Wesley Corpus

Take breath, sir; there is a long paragraph behind. 'The abettors of these wild and whimsical notions are (1) close friends to the Church of Rome, agreeing with her in almost everything but the doctrine of Merit; (2) they are no less kind to infidelity, by making the Christian religion a mere creature of the imagination; (3) they cut up Christianity by the roots, frustrating the very end for which Christ died, which was that by holiness we might be " made meet for the inheritance of the saints "; (4) they are enemies not only to Christianity but to " every religion whatsoever," by labouring to subvert or overturn the whole system of morality; (5) consequently they must be enemies of society, dissolving the band by which it is united and knit together.' In a word: 'All ancient heresies have in a manner concentred in the Methodists; particularly those of the Simonians, Gnostics, Antinomians' (as widely distant from each other as Predestinarians from Calvinists!), 'Valentinians, Donatists, and Montanists.' (Pages 101-2.) While your hand was in, you might as well have added Carpocratians, Eutychians, Nestorians, Sabellians. If you say, 'I never heard of them,' no matter for that; you may find them, as well as the rest, in Bishop Pearson's index. Well, all this is mere flourish, raising a dust to blind the eyes of the spectators. Generals, you know, prove nothing. So, leaving this as it is, let us come to particulars. But first give me leave to transcribe a few words from a tract published some years ago. 'Your Lordship premises, " It is not at all needful to charge the particular tenets upon the particular persons among them." Indeed, it is needful in the highest degree. . . . Just as needful as it is not to put a stumbling-block in the way of our brethren; not to lay them under an almost insuperable temptation of condemning the innocent with the guilty. [See letter of June 11, 1747, sects. 4, 6, to Bishop Gibson.]