Wesley Corpus

Many writers have done marvellously; but thou excellest them all ! For forty or fifty years I have been a little acquainted with controversial writers; some of the Romish persuasion, some of our own Church, some Dis senters of various denominations: And I have found many among them as angry as him; but one so bitter I have not found: Or one only, the author of those “excellent Letters,” as Mr. H. styles them; which he particularly “admires,” (that is his word,) and the “whole spirit” of which he has drank in. This is his peculiar character, his distinguishing grace: As a writer, his name is Wormwood. Accordingly, he charges Mr. F. with a “severe, acrimonious spirit,” with “sneer, sarcasm, and banter,” yea, with “notorious falsehoods, calumny, and gross perversions.” (Page 2.) Nay, “I accuse you,” says he, “of the grossest perversions and misrepresenta tions that ever proceeded from any author's pen.” In the same spirit he is represented as “a slanderer of God’s people and Ministers, descending to the meanest quibbles, with a bitter, railing, acrimonious spirit;” (page 21;) and, page 27, to go no farther, as “using stratagem and ungenerous artifices:” Although “I have treated you,” says Mr. H., “with all the politeness of a gentleman, and the humility of a Christian.” Amazing! And has he not treated me so too? At present, take but one or two instances: “Forgeries have long passed for no crime with Mr. Wesley.” (Page 27.) “He administers falsehoods and damnable heresies, rank poison, hemlock, and ratsbane. We cannot allow him any other title than that of an empiric or quack-doctor.” (Page 29.) Which shall we admire most here,--the gentleman or the Christian? MR. HILL's REVIEw. 377 4. There is something extremely odd in this whole affair. A man falls upon another, and gives him a good beating; who, in order to be revenged, does not grapple with him, (perhaps sensible that he is above his match,) but, giving him two or three kicks, falls upon a third man that was standing by. “O,” says he, “but I know that fellow well; he is the second of him that beat me.”--“If he is, dispatch your business with the former first, and then turn to him.” However, if Mr. H. is resolved to fall upon me, I must defend myself as well as I can. 5.