1. YOU have undertaken to prove (as I observed in my former letter, a few sentences of which I beg leave to repeat) That the ¹_whole conduct of the Methodists, is but a counter-part of the most wild fanaticisms of popery_.
¹ Preface to the first part, page 3.
You endeavour to support this charge, by quotations from our own writings, compared with quotations from _Popish_ authors.
It lies upon me to answer for one. But in order to spare both you and myself, I shall at present consider only your _second part_, and that as briefly as possible. Accordingly I shall not meddle with your other quotations, but leaving them to whom they may concern, shall examine, Whether those you have made from my writings, prove the charge for which they were made or no.
If they do, I submit. But if they do not, if they are _the words of truth and soberness_, it is an objection of no real weight, against any sentiment, just in itself, though it should also be found in the writings of _Papists_; yea, of _Mahometans_ or _Pagans_.
2. In your first section, in order to prove the “Vain boasting of the _Methodists_,” you quote a part of the following sentence. “When hath religion, I will not say, since the reformation, but since the time of _Constantine the Great_, made so large a progress in any nation, within so short a space?” (I beg any impartial person to read the whole passage, from the 84th to the 90th page of the _Third Appeal_.) I repeat the question, giving the glory to God. And, I trust, without either boasting or enthusiasm.
In your second, you cite (and murder) four or five lines ¹from one of my _journals_, “as instances of the persuasive eloquence of the _Methodist preachers_.” But it unfortunately happens, that neither of the sentences you quote, were spoke by any preacher at all. You know full well, the one was used only in a private letter; the other by a woman on a bed of sickness.
¹ Pages 1, 9.
3. You next undertake to prove ¹“the most insufferable _pride_ and _vanity_ of the _Methodists_.” For this end you quote five passages from my _journals_, and one from the _Third Appeal_.
¹ Section 3, page 12, &c.
The ¹first was wrote in the anguish of my heart, to which I gave vent (between God and my own soul) by breaking out, not into “confidence of boasting,” as you term it, but into those expressions of bitter sorrow. “I went to _America_ to convert the _Indians_. But O! who shall convert me!”――――Some of the words which follow, you have picked out, and very honestly laid before your reader, without either the beginning or end, or one word of the occasion or manner wherein they were spoken.
¹ 1 Journal, page 67, &c.
Your next quotation is equally fair and generous. ¹“Are they read in philosophy? So was I, &c.” This whole “string of self-commendation,” as you call it, being there brought, _ex professo_, to prove, that notwithstanding all this, which I once piqued myself upon, I was at that hour in a state of damnation!
¹ Ibid. page 68, &c.
¹The third is a plain narrative of the manner wherein many of _Bristol_ expressed their joy on my coming unexpectedly into the room, after I had been some time at _London_. And this, I conceive, will prove the charge of high treason, as well as that of “insufferable _pride_ and _vanity_.”
¹ 4 Journal, page 85.
You say, fourthly, A dying woman, who had earnestly desired to see me, cried out, as I entered the room, “Art thou come, thou blessed of the Lord?” ¹She did so. And what does this prove?
¹ 4 Journal, page 96.
The fifth passage is this: “In applying which, my soul was so inlarged, that methought I could have cried out (in another sense than poor, vain ♦_Archimedes_) ‘Give me where to stand, and I will shake the earth.’” My meaning is, I found such freedom of thought and speech (jargon, stuff, enthusiasm to you) that methought could I have then spoken to all the world, they would all have shared in the blessing.
♦ “Archimede” replaced with “Archimedes” per Errata
The passage which you quote from the _Third Appeal_, I am obliged to relate more at large.
“There is one more excuse for denying this work of God, taken from the instruments employed therein: that is, that they are wicked men; and a thousand stories have been handed about to prove it.”