Mon. 17. I sent the following letter.
To the Editor of Lloyd’s Evening Post
Nov. 17, 1760
Sir,
In your last paper we had a letter from a very angry gentleman (though he says he had ‘put himself into as good humour as possible’) who personates a clergyman but is, I presume, in reality a retainer to the theatre. He is very warm against the people vulgarly termed ‘Methodists’—‘ridiculous impostors’, ‘religious buffoons’, as he styles them; ‘Saint Errants’ (a pretty and quaint phrase) full of ‘inconsiderateness, madness, melancholy, enthusiasm’, teaching a ‘knotty and unintelligible system’ of religion, yea, a ‘contradictory or self-contradicting’; nay, ‘a mere illusion’, a ‘destructive scheme and of pernicious consequence’, since ‘an hypothesis is a very slippery foundation to hazard our all upon’.
Methinks the gentleman has a little mistaken his character; he seems to have exchanged the sock for the buskin. But, be this as it may, general charges prove nothing; let us come to particulars. Here they are. ‘The basis of Methodism is the Grace of Assurance’ (excuse a little impropriety of expression), ‘Regeneration being only a preparative to it’. Truly this is somewhat ‘knotty and unintelligible’. I will endeavour to help him out. The fundamental doctrine of the people called Methodists is, Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the true faith: the faith which works by love, which, by means of the love of God and our neighbour, produces both inward and outward holiness. This faith is an evidence of things not seen; and he that thus believes is regenerate, or born of God. And he has the witness in himself (call it assurance, or what you please). The Spirit itself witnesses with his spirit that he is a child of God: ‘from what Scripture’ every one of these propositions ‘is collected’ any common concordance will show. ‘This is the true portraiture of Methodism,’ so called. ‘A religion superior to this’ (the love of God and man) none can ‘enjoy’, either in time or in eternity.
But the Methodists do not hold ‘good works meritorious’. No, neither does ours or any other Protestant Church. But meantime they hold it is their bounden duty, as they have time, to do good unto all men, and they know the day is coming wherein God will reward every man according to his works.
But they ‘act with sullenness and sourness, and account innocent gaiety and cheerfulness a crime almost as heinous as sacrilege’. Who does? Name the men. I know them not and therefore doubt the fact, though it is very possible you account that kind of gaiety innocent which I account both foolish and sinful.
I know none who denies that true religion, that is love, the love of God and our neighbour, ‘elevates our spirits and renders our minds cheerful and serene’. It must, if it be accompanied, as we believe it always is, with peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, and if it produces a conscience void of offence toward God and toward man.
But they ‘preach up religion only to accomplish a lucrative design, to fleece their hearers, to accumulate wealth, to rob and plunder, which they esteem meritorious’. We deny the fact. Who is able to prove it? Let the affirmer produce his witnesses, or retract.
This is the sum of your correspondent’s charge, not one article of which can be proved. But whether it can or no, ‘We have made them’, says he, ‘a theatrical scoff and the common jest and scorn of every chorister in the street.’ It may be so, but whether you have done well herein may still admit of a question. However, you cannot but wish ‘we had some formal court of judicature erected (happy Portugal and Spain!) to take cognizance of such matters.’ Nay, cur optas quod habes? Why do you wish for what you have already? The court is erected; the holy, devout playhouse is become ‘the house of mercy’! And does take cognizance hereof ‘of all pretenders to sanctity, and happily furnishes us with a discerning spirit to distinguish betwixt right and wrong’. But I do not stand to their sentence; I appeal to Scripture and reason, and by these alone consent to be judged. I am, sir,
Your humble servant,
John Wesley
Sat. 22. I was obliged to trouble him with another letter, as follows:
Sir,
Just as I had finished the letter published in your last Friday’s paper, four tracts came to my hands: one wrote, or procured to be wrote, by Mrs. Downes; one by a clergyman in the county of Durham; the third by a gentleman of Cambridge; and the fourth by a member (I suppose, dignitary) of the Church of Rome. How gladly would I leave all these to themselves and let them say just what they please!—as my day is far spent and my taste for controversy is utterly lost and gone. But this would not be doing justice to the world, who might take silence for a proof of guilt. I shall therefore say a word concerning each. I may, perhaps, some time say more to one or two of them.
The letter which goes under Mrs. Downes’s name scarce deserves any notice at all, as there is nothing extraordinary in it but an extraordinary degree of virulence and scurrility. Two things only I remark concerning it (which I suppose the writer of it knew as well as me): (1) that my letter to Mr. Downes was both wrote and printed before Mr. Downes died; (2) that when I said Tibi parvula res est (your ability is small), I had no view to his fortune, which I knew nothing of, but, as I there expressly say, to his wit, sense, and talents, as a writer.
The tract wrote by the gentleman in the north is far more bulky than this. But it is more considerable for its bulk than for its matter, being little more than a dull repetition of what was published some years ago, in The Enthusiasm of the Methodists and Papists compared. I do not find the author adds anything new; unless we may bestow that epithet on a sermon annexed to his address, which, I presume, will do neither good nor harm. So I leave the Durham gentleman, with Mrs. Downes, to himself and his admirers.
The author of the letter to Mr. Berridge is a more considerable writer. In many things I wholly agree with him, though not in admiring Dr. Taylor. But there is a bitterness even in him which I should not have expected in a gentleman and a scholar. So in the very first page I read, ‘The Church, which most of your graceless fraternity have deserted.’ Were the fact true (which it is not) yet is the expression to be commended? Surely Dr. G[reen] himself thinks it is not. I am sorry too for the unfairness of his quotations. For instance, he cites mec as speaking of ‘faith shed abroad in men’s hearts like lightning.’ Faith shed abroad in men’s hearts! I never used such an expression in my life: I do not talk after this rate. Again, he quotes, as from med (so I presume, Mr. W[esley] means), ‘A believer does not pretend to add the least to what Christ has done.’ But be these words whose they may, they are none of mine. I never spoke, wrote, no, nor read them before. Once more, is it well judged for any writer to show such an utter contempt of his opponents as you affect to do with regard to the whole body of people vulgarly termed ‘Methodists’? ‘You may keep up (say you) a little bush-fighting in controversy. You may skirmish a while with your feeble body of irregulars. But you must never trust to your skill in reasoning. Upon this I would ask, (1) If these are such poor, silly creatures, why does so wise a man set his wit to them? ‘Shall the king of Israel go out against a flea?’ (2) If it should happen that any one of these silly bush-fighters steps out into the plain, engages hand to hand, and foils this champion by mere dint of reason, will not his defeat be so much the more shameful as it was more unexpected? But I say the less at present, not only because Mr. Berridge is able to answer for himself, but because the title-page bids me expect a letter more immediately addressed to myself.
The last tract, entitled, A Caveat against the Methodists, is, in reality, a Caveat against the Church of England; or rather, against all the churches in Europe who dissent from the Church of Rome. Nor do I apprehend the writer to be any more disgusted at the Methodists than at Protestants of every denomination, as he cannot but judge it equally unsafe to join to any society but that of Rome. Accordingly all his arguments are levelled at the Reformed Churches in general, and conclude just as well if you put the word ‘Protestant’ throughout in the place of the word ‘Methodist’. Although, therefore, the author borrows my name to wound those who suspect nothing less, yet I am no more concerned to refute him than any other Protestant in England; and still the less, as those arguments are refuted over and over in books which are still common among us.
But is it possible any Protestants, nay, Protestant clergymen, should buy these tracts to give away? Is then the introducing popery the only way to overthrow Methodism? If they know this and choose popery as the smaller evil of the two, they are consistent with themselves. But if they do not intend this, I wish them more seriously to consider what they do.
I am, sir, your humble servant,
John Wesley
