Wesley Corpus

Are not your soul and body such a sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God? As the Lord God liveth, before whom we stand, if they are not, you are not a Christian. If you are not a holy, living sacrifice, you are still “dead in trespasses and sins.” You are an “alien from the commonwealth of Israel, without” Christian “hope, without God in the world !” 21. You add, “Thus have I exposed their boasted claim to a particular and immediate inspiration.” (Page 30.) No, Sir, you have only exposed yourself; for all that we claim, you allow. “I have shown what a miserable farce is carrying on, beneath the mask of a more refined holiness.” No tittle of this have you shown yet; and before you attempt again to show any thing concerning us, let me entreat you, Sir, to acquaint yourself better with our real sentiments. Perhaps you may then find, that there is not so wide a difference as you imagined between you and, Reverend Sir, Your servant for Christ’s sake, November 7, 1758. RECTOR OF ST. MICHAEL’s, WooD-STREET: 1. IN the Tract which you have just published concerning the people called Methodists, you very properly say, “Our first care should be, candidly and fairly to examine their doctrines. For, as to censure them unexamined would be unjust; so to do the same without a fair and impartial examination would be ungenerous.” And again: “We should, in the first place, carefully and candidly examine their doctrines.” (Page 68.) This is undoubtedly true. But have you done it? Have you ever examined their doctrines yet? Have you examined them fairly? fairly and candidly? candidly and carefully? Have you read over so much as the Sermons they have published, or the “Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion?” I hope you have not; for I would fain make some little excuse for your uttering so many senseless, shameless falsehoods. I hope you know nothing about the Methodists, no more than I do about the Cham of Tartary; that you are ignorant of the whole affair, and are so bold, only because you are blind. Bold enough ! Throughout your whole Tract, you speak satis pro imperio,"-- as authoritatively as if you was, not an Archbishop only, but Apostolic Vicar also; as if you had the full papal power in your hands, and fire and faggot at your beck!