15. In your ¹next section, you are to give an account of the “spiritual succours and advantages received either during these trials or very soon after.” It is no wonder you make as lame work with these, as with the conflicts which preceded them. _As the heart knoweth its own bitterness, so a stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy._ But it is no business of mine, as you have not done me the honour to cite any of my words in this section.
¹ Section 10, page 29, &c.
16. “The ¹_unsteadiness_ of the _Methodists_ both in sentiments and practice,” is what you next undertake to prove. Your loose declamation with which you open the cause, I pass over, as it rests on your own bare word; and haste to your main reason, drawn from my sentiments and practice, with regard to the _Moravians_.
¹ Section 11, page 95, &c.
“He represents them, you say, in the blackest colours; yet declares, in the main they are some of the best people in the world. His love and esteem for them, increases more and more. His own disciples among the _Methodists_ go over to them in crowds. But still _Methodism_ is the strongest barrier against the _Moravian_ doctrines and principles.”
Sir, I bear you witness, you have learnt one principle at least, from those with whom you have lately conversed; namely, that no faith is to be kept with hereticks; of which you have given us abundant proof. For you know I have fully answered every article of this charge, which you repeat, as if I had not opened my lips about it. You know, that there is not one grain of truth, in several things which you here positively assert. For instance, “His love and esteem of them, increases more and more.” Not so, no more than my love and esteem for _you_. I love you both; but I do not much esteem either. Again, “His own disciples among the _Methodists_, go over to them in crowds.” When? Where? I know not that ten of my disciples, as you call them, have gone over to them for twice ten months. O Sir, consider! How do you know, but some of your disciples may tell your name?
17. With the same veracity you go on. “In _the character of a Methodist_, those of the sect are described as having all the virtues that can adorn the Christian profession. But in their _journals_ you find them waspish, condemning all the world, except themselves; and among themselves, perpetual broils and confusions, with various other irregularities and vices.”
I answer, 1. The tract you refer to (as is expresly declared in the _preface_) does not describe what the _Methodists_ are already: but what they desire to be, and what they will be then, when they fully practise the doctrine they hear. 2. Be pleased to point the pages in my _journals_ which mention those “various irregularities and vices.” Of their “perpetual broils and confusions” I shall speak under their proper head.
You add, “Sometimes they are so far from fearing death, that they wish it. But the keenness of the edge is soon blunted. They are full of dreadful apprehensions, that the clergy _intend to murther them_.” Do you mean me, Sir? I plead not guilty. I never had any such apprehension. Yet I suppose, you designed the compliment for _me_, by your dragging in two or three broken sentences from my _first journal_. But how little to the purpose? Seeing at the time that was written, I had never pretended to be above the fear of death. So that this is no proof of the point in view, of the “unsteadiness of my sentiments or practice.”
18. You proceed, “One day, they fancy it their duty to preach; the next, they preach with great reluctance.” Very true! But they fancy it their duty still; else they would not preach at all. This therefore does not prove any inequality either of sentiment or practice.
“Mr. _Wesley_ is sometimes quite averse from speaking, and then perplext with the doubt, is it a prohibition from the good Spirit? or a temptation from nature and the evil one?”
Just of a piece with the rest. The sentence runs thus, “I went several times with a design to speak to the sailors, but could not.” I mean, I was quite averse from speaking. Is not this what men commonly mean by, “I could not speak?” And is this a sufficient cause of silence, or no? Is it a prohibition from the good Spirit? Or a temptation from nature or the evil one? Sir, I was in no doubt at all on the occasion. Nor did I intend to express any in these words; but to appeal to mens conscience, whether what they call a prohibition from the good Spirit, be not a mere temptation from nature or the evil-one?
19. In the ¹next section you are to shew, “the _art_, _cunning_, and _sophistry_ of the _Methodists_, who, when hard prest by argument, run themselves into inconsistency and _self-contradiction_; and occasionally either defend or give up some of their favourite notions and principal points.”
¹ Section 12, page 102.
I dare say, Sir, you will not put them to the trial. _Argument_ lies out of the way of one.
――――Solutos Qui captat risus hominem famamque dicacis.