Wesley Corpus

To the Editor of the ‘London Chronicle’ Date: LONDON, April 5, 1763. Source: The Letters of John Wesley (1763) Author: John Wesley --- SIR, -- Some time since, I heard a man in the street bawling, ‘The Scripture Doctrine of Imputed Righteousness asserted and maintained by the Rev. John Wesley!’ I was a little surprised, not having published anything on the head; and more so when, upon reading it over, I found not one line of it was mine, though I remembered to have read something like it. Soon after (to show what I really do maintain) I published Thoughts on the Imputed Righteousness of Christ, mentioning therein that ‘pious fraud’ which constrained me so to do. The modest author of the former publication now prints a second edition of it, and faces me down before all the world -- yea, and proves that it is mine. Would you not wonder by what argument Oh, the plainest in the world. ‘There is not,’ says he, ‘the least fraud in the publication nor imposition on Mr. Wesley; for the words are transcribed from the ninth and tenth volumes of his Christian Library.’ But the Christian Library is not Mr. Wesley’s writing: it is ‘Extracts from and Abridgements of’ other writers; the subject of which I highly approve, but I will not be accountable for every expression. Much less will I father eight pages of I know not what which a shameless man has picked out of that work, tacked together in the manner he thought good, and then published in my name. He puts me in mind of what occurred some years since. A man was stretching his throat near Moorfields and screaming out, ‘A full and true Account of the Death of the Rev. George Whitefield!’ One took hold of him, and said, ‘Sirrah! what do you mean Mr. Whitefield is yonder before you.’ He shrugged up his shoulders, and said, ‘Why, sir, an honest man must do something to turn a penny.’ -- I am, sir, Your humble servant.