11. “A Letter to a Person lately joined with the People called Quakers. In answer to a Letter wrote by him.” 12mo, 20 pages. Wesley takes his account of Quakerism from the writings of Robert Barclay, and shows wherein the system differs from Christianity; namely—1. Because it teaches that the revelations of the Spirit of God, to a Christian believer, “are not to be subjected to the examination of the Scriptures as to a touchstone.” 2. Because it teaches justification by works. 3. Because it sets aside ordination to the ministry by laying on of hands. 4. Because it allows women to be preachers. 5. Because it affirms that we ought not to pray or preach except when we are moved thereto by the Spirit; and that all other worship, both praises, prayers, and preachings, are superstitious, will worship, and abominable idolatries. 6. Because it alleges that “silence is a principal part of God’s worship.” 7. Because it ignores the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s supper. 8. Because it denies that it is lawful for Christians to give or receive titles of honour. 9. Because it makes it a part of religion to say _thee_ or _thou_,—a piece of egregious trifling, which naturally tends to make all religion stink in the nostrils of infidels and heathens. 10. Because it teaches that it is not lawful for Christians to kneel, or bow the body, or uncover the head to any man; nor to take an oath before a magistrate. In his wide wanderings, Wesley met with numbers of friendly Quakers, of whom he speaks in terms of commendation; but their system was one which he abhorred, and, in his “Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion,” he speaks of the inconsistencies of their community in the most withering terms. “A silent meeting,” said he in a letter to a young lady, “was never heard of in the church of Christ for sixteen hundred years.”[47] And, in one of his letters to Archbishop Seeker, he remarks: “Between me and the Quakers there is a great gulf fixed. The sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s supper keep us at a wide distance from each other; insomuch that, according to the view of things I have now, I should as soon commence deist as Quaker.”[48] 1749. [Sidenote: 1749 Age 46] In 1749, Wesley spent four months in London and its vicinity, nearly four in Ireland, ten weeks in Bristol, Wales, and the surrounding neighbourhood, and two months in his tour to the north of England. His brother employed the year principally in Bristol, Wales, and London, and in visiting intermediate towns and villages.