Thus was Wesley badgered. It certainly was strange, that one of the fiercest attacks upon the Church of England, ever published, should be written by a Methodist itinerant preacher; and that the preacher should be the son of a man, who, at one time at least, was Wesley’s most confidential friend, Vincent Perronet; and further, that the writer should have lived on terms of the greatest intimacy with both Wesley and his brother. The book contains not a little which cannot be commended; but Charles Wesley’s opinion of its dulness and want of wit is preposterously opposed to fact. Charles was in a terrible fever of Church of England excitement; and all that he said and did, at this momentous period of Methodistic history, must be taken _cum grano salis_. Why Vincent Perronet was not consulted in these grave affairs we are left to guess. Charles Wesley was most anxious to have the present preachers ordained, or otherwise attached to settled societies; and also to stop the employment of additional itinerants, or, at all events, without subjecting them to a most searching ordeal. On the other hand, his brother continued to employ them as usual; and, during this very year of 1756, called to the itinerant work five fresh labourers—William Allwood, John Catermole, Robert Gillespy, Thomas Greaves, and Matthew Lowes; while the only ones who left him were John Haughton, John Maddern, and James Morris.[284] Many, indeed most, of his preachers were without learning, but not without sense. They were thoroughly converted; and, though destitute of other knowledge, knew the Scriptures, and how to teach the gospel plan of salvation. In a letter, written at the close of the Bristol conference, Wesley says:— “BRISTOL, _August 31, 1756_. ... “A careless reader of the Address may think I make it necessary for a minister to have much learning; and, thence, imagine I act inconsistently; seeing many of our preachers have no learning at all. But the answer is easy. First, I do not make any learning necessary even for a minister,—the minister of a parish, who, as such, undertakes single to guide and feed, to instruct and govern, that whole flock,—but the knowledge of the Scriptures; although many branches of learning are highly expedient for him. Secondly, these preachers are not ministers; none of them undertakes single the care of a whole flock; but ten, twenty, or thirty, one following and helping another; and all, under the direction of my brother and me, undertake jointly what (as I judge) no man in England is equal to alone.”[285] In another letter, to Mr. Norton, he writes thus. “KINGSWOOD, _September 3, 1756_. “MY DEAR BROTHER,—In your letters of July, and August 27, you charge me first with _self inconsistency_, in tolerating lay preaching, and not lay administering; and, secondly, with showing a spirit of _persecution_, in denying my brethren the liberty of _acting_, as well as _thinking_, according to their own _conscience_.