{"id":"jw/letters/1756b/18-to-james-clark","corpus":"jw-letters","type":"letter","author":"john-wesley","title":"B 18 To James Clark","title_alt":[],"text_basis":null,"date_composed":null,"date_precision":"unknown","date_note":null,"numbering":{"bicentennial":null,"jackson_running":null,"sugden":null},"source_edition":{"editor":null,"title":null,"edition":null,"place":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"volume":null,"pages":null,"scan_url":null,"scan_page_ids":null},"transcription":{"derived_from":null,"corrected_against_scan":false,"corrector":null,"corrected_on":null},"modernization":"none","license_text":"Public Domain Mark 1.0","license_apparatus":"CC BY 4.0","wikidata":null,"prev":null,"next":null,"part_of":"jw-letters","editorial_note":null,"source_id":"jw-letter-1756b-18-to-james-clark","passage_ids":["jw-letter-1756b-18-to-james-clark-000","jw-letter-1756b-18-to-james-clark-001","jw-letter-1756b-18-to-james-clark-002","jw-letter-1756b-18-to-james-clark-003","jw-letter-1756b-18-to-james-clark-004"],"word_count":1647,"themes_auto":["catholic-spirit","experience","free-will","means-of-grace","reign-of-god","scriptural-authority","trinity","universal-redemption","works-piety"],"open":true,"closed_reason":null,"legacy_ids":["jw-letter-1756b-18-to-james-clark-000","jw-letter-1756b-18-to-james-clark-001","jw-letter-1756b-18-to-james-clark-002","jw-letter-1756b-18-to-james-clark-003","jw-letter-1756b-18-to-james-clark-004"],"passages":[{"id":"jw-letter-1756b-18-to-james-clark-000","author":"john-wesley","source_id":"jw-letter-1756b-18-to-james-clark","source_title":"B 18 To James Clark","source_type":"letter","year":null,"chunk_index":0,"text":"To James Clark Date: LONDON, September 18, 1756. REVEREND SIR, Yesterday I received your favor of July 9. As you therein speak freely and openly, I will endeavor to do the same, at which I am persuaded you will not be displeased. 1. Of the words imputed to Mr. Langston I said nothing because he denied the charge, and I had not the opportunity of having the accuser and the accused face to face. 2. That there are enthusiasts among the Methodists I doubt not, and among most other people under heaven; but that they are made such by our doctrine and discipline still remains to be proved. If they are in such spite of our doctrine and discipline, their madness will not be laid to our charge. I know nothing of the anonymous pamphlet on Inspiration. In his second letter Clark refers to 'a pamphlet wrote by an anonymous author of your Society, wherein he made a collection all the texts of The New Testament where there is any mention of the Spirit or its influences. How does it appear to be wrote by one of my disciples Be it good bad or indifferent, I am not concerned or any way accountable for it. 3. I believe several who are not episcopally ordained are nevertheless called of God to preach the gospel. Yet I have no exception to the Twenty-third Article, though I judge there are exempt cases. That the seven deacons were outwardly ordained even to that low office cannot be denied; but when Paul and Barnabas were separated from the work to which they were called, this was not ordaining them. St. Paul was ordained long before, and that was not by man or men. It was inducting him into the providence for which our Lord had appointed him from the beginning. For this end the prophets and teachers fasted and prayed and laid their hand upon them - a rite which was used, not in ordination only, but in blessing many other occasions.","word_count":337,"source_url":null,"themes":["free-will","reign-of-god","works-piety"],"created_at":"2026-01-29T20:00:20.528418"},{"id":"jw-letter-1756b-18-to-james-clark-001","author":"john-wesley","source_id":"jw-letter-1756b-18-to-james-clark","source_title":"B 18 To James Clark","source_type":"letter","year":null,"chunk_index":1,"text":"4. Concerning diocesan Episcopacy, there are several questions which I should be glad to have answered: as (1) Where is it prescribed in Scripture (2) How does it appear that the Apostles settled it in all the Churches which they planted (3) How does it appear they settled it in any so as to make it of perpetual obligation It is allowed that Christ and His Apostles settled the Church under some form of government. But (i) Did they put all Churches under the same precise form If they did, (ii) Can you prove this to be the precise form and the very same which now obtains in England 5. How Phavorinus Favorinus, so called from Favera, his birthplace, was a Benedictine, who in 1512 became librarian to the future Leo X. He was made Bishop of Nuceria in 1514, and died in 1537. He compiled a Greek Lexicon. or many more may define heresy or schism I am not concerned to know. I well know heresy is vulgarly defined 'a false opinion touching some necessary article of faith, and schism a causeless separation from a true Church.' But I keep to my Bible, as our Church in her Sixth Article teaches me; therefore I cannot take schism for a separation from a Church, because I cannot find it so taken in Scripture. The first time I meet the term there is 1 Corinthians i. 10: I meet with it again, chap. xi. 18. But it is plain in both places by schism is meant not any separation from the Church but uncharitable divisions in it. For the Corinthians continued to be one Church, notwithstanding then strife and contention; there was no separation of one part from the other with regard to external communion. It is in the same sense the word is used chap. xii. 25. And these are the only places in the New Testament where the term occurs. Therefore the indulging any unkind temper towards our fellow Christians is the true scriptural schism.","word_count":336,"source_url":null,"themes":["catholic-spirit","scriptural-authority","means-of-grace"],"created_at":"2026-01-29T20:00:20.528537"},{"id":"jw-letter-1756b-18-to-james-clark-002","author":"john-wesley","source_id":"jw-letter-1756b-18-to-james-clark","source_title":"B 18 To James Clark","source_type":"letter","year":null,"chunk_index":2,"text":"Indeed, both heresy and schism (which are works of the flesh, and consequently damnable if not repented) are here mentioned by the Apostle in very near the same sense; unless by schisms be meant rather those inward animosity which occasioned heresies that is, outward divisions and parties. So that while one said, 'I am Paul; another, I am of Apollos,' this implied both heresy and schism: so wonderfully have latter ages distorted the words 'heresies' and 'schisms' from their scriptural meaning! Heresy is not in all the Bible taken for an error in fundamentals, nor in anything ere; nor schism for any separation from the communion of others. Therefore heresy and schism in the modern sense of the words are sins that the Scriptures know nothing of. 6. But though I aver this, am I quite indifferent to any man's principles in religion Far from it; as I have declared again and again, in the very sermon under present consideration, in the Character of a Methodist, in the Plain Account, and twenty tracts besides, I have written severally against Deists, Papists, Mystics, c. An odd way to ingratiate myself with them, to strike at the apple of their eye! The version followed here and in the other letter to Clark is that which appears in Montanus Redivivus. Compare sect. 6 with that in Works, xiii. 214-15. Nevertheless in all things indifferent (but not at the expense of truth) I rejoice to please all men for their good to edification, if happily I may gain the more proselytes to genuine scriptural Christianity, if I may prevail on the more to love God and their neighbor and to walk as Christ walked. So far as I find them obstructive of these, I oppose opinions with my might; though even then rather by guarding those that are free than by disputing with those that are deeply infected: I need not dispute with many of them to know there is no probability of success or of convincing them. A thousand times I have found my father's word true: 'You may have peace with the Dissenters, if you do not so humor them as to dispute with them; if you do, they will outface and outlung you, and at the end you will be just where you were in the beginning.'","word_count":386,"source_url":null,"themes":["catholic-spirit","experience","scriptural-authority"],"created_at":"2026-01-29T20:00:20.528641"},{"id":"jw-letter-1756b-18-to-james-clark-003","author":"john-wesley","source_id":"jw-letter-1756b-18-to-james-clark","source_title":"B 18 To James Clark","source_type":"letter","year":null,"chunk_index":3,"text":"I have now, sir, humored you so as to dispute a little with you. But with what probability of success Suppose you have a single eye in this debate; suppose you aim, not at victory, but at the truth; yet what man of threescore (unless perchance one in an age) was ever convinced Is not an cid man's motto, Non persuadebis etiamsi persuaseris 'I will not be persuaded, even though you should convince me.' When we are past middle age, do we not find a kind of stiffness and inflexibility stealing upon the mind as well as on the body And does not this bar the gate against all conviction even before the eye of the soul grows dim, and so less and less capable of diving things which we are not already well acquainted with! 7. Yet on one point I must add a few words, because it is of the last importance. I said orthodoxy, or right opinion, See letter of Nov. 26, 1762, to Dr. Warburton. was never more than a slender part of religion, and sometimes no part at all; and this I explained thus: 'In a child of God it is but a slender part, in a child of the devil it is no part at all of religion.' The religion of a child of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. Now, if orthodoxy be any part of this (which in itself might admit of a question), it is certainly a very slender part; though it is a considerable help of love, peace, and joy. Religion, in other words, is the love of God and man, producing all holiness of conversation. Now, are right opinions any more than a slender part (if they be so much) of this Once more: religion is the mind that was in Christ and walking as Christ walked. Now, how slender a part of this are opinions, how right soever! By a child of the devil I mean one that neither loves, fears, or serves God, and has no true religion at all. But it is certain such a man may be still orthodox may entertain right opinions; and yet it is equally certain thee are no parts of religion in him that has no religion at all.","word_count":382,"source_url":null,"themes":["catholic-spirit","universal-redemption","reign-of-god"],"created_at":"2026-01-29T20:00:20.528757"},{"id":"jw-letter-1756b-18-to-james-clark-004","author":"john-wesley","source_id":"jw-letter-1756b-18-to-james-clark","source_title":"B 18 To James Clark","source_type":"letter","year":null,"chunk_index":4,"text":"Permit me, sir, to speak exceeding plainly. Are you not an orthodox man Perhaps there is none more so in the diocese. Yet possibly you may have no religion at all. If it be true that you frequently drink to execs, you may have orthodoxy, but you can have no religion. If, when you are in a passion, you call your brother 'Thou fool,' you have no religion at all. If you then even curse and swear by taking God's name in vain, you can have no other religion but orthodoxy; a religion of which the devil and his angels have as much as you. Clark replied that he could prove the reports to be false. O sir, what an idle thing it is for you to dispute about lay preaches! Is not a lay preacher preferable to a drunken preacher, to a cursing, swearing preacher 'To the ungody saith God, Why takest thou My covenant in thy mouth, whereas thou hatest to be reformed, and castest My words behind thee 'In tender compassionI speak this. May God apply it to your heart! And then you will not receive this as an affront but as the truest instance of brotherly love from, reverend sir, Yours, c.","word_count":206,"source_url":null,"themes":["reign-of-god","trinity","catholic-spirit"],"created_at":"2026-01-29T20:00:20.528814"}]}