Wesley Corpus

6. But though I aver this, am I quite indifferent to any man’s principles in religion Far from it; as I have declared again and again, in the very sermon under present consideration, in the Character of a Methodist, in the Plain Account, and twenty tracts besides, I have written severally against Deists, Papists, Mystics, &c. An odd way to ingratiate myself with them, to strike at the apple of their eye! [The version followed here and in the other letter to Clark is that which appears in Montanus Redivivus. Compare sect. 6 with that in Works, xiii. 214-15.] Nevertheless in all things indifferent (but not at the expense of truth) I rejoice to please all men for their good to edification, if happily I may gain the more proselytes to genuine scriptural Christianity, if I may prevail on the more to love God and their neighbor and to walk as Christ walked. So far as I find them obstructive of these, I oppose opinions with my might; though even then rather by guarding those that are free than by disputing with those that are deeply infected: I need not dispute with many of them to know there is no probability of success or of convincing them. A thousand times I have found my father’s word true: ‘You may have peace with the Dissenters, if you do not so humor them as to dispute with them; if you do, they will outface and outlung you, and at the end you will be just where you were in the beginning.’ I have now, sir, humored you so as to dispute a little with you. But with what probability of success Suppose you have a single eye in this debate; suppose you aim, not at victory, but at the truth; yet what man of threescore (unless perchance one in an age) was ever convinced Is not an cid man’s motto, Non persuadebis etiamsi persuaseris [‘I will not be persuaded, even though you should convince me.’] When we are past middle age, do we not find a kind of stiffness and inflexibility stealing upon the mind as well as on the body And does not this bar the gate against all conviction even before the eye of the soul grows dim, and so less and less capable of diving things which we are not already well acquainted with!