On the other side, good old Berridge, of Everton, brought out his “Christian World Unmasked”; which, if full of faults, is, at all events, free from dulness; a book, like its author, often odd, sometimes coarse, but always pious; full of genius, and full of goodness; seasoned with Calvinism’s highest flavour, but entirely free from the personal scurrility so characteristic of others. Toplady sent nothing to the press; but his private letters were as full of bitterness as ever. “I am told,” he writes, “that Mr. Fletcher has it in contemplation to make an attack on me. He is welcome. I am ready for him. Tenderness has no effect on Mr. Wesley and his pretended _family of love_. For my own part, I shall never attempt to hew such millstones with a feather. They must be served as nettles; press them close, and they cannot sting. Cobbler _Tom_ laments publicly, from his preaching tub (misnamed a pulpit), that such an antinomian as myself should have such crowded auditories, while the preachers of the _pure gospel_ (by which he means _free will_, _merit_, and _perfection_) are so thinly attended. The envy, malice, and fury of Wesley’s party are inconceivable. But, as violently as they hate _me_, I dare not, I cannot hate _them_ in return. I have not so learned Christ. Your idea of Mr. John Wesley and his associates exactly tallies with mine. Abstracted from all warmth, and from all prejudice, I believe him to be the most rancorous hater of the gospel system that ever appeared in England. I except not Pelagius himself. The latter had some remains of modesty, and preserved some appearances of decency; but the former has outlived all pretentions to both.”[202] Could this impulsive reviler be actually sincere, when he said he durst not, and could not, hate Wesley and his party? Toplady, so far as printing was concerned, was silent; but Richard Hill begun the year as vigorously as ever, by publishing his “Finishing Stroke; containing some Strictures on the Rev. Mr. Fletcher’s pamphlet, entitled, ‘Logica Genevensis, or a Fourth Check to Antinomianism:’” 8vo, 57 pages. This characteristic piece is dated January 2, 1773. The author confesses, that he had formed a resolution to be silent; but “Logica Genevensis” was too provoking to be passed in silence. This, however, was to be the real “finishing stroke.” Sir Richard writes: “the unfair quotations you have made, and the shocking misrepresentations and calumnies you have been guilty of, will, for the future, prevent me from looking into any of your books, if you should write a thousand volumes. So here the controversy must end; at least, it shall end for me.”