Wesley Corpus

17. You charge them, Secondly, “with boldness and blas phemy, who, triumphing in their train of credulous and crazy followers, the spurious” (should it not be rather the genu ine *) “offspring of their insidious craft, ascribe the glorious event to divine grace, and, in almost every page of their paltry harangues, invoke the blessed Spirit to go along with them in their soul-awakening work; that is, to continue to assist them in seducing the simple and unwary.” (Page 41.) What we ascribe to divine grace is this: The convincing sinners of the errors of their ways, and the “turning them from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God.” Do not you yourself ascribe this to grace? And do not you too invoke the blessed Spirit, to go along with you in every part of your work? If you do not, you lose all your labour. Whether we “seduce men into sin,” or by his grace save them from it, is another question. 18. You charge us, Thirdly, with “requiring a blind and implicit trust from our disciples; ” (p. 10;) who, accordingly, “trust as implicitly in their Preachers, as the Papists in their Pope, Councils, or Church.” (Page 51.) Far from it: Neither do we require it; nor do they that hear us place any such trust in any creature. They “search the Scriptures,” and hereby try every doctrine whether it be of God: And what is agreeable to Scripture, they embrace; what is con trary to it, they reject. 19. You charge us, Fourthly, with injuring the Clergy in various ways: (1) “They are very industrious to dissolve or break off that spiritual intercourse which the relation wherein we stand requires should be preserved betwixt us and our people.” But can that spiritual intercourse be either pre served or broke off, which never existed? What spiritual intercourse exists between you, the Rector of St. Michael, and the people of your parish 2 I suppose you preach to them once a week, and now and then read Prayers. Perhaps you visit one in ten of the sick. And is this all the spiritual intercourse which you have with those over whom the Holy Ghost hath made you an overseer? In how poor a sense then do you watch over the souls for whom you are to give an ac count to God!