“When Brutus, among other senators, rushed upon Cæsar, the venerable general said, ‘Art thou also among them? Even thou, my son?’ May not Mr. Wesley address you, Sir, in the same words, and add, ‘If a body of men must be raised to attack me, let some zealous follower of Dr. Crisp, some hot-headed vindicator of reprobation and eternal justification blow the trumpet, and put himself at their head; but let it not be _you_, who believe with me that we are moral agents; that God is love; that Jesus tasted death for every man; and that the Holy Spirit shall not always strive with sinners. If you do not regard my reputation, consider at least your own, and expose me not as a heretic for advancing propositions, the substance of which you have avowed before the sun.’ “But had those propositions, at length, appeared to you unsound, yea, and had you never maintained them yourself, should you not, as a Christian and a brother, have wrote to Mr. Wesley, acquainted him with your objections, and desired him to solve them and explain himself, or you should be obliged publicly to expose him? “Was this condescension more than was due from you, Sir, and our other friends, to a grey-headed minister of Christ, an old general in the armies of Emmanuel, a father who has children capable of instructing even masters in Israel, and one whom God made the first and principal instrument of the late revival of internal religion in our Church? “Instead of this friendly method, as if you were a Barak, _commanded by the Lord God of Israel_, you call _together the children of Naphthali and Zebulun_: you convene, from England and Wales, clergy and laity, Churchmen and Dissenters, to meet you at Bristol, where they are, it seems, to be entertained in good and free quarters. And for what grand expedition? Why, on a day appointed, you are to march up _in a body_, not to attack Sisera and his iron chariots, but an old Caleb, who, without meddling with you, quietly goes on to the conquest of Canaan; not to desire, in a friendly manner, after a fair debate of every proposition that appears dangerous, and, upon previous conviction, that what is exceptionable may be given up; but to do what I think was never done by nominal, much less by _real Protestants_. O let it not be told in Rome, lest the sons of the Inquisition rejoice! This mixed, this formidable body is to _insist upon_ Mr. Wesley and the preachers in his connexion, _formally recanting_ their ‘Minutes,’ as _appearing injurious to the very fundamental principles of Christianity_, and being _dreadfully heretical_. And this, astonishing! without the least inquiry made into their meaning and design, without a shadow of authority from our superiors in Church or State, without an appeal _to the law and to the testimony_, without form of process, without judge or jury, without so much as allowing