Wesley Corpus

15. 'But is not this plain proof of the enthusiasm of the Methodists, that they despise human learning and make a loud and terrible outcry against it' Pray, sir, when and where was this done Be so good as to point out the time and place; for I am quite a stranger to it. I believe, indeed, and so do you, that many men make an ill use of their learning. But so they do of their Bibles; therefore this is no reason for despising or crying out against it. I would use it just as far as it will go; how far I apprehend it may be of use, how far I judge it to be expedient at least, if not necessary, for a clergyman, you might have seen in the Earnest Address to the Clergy. [See letter of Jan. 7, 1756, n.] But in the meantime I bless God that there is a more excellent gift than either the knowledge of languages or philosophy: for tongues and knowledge and learning will vanish away; but love never faileth. 16. I think this is all you have said which is any way material concerning the doctrines of the Methodists. The charges you bring concerning their spirit or practice may be dispatched in fewer words. And, first, you charge them with pride and uncharitableness: 'They talk as proudly as the Donatists of their being the only true preachers of the gospel, and esteem themselves, in contradistinction to others, as the regenerate, the children of God, and as having arrived at sinless perfection' (page 15). All of a piece. We neither talk nor think so. We doubt not but there are many true preachers of the gospel, both in England and elsewhere, who have no connexion with, no knowledge of us. Neither can we doubt but that there are many thousand children of God who never heard our voice or saw our face. And this may suffice for an answer to all the assertions of the same kind which are scattered up and down your work. Of sinless perfection, here brought in by head and shoulders, I have nothing to say at present.