the pains of hell, and tortures inflicted by infuriate devils"; he fancies that he is begotten again! that he is born of the Holy Spirit of God! What will be the future life of a man thus regenerated, I do not venture to pronounce. But in noticing fome evil consequences of a doctrine, which, for the spiritual grace attendant upon the holy ordinance of Chrift, fubftitutes a wild and fanciful regeneration of man's invention, we may be allowed to fpeculate on the effects likely to be produced in one thus initiated to the new birth. To fpeculate, did I say, on probable effects? Rather to call to mind effects which have notoriously ensued, and to confider whether they are not such as fober reafon might have foreseen. The history of some popular modern fects does strictly tally with the expectations of reafon and if among the regenerated of later days, who have been thus tormented into the new birth, many have fubfequently been driven through every fpecies of extravagance to the very extreme of irrecoverable madness'; if many, after a temporary exultation in the love of God fhed abroad in their hearts, have re n Wesley's Journals, and Enthusiasm of Methodists, &c. vol. iii. p. 23. and following pages. • See an inftance in Wefley's Journals, No. V. p. 81. Enthusiasm of Methodists, &c. vol. iii. p. 11-14. lapfed into intolerable perplexities, distraction, and despair; if many, after fancying themfelves purified even as Chrift is pure, have turned back, and become twofold more the children of hell than before; if many, who pretended to be conformed to the image of Chrift, have at that very inftant continued under the dominion of grievous fins; if many, who imagine themselves thoroughly renewed in the image of the meek and lowly Jefus, fwell with pharifaical pride, thanking God that they are not as other men are; and if almost all regard their lefs favoured brethren with fcorn, and "fay, Stand by thyfelf, come " not near to me, for I am holier than thou;" and condemn thofe, who admit not their pretenfions and discountenance their conceits, as unconverted unregenerate finners; it is no more than might have been expected from men, who depreciate God's holy ordinance, deny its fanctifying efficacy, and convert the workings of a feverish brain, or the impulse of vifionary feelings, into the operation of the Spirit of truth. rr Such a doctrine the Enthusiast may teach, and the deluded multitude may follow. But it was a very different regeneration, for which P Enthusiasm of Methodists, &c. vol. ii. p. 3, 140. Paul prepared the Gentiles, when he was fent to open their eyes, and to turn them from "darkness to light, and from the power of "Satan unto God ':" and it was a very different vision to which he was obedient, when he repelled the charge of infanity by speaking forth the words of truth and fobernefs; and forced from the royal Jew that memorable and difinterested confeffion, Almoft thou "perfuadeft me to be a Chriftian." Now unto God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghoft, three perfons in the unity of one Godhead, be all honour and glory for ever. Amen. 1 Acts xxvi. 18. DISCOURSE VII. MATT. Xviii. 2, 3. And Jefus called a little child unto him, and fet him in the midst of them, And faid, Verily I fay unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven, ALL the difpenfations of Providence are tempered by an harmonious principle; and in the moral, as well as in the natural, world, every effect has an evident relation to its cause. In operations, whether intellectual or material, it is irrational to expect fimilar results in cafes, between which an important difference prevails, as to the powers of the agent, the difpofition of the patient, and the numerous contingent circumstances, by which they are respectively modified. Eye-witneffes of the life, miracles, and refurrection of Chrift; capable from their perfonal observation of demonftrating the fulfil ment of ancient prophecies; armed themselves alfo with miraculous power, and endued by the Holy Ghost with the faculty of speaking the language of every nation under heaven; the Apoftles preached the doctrines of Chriftianity to men, whofe fenfes bore testimony to the fupernatural endowments of the preachers and thus "in the demonftration of the Spirit and of power," they converted multitudes to a steadfast belief in Chrift, and to confequent holinefs of living. But therefore to suppose that the eloquence of a mere human preacher, affifted only by the ordinary vifitations of divine grace, is to be followed by the immediate converfion of multitudes of finners, to whom the truths of the Gospel have been long familiar, to uniform habits of Chriftian purity, were as grofs an abfurdity as to fuppose, that a peasant could verify the boast of Archimedes, and move the earth; or that an aftronomer could realize the fiction of romance, and divert the fun from his orbit. The doctrine of converfion, as it is delivered by fome of our modern fectaries, is so much at variance with the more fober, more rational, and (I truft) more evangelical doctrine of the national clergy; and it is so vehemently enforced as abfolutely neceffary to falvation, and the preaching of it is represented as fo indifpenfable a criterion of the preaching of the |