But, if the Methodists have been so much to blame, for carrying on this pious work of defamation, in the church and their journals; will that authorise you in practising the same _black art_ in your pamphlet? Give me leave (since you have taken that liberty with me) to gather some of your flowers on this occasion.
“This dangerous and presumptuous sect; ♦strolling predicants; itinerant enthusiasts; methodistical enthusiasts;” with many other flowers of a like nature, though not of a very scriptural scent, may be picked off almost every page of your performance. Upon the review of which, I suppose you will own, that you are at least even with the Methodists. Only it must be allowed, there is this difference; you are taking up a trade, which they, as far as I know to the contrary, have for some time laid down.
♦ “stroling” replaced with “strolling”
And why must you disturb the dead on this occasion? Were there not flowers enough to be gathered out of Mr. _Wesley_’s Journal and mine, without calling up Mr. _Seward_’s ghost (as you have in effect done, by quoting his Journal) in order to terrify your readers? Good man! He has long since entered into his rest, and consequently cannot now answer for himself. Permit me to speak a word or two in behalf of my deceased friend. He was certainly a serious warm christian, but (like his fellow-traveller) in the heat of his zeal, spoke and wrote some unguarded things. His and my treatment of Archbishop _Tillotson_, was by far too severe. We condemned his state, when we ought only in a candid manner, (which I would do again if called to it) to have mentioned what we judged wrong in his doctrines. I do not justify it. I condemn myself most heartily, and ask pardon for it; as, I believe, he would do, was he now alive. But then, do not you still go on, Sir, to imitate us in our faults: Let the surviving Methodists answer for themselves: let _Seward_ and _Tillotson_ lie undisturbed. And if you think me blameworthy (as I certainly was) to write so disrespectful of the one; why should you, by making an ill-natured quotation, rake as it were into the very ashes of the dead, only for the poor gratification of digging up a flower, to blacken the memory of the other?
But to proceed. For several pages, you go on imitating us in this same _pious work of defamation_. If you can bear to read your own words, I will transcribe a few of them: section 6. page 17. “But though these strolling predicants have allured some itching ears, and drawn them aside by calumniating their proper pastors, they have sense enough to know the itch will go off, and their trade not continue long, unless they can produce something novel or uncommon; what the wandering sheep have not been used to in their churches. Therefore they must find out, or rather revive such peculiarities, as have formally attended enthusiasms, and are most likely to captivate the vulgar. Hence their”――But hold, Sir;――and before you run yourself quite out of breath, I intreat you to stop a little, whilst I put to you one or two questions. Believe you these things of the Methodists? I suppose you believe them: otherwise, Why assert them so strongly? How then can you put even a _perhaps_ to your supposition of their “setting out with a _real motive_ of sincere piety?” Had not you best alter the title of your book, or at least make some addition to it? Let it run thus: “The enthusiasm and _imposture_ of the Methodists and Papists compared.” For surely, unless persons were arrived at a very high degree of imposture, they could not purposely (as you seem to infer they did) design these things.
By your leave, we will examine the evidence you produce in proof of these bold assertions: “The first necessary point for drawing followers, is to put on a _sanctified appearance_, by a demure look, and precise behaviour, in discourse or silence, in apparel and food; and other marks of external piety.” Section 7. page 18. Again, section 8. page 20. “At first, the Methodists, as a _shew of humility_, made it a point not to ride, either on horseback or in a coach, though occasionally, and for conveniency-sake, they have since thought proper to deviate from their rule.” Well, Sir, you see then they are not altogether incorrigible. Let them alone; and who knows but for their conveniency-sake, and it may be from a deeper knowledge of the world, of themselves, and of GOD, they may be reformed in some other particulars?