Wesley Corpus

‘You“still think that, next to some thousands in our own Church, the body of the Moravian Church, however mistaken some of them are, are in the main the best Christians in the world”’ (Second Letter, p. 81). I do, ‘of all whom I have seen’ -- you should not omit these words. ‘Those dreadful errors and crimes are here softened into mistakes.’ I term them ‘errors of judgment and practice.’ ‘I have proved that you have charged the body with such.’ At present the proof does not amount to demonstration. There needs a little farther proof that I charge any 'dreadful crimes' on the body of the Moravians. I see no manner of inconsistency still, in those accounts of my intercourse with the Moravians, which you suppose irreconcilable with each other. Let any one read them in the Journal, and judge. 7. ‘You had said, your “objections then were nearly the same as now.” You now add, “only with this difference: I was not then assured that the facts were as I supposed; I did not dare to determine anything.” No! Not when by conversing among them you saw these things As, indeed, the facts are of such a nature that you could not but be assured of them if they were true. Nor do the questions in your letter really imply any doubt of their truth; but are so many appeals to their consciences, and equivalent to strong assertions. And if you had not been assured, if you did not dare to determine anything concerning what you saw, your writing bare suspicions to a body of men in such a manner was inexcusable. This excuse, therefore, will not serve you.’ (Page 83.) I apprehend it will. ‘I was not then,’ in September 1738, ‘assured that the facts were as I supposed.’ Therefore ‘I did not’ then ‘dare to determine anything.’ Be pleased to add the immediately following words: ‘But from November 1,’ 1739, ‘I saw more and more things which I could not reconcile with the gospel.’