and your whole performance? You have advanced a charge, not against
one or two persons only, but indiscriminately against a whole _body
of people_, of his Majesty’s subjects, _Englishmen_, protestants,
members I suppose, of your own church: a charge containing abundance of
articles, and most of them of the highest and blackest nature. You have
prosecuted this with unparalleled bitterness of spirit and acrimony
of language; using sometimes the most coarse, rude, scurrilous terms,
sometimes the keenest sarcasms you could devise. The point you have
steadily pursued in _thus_ prosecuting _this_ charge, is, first, To
expose the whole people to the hatred and scorn of all mankind; and
next, to stir up the _civil powers_ against them. And when this charge
comes to be fairly weighed, there is not a single article of it true!
The passages you cite to make it good, are one and all such, as prove
nothing less than the points in question: most of them such as you have
palpably maimed, corrupted, and strained to a sense never thought of
by the writer: many of them such as are flat against you, and overthrow
the very point they are brought to support. What can they think, but
that this is the most shocking violation of the Christian rule, _Thou
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself_; the most open affront to all
justice, and even common humanity, the most glaring insult upon the
common sense and reason of mankind, which has lately appeared in the
world.
If you say, “But I have proved the charge upon Mr. _Whitefield_:”
admit you have (which I do not allow) Mr. _Whitefield_ is not _the
Methodists_; no, nor the societies under his care; they are not a third,
perhaps not a tenth part of the _Methodists_. What then can excuse your
ascribing _their_ faults (were they proved) to the _whole body_? You
indict ten men. Suppose you prove the indictment upon one, will you
_therefore_ condemn the other nine? Nay, let every man bear his own
burden, since every man must give an account of himself to God.
I had occasion once before to say to an opponent, you know not to shew
mercy. Yet that gentleman did regard truth and justice. But you regard
neither mercy, justice nor truth. To vilify, to blacken is your one
point. I pray God, it may not be laid to your charge! May he shew you
mercy, though you shew none!
_I am, Sir_,
_Your friend and well-wisher_,
JOHN WESLEY.
_The End of the_ Sixteenth Volume.
ERRATA, Volume XVI.
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