"HONOURED SIR,--I cannot think it right in you to give so much encouragement to those convulsions which people have been thrown into under your ministry. Were I to do so, how many would cry out every night! I think it is tempting God to require such signs. That there is something of God in it, I doubt not. But the devil, I believe, does interpose. I think it will encourage the French Prophets,[225] take people from the written word, and make them depend on visions, convulsions, etc., more than on the promises and precepts of the gospel. [225] For an elaborate account of the French Prophets, see Southey's Life of Wesley, chapter viii. "Honoured sir, how could you tell that some who came to you 'were in a good measure sanctified?' What fruits could be produced in one night's time? 'By their fruits,' says our Lord, 'shall ye know them.' "I hear, honoured sir, that you are about to print a sermon against predestination.[226] It shocks me to think of it. What will be the consequences but controversy? If people ask my opinion, what shall I do? I have a critical part to act. God enable me to behave aright! Silence on both sides will be best. It is noised abroad already that there is a division between you and me, and my heart within me is grieved. Providence to-morrow calls me to Gloucester. If you will be pleased to come next week to London, I think, God willing, to stay a few days at Bristol. Your brother Charles goes to Oxon. I believe we shall be excommunicated soon. May the Lord enable us to stand fast in the faith, and stir up your heart to watch over the soul of, honoured sir, your dutiful son and servant, "GEORGE WHITEFIELD."[227] [226] This sermon afterwards was published, and entitled "Free Grace." It occasioned a breach in Whitefield's and Wesley's friendship, as will be seen in subsequent pages. [227] _Methodist Magazine_, 1849, p. 165. Wesley did not come to London; but, as will soon be seen, Whitefield went to Bristol. Meanwhile, the young Georgian clergyman was one of the most notorious men in England. Even the _Gentleman's Magazine_, in its number for the month of June, inserted a laudatory poem "on Mr. Whitefield's preaching," in which Whitefield's sermons are contrasted with the sermons of the Arians, and wonder is expressed that the people should object to Whitefield's doctrines. With indignant feeling the versifier writes:-- "No words for such a preacher are too bad; Enthusiast, babbler, and a fool run mad!"