Wesley Corpus

MY DEAR BROTHER, -- Between forty and fifty of our preachers lately met at Leeds, all of whom, I trust, esteem you in love for your work's sake. I was desired by them to mention a few particulars to you, in order to a still firmer union between us. Several of them had been grieved at your mentioning among our people (in private conversation, if not in public preaching) some of those opinions which we do not believe to be true, such as ‘a man may be justified and not know it,’ that ‘there is no possibility of falling away from grace,’ and that ‘there is no perfection in this fife.’ They conceived that this was not doing as you would be done to, and that it tended to create not peace but confusion. They are likewise concerned at your sometimes speaking lightly of the discipline received among us, of societies, classes, bands, and of our rums in general, of some of them in particular. This they apprehended to be neither kind nor just, nor consistent with the profession which you at other times make. Above all, they had been troubled at the manner wherein your preachers (so I call those who preach at the Tabernacle) had very frequently spoken of my brother and me, partly in the most scoffing and contemptuous manner, relating an hundred shocking stories (such as that of Mary Popplestone and Eliz. Story) as unquestionable facts, and propagating them with diligence and with an air of triumph wherever they came. These things I was desired by all our brethren to mention. Two or three of them afterwards desired me in private to mention farther that when you were in the North your conversation was not so useful as was expected; that it generally turned not upon the things of God, but on trifles and things indifferent; that your whole carriage was not so serious as they could have desired, being often mixed with needless laughter; and that those who scrupled any levity of behavior, and endeavored always to speak and act as seeing God, you rather weakened than strengthened, intimating that they were in bondage or weak in faith.