Wesley Corpus

19. But do we willingly ‘annoy the Established ministry’ or ‘give disturbance to the parochial clergy’ My Lord, we do not. We trust herein to have a conscience void of offence. Nor do we designedly ‘prejudice their people against them.’ In this also our heart condemneth us not. But you ‘seduce their flocks from them.’ No, not even from those who feed themselves, not the flock. All who hear us attend the service of the Church, at least as much as they did before. And for this very thing are we reproached as bigots to the Church by those of most other denominations. Give me leave, my Lord, to say you have mistook and misrepresented this whole affair from the top to the bottom. And I am the more concerned to take notice of this because so many have fallen into the same mistake. It is indeed, and has been from the beginning, the pts ed, ‘the capital blunder,’ of our bitterest adversaries; though how they can advance it I see not, without ‘loving,’ if not ‘making, a lie.’ It is not our care, endeavor, or desire to proselyte any from one man to another; or from one church (so called), from one congregation or society, to another, -- we would not move a finger to do this, to make ten thousand such proselytes,--but from darkness to light, from Belial to Christ, from the power of Satan to God. Our one aim is to proselyte sinners to repentance, the servants of the devil to serve the living and true God. If this be not done in fact, we will stand condemned, not as well-meaning fools, but as devils incarnate. But if it be, if the instances glare in the face of the sun, if they increase daily, maugre all the power of earth and hell; then, my Lord, neither you nor any man beside (let me use great plainness of speech) can ‘oppose’ and 'fortify people against us,' without being found even ‘to fight against God.’