Wesley Corpus

There cannot be under heaven a greater mistake than this, that I ever did stand out, and that I do so now. There has not been one day for these seven years last past wherein my soul has not longed for union. And they have grossly abused your honest credulity whoever have made you believe the contrary. 7. ‘Since the Mr. Wesleys have published such stuff and inconsistencies, I cannot agree with them.’ My brother, make some of those inconsistencies appear, and it will be an act of solid friendship. But ‘time will manifest matters, and what is of God will stand, and what is of man will come to naught.’ Most true; and according to this sure rule, it has already appeared whose work is of God, both at Bradford, at Horton, and in several towns not far from your own neighborhood. 8. The account you give of the Moravians in general is the very same I had given before -- viz. that next to those of our own Church, ‘who have the faith and love which is among them, without those errors either of judgment or practice, the body of the Moravian Church, however mistaken some of them are, are in the main, all of whom I have seen, the best Christians in the world.’ In the same tract I sum up my latest judgment concerning them in these terms: ‘I believe they love the Lord Jesus in sincerity and have a measure of the mind that was in Him. And I am in great earnest when I declare once more, that I have a deep, abiding conviction by how many degrees the good which is among them overbalances the evil,[I speak of the simple and artless part of their congregations; as for the teachers in their Church, it is my solemn belief (I speak it with grief and reluctance) that they are no better than a kind of Protestant Jesuits (Wesley). See letter of Feb. 2, 1745, sect. I. 12.] and that I cannot speak of them but with tender affection, were it only for the benefits I have received from them; and that at this hour I desire union with them (were those stumbling-blocks once put away which have hitherto made that desire ineffectual) above all things under heaven.’