Wesley Corpus

So you have fairly given up the whole question, justified your opponents, and condemned yourself as “damnably criminal !” I object, Fourthly, that you have no charity, and that you know not what charity is. That you know not what it is, manifestly appears from the wonderful definition you give of it. “Charity,” you say, “is fellowship with God in his blessedness.” (Page 453.) Muddy, confused, ut nihil supra /* We know, he that loveth hath fellowship with God. But yet the ideas of one and of the other are widely different. We know, “God is love; and he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him.” But yet loving him is not the same thing with dwelling in him. If it were, the whole sentence would be flat tautology. You say, 2. Charity is “the love of the truth.” (Page 456.) Not at all: No more than it is the love of the sun. It is the love of God, and of man for God’s sake: No more and no less. You say, 3. “Christ is known to us only by report.” That is not granted. “And charity is the love of that report.” (Page 455.) Every intelligent reader will want no farther proof, that you know not what charity is. No wonder then that you have it not; nay, that you are at the utmost distance, both from the love of God and of your neighbour. You cannot love God, because you do not love your neighbour. For he that loves God, loves his brother also. But such hatred, malevolence, rancour, bitterness, as you show to all who do not exactly fall in with your opinion, was scarce ever seen in a Jew, an Heathen, or a Popish inquisitor.- “Nay, but you abhor persecution. You would persecute no man.” I should be very loath to trust you. I doubt, were it in your power, you would make more bonfires in Smithfield than Bonner and Gardiner put together. But if not, if you would not persecute with fire and faggot, Mirum " Ut neque calce lupus quenquam, neque dente petit bos : + What does this prove? Only that you murder in another way. * So as nothing can exceed it.-EDIT. + The following is Francis's translation of this quotation from Horace : “Wondrous indeed!