Wesley Corpus

Many people are ready enough to contradict others; but it seems all one to this gentleman whether it be another or himself, so he may but contradict.” 11. To prove this indictment, (urged home enough, though there is not one tittle of truth in it,) Mr. H. has cited no less than a hundred and one witnesses.* Before I enter upon the examination of these, I beg leave to transcribe what I wrote some time since to Dr. Rutherforth: “You frequently charge me with evasion; and others have brought the same charge. The plain case is this: I have wrote on various heads; and * The very number of propositions extracted out of Quesnel's writings, and condemned as dreadful heresies in the bull Unigénitus ! Exemplum placet ! See how good wits jump! Mr. H., Father Walsh, and the Pope of Rome! always as clearly as I could. Yet many have misunderstood my words, and raised abundance of objections. I answered them by explaining myself, showing what I did not mean, and what I did. One and another of the objectors stretched his throat, and cried out, “Evasion, evasion l’ And what does all this outcry amount to? Why, exactly thus much: They imagined they had tied me so fast, that it was impossible for me to escape. But presently the cobwebs were swept away, and I was quite at liberty. And I bless God I can unravel truth and falsehood, although artfully twisted together. Of such evasion I am not ashamed. Let them be ashamed who constrain me to use it.” 12. Mr. H.’s numerous proofs of my contradicting myself may be ranged under twenty-four heads. I shall examine these one by one, in what appears to me to be the most natural order:- I 1. “There was an everlast- “There never was any such ing covenant between God the covenant between God the Father and God the Son con- Father and God the Son.” cerning man's redemption.” (Page 128.) The latter of these I believe, and always did, since I could read my Bible. But Mr. H. brings a passage out of the Christian Library, to contradict this. On which he parades as follows: “If the Christian Library be, as Mr. W. affirms, ‘all true, all agree able to the word of God,” then what are we to think of his other works?