is that to me? If she is a member of our Society, tell me her name; and she will be in it no longer. This is our glorying. It must be that many members of our Society will from time to time grow weary of well-doing; yea, that some will fall into sin. But as soon as this appears, they have no more place among us. We regard no man's person, high or low, rich or poor. A disorderly walker cannot continue with us.

A gain. "One told God in prayer, that she was perfect, as God himself was perfect." "Another prayed, Grant, O Lord, that all here present may be perfect as I am perfect." (p. 45.) Till you name the men, this too must go for nothing. But suppose it all true, what will it prove? Only that there are madmen in the world. "I could also tell him of a woman, who was so perfect, that she tried to sin and could not." Pray name her.

"Mr. W. must also well remember a certain perfect married lady, who was got with child by a perfect preacher." I do not remember any such thing. I never heard of it before.

29. But "I hate," says Mr. H. "the law of retaliation."-Truly one would not have thought it.-"And would not have mentioned these things, but that you set me the example," i. e. but by way of retaliation. "Should you doubt the truth of these instances, I will lead you to the fountain-head of my intelligence." That will not do. In order to be even with Mr. F. you have told seven shocking stories. Several of these I know to be false I doubt if any, but that of George Bell, be true. And now you offer to "lead Mr. F. to the fountain-head of your intelligence !" Probably to one or two renegade Methodists, who court the world by slandering their brethren! "But Mr. W. adopts this way." No, never. In my letter to Mr. Hervey, I occasionally name two famous men; but I do not slander them. In my journals I name several others. This is above board: but Mr. H. stabs in the dark. He gives us no names, no places of abode; but casts arrows and firebrands abroad. And let them light where they may, on guilty or guiltless: of that he takes no care. 30. It remains only, to consider the queries, which Mr. H. addresses directly to me.

1. "Did not you in administering the sacrament a few years ago, to a perfect society in West-street chapel, leave out the confession?"

Yes, and many times since. When I am straitened for time, (as I generally am there, on a Monday,) I begin the communion service at, "We do not presume to come to this thy table." On Monday Mr. Madan desired to stay. Here, I suppose, is "the fountain-head of this intelligence."

2. "Did not one of the enthusiasts then say, he had heard a voice telling him, he was all holiness to the Lord ?"

Possibly so but I remember nothing of it.

3. "Did not a second declare the same thing?"

Not that I remember.

4. "Did not George Bell say, he should never die ?" He often did, if not then.

5. "Did not one present confirm it?”

Not unlikely but I do not remember it.

6. "Did not another perfect brother say, he believed the millennium was near: for there had been more constables sworn in that year than heretofore?"

Are you sure he was a perfect brother? i. e. one that professed so to be? As for me, I can say nothing about it. For I neither remember the man, nor the words.

"This I have put down verbatim from the mouth of a judicious friend then present; but from that time he has been heartily sick of sinless perfection." Say of perfect love.

Is it only from that time that Mr. Madan has been sick of it? Was he not sick of it before?

7. "Do not you know a clergyman, one closely connected with you, who refused a great witness for perfection the sacrament, because he had been detected in bed with a perfect sister?”

No. I never heard of it before. Surely Mr. Md is not fallen so low as to invent such a tale as this!

I need not say any thing to your last anecdote, since you (for once!) "put a candid construction upon my words." If I did speak them, which I can neither affirm nor deny, undoubtedly my meaning was, (as yourself observe,) "Though I have been holding forth the imputed righteousness of Christ to a mixed congregation, yet I think it right to caution you of the society, how you abuse that doctrine, which to some, who turn it into licentiousness, is a smooth doctrine, of which you ought to beware." (p. 61.) But your friend, it seems, "who gave you this account," did not put so candid a construction on my words. You say, "he was so struck, as hardly to refrain from speaking to you in the chapel. And from that hour he gave up all connections with you." i. e. He sought a pretence; and he found one!

And now what does all this amount to? Several persons who professed high things, degenerated into pride and enthusiasm, and then talked like lunatics, about the time that they renounced connection with me, for mildly reproving them. And is this any objection against the existence of that love which they professed? Nay, and I verily believed once enjoyed, though they were afterward moved from their steadfastness. Surely no more than a justified person's running mad, is an objection against justification. Every doctrine must stand or fall by the Bible. If the perfection I teach agree with this, it will stand, in spite of all the enthusiasts in the world: if not, it cannot stand.

31. I now look back on a train of incidents that have occurred, for many months last past, and adore a wise and gracious Providence, ordering all things well! When the Circular Letter was first dispersed throughout Great Britain and Ireland, I did not conceive the immense good which God was about to bring out of that evil. But no sooner did Mr. Fletcher's first Letters appear, than the scene began to open. And the design of Providence opened more and VOL. 9.-U u

more, when Mr. S.'s narrative, and Mr. H.'s letters, constrained him to write and publish his Second and Third Check to Antinomianism. It was then indisputably clear, that neither my brother nor I had borne a sufficient testimony to the truth. For many years, from a well-meant but ill-judged tenderness, we had suffered the reprobation preachers, (vulgarly called gospel-preachers!) to spread their poison almost without opposition. But at length they have awakened us out of sleep: Mr. Hill has answered for all his brethren, roundly declaring, that "any agreement with election-doubters is a covenant with death." It is well: we are now fore-warned and fore-armed. We look for neither peace nor truce, with any who do not openly and expressly renounce this diabolical sentiment. But since God is on our side, we will not fear what man can do unto us. We never before saw our way clear, to do any more than act on the defensive. But since the Circular Letter has sounded the alarm, has called forth all their hosts to war; and since Mr. H. has answered the call, drawing the sword, and throwing away the scabbard: what remains, but to own the hand of God, and make a virtue of necessity? I will no more desire any Arminian, so called, to remain only on the defensive. Rather chase the fiend, Reprobation, to his own hell, and every doctrine connected with it. Let none pity or spare one limb of either speculative or practical Antinomianism: or of any doctrine that naturally tends thereto, however veiled under the specious name of Free-Grace. Only remembering, that however we are treated by men, who have a dispensation from the vulgar rules of justice and mercy, we are not to fight them at their own weapons, to return railing for railing. Those who plead the cause of the God of love, are to imitate him they serve and however provoked, to use no other weapons than those of truth and love, of scripture and

reason.

32. Having now answered the queries you proposed, suffer me,. Sir, to propose one to you: the same which a gentleman of your own opinion proposed to me some years since. "Sir, how is it that as soon as a man comes to the knowledge of the truth, it spoils his temper?" That it does so I had observed over and over, as well as Mr. J. had. But how can we account for it? Has the truth, (so Mr. J. termed what many love to term the doctrine of free-grace,) a natural tendency to spoil the temper? To inspire pride, haughtiness, superciliousness? To make a man wiser in his own eyes than seven men that can render a reason? Does it naturally turn a man into a cynic, a bear, a Toplady? Does it at once set him free from all the restraints of good-nature, decency, and good-manners? Cannot a man hold distinguishing grace, as it is called, but he must distinguish himself for passion, sourness, bitterness? Must a man as soon as he looks upon himself to be an absolute favourite of heaven, look upon all that oppose him as Diabolonians, as predestinated dogs of hell? Truly, the melancholy instance now before us, would almost induce us to think so. For who was of a more amiable temper than Mr. Hill, a few years ago? When I first conversed with him in London,

I thought I had seldom seen a man of fortune, who appeared to be of a more humble, modest, gentle, friendly disposition. And yet this same Mr. H. when he has once been grounded in the knowledge of the truth, is of a temper as totally different from this, as light is from darkness! He is now haughty, supercilious, disdaining his opponents, as unworthy to be set with the dogs of his flock! He is violent, impetuous, bitter of spirit! In a word, the author of the Review!

O Sir, what a commendation is this of your doctrine? Look at Mr. H. the Arminian! The loving, amiable, generous, friendly man. Look at Mr. H. the Calvinist! Is it the same person? This spiteful, morose, touchy man? Alas, what has the knowledge of the truth done? What a deplorable change has it made? Sir, I love you still; though I cannot esteem you as I did once. Let me entreat you, if not for the honour of God, yet for the honour of your cause, avoid for the time to come, all anger, all spite, all sourness and bitterness, all contemptuous usage of your opponents, not inferior to you, unless in fortune. O put on again bowels of mercies, kindness, gentleness, long-suffering; endeavouring to hold, even with them that differ from you in opinion, the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace!

BRISTOL, Sept. 9, 1772.

SOME REMARKS

ON

MR. HILL'S FARRAGO DOUBLE-DISTILLED.

"If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men."

Rom. xii. 18.

every

1. IT is far from my design to give a particular answer to thing contained in Mr. Hill's late treatise. I intend only to offer to the impartial reader, a few cursory remarks, which may partly explain and partly confirm what I have already said upon the subject.

2. "Poor Mr. Wesley," says Mr. Hill, opening his cause with native eloquence, "has published various tracts, out of which Mr. Hill collects above a hundred gross contradictions. At this Mr.

Page 3. Quotations from Mr. Hill are marked with double, from the Remarks, with single commas.

W.'s temper is much ruffled;" (I believe not; I am not sensible of it;)"he primes, cocks, and fires at Calvinism: and there is smoke and fire in plenty. But if you can bear the stench, (which indeed is very nauseous) there is no danger of being wounded. (p. 4.) He calls this last cannon, or pop-gun, Remarks on my Review. Men of sense say, it is quite unfit for duty: men of grace compas sionate the caster of it: men of pleasantry laugh heartily at it; but some good old women speak highly of it." (p. 5.) I give this passage at some length, as a genuine specimen of Mr. Hill's manner of writing.

3. But as Mr. Hill did not choose to prefix his name, it argued no great proof of Mr. W.'s politeness, to address him in the personal manner he has done." Which of us began? Was it not Mr. Hill? Did not he address me in a personal manner first? And some, beside the old women, are of opinion, he did not do it in the politest manner in the world.

4. Mr. W. would have us know, that his piece is written in much love. But what love? Love to his own inconsistencies; love of scolding, love of abuse. Let the reader find out any other sort of love through the whole performance." In order to judge whether I wrote in love or not, let any one read the words he has picked out of fifty-four pages, just as they stand connected with others in each page it will then appear they are not contrary either to love. or meekness.

5. But Mr. W. says, Mr. Hill "is unworthy the name either of the gentleman or the Christian: and is amazed, that Mr. Hill should lay claim to either of those titles." (p. 6.) Not so. It is my belief, that Mr. Hill is both a gentleman and a Christian: though I still think, in his treatment of Mr. Fletcher and me, he has acted beneath his character. Yet it is very likely, "a friend of yours, (not mine,) might say, I wrote in much wrath." (p. 7.) I wrote then in just as much wrath as I do now; though your friend might think otherwise.

6. Nay, but Mr. W. "gives all the Calvinist ministers the most scurrilous, Billingsgate language, while he is trumpeting forth his own praises, in Mr. F.'s Second Check to Antinomianism." (p. 8.) A small mistake. I do not give Billingsgate language to any one : I have not so learned Christ. Every one of those hymns out of which Mr. Hill culls the harshest expressions, are not mine, but my brother's. Neither do I "trumpet forth my own praises." Mr. Hill's imagining I do, arises from an innocent mistake. He continually takes for granted, that I read over and correct all Mr. F.'s books before they go to the press. So far from it, that the Fourth Check to Antinomianism I have not read over to this day. But Mr. W. "thinks himself to be the greatest minister in the world." Exceedingly far from it. I know many now in England, at whose feet I desire to be found in the day of the Lord Jesus

7. To that question, Why does a man fall upon me, because another gave him a good beating? Mr. Hill answers, "If your