Mr. URBAN,

You

Bala, Nov. 19. OUR ufual impartiality encourages me to hope you will give a place, in fome corner of your ufeful journal, to a few remarks in anfwer to the bold, not to fay malicious, affertions of your correfpondent W. M. B. p. 741, refpecting the Welsh Methodists. Your Tourifts can be no proper judges of what is delivered in a language to them unintelligible; therefore I shall pafs over in filence their hafty farcafms, tending to hold them up as objects of obloquy and ridicule; but W. M. B's charge is of a much more ferious nature; his defign is, by impeaching their loyalty, to calumniate them as a body, and to prejudice the public mind against them. Such a heavy charge ought not to be paffed over unnoticed; filence here is criminal, and not much better than admitting the charge; befides, the publick have a right to demand fatisfaction on this head. If it can be proved, that the Welth Methodifts are Jacobins, and rooted enemies to the exifting laws and conftituted authorities of this country, they confeffedly deferve no protection; but their ungrateful conduct muft forfeit every claim they can have upon their country for the indulgence they have hitherto experienced. But is this a fact refpecting them? are they in reality fuch traitors, or only falfely reprefented as fuch by your correfpondent? To prove this charge, W. M. B. ought in juftice to have produced fome firong and convincing evidence from notorious facts; inftead of which, we have only his anonymous and unsubstantiated affertions, to criminate a numerous body of people as guilty of the blackest and moft enormous crime; a crime, which as a body they unanimouflyab

for thefe fixty years paft, will bear the fevereft fcrutiny. The contrary can never be proved against them, with whatever confidence it may be afferted by ignorance and calumny.

They believe the Bible, and bow implicitly to its divine authority: in this beft of books they are enjoined to fear God, and honour the King; nor do they believe the firft can fubfift in the mind, without the other being a fruit of it.

Feeling the force of the divine injunction, they are confcientiously fupporters of a regular government and due fubordination; and are firmly attached to their lawful and beloved Sovereign and the happy conftitution of their country. Thoufands, who attend their preaching throughout the Principality, can bear teftimony, that on all proper occations they inculcate principles of loyalty and fubjection to the higher powers, not only for wrath, but for confcience fake. It is one of the rules of their focieties, that none are to be admitted or continued as members, who fpeak evil of dignities. They have not been unwilling contributors towards the internal defence of their country, when menaced by an implacable enemy. When actually invaded, their loyalty and zeal were confpicuous to all; and there are now hundreds, to my certain knowledge, who have freely engaged themselves in the different corps through the Principality. Can any fact fpeak more avowedly and more forcibly in proof of the loyalty of the Welth Methodifts, than that on the anniverfary of the reduction of the French invaders in South Wales Methodists have a public day of thanksgiving for that mercy? Thefe are facts, Mr. Urban, which may be depended upon, and which are well known to many in this country as well as myself. It will, I truft, give you pleasure, as well as to many of your readers, to know that, on the moft diligent enquiry, I cannot find one fingle tract of

the

that

that enemy of all godlinefs T. Paine tranflated into the Welth language: of confequence, your correfpondent must have been mifinformed when he afferts, that they have been diftributed by the Welth Methodists.

A fmall publication, indeed, of a fimilar tendency was publlihed a few years back in the Welsh language; but both the author and the diftributors of it were as decided enemies to the Methodifts, as your correfpondent himself can be. The leaders of the Welth Methodifts, without any exception, deteft the principles contained in it.

What your correfpondent means by afferting, that the Methoditt preachers are fent into this country to diffeminate T. Paine's principles, I am at a lofs to conceive.

All the Welth preachers are natives, and refident in the country, and well known to their countrymen at large. If your correfpondent's information had been more accurate, and his prejudice lefs, he would have noticed a fmall pamphlet (entitled "Scren tangwrnwl," A word in feafon; between four and five thousand were distributed in Welth and English), publifhed by one of thefe ignorant and fanatical preachers (as fome of your correfpondents are pleafed to reprefent them); in which the baneful influence of French principles, and the devaftation they produce, are contrafted with the fuperior bletlings which we enjoy in our highly-favoured country. This pamphlet, Mr. Urban, is well known to have been openly diftributed by the leaders of this fect; and the effects of it have been very beneficial.

The doctrines preached, and the morality inculcated, by the Methodifts, are drawn from the pure fountain of infpiration; and are in exact conformity with the articles of the Established Church. In every numerous body of people, the learning, knowledge, and abilities, of the feveral individuals which compofe it, muft be various and very difproportioned; but, whilft it

is admitted of many (it is not true of all) of the Methodist preachers, that they have not had the advantage of a liberal education, does that of neceflity prove that they must be such ideots as your correspondent. affects to reprefent them? In Scripture knowledge, perhaps, illiterate as they are, they may excel inany who defpife and vilify them.

The Bible is familiar to them, and underflood in no otherlight than that in which our great Reformers explained it. Bodily agitations in their affemblies conftitute no eifential part of their religion. When the mind is affected by the various and contrary fenfations of joy and forrow, correfpondent bodily effects (fuch is the wonderful connexion between them) will, in more or lefs degree, be exprefled; and, when thefe firong feelings of the mind are fanctified and attended with evident reformation of morals, and true diligent attention to religious duties both public and private, I dare not utterly condemn them: the Lord Jefus himfelf was thought to be poffeffed of a devil, by the wife and religious of his time; his Apoftles, filled with the Holy Ghott, were declared to be drunk;

and another was pronounced a madman through too much learning. Caution here is wifdom; left our words fhould at laft condemn us. T. CHARLES.

MR. URBAN,

HLXIX.

Jan. 12. AD your correfpondent, vol. LXIX. p. 460, recurred to the lift of the feveral preachers of Lady Moyer's Lectures, from the firft foundation to 1741, referred to in p. 297, col. I, he would not have defcribed Dr. William Berriman as the lecturer in 1741, when his brother John Berriman's lectures were published; thofe of William having appeared in 1725.

The prelate, mentioned in p. 590, col. 2, 1. 16, as having obtained the fee of Briftol in 1783, appears, from vol. LXII. p. 391, not to have died "foon after.

Yours, &c... SCRUTATOR.

Mr.

Mr. URBAN, Crewkerne, Jan. 14. N the Dunciadraention is made of

"The Claffics of an age that heard of

none."

Pope here alluded to an ignoramus, who, accidentally meeting with an old edition of the neid, and, imagining he had recovered a work led to the world, gave an account of it as a rare and delectable compofition of a learned poet called Virgil:" relating, "How, after the deftruction of Troy, Æneas was driven," &c.

I fometimes think we are now li

thing new but the name.

"Dicimus itaque .nfpirationem præcipuè infervire ad pabulum nitrufum anim li fubminiftrandom, quo fanguis ita contempe. retor, ut ipiri ibus ad obeunda vitæ munera generandis idoneus fiat. Quemadmodùn enim in fanguine fuccus quidam alibilis per cibos continus fuppetandus requiritur, fine quo fanguis non nutrit; ita ut in aëre, qui quidem alterius generis cibus eft, pabulum hoc nitrofum omnino ncceffarium eft ; eoque deficiente, refpiratio ad vitam nihil confert: adeo ut vivere & aurà vefer apud poetas idem fonent."

What does all this mean, but that oxygen is imparted to the blood in the lungs in infpiration? "The pretended new difcovery!"

In another part of the Prale&tio, the Doctor expreilly fays, this nitrous fpirit (or oxygen) "non animalium modo, fed & plantarum vita

fit."

very

ving amongst «The chemists of an age who heard of none." Witnefs the claim lately fet up to the firft difcovery of oxygen gas, or vital air, which it feems mutt no longer be termed dephlogifticated air. It appears, however, that the learned and accomplished Dean of Wells, Dr, Bathurit, was no firanger to the properties of oxygen as a confiituent part of the atmospheric air, as I fhall prefently prove. In fact, there is nothing new but the word; which is one of the many new ones lately introduced to the perplexity of plain fcholars. It is in vain, Mr. Urban, for compofitors to fearch Ainfworth for the words, oxygen, azot, oxyd, &c. The firft, from the Greek compound, it fhould feem, implies the acid. making air;" the fecond from a privativa, the " life-depriving air;" and, in refpeft to the fatt, the calces of metals are now termed their oxyds: fo that the ruit of an old poker is denominated "the oxyd of iron."

Our kind neighbours, the French, are fo good as to fupply us with thefe new technical terms, which are not quite fo intelligible; as Pluvidfe, Ventofe, Germinal, &c. After this digreffion, I thall quote, from the elegant and claffical Dr. Bathurft's Prælectio tertia de Infpiratione," fome paffages which will ferve to convince your readers that, fo long ago as the year 1654, this learned Divine and Phyfician knew what oxygen was; in which, as I have already obferved, there is no

"Spiritus bic, ut in terrâ primitùs nidulatur, ita exindè in ambientem aërem & aquam fublimatur, & viciflim per aërem aquæ, & per utramque terræ communi-

catur; atque ita circulatione quâdam, per oma diffunditur, &, veluti Platonica inferioris murdi anima, "Totam agitat molem, & magno fe corpore mifcet." VIRGIL.

Nothing I have faid will, I truft, be understood as in the leaft inimical to the late improvements of men, who (in the words of the Committee of the London College) "nuperis abhinc annis, in Chemiam altius fubtiliufque excolendam acriori ftudio incubuerunt;" for, by their labours, the practice of phyfic is ef fentially benefited. My prefent purpofe is to vindicate the claims of thofe who, most afluredly, about the middle of the 17th century, were no ftrangers to doctrines which fome pretend to claim the first difcovery of, towards the end of the 18th. J. CRANE, M. D.

1. A familiar Survey of the Chriftian Religion, and of Hifiory, as connected with the Introduction of Chriftianity, and with its Progress in the prefent Time; intended, primarily, for the Ufe of young Perfons of either Sex, during the Course of public or private Education. By Thomas Gisborne, A. M.

To juftify the ways of God to men, and to feed with the pure milk of the Divine word thofe who have been pampered with the ftrong meat of human reafon, is, in thele times, above all others, a mof commendable undertaking. Every publication of Mr. G. tends to fet the Scripture in that point of view which will infenfibly lead his reader's attention to the important concerns inculcated therein, and to perfuade the pride of human reafon to bow down to the free mercy of its Creator and Redeemer. Even his "Duties of Men and Women" have the precepts of our Saviour and his difciples for their bafis; and to thefe nothing can be fuperadded: it is only necellary to familiarize them to readers bewildered with modern fyftems of Morals and Education, which, proudly prefuming on the efficacy of human reafon, mifcalled Common Senfe, leave. too much to giddy, unreftrained youth to "feel after and find" without in ftruction. Of fuch education (if it deferve the name) the baneful confequences are daily obvious.

Mr. G. infcribes this book to Dr. Benjamin Heath, under whofe tuition, at Harrow, was continued that excel lent plan of religious education which the Rev. Mr. Pickering, of Mackworth, near Derby, begin and carried on for fix years of his earlier life. "The principal fault, when faults exift, is not in the preceptor, but in the parent. The former is to water the plant, the latter muft fow the feed. But how often does the parent limit his concern for the beft interefts of his children to the decorum of mere mo.

rals, without impreffing on their minds, perhaps without feeling on his own, a firm and habitual concern that there is no stable foundation on which morality can reft, except a Chriftian fear and love of God! How often does the parent expend his folicitude in unremitting efforts to fit his children for worldly eminence, to prepare them to make their way as politicians, as

merchants, as followers of lucrative profeffions, to be skilful feamen, intre.

GENT. MAG. January, 1800.

pid foldiers, men of learning, of taste, of accomplishment, and what the world is pleafed to call "men of honour," regardless of the duty of training them up as fervants of a God of holiness, and difciples of a crucified Saviour!" Nothing can be added to render thefe obfervations more impreffive, except a wish that all Mr. G's brethren in the miniftry thought and wrote like him, and, in order to this, lived and acted under the fame impreffion of conviction and duty. We fhould not then fee the miniftration of God's holy word and facraments taken up as an amufe

ment or a maintenance. We thould not then fee the Church of Christ filled with fo many petit maitre and puppyparfons, mere danglers and faineans. Our Bishops would "lay hands fuddenly on no man, would faithfully and wifely make choice of fit perfons to ferve in the facred miniftry;" would enforce refidence, not merely in any place where it may fuit their clergy to refide, but in the parishes to which they have been appointed, or fupply We will hope, however, the example their abfence by proper reprefentatives.. of one Diocefan, who condefcends to inftruct his clergy and laity in the great doctrines of religion, and makes the candidates for orders pafs through have its weight with all his brethren, a ftrict ordeal of examination, will and that they will not content themfelves with occafional charges, which, however energetic and expreflive in the delivery, are no more thought of, in perufal or practice, by thofe to whom This redrefs of they are addreffed. grievances is open to all prelates; and, as they value the Chriftian fyftem as effential to falvation, or to the maintenance of Church Establishment, it equally concerns them to enforce it.

Mr. G's defign in this publication is, to fupply the want of "a trgatife on an enlarged plan, which might fitly intervene between the perutal of books of the elementary clais, and the ample range of reading fcarcely to be expected but from the leifure and industry of manhood; a familiar and compendious view of the Chriftian religion, and of the principal historical events connected with its introduction and progrefs, its corruption and reformation; including a concife account of the Scrip

tures of the Old and New Teflament, and a fummary of the evidences of the

truti