Wesley Corpus

Upon the whole, I cannot but observe how extremely difficult it is, even for men who have an upright intention and are not wanting either in natural or acquired abilities, to understand one another; and how hard it is to do even justice to those whom we do not throughly understand; much more to treat them with that gentleness, tenderness, and brotherly kindness with which, upon a change of circumstances, we might reasonably desire to be treated ourselves. Oh when shall men know whose disciples we are by our ' loving one another as He hath loved us' I The God of love hasten the time! -- I am, dear sir, Your affectionate servant. To Micaiah Towgood [2] BRISTOL, January 10, 1758. SIR,--If you fairly represent Mr. White’s arguments, they are liable to much exception. But whether they are or no, your answers to them are far from unexceptionable. To the manner of the whole I object, you are not serious; you do not write as did those excellent men, Mr. Baxter, Mr. Howe, Dr. Calamy, who seem always to speak, not laughing, but weeping. To the matter I object, that if your argument hold as it is proposed in your very title-page, if ‘a dissent from our Church be the genuine consequence of the allegiance due to Christ,’ then all who do not dissent have renounced that allegiance and are in a state of damnation! I have not leisure to consider all that you advance in proof of this severe sentence. I can only at present examine your main argument, which indeed contains the strength of your cause. ‘My separation from the Church of England,’ you say, ‘is a debt I owe to God, and an act of allegiance due to Christ, the only Lawgiver in the Church’ (page 2).