ORIGINAL LETTER

In the Life of John Nelson, page 198, it is stated, that, in 1771, he was subpoenaed to appear at the Crown bar," at the York Assizes, to give evidence on the trial of a woman "charged with a capital crime." The letter in which he himself refers to the occurrence (addressed to the Rev. Charles Wesley, and docketed by him, "J. Nelson, -Trial of a murtherer") has been preserved. It was given by Miss Wesley to Thomas Marriott, Esq., by whom we are now enabled to lay it before our readers.-EDIT.

TO THE REV. MR. CHARLES WESLEY, AT THE FOUNDERY, NEAR MOORFIELDS, LONDON.

DEAR SIR, THIS with my duty to you, and earnest prayers for you and yours, and all the church of God.

I think it my duty to acquaint you how it went with me at York, after the horrible murder of our dear brother, William Smith. I was sent for to appear before four Justices, and asked many questions;

dual faith, but is ministered by a definite and exclusive order of men, through the intervention of the sacraments. If this scheme is right, the one propounded above most assuredly is wrong; but if the statements of the present paper are right, then what are called "church principles " are not only mistakes, but mistakes having in Scripture a certain character ascribed to them. They constitute the very apostasy which was predicted as the characteristic apostasy of the latter days; namely, the possession of the form of godliness, connected with the denial of its power. Under these circumstances, it was necessary to enlarge upon the nature and character of reli

of the correctness of the exposition given above of St. John's statement; namely, its exact and entire harmony with the whole scheme of religion as presented in holy writ, and as running through all dispensations. The conclusion of the paper will show the argument under, perhaps, its most important aspect. The life of God in the soul is God's standing witness concerning his Son; that is, it is the intended and abiding evidence of both the truth and value of Christianity. The reader is respectfully referred to three papers on

OF JOHN NELSON.

then bound by them, in a £20 bond, to appear at York Assizes. Some would not have let me go but, for the Gospel's sake, I would not have missed going for an hundred pounds, though I bore my own charges.

I was the first person called; and great silence was in the court. The Judge asked me, if I knew the deceased. I answered, "Yes." He said, "Do you know the prisoners at the bar?" I replied, "Not in person, till this day, my Lord." He said, "How came you to turn them out of your society?" I said, "For not keeping the rules of our society, my Lord: when any one breaks them, they are reproved; and if that will not do, we declare that they are no longer of us.' He said, "What are your rules?" I said, "First, to cease from evil in word and work; from blaspheming the name of God; from evil-speaking, as lying, backbiting, or speaking evil of Magistrates or Ministers; not to buy and sell uncustomed goods; nor to contract debts they cannot pay; nor to make promises, and not to keep them. And I understood that these people at the bar had broken these rules, and had been reproved again and again, to no purpose. Then, my Lord, I declared to the whole congregation, that they that looked fine in other birds' feathers, and fared sumptuously at other men's expense, were not fit for a religious society ;-no! they were no better than thieves and robbers; and I bade all beware of such, for they were not of us; and they were crossed out from among And we declare to the whole

us.

an Magazine for January, February, and March, 1837. The question is there examined in its principles, and pursued to its resulting details.

Jury, Counsel and Sheriff, that I could not have done anywhere else;

and I doubt not but it will remove prejudice out of the minds of many, and be for the furtherance of the Gospel. The Class-Leader was called, and heard with much attention. Then the other witnesses were called, and the man condemned, and afterwards confessed the crime.

I think we ought to bless God that they were turned out, in so public a manner, so long before the

crime was committed. The Lord is converting some sinners amongst us, and several have died in triumph : old Mrs. Romaine for one. O, Sir, pray for me, and beg the prayers of all the church! My wife hath had a bad winter. This from

Your unworthy brother and son
to serve in the Gospel,
JOHN NELSON.

March 28th, 1771.

:

"Some time ago, when under a serious concern about my soul, on returning a visit to a family in a neighbouring town, I found that they had become converts to the Popish faith. The Priest called, and I was introduced to him as a religious inquirer. He invited the family and myself to spend the following afternoon at his house, and promised to give me some religious instruction. We went; and, shortly after our arrival, cards were introduced. I refused to play, considering it sinful. The Priest expostulated with me, saying, there could be no sin in bits of paper. After the rest of the party had played, the Priest said it was time for us to go to the chapel; where, among other prayers, he read one for a person who had recently died,-in consequence of which, the altar was covered with black cloth. On our return to the house, the cards were again brought forward; but, on my again refusing to play, the Priest took me into his study, and there spread before me, on the table, a large picture of a tree, representing the origin of the Romish Church

(similar, it appears, to that described by Mr. Woon). "He then endeavoured to convince me, that Popery was the oldest and purest religion. I told him, I could not reconcile my mind to pray to the Virgin Mary. He replied, 'Do you not think, that the Son would sooner listen to his mother at court, than to a rebel at a distance?' I also objected to his doctrine of purgatory. He said, 'Christ went to purgatory.' I answered, 'The words of Christ to the thief were, To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise.' The Priest then said, 'Well, you may call it paradise, if you will.' Before we parted, he gave me a book which he had written, told me to pray for direction; and that then, in less than twelve months, I should be right. Some time after this he came to my father's house; sang the profane song, 'The drunken Vicar' and reeled about the room with the glass in his hand, to suit his action to the words. I also found that he was accustomed to attend dancing entertainments. I then formed such an idea of Popery, that I heartily thank God for having preserved me from its unchristian influence."

Such was the statement given to me; and which, but yesterday, was again confirmed.

"O for that warning voice which he who saw The' apocalypse heard cry in heaven,"

"Babylon the great is fallen, is

fallen. Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached

unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities."

SAMUEL DUNN.
Dudley, March 9th, 1842.

THE Fathers, both Greek and Latin, had the ill fortune to be extravagantly esteemed by the Church of Rome; whence, under a natural re-action, they were systematically depreciated by the great leaders of the Protestant Reformation: and yet hardly in a corresponding degree. For there was, after all, even among the Reformers, a deep-seated prejudice in behalf of all that was "primitive" in Christianity; under which term, by some confusion of ideas, the Fathers often benefited. Primitive Christianity was reasonably venerated; and on this argument, that, for the first three centuries, it was necessarily more sincere. We do not think so much of that sincerity which affronted the fear of persecution; because, after all, the searching persecutions were rare and intermitting; and not, perhaps, in any case, so fiery as they have been represented. We think more of that gentle, but insidious, persecution which lay in the solicitations of besieging friends; and more still of the continual temptations which haunted the irresolute Christian in the fascinations of the public amusements. The theatre, the circus, and, far beyond both, the cruel amphitheatre, constituted, for the ancient world, a passionate enjoyment, that, by many authors, and especially through one period of time, is described as going to the verge of frenzy. And we, in modern times, are far too little aware in what degree these great carnivals, together with another attraction of great cities, the pomps and festivals of the pagan worship, broke the monotony of domestic life, which, for the old world, was even more oppressive than it is for us. In all principal cities, so as to be within the reach of almost all provincial inhabitants, there was a hippodrome, often uniting the functions of the

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circus and the amphitheatre; and there was a theatre. From all such pleasures the Christian was sternly excluded, by his very profession of faith. From the festivals of the pagan religion his exclusion was even more absolute; against them he was a sworn militant protester from the hour of his baptism. And when these modes of pleasurable relaxation had been subtracted from ancient life, what could remain? Even less, perhaps, than most readers have been led to consider. the ancients had no such power of extensive locomotion, of refreshment for their wearied minds, by travelling and change of scene, as we children of modern civilization possess. No ships had then been fitted up for passengers, nor public carriages established, nor roads opened extensively, nor hotels so much as imagined hypothetically; because the relation of geva, or the obligation to reciprocal hospitality, and, latterly, the Roman relation of patron and client, had stifled the first motions of enterprise of the ancients; in fact, no man travelled but the soldier and the man of political authority. Consequently, in sacrificing public amusements, the Christian sacrificed all pleasure whatsoever that was not rigorously domestic; whilst, in facing the contingencies of persecutions that might arise under the rapid succession of changing Emperors, they faced a perpetual anxiety more trying to the fortitude than any fixed and measurable evil. Here, certainly, we have a guarantee for the deep faithfulness of early Christians, such as never can exist for more mixed bodies of professors, subject to no searching trials.

Better the primitive Christians were, (by no means individually better, but better on the total body,) yet they were not, in any intellectual

sense, wiser.

Unquestionably, the elder Christians participated in the local follies, prejudices, superstitions of their several provinces and cities, except where any of these happened to be too conspicuously at war with the spirit of love, or the spirit of purity, which exhaled at every point from the Christian faith; and, in all intellectual features, as were the Christians generally, such were the Fathers. Amongst the Greek Fathers, one might be unusually learned, as Clement of Alexandria; and another might be reputed unusually eloquent, as Gregory Nazianzen, or Basil. Amongst the Latin Fathers, one might be a man of admirable genius, as far beyond the poor, vaunted Rousseau, in the impassioned grandeur of his thoughts, as he was in truth and purity of heart,-we speak of St. Augustine, usually called St. Austin; and many might be distinguished by various literary merits. But could these advantages anticipate a higher civilization?

Most unquestionably, some of the Fathers were the élite of their own age, but not in advance of their age. They, like all their contemporaries, were besieged by errors, ancient, inveterate, traditional; and accidentally, from one cause special to themselves, they were not merely liable to error, but usually prone to error.

This cause lay in the polemic form which so often they found a necessity, or a convenience, or a temptation, for assuming, as teachers or defenders of the truth.

He who reveals a body of awful truth to a candid and willing auditory, is content with the grand simplicities of truth in the quality of his proofs. And truth, where it happens to be of a high order, is generally its own witness to all who approach it in the spirit of child-like docility. But far different is the position of that teacher who addresses an audience composed, in various proportions, of sceptical inquirers, obstinate opponents, and malignant scoffers. Less than an Apostle is unequal to the suppression of all human re-actions incident to wounded sensibilities. Scorn is

too naturally met by retorted scorn: malignity in the Pagan, which characterized all the known cases of signal opposition to Christianity, could not but hurry many good men into a vindictive pursuit of victory. Generally, where truth is communicated polemically, (that is, not as it exists in its own inner simplicity, but as it exists in external relation to error,) the temptation is excessive to use those arguments which will tell, at the moment, upon the crowd of bystanders, in preference to those which will approve themselves ultimately to enlightened disciples. Hence it is, that, like the professional rhetoricians of Athens, not seldom the Christian Fathers, when urgently pressed by an antagonist equally mendacious and ignorant, could not resist the human instinct for employing arguments such as would baffle and confound the unprincipled opponent, rather than such as would satisfy the mature Christian. If a man denied himself all specious arguments, and all artifices of dialectic subtlety, he must renounce the hopes of a present triumph; for the light of absolute truth, on moral or on spiritual themes, is too dazzling to be sustained by the diseased optics of those habituated to darkness. And hence we explain not only the many gross delusions of the Fathers, their sophisms, their errors of fact and chronology, their attempts to build great truths upon fantastic etymologies, or upon popular conceits in science that have long since been exploded,-but also their occasional unchristian tempers. To contend with an unprincipled and malicious liar, such as Julian the Apostate, (in its original sense, the first deliberate miscreant,) offered a dreadful snare to any man's charity. And he must be a furious bigot, who will justify the rancorous lampoons of Gregory Nazianzen. Are we, then, angry on behalf of Julian? So far as he was interested, not for a moment would we have suspended the descending scourge. Cut him to the bone!" we should have exclaimed at the time. "Lay the knout into every 'raw' that can be found!" For

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