pinion was such a 'saving faith', that
they could not at all interpret any language that seemed to dispute
their value, or deny their importance.

Poor strange Jews! They had, doubtless, what Darwin would call a
specific 'paralysis' of the auditory nerves to the writings of their own
Prophets, which yet were read Sabbath after Sabbath in their public
Synagogues. For neither John nor Christ himself ever did, or indeed
could, speak in language more contemptuous of the folly of considering
rites as substitutions for moral duty, or in severer words denounce the
blasphemy of such an opinion. Why need I refer to Isaiah or Micah?

Ib. p. 34.

Thus it was that this moral preacher explained and enforced the duty
of repentance, and thus it was that he prepared the way for the
greatest and best of teachers, &c.

Well then, if all this was but a preparation for the doctrines of
Christ, those doctrines themselves must surely have been something
different, and more difficult? Oh no! John's preparation consisted in a
complete rehearsal of the 'Drama didacticum', which Christ and the
Apostles were to exhibit to a full audience!--Nay, prithee, good
Barrister! do not be too rash in charging the Methodists with a
monstrous burlesque of the Gospel!

Ib. p. 37.

--the logic of the new Evangelists will convince him that it is a
contradiction in terms even to 'suppose' himself 'capable of doing any
thing' to help 'or bringing any thing to recommend himself to the
Divine favour'.

Now, suppose the wisdom of these endless attacks on an old abstruse
metaphysical notion to be allowed, yet why in the name of common candour
does not the Barrister ring the same 'tocsin' against his friend Dr.
Priestley's scheme of Necessity;--or against his idolized Paley, who
explained the will as a sensation, produced by the action of the
intellect on the muscles, and the intellect itself as a catenation of
ideas, and ideas as configurations of the organized brain? Would not
every syllable apply, yea, and more strongly, more indisputably? And
would his fellow-sectaries thank him, or admit the consequences? Or has
any late Socinian divine discovered, that Do as ye would be done unto,
is an interpolated precept?

Ib. p. 39.

"Even repentance and faith," (says Dr. Hawker,) "those most essential
qualifications of the mind, for the participation and enjoyment of the
blessings of the Gospel, (and which all real disciples of the