Wesley Corpus

This, therefore, properly speak ing, is not faith; as a dead man is not properly a man. You add, “The original Methodists affect to call themselves Methodists of the Church of England; by which they plainly inform us, there are others of their body who do not profess to telong to it. Whence we may infer, that the Methodists who take our name, do yet, by acknowledging them as namesakes and brethren, give themselves the lie when they say they are of our communion.” Our name ! Our communion 1 Apage cum distá tuá magnificentid 1 * How came it, I pray, to be your name any more than Mr. Venn's? But waving this: Here is another train of mistakes. For, (1.) We do not call ourselves Methodists at all. (2.) That we call ourselves members of the Church of England is certain. Such we ever were, and such we are at this day. (3.) Yet we do not by this plainly inform you, that there are others of our body who do not belong to it. By what rule of logic do you infer this conclusion from those premises? (4) You have another inference full as good: “Hence one may infer, that, by acknowledging them as namesakes and brethren, * Mr. Wesley seems in this instance, as in several others, to have been pur posely inaccurate in his quotation, to avoid the malediction couched in the ori ginal words of Terence : I in malam rem hinc cum istác magnificentiá, Fugitive / (Phormio. Act. v. sc. 6, v. 37.) which Dr. Patrick has rather broadly translated: “Go, be hanged, you rascal, with your vain rodomontades!” Mr. Wesley’s accommodated quotation of it may be thus rendered: “Away with this your grandiloqueut verbiage 1”--EDIT. they give themselves the lie when they say they are of our com munion.” As we do not take the name of Methodists at all, so we do not acknowledge any “namesakes” in this. But we acknowledge as “brethren” all Dissenters (whether they are called Methodists or not) who labour to have a conscience void of offence toward God and toward man. What lies upon you to prove, is this: Whoever acknowledges any Dissenters as brethren, does hereby give himself the lie, when he says he is a member of the Church of England.