In the second book of Warburton’s ‘Doctrine of Grace’ there is a singular instance of apparent incapacity on the part of a most able reasoner to acknowledge the possible existence in his own day of other spiritual influences than those which, in the most limited sense of the word, may be called ordinary.  He is speaking of the splendour of the gifts which shed their glory upon the primitive Church and afterwards passed away.  He dwells with admiration upon the sudden and entire changes which were made in the dispositions and manner of those whom the Holy Spirit had enlightened.  Sacred antiquity, he says, is unmistakeable in its evidence on this point, and even the assailers of Christianity confessed it.  Conversions were effected among early Christians such as could not be the result of mere rational conviction.  It is utterly impossible for the magisterial faculty of reason to enforce her conclusions with such immediate power, and to win over the will with such irresistible force, as to root out at once inveterate habits of vice.  ’To what must we ascribe so total a reform, but to the all-powerful operation of grace?’[478] These remarks are true enough; but it seems incredible that, writing in the very midst of an extraordinary religious outburst, he should calmly assume the impossibility in other than primitive times of such sudden changes from irreligion to piety, and should even place the miraculous conversions of apostolic times at the head of an argument against Methodist enthusiasts.  Well might Wesley remark with some surprise, ’Never were reflections more just than these,’[479] and go on to show that the very same changes were constantly occurring still.

In truth, it may be said without any disparagement of a host of eminent English divines of the eighteenth century, that their entire sympathies were with the reasonable rather than with the spiritual side of religion.  Their ideal of Christian perfection was in many respects an elevated one, but absolutely divested of that mystic element which in every age of the Church has seemed to be inseparable from the higher types of saintliness.  If we may judge from the treatises of Lord Lyttelton and Dean Graves, the character even of the apostles had to be carefully vindicated from all suspicion of any taint of enthusiasm if they were to maintain their full place of reverence as leaders and princes of the Christian army.  Only it must not be supposed that this religious characteristic of the age was by any means confined to the sceptical and indifferent on the one hand, or to persons of a sober and reflective spirit on the other.  It was almost universal.  John Wesley, for example, repeatedly and anxiously rebuts the charges of enthusiasm which were levelled upon him from all sides.  He would have it understood that he had for ever done with enthusiasm when once he had separated from the Moravians.  The same shrinking from the name, as one of opprobrium, is shown by Dr. Watts;[480] and one of the greatest troubles in Hannah More’s life seems to have been her annoyance, that she and other faithful members of the English Church should be defamed as encouragers of enthusiasm.[481]