To George L. Fleury Date: LIMERICK, May 18, 1771. REVEREND SIR, 1. In June 1769 I spent two or three days at Waterford. As soon as my back was turned, you valiantly attacked me, I suppose both morning and afternoon. Hearing, when I was there two or three weeks ago, that you designed me the same favour, I waited upon you at the cathedral on Sunday, April 28. You was as good as your word: you drew the sword, and in effect threw away the scabbard. You made a furious attack on a large body of people, of whom you knew just nothing. Blind and bold, you laid about you without fear or wit, without any regard either to truth, justice, or mercy. And thus you entertained both morning and evening a large congregation who came to hear the words of eternal life.' 2. Not having leisure myself, I desired Mr. Bourke to wait upon you the next morning. He proposed our writing to each other. You said, No; if anything can be said against my sermons, I expect it shall be printed: let it be done in a public, not a private way.' I did not desire this; I had much rather it had been done privately. But, since you will have it so, I submit. 3. Your text was, I know this, that after my departure shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.' (Acts xx. 29-30.) Having shown that St. Paul foresaw these false teachers, you undertake to show, (1) the mischiefs which they occasioned; (2) the character of them, and how nearly this concerns a set of men called Methodists. (First Sermon, pp. 1-4 ) 4. Against these false teachers, you observe, St. Paul warned the Corinthians, Galatians, Colossians, and Hebrews (pages 5-8). Very true; but what is this to the point Oh, much more than some are aware of! The insinuation was all along just as if you had said: I beseech you, my dear hearers, mark the titles he gives to these grievous wolves, false apostles, deceitful workers, and apply them to the Methodist teachers. There I give them a deadly thrust.'

5. These are well styled by Christ "ravening wolves," by St. Paul "grievous wolves," from the mischiefs they do, rending the Church of Christ, and perverting the true sense of the gospel for their own private ends. They ever did, and to this day do, pretend to extraordinary inspiration.' Round assertions! Let us consider them one by one. (1) These are styled by Christ "ravening wolves," by St. Paul "grievous wolves."' True; but how does it appear that these names are applicable to the Methodists Why, they rend the Church of Christ.' What is the Church of Christ According to our Article, a Church is a company of faithful people,' of true believers, who have the mind that was in Christ,' and walk as Christ walked.' Who, then, are the Church of Christ in Waterford Point them out, sir, if you know them; and then be pleased to show how the Methodists rend this Church of Christ. You may as justly say they rend the walls or the steeple of the cathedral church. However, they pervert the true sense of the gospel for their own private ends.' Wherein do they pervert the true sense of the gospel I have published Notes both on the Gospels and the other Scriptures. But wherein do those Notes pervert the sense None has yet attempted to show. But for what private ends should I pervert it for ease or honour Then I should be sadly disappointed. Or for money This is the silliest tale of all. You may easily know, if you are willing to know it, that I did not leave Waterford without being some pounds lighter than I was when I came thither.

6. But they pretend to extraordinary inspiration.' They do not: they expressly disclaim it. I have declared an hundred times, I suppose ten times in print, that I pretend to no other inspiration than that which is common to all real Christians, without which no one can be a Christian at all. They denounce hell and damnation to all that reject their presences' . This is another charge; but it is as groundless as the former, it is without all shadow of truth. You may as well say the Methodists denounce hell and damnation to all that reject Mahometanism. As groundless, as senselessly, shamelessly false, is the assertion following: To reject their ecstasies and fanatic presences to revelation is cried up as a crime of the blackest dye.' It cannot be that we should count it a crime to reject what we do not pretend to at all. But I pretend to no ecstasies of any kind, nor to any other kind of revelation than you yourself, yea, and every Christian enjoys, unless he is without God in the world.' 7. These grievous wolves pretended to greater mortification and self-denial than the Apostles themselves' . This discovery is spick-and-span new: I never heard of it before. But pray, sir, where did you find it I think not in the canonical Scriptures. I doubt you had it from some apocryphal writer. Thus also do the modern false teachers.' I know not any that do. Indeed, I have read of some such among the Mahometan Dervises and among the Indian Brahmins. But I doubt whether any of these outlandish creatures have been yet imported into Great Britain or Ireland. 8. They pretend to know the mind of Christ better than His Apostles' . Certainly the Methodists do not: this is another sad mistake, not to say slander. However, better than their successors do.' That is another question. If you rank yourself among their successors, as undoubtedly you do, I will not deny that some of these poor, despised people, though not acting in a public character, do know the mind of Christ that is, the meaning of the Scripture better than you do yet. But perhaps, when ten years more are gone over your head, you may know it as well as they.

9. You conclude this sermon, Let us not be led away by those who represent the comfortable religion of Christ as a path covered over with thorns' . This cap does not fit me. I appeal to all that have heard me at Waterford or elsewhere whether I represent religion as an uncomfortable thing. No, sir; both in preaching and writing I represent it as far more comfortable than you do or are able to do. But you represent us as lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God.' If any do this, I doubt they touch a sore spot; I am afraid the shoe pinches. They affirm pleasure in general to be unlawful, grounding it on, "They that are in the flesh cannot please God"' . Wrong, top and bottom. Did we hold the conclusion, we should never infer it from such premises. But we do not hold it: we no more affirm pleasure in general to be unlawful than eating and drinking. This is another invention of your own brain which never entered into our thoughts. It is really curious when you add, This is bringing men "after the principles of the world, and not after Christ."' What, the affirming that pleasure is unlawful Is this after the principles of the world' Was ever text so unhappily applied 10. So much for your first sermon: wherein, though you do not seem to want goodwill, yet you are marvellously barren of invention; having only retailed two or three old, threadbare objections which have been answered twenty times over. You begin the second, I shall now consider some of their many absurd doctrines: the first of which is "the pretending to be divinely inspired"' (Second Sermon, p. 1). An odd doctrine enough. And called in an extraordinary manner to preach the word of God' (pages 2-4). This is all harping upon the same string the grand objection of lay preachers. We have it again and again, ten, twenty times over. I shall answer it once for all. Not by anything new that is utterly needless; but barely by repeating the answer which convinced a serious clergyman many years ago. See letter of May 4, 1748.

11. But why do you not prove your mission by miracles' This likewise you repeat over and over. But I have not leisure to answer the same stale objection an hundred times. I therefore give this also the same answer which I gave many years ago: 12. What is it you would have us prove by miracles that the doctrines we preach are true This is not the way to prove that. We prove the doctrines we preach by Scripture and reason. Is it (1) That A B was for many years without God in the world, a common swearer, a drunkard, a Sabbath-breaker Or (2) That he is not so now Or (3) That he continued so till he heard us preach, and from that time was another man Not so. The proper way to prove these facts is by the testimony of competent witnesses; and these witnesses are ready whenever required to give full evidence of them. Or would you have it proved by miracles (4) That this was not done by our own power or holiness that God only is able to raise the dead, those who are dead in trespasses and sins Nay, if you "hear not Moses and the Prophets" and Apostles on this head, neither will you believe "though one rose from the dead." It is therefore utterly unreasonable and absurd to require or expect the proof of miracles in questions of such a kind as are always decided by proofs of quite another nature.' A Farther Appeal, Part III. See Works, Viii. 233-4. If you will take the trouble of reading that little tract, you will find more upon the same head. 13. If you say, But those who lay claim to extraordinary inspiration and revelation ought to prove that claim by miracles,' we allow it. But this is not our case. We lay claim to no such thing. The Apostles did lay claim to extraordinary inspiration, and accordingly proved their claim by miracles. And their blessed Master claimed to be Lord of all, the eternal Son of God. Well, therefore, might He be expected to do the works which no other man did,' especially as He came to put an end to that dispensation which all men knew to be of God. See, then, how idly and impertinently you require the Methodists to work miracles because Christ and His Apostles did.'

14. You proceed: They pretend to be as free from sin as Jesus Christ' . You bring three proofs of this: (1) Mr. Wesley, in his answer to a divine of our Church, says, "Jesus Christ stands as our regeneration, to help us to the same holy, undefiled nature which He Himself had; and if this very life and identical nature is not propagated and derived on us, He is not our Saviour"' . When I heard you read these words, I listened and studied, and could not imagine where you got them. I knew they were not mine: I use no such queer language; but did not then recollect that they are Mr. Law's words in his Answer to Dr. Trapp, an extract from which I have published. Joseph Trapp, D.D., preached four sermons, mainly against Law's Serious Call, in 1739. Wesley published an extract from Law's Answer in 1748. See Green's Bibliography, No. 118. But be they whose they will, they by no means imply that we are to be as righteous as Christ was,' but that we are to be (which St. Peter likewise affirms) partakers of the divine nature.' (2) A preacher of yours declared he was as free from sin as Christ ever was.' I did not hear him declare it: pray did you If not, how do you know he declared it at all, Nay, but another declared he believed it was impossible for one whom he named to sin, for the Spirit of God dwelt in him bodily' . Pray, sir, did you hear this yourself Else the testimony is nothing worth. Hearsay evidence will not be admitted by any court in the kingdom. What you say of that good man Mr. Whitefield, now with God, I leave with Mr. H 's remark: I admire your prudence, though not your generosity; for it is much safer to cudgel a dead man than a living one.'

15. You next descant upon the disorders which the spirit of enthusiasm created in the last age.' Very likely it might; but, blessed be God, that is nothing at all to us. For He hath given us, not the spirit of enthusiasm, but of love and of a sound mind. In the following page you quaintly compare your hearers to sheep and yourself and friends to the dogs in the fable, and seem much afraid lest the silly sheep should be persuaded to give you up to these ravening wolves.' Nay, should you not rather be ranked with the sheep than the dogs For your teeth are not so sharp as razors. 16. Another fundamental error of the Methodists is the asserting that laymen may preach yea, the most ignorant and illiterate of them, provided they have the inward call of the Spirit' . The former part of this objection we had before. The latter is a total mistake. They do not allow the most ignorant 'men to preach whatever inward call' they pretend to. Among them none are allowed to be stated preachers but such as (1) are truly alive to God, such as experience the faith that worketh by love,' such as love God and all mankind; (2) such as have a competent knowledge of the Word of God and of the work of God in the souls of men; (3) such as have given proof that they are called of God by converting sinners from the error of their ways. And to show whether they have these qualifications or no, they are a year, sometimes more, upon trial. Now, I pray, what is the common examination either for deacon's or priest's orders to this 17. But no ambassador can act without a commission from his King; consequently no preacher wit,hout a commission from God' . This is a tender point; but you constrain me to speak. I ask, then, Is he commissioned from God to preach the gospel who does not know the gospel who knows little more of the Bible than of the Koran I fear not. But if so, what are many of our brethren Sent of man, but not of God!

However, these laymen are not sent of God to preach; for does not St. Paul say, "No man taketh this honour to himself but he that is called of God, as was Aaron"' Another text most unhappily applied; for Aaron did not preach at all. But if these men are not sent of God, how comes God to confirm their word by convincing and converting sinners He confirms the word of His messenger, but of none else. Therefore, if God owns their word, it is plain that God has sent them. But the earth opened and swallowed up those intruders into the priestly office, Korah, Dathan, and Abiram' . Such an intruder are you if you convert no sinners to God. Take heed lest a deeper pit swallow you up! 18. But the Church of Rome has sent out preachers among us, such as Thomas Heath, a Jesuit; and Faithful Commin, See letter in Dec. 1751, sect. 48, to Bishop Lavington. a Dominican friar' (pages 16-17). And what do you infer from hence that my brother, who was thought a student of Christ Church in Oxford, was really a Jesuit and that, while I passed for a Fellow of Lincoln College, I was in fact a Dominican friar Even to hint at such absurdities as these is an insult on common sense. 19. We have now done with the argumentative part of your sermons, and come to the exhortation: "Mark them that cause divisions and offences among you; for they serve not the Lord, but their own bellies"' . Who serve their own bellies' the Methodists, or Alas, how terribly might this be retorted! "And by fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple."' Deceive them into what into the knowledge and love of God! the loving their neighbour as themselves! the walking in justice, mercy, and truth! the doing to all as they would be done to! Felices errore suo! 'Happy in their error.' Would to God all the people of Waterford, rich and poor, yea, all the men, women, and children in the three kingdoms, may be thus deceived!

20. 'Do not credit those who tell you that we must judge of our regeneration by sensible impulses, impressions, ardours, and ecstasies' . Who tells them so Not I; not Mr. Bourke; not any in connexion with me. Sir, you yourself either do or ought to know the contrary. Whether, therefore, these are or are not 'signs of the Spirit' see you to it; it is nothing to me, any more than whether the Spirit does or does not 'show itself in groanings and sighings, in fits and starts.' I never affirmed it did; and when you represent me as so doing, you are a sinner against God and me and your own soul. 21. If you should see good to write anything more about the Methodists, I beg you would first learn who and what they are. Be so kind as at least to read over my Journals, and the Appeals to Men of Reason and Religion. Then you will no longer 'run' thus 'uncertainly,' or 'fight as one that beateth the air.' But I would rather hope you will not fight at all. For whom would you fight with If you will fight, it must be with your friends; for such we really are. We wish all the same happiness to you which we wish to our own souls. We desire no worse for you than that you may 'present' yourself 'a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God'; that you may watch over the souls committed to your charge as he 'that must give account'; and that in the end you may receive 'the crown which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to all that love His appearing!' So prays, reverend sir, Your affectionate brother.