Wesley Corpus

wrong.” But I do not stand to their sentence; I appeal to Scripture and reason, and by these alone consent to be judged. “I am, Sir, “Your humble servant, “JoHN WESLEY.” Sat. 22.--I was obliged to trouble him with another letter, as follows: “JUST as I had finished the letter published in your last Friday’s paper, four tracts came to my hands; one wrote, or procured to be wrote, by Mrs. Downes; one by a Clergyman in the county of Durham; the third, by a gentleman of Cambridge; and the fourth, by a member (I suppose, Dignitary) of the Church of Rome. How gladly would I leave all these to themselves, and let them say just what they please! as my day is far spent, and my taste for controversy is utterly lost and gone. But this would not be doing justice to the world, who might take silence for a proof of guilt. I shall therefore say a word concerning each. I may, perhaps, some time say more to one or two of them. “The letter which goes under Mrs. Downes's name scarce deserves any notice at all, as there is nothing extraordinary in it, but an extraordinary degree of virulence and scurrility. Two things only I remark concerning it, which I suppose the writer of it knew as well as me:-1. That my letter to Mr. Downes was both wrote and printed before Mr. Downes died. 2. That when I said, Tibi parvula res est, ‘Your ability is small, I had no view to his fortune, which I knew nothing of; but, as I there expressly say, to his wit, sense, and talents, as a writer. “The tract wrote by the gentleman in the north is far more bulky than this: But it is more considerable for its bulk than for its matter; being little more than a dull repetition of what was published some years ago, in ‘The Enthusiasm of the Methodists and Papists Compared. I do not find the author adds any thing new, unless we may bestow that epithet on a sermon annexed to his address, which, I presume, will do neither good nor harm. So I leave the Durham gentleman, with Mrs. Downes, to himself and his admirers. “The author of the letter to Mr. Berridge is a more considerable writer. In many things I wholly agree with him, though not in admiring Dr.