till you recover your first love. Acquaint yourself again with Christ, and be at peace. I pray God deliver you from every show and shadow of happiness, and keep you miserable, till you see and find happiness in Him! I am, my dear Will, your hearty friend and brother, CHARLES WESLEY. To Mr. William Perronet. Bristol, Jan. 23, 1774. DEAR WILL, We have lost you for months and years but I hope not irrecoverably. Where are you now, and how employed? Give our most grateful fove to your good old Father, when you see or write to him; and remember us, in the kindest manner, to your brothers and sister. We owe you much love on poor Mrs. Davis's account. She dies daily, yet cannot quite. will be a release indeed. of our constant prayers. Her death Assure her Our friend Captain James has lately been at the gates of death. He has quitted his business; but is not expected to continue long here. Your old friend, my wife, will be glad to see you in the summer, with her children. The winter has handled me very roughly; so that for many days, I could not ride. My coming to town is more uncertain: but wherever I am, I am my dear Will Perronet's hearty friend and brother, CHARLES WESLEY. P.S. I have had with me this month or more, two very extraordinary scholars and catechumens; two African Princes, carried off from Old Calebar, by a Bristol Captain, after they had seen him and his crew massacre their brother, and three hundred of their poor countrymen. They have been six years in slavery, made their escape hither, were thrown into irons, but rescued by Lord Mansfield, and are to be sent honourably back to their brother king of Calebar. This morning I baptized them. They received both the outward visible sign, and the inward spiritual grace in a wonderful manner and measure, To the Rev. Vincent Perronet. Bristol, Nov. 1, 1775. DEAR SIR, MISS JOHNSON gives me an opportunity of acknowledging your last favour. It brought the neverfailing blessing. You cast your bread upon the waters, and have found it after many days. My Father was not so happy as to see the fruit of his forty years' labours at Epworth. You have both sowed and reaped: blessed be God, who gives seed to the sower and meat to the eater. Yours is indeed aquile senectus; and when your work is finished, you will mount up on eagles' wings. My brother is sent back from the gates of death in an awful crisis of affairs. His example, I am persuaded, confirms multitudes in their who were carried away with the loyalty; and will bring many back, stream. Several other wise ends may be answered by his longer continuance; and I trust he will live to brethren and children, gathered into see me, and very many more of his the garner. My only business now is, to end well. If the Lord renews my strength to leave London, hope to catch the first opportunity of visiting Shoreham, once more to receive your blessing and encouragement, in my last stage. My companion presents her warmest love and duty. Miss Perronet will not forget an old servant, who needs her prayers, and those of the whole church. Your sons I bear upon my heart, as my own. May they wait upon the Lord, and renew their strength of body and soul! I believe their last end will be better than their beginning. God brought us through the fire thirty years ago; and his arm is not shortened. Have you not faith for the poor Americans? May the two sticks become one in His hand! My two African children got safe home. Their letters were suppressed at Liverpool. If I am prospered in my journey to town, it will be another answer of your prayers for, dear Sir, your everobliged and loving VOL. V. Third Series. JANUARY, 1826. CHARLES WESLEY. D RELIGIOUS INSTABILITY EFFECTUALLY REBUKED. Ir is well known that Frederick the Second, King of Prussia, took great pride in having his soldiers well disciplined; and was therefore particularly attentive to the conduct of the subalterns. It is perhaps not so well known, that he sometimes manifested a real respect for religious people; for few men could more clearly discern the excellence of that practice which is produced by divine principles. While, therefore, he sneered at the profession of religion, he promoted to offices of trust such persons as exemplified the Christian character. The following incidents, which have not been published in this country, but are related on good authority, illustrate the truth of these remarks. A Serjeant, of the name of Thomas, who was very successful in training his men, and whose whole deportment pleased the King, was often noticed by him. He inquired respecting the place of his birth, his parents, his religious creed, and the place of worship which he frequented. On being informed that he was united with the Moravians, and attended their Chapel in Williamstreet, he exclaimed, "O! O! you are a fanatic, are you? Well, well; only take care to do your duty, and improve your men." The King's common salutation after this was, "Well, how do you do? How are you going on in William-street? Frederick at length, in conversation with the Serjeant's Colonel, mentioned his intention of promot ing Thomas to an office in the commissariat department, upon the death of an aged man who then filled it. The Colonel, in order to encourage Thomas, informed him of the King's design. Unhappily, this had an injurious effect upon the mind of the Serjeant for, alas! such is the depravity of the human heart, that few can endure the temptation of prosperity without sustaining spiritual loss. Thomas began to forsake the assemblies of his Christian brethren; and when reproved by his Minister, he said, his heart was with them; but he was afraid of offending the King. The Minister bade him take heed that his heart did not deceive him. Soon after the Serjeant's religious declension, he was again accosted with,-"Well, how do you do? How are your friends in William-street?" "I do not know, please your Majesty," was the reply. "Not know! not know!" answered the King, "have you been ill then!" "6 No, please your Majesty," rejoined the Serjeant; "but I do not see it necessary to attend there so often as I used to do." "Then you are not so great a fanatic as I thought you,” was the royal answer. In a short time the aged officer died, and the Colonel waited upon his Majesty to inform him of the vacancy, and to remind him of his intention to raise Serjeant Thomas to the situation. "No! No!" said the King, "he shall not have it; he does not go to William-street so often as he used to do." Surprised with this peremptory refusal, the Colonel withdrew; and, on his return, found the Serjeant waiting for the confirmation of his appointment. "I do not know what is the matter with the King to-day," said the Colonel; "but he will not give you the situation he says you do not go to William-street so often as you used to do. I do not know what he means; but I suppose you do." Presenting a low bow to the Colonel, the Serjeant silently departed; and bowing still lower in spirit before the justice of God, he then, and ever after, adored the greatness of the divine mercy, which did not leave him to be an example of the truth of that Scripture which says, "The prosperity of fools shall destroy them." M. H.. Remarks on Volney's "Ruins; or, A Survey of the Revolutions of Empires." By W. A. Hails, 8vo. pp. 390. THE Concluding article of a creed formed for unbelievers, a few years ago, "I believe in all unbelief," has in it as much truth as wit. It might indeed have been varied to, "I believe in all absurdity, that I may justify my unbelief in the Scriptures," and it would be a very easy task to show, from the writings of Infidels, that reason, of which they boast, and even common sense, has never been so outraged by any class of men, in their eagerness to seek subterfuges from the force of that truth, which, in the midst of all their restless efforts to escape from it, they still feel and fear. Beaten out from all the courses of argument which, in former times, the advocates of infidelity directed against the Holy Scriptures, the modern champions of the same unhallowed cause, when they do not content themselves with broad and gross blasphemies, have for some years past engaged in the insane project of attempting to attack the history of Christianity, and to persuade the unlettered and ignorant, that the whole is a fiction, even to the very existence of its Founder. Some have contented themselves merely with considering the history as a modification of the ancient mythologies; others resolve it into astronomical emblems, and make the worship of Christ a revived Sabeanism, or worship of the sun, moon, and the stars of heaven. Whether this has been dreaming, or design, it is difficult to say; but the most probable reason is, that each has had its share in forming these absurd and blasphemous theories; that some, righteously given up both to strong and to weak delusions" to believe a lie," have brought in the aid of the wildest fictions of the fancy to confirm themselves in error; whilst others have been flattered with being made smatterers in antiquity, science, and history, by the researches of such writers, and by the aid of arguments, so called, brought from these recondite sources, have been better able to maintain an appearance sagacity superior to the vulgar, and more readily to beguile the young and unwary. That such writings should ever have had any currency among mankind, must be attributed to a bad education in Christianity itself; to Christianity being known as existing only in the form of Popish superstition on the Continent; and, in countries like our own, where better means of information have existed, to the influence of vicious habits, which make bold bad men the eneunies of truth, because truth is an enemy to them. For certainly, of all the absurdities which can be uttered, that of denying the history of Christianity is, to every man of plain sense and reflection, one of the most obvious. If that is denied, then the history of Judaism must be denied also. If there was no Christ, there was no Moses; if no Christianity in Judea, then no Judaism there; no city of Jerusalem, -no succession of Hebrew governments,-no Romans, no Greeks, no Babylonians, -no Egyptians; and thus all history is, by the same process, converted into a fable; and we must except not only ancient books from the evidence of history, but also coins, medals, pillars, arches, natural as well as artificial localities, and come fairly to the conclusion, that all these are inventions and deceits, down to the very travels of the modern explorers of these countries, who have testified their existence. would also, one would suppose, have been inquired, before any person, however young and giddy and gay, or bold, or vicious, had given the slightest ear to such dreams, how it should come to pass, that this discovery of the non-existence of the Founder of Christianity, and his disciples, should have taken place at so late a period, when it is not even pretended that any new historical document has been discovered, either It in the shape of book, manuscript, hieroglyphic inscription, or monument of any kind, to lead to it. Even professedly, these investigators have no other means of judging of this matter than the critics of earlier ages; and not so good an opportunity by far of detecting any fiction which might have been palmed upon the world, as those who lived nearer the era of the events in question; and yet the historical evidence of Christianity was never questioned in those ancient times. We have the scoffs of ancient wits, and the reasonings of ancient Pagans, against our divine religion and its Author, handed down to this day as they were originally written, both in the Greek and the Latin languages; but their writers no more thought of questioning the historical facts of Christianity, than any writer now thinks of questioning the discovery of America, or the occurrence of the Revolution in France; and they speak of those ancient events, as we do of such modern ones, as commonly known and received. Nay, what is still stranger, and what can escape no reflecting person, is, that the descendants of the ancient Jews remain in all Europe to this day, showing as utter an aversion to Christianity as their fathers, possessing a traditionary hatred to it, and uttering traditionary blasphemies against its author; all of which are grounded on the historic fact of the appearance of Christ in their original country, and among their fathers, in the character of the Messiah: a fact which they never had any motive to invent, and one which could never, in the nature of the thing, have been received among them, if not historically correct. From the earliest times of Christianity, they have been pressed with arguments as to the correspondency of the character and acts of Jesus of Nazareth, with those of the promised Messiah of their own Scriptures; and they have argued against this correspond ency; but not one of them ever thought of the folly of taking the shorter rout of the Infidels of this day, that of denying the existence of Jesus altogether, and so ending the argument at once. Volney's work on the Ruins of Empires re solves Christ into an astronomical character, and has been long the textbook of this flippant class of Infidels; who have gone on blending absurdity and blasphemy, till it is now publicly maintained in the metropolis, in pamphlets, and in public disputations, That the persons of whom the Scriptures treat never existed; and that the facts which they relate never happened." What new experiments upon the credulity of those who will believe any book but their Bible, and any person but God, remains to be made, we know not; but this looks very much like the last faint struggle of an expiring system; the last link which holds men to the semblance of learning and argument; and which, when it can no longer be maintained against the ridicule of mankind, leaves to them nothing but to become raving and desperate blasphemers; the gross complexion, indeed, which they are now generally and rapidly assuming. Like the conjured-up demons of necromancy, they put on first the face of mild intelligence; they then scowl and menace; and finally, go out in smoke and sulphur. If obvious absurdity were alone a sufficient preservative against infidelity, no books need be written for the refutation of the most recent hypotheses which its abettors have adopted. The elder theories required a formal refutation, more than the modern; for their essential disagreement with each other is so manifest, that they are all neutralized as to any force they can exert upon the public opinion, and the common faith. One attributes Christianity to the philosophic subtlety of the first centuries; another regards it as the worship of the stars; a third as a system of scientific astronomical symbols. No one of these can stand with the other. The first ascribes its origin to metaphysics; the second, to physical superstition; the third, to physical science and for its introduction, according to each theory, a totally distinct class of agents must be assumed,-distinct, nay, opposite, in mental habit, in rank of life, and in the kind of influence they exerted upon society. Choose which they will, : they must make a new history of the times in which Christianity arose, to show the process of its introduction. If they take the first, they must show that Christianity arose not among plain Jewish peasants, but among sophists; and that a state of society such as was never known to exist in the world, existed then; namely, one in which metaphysics could form the religion of the populace, and engage the popular attention. If the second theory be chosen, they must show that the superstitious worship of the stars prevailed in Judea, which is contrary to all the facts of existing history; and also in Greece and Rome,-which is contrary to the fact too, though in a different way for neither the mythology of Greece nor that of Rome was Sabean, in the sense which this theory supposes. If the third theory be adopted, they must show, that a popular passion for the scientific study of astronomy prevailed at the time of the formation of Christianity; or, that there was a confederacy among the astronomers of the day, to invest the old astronomy with new symbols; and that the Galileos, and Keplers, and Newtons, and La Places, of Greece and Rome, united to fetch their scientific symbols from the books of the Jews, and the writings of the Evangelists! Thus, in each case, they must have a totally different history of the men and manners of that age, than any which exists; and for each theory a different history, to account for the introduction of Christianity, in the view which they respectively take of it. Where then are their new historical documents? Where are the three sets of such documents? For three we must have, if all these theories be adopted: and the three must all be different from any thing that now exists, and from each other; and yet all must be true! Nor is this all. Those who reject the whole Gospel, as an historical fiction, without going into the astronomical theory to account for it, must at least see, that as, up to the highest antiquity to which we can trace Christianity, it existed as a system, and was not gradually brought forward by parts and scraps; so if the whole be a fiction imposed upon the world, it must have been so imposed by the compact and agreement of many influential persons, after much consultation and extensive preparations. But this, as a matter of history, can only be known by history. Where, then, is that history? Where is a single record of this fact? It exists not. They confess by their silence, that it does not exist; and thus, without historic evidence for the alleged fact, and in opposition to all the history which does exist, their besotted followers are required to believe these bold and frontless assertions of their leaders! Thus our Infidels want at least four sets of new historic records of the times in which Christianity made its appearance, in order to give to their theories any thing like probability; and without which they themselves must acknowledge them to be the mere fictions of their own corrupt minds. But there are, unhappily, many individuals, on whom all this absurdity will have no effect to guard them from deadly error. Some, for want of habits of reflection, need to have the absurdity pointed out to them; others, from their want of knowledge, cannot be supposed to see its force; whilst those whose moral habits render them most liable to fly to infidelity as a refuge from conscience, may, by proper exposures of the sophistries and follies of infidel writers, be at least kept in mind, that life and death are set before them. For these reasons, we are happy to see a popular and, at the same time, an able refutation of Volney's Ruins: a book, certainly, which might have been supposed, from its very ridiculousness, not to have needed a reply, but which, from its impudent attacks upon Christianity, conveyed through the medium of a tinselly eloquence, and an affectation of learning and science, has gone through very numerous editions, and is a powerfully-corrupting agent, in many public libraries and among young people. The Infidel is, in Mr. Hails's Remarks, traced through all his windings, with learning and acumen; and the author has left nothing to wish for, except that he had brought his work into a somewhat |