delivering his own soul, as being clear from the blood of those men; and when he withdrew from them he gave them up to God; phrases these which are of no equivocal indication. But the coarseness of his German monitor taught him now to avoid an error, which when applied to himself he saw in all its absurdity and all its grossness, and he began his Epistle in a better and wiser spirit. "It may seem strange that such a one as I am should take upon me to write to you. You, I believe to be dear children of GOD, through faith which is in JESUS. Me you believe, as some of you have declared, to be a child of the devil, a servant of corruption. Yet whatsoever I am, or whatsoever you are, I beseech you to weigh the following words: if haply God, who sendeth by whom He will send, may give you light thereby, although the mist of darkness, as one of you affirm, should be reserved for me for ever."

He proceeded to state temperately what were the things which he disapproved in their tenets and in their conduct, and gave some instances of the indiscretion of the English brethren, to whom he more particularly alluded. One of them had said when publicly expounding Scripture, that as many went to hell by praying as by thieving. Another had said, You have lost your first joy; therefore you pray that is the Devil. You read the Bible: that is the Devil. You communicate: that is the Devil." For these extravagancies he justly blamed the community in which they were uttered, and by which they were suffered, if not sanctioned. "Let

not any of you, my brethren, say, We are not chargeable with what they speak. Indeed you are. For you can hinder it if you will. Therefore, if you do not it must be charged upon you. If you do not use the power which is in your hands, and thereby prevent their speaking thus, you do in effect speak thus yourselves. You make their words your own, and are accordingly chargeable with every ill consequence which may flow therefrom."

Though Wesley had been compelled to separate from the Moravians, there were many circumstances which after the separation had taken place tended greatly to modify the feelings that had produced it. Among the German brethren there were some whom he could not but regard with affection and respect; and in England many persons adhered to them with whom he had been long and intimately connected, and whose integrity he knew. Ingham and Delamotte were of this number, and Hutton, whom Wesley found as little obedient to his spiritual father as he had taught him to be to his natural parents; and Gambold, a humble and heavenly-minded man, who had been one of the first Methodists at Oxford. They made Wesley perceive that all errors of opinion were not necessarily injurious to the individual by whom they were entertained; but that men who went by different ways might meet in heaven. They showed him also that opinions which appeared gross and monstrous when advanced by rash or ignorant advocates, might have their specious side. A few

months after the breach he says in his journal, "Our old friends Mr. Gambold and Mr. Hall came to see my brother and me. The conversation turned wholly on silent prayer, and quiet waiting for God, which they said was the only possible way to attain living, saving faith.

Sirenum cantus et Circes pocula nosti?

Was there ever so pleasing a scheme! But where is it written? Not in any of those books which I account the Oracles of God. I allow if there is a better way to God than the Scriptural way this is it but the prejudice of education so hangs upon me, that I cannot think there is. I must therefore still wait in the Bible way, from which this differs as light from darkness."

Perhaps the separation of the Methodists from the Moravians would not have occurred so soon if Peter Boehler had at that time been in England. No other individual during any part of his life, possessed so great an ascendancy over the mind of Wesley as this remarkable man. And now when he returned to this country after the breach, Wesley's feelings upon the first interview were strongly excited; "I marvel," he says, "how I refrain from joining these men. I scarce ever see any of them but my heart burns within me. I long to be with them. And yet I am kept from them." He went to a love-feast at which Boehler presided, and left it with the impression that the time would surely return when there should be again among them "union of mind as in them all one soul."

But there were many obstacles in the way of this re-union; those on the opposite part he thus strongly stated in a letter to his brother: "As yet I dare in no wise join with the Moravians; because their general scheme is mystical, not scriptural, refined in every point above what is written, immeasurably beyond the plain Gospel; because there is darkness and closeness in all their behaviour, and guile in almost all their words; because they not only do not practise, but utterly despise and decry self-denial and the daily cross; because they conform to the world, in wearing gold and gay or costly apparel; because they extend Christian liberty in many other respects also; they are by no means zealous of good works, or at least only to their own people. For these reasons chiefly, I will rather, God being my Helper, stand quite alone than join with them; I mean, till I have full assurance that they are better acquainted with the truth as it is in Jesus."

Yet these obstacles would not have been insuperable, if there had not existed others, which Wesley perhaps did not acknowledge even to himself and in his inmost heart. John Wesley could never have been more than a member of the Moravian church: the first place was occupied, and he was not born to hold a secondary one. His doctrine of perfection also was at least as objectionable to the Moravians, as their mysticism to him, and assuredly it was more dangerous. Upon this point he held a conference with Boehler, and his first friend Spangenberg, who thus stated their

belief upon this point: "The moment we are justified, a new creature is put into us. But, notwithstanding, the old creature, or the old man, remains in us, till the day of our death; and in this old man there remains an old heart, corrupt and abominable: for inward corruption remains in the soul, as long as the soul remains in the body. But the heart which is in the new man is clean. And the new man is stronger than the old; so that though corruption continually strives, yet, while we look to Christ, it cannot prevail." Wesley asked him if there was an old man in him : Yes," he replied, " and will be as long as I live.” "Is there then corruption in your heart ?" said Wesley. Spangenberg made answer, "In the heart of my old man there is, but not in the heart

66

of

my new man ;" and this, he said, was confirmed, not by his own experience only, but by that of all the Moravian church. Some of Wesley's disciples, women as well as men, who were present at this conference, bore their testimony to the possibility of attaining that Christian perfection which was at this time Wesley's favourite tenet, and which was so flattering to the pride of his followers. But Spangenberg answered this with great truth, as well as great emotion, and the old man's, hand trembled as he spake: "You all deceive your own souls! There is no higher state than that I have described. You are in a very dangerous error. You know not your own hearts. You fancy your corruptions are taken away, whereas they are only covered. Inward corruption never can be taken