Wesley Corpus

I expressly specify whom I design: “Ye who tell the mourners in Zion, Much religion hath made you mad.” You say, (5) (with a N. B.,) “All the Clergy who differ from you, you style so, page 225; in which, and the foregoing page, you causelessly slander them as speaking of their own holiness as that for the sake of which, on account of which, we are justi fied before God.”- Let any serious person read over those pages. I therein slander no man: I speak what I know; what I have both heard and read. The men are alive, and the books are extant. And the same conclusion I now defend, touching that part of the Clergy who preach or write thus; viz., if they preach the truth as it is in Jesus, I am found a false witness before God. But if I preach the way of God in truth, then they are blind leaders of the blind. (6.) You quote those words, “Nor can I be said to intrude into the labours of those who do not labour at all, but suffer thousands of those for whom Christ died to perish for lack of knowledge.” (Vol. I. p. 214.) I wrote that letter near Kingswood. I would to God the observation were not terribly true! (7.) The first passage you cite from the “Earn est Appeal,” (pages 25, 26) evidently relates to a few only among the Clergy; and if the charge be true but of one in five hundred, it abundantly supports my reasoning. (8.) In the next, (Ibid. page 30,) I address all those, and those only, who affirm that I preach for gain. You conclude: “The reader has now before him the manner in which you have been pleased to treat the Clergy; and your late sermon is too fresh an instance of the like usage of the Universities.” (Second Letter, p. 107.) It is an instance of speaking the truth in love. So I desire all mankind may use me. Nor could I have said less either to the University or the Clergy without sinning against God and my own soul. 11. But I must explain myself a little on that practice which you so often term “abusing the Clergy.” I have many times great sorrow and heaviness in my heart on account of these my brethren.