Wesley Corpus

I conversed intimately with them, both at Savannah and Hern huth. But neither then, nor at any other time, did I know, or think, or say, they were “desperately wicked people.” I think and say, nay, you blame me for saying, just the reverse, viz., that though I soon “found among them a few things which I could not approve;” yet I believe they are “in the main some of the best Christians in the world.” You surprise me yet more in going on thus: “In God’s name, Sir, is the contempt of almost the whole of our duty, of every Christian ordinance, to be so very gently touched?” Sir, this is not the case. This charge no more belongs to the Mora vians, than that of murder. Some of our countrymen spoke very wicked things. The Moravians did not sufficiently dis avow them. These are the premises. By what art can you extort so dreadful a conclusion from them? “Can detestation, in such a case, be too strongly expressed?” Indeed it can; even were the case as you suppose. “Either they are some of the vilest wretches in the world, or you are the falsest accuser in the world.” Neither one nor the other: Though I prove what I allege, yet they may be, in the main, good men. “Charity has scarce an allowance to make for them, as you have described them.” I have described them as of a mixed character, with much evil among them, but more good. Is it not a strange kind of charity, which cannot find an allowance to make in such a case? “If you have described - them truly, they ought to be discouraged by all means that can be imagined.” By all means ! I hope not by fire and faggot; though the house of mercy imagines these to be, of all means, most effectual. 9. You proceed: “How can you justify the many good things you say of the Moravians, notwithstanding this character? You say they love God: But how can this be, when they even plead against keeping most of his commandments? You say, you believe they have a sincere desire to serve God. How, then, can they despise his service in so many instances? You declare some of them much holier than any people you had yet known. Strange!