Wesley Corpus

Q. 15. 'Do you not stint your lay preachers to three or four minutes only in public prayers' I advise them not usually to exceed four or five minutes either before or after sermon. [See A Preservative against Unsettled Notions in Religion, 1758, p. 244.] Q. 3. 'Is not your Christian Library an odd collection of mutilated writings of Dissenters of all sorts' No. In the first ten volumes there is not a line from any Dissenter of any sort; and the greatest part of the other forty is extracted from Archbishop Leighton, Bishops Taylor, Patrick, Ken, Reynolds, Sanderson, and other ornaments of the Church of England. Q. 4. 'Is not this declaring that you have a superior privilege beyond all men to print, correct, and direct as you please' I think not. I suppose every man in England has the same privilege. Q. 5. 'Is it performed according to the first proposals and the expectation of the subscribers' It is performed according to the first proposals; nor could any subscriber reasonably expect more. Q. 7. 'Why did you not in your New Testament distinguish those places with italics where you altered the old translation' Because it was quite needless; as any who choose it may easily compare the two translations together. 'But should you not have given the learned a reason for every alteration' Yes, if I had written for the learned; but I did not, as I expressly mentioned in the Preface. Q. 8. 'Do you not assume too much in philosophy and physic as well as in theology' I hope not. Q. 9. 'Why did you meddle with electricity' For the same reason as I published the Primitive Physick--to do as much good as I can. Q. 19. 'Are you a clergyman at all' Yes. 'Are you not a Quaker in disguise' No. 'Did not you betray the Church, as Judas his Master, with a kiss' No. 'If you be in the wrong, God confound your devices!' I say the same thing. 'If in the right, may He display it to all people!' Amen! In His own time. I take this opportunity to answer the queries also which occur on page 614: 1. 'If the operations of the Spirit overpower the natural faculties, must they not destroy free agency' I neither teach nor believe that the ordinary operations of the Spirit do overpower the natural faculties.