love for the Church of England; for all who really love her will ever desire to see all excellence thriving within her pale, all that is corrupt and sluggish cast out. Dr. Johnson's remark about fear predominating over love in many minds, is good-because, though we are told that "perfect love casteth out fear," there is an allusion here only to a slavish fear, a terror of God, rather than that proper and reverential fear which an Apostle commands, and which is to be cherished to the end of our lives. We are not required to feel the same kind of familiar love towards God which we entertain towards human friends; and Croker well observes, in a short comment on this passage in Blair's sermon, that "the love of God and the love of one's wife or friend are certainly not the same passion." Lucas states, in a more grave manner, although Croker's remark is just, that our love of God is not merely an honourable opinion of him, but a passion or affection; "the Scripture," he says, expresses this love by delight and joy, by desire and longing, hungering, thirsting, seeking, and the like. If we love God above all things, our hearts will be where our treasure is; our affections will be fastened on things above; and our conversation will be in heaven, because our God is there :" yet, in order to prevent persons from being too much cast down because they lack a high degree of ardour, he continues: "God is a being infinitely above our conceptions, and that of him which we do conceive, as Power, Wisdom, and Goodness, though amiable, yet are spiritual, and not the objects of sense, and therefore do not move us with the same violence that sensible things do; whence it is easy to conclude, that our love of God is of a different nature

from that we pay the creature; 'tis a more spiritual affection mixed with adoration; 'tis an awful desire of pleasing and enjoying him, not always terminating in so vehement and sensible a passion as visible objects beget in us; and therefore the safest way is to judge of our state, not by transports, but by the firmness of our resolutions, and by the constancy and cheerfulness of our obedience." The italics are his own marks of the stress he desired to place upon these words. Sir Walter Scott sadly confounds the different meanings which may be given to the same term, when he commences some beautiful lines with the words,

"In peace love tunes the shepherd's reed," &c.

and gives this conclusion,

"For love is heaven, and heaven is love."

There

Blair's sermons are not read in the present generation so much as their value entitles them to be. are two very expressive ones, on the texts, "All this availeth me nothing, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the King's gate;" and, "Thine own friend, and thy father's friend, forsake not."

Abernethy and Gibbons were dissenting divines whose works Dr. Johnson perused. Of the latter he says, "I took to Dr. Gibbons." And again, he said to Mr. Charles Dilly, "I shall be glad to see him. Tell him, if he'd call on me, and dawdle over a dish of tea in an afternoon, I shall take it kind." Of Baxter and many other of the elder non-conformists we know that he thought highly, but approving of their piety when grave,

* Lucas's Practical Christianity, chap. v. pp. 88, 89.

more than admiring their learning; for in his mind. the Bishops and clergy were most profound in knowledge, scriptural or classical; and certainly it would have been a shame to them if they did not excel, for they have more materials within their reach, and deeper sources from which to inform and embellish their minds, than the many who are not united with the Universities and public libraries can possibly have. His distinction of the different degrees of attainment of learning was thus marked upon two occasions. Of Queen Elizabeth he said,-" She had learning enough to have given dignity to a Bishop ;" and of Mr. Thomas Davies he said, "Sir, Davies has learning enough to give credit to a clergyman."

Whitfield, when in Scotland, notes that one of the ministers of the Associate Presbytery preached upon the text, "Watchman, what of the night?" &c. "I attended," says Whitfield; "but the good man so spent himself, in the former part of his sermon, in talking against prelacy, the Common Prayer-book, the surplice, the rose in the hat, and such like externals, that when he came to the latter part of his text, to invite poor sinners to Jesus Christ, his breath was so gone, that he could scarce be heard."*

To one of his correspondents at this time, Whitfield replied,—" I wish you would not trouble yourself or me in writing about the corruption of the Church of England. I believe there is no Church perfect under heaven; but as God, by His providence, is pleased to send me forth simply to preach the Gospel to all, I think there is no need of casting myself out."

CHAPTER XVI.

THE WESLEYAN METHODISTS.

DR. JOHNSON evidently liked what he saw during scant opportunities of John Wesley. He said, "John Wesley's conversation is good, but he is never at leisure. He is always obliged to go at a certain hour. This is very disagreeable to a man who loves to fold his legs and have out his talk, as I do." Again he said," He can talk well on any subject;" but thought he did not believe the ghost story on sufficient authority, and lamented that Wesley did not take more pains to inquire into the evidence for it. Johnson afterwards gave Boswell a note of introduction to Wesley, "because," he says in the note itself, “I think it very much to be wished that worthy and religious men should be acquainted with each other." Boswell had thus an opportunity of conferring with Wesley on the matter of the appearance of the ghost at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, but the evidence did not satisfy him, although Wesley believed it.

Few men have had more accusers than Wesley, and few men engaged warmer friends. Let us pass by the abuse, and receive the character given of him by a High Churchman, and his familiar friend. "My whole soul," says Alexander Knox, Wesley's "dear

Allick," "rises against those vile allegations of ambition and vanity: above both of which my precious old friend soared, as much as the eagle above the glowworm. Great minds are not vain; and his was a great mind, if any mind can be made great, by disinterested benevolence, spotless purity, and simple devotedness to that one Supreme Good, in whom with the united alo@nois of the philosopher and the saint, he saw, and loved, and adored, all that was infinitely amiable, true, sublime, and beatific.”*

Again he writes, "In John Wesley's views of Christian perfection are combined, in substance, all the sublime morality of the Greck fathers, the spirituality of the mystics, and the divine philosophy of our favourite Platonists. Macarius, Fénélon, Lucas, and all their respective classes, have been consulted and digested by him; and his ideas are, essentially, theirs ;" and he especially praises him for having popularized these sublime lessons in his hymns.

But this was the doctrine which called up so many religious enemies against him. Knox, on reading the Life of Hey, says,-" I then saw in a light which never before struck me, that the real motive with John

How different is this to the ultra-evangelical's view of Wesley! Romaine, in a letter to Lady Huntingdon, says: "I pity Mr. John from my heart. His societies are in great confusion; and the point which brought them into the wildness of rant and madness is still insisted on as much as ever. I fear the end of this delusion. As the late alarming Providence has not had its proper effect, and perfection is still the cry, God will certainly give them up to some more dreadful thing, May their eyes be opened before it be too late!" Wesley himself complained of the bitter opposition of such men as Whitfield, Madan, Haweis, Berridge, &c.-Lady Huntingdon's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 329.