Wesley Corpus

Many a man has been justly sentenced to death for sins which, in the sight of God, were not equal to this. The point, therefore, requires a little more examination. And, first, I desire to know what are the names of those five or six Ministers? and which of them heard Mr. Whitefield say, “When I went abroad (in 1741,) I delivered thirty thousand people into the hands of you and your brother?” Thirty thousand people ! Whence did they come? Did they spring out of the earth? Why, there were not, at that time, five thousand Methodists in England, or in the world. The societies in London, Bristol, and Kingswood, (the only ones. I had,) contained fourteen or fifteen hundred members. I believe not so many were in his societies. But were they fewer, or more, they were nothing to me. He never entrusted me with them. He never delivered into mine, or my brother's hands, either his society at the Tabernacle in London, or that in Bristol, or in Kingswood, or any other place what ever. He never delivered (that I remember) one single society into my hands. I bless God, I needed it not. I did not need to build upon another man’s foundation. A dispensation of the Gospel was given me also; and my labour was not in vain. I was constrained to cry out (and you yourself used the same words to God in my behalf),-- *O the fathomless love Which has deign'd to approve And prosper the work of my hands ! With my pastoral crook I went over the brook, And, behold ! I am spread into bands !” With what view then can you charge me with that perfidy, which I am no more guilty of than of high treason? For what end can you affirm, “When he went abroad, he delivered many thousands into the hands of those he thought he could have trusted them with ?” Delivered ! when? where? how? What can you mean? I flatly deny that ever he delivered one thousand, or one hundred, souls into my hands. Do you mean, “He spoke honourably of you to them at Kennington-common and Rose-green?” True: But not so honourably as I spoke of you, even at London; yea, as late as the year 1763!