Wesley Corpus

If the plan of the College is overthrown, I have nothing more to say to it. I will keep to my text, for one. I trust I shall ever be a servant of all: The confined tool of any one party I never was, and never will be. If the blow that should have been struck at the dead spirit, is struck (contrary to the granted liberty of sentiment) at dead Arminius, or absent Mr. Wesley; if a Master is turned away without any fault; it is time for me to stand up with firmness, or to withdraw.” 14. “The following paragraphs are transcribed from Mr. Fletcher's letter to my Lady : “‘Mr. Benson made a very just defence when he said, he did hold with me the possibility of salvation for all men. If this is what you call Mr. Wesley’s opinion and Arminianism, and if every Arminian must quit the College, I am actually discharged. For in my present view of things, I must hold that sentiment, if I believe that the Bible is true, and that God is love. “‘For my part, I am no party-man. In the Lord I am your servant, and that of your every student. But I cannot give up the honour of being connected with my old friends, who, notwithstanding their failings, are entitled to my respect, gratitude, and affection. Mr. Wesley shall always be welcome to my pulpit, and I shall gladly bear my testimony in his as well as Mr. Whitefield's. If you forbid your students to preach for the one, and offer them to preach for the other; and if a Master is discarded for believing that Christ died for all; then prejudice reigns, charity is cruelly wounded, and party-spirit shouts, prevails, triumphs.” 15. “Two days after,” continues Mr. Benson, “he writes, ‘I am determined to stand or fall with the liberty of the College. As I entered it a free place, I must quit it the moment it is an harbour for party-spirit.” “This he was soon constrained to do, as appears from the following letter, wrote about two months after -- “‘ON my arrival at the College, I found all very quiet, I fear through the enemy’s keeping his goods in peace. While I preached the next day I found myself as much shackled as ever I was in my life.