the poor heretics (who are condemned six weeks before they can possibly be heard) to answer for themselves! “How could you suppose, Sir, that Mr. Wesley and the preachers who assemble with him are such weak men, as tamely to acknowledge themselves heretics upon your _ipse dixit_? Suppose Mr. Wesley took it in his head to convene all the divines that disapprove the extract of Zanchius,[241] to go with him in a body to Mr. Toplady’s chapel, and demand a formal recantation of that performance as heretical; yea, to insist upon it, before they had ‘measured swords or broken a pike together,’ would not the translator of Zanchius laugh at him, and ask whether he thought to frighten him by his protests, or bully him into orthodoxy? “O, Sir, have we not fightings enough without, to employ all our time and strength? Must we also declare war and promote fightings within? Must we catch at every opportunity to stab one another, because the livery of truth which we wear is not turned up in the same manner? What can be more cruel than this? What can be more cutting to an old minister of Christ, than to be traduced as a dreadful heretic, in printed letters sent to the best men in the land, yea, through all England and Scotland, and signed by a person of your rank and piety? To have things that he knows not, that he never meant, laid to his charge, and dispersed far and near? While he is gone to a neighbouring kingdom,[242] to preach Jesus Christ, to have his friends prejudiced, his foes elevated, and the fruit of his extensive ministry at the point of being blasted? Put yourself in his place, Sir, and you will see that the wound is deep and reaches the very heart. “Our Elijah[243] has lately been translated to heaven. Grey-headed Elisha is yet awhile continued upon earth. And shall we make a hurry and noise, to bring in railing accusations against him with more success? Shall the sons of prophets, shall even _children_ in grace and knowledge, openly traduce the venerable seer and his abundant labours? When they see him run upon his Lord’s errands, shall they cry, not, ‘_Go up, thou bald head_,’ but, ‘_Go up, thou heretic_’? O Jesus of Nazareth, Thou rejected of men, Thou Who wast once called a deceiver of the people, suffer it not; lest the raging bear of persecution come suddenly out of the wood upon those sons of discord, and tear them in pieces.” Footnote 241: In 1769, Toplady published “The Doctrine of Absolute Predestination Stated and Asserted. Translated, in great measure, from the Latin of Jerome Zanchius; with some Account of his Life prefixed.” 8vo. 134 pp. An impious production, in the garb of piety. Footnote 242: Wesley was in Ireland from March 24 to July 22, 1771. It was during this period that Shirley sent forth his offensive “Circular Letter.” Footnote 243: Whitefield, who died September 30, 1770.