away, till our bodies are in the dust." The same opinion was afterwards expressed to Wesley, in familiar conversation, by Boehler, but with characteristic vigour: "Sin will and must always remain in the soul. The old man will remain till death. The old nature is like an old tooth: you may break off one bit, and another, and another; but you can never get it all away. The stump will stay as long as you live, and sometimes will ache too."

The scheme of a re-union, however, had been so much brought forward, that the Methodists in London set apart a day for prayer and humbling their souls before God, if haply He might show them His will concerning it. All the men and women bands met accordingly, and they were satisfied, from the conviction which this meeting produced, that the time was not yet come," because the Moravians had not given up their most essentially erroneous doctrines ;" and because, it was said, so much guile had been found in their words, that it was difficult to know what they really held and what they did not." Wesley did not perceive that there was a beam in his own eye; but knowing many of the Moravians as he knew them, after long and intimate intercourse, he ought to have known that their ambiguity should have been imputed to any cause rather than to guile. On their part the separation was not desired: upon the first intelligence of the difference, Count Zinzendorff sent over Spangenberg to act as mediator; and Spangenberg having pronounced that the Moravians had been blameable, and had injured

*

Wesley, the Count gave orders that they should ask his forgiveness; and when he found that Wesley had rejected the proffered reconciliation, he came to England himself. The meeting between these personages was arranged by Hutton, and took place in Gray's-Inn Walks. They conversed in Latin; and Zinzendorf, who assumed throughout the scene that superiority to which his birth and rank had habituated him, began by demanding of Wesley wherefore he had changed his religion," You have affirmed," said he, "in your epistle, that they who are true Christians are not miserable sinners; and this is most false: for the best of men are most miserable sinners, even till death. They who teach otherwise are either absolute impostors, or they are under a diabolical delusion. You have opposed our brethren, who taught better things; and when they offered peace, you denied it. I loved you greatly," said Zinzendorf, "when you wrote to me from Georgia : then I knew that you were simple at heart. You wrote again; I knew that you were simple at heart, but that your ideas were disturbed. You came to us, and then your ideas were more and more confused." And he reproached him for having refused to be reconciled with the brethren,

*It is not to the credit of Wesley that these circumstances are not stated in his Journal, and no otherwise recorded than in the conversation with Count Zinzendorf, which, he says, he dared not conceal. But as he printed it in the original Latin, and did not think proper to annex a translation, it was effectually concealed from the great majo rity of his followers. Neither are they noticed by any of the biographers of Wesley.

when, in obedience to Spangenberg, they had entreated his forgiveness. Wesley replied, it was true that they had treated him wrongfully, and afterwards asked his forgiveness. He had made answer, that forgiveness was unnecessary, because he had never been offended; but that he feared lest they taught erroneously, and lived incorrectly; and this was the matter in dispute: they erred in their opinions concerning Christian perfection, and concerning the means of grace. To this Zinzendorf vehemently replied, "I acknowledge no inherent perfection in this life. This is the error of errors. I persecute it through all the world with fire and sword. I trample upon it, I destroy it. Christ is our only perfection. All Christian perfection is faith in the blood of Christ. It is imputed, not inherent. We are perfect in Christ: we are never perfect in ourselves." Wesley protested, that this was merely a dispute concerning words, and attempted to prove it so by a series of interrogations, by which the Count was led to this assertion, "We reject all self-denial; we trample on it. In faith we do whatever we desire, and nothing more. We laugh at all mortification: no purification precedes perfect love." If this meant all that it expresses, it would indeed be a perilous doctrine. But it often happens, that language equally indiscreet is innocently intended, and less evil is produced by it than might reasonably be apprehended, because the intention is understood.

Wesley put an end to this curious conversation,

by promising that, with God's help, he would perpend what the Count had said. But his part was already taken: no farther attempt at reconciliation was made; and after three years had elapsed, he published the breach to the world, in the fourth part of his Journal, which he dedicated to the Moravian Church, and more especially to that part of it then or lately residing in England. "I am constrained at length," he said, "to speak my present sentiments concerning you. I have delayed thus long, because I loved you, and was therefore unwilling to grieve you in any thing: and likewise because I was afraid of creating another obstacle to that union which, if I know my own heart in any degree, I desire above all things under heaven. But I dare no longer delay, lest my silence should be a snare to any others of the children of God; and lest you yourselves should be more confirmed in what I cannot reconcile to the law and the testimony. This would strengthen the bar which I long to remove. And were that once taken out of the way, I should rejoice to be a door-keeper in the house of God, a hewer of wood, or drawer of water among you. Surely I would follow you to the ends of the earth, or remain with you in the uttermost parts of the sea." He praised them for laying the true foundation in their doctrine; for brotherly love of each other; for their sober, innocent, and industrious lives. "I love and esteem you," he said, " for your excellent discipline, scarce inferior to that of the apostolic age: for your due subordination of officers, every

one knowing and keeping his proper rank: for your exact division of the people under your charge, so that each may be fed with food convenient for them: for your care that all who are employed in the service of the Church, should frequently and freely confer together; and, in consequence thereof, your exact and seasonable knowledge of the state of every member, and your ready distribution either of spiritual or temporal relief, as every man hath need." In relating what he found himself enforced by a sense of duty to lay before the public, he endeavoured, he said, to do it with a tender hand; "relating no more than I believed absolutely needful, carefully avoiding all tart and unkind expressions, all that I could foresee would be disobliging to you, or any farther offensive than was implied in the very nature of the thing; labouring every where to speak consistently with that deep sense which is settled in my heart, that you are (though I cannot call you Rabbi, infallible) yet far, far better and wiser than me.' He added, that if any of the Moravian Brethren would show him wherein he had erred in this relation, either in matter or manner, he would confess it before angels and men, in whatever way they should require; and he entreated that they would not cease to pray for him as their weak but still affectionate brother.

After the breach had been thus formally announced, Count Zinzendorf published an advertisement, declaring that he and his people had no connection with John and Charles Wesley. The