are
contented simply to complain about the lower class tone of the Methodist
movement, to note generally, as Dryden and Swift had noted before, that
Protestantism contained the seeds of mob rule. The anonymous author of
_The Saints_ fears "Their frantic pray'r [is] a mere _Decoy_ for _Mob_"
(p. 4) and the author[4] of _The Methodist and Mimic_ claims that
Whitefield's preaching sends "the Brainless Mob a gadding" (p. 15). Evan
Lloyd is the one anti-Methodist satirist who explores the larger
implications.

Lloyd constructs his satire around the theme of general corruption, that
nothing is so virtuous that it cannot be spoiled either by man's weakness
or by time. The theme is common in the period and could have become
banal, except that Lloyd applies it to the corruption of the Church
and its manifestations in daily life, giving it an immediate, lively
reference. The Methodist practice of lay preachers, for example, Lloyd
treats as an instance of the collapse of the class system:

Each vulgar Trade, each sweaty Brow
Is search'd....
Hence ev'ry Blockhead, Knave, and Dunce,
Start into Preachers all at once (p. 29).

Lloyd combines the language of theology, government, and civil order to
suggest a connection between recent riots, the excesses of the Earl of
Bute, the Protestant belief that religious concepts are easily understood
by all social classes, democracy, the emotional displays of Methodism,
and lay preachers:

Hence Ignorance of ev'ry size,
Of ev'ry shape Wit can devise,
Altho' so dull it hardly knows, ...
When it is Day, or when 'tis Night,
Shall yet pretend to keep the Key
Of _God_'s dark Secrets, and display
His _hidden Mysteries_, as free
As if _God's privy Council_ He,
Shall to his Presence rush, and dare
To raise a _pious Riot_ there (pp. 29-30).

Lloyd presents an essentially disorderly world in which chaos spreads
almost inevitably, in which riots, corrupt ministers, arrogant fools,
disrespectful lower classes, giddy middle classes, and lascivious upper
classes are barely kept in check by a system of social class, government,
and church. Now, with the checks withdrawn, lawyers and physicians spread
their own disorder even further as they:

Quit their beloved wrangling _Hall_,
More loudly in a _Church_ to bawl: ...
And full as fervent, on their Knees,
For _Heav'n_ they pray, as once for _Fees_; ...
The _Physic-Tribe_ the