And added to all this, there was another trouble of a different kind, in which Wesley was involved as well as Whitefield. Dr. Lavington was bishop of Exeter, and was a fervent hater of the Methodists. He had recently delivered a charge to the clergy of his diocese, and some mischievous person had published a piece, which falsely pretended to be the same as that which the bishop had addressed to his assembled ministers. This fictitious charge contained such a declaration of doctrines as exposed Lavington to the stigma of a Methodist, and produced several pamphlets in reply and congratulation. His lordship was enraged; and advertised, in the public papers, that the pamphlet which had been affiliated upon himself was false; that the Methodist leaders were the authors of the fraud; and that, though there might be among the Methodists a few well meaning, ignorant people, yet the sect, as a whole, were deluded enthusiasts, and their teachers something worse than that.[38] Whitefield was accused as the principal, and the Wesleys were suspected as being his accomplices, in the spurious production. This was utterly untrue, but it occasioned Whitefield considerable annoyance. It so happened that the pamphlet had been sent to him in manuscript; but he denied its genuineness, and strongly condemned the injustice of its publication.[39] Still, the bishop persisted in his accusation. Lady Huntingdon wrote to him, assuring him that Whitefield and the Wesleys were innocent, and demanded a candid and honourable retraction of the charges against them. Her letter was accompanied by an acknowledgment, on the part of the printer, that no one was to blame for the publication except himself; and, that he received the manuscript from one who had no connection with the Methodists. His lordship maintained a sullen silence. The countess wrote again, declaring that, unless Lavington complied with her request, she would make the transaction public. This extorted a recantation, and an apology “to her ladyship, and to Messrs. Whitefield and Wesley for the harsh and unjust censures which he had passed upon them, and a wish that they would accept his unfeigned regret for having unjustly wounded their feelings, and exposed them to the odium of the world.”[40] The prelate recanted and apologized; but, henceforth, he became the most bitter and implacable reviler that the Methodist leaders had; and, within two years, began to publish his ribald and infamous attack, entitled “The Enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists compared.”