_You praise them, for “using no diversions but such as become saints,” and for “not regarding outward adorning.” Yet you say, they “conform to the world in wearing gold and costly apparel: and by joining in worldly diversions, in order to do good._”
_You call their discipline, “in most respects, truly excellent.” I wish you had more fully explained yourself――――I am sure, it is no sign of good discipline, to permit such abominations. And you tell them yourself, “I can shew you such a subordination, as answers all Christian purposes, and yet is as distant from that among you, as the heavens are from the earth.”_
_You mention it as a good effect of their discipline, that “every one knows and keeps his proper rank.” Soon after, as if it were ♦with a design to confute yourself, you say, “Our brethren have neither wisdom enough to guide, nor prudence enough to let it alone.”_
♦ “a” replaced with “with a” per Errata
_And now, Sir――――how can you reconcile these opposite descriptions?_ ――――Just as easily as those before, by simply declaring the thing as it is. _You “¹commend them_ (the _Moravians_) _for loving one another. And yet charge them with biting ²and devouring one another.”_ Them! whom? Not the _Moravians_; but the _English_ brethren of _Fetter-lane_, before their union with the _Moravians_. Here then is no shadow of contradiction. For the two sentences do not relate to the same persons.
¹ Journal, page 4.
² Page 18.
_You say, ¹“They had well-nigh destroyed brotherly love from among us;”_ partly by “_cautions ¹against natural love_.” It is a melancholy truth; so they had. But _we_ had then no connexion with _them_. Neither therefore does this contradict “their _loving one another_, in a manner the world knoweth not of.”
¹ Page 108.
_You praise them for ¹using no diversions but such as become saints: and yet say_, (I recite the whole sentence) “²_I have heard some of you affirm, that Christian salvation implies liberty to conform to the world, by joining in worldly diversions, in order to do good._”――――And both these are true. The _Moravians_, in general, “use no diversions but such as become saints:” and yet I have heard some of them affirm (in contradiction to their own practice) that “One then mentioned did well, when he joined in _playing at tennis_, in order to do good.”
¹ Page 5.
² Page 103.
11. _You praise them for not “¹regarding outward adorning.”_――――So I do, the bulk of the congregation――――_And yet you say_ (I again recite the whole sentence) “_I ²have heard some of you affirm, that Christian salvation implies liberty to conform to the world, by putting on of gold and costly apparel._” I have so. And I blame them the more, became they are condemned by the general practice of their own church.
¹ Page 5.
² Page 103.
_You call their discipline “in most respects truly excellent.”¹ I could wish you had more fully explained yourself_――――I have, in the second journal, from the 44th to the 82d page. _It is no sign of good discipline, to permit such abominations_, (i. e. error, in opinion, and guile, in practice:) true, it is not; nor is it any demonstration against it. For there may be _good discipline_ even in a college of _Jesuits_.――――Another fault is, too great a deference to the Count. And yet, “in _most respects_, their discipline is truly excellent.”
¹ Page 5.
_You mention it as a good effect of their discipline, that “¹every one knows and keeps his proper rank.” Soon after, as it were with a design to confute yourself, you say, “Our brethren have neither wisdom enough to guide, nor prudence enough to let it alone.”_² Pardon me, Sir. I have no design either to confute or to contradict myself in these words. The former sentence is spoken of the _Moravian_ brethren: the latter, of the _English_ brethren of _Fetter-lane_.
¹ Page 5.
² Page 17.
* 12. You need not therefore ¹_imagine, that either the strong pretences or warm professions of the_ Moravians, or their _agreeing with me in some favourite topicks_ (for my love to them was antecedent to any such _agreement_) _induce me to overlook their iniquity, and to forgive their other crimes_. No. I love them upon quite different grounds: even, because I believe (notwithstanding all their faults) they _love the_ Lord Jesus _in sincerity_, and have a measure of _the mind that was in_ him. And I am _in_ great _earnest when I declare_ once more, That I have a deep, abiding conviction, by how many degrees the good which is among them, overbalances the evil: That I cannot speak of them but with _tender affection_, were it only for the benefits I have received from them: and that at this hour, _I desire union with them_ (were those stumbling-blocks once put away, which have hitherto made that desire ineffectual) _above all things under heaven_.
¹ Remarks, page 23.