from the opponents whom you seem to be answering, yet there is not any quotation calculated to evince either the tenor of their arguments or the spirit in which they carry on the discussion. This is a suspicious circumstance, which you will no doubt account for in your own way.

What I wish chiefly is, to remind myself publicly of my own obligations, and to insinuate into the minds of the readers of this periodical, to consider whether the writer before them seems to deal with his opponent in the spirit of fairness. Perhaps the present series of remarks will not be found to be very regular or methodical; but if I have my wish, you will be able to understand, in each leading remark, precisely what I mean. Besides remarking generally upon the subject, and your manner of treating it, I shall endeavor to make good the following positions, though they will not be formally separated from the body of the remarks,-viz.: That you have misrepresented Mr. Wesley-that you have misrepresented us, the writers in the Methodist Magazine that you have misrepresented, and even caricatured, the doctrine apart from its propagators; and finally, proh pudor! you have misrepresented yourself.

1. In the first place, I have a few remarks to make respecting the application of epithets by one to another. I shall make such remarks upon these in passing as may seem to be necessary to bring out their true character, though my prominent design is to let our readers know precisely how you designate us, and how we designate you.

You say on p. 171, vol. ix, of the Spectator, "Neither of the writers has attempted a defence of the real doctrine of Mr. Wesley, or replied to our remarks with a disposition to meet the question as it is. They signify their belief in the doctrine-do their utmost to evade and mystify the subject, and spend the chief of their strength in giving utterance to some very bitter railing against the Christian Spectator." To this you add on page 174, "We repeat it, that neither Dr. Bangs nor his coadjutor argue to the real question, although both evince that they know what it is, and profess an entire coincidence with Mr. Wesley."

Now what is the full import of these sentences? Do we indeed do our utmost to mystify and evade? Do we indeed spend the chief of our strength in giving utterance to some bitter railing? Unfortunately for us, your readers cannot judge of the truth or falsehood of that remark; but, as I lay it before our readers, they can. Let them determine for themselves. Your assertions are not worthy even of contradiction. I repeat them here, that others, and perchance you yourself, may be sensible of the nature and strength of the feelings with which you write.

"One or two of Dr. Bangs' misrepresentations we feel called upon to notice. In one instance he so misrepresents our remarks upon Mr. Wesley's character as to make us say he was at times absolutely insane, -p. 171. In reference to this, it is conceded, and that too with gladness and singleness of heart, that Dr. B's article presents your use of the epithet "insane," in reference to Mr. Wesley, in too strong a light; nevertheless as the misrepresentation was occasioned by misapprehension, and consisted in an exaggeration of the strength, not in a misstatement of the essential import, of the expression, he feels his conscience no more oppressed by the memory of it, now that it is rec

tified, than he feels of hesitancy in making an acknowledgment of his mistake. The readers of the Magazine are requested to judge for themselves. These were your words" There we find the true expression of its peculiar elements," i. e., of Mr. Wesley's mind-" the insane as well as the sane." the sane." Let your language be compared by the reader with Dr. B.'s alleged misrepresentation of it. You proceed to say, "We are accustomed to regard dogmatical and vindictive partisanship as a species of insanity: how far Dr. Bangs was under its influence, in this instance, we will not take upon us to decide." That also must pass unanswered.

"There are some statements," you say on p. 173, "in the Methodist Quarterly that constrain us to prefer a more serious charge against Dr. Bangs." "He deliberately represents to his readers that we affirm that the Holy Spirit has no influence in the conversion of a sinner; and that we entirely exclude the divine agency from the work of culti vating human nature, and fitting it for heaven. THIS IS NOT TRUE; and if Dr. B. read our remarks he had the means of knowing that we expressly affirmed the contrary." I had intended to remark upon this passage somewhat extensively, but I perceive it were labor lost. I remark, 1. Dr. B. does not represent you as affirming that the Holy Spirit has no influence in the conversion of a sinner. He says, "After thus excluding the Holy Spirit, &c.," meaning that you inculcate such a doctrine as leads to his exclusion. If he anywhere represents you as affirming that the Holy Spirit has no influence, &c., his remark has escaped my notice. 2. You say, if Dr. B. had read your remarks he had the means of knowing that you affirmed the contrary. I find no such affirmation to the contrary, though I have read your piece, word by word, for the purpose of finding it. You do indeed use language which implies some agency of the Holy Spirit; but that does not falsify Dr. B.'s remark. Do you not know that the Pharisees rendered the commandments of God of none effect by their traditions? Yet they did not deny that God had commands. So Dr. B. did not mean that you in terms deny the Spirit's influence, but that your doctrine is such as to leave no place for him. What use shall I now make of that most emphatic sentence which you have so forcibly obtruded upon me, This is not true?

Speaking of Mr. Wesley you say, "whom Dr. Bangs pronounces the most cautious writer of his age.' "Dr. Bangs pronounces no such thing. He says, (Meth. Mag., vol. xvii, p. 245,) "who, perhaps, was one of the most cautious writers of his age."

There are other expressions of like character, tending to show the esteem in which you hold those who differ from you, which I had intended to present; but it is not very necessary, and the time fails.

It is not necessary that I should present, in full tale, our remarks which are personal to you. If the reader is curious he will find them where they can take no new coloring from my fancy, in the Methodist Magazine, already referred to. I solemnly declare, however, that there is nothing there at all equivalent to the language which I have quoted from you, and nothing to justify that language. You are styled a self-confident reviewer-you are said to be deceived by your own prepossessions-it is intimated (ironically) that you may have criticised Mr. Wesley, without having read him, &c. Dr. Bangs' arti

cle is conceived in a tone of sarcasm, and the second article has something of the same character. This, I believe, is the head and front of our offending, our argument against yours excepted.

2. It is not possible for me to meet that assertion of yours, that we evade and mystify in such a way as to destroy its intended effect. Doubtless you intended it for your readers: I can only answer it for mine.

However, that there may be no doubt, I will briefly enumerate what Dr. Bangs and his coadjutor have said and done in those "annihilating strictures" of theirs. The two pieces differ in this, that while the one examines the doctrine chiefly, the other is more exclusively directed to your remarks upon the doctrine. Dr. B. first and at length gives Mr. Wesley's statement of the doctrine-a thing which should have been done by you. He then proceeds to defend it by an appeal to Scripture and by the experience of the saints of the Most High in all ages. He then confirms it by an appeal to the recorded experience of several eminent persons in the Calvinistic department of the church, thinking, no doubt, that the testimony of these men would be spurned, least of all by you. These are the prominent points of his piece, though he, in conjunction with his coworker, examines your remarks in detail, giving to each one all the attention which the most fastidious opponent could desire.

When you remark that, though we know what the real question is, we neither of us manifest a disposition to meet it, do you mean that we are knaves, or fools, or both? It is of no great importance to me what you mean. I would choose, in such a controversy, rather to be spoken of, than to speak in that way.

3. What you say of Mr. Wesley's character demands a passing notice. All you can desire respecting your use of the word "insane" has been cheerfully granted you. You intended to intimate, not that Mr. Wesley was an insane man, but that his mind contained certain insane elements. But if that were all you meant, why do you spend so much strength in proving him a mystic, after you had defined a mystic to be one destitute of that essential element of a Christian character termed by the apostle a sound mind? Did you there misrepresent Mr. Wesley or yourself? You dwell much upon Mr. Wesley's ghost stories, and upon his credulity. "During the last century," say you, "he has not a parallel in this respect, in any man who possessed a moiety of his claim to intelligence."

Did you never hear that Samuel Johnson and Robert Hall were strongly inclined to believe in the marvellous? Were not they of the last century? or had they no claim to a moiety of Mr. Wesley's intelligence? Mr. Wesley's intelligence ranks high for one destitute of a sound mind.

Touching the ghosts, however, there are a few remarks to be made. Credulity and incredulity, as I believe they rest upon one foundation, so they generally go together in the same person. Take the man who is credulous in one line of inquiry, and lead him in a new direction, and you will see his incredulity. The infidel, who denies the being or at least the revelation of God, can yet admit omens, and swallow the most prodigious stories, illustrative, not of the agency of unseen beings, but of eternal fate and invisible chance. Byron, the profligate

and skeptic, could rail at truth, revile religion, and stand in awe of the word Friday.

Credulity and incredulity have their basis in a disposition to take some great leading principle for granted upon the authority of others. When that principle is a negative, it forms incredulity; when affirmative, it is credulity. Yet one may be credulous or the contrary, under very different circumstances. If the principle admitted be universally received, it will scarcely pass under the name of credulity, though it be such in reality. How then are we to discern that credu. lity which consists in the passive reception of commonly received opinions? I answer by this: that the reception of such opinions by the wise man leans upon its proof-you can perceive his mind turning thitherward, like the needle to the pole. On the other hand, the credulous receiver of such opinions shrinks from the word proof-the idea that there is any necessity of such thing never crosses his mind. Watch him, and you will see that he at once sets down any man for a credulous fool who dares to ask for proof. It seems to him a point so plain, so much a matter of common sense, that he who doubts or waits for evidence is certainly destitute of a sound mind.

Upon these principles, what should be our estimate of Mr. Wesley? It is a currently received opinion-not that there are no ghosts or disembodied spirits-but that they never manifest themselves. Did Mr. Wesley affirm the contrary? No. But he did that which the credulity of fools can never pardon; he obstinately refused to receive this opinion at the dictation of the mass, and submitted it to the decision of fact. He gathered up facts from the lips of others, and these facts he boldly submitted to the inspection of others. Those who have their minds made up on these subjects so soon as they are born, or rather so soon as their friends and acquaintance choose to give sanction to one side or the other, can never understand how one should hesitate respecting them, unless it be either through credulity or incredulity.

As to the matter of ghostly appearances, it is sufficient to say that there is no proof against them, save the fact of their not having been witnessed. Yet that does not destroy the possibility of such things, nay, nor their reality. When therefore we hear a man depreciating another as credulous, because he looks around to see if there be not proof of the truth of some opinion which is not commonly received, the reflecting will soon determine to whom the attribute of credulity belongs. A man may indeed very properly accord in judgment with the mass of those about him; but when this acquiescence of his is accompanied by the spirit of bitterness and contempt against all who feel not the same assurance with himself, we may be sure that there is lack either of honesty or of sense-that he either pretends to believe more than he does believe, or that his faith rests upon the authority of other minds than his own.

Your quotation of Mr. Wesley's remark on the difference between the frame of the mind and the state of the soul, serves you nothing, even with the help of your own caricature. Besides the palpable reasonableness of his distinction, you will please observe the inquiry was respecting the then current use of certain terms—a matter which surely Mr. Wesley could determine better than you, without any mysticism. Your remarks on that quotation indicate two things, which I shall be

happy to show at length when opportunity serves. 1. That your false theology rests upon false metaphysics. 2. That you are very apt to misrepresent yourself.

4. I have now some remarks to make upon your method of arguing. First, under this head let me tell you of some things which you ought to have done, but have left undone. 1. You should have given at full length, from the pen of Mr. W. himself, a statement of the doctrine. This you have not done. 2. You should have examined Mr. Wesley's Scriptural proofs. This you have not done. 3. If you chose to draw in Mr. Watson, you should also have given at least a glimpse at his proof and illustration. This you have not done. 4. Coming to the writers in the Methodist Magazine, as they give you various passages of holy writ, these you should have examined, and not have slipped them by with, "It means no such thing." 5. But, if you could not answer their Scripture arguments, yet, to save appearances, you might at least have attempted to account for the fact that the most eminent men in your own church profess to have experienced this very blessing.

I could wish you had seen fit to do all this, as this would have been the proper course of a negative argument. But as you have chosen both to conceive and to argue the subject in your own light, it be comes me to consider to what purpose you have done so. I do not, just now, examine your argument of the subject proper, but, in a gene. ral way, the prominent characteristics of that method of arguing which you pursue. The subject itself will be examined shortly.

I ask you, then, first, Is your confusion or amalgamation-if that term be not polluted by bad associations of Mr. Watson's argument and illustration perfectly fair?

Strictly speaking, your controversy was with Mr. Wesley alone. Our defence was of him alone. Your article was entitled, "John Wesley on the Witness of the Spirit;" and though, all things considered, it was doubtful whether you intended through the doctrine to hit Mr. Wesley, or through Mr. W. to hit the doctrine, yet both title and article adhered well to this one topic, "John Wesley on the Witness of the Spirit.'

In your second piece, both title and tenor are curiously changed. It is now," Wesleyan Methodism on the Witness of the Spirit." I will not say the change was made for the purpose of mystification and evasion; but it seems to afford you great advantage for these things.

The doctrine of Mr. Wesley is not responsible for the illustration of any subsequent writer. He and the writer mentioned are by no means the same, as it is manifest you yourself have already discovered, inasmuch as while you object to Mr. Wesley's doctrine in general terms, yet when your objections become specific they are directed against statements made by Mr. Watson. Had you confined yourself to Mr. Wesley, you never would have conceived it as an objection to the doctrine, that it, represents the witness of adoption as necessarily preceding justification and regeneration. Nevertheless, though the expressions you quote from Mr. Watson give some show of plausibility to the objection, had you considered all that he has said on the subject, you would have perceived that he could mean no such thing, as you have represented. Neither do any of those who at all understand the doc.