"Now thou hast plung'd in Folly, Shame, Disgrace ; "Now! thou'rt an Object meet for healing Grace "No Merit thine, no Virtue, Hope, Belief, “Nothing hast thou, but Misery, Sin, and Grief, “The best, the only titles to Relief,' 66 What must I do,' I said, 'my Soul to free?' 'Do nothing, Man; it will be done for thee.'“But must I not, my reverend Guide, believe ?' 6 If thou art call'd, thou wilt the Faith receive :'"But I repent not.'-Angry he replied, "If thou art call'd, thou needest nought beside: "Attend on us, and if 'tis Heaven's Decree, "The Call will come,—if not, ah! woe for thee.' "There then I waited, ever on the watch, "The Sigh, the Tear, as caught from Man to Man : 6 Some better Comfort to a burthen'd Heart.'- "Raise not thy Voice against th' Eternal Will, "But take thy part with Sinners and be still.** 7 In a periodical work for the month of June last, the preceding dialogue is pronounced to be a most abominable caricature, if meant to be applied to Calvinists in general, and greatly distorted, if designed for an individual: now the author in his preface † has declared, that he takes not upon him the censure of any sect or society for their opinions; and the lines themselves evidently point to au individual, whose sentiments they very fairly represent without any distortion whatsoever. In a pamphlet intitled “ A Cordial for a Sindespairing Soul," originally written by a teacher of religion, and lately republished by another teacher of greater notoriety, the reader is informed that after he had full assurance of his Salvation, the Spirit entered particularly into the subject with him; and, among many other matters of like nature, assured him that "his "sins were fully and freely forgiven, as if they had never been "committed; not for any act done by him, whether believing in "Christ, or repenting of sin; nor yet for the sorrows and miseries " he endured, nor for any service he should be called upon in his "militant state, but for His own Name and for his glory's sake, "&c." And the whole drift and tenor of the book is to the same purpose, viz. the uselessness of all religious duties, such as prayer, contrition, fasting, and good works: he shews the evil done by reading such books as the Whole Duty of Man, and the Practice of Piety; and complains heavily of his relation, an Irish bishop, who wanted him to join with the household in family prayer; in fact, the whole work inculcates that sort of Quietism which this dialogue alludes to, and that without any recommendation of attendance on the teachers of the Gospel, but rather holding forth encouragement to the supineness of man's nature; by the information that he in vain looks for acceptance by the employment of his talents, and that his hopes of glory are rather extinguished than raised by any application to the means of Grace. "Alas! for me, no more the times of Peace Are mine on Earth-in Death my Pains may cease. "Foes to my Soul! ye young Seducers, know, "What serious Ills from your Amusements flow; "Opinions, you with so much ease profess, "O'erwhelm the Simple and their Minds oppress : "Let such be happy, nor with Reasons strong, "That make them wretched, prove their Notions wrong: "Let them proceed in that they deem the way, "Fast when they will, and at their pleasure pray: "Yes, I have Pity for my Brethren's Lot, "And so had Dives, but it help'd him not: LETTER XXII. THE POOR OF THE BOROUGH. PETER GRIMES, Was a sordid soul, Such as does murder for a meed; Scott. Marmion. Methought the souls of all that I had murder'd, came to my tent, and every one did threat Shakspeare. Richard III. The time hath been, That when the brains were out, the man would die, With twenty mortal murders on their crowns, Macbeth |