God and the love of our neighbour.

"If a man,"

said he," was before a zealous member of our church, groaning for the prosperity of our Zion, it is past; all that zeal is at an end: he regards the Church of England no more than the Church of Rome his tears no longer fall, his prayers no longer ascend, that God may shine upon her desolation. The friends that were once as his own soul, are now no more to him than other men. All the bands of that formerly endeared affection are as threads of tow that have touched the fire. Even the ties of filial tenderness are dissolved. The child regards not his own parent: he no longer regards the womb that bare, nor the paps that gave him suck. Recent instances are not wanting. I will particularise, if required. Yea, the son leaves his aged father, the daughter her mother, in want of the necessaries of life. I know the persons. I have myself relieved them more than once: for that was corban whereby they should have been profited."-He should have asked himself whether Methodism did not sometimes produce the same effects. The fifth commandment is but a weak obstacle in the way of enthusiasm.

Wesley soon went farther than this, and throwing aside all appearance of any remaining attachment to the Moravians, charged them with being cruel and deceitful men. He published in his journals accusations against them of the foulest kind, made by persons who had forsaken their society; thus giving the whole weight of his judgement to their

abominable * charges. And he affirmed that it was clear to a demonstration, that the Moravian elders assumed a more absolute authority over the conscience than the Pope himself: that to gain and secure this, they used a continued train of guile, fraud, and falsehood of every kind; and that they scraped their votaries to the bone as to their worldly substance. Yet, he added, they were still so infatuated as to believe that theirs was the only true Church upon earth. They could not possibly have believed so, if they had been guilty of the crimes with which they were charged; and that Wesley should have repeated, and thereby sanctioned those charges, must be considered as the most disingenuous act of his life. For however much he differed from the Moravians, and however exceptionable he might have deemed their doctrine, he well knew that there was nothing in that doctrine which could lead either to such practices, or be pleaded in palliation of them: and had he been called upon to give evidence concerning them in a court of justice, his testimony must have been wholly in their favour.

Whitefield also entered the lists against them. They had committed some fooleries, and, like the religious communities of the Romish church, it

*“Mr. Rimius has said nothing to what might have been said concerning their marriage economy. I know a hundred times more than he has written; but the particulars are too shocking to relate. I believe no such things were ever practised before; no, not among the most barbarous heathens." Journal 9. p. 179. (vol. 3. of Wesley's Works. 1810.) In another part of the same Journal (p. 107.) they are charged, upon the testimony of another witness, with the vilest abominations.

appears, that if a believer were disposed to give or bequeath money to the brotherhood, they were not scrupulous concerning the injury which he might do to himself or his family. The heavier charges have been effectually disproved by time.

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CHAPTER XI.

WESLEY SEPARATES FROM WHITEFIELD.

In separating from Count Zinzendorf and the Moravians, there had been little sacrifice of feeling on Wesley's part; but he was involved at the same time in a difference with Whitefield, which affected him deeply, and led to consequences of greater importance.

At the commencement of his career, Wesley was of à pugnacious spirit, the effect of his sincerity, his ardour, and his confidence. He wished to obtain Whitefield's acquiescence in his favourite doctrine of perfection, the "free, full, and present salvation from all the guilt, all the power, and all the in-being of sin;" a doctrine as untenable as it was acceptable to weak minds and inflated imaginations. He knew also that Whitefield held the Calvinistic tenets of election and irreversible decrees; tenets which, if true, would make God unjust, and the whole Gospel a mere mockery. Upon both these subjects he wrote to his old friend and disciple, who at this time, though he could yield to him upon neither, wished earnestly to avoid all dispute. My honoured friend and brother," said he in his reply, "for once hearken to a child who is willing to wash your feet. I be

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seech you, by the mercies of God in Christ Jesus our Lord, if you would have my love confirmed towards you, write no more to me about misrepresentations wherein we differ. To the best of my knowledge, at present no sin has dominion over me, yet I feel the strugglings of in-dwelling sin day by day. The doctrine of election, and the final perseverance of those who are in Christ, I am ten thousand times more convinced of, if possible, than when I saw you last. You think otherwise. Why then should we dispute, when there is no probability of convincing? Will it not, in the end, destroy brotherly love, and insensibly take from us that cordial union and sweetness of soul, which I pray God may always subsist between us? How glad would the enemies of the Lord be to see us divided! How many would rejoice, should I join and make a party against you! And, in one word, how would the cause of our common Master every way suffer, by our raising disputes about particular points of doctrine! Honoured Sir, let us offer salvation freely to all by the blood of Jesus; and whatever light God has communicated to us, let us freely communicate to others. I have lately read the life of Luther, and think it in no wise to his honour, that the last part of his life was so much taken up in disputing with Zwinglius and others, who in all probability equally loved the Lord Jesus, though they might differ from him in other points. Let this, dear Sir, be a caution to us; I hope it will to me; for, by the blessing of God, provoke me to it as much as you please, I do