The question is not whether Christ will
say, 'Well done thou good and faithful servant', &c.;--but whether the
servant is to say it of himself. Now Christ has delivered as positive a
precept against our doing this as the promise can be that he will impute
it to us, if we do not impute it to our own merits.
Ib. p. 60.
The complaints of the profligacy of servants of every class, and of
the depravity of the times are in every body's hearing:--and these
Evangelical tutors--the dear Mr. Lovegoods of the day--deserve the
best attention of the public for thus instructing the ignorant
multitude, who are always ready enough to neglect their moral duties,
to despise and insult those by whom they are taught.
All this is no better than infamous slander, unless the Barrister can
prove that these depraved servants and thieves are Methodists, or have
been wicked in proportion as they were proselyted to Methodism. O folly!
This is indeed to secure the triumph of these enthusiasts.
Ib.
It must afford him (Rowland Hill) great consolation, amidst the
increasing immorality * * * that when their village Curate exhorts
them, if they have 'faith' in the doctrine of a world to come, to add
to it those 'good works' in which the sum and substance of religion
consist, he has led them to ridicule him, as 'chopping a
new-fashioned' logic.
That this is either false or nugatory, see proved in The Friend.
Ib. p. 68.
Tom Payne himself never laboured harder to root all virtue out of
society.
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