8. You go on. _How could you so long and so intimately converse with――――such desperately wicked people, as the_ Moravians, _according to_ your own account, _were known by you to be_? O Sir, what another assertion is this? _The_ Moravians, _according to your_ own account, _were_ known _by you to be desperately wicked people, while you intimately conversed with them_! Utterly false and injurious. I never gave any such account. I conversed intimately with them, both at _Savannah_ and _Hernhuth_. But neither then, nor at any other time, did I _know_, or think, or say, they were desperately wicked people. I think and say, nay, you blame me for saying, just the reverse, viz. That though I soon “found among them a few things which I could not approve,” yet I believe they are _in the main some of the best Christians in the world_.
You surprize me yet more in going on thus: _In God’s name, Sir, is the contempt of almost the whole of our duty, of every Christian ordinance, to be so very gently touched?_ Sir, this is not the case. This charge no more belongs to the _Moravians_, than that of murder. Some of our countrymen spoke very wicked things. The _Moravians_ did not sufficiently disavow them. These are the ♦premises. By what art can you extort so dreadful a conclusion from them?
♦ “premisses” replaced with “premises”
_Can detestation, in such a case, be too strongly exprest?_――――Indeed it can; even were the case as you suppose――――_either they are some of the vilest wretches in the world, or you are the falsest accuser in the world_――――neither one, nor the other; though I prove what I alledge, yet they may be, in the main, good men――――_charity has scarce an allowance to make for them, as you have described them_.――――I have described them, as of a mixt character, with much evil among them, but more good. Is it not a strange kind of charity, which cannot find an allowance, to make in such a case?――――_If you have described them truly, they ought to be discouraged by all means that can be imagined_――――By all means! I hope not by fire and faggot: though the _house of mercy_ imagines these to be of all means most effectual.
9. You proceed. ¹_How can you justify the many good things you say of the_ Moravians, _notwithstanding this character?――――You say they love God.――――But how can this be, when they even plead against keeping most of his commandments?――――You say, you believe, they have a sincere desire to serve_ God.――――_How then can they despise his service in so many instances?――――You declare some of them much holier than any people you had yet known. Strange! if they fail in so many prime points of Christian duty, and this not only habitually and presumptuously, but even to the denying their use and necessity. You praise them, for trampling under foot the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life.――――And yet you make them a close, reserved, insincere, deceitful people._
¹ Remarks, pages 20, 21.
_How you will explain those things, I know not._――――By nakedly declaring each thing as it is. They are, I believe, the most self-inconsistent people, now under the sun: and I describe them just as I find them, neither better nor worse, but leaving the good and bad together. Upon this ground I can very easily justify, the saying _many good things_ of them, as well as bad. For instance, I am still persuaded, that _they_ (many of them) _love_ God: although many others of them ignorantly _plead against the keeping_, not _most_, but _some of his commandments_. I believe, _they have a sincere desire to serve_ God. And yet, in several instances, some of them (I think) _despise_ that manner _of serving him_, which I know God hath ordained. I believe _some of them are much holier than any people I had known_ in _August 1740_. Yet sure I am, that others among them _fail_, not indeed in the _prime points of Christian duty_ (for these are faith and the love of God and man) but in several points of no small importance. Not that they herein sin _presumptuously_ neither; for they are _fully_ (though erroneously) _persuaded in their own minds_. From the same persuasion they act, when they (in some sense) _deny the use or necessity of those_ ordinances. How far that persuasion will justify or excuse them, I leave to him who knoweth their hearts. Lastly, I believe _they trample under foot_, in a good degree, the _lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life_. And yet many of them _use reserve_, yea _guile_. Therefore my soul mourns for them in secret places.
10. But I _must observe_, you say, that ¹_you fall not only into inconsistencies, but into direct contradictions.――――You commend them for “loving one another, in a manner the world knoweth not of.” And yet you charge them with being “in the utmost confusion, biting and devouring one another.” You say, “They caution us against natural love of one another――――And had well-nigh destroyed brotherly love from among us.”_
¹ Remarks, pages 21, 22.