Wesley Corpus

I ask Mr. O'Leary, Would not you have done it, had you been in Sigismund's place? If you say, “No,” a Protestant ought not to trust you, any more than he would trust a wild bull. I am afraid this is the case, for you strangely add: “It was nugatory in Sigismund to grant him a safe-conduct; for neither King nor Emperor could deprive the Bishops of their right of judging” (add, and of murdering) “heretics.” It is plain, Sigismund thought he could, that he could screen Huss from all dangers; else he had been both a fool and a knave to promise it; especially by a public instrument, which pledged his own honour, and that of the whole empire, for his safety. 172 seconD LETTER. To THE FREEMAN’s Journal. Now for flourish: “Thus the superannuated charge of viola tion of faith with heretics”--no more superannuated now, than it was while John Huss was in the flames--“vanishes away.” No, nor ever will. It still stares us in the face; and will do so, till another General Council publicly and explicitly repeals that infamous determination of the Council of Con stance, and declares the burning of John Huss to have been an open violation of all justice, mercy, and truth. But flourish on: “The foundation then of Mr. Wesley’s aerial fabric being sapped,”--not at all,--“the superstructure falls of course, and his long train of false and unchristian assertions.” What can this mean? I know of no “long train of assertions,” whether true or false. I use three arguments, and no more, in proof of one conclusion. “What more absurd, than to insist on a General Council's disclaiming a doctrine which they never taught !” They did teach it; and that not by the by, not incidentally; but they laid it down as a stated rule of action, dictated by the Holy Ghost. I quote chapter and verse: I say too, “See “L’Abbe’s Councils, printed at Paris, in 1672.” Yea, and they were not ashamed to publish this determination to all the Christian world! and to demonstrate their sincerity therein, by burning a man alive. And this Mr. O’Leary humorously compares to the roasting a piece of beef! With equal tenderness I suppose he would compare the “making the beards of here tics,” (that is, thrusting a burning furze-bush in their face,) to the singeing a fowl before it was roasted.