Methodists the same?  When do they refer to Calvin?  In what work do they quote him?  This page is therefore mere dust in the eyes of the public.  And his abuse of Calvin displays only his own vulgar ignorance both of the man, and of his writings.  For he seems not to know that the humane Melancthon, and not only he, but almost every Church, Lutheran or Reformed, throughout Europe, sent letters to Geneva, extolling the execution of Servetus, and returning their thanks.  Yet it was a murder not the less:  Yes! a damned murder:  but the guilt of it is not peculiar to Calvin, but common to all the theologians of that age; and, ‘Nota bene,’ Mr. Barrister, the Socini not excepted, who were prepared to inflict the very same punishment on F. Davidi for denying the adorability of Christ.  If to wish, will, resolve, and attempt to realize, be morally to commit, an action, then must Socinus and Calvin hunt in the same collar.  But, O mercy! if every human being were to be held up to detestation, who in that age would have thought it his duty to have passed sentence ‘de comburendo heretico’ on a man, who had publicly styled the Trinity “a Cerberus,” and “a three-headed monster of hell,” what would the history of the Reformation be but a list of criminals?  With what face indeed can we congratulate ourselves on being born in a more enlightened age, if we so bitterly abuse not the practice but the agents?  Do we not admit by this very phrase “enlightened,” that we owe our exemption to our intellectual advantages, not primarily to our moral superiority?  It will be time enough to boast, when to our own tolerance we have added their zeal, learning, and indefatigable industry. [7]

Ib. p. 13, 14.

If religion consists in listening to long prayers, and attending long sermons, in keeping up an outside appearance of devotion, and interlarding the most common discourse with phrases of Gospel usage:—­if this is religion, then are the disciples of Methodism pious beyond compare.  But in real humility of heart, in mildness of temper, in liberality of mind, in purity of thought, in openness and uprightness of conduct in private life, in those practical virtues which are the vital substance of Christianity,—­in these are they superior?  No.  Public observation is against the fact, and the conclusion to which such observation leads is rarely incorrect. * * The very name of the sect carries with it an impression of meanness and hypocrisy.  Scarce an individual that has had any dealings with those belonging to it, but has good cause to remember it from some circumstance