Wesley Corpus

nay, and declares himself so to be? Ought we not, for all this, to do to him as we would he should do to us? But do we ourselves love to be exposed, or set in the worst light? Would we willingly be treated with contempt? If not, why do we treat others thus? And yet, who scruples it? Who does not hit every blot he can, however foreign to the merits of the cause? Who, in controversy, casts the mantle of love over the nakedness of his brother? Who keeps steadily and uniformly to the question, without ever striking at the person? Who shows in every sentence that he loves his brother only less than the truth? 5. I fear neither you nor I have attained to this. I believe brotherly love might have found a better construction than that of unfairness, art, or disingenuity, to have put either on my not answering every part of your book, (a thing which never once entered my thoughts,) or on my not reciting all the words of those parts which I did answer. I cannot yet perceive any blame herein. I still account it fair and ingenuous to pass over both what I believe is right, and what I believe is not danger ously wrong. Neither can I see any disingenuity at all in quot ing only that part of any sentence, against which I conceive the objection lies; nor in abridging any part of any treatise to which I reply, whether in the author's or in my own words. 6. If, indeed, it were so abridged as to alter the sense, this • In the Preface to the Answer to Mr. Tucker. would be unfair. And if this were designedly done, it would be artful and disingenuous. But I am not conscious of having done this at all; although you speak as if I had done it a thou sand times. And yet I cannot undertake now either to tran scribe your whole book, or every page or paragraph which I answer. But I must generally abridge before I reply; and that not only to save time, (of which I have none to spare,) but often to make the argument clearer, which is best understood when couched in few words. 7. You complain also of my mentioning all at once sentences which you placed at a distance from each other.