10. If you say, “Because you hold opinions which I cannot believe are true:” I answer, Believe them true or false; I will not quarrel with you about any opinion. Only see that your heart be right toward God, that you know and love the Lord Jesus Christ; that you love your neighbour, and walk as your master walked, and I desire no more. I am sick of opinions: I am weary to bear them. My soul loaths this frothy food. Give me solid and substantial religion. Give me an humble, gentle lover of God and man; a man full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy: a man laying himself out in the work of faith, the patience of hope, the labour of love. Let my soul be with these Christians, wheresoever they are, and whatsoever opinion they are of. Whosoever thus doth the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.
11. Inexcusably infatuated must you be, if you can even doubt whether the propagation of this religion be of God! Only more inexcusable are those unhappy men, who oppose, contradict, and blaspheme it.
How long will you stop your ears against him, that still crieth, Why persecutest thou me? It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks; for a man to contend with his Maker. How long will you despise the well-known advice of a great and learned man, Refrain from these men, and let them alone. If this work be of man, it will come to nought. But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it. And why should you be found even to fight against God? If a man fight with God, shall he prevail? Canst thou thunder with a voice like him? Make haste. Fall down. Humble thyself before him. Lest he put forth his hand and thou perish!
12. How long will you fight under the banner of the great enemy of God and ♦man? You are now in his service: you are taking part with the devil against God. Even supposing there were no other proof, this would undeniably appear, from the goodly company among whom you are enlisted, and who war one and the same warfare. I have heard some affirm, that the most bitter enemies to the present work of God, were Pharisees. They meant, men who had the form of godliness, but denied the power of it. But I cannot say so. The sharpest adversaries thereof whom I have hitherto known (unless one might except a few honourable men, whom I may be excused from naming) were the scum of Cornwall, the rabble of Bilston and Darlaston; the wild beasts of Walsal, and the turnkeys of Newgate.
13. Might not the very sight of these troops, shew any reasonable man, to what general they belonged? As well as the weapons they never fail to use; the most horrid oaths and execrations, and lawless violence, carrying away as a flood whatsoever it is which stands before it: having no eyes, nor ears, no regard to the loudest cries of reason, justice or humanity. Can you join heart or hands with these any longer? With such an infamous, scandalous rabble-rout, roaring and raging, as if they were just broke loose, with their captain Apollyon, from the bottomless pit? Does it not rather concern you, and that in the highest degree, as well as every friend to his king and country, every lover of peace, justice and mercy, immediately to join and stop any such godless crew, as they would join to stop a fire just beginning to spread, or an inundation of the sea?
14. If, on the contrary, you join with that godless crew, and strengthen their hands in their wickedness, must not you, in all reason, be accounted, (like them) a public enemy of mankind? And indeed such must every one appear, in the eye of unprejudiced reason, who opposes directly or indirectly, the reformation of mankind. By reformation I mean, the bringing them back (not to this or that system of opinions, or to this or that sett of rites and ceremonies, how decent and significant soever: but) to the calm love of God and one another, to an uniform practice of justice, mercy and truth. With what colour can you lay any claim to humanity, to benevolence, to public spirit, if you can once open your mouth, or stir one finger, against such a reformation as this?
* ’Tis a poor excuse to say, “O, but the people are brought into several erroneous opinions.” It matters not a straw, whether they are or no; (I speak of such opinions as do not touch the foundation) it is scarce worth while to spend ten words about it. Whether they embrace this religious opinion or that, is no more concern to me, than whether they embrace this or that system of astronomy. Are they brought to holy tempers and holy lives? This is mine, and should be your enquiry: since on this, both social and personal happiness depend; happiness, temporal and eternal. Are they brought to the love of God and the love of their neighbour? Pure religion and undefiled is this. How long then will you darken counsel, by words without knowledge? The plain religion now propagated is LOVE. And can you oppose this, without being an enemy to mankind?
15. No; nor without being an enemy to your king and country: especially at such a time as this. For however men of no thought may not see and regard it, or hectoring cowards may brave it out, it is evident to every man of calm reflection, that our nation stands on the very brink of destruction. And why are we thus, but because the cry of our wickedness is gone up to heaven? Because we have so exceedingly, abundantly, beyond measure, corrupted our ways before the Lord. And because to all our other abominations we have added, the open fighting against God; the not only rejecting, but even denying, yea, blaspheming his last offers of mercy; the hindering others who were desirous to close therewith; the despitefully using his messengers, and the variously troubling and oppressing those who did accept of his grace, break off their sins, and turn to him with their whole heart.
16. I cannot but believe, it is chiefly on this account, that God hath now a controversy with our land. And must not any considerate man be inclined to form the same judgment, if he reviews the state of public affairs, for only a few years last past? I will not enter into particulars. But, in general, can you possibly help observing, that whenever there has been any thing like a public attempt, to suppress this new sect, (for so it was artfully represented) another and another public trouble arose. This has been repeated so often, that it is surprising any man of sense can avoid taking notice of it. May we turn at length to him that smiteth us, hearing the rod and him that appointeth it! May we humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, before the great deep swallow us up!
17. Just now, viz. on the 4th of this instant, December, the Rev. Mr. Henry Wickham, one of his Majesty’s justices of peace for the west-riding of Yorkshire writes an order
To the constable of Kighley, commanding him, “to convey the body of Jonathan Reeves, (whose real crime is, the calling sinners to repentance) to his Majesty’s gaol and castle of York: suspected (said the precept) of being a spy among us, and a dangerous man to the person and government of his Majesty King George.”
God avert the omen! I fear this is no presage either of the repentance or deliverance of our poor nation!
18. If we will not turn and repent, if we will harden our hearts, and acknowledge neither his judgments nor mercies; what remains but the fulfilling of that dreadful word, which God spake by the prophet Ezekiel: Son of man when the land sinneth against me, by trespassing grievously; then will I stretch forth my hand upon it, and break the staff of the bread thereof.——Though these three men, Noah, Daniel and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls. Or if I bring a sword upon the land, and say, “Sword, go through the land:”——Or if I send a pestilence into that land, and pour out my fury upon it in blood:——Though Noah, Daniel and Job were in it, as I live, saith the Lord God, they shall deliver neither son nor daughter; they shall but deliver their own souls by their righteousness, chapter xiv. verses 13, 14, 17, 19, 20.
Yet behold, therein shall be left a remnant, that shall be brought forth, both sons and daughters.—And ye shall be comforted concerning the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem.—And ye shall know that I have not done without cause, all that I have done in it, saith the Lord God. Verses 22, 23.
London,
December 18, 1745.