1. _Kingswood you call your own house._ So I do, that is, the school-house there. For I bought the ground where it stands, and paid for the building it, partly from the contribution of my friends (one of whom contributed fifty pounds) partly from the income of my own fellowship. No clergyman therefore can call his parish _his own house_, with _more propriety_ than I can call this house _mine_.
2. _Mr._ C. _opposed you there_. True: but who was Mr. _C._? One I had sent for, to _assist me there_; a friend that was as my own soul; that even while he opposed me, lay in my bosom. What resemblance then does Mr. _C. thus_ opposing _me_ bear, to _me_ opposing (if I really did) a _parochial minister_?
3. _You said to Mr._ C. _“You should not have supplanted me in my own house, stealing the hearts of the people. Yet you have supplanted the clergy in their own houses”――――What_ in the _same manner_ as Mr. _C._ did _me_? Have I done to any of _them_, as he has done to _me_? You may as justly say, I have cut their throats!――――_Stealing the hearts of their people_――――Nor are these _their_ people in the _same sense_ wherein those were _mine_, viz. Servants of the devil brought through my ministry, to be servants and children of God.――――_You have suffered by the same ways you took to discharge your spleen and malice against your brethren――――To discharge your spleen and malice!_ Say, your muskets and blunderbusses. I have just as much to do with one as the other.
4. _Your brother said to Mr._ C. _“You ought to have told my brother fairly, I preach contrary to you. Are you willing I should continue in your house, gain-saying you? Shall I stay here opposing you, or shall I depart?” Think you hear this spoken to_ you _by_ us――――_What can you justly reply_?――――I can justly reply, “Sir, Mr. _C._’s case totally differs from _your’s_. Therefore it makes absolutely nothing to your purpose.”
17. A farther consequence (you think) of my preaching this doctrine, is _the ¹introducing that of absolute predestination. And whenever these errors_, say you, _gain ground, there can be no wonder, that confusion, presumption and despair, many very shocking instances of all which you give us among your followers, should be the consequences_.――――You should by all means have specified a few of those instances, or at least, the pages where they occur. Till this is done, I can look upon this assertion, as no other than a flourish of your pen.
¹ Remarks, page 52.
To conclude this head. You roundly affirm once for all, ¹_The grossest corruptions have ever followed the spreading of this tenet. The greatest heats and animosities have been raised thereby. The widest errors have been thus occasioned. And in proportion to its getting ground, it has never failed――――to perplex the weak, to harden the wicked, and to please the prophane. Your journal is a proof, that these terrible consequences have of late prevailed, perhaps more than ever._ ――――Suppose that journal gives a true account of facts (which you seem not to deny) could you find there no other fruits of my preaching, than these terrible ones you here mention!
“O who so blind, as he that _will_ not see?”
¹ Page 51.
18. But that we may not still talk at large, let us bring this question, into as narrow a compass as possible. Let us go no farther, as to time, than seven years last past; as to place, than _London_ and the parts adjoining: as to persons, than you and me, _Thomas Church_ preaching one doctrine, _John Wesley_ the other. Now then let us consider with meekness and fear, what have been the consequences of each doctrine?
* You have preached _justification by faith and works_, at _Battersea_ and _St. Ann’s, Westminster_; while I preached _justification by faith alone_, near _Moorfields_, and at _Short’s Gardens_. I beseech you then to consider, in the secret of your heart, how many sinners have you converted to God? By their fruits we shall know them. This is a plain rule. By this test let them be tried. How many outwardly and habitually wicked men, have you brought to uniform habits of outward holiness? ’Tis an awful thought! Can you instance in a hundred? In fifty? In twenty? In ten?――――If not, take heed unto yourself and to your doctrine. It cannot be, that both are right before God.