Wesley Corpus

H. affirmed, “Every single word in the ‘Christian Library’ is his own.” Beaten out of this hold, he retreats to another; but it is as untenable as the former: “The matter,” he says, “does not rest on a few sentences; whole treatises are diametrically opposite to his present tenets.” He instances in the works of Dr. Sibbs, Preston, Beveridge, and a treatise of Dr. Owen’s. I join issue with him on this point. Here I pin him down. The works of Dr. Preston and Sibbs are in the ninth and tenth volumes of the Library; that treatise of Dr. Owen's in the seventeenth; that of Bishop Beveridge in the forty seventh. Take which of them you please; suppose the last, Bishop Beveridge’s “Thoughts upon Religion.” Is this whole treatise “ diametrically opposite to my present tenets?” The “Resolutions” take up the greatest part of the book; every sentence of which exactly agrees with my present judgment; as do at least nine parts in ten of the preceding “Thoughts,” on which those Resolutions are formed. Now, what could possibly induce a person of Mr. Hill’s character, a man of a good understanding, and of a generous temper, a well-bred gentle man, and a serious Christian, to violate all the rules of justice and truth, which at other times he so earnestly defends, by positively, deliberately, roundly asserting so entire a falsehood, merely to blacken one who loves his person, who esteems his character, and is ready to serve him in anything within his power? What, but so violent an attachment to his opinion, as, while that is in danger, suspends all his faculties, so that he neither can feel, nor think, nor speak like himself? 14. In the ninth and tenth volumes are two treatises of Dr. Preston's,--“The Breastplate of Faith and Love,” and “The New Covenant.” Is either of these “diametrically opposite to my present tenets?” . By no means. If a few sentences here and there (and this I only suppose, not grant) were carelessly left in, though I had scratched them out, which seem (perhaps only seem) to contradict them, these are not the whole tracts; the general tenor of which I still heartily subscribe to. The tenth volume likewise contains two sermons of Dr. Sibbs’s, and his tract upon Solomon’s Song. Are any of these “diametrically opposite to my present tenets?” No more than those of Dr.