Other: Volume 2

[Note from the editor of the digital edition of Wesley’s Letters: Telford placed several of Wesley's lengthier letters from this period in a separate location in the last half of vol. 2. I have chosen to relocate them within the file for year in which they were written. Telford's introduction to these letters follows (pp. 173-174):]

CONTROVERSIAL AND HISTORICAL

I. TO THOMAS CHURCH, M.A., Vicar of Battersea and Prebendary of St. Paul's, concerning his Remarks on the Reverend Mr. John Wesley's Last Journal.

II. TO THOMAS CHURCH, ‘The Principles of a Methodist Farther Explained'; being an Answer to his Second Letter.

III. TO DR. GIBSON, Bishop of London, 'occasioned by his Lordship's late Charge to his Clergy.'

IV. TO VINCENT PERRONET Vicar of Shoreham in Kent, giving ‘A Plain Account of the People called Methodists.’

V. TO DR. CONYERS MIDDLETON ‘occasioned by his late Free Inquiry’

The longer controversial letters (which it has been found most convenient to place together) bear witness to the mastery Wesley had gained through his tutorial work at Lincoln College. Controversy was very uncongenial. He describes it as ‘Heavy work, such as I should never choose; but sometimes it must be done. Well might the ancient say, “God made practical divinity necessary, the devil controversial.” But it is necessary; we must “resist the devil,” or he will not “flee from us.”’ He exclaims, ‘Oh that I might dispute with no man! But if I must dispute, let it be with men of sense.’ His work and himself were attacked by men of all shades of opinion; but he took card to avoid personalities. He told Dr. Taylor of Norwich: ‘We may agree to leave each other’s person and character untouched, while we sum up and answer the several arguments advanced as plainly and closely as we can.’ When an antagonist fell into errors of scholarship, Wesley did not take advantage of this in his reply, but sent a private letter, for which he received thanks from some of his most distinguished opponents.

The criticism of Dr. Middleton’s Free Inquiry takes a wider range and shows Wesley’s knowledge of the Fathers. Still more impressive is the accounts of his preaching in the letter to Dr. Church, p. 264.

Dean Hutton, in his John Wesley, p. 171, says: ‘The particular controversies in which he was so continually engaged are for the most part exceedingly dusty now, but his own expressions about them are as fresh as ever. Most of all this is true when he deals with persons. Ho had a direct way of telling people their faults, and setting them right, which must have been extraordinarily unpleasing to the subjects of his wit or wisdom, but is extremely refreshing to ourselves.’

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