voking those who do you no wrong, and had far rather be your friends than your enemies? Is it consistent with humanity, to strike again one who gives no provocation, and makes no resistance? Is it common justice, to treat with such contempt as you have done in the last month's Review those who are by no means contemptible writers? Be persuaded, gentlemen, to give yourselves the pains of reading either Mr. Herbert's" Providence," or the verses which Norris entitles, "The Meditation;" and you will find them scarce inferior, either in sense or language, to most compositions of the present age. To speak more freely still where is the justice of coupling the hymns of Methodists and Moravians together? Lay prejudice aside, and read with candour but the very first hymn in our first Hymn-Book; and then say whether your prose is not as nearly allied to John Bunyan's, as our verse to Count Z's.

As, probably, you have never seen the books which you condemn, I will transcribe a few lines:

"Thee, when morning greets the skies
With rosy cheeks and humid eyes;

Thee, when sweet declining day

Sinks in purple waves away;

Thee will I sing, O Parent Jove,

And teach the world to praise and love.

"Yonder azure vault on high,

Yonder blue, low, liquid sky,

Earth, on its firm basis placed,

And with circling waves embraced,
All creating power confess,

All their mighty Maker bless.

Thou shakest all nature with thy nod;

Sea, earth, and air confess the God:

Yet does thy powerful hand sustain

Both earth and heaven, both firm and main.

"The feather'd souls that swim the air,
And bathe in liquid ether there:
The lark, precentor of their choir,
Leading them higher still and higher,
Listen and learn; the' angelic notes;
Repeating in their warbling throats:
And, ere to soft repose they go,
Teach them to their lords below.
On the green turf, their mossy nest,
The evening anthem swells their breast.
Thus, like thy golden chain from high,
Thy praise unites the earth and sky.

"O ye nurses of soft dreams,
Reedy brooks, and winding streams.

Or murmuring o'er the pebbles sheen,
Or sliding through the meadows green,
Or where through matted sedge you creep,
Travelling to your parent deep;

Sound His praise by whom you rose,
That Sea which neither ebbs nor flows.

"O ye immortal woods and groves,
Which the enamour'd student loves;
Beneath whose venerable shade,

For thought and friendly converse made
Famed Hecadem, old hero, lies,

Whose shrine is shaded from the skies
And, through the gloom of silent night,
Projects from far its trembling light;
You, whose roots descend as low
As high in air your branches grow,
Your leafy arms to heaven extend,
Bend your heads, in homage bend;
Cedars and pines, that wave above,
And the oak, beloved of Jove ! "

Now, gentlemen, can you say, between God and your own souls, that these verses deserve the treatment you have given them? I think you cannot. You are men of more understanding. You know they are not contemptible.

If

any of you will strike a real blot, if you will point out even in public (though that is not the most obliging way) anything justly reprovable in our writings, probably we shall acknowledge and correct what is amiss; at least, we shall not blame you. But every impartial man must blame that method of proceeding which neither consists with justice nor humanity.

Perhaps you may say you have been provoked. By whom? 66 By Mr. Romaine." I answer, I am not Mr. Romaine; neither am I accountable for his behaviour. And what equity is this? One man has offended you: therefore you fall upon another. Will it excuse you to say, "But he is called by the same name?" especially when neither is this his own name, but a term of derision. tlemen, do to others as you would have them do to you: then you will no more injure one who never offended you; (unless this offend you, that he does really believe Jesus Christ to be God over all, blessed for ever;) then you will not return hatred for good-will, even to so insignificant

a person as

Gen

JOHN WESLEY.

SECOND LETTER

ΤΟ

THE MONTHLY REVIEWERS.

October 5, 1756.

REALLY, gentlemen, you do me too much honour. I could scarce expect so favourable a regard from those who are professed admirers of Mr. Aaron Hill's verse, and Mr. Caleb Fleming's prose.

Nevertheless, I cannot but observe a few small mistakes in the eight lines with which you favour me. You say, "We suppose the specimen of Mr. Wesley's Hymns" (the false spelling is of little consequence) "was sent us for this purpose;" namely, to publish. Truly it was not it never entered my thought; as, I apprehend, may appear from the whole tenor of the letter wherein those lines were inserted. "And if the Moravians please to select a like sample of what has been done by them, they may expect from us the same justice." Another little mistake: those lines are not selected; but are found in the very first hymn (as I observed in my last) that occurs in the first verses which my brother and I ever published. "We have received a letter, complaining of our having jumbled the poetry of the Methodists and Moravians in an indiscriminate cen

sure." Not so. The thing chiefly complained of was, 1. Your "jumbling whole bodies of people together, and condemning them by the lump, without any regard either to prudence, justice, or humanity." 2. Your "treating with such contempt those who are by no means contemptible writers,-Mr. Norris and Mr. Herbert." last and least thing was, your "coupling the hymns of Moravians and Methodists together." It was here I added,

66

The

As, probably, you have never seen the books which you condemn, I will transcribe a few lines: but neither did I give the least intimation of "appealing hereby to the public, in proof of our superiority over the Moravians." This is another mistake.

At first I was a little inclined to fear, a want of integrity had occasioned this misrepresentation; but, upon reflection, I would put a milder construction upon it, and only impute

it to want of understanding. Even bodies of men do not see all things; and are then especially liable to err, when they imagine themselves hugely superior to their opponents, and so pronounce ex cathedra.

"

Another instance of this is just now before me. A week or two ago, one put a tract into my hands, in which I could discern nothing of the Christian, gentleman, or scholar; but much of low, dull, ill-natured scurrility and blasphemy. How was I surprised, when I read in your three hundred and fifteenth page, "We have read this little piece with great pleasure!" when I found you so smitten with the author's "spirit, sense, and freedom," his "smart animadversions and "becoming_severity!" O gentlemen! do not you speak too plain? Do not you discover too much at once? especially when you so keenly ridicule Mr. Pike's supposition, that the Son and Spirit are truly divine? May I ask, If the Son of God is not truly divine, is He divine at all? Is he a little God, or no God at all? If no God at all, how came he to say, "I and the Father are one?" Did any Prophet before, from the beginning of the world, use any one expression which could possibly be so interpreted as this and other expressions were by all that heard Jesus speak? And did he ever attempt to undeceive them? Be pleased, then, to let me know, if he was not God, how do you clear him from being the vilest of men ? I am, gentlemen,

Your well-wisher, though not admirer,
JOHN WESLEY.

LETTER TO A FRIEND.

CONCERNING A PASSAGE IN A MONTHLY REVIEW.

DEAR SIR,

CITY-ROAD, January 25, 1781. YESTERDAY, looking over the " Monthly Review" for last October, at page 307, I read the following words :

"Sir William's vindication" of his own conduct "is not a feeble attempt to rescue his reputation from the obloquy thrown upon it. Mr. Galloway's book is here answered, paragraph by paragraph; and several misrepresentations of important facts and circumstances proved."

I cannot quite agree with this. I think, 1. No unjust obloquy has been thrown upon it. 2. That his vindication is a very feeble attempt to justify his conduct. 3. That he has not answered in a satisfactory manner any one paragraph of Mr. Galloway's book. And, 4. That he has not proved any misrepresentation of any one important fact or circum

stance.

I think also, that the account he gives of Mr. Galloway is a very feeble attempt to blacken his character; for a full confutation whereof, I refer the candid reader to his own answer. As to the scurrility Sir William speaks of, I see not the least trace of it in anything Mr. G. has published. He is above it. He is no 66 venal instrument of calumny:" he abhors calumny as he does rebellion. But let him answer for himself: read only the tracts here referred to, and then condemn him if you can.

I am, dear Sir,

Yours, &c.,

JOHN WESLEY.

P.S. I have been frequently attacked by the Monthly Reviewers, but did not answer, because we were not on even ground; but that difficulty is now over whatever they object in their "Monthly Review," I can answer in my monthly Magazine; and I shall think it my duty so to do, when the objection is of any importance.

A LETTER

TO

MR. T. H., alias PHILODEMAS, alias SOMEBODY, alias STEPHEN CHURCH, alias R. W.

[INSERTED IN THE "LONDON MAGAZINE" FOR 1760, PAGE 651.]

PATIENCE, dear Sir, patience! or I am afraid your choler will hurt your constitution, as well as your argument. Be composed, and I will answer your queries, "speedily, clearly, and categorically." Only you will give me leave to shorten them a little, and to lay those together which have some relation to each other. Permit me, like