reply to the public, at our expense, not one mis-statement does he venture to indicate. Shall we infer, that where our statements of fact are contradictory to those made by Mr. Colton, he has nothing to say?

"The Spectator, if I mistake not, has admitted them [replies] in form," &c. Mr. C. does mistake on this point, and therefore his statement here, is a "mis-statement, in point of fact." The Quarterly Christian Spectator has uniformly observed the rule of other quarterly reviews.

"Until the periodical censors of the press can be made subject to correction," &c. Whether reviews are to be liable to correction, is not the question. The question is, whether Mr. Colton has any claim on us to publish his reply, more than we, feeling ourselves aggrieved by his book, might have had on him to publish our review. The press is free. Mr. Colton has shown himself, heretofore, able to command types and printers' ink. He may make the periodical censors of the press, all and sundry, subject to correction, whenever he chooses to do so. But whether he can make the reviewers publish such replies, as, if we may judge from this specimen, he would be likely to indite, demands a doubt. We should soon need a standing army of able-bodied men, to compel our subscribers to hold on, if we were to publish all the replies, that would be sent us under the action of such principles.

Not gentlemanly.-Rudeness.- Violent personal assault, and elaborate concatenation of groundless and base inuendoes.-Personalities, &c. What the writer means by all these hard words, is " quite beyond the ken of [our] discernment,” unless he means to condemn us for what we ventured to say about his travels and his changes. Mr. Colton should have given us his specifications. What violent personal assault have we committed? What groundless and base inuendoes have we elaborately concatenated? Mr. Colton has written about himself, half as much as M. Chateaubriand has done. He has been for years publishing almost weekly, somewhat touching his personal adventures, in the columns of one of the most widely circulated journals in the world. He has published books in England, and books in America, containing large materials, of which his future biographers may avail themselves. And is it personality, rudeness, ungentlemanliness, assault, concatenation, and what not, for us to speak publicly of matters which he has taken such pains to make notorious? Nay; Mr. Colton having turned Episcopalian, writes a book in vindication of himself and of episcopacy, in which book the details of his conversion are recorded, for "a psychological curiosity," as Coleridge would say; and it is not ob

scurely set forth, that Mr. Calvin Colton's adhesion to the claims of the Episcopal church, results simply from a certain "enlargedness of mind," acquired by foreign travel. And must we be found guilty of all these high crimes and misdemeanors, because we have not held our peace, and allowed this wise argument to pass as unanswerable. Shall a man publish his own biography, and then complain of personality, because it is reviewed?

The book is not meddled with in the September notice. The book not meddled with! Four pages were given to the examination of the "book, considered as a biography;" and then the book was taken up deliberately, for the investigation of "its merits as a historical work." It would be pleasant to know what is Mr. Colton's idea of meddling with a book.

Meaning, of course, as every reader would see, simply to recognize an identity of principle. We would not be "personal;" but, if it be not an "assault," we would advise Mr. Colton always to say what he means, and not to say in lieu thereof, something which he does not mean. If he will turn to his book, (pp. 12, 13,) he will see, that he said, "the standing order in the State of Connecticut took their stand against the proposal to put all christian sects on an equal footing." He will see, that he said, in effect, that there was a time when, in the State of Connecticut, men had not the liberty of supporting only the religion of their own choice. Yet, if we understand him, he now says he did not mean any such thing. What he did mean, admitting his present disclaimer, is a mystery not yet revealed to our obtuseness.

Exposing faults and concealing excellencies. The December notice was argumentative, not critical. We do not remember, that we exposed any fault on that occasion, except as we exposed, in sundry instances, the erroneousness of the author's premises in his reasoning, or the illegitimacy of his conclusions. To the charge of concealing excellencies we plead not guilty. It was not pertinent to our argument to expatiate on the excellencies of Mr. Colton's book; we have a disgust for that kind of palaver, mixed up with grave discussion; but that we concealed any excellency, let him prove. Will Mr. Colton tell us what excellencies of his book are "concealed" by us? Sunshine of christian candor.-Conscience.-Truth and honesty. As for what is written in connection with these words, it seems to be founded, interjection marks and all, on the vague allegation, that we have concealed the excellencies of Mr. Colton's book. Till that allegation is made good-at least, till a distinct specification of excellencies concealed by us is offered-we say nothing.

This offer was for a while in the state of acceptance. Mr. Colton labors under a mistake in this matter. From the moment in which his book began to be an object of attention, the individual from whose pen the two notices of September and December proceeded, was designated to the task of reviewing it, not only by the Conductors of the Christian Spectator, but by successive requests from respected individuals in different parts of the country. That other gentlemen offered to review the book, we remember. That some offer like that described by Mr. Colton may have been made, is not improbable. But that any such offer was accepted, and afterwards declined, we deny. Indeed, any offer to represent the book in our pages, as being "in general a fair picture of the religious state of the country," would of course have been declined.

I have nowhere spoken unkindly, &c. Mr. Colton has given a representation of the state of religion in the country, that is, in the Presbyterian and Congregational churches, which, as a whole, is in a high degree calumnious. Yet he assures us, that he has no feeling of unkindness. Should the calumny therefore pass unrefuted? Shall we be charged with malignity, because we disturb the blandness of his feelings, by exposing his mistakes?

Items totally incorrect-some of considerable moment. Not one word of specification. To speechify is sometimes more convenient than to specify.

Trespassing on the limits assigned. Mr. Colton is at liberty to expose all our "fallacies and unsound arguments," and to embody the exposure in the next edition of Protestant Jesuitism, or in any book of his which the Harpers, aided by puffs in the New York Courier and Enquirer, can force upon the reading, or more properly, the purchasing public? Let him do it, and, if we have leisure for such a task, we will review the exposure. But really, the complaint because we decline publishing his answer, is repeated a little too often.

One word at parting. The next time Mr. Colton "changes his religious connections," let him do it in silence, and he will find, that he can do it in peace. Let him write no books about it; and he will find no reviewers intruding upon his retirement. If, in the present instance, Mr. Colton had published no thoughts on the religious state of the country, and no reasons for preferring episcopacy; he might have worn his surplice; he might have kept all the fasts and feasts, moveable and immoveable; he might have studied the fathers, and written commentaries on the liturgy; he might have attained to a seat in the house of bishops; and no Presbyterian or Congregationalist would have said aught against him.

THE

QUARTERLY

CHRISTIAN SPECTATOR.

VOLUME IX.-NUMBER IL

JUNE, 1837.

ART.-I. WESLEYAN METHODISM ON THE "WITNESS OF THE SPIRIT."

Methodist Magazine and Quarterly Review. New Series.-Vol. VII. No. 3. New York.

OUR readers will recollect that this subject was introduced to their attention in the Christian Spectator for September last. In that article our remarks were chiefly confined to the practical bearings of Mr. Wesley's doctrine of special revelations. We called it mystical; and our aim was to show, that its legitimate, unobstructed tendency, is most disastrous to christian character. That it is, what we then termed it, an unwarranted and dangerous fancy of mysticism, nothing more is necessary to evince, than a bare view of the doctrine, as Mr. Wesley and his followers have taught it. Who, but a mystic, pretends to special revelations, or talks of "sensible fellowship" with the Holy Spirit; and what can be more injurious to pure religion, than a doctrine which, in principle, is the same with the most luxuriant extravagances which mysticism has ever produced? We regard this doctrine as one of the most marked and objectionable elements of Wesleyan Methodism, as the source of one of the most obnoxious features in its "spiritual economy;" and were it not so vitally connected with every element of this spiritual economy, we should regard it as one of those doctrines which the growing intelliVOL. IX.

22

gence of our Methodist brethren will ultimately prune from their system. As it is, we cannot but hope, that the light of a more wise and sober form of piety is dawning upon their church, and we believe, that it will in a great measure neutralize their tendencies to extravagance. The operation of an erroneous creed or doctrine in the formation of religious character, depends much upon the class of minds upon which it is brought to bear, and upon the circumstances in which that mind is placed; and we have no doubt, that, in proportion as the Methodist body becomes more intelligent, it will correct its extravagances and extinguish that strange fire upon its altars, which, heretofore so often, while some of its more zealous and ignorant disciples have officiated, has burned so fiercely as to deface and blacken its temples.

We have thought, that a recurrence to this subject might be interesting to our readers. Some of them, perhaps, are not familiar with the peculiarities of the Methodist doctrine upon which we have remarked, and it may be profitable to the cause of truth and pure religion, to exhibit and expose it more fully. There is also another circumstance which renders a recurrence to the subject at this time peculiarly appropriate. We have before us a late number of the Methodist Magazine and Quarterly Review, nearly fifty pages of which are occupied with what were evidently designed to be annihilating strictures upon our former article, and to send trembling into the hearts of all who are "self-confident" enough to speak against Methodism. These strictures appear in two articles,--the first written by Dr. Bangs,-the other anonymous, but written, we presume, by Wm. McKendree Bangs, formerly principal of the Methodist school at Wilbraham, Mass., and who in another article propounds a new theory of moral agency, which is plainly the last word, if not the very culminating point of Methodist theology.* Our readers will doubtless suppose, that our reviewers have boldly taken their stand upon Mr. Wesley's doctrine, and fairly met the real question at issue. So we thought to find it when we read Dr. Bangs' name at the head of the first article; but we must be permitted to express our deliberate conviction, that, so far as he is concerned, we have seldom seen a rarer specimen of disingenuousness and

*He makes two kinds of human freedom, physical and moral; the latter only involving responsibility. He then says, "physically, the will cannot but be free;" while "men, by nature, are not morally free;" moral freedom, without which he is not capable of virtue or vice, being merely "incidental" to

man.