“You have now attempted a second time to ruin my character.You represent me as the inventor of an artificial mount,[323] etc. You build uponthat, two assertions: 1. That I invented it as a means to encourage a certain gentleman in his undertakings. 2. That I did it to make up a quarrel with him, by these means. Now I can attest, with a good conscience, before God, that I had no hand in inventing, or contriving, or executing, etc., such an artificial mound and picture, etc.; and both your conclusions, that you build on it, drop of course.
“You also assert, that, I and others paid our devotions in a certain room, of which you please to give a description; but you really are in this point also grossly imposed upon. By whom? By an apostate!
“The person against whom you chiefly level your letter, is so maliciously misrepresented therein, that really you yourself will be ashamed of it one day before God and man. It would have been ingenuous in you to have asked some of your old friends, whether the charges you lay against us be true. But that, you have not done. You will perhaps say to me, ‘You can clear yourself in print.’ But this sounds, in my ears, as if a drunken man would pelt one with dirt, and then say, ‘Now I will shew you water where you can wash yourself again.’ I, for my part, have always abhorred paper war; for I think the result of such a war, for a child of God, is no other than vinco seu vincor, semper ego maculor (conquering or conquered, I am dishonoured). And, besides that, I think it incumbent upon an honest man, when he rashly and heedlessly has cast an aspersion upon his fellow-creatures—fathered actions upon an innocent person of whom he was altogether ignorant—and, with the most prejudicial assertions, charged a body of people with faults of which they, neither in whole nor in part, are guilty—to do all in his power to remove such aspersions of which he is the author or propagator.
“Dear Mr. Whitefield, when the secret intentions of man, together with all his unjust deeds and actions, will be judged, how glad would you be then, not to have treated our Society, in general; and, in particular, that venerable person against whom your letter is chiefly levelled; and poor me, in so injurious, yea, I may say, impudent and wicked a manner.
“But, perhaps, my dear and merciful Saviour may give you grace, that I may, a second time, be asked pardon by you; which I, for your sake, heartily desire; but, for my sake, am entirely unconcerned about; who, as an unworthy servant of my dear Lord Jesus Christ, who was slain for His enemies, shall continue to love and pray for you.
“Peter Bohler.”
To say the least, this is an odd, evasive letter, unworthy of the man who had taught the Wesleys the way of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ. Zinzendorf’s is no better:—
“May 8, 1753.
“Rev. Sir,—As I read no newspapers, I knew nothing of your ‘Expostulatory Letter,’ till a worthy clergyman of the Church of England communicated to me his copy but yesterday.
“You are a preacher, I suppose, of Christ; therefore, though you are, it seems, an utter stranger to me, you may guess why you see no reply to your letter.