Wesley Corpus

3. Another can supply my place at Epworth better than at Oxford, and the good done here is of a far more diffusive nature. It is a more extensive benefit to sweeten the fountain than to do the same to particular streams. 4. To the objection, You are despised at Oxford, therefore you can do no good there, I answer: (1) A Christian will be despised anywhere. (2) No one is a Christian till he is despised. (3) His being .despised will not hinder his doing good, but much further it by making him a better Christian. Without contradicting any of these propositions, I allow that every one to whom you do good directly must esteem you, first or last. -- N.B. A man may despise you for one thing, hate you for a second, and envy you for a third. 5. God may suffer Epworth to be worse than before. But I may not attempt to prevent it, with so great hazard to my own soul. Your last argument is either ignoratio elenchi, or implies these two propositions: (1) 'You resolve against any parochial cure of souls.' (2) 'The priest who does not undertake the first parochial cure that offers is perjured.' Let us add a third: ' The tutor who, being in Orders, never accepts of a parish is perjured.' [That was Samuel Wcsley's own case.] And then I deny all three. --I am, dear brother, Your obliged and affectionate Brother. To his Brother Samuel Oxon, March 4, 1735. DEAR BROTHER, -- I had rather dispute, if I must dispute, with you than with any man living, because it may be done with so little expense of time and words. The question is now brought to one point, and the whole of the argument will be in a single syllogism: Neither hope of doing greater good nor fear of any evil ought to deter you from what you have engaged yourself to. But you have engaged yourself to undertake the cure of a parish: Therefore neither that hope nor that fear ought to deter you from it. The only doubt is whether I have engaged myself or not. You think I did at my ordination, ' before God and His high-priest.' I think I did not.