Wesley Corpus

I preached on, “He will not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax.” And again God applied his word, both to wound, and to heal them that were already wounded. About this time I wrote the following letter: “To the Editor of the London Chronicle. “SIR, September 17, 1760. “As you sometimes insert things of a religious nature in your paper, I shall count it a favour if you will insert this. “Some years ago I published “A Letter to Mr. Law;’ and, about the same time, “An Address to the Clergy. Of the former, Mr. Law gives the following account, in his ‘Collection of Letters’ lately published:-- “‘To answer Mr. Wesley's letter seems to be quite needless, because there is nothing substantial or properly argumentative in it. I was once a kind of oracle to Mr. W-. I judged him to be much under the power of his own spirit. To this was owing the false censure which he published against the Mystics, as enemies to good works.’ Pp. 128, 130. “His letter is such a juvenile composition of emptiness and pertness, as is below the character of any man who had been serious in religion for half a month. It was not ability, but necessity, that put his pen into his hand. He had preached much against my books; and forbid his people the use of them; and for a cover of all this, he promised, from time to time, to write against them; therefore an answer was to be made at all adventures. He and the Pope conceive the same reasons for condemning the mystery revealed by Jacob Behme. P. 190. “Of the latter he gives this account:--‘The Pamphlet you sent is worse than no advice at all; but infinitely beyond Mr. Wesley's Babylonish Address to the Clergy; almost all of which is empty babble, fitter for an old grammarian that was Sept. 1760.] JOURNALs 19 grown blear-eyed in mending dictionaries, than for one who had tasted of the powers of the world to come. P. 198. “I leave others to judge whether an answer to that letter be quite needless or no; and whether there be any thing sub stantial in it; but certainly there is something argumentative.