Wesley Corpus

You reply: (1) ‘One instance of your misrepresenting and injuring a preacher of our Church I mentioned’ (Second Letter, p. 105). ‘Mentioned’! Well, but did you prove it was an injury or misrepresentation I know not that you once attempted it. (2) You next quote part of a letter [See letter of Dec. 10, 1734, sect24.] from the Third Journal (Journal, ii. 165), wherein, according to your account, the ‘most considerable of our clergy are abused, and at once accused in a very gross manner’ (Second Letter, p. 106). Set down the whole paragraph, and I will prove that this also is naked truth, and no abuse at all. You say (3) ‘You approved of Whitefield’s railing against the clergy’: that is, I say, ‘Mr. Whitefield preached concerning the “Holy Ghost, which all who believe are to receive”; not without a just, though severe, censure of those who preach as if there were no Holy Ghost’ (ii. 238-9). Nor is this railing, but melancholy truth. I have myself heard several preach in this manner. (4) You cite my words: ‘Woe unto you, ye blind leaders of the blind! How long will you pervert the right ways of the Lord’ and add, ‘I appeal to yourself, whether you did not design this reflection against the clergy in general who differ from you.’ No more than I did against Moses and Aaron. I expressly specify whom I design: ‘Ye who tell the mourners in Zion, Much religion hath made you mad.’ You say (5) (with a N.B.), ‘All the clergy who differ from you, you style so, page 225; in which, and the foregoing page, you causelessly slander them as speaking of their own holiness as that for the sake of which, on account of which, we are justified before God.’ [Works, viii. 224 -5.]