Wesley Corpus

To curse them is not enough. 11. Lastly. Some (I hope but a few) do cordially believe, that “private vices are public benefits.” I myself heard this in Cork, when I was there last. These, consequently, think us the destroyers of their city, by so lessening the number of their public benefactors, the gluttons, the drunkards, the dram-drinkers, the Sabbath-breakers, the common swearers, the cheats of every kind, and the followers of that ancient and honourable trade, adultery and fornication. 12. These are the undeniable motives to this opposition. I come now to the manner of it. When some gentlemen inquired of one of the Bishops in England, “My Lord, what must we do to stop these new Preachers?” he answered, “If they preach contrary to Scrip ture, confute them by Scripture; if contrary to reason, confute them by reason. But beware you use no other weapons than these, either in opposing error, or defending the truth.” Would to God this rule had been followed at Cork | But how little has it been thought of there ! The opposition was begun with lies of all kinds, frequently delivered in the name of God: So that never was anything so ill-judged as for you to ask, “Does Christianity encourage its professors to make use of lies, invectives, or low, mean abuse, and scurrility, to carry on its interest?” No, Sir, it does not. I disclaim and abhor every weapon of this kind. But with these have the Methodist Preachers been opposed in Cork above any other place. In England, in all Ireland, have I neither heard nor read any like those gross, palpable lies, those low, Billingsgate invectives, and that inexpressibly mean abuse, and base scurrility, which the opposers of Methodism, so called, have continually made use of, and which has been the strength of their cause from the beginning. 13. If it be not so, let the Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Cork, (for he too has openly entered the lists against the Methodists,) the Rev. Dr. Tisdale, or any other whom his Lordship shall appoint, meet me on even ground, writing as a gentleman to a gentleman, a scholar to a scholar, a Clergyman to a Clergyman. Let him thus show me wherein I have 88 LETTER. To preached or written amiss, and I will stand reproved before all the world. 14.