Wesley Corpus

The question I would propose is this: Is it prudent, is it just, is it humane, to jumble whole bodies of people together and condemn them by the lump Is it not a maxim now almost universally received that there are good and bad in every society Why, then, do you continually jumble together and condemn by the lump the whole body of people called Methodists Is it prudent (just to touch even on so low a consideration) to be constantly insulting and provoking those who do you no wrong and had far rather be your friends than your enemies Is it consistent with humanity to strike again one who gives no provocation and makes no resistance Is it common justice to treat with such contempt as you have done in the last month’s Review those who are by no means contemptible writers Be persuaded, gentlemen, to give yourselves the pains of reading either Mr. Herbert’s ‘Providence,’ [Wesley was familiar with Herbert, six of whose poems he had turned into hymns for his Hymn-Book published in Charlestown: O sacred Providence, who from end to end, Strongly and sweetly movest! shall I write, And not of Thee, through whom my fingers bend, To hold my quill Shall they not do Thee right (The Temple)] or the verses which Norris entitles ‘The Meditation’ [John Norris (1657-1711), Rector of Bemerton, English Platonist and poet, an idealist of the purest type, sustained by the loftiest inspiration. Professor Sorley says (Cambridge History of English Literature, viii. 348) that ‘he was the only English writer of note who adopted the views of Malebranche. He had thought out -- one may even say he had lived -- the theory for himself.’ Mr. Osmond thinks ‘The Meditation,’ ‘though perhaps a better piece of work technically, is more morbid and low-toned than “The Prophet”’ (Mystical Poets of the English Church, p. 228). See letter of March 14.]; and you will find them scarce inferior either in sense or language to most compositions of the present age. To speak more freely still: where is the justice of coupling the hymns of Methodists and Moravians together Lay prejudice aside, and read with candor but the very first hymn in our first Hymn-Book [Hymns and Sacred Poems, 1739.