You remark, 8. _Whoever opposes him will be charged with resisting or rejecting the Spirit._ I answered, “What! Whoever opposes me, John Wesley?――――Do I charge every such person with _rejecting the Spirit_? No more than I charge him with robbing on the highway.――――Do I charge _you_ with rejecting the Spirit?” You reply, _You deny that you charge the opposers with rejecting the Spirit, and affirm, that you never said or thought, that what you do is to be accounted the work of God_. Here you blend different sentences together, which I must consider apart, as they were written. And first, where do I charge you with rejecting the Spirit? If I charge whoever opposes me with this, undoubtedly I charge you. If I do not charge you, that proposition is false; I do not so charge whoever opposes me. Your next words are, _You affirm that you never said or thought, that what you do is ♦to be accounted the work of God.――――If it be the work of God, you need not deny the other point._――――Yes, Sir: whether it be or no, I must still deny, that I ever charged you with rejecting the Spirit in opposing me.
♦ “be” replaced with “to be”
You remark, 9. _His own dreams must be regarded as oracles._――――I answered, “Whose? I desire neither my dreams nor my waking thoughts, may be regarded at all, unless just so far as they agree with the oracles of God.” To this also you make no reply.
You remark, 10. _However wild――――his behaviour may be, whatever he――――does, is to be accounted the work of God._ It was to this I answered, “I never said so of what I do: I never thought so.” This answer was ill expressed. And I might have foreseen, you would hardly fail, to make your advantage of it. I must therefore explain myself upon it a little farther. You said, “An enthusiast accounts _whatever he does_ to be the work of God.” I should have said, “but I do not account _whatever I do_ to be the work of God.” What that is, which I do account his work, will be considered by and by.
You remark, 11. _He talks in the stile of inspired persons._ I answered, “No otherwise inspired, than you are, if you love God.” You reply, (page 126.) _The point was not, whether you are actually inspired, but whether you have talked in the stile of those who were so_. That was so much the point, that if it were allowed, it would overturn your whole argument. For if I was inspired (in _your_ sense) you could not term that inspiration enthusiasm without blasphemy: but you again mistake my words. The plain meaning of them is, that I talk in the stile of those persons, who are “no otherwise inspired than you are, if you love God.”
You remark, 12. _He applies scripture phrases to himself, without attending to their original meaning, or once considering the difference of times and circumstances._ (page 62.) I answered, “I am not conscious of any thing like this. I apply no scripture phrase (page 39) either to myself or any other, without carefully considering both the _original meaning_, and the _secondary_ sense, wherein, allowing for different times and circumstances, it may be applied to ordinary Christians.” You reply, _This also you deny to have done; holding however some_ secondary _sense, (what it is you have not told us) in which scripture phrases may――――be applied to ordinary Christians_. I have largely told you, what I mean by, a _secondary_ sense, in the first part of the _Farther Appeal_. You add, (page 126.) _many things which were truly written of the preaching of Christianity at first, you have vainly applied to yourselves_. Sir, I am to answer only for myself: as I will for that expression, _Behold the day of the Lord is come; he is again visiting and redeeming his people_!
3. I come now to what you expatiate upon at large, as the two grand instances of enthusiasm. The first is plainly this. * At some rare times, when I have been in great distress of soul, or in utter uncertainty how to act, in an important case, which required a speedy determination: after using all other means that occurred, I have casts lots, or opened the bible. And by this means I have been relieved from that distress, or directed in that uncertainty.
Instances of this kind occur in the 12. 14. 15. 28. and 88th pages of the third journal: as also in the 27. 28. and 80th page of the last journal. I desire any who would understand this matter throughly, to read those passages as they stand at length.