He was too much of a controversialist, and his tone was too political.  There was more light than heat in what he wrote.  So long as it was principally a question of right reason, of sincerity, or of justice, he deserved much praise, and did much good.  In all the qualities which give fire, energy, enthusiasm, he was wanting.  The form in which his religion was cast might suit some natures, but was too cold and dispassionate for general use.  It fell in only too well with the prevailing tendencies of the times.  It might promote, under favouring circumstances, a kind of piety which could be genuine, reflective, and deeply impressed by many of the divine attributes, but which, in most cases, would need to be largely reinforced by other properties not so easily to be found in Hoadly’s writings—­tenderness, imagination, sympathy, practical activity, spiritual intensity.

The rise and advance of Methodism, and its relationship with the English Church, is a subject of very great interest, and one that has occupied the attention of many writers.  In these papers it has been chiefly discussed as one of the two principal branches of the general Evangelical movement.

Treatises on the evidences of Christianity constitute a principal part of the theological literature of the eighteenth century.  No systematic record of the religious history of that period could omit a careful survey of what was said and thought on a topic which absorbed so great an amount of interest.  But if the subject is not entered into at length, a writer upon it can do little more than repeat what has already been concisely and comprehensively told in Mr. Pattison’s well-known essay.  The authors, therefore, of this work have felt that they might be dispensed from devoting to it a separate chapter.  Many incidental remarks, however, which have a direct bearing upon the search into evidences will be found scattered here and there in the course of this work.  The controversy with the Deists necessitated a perpetual reference to the grounds upon which belief is based both in the Christian revelation, and in those fundamental truths of natural religion upon which arguers on either side were agreed.  A great deal also, which in the eighteenth century was proscribed under the name of ‘enthusiasm’ was nothing else in reality than an appeal of the soul of man to the evidence of God’s spirit within him to facts which cannot be grasped by any mere intellectual power.  By the greater part of the writers of that period all reference to an inward light of spiritual discernment was regarded with utter distrust as an illusion and a snare.  From the beginning to the end of the century, theological thought was mainly concentrated on the effort to make use of reason—­God’s plain and universal gift to man—­as the one divinely appointed instrument for the discovery or investigation of all truth.  The examination of evidences, although closely connected with the Deistical controversy, was