Wesley Corpus

MY DEAR BROTHER,--That you have received a considerable blessing from God is beyond all dispute. Hold fast whereunto you have attained, and do not reason about it. Do not concern yourself whether it should be called by this or another name. It is right as far as it goes. And whatsoever is yet lacking, God is able and willing to supply.--I am Your affectionate brother. Mr. Jonah Freeman, At Mr. Clark's, Hosier, In Farr's Alley, Aldersgate Street. To Samuel Furly LONDON, December 20, 1762. DEAR SAMMY,--Charles Perronet, the author of that remark on 2Peter iii. 13, does not believe Christ will reign at all upon earth, nor any millennium [See letter of March 10, 1763.] till we come to heaven. The argument by which he endeavours to prove that St. Peter there speaks only to what will precede the Day of Judgement is this: 'If those expressions, a new heaven and a new earth, refer only to this world when they occur in Isaiah, then they refer to nothing more where they are used by St. Peter.' I should never have suspected Dr. Sherlock [William Sherlock (1641-1707) was then Prebendary of St. Paul's, and became Dean in 1691; he was Master of the Temple 1685-1704. His Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity in 1690 was answered by Robert South (1633-1716) in his Animadversions. Sherlock replied with his Defence (1694), and in 1695 Dr. South wrote his Tritheism, accusing Sherlock of that heresy. The contest was sharp, and men of note took part in it on both sides.] of writing anything in a burlesque way. He never aimed at it in his controversy with Dr. South, and seemed exceeding angry at his opponent for doing so. Probably he knew himself to be overmatched by the Doctor, and therefore did not care to engage him on his own ground. 'But why should you be angry,' says Dr. South, 'at wit It might have pleased God to make you a wit too.'