Wesley Corpus

But I dislike something which has the appearance of pride, of overvaluing yourselves and undervaluing others, particularly the preachers: thinking not only that they are blind and that they are not sent of God, but even that they are dead--dead to God, and walking in the way to hell; that they are going one way, you another; that they have no life in them. Your speaking of yourselves as though you were the only men who knew and taught the gospel; and as if not only all the clergy, but all the Methodists besides, were in utter darkness. I dislike something that has the appearance of enthusiasm, overvaluing feelings and inward impressions: mistaking the mere work of imagination for the voice of the Spirit; expecting the end without the means; and undervaluing reason, knowledge, and wisdom in general. I dislike something that has the appearance of Antinomianism, not magnifying the law and making it honourable; not enough valuing tenderness of conscience and exact watchfulness in order thereto; using faith rather as contradistinguished from holiness than as productive of it. But what I most of all dislike is your littleness of love to your brethren, to your own Society; your want of union of heart with them and bowels of mercies toward them; your want of meekness, gentleness, longsuffering; your impatience of contradiction; your counting every man your enemy that reproves or admonishes you in love; your bigotry and narrowness of spirit, loving in a manner only those that love you; your censoriousness, proneness to think hardly of all who do not exactly agree with you: in one word, your divisive spirit. Indeed, I do not believe that any of you either design or desire a separation; but you do not enough fear, abhor, and detest it, shuddering at the very thought. And all the preceding tempers tend to it and gradually prepare you for it. Observe, I tell you before. God grant you may immediately and affectionately take the warning! 3. As to your outward behaviour, I like the general tenor of your life, devoted to God, and spent in doing good. But I dislike your slighting any, the very least rules of the bands or Society, and your doing anything that tends to hinder others from exactly observing them. Therefore--