67. Now cannot _you_ join in all this? Is it not the very language of your heart? O when will you take knowledge, that _our_ whole concern, our constant labour is, to bring all the world to the religion which you feel, to solid, inward, vital religion! What _power_ is it then that keeps us asunder? _Is thine heart right, as my heart is with thy heart? If it be, give me thy hand. Come with me and see_, and rejoice in _my zeal for the Lord_. No difference between us (if thou art a child of God) can be so considerable as our agreement is. If we differ in smaller things, we agree in that which is greatest of all. How is it possible then that _you_ should be induced, to think or speak evil of us? How could it ever come into your mind, to oppose us, or weaken our hands? How long shall we complain of the wounds which we receive in the house of our friends? Surely the children of this world are still _wiser in their generation than the children of light_. Satan is not divided against himself: Why are they who are on the Lord’s side against us? How is it that _wisdom is_ not _justified of her_ own _children_?
68. Is it, because you have heard, “That we only make religion a cloak for covetousness? And because you have heard abundance of particulars alleged in support of that general charge?” ’Tis probable, you may also have heard, “How much we have _gained_ by preaching already:” and, to crown all, “That we are only papists in disguise, who are undermining and destroying the church?”
69. “You have heard this.” Well: and can you believe it? Have you then never heard the fifth chapter of St. _Matthew_? I would to God you could believe it. What is written there? How readest thou? _Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my name’s sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad; for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets that were before you_: namely, by _reviling_ them, and _saying all manner of evil_ of them _falsely_. Do not you know, that this (as well as all other scriptures) must needs be fulfilled? If so, take knowledge, that this day also it is fulfilled in your ears. For our Lord’s sake, and for the sake of his gospel which we preach, _men do revile us and persecute us, and_ (blessed be God, who giveth us to rejoice therein) _say all manner of evil of us falsely_. And how can it be otherwise? _The disciple is not above his master. It is enough for the disciple, that he be as his master, and the servant as his Lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his houshold?_
70. This only we confess, that “we preach _inward_ salvation, _now_ attainable by faith.” And _for preaching this_, (for _no other crime_ was _then_ so much as pretended) we were forbid to preach any more in those churches, where, till then, we were gladly received. This is a notorious fact. Being thus hindered from preaching in the places we should first have chosen, we now declare the _grace of God which bringeth salvation, in all places of his dominion_: as well knowing, that God dwelleth not only in temples made with hands. This is the real, and it is the only real ground of complaint against us. And this we avow before all mankind, we do preach this salvation by faith. And not being suffered to preach it in the usual places, we declare it ♦wherever a door is opened, either _on a mountain_, or _a plain_, or _by a river side_, (for all which we conceive we have sufficient precedent) or in prison, or, as it were, _in the house of Justus_, or _the school of one Tyrannus_. Nor dare we refrain. _A dispensation of the gospel is committed to me; and woe is me, if I preach not the gospel._
♦ “whereever” replaced with “wherever”
71. Here we allow the fact, but deny the guilt. But in every other point alleged, we deny the fact, and call upon the world to prove it, if they can. More especially we call upon those who for many years saw our manner of life at _Oxford_. These well know, that _after the straitest sect of our religion, we lived Pharisees_: and that the grand objection to us for all those years, was the being _righteous overmuch_: the reading, fasting, praying, denying ourselves; the going to church, to the Lord’s table; the relieving the poor, visiting those that were sick and in prison; instructing the ignorant, and labouring to reclaim the wicked,――more than was necessary for salvation. These were our open, flagrant crimes, from the year 1729 to the year 1737; touching which our Lord shall judge in that day.