Wesley Corpus

When you have answered the arguments in the ‘Farther Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion, I will say something more upon that head. “In the ninth you say something, no way material, about the houses at Bristol, Kingswood, and Newcastle; and, in the last, you give me a fair challenge to a ‘personal dispute.” Not so; you have fallen upon me in public; and to the public I appeal. Let all men, not any single umpire, judge whether I have not refuted your charge, and cleared the people called Methodists from the foul aspersions which, without why or wherefore, you had thrown upon them. Let all my country men judge which of us have spoken the words of truth and soberness, which has reason on his side, and which has treated the other with a temper suitable to the Gospel. “If the general voice of mankind gives it against you, I hope you will be henceforth less flippant with your pen. I assure you, as little as you think of it, the Methodists are not such fools as you suppose. But their desire is to live peaceably with all men; and none desires this more than About the close of this year, I received a remarkable account from Ireland: “WHEN Miss E was about fifteen, she frequently heard the preaching of the Methodists, so called; and though it made no deep impression, yet she retained a love for them ever after. About nineteen she was seized with a lingering illness. She then began to wrestle with God in prayer, that his love might be shed abroad in her heart. ‘Then,” said she, “how freely could I give up all that is dear to me in this world !’ And from this very time she did not expect, nor indeed desire, to recover; but only to be cleansed from sin, and to go to Christ. “Some who visited her, said, “O Miss, you need not fear; your innocence will bring you to heaven. She earnestly replied, “Unless the merits of Christ plead for me, and his mature be imparted to me, I can never enter there.’ And she was incessantly breaking out into these and the like expressions, ‘O that I knew my sins were forgiven O that 32 REv. J. wesley’s [Dec. 1760. I was born again!