METANGISMONITES-of whom St Augustine makes mention Hær. 57-derive their name from the Greek terms MIT and Ayyov, importing-in a vessel: they said, that the Word was in his Father, just as one vessel is contained within another. This sect appears to have been of Arian extraction.

METHODISTS a name given 1st, by protestants to their adversaries the French controversionalists; of whom Mosheim in his ecclesiastical history says:-These Methodists may be distributed into two classes. Those of the first class pretended to dictate to protestants certain unreasonable normas, to which they were inviolably to adhere in religious disputation. Of this number was the ex-Jesuit Veron, curate of Charenton, who required of his adversaries, that they should prove every article of their creed by clear and formal texts of Holy Scripture; and would not allow them the privilege of reasoning at all, or of tracing any conse quence whatever, or deducing any argument from the apparent intimation of the text. He was followed by Berthold Nihusius a renegado from protestantism; by the two Wallembourgs and others, who found it easier to retain what they possessed, than to evince the justice of their title. The burden of proof they abandoned to their adversaries, and reserved to themselves only the more easy task of eluding the force of the soundest logical conclusions. Cardinal Richelieu, and a crowd of catholic polemics, wished to set aside the complaints and the reproaches of the reformed, and to content themselves with proving the divine au thority of the church-by reasons the most decisive and unequiVocal.

Those of the second class, continues Mosheim, to decide the contest with their adversaries in the most summary way, adopted a sort of general arguments, which they called warrantable prejudices, (See Nicole's Prejugés Legitimes contre les Calvinistes) any one of which-developed and displayed to advantage— was alone sufficient, in the opinion of some controvertists after him, to demonstrate the imposture or the nullity of the reform. Some of these Methodists have opposed to it their pretended right of prescription; others the vices and want of mission in the reformers; a third set have attempted only to prove, that this religious revolution was in fact a schism, and therefore of itself highly criminal.

Bossuet, agreeably to the remark of this learned Lutheran author, undertook to demonstrate the falsehood of the religion established by Luther, by exposing the perpetual changeableness of opinion among its doctors, and the multitude of variations so discernible in its doctrines; while he proved the authority andthe divine origin of the Roman catholic persuasion, from the constancy with which its religious dogmas have been handed down to us unadulterated, through each revolving age. All these different

methods of combating the reformation, in Mosheim's ideas, have embarrassed protestants, more than they have advanced the cause of catholicity. It is true, he admits, many princes and some enlightened scholars, have suffered themselves to be seduced by these captious arguments, and have returned to the communion of that church, from which their fathers had seceded but their example has not been copied by any single nation, nor even by one solitary canton. After enumerating the most illustrious proselytes, as well princes as learned individuals, he tells us, that the number is very inconsiderable-of those who, from truly conscientious motives, have readopted the ancient faith.

The lynx-eyed sagacity of Mr Mosheim, doubtless, must have been derived immediately from above, thus to penetrate the secrets of hearts! While our methodistic controversialists demonstrate, that the reformers in their schism were influenced by a spirit of libertinism and independence, and the ambition of becoming leaders of a sect, protestants cry out calumny, and enquire by what right their adversaries pretend to sound the hearts and the intentions of their fellow men, and to ascribe to a principle of depravity in them, what might be the innocent result of misconception or a mere defect of judgment. But behold! these very delicate and tender casuists are the first to violate their own, uncommonly charitable, maxim-in the case of all those who have had the courage and the virtue to renounce the schism and erroneous principles of their deluded ancestors. How heavily would Mr Mosheim have complained, had any one politely told him, that his only motive for choosing to live and die a Lutheran was-his occupying the most dignified situation in a university, or enjoying the douceurs of a prime good living? Nor is it a matter of surprise, that the vulgar sort among the Lutherans should continue obstinately stedfast in the errors of their early youth, notwithstanding the example of many princes and the most enlightened personages of their communion-quitting their former prejudices, and eagerly embracing the catholic religion. The fact is:-they are ignorant; and are determined to remain so ;-they are not in the habit of reading catholic books, and are moreover diverted from it by their ministers; while the eventual conversion of those who have well examined both sides of the question, appears to us, we must own, a reasonable presumption in favour of catholicity, and a well-grounded argument against protestantism.

Our catholic Methodists are equally warranted-in calling upon protestants to prove each article of their doctrine-by the clear and formal testimony of holy scripture. This is their only rule. of faith, and they avowedly maintain, that every question should be decided, and all disputes be terminated by its sole authority and guidance. They have themselves prescribed this law to catholics; and these have met them on their own ground. If

then they feel the restraint somewhat troublesome, whom have they to blame but themselves? They are the aggressors, and have entered a protest against the catholic church and its possession of full fifteen hundred years; it is their's to prove from holy scripture that this possession is founded in injustice and a lawless usurpation. This is a task which none have ever yet attempted, or we apprehend, ever will attempt-with tolerable success, or even-with the slightest plausibility of reason. Mr Mosheim, therefore, is in the right to deprecate the challenge of our Methodist divines.

With equal justice does this cherished critic except against the method of the Cardinal Richlieu, who insisted that, as protestants alleged for the motive of their schism-that the Roman was no longer the true church of Jesus Christ, by proving the reverse, we subvert the very ground-work of the reformation. On this head, as in all other points, our adversaries have made but a very feeble defence; they have shifted their ground, and sometimes have asserted the church to be invisible, sometimes to be a compound of all the various sects of christians-excommunicating and disclaiming all connection with each other! The great Bossuet, and a whole legion of catholic theologists, have triumphantly demonstrated the absurdity of both these airy systems; nor have protestants been able to support them with any specious argument. They only have maintained-without the semblance of a proof-that the catholic church had set them the example in varying its faith. They have said:-we find no monuments in the three first ages-of such and such false doctrines since adopted by the church of Rome; consequently, say they, they were not then believed, and of course this church must have varied its religious creed. These negative arguments are illusive. The church of the fourth age solemnly professes to believe no articles, but such as were believed and generally professed in the preceding age, and delivered by the apostles; therefore the existing monuments of the fourth age are a sufficient proof, that the articles in question had been already taught and believed before that era. What Mosheim objects from the avowal of even French divines with relation to the encroachments of certain popes, is alike nugatory and irrelevant. French divines admit-that many popes had availed themselves of circumstances to extend their jurisdiction; to circumscribe that of bishops; to dispose of church benefices, &c.; and that they had thus introduced changes into the ancient discipline. But discipline and doctrine, unfortunately, are quite different things. Bossuet has demonstrated-that protestants have varied in their articles of faith: Mosheim merely proves-what no body ever thought of contesting with him-a variation of discipline; and what is this but imposition and chicanery? Besides, it is the opinion of French theologians, that the Roman pontiff can

not by himself definitively pronounce upon articles of faith, and that his decision is not infallible, unless confirmed by the general acquiescence of the whole church. How then could they, with any consistency, accuse the popes of altering the faith of the catholic church? But, in vain do we look for candor or sincerity in this critic and champion of the reformation, or in a host of controversial writers in defence of the same untenable and unhallowed cause.

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Nor is it true, that catholic polemics confine themselves to invalidate the proofs of their antagonists in support of their religious system-without attempting to substantiate their own. Let but any one peruse Veron's Profession of Catholic Faith he will find that he establishes each article upon the formal testimony of the written word. The Wallembourgs have done the same: but they have not stopt here. They have moreover demonstrated, that the catholic church, in proving her dogmas of faith and refuting all erroneous doctrines, has uniformly—with the fathers in every age-adopted precisely the same method; whereas that of the protestants is essentially defective, and calculated to justify indiscriminately-all heresies whatever :—that the distinction of fundamental and non-fundamental articles, is delusory and abusive; that their bible is adulterated both by arbitrary expositions, and wilful mistranslations, as they shew at large by comparing them with other versions of their own; and that, not satisfied with this their unwarrantable temerity, they have rejected every book of Holy Scripture which they know not how to reconcile with their novel doctrines. After this, they object to the reformers their want of a lawful mission, the novelty of their religious code, and the guilt of schism. Whether in this their method there be any thing like unfair dealing, we leave it to the good sense of our readers to determine. What Mosheim complains of with so little reason in his Catholic Methodists, English protestant writers, almost universally, practise as their exclusive privilege-against the church of Rome.

METHODISTS (protestant)—seemingly an increasing sect, claim an antiquity of somewhat more than eighty years. John Wesley, their principal founder, was son to a clergyman of the church of England, and received his education at Oxford. Upon his return he was presented to one of his father's livings. During his absence from the university, his brother Charles, a Mr Morgan, and one or two other companions, formed a little society, with design, it would seem, of leading a devout life. This took place in 1729. Not long after John Wesley returned, and put himself at the head of this new society. Some few others joined, and among the rest, in 1735, George Whitfield. They visited the sick and prisoners, and gave abundant alms. Living according to a rule, they were denominated Methodists; and were

sometimes called-Sacramentarians, from their frequently receiving the sacrament; and, from their apparent holiness-the Holy Club. In Ireland they still retain the nick-name of Swaddlers, given them, it is said, in consequence of a sermon of one of their first lay preachers there, who had taken for his text in Ezech-Thou wert not swaddled at all. In 1735, John Wesley visited Georgia, in America, in order to preach his new gospel to the Indians; but had not the good fortune to make any converts. After spending there to little purpose nearly two years, shaking off the dust from his feet, he returned to England, where he fell in with one Peter Bohler, a Moravian brother, whose orthodoxy Wesley deemed more pure than his own; and accordingly he became himself a member of the brotherhood.

Meanwhile Whitfield also, took a trip to America—with similar religious intentions, and with the like success. Instead of making proselytes, he too was perverted, and exchanged his former creed for that of Calvinism, to which he adhered for the remainder of his life. This man became the founder of the second branch of Methodism.

But the

In lieu, however, of converting infidels during his residence in Georgia, John Wesley had succeeded in establishing there another small society-after the model of that of Oxford, previously to his own conversion by Bohler the Moravian. Methodist society, properly speaking, did not begin till May, 1738-in London. Wesley says in his first journal, that he had not yet attained to justifying faith: he had, he says, the faith of a slave, not that of a child. But on the twenty-fourth of May the same year, being present at a Lutheran meeting, he tells us, he felt his heart to grow warm, and imagined he received a supernatural assurance-that his sins were forgiven. Whether he on this occasion became a Lutheran, is not mentioned: if he did, he did not long continue so. Of his various peregrinations, or even hardships suffered in the cause of Methodism, as I cannot think well of his doctrine, I will say nothing; observing only, that at a very advanced age he went to receive the reward of his labors, in the close of the eighteenth century.

According to the Wesleyan system of theology, orthodoxy or correctness in point of doctrine is no essential part of religion, if it be any part at all! Religion consists, he says,-in holi ness of disposition,-in the love of God and our fellow-creatures; -no doctrine but this, in Wesley's ideas, is necessary to salvation! Can then that gospel love of God which is the fulfilment of the law, exist without its essential conditions? Heathens to whom the gospel hath not been preached, according to him, are justified by an interior light, without even knowing Christ. But how does this accord with those words of our Blessed Sa viour-this is eternal life, that they know Thee, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent ? Wesley tells us, that those who have