Wesley Corpus

The most material part of it is this: “Saturday, 28. I read the follow ing paper at Kingswood : “For their scoffing at the word and Ministers of God, for their backbiting and evil-speaking, I declare the persons above-mentioned to be no longer members of this society.’” (Ibid. p. 301.) “And we had great reason to bless God, that, after fifty two were withdrawn, we have still upwards of ninety left.” (Ibid. p. 302.) Who those other “forty were, that,” you say, “left them,” I know not. Perhaps you may inform me. Upon the whole, all these quotations prove only this: That about eleven years ago, Mr. C., falling into predestination, set the society in Kingswood a disputing with each other, and occasioned much confusion for some months. But still you have not gone one step toward proving, (which is the one point in question,) that the Methodists in general were, even then, “all together by the ears; ” and much less, that they have been so ever since, and that they are so now. However, you fail not to triumph, (like Louis le Grand, after his victory at Blenheim,) “What shall we say now? Are these the fruits of Methodism?” No, Sir. They are the fruits of opposing it. They are the tares sown among the wheat. You may hear of instances of the same kind, both in earlier and later ages. You add, “This is bad enough; but it is not the worst. For consider, what becomes of those that leave them 7” Why, Sir, what, if “their last end be worse than their first?” Will you charge this upon me? By the same rule, you must have charged upon the Apostles themselves whatever befel those who, having “known the way of righteousness,” afterwards “turned back from the holy commandment once delivered to them.” 36. You conclude this section: “Mr. Wesley will probably say, “Must Ibe answerable for the Moravians, against whom I have preached and written?” True, since he and the Mora vians quarrelled. But who gives them a box on the ear with the one hand, and embraces them with the other? Who first brought over this wicked generation ? Who made a Moravian his spiritual guide? Who fanaticized his own followers, and de prived them of their senses?