It would not be difficult to gather from the answers to the nine hundred biblical and theological questions in the _Athenian Gazette_, the principal points of Mr Wesley’s creed. The longest theological articles are those levelled against the Baptists and the Quakers. One piece alone, written against the former, fills nearly fifty pages of the _Athenian Oracle_; and against the latter there are several articles, showing that the Lincolnshire rector was no ardent admirer of the broad-brimmed followers of George Fox. They are charged with intolerance, enthusiasm, silliness, and with holding dangerous opinions and detestable doctrines. A Quaker, in fact, was a mischievous and troublesome compendium of all sorts of heresies. Samuel Wesley, as a rule, was generous and liberal in his sentiments respecting others; but some sects and parties, at the close of the seventeenth century, were so fanatical, bigoted, bitter, and offensive, that he found it difficult to regard them with the same fraternal feelings with which he regarded Christian brotherhoods in general. With one or two exceptions, the theological and religious views of Samuel Wesley were as Scriptural and as sound as the standard of Methodist teaching contained in the well-known Sermons and Notes of his son John. There may be a difference of phraseology between the father and son, but their doctrines are _substantially_ the same. Our space forbids lengthened quotations; but perhaps the following extracts from the _Athenian Oracle_ will not be unacceptable, as containing statements of Scripture doctrines, and as tending to exhibit the opinions of Mr Wesley on some of the most important verities of the Christian religion, and on some of the most interesting points of ecclesiastical polity. Samuel Wesley was a firm believer in the authenticity of the Holy Scriptures. He contends that the Bible now used “is the same that was written by the apostles and prophets,” and that, because they were “inspired by the Spirit of God,” the Bible “is the very Word of God.”[45] ----- Footnote 45: _Athenian Oracle_, vol. i. p. 260. 2d Edition. -----