“As yet, I dare in nowise join with the Moravians: 1. Because their whole scheme is mystical, not scriptural. 2. Because there is darkness and closeness in their whole behaviour, and guile in almost all their words. 3. Because they utterly deny and despise self denial and the daily cross. 4. Because they, upon principle, conform to the world, in wearing gold or costly apparel. 5. Because they extend Christian liberty, in this and many other respects, beyond what is warranted in holy writ. 6. Because they are by no means zealous of good works; or, at least, only to their own people. And, lastly, because they make inward religion swallow up outward in general. For these reasons chiefly, I will rather stand quite alone, than join with them: I mean till I have full assurance, that they will spread none of their errors among the little flock committed to my charge. “O my brother, my soul is grieved for you; the poison is in you: fair words have stolen away your heart. ‘No English man or woman is like the Moravians!’ So the matter is come to a fair issue. Five of us did still stand together a few months since; but two are gone to the right hand, Hutchins and Cennick; and two more to the left, Mr. Hall and you. Lord, if it be Thy gospel which I preach, arise and maintain Thine own cause! Adieu!”[386] In the month of May, a reunion of Wesley’s London society with the Moravians at Fetter Lane was solemnly discussed; and all the bands met at the Foundery, on a Wednesday afternoon, to ask God to give them guidance. “It was clear to all,” writes Wesley, “even those who were before the most desirous of reunion, that the time was not come: (1) because the brethren of Fetter Lane had not given up their most essentially erroneous doctrines; and, (2) because many of us had found so much guile in their words, that we could scarce tell what they really held, and what not.” Wesley entertained no bitterness towards the Moravians. He readily acknowledges, that they had a sincere desire to serve God; that many of them had tasted of His love that they abstained from outward sin; and that their discipline, in most respects, was excellent: but, after reading all their English publications, and “waiving their odd and affected phrases; their weak, mean, silly, childish expressions; their crude, confused, and undigested notions; and their whims, unsupported either by Scripture or sound reason,”—he found three grand, unretracted errors running through almost all their books, namely “universal salvation, antinomianism, and a kind of new, reformed quietism.” No wonder that the thought of reunion was abandoned.