Wesley Corpus

“But it is inconsistent with what you said elsewhere: “To make it a point of conscience to differ from others, as the Quakers do, in the shape or colour of their apparel, is mere superstition.’” Not inconsistent at all. It is mere superstition to make wearing a broad-brimmed hat, or a coat with four buttons, (the very thing I referred to in the preceding page,) a point of conscience; that is, a thing necessary to salvation. “Why then,” says Mr. H., “we are to increase our reward, and brighten our crown in heaven, by doing what is ‘mere superstition, and without acting from a ‘point of conscience l’” 436 REMARKs on MR. HILL’s Was ever such twisting of words? Has he not great reason to cry out, “O rare Logica Wesleiensis / Qui bene distinguit bene docet !”* I bless God, I can distinguish reason from sophistry; unkind, unjust, ungenteel sophistry, used purely for this good end,--to asperse, to blacken a fellow-Christian, because he is not a Calvinist ! No, Sir; what I call “superstition, and no point of conscience,” is wearing a Quaker hat or coat; which is widely different from the plainness of dress that I recom mend to the people called Methodists. My logic, therefore, stands unimpeached; I wish your candour did so too. I would engage to answer every objection of Mr. H.’s, as fairly and fully as this. But I cannot spare so much time; I am called to other employment. And I should really think Mr. H. might spend his time better than in throwing dirt at his quiet neighbours. Of Tea. 37. “Mr. W. published a tract against drinking tea, and told the tea-drinkers he would set them an example in that piece of self-denial.” (Farrago, p. 41.) “I did set them an example for twelve years. Then, at the close of a consumption, by Dr. Fothergill’s direction, I used it again.” (Remarks, p. 393.) “Why then did Mr. W. re-publish this tract, making the world believe it brought a paralytic disorder upon him?” Before I was twenty years old, it made my hand shake, so that I could hardly write. “Is it not strange then, that Dr. Fothergill should advise Mr. W. to use what had before thrown him into the palsy ?” I did not say so.