Fable of the Bees
, and not see that it is a keen satire on the inconsistency of Christians, and so intended.
Ib. p. 71.
When the populace shall be once brought to a conviction that the Gospel, as they are told, has neither terms nor conditions * * *, that no sins can be too great, no life too impure, no offences too many or too aggravated, to disqualify the perpetrators of them for—salvation, &c.
Merely insert the words "sincere repentance and amendment of heart and life, and therefore for" salvation,—and is not this truth, and Gospel truth? And is it not the meaning of the preacher? Did any Methodist ever teach that salvation may be attained without sanctification? This Barrister for ever forgets that the whole point in dispute is not concerning the possibility of an immoral Christian being saved, which the Methodist would deny as strenuously as himself, and perhaps give an austerer sense to the word immoral; but whether morality, or as the Methodists would call it, sanctification, be the price which we pay for the purchase of our salvation with our own money, or a part of the same free gift. God knows, I am no advocate for Methodism; but for fair statement I am, and most zealously—even for the love of logic, putting honesty out of sight.
Ib. p. 72.
"In every age," says the moral divine (Blair), "the practice has prevailed of substituting certain appearances of piety in the place of the great duties of humanity and mercy," &c.
Will the Barrister rest the decision of the controversy on a comparison of the lives of the Methodists and non-Methodists? Unless he knows that their "morality has declined, as their piety has become more ardent," is not his quotation mere labouring—nay, absolute pioneering—for the triumphal chariot of his enemies?