“November 17, 1760.
“Sir,—In your last paper, we had a letter, from a very angry gentleman, who personates a clergyman, but is, I presume, 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.’
“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.”
Wesley then proceeds to answer the remarks of “Philodemus” concerning “the grace of assurance, good works,” etc., and continues:
“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 to take cognisance 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 cognisance ‘of all pretenders to sanctity, and happily furnishes us with a discerning spirit to distinguish between 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.”[400]
“Philodemus” pretended to answer Wesley’s letter, under another alias, “Somebody;” but was obliged to have recourse to blustering abuse, telling Wesley that “every serious protestant despises the enthusiastic madness of Methodism, and rejects him and his followers as members of that community”; and then politely adding, that “arguing with Methodists is like pounding fools in a mortar.”
In the next issue of Lloyd’s Evening Post, November 24, Wesley referred to this and other attacks as follows.
“November 22, 1760.