♦Considering these peculiar circumstances wherein you stand, you will see the propriety of a _second_ advice I would recommend to you, _Do not imagine you can avoid giving offence_: your very _name_ renders this impossible. Perhaps not one in a hundred of those who use the term _Methodist_, have any ideas of what it means. To ninety-nine of them it is still Heathen _Greek_. Only they think it means something very bad, either a papist, an heretic, an underminer of the church, or some unheard of monster; and in all probability, the farther it goes, it must gather up more and more evil. It is vain therefore for any that is called a _Methodist_, ever to think of not giving offence.
♦ “Consider” replaced with “Considering” per Errata
And as much offence as you give by your _name_, you will give still more by your _principles_. You will give offence to the _bigots for_ opinions, modes of worship and ordinances, by laying _no more_ stress upon them: to the _bigots against_ them, by laying _so much_: to _men of form_, by insisting so frequently and strongly on the inward _power_ of religion: to _moral men_, (so called) by declaring the absolute necessity of _faith_, in order to acceptance with God: to men of _reason_ you will give offence, by talking of inspiration and receiving the Holy Ghost: to drunkards, sabbath-breakers, common swearers, and other _open sinners_, by refraining from their company, as well as by that disapprobation of their behaviour, which you will often be obliged to express. And indeed your life must give them continual offence; your sobriety is grievously offensive to a drunkard; your serious conversation is equally intolerable to a gay impertinent; and in general, that “you are grown so precise and _singular_, so monstrously _strict_, beyond all sense and reason, that you _scruple_ so many harmless things, and fancy you are _obliged_ to do so many others which you need not,” cannot but be an offence to abundance of people, your friends and relations in particular. Either therefore you must consent to give up your _principles_, or your fond hope of pleasing men.
What makes even your _principles_ more offensive is, this _uniting_ of yourselves _together_: because this union renders you more _conspicuous_, placing you more in the eye of men; more _suspicious_, I mean, liable to be suspected of carrying on some sinister design, (especially by those who do not, or _will_ not, know your inviolable attachment to his present Majesty;) more _dreadful_, to those of a fearful temper, who imagine you have any such design; and more _odious_ to men of zeal, if their zeal be any other than fervent love to God and man.
This offence will sink the deeper, because you are gathered out of so many other congregations: for the warm men in each will not easily be convinced, that you do not _despise_ either them or their teachers; nay, will probably imagine, that you utterly _condemn_ them, as though they could not be saved. And this occasion of offence is now at the height, because you are just gathered, or gathering rather, so that they know not where it will end: but the fear of losing (so they account it) more of their members, gives an edge to their zeal, and keeps all their anger and resentment in its strength.
Add to this, that you _do not leave_ them quiet, you still rank yourselves among their members, which, to those who know not that you do it for conscience sake, is also a provoking circumstance. “If you would but get out of their sight!” But you are a continual thorn in their side, as long as you remain with them.
And (which cannot but anger them the more) you have neither _power_, nor _riches_, nor _learning_; yet, with all their power, and money, and wisdom, they can gain no ground against you.
You cannot but expect, that the offence continually arising from such a variety of provocations, will gradually ripen into hatred, malice, and all other unkind tempers. And as they who are thus affected will not fail to represent you to others in the same light as you appear to them, sometimes as madmen and fools, sometimes as wicked men, fellows not fit to live upon the earth; the consequence, humanly speaking, must be, that, together with your reputation, you will lose, first the love of your friends, relations and acquaintance, even those who once loved you the most tenderly: then your business; for many will employ you no longer, nor “buy of such an one as you are;” and, in due time, (unless he who governs the world interpose) your health, liberty, and life.