Wesley Corpus

LONDON, January [25], 1776. In one respect I am much obliged to the gentlemen (or gentleman) who spend so much time upon the Primitive Physick; and would humbly entreat them to say something about it (no matter what) in half a dozen more of your papers. If nothing was said about it, most people might be ignorant that there was any such tract in the world. But their mentioning it makes many inquire concerning it, and so disperses it more and move. The gentleman signing himself XXX in your last week's paper (Probably Mr. Antidote) seems now to have shot his last bolt, anti that feebly indeed. But he begins magnanimously: 'Mr. Wesley is too proud, too self-sufficient, and too much wrapped up in his self-importance, to vouchsafe either Mr. Caleb Evans or any other correspondent anything in the shape of an answer.' How grievously does this man stumble at the threshold! with what glaring, palpable falsehood does he set out! Have I not given a direct answer, both to Mr. Evans and Antidote, and S. E. and P. P. in the public papers However, I am obliged to him for informing me of the difference between 'ounces, scruples, drachms, or drams, and grains.' Otherwise, after mistaking a dram for a grain, I might have mistaken an ounce for a dram. But a dreadful objection comes next: 'Some people run as they read. Mr. Wesley's whole progressive life stands as a proof that he is one of that species of readers. In that mode he hath read the Scriptures, and in that mode doth he read every book.’ There is some truth in this. For several years, while my brother and I traveled on foot, our manner was for him that walked behind to read aloud some book of history, poetry, or philosophy. Afterwards for many years (as my time at home was spent mostly in writing) it was my custom to read things of a lighter nature, chiefly when I was on horseback. Of late years, since a friend gave me a chaise, I have read them in my carriage. But it is not in this manner I treat the Scriptures: these I read and meditate upon day and night. It was not in running that I wrote twice over the Notes on the New Testament (to say nothing of those on the Old), containing above 800 quarto pages.