Wesley Corpus

'But this is not all. You poison the people by the most peevish and spiteful invectives against the clergy, the most rude and rancorous revilings, and the most invidious calumnies.' (Page 51.) No more than I poison them with arsenic. I make no peevish or spiteful invectives against any man. Rude and rancorous revilings (such as your present tract abounds with) are also far from me. I dare not 'return railing for railing,' because (whether you know it or no) I fear God. Invidious calumnies likewise I never dealt in; all such weapons I leave to you. 20. One charge remains, which you repeat over and over, and lay a peculiar stress upon. (As to what you talk about perverting Scripture, I pass it by as mere unmeaning commonplace declamation.) It is the poor old worn-out tale of 'getting money by preaching.' This you only intimate at first: 'Some of their followers had an inward call to sell all that they had and lay it at their feet' (page 22). Pray, sir, favour us with the name of one, and we will excuse you as to all the rest. In the next page you grow bolder, and roundly affirm: 'With all their heavenly-mindedness, they could not help casting a sheep's eye at the unrighteous mammon. Nor did they pay their court to it with less cunning and success than Montanus. Under the specious appearance of gifts and offerings, they raised contributions from every quarter. Besides the weekly pensions squeezed out of the poorer and lower part of their community, they were favoured with very large oblations from persons of better figure and fortune; and especially from many believing wives, who had learned to practice pious frauds on their unbelieving husbands.'