Here lies the point, Rev. Sir: the generality of the clergy are offended in their hearts, that his majesty is so mild towards his harmless and loyal people the Methodists. They have denied the Methodist preachers the use of their churches, and think, if field-preaching was put a stop to, Methodism, as they term it, would be less extensive. But were they to gain their point, and the preachers to be bound, yet perhaps after all they would find themselves mistaken, for the word of GOD would not be bound. And I remember a saying of the then Lord Chancellor to that holy martyr _Bradford_, “Thou hast done more hurt (as he called it) by thy letters and exhortations since thou hast been in prison, than thou ever didst before.” However this be, field-preaching is at present the clergy’s eye-sore. Hence they raise a clamour that it is unlawful. We deny it. We say the act of toleration urged against us is nothing to the purpose, for we are true members of the established church; and that if we were not (_quod magno mercenter Atridæ_) yet the trial of _Mede_ and _Pen_ is an adjudged case. But still, if you or any other person please to move for an information against me, for preaching in a field, or a street, though I purpose to go abroad shortly, yet I shall think it my duty to stay some time, to make a legal defence. But if not, henceforward whatever questions may be put to me in print, about the lawfulness of field-preaching, they will lie unanswered.
Not that I think it is barely field-preaching that gives the generality of the clergy such offence. No, it is the doctrine that I preach there, that is the grand cause of their contending with me. You are pleased, Rev. Sir, to say (Page 39th) “That I have revived the old _Calvinistical disputes_ concerning predestination, &c.” (I suppose you mean justification by faith alone, the imputed righteousness of JESUS CHRIST, man’s utter inability to turn to GOD, or to do good works, &c.) “Which you say had happily slept for so many years.” But if this be my shame, I glory in it. For what is this but reviving the essential articles of the _Church of England_, which undoubtedly are Calvinistical, and which, by your own confession, have happily slept for so many years? This is too true. But however you may count this a happiness, yet in my opinion it is one of the greatest judgments that has befallen our nation. And if it had not been for the remnant of free-grace, dissenting ministers, (stiled by the author of the observations, dissenting teachers) and the little flock of the Methodist preachers, that the LORD JESUS has raised up and preserved amongst us, many of the essential doctrines of the articles of the Church of _England_ might have, as you term it, happily slept many years more.