Wesley Corpus

16. You proceed: ‘Kingswood you call your own house: And whenone Mr. C. opposed you there, you reply to him, “You should nothave supplanted me in my own house, stealing the hearts of thepeople.” The parochial Clergy may call their several districts theirown houses, with much more propriety than you could call Kingswood yours. And yet how have you supplanted them therein,and labored to steal the hearts of the people! You have sufferedby the same ways you took to discharge your spleen and maliceagainst your brethren. ‘Your brother's words to Mr. Cennick are, -- ‘Whether his doctrine is true or false, is not the question. But you ought first to have fairly toldhim, I preach contrary to you. Are you, willing, notwithstanding,that I should continue in your house, gainsaying you Shall I stayhere opposing you, or shall I depart ‘Think you hear this spokento you by us. What can you justly reply -- Again, if Mr. Cennick hadsaid thus to you, and you had refused him leave to stay; I ask you,whether in such a case he would have had reason to resent such arefusal I think you cannot say he would. And yet how loudlyhave you objected our refusing our pulpits to you!’ (Remarks, pp. 15-16.) So you judge these to be exactly parallel cases. It lies therefore uponme to show that they are not parallel at all; that there is, in manyrespects, an essential difference between them. (1.) ‘Kingswood you call your own house.’ So I do, that is, theschool-house there. For I bought the ground where it stands, andpaid for the building it, partly from the contribution of my friends, (one of whom contributed fifty pounds,) partly from the income of my own Fellowship. No Clergyman therefore can call his parish his own house with more propriety than I can call this house mine. (2.) ‘Mr. Cennick opposed you there.’ True; but who was Mr. Cennick One I had sent for to assist me there; a friend that was as my own soul; that, even while he opposed me, lay in my bosom. What resemblance then does Mr. Cennick, thus opposing me, bear to me opposing (if I really did) a parochial minister