To John Berridge Editor's Introductory Notes: 1760 8 DUBLIN, April 18, 1760. DEAR SIR, Disce, docendus adhuc quae censet amiculus Horace's Epistles, I. xvii. 3:'To the instruction of an humble friend, Who would himself be better taught, attend.'; and take in good part my mentioning some particulars which have been long on my mind, and yet I knew not how to speak them. I was afraid it might look like taking too much upon me or assuming some superiority over you. But love casts out, or at least overrules, that fear. So I will speak simply, and leave you to judge.

It seems to me that, of all the persons I ever knew save one, you are the hardest to be convinced. I have occasionally spoken to you on many heads; some of a speculative, others of a practical nature: but I do not know that you was ever convinced of one, whether of great importance or small. I believe you retained your own opinion in every one, and did not vary an hair's breadth. I have likewise doubted whether you was not full as hard to be persuaded as to be convinced'; whether your will do not adhere to its first bias, right or wrong, as strongly as your understanding. I mean with regard to any impression which another may make upon them. For perhaps you readily, too readily, change of your own mere motion; as I have frequently observed great fickleness and great stubbornness meet in the same mind. So that it is not easy to please you long, but exceeding easy to offend you. Does not this imply the thinking very highly of yourself particularly of your own understanding Does it not imply, what is always connected therewith, something of self sufficiency 'You can stand alone; you care for no man; you need no help from man.' It was not so with my brother and me when we were first employed in this great work. We were deeply conscious of our own insufficiency; and though in one sense we trusted in God alone, yet we sought His help from all His children, and were glad to be taught by any man. And this, although we were really alone in the work; for there were none that had gone before us therein, there were none then in England who had trod that path wherein God was leading us. Whereas you have the advantage which we had not: you tread in a beaten path; others have gone before you, and are going now in the same way, to the same point. Yet it seems you choose to stand alone; what was necessity with us is choice with you; you like to be unconnected with any, thereby tacitly condemning all.

But possibly you go farther yet; do not you explicitly condemn all your fellow labourers, blaming one in one instance, one in another, so as to be throughly pleased with the conduct of none Does not this argue a vehement proneness to condemn a very high degree of censoriousness Do you not censure even peritos in sua arte 'Those who are clever in their particular profession.' Permit me to relate a little circumstance to illustrate this. After we had been once singing an hymn at Everton, I was just going to say, 'I wish Mr. Whitefield would not try to mend my brother's hymns. He cannot do it. How vilely he has murdered that hymn, weakening the sense as well as marring the poetry!' But how was I afterwards surprised to hear it was not Mr. Whitefield, but Mr. B.! In very deed it is not easy to mend his hymns any more than to imitate them. Has not this aptness to find fault frequently shown itself in abundance of other instances sometimes with regard to Mr. Parker or Mr. Hicks, William Parker, Mayor of Bedford, was excluded by the Moravians from their Society, and preached at the Foundery in 1758 (Journal, iv.86, 201, 248). For William Hicks, see ibid. 335, 344; and letter of June 14, 1780. sometimes with regard to me And this may be one reason why you take one step which was scarce ever before taken in Christendom: I mean, the discouraging the new converts from reading at least, from reading anything but the Bible. Nay, but get off the consequence who can: if they ought to read nothing but the Bible, they ought to hear nothing but the Bible; so away with sermons, whether spoken or written! I can hardly imagine that you discourage reading even our little tracts, out of jealousy lest we should undermine you or steal away the affections of the people. I think you cannot easily suspect this. I myself did not desire to come among them; but you desired me to come. I should not have obtruded myself either upon them or you: for I have really work enough, full as much as either my body or mind is able to go through; and I have, blessed be God, friends enough I mean, as many as I have time to converse with.

I should not have obtruded myself either upon them or you: for I have really work enough, full as much as either my body or mind is able to go through; and I have, blessed be God, friends enough I mean, as many as I have time to converse with. Nevertheless, I never repented of that I spent at Everton; and I trust it was not spent in vain. I have not time to throw these thoughts into a smoother form; so I give you them just as they occur. May the God whom you serve give you to form a right judgement concerning them, and give a blessing to the rough sincerity of, dear sir, Your affectionate servant.