Wesley Corpus

However, since you persist to affirm that I am guilty of the contradictions you charged upon me (page 87), I think there cannot be a sufficient reply without reciting the several instances. 12. (1) ‘You commend them (the Moravians) for loving one another; and yet charge them with biting and devouring one another.’ I answered, ‘Them! Whom Not the Moravians, but the English brethren of Fetter Lane before their union with the Moravians. Herein, then, is no shadow of contradiction; for the two sentences do not relate to the same persons.’ You reply, 'Would you, then, have us to think that so much anger and contradiction reigned among your Methodists' I 'would have you think' this is nothing to the purpose. Prove the contradiction, and you speak to the point. 'It is plain they had before this been perverted by the Moravians, and that they were unwilling to be taught by any others.' They--that is, nearly half of the Society. But here is no proof of the contradiction still. (2) ‘You say, “They had wellnigh destroyed brotherly love from among us, partly by cautions against natural love, partly by occasioning almost continual disputes.”’ So they had; but we had then no connection with them. Neither, therefore, does this contradict their loving one another. You reply, ‘As if they can truly love each other who teach you not to do it and stir up divisions and disturbances among you.’ You should say, if you would repeat after me, ‘Who caution you against natural love and occasion many disputes among you.’ Well; allowing they do this (which is utterly wrong), yet where is the contradiction Yet they may love one another. (3) ‘You praise them for using no diversions but such as become saints; and yet say’ (I recite the whole sentence), '"I have heard some of you affirm that Christian salvation implies liberty to conform to the world, by joining in worldly diversions in order to do good."' And both these are true. The Moravians in general 'use no diversions but such as become saints'; and yet I have heard some of them affirm, in contradiction to their own practice, that 'one then mentioned did well when he joined in playing at tennis in order to do good.' To this you make no reply. Silence, then, consents that there is no contradiction here.