Wesley’s
Letters: 1747
To Ebenezer Blackwell [1]
BRISTOL, January 26, 1747.
DEAR SIR, — Our number of patients
increases here daily. We have now upwards of two hundred. Many have already
desired to return thanks, having found a considerable change for the better
already. But we are at a great loss for medicines, several of those we
should choose being not to be had at any price in Bristol.
I have been sometimes afraid you have suffered
loss for want of a frank acknowledgement of the truth: I mean with regard
to the gay world. If we openly avow what we approve, the fear or shame
generally lights on them; but if we are ashamed or afraid, then they pursue,
and will be apt to rally us both out of our reason and religion. — I am, dear sir,
Your very affectionate servant.
My
best respects attend Mrs. Blackwell and Mrs. Dewal.[Mrs. Hannah Dewal
lived with the Blackwells at Lewisham, and was one of the most intimate
friends of John and Charles Wesley. See C. Wesley's Journal, ii.
170, 379-83.] I hope you strengthen each other's hands.
To Howell Harris [2]
NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE, March 3, 1747.
MY DEAR BROTHER, — I was glad to receive
a letter from you, though sorry for some of the contents of it. I believed
Brother Cownley would labor for peace and simply preach the gospel. I
wrote pressingly to Brother Richards (who, I suppose, was at Plymouth
since, in his return from Cornwall) to tread in the same steps. By degrees
I trust these unkind affections will subside and brotherly love revive
and increase.
My brother said (this I know) ‘he had no
more design to have a Society at Plymouth than a palace’; and he
had not neither then nor when he desired John Trembath to call there.
Nor, indeed, does he now concern himself therewith. The burthen lies upon
me, and I am in a strait between two. I am much solicited to suffer those
who press for it to be under my care. But what to do I know not. May God
make plain my way before my face.
From the day I saw him first, I never found the
least shadow of double dealing in James Wheatley. I scarce know his fellow
upon earth for simplicity and godly sincerity. His preaching in the street
I cannot blame; but I should not have advised him to do it at that hour.
I will take particular care that those who may
hereafter call at Plymouth be of a mild and peaceable spirit. Those who
are warm I will desire to go into Cornwall and return another way.
I had fully determined to have gone or sent to
Portsmouth; but on hearing Brother Jenkins had been there already, I gave
up the design.
Remember me, my dear brother, in all your prayers,
who am
Your affectionate brother and fellow laborer.
To Mr. Howell Harris, At Trevecca,
Near Hay, Brecknockshire.
Free-James Erskine.
To ‘John Smith’
NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE, March 25, 1747.
SIR, — I. In your last I do not find much
reason to complain either of tartness or bitterness. But is it so serious
as the cause requires? If it be asked,
Ridentem dicere verum,
Quis vetat?' [Horace’s Satires, I, i. 24: ‘Yet
may not truth in laughing guise be dressed?’]
1. I think the nature of the things whereof we
speak should forbid it. For surely it is a very serious concern whether
we dwell in the eternal glory of God or in the everlasting fire prepared
for the devil and his angels.
2. If those who subscribe the Eleventh and following
Articles do subscribe in what they believe from their hearts to be the
plain, unforced, grammatical meaning of the words, then they are clear
before God. I trust you can answer for yourself herein; but you cannot
for all our brethren.
3. I am glad that our dispute concerning commutations
in religion proves to be ‘entirely verbal’: as we both agree
(1) that abundance of those who bear the name of Christians put a part
of religion for the whole — generally some outward work or form of
worship; (2) that whatever is thus put for the whole of religion — in particular, where it is used to supersede or commute for the religion
of the heart--it is no longer a part of it; it is gross irreligion, it
is mere mockery of God.
4. When you warned me against ‘excess of
zeal,’ I did not say this was not my weak side, that it was not one
weakness to which I am exposed. My words were: ‘I am always in danger
of this; and yet I daily experience a far greater danger of the other
extreme.’ I do. I am to this day ashamed before God that I do so
little to what I ought to do. But this you call ‘over-done humility,’ and suppose it to be inconsistent with what occurs in the ninety-third
and ninety-fourth paragraphs of the Earnest Appeal. [See Works,
viii. 38-9.] I believe it is not at all inconsistent therewith: only one
expression there is too strong — ‘all his time and strength’;
for this very cause ‘I am ashamed before God.’ I do not spend
all my time so profitably as I might, nor all my strength; at least, not
all I might have, if it were not for my own lukewarmness and remissness,
if I wrestled with God in constant and fervent prayer.
You mention four other instances of self-contradiction:
(1) ‘You claim and you disclaim miracles. You claim them, as having
seen many miraculous attestations to your ministry; you disclaim them,
desiring none to believe your words farther than they are confirmed by
Scripture and reason: that is, you claim them in one sense, and disclaim
1 them in another.’ Perhaps so; but this is no contradiction. (2)
‘You are not at leisure yet either to permit or forbid to marry.’
Indeed I am. Although I commend those who are as ‘eunuchs for the
kingdom of heaven’s sake,’ yet I know ‘all men cannot receive
this saying,’ and that ‘it is better to marry than to burn.’
(3) ‘The newly justified has at once, in that hour, power over all
sin, and finds from that hour the work of God in the soul slowly and gradually
increasing. What, until he has power over more than all sin?’ No:
but until he has more power over all sin, the struggle between the flesh
and the Spirit gradually decreasing; and till he has more peace, more
joy in the Holy Ghost, more of the knowledge and love of God. (4) ‘But
surely the tip-top of all inconsistencies is what follows, even as explained
in your own way: many receive from the Holy Ghost an attestation of their
acceptance as perceptible as the sun at noonday; and yet these same persons
at other times doubt or deny that they ever had such attestation.’
The fact stands thus: (1) A man feels in himself
the testimony of God's Spirit that he is a child of God; and he can then
no more deny or doubt thereof than of the shining of the sun at noonday.
(2) After a time this testimony is withdrawn. (3) He begins to reason
within himself concerning it; next, to doubt whether that testimony was
from God; and, perhaps, in the end to deny that it was. And yet he may
be all this time in every other respect ‘of sound memory as well
as understanding.’ Now, whether these propositions are true or false,
they are not contradictory to each other. They cannot, unless it were
affirmed that the same person has and has not the same testimony at the
same time.
5. However, you think I assert a thing impossible.
What is impossible? That the Spirit of God should bear a clear, perceptible
witness with our spirit that we are the children of God? Surely no! Whether
this be the fact or not, no man of reason will say it is impossible. Or
that the Spirit of God should cease to bear this witness? Neither can
the possibility of this be denied. The thing, then, which is supposed
impossible is this — that a man who once had it should ever doubt
whether he had it or no; that is (as you subjoin), ‘if he continue
sound in mind’ (or understanding) ‘and memory.’ Right!
‘If he continue’; but the very supposition is that in this respect
he does not continue so. While he did so continue, he could not doubt.
But his understanding is now darkened, and the very traces of that divine
work wellnigh erased out of his memory. Nor can I think ‘it is vain
to have recourse here to the energeia of the power of darkness.’ I verily believe, as it was the God of heaven who once shone in his heart
to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, so it is the god
of this world who hath now blinded his heart so that the glorious light
cannot shine upon it.
6. If the Quakers hold the same perceptible inspiration
with me, I am glad; and it is neither better nor worse for their holding
it: although if I ‘distinguish it away,’ I do not hold it at
all. But do I distinguish it away? or any point which I believe to be
the truth of God? I am not conscious of this. But when men tack absurdities
to the truth of God with which it hath nothing to do, I distinguish away
those absurdities and let the truth remain in its native purity.
It was several months before my correspondence
with you that I thus distinguished away perceptible inspiration; declaring
to all men, ‘by “perceiving” or “feeling the operations
of the Spirit,” I mean being inwardly conscious of them.’ ‘By
“the operations of the Spirit” I do not mean the “manner” in which He operates in a Christian.’
This I mentioned in my last. But it is certain,
over and above those other graces which the Holy Spirit inspires into
or operates in a Christian, and over and above His imperceptible influences,
I do intend all mankind should understand me to assert (what I therefore
express in the clearest language I am master of) every Christian believer
hath a perceptible testimony of the Spirit that he is a child of God.
I use the phrase ‘testimony of the Spirit’ rather than ‘inspiration,’ because it has a more determinate meaning. And I desire men to know what
I mean, and what I do not; that I may not fight as one that beateth the
air.
7. Is there ‘not one word said of this,
either in the Farther Appeal or in any one place in the Bible’? I
think there is in the Bible, in the 16th verse of the 8th chapter to the
Romans. And is not this very place proved to describe the ordinary privilege
of every Christian believer in the Farther Appeal, from the forty-fifth
to the forty-ninth and from the fifty-sixth to the fifty-ninth page? [Part
I. See Works, viii. 83-7, 93-5]
Give me leave to remind you of some of the words.
In the forty-ninth page the argument concludes thus: ‘It will follow
that this witness of the Spirit is the private testimony given to our
own consciences, which consequently all sober Christians may claim, without
any danger of enthusiasm.’ In the fifty-seventh page are these words:
‘Every one that is born of God, and doth not commit sin, by his very
actions saith, “Our Father which art in heaven”; the Spirit
itself bearing witness with their spirit that they are the children of
God. According to Origen, therefore, this testimony of the Spirit is not
any public testimony by miracles, but an inward testimony belonging in
common to all that are born of God.’ Once more: in the fifty-eighth
page are these words: ‘He brings yet another proof of the superiority
of those who had this Spirit of adoption: “The Spirit itself beareth
witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.” “I
prove this,” says he, “not only from the voice itself, but also
from the cause whence that voice proceeds. For the Spirit suggests the
words while we thus speak, which he hath elsewhere expressed more plainly,
‘God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying,
Abba, Father!’ But what is ‘The Spirit beareth witness with
our spirit’?” He means the Paraclete by the gift given unto
us.’ (But that this was an extraordinary gift we have no intimation
at all, neither before nor after.) ‘And when the Spirit beareth witness,
what doubt is left? If a man or an angel spake, some might doubt; but
when the Most High beareth witness to us, who can doubt any longer?’
I am mistaken if this does not come home to the
point, to the question now before us: describing a perceptible testimony
of the Holy Ghost, ‘directly felt to be worked by Himself.’
8. But I will waive all authorities, that of
Origen and Chrysostom, as well as of Hannah Richardson (though not a weak
woman, but eminently the reverse) and Averel Spenser [See letters of Dec.
30, 1745, sects. 4, 7, and March 22, 1748, sect. 14.](though not a wicked
one), only observing that your argument proves too much. I am as fully
assured to-day, as I am of the shining of the sun, that the Scriptures
are of God. I cannot possibly deny or doubt of it now: yet I may doubt
of it to-morrow; as I have done heretofore a thousand times, and that
after the fullest assurance preceding. Now, if this be 'a demonstration
that my former assurance was a mere fancy,' then farewell all revelation
at once!
But to come closer yet, and weigh the point in
debate in the balance of plain reason. You must allow there is a testimony
of the Spirit with our spirit that we are the children of God. ‘But,’
you say, ‘it is not a perceptible one.’ How is this? Let us
examine it thoroughly. It is allowed (1) the Spirit of God (2) bears testimony
to my spirit (3) that I am a child of God. But I am not to perceive it.
Not to perceive what? the first, second, or third particular? Am I not
to perceive what is testified — that I am a child of God? Then it
is not testified at all. This is saying and unlaying in the same breath.
Or am I not to perceive that it is testified to my spirit? Yea, but I
must perceive what passes in my own soul! Or, lastly, am I to perceive
that I am a child of God, and that this is testified to my spirit, but
not to perceive who it is that testifies? not to know it is the Spirit
of God? O sir, if there really be a man in the world who hath this testimony
in himself, can it be supposed that he does not know who it is that testifies?
who it is that speaks to his heart? that speaks in his inmost soul as
never man spake? If he does not, he is ignorant of the whole affair. If
you are in this state, I pray God you may say from the heart, ‘Lord,
what I know not, teach Thou me.’ How much better were this than to
canonize your own ignorance as the only knowledge and wisdom, and to condemn
all the generation of God's children of ‘idiotism and madness’!
9. Under your last head you do not confine yourself
now within the bounds you at first proposed, when you said, ‘I am
not making conjectures of what may happen, but relating mischiefs which
actually have happened.’ Take care you do not grow warm when I reply
to this; you will have need of all your patience to bear it.
You begin: ‘Will you ask what I mean by
“order”? Was it not manifest I meant to speak against lay-preaching?’
It was; but not against that alone. Therefore, before I entered upon the
question, I defined the term in a wider sense, so as to include both this
and every irregularity you had objected. You go on: ‘How could you
give so strange an answer, “I bring this order you contend for into
places where it never was before”?’ I reply: This is not my
whole answer; it is but one, and that the most inconsiderable, part of
it: but it is strictly true. ‘Do you, then, bring in the ministry
of regularly ordained ministers, where, before, people were used to the
preaching of lay brethren?’ Yes; them who were before used to no
preaching at all, or to that of those whom you would term lay brethren,
I bring to attend on the ministry of those regular preachers who have
the charge of their several parishes.
But very ‘ill consequences’ of our
irregular preaching, you say, have ‘actually happened: a number of
unsent persons going about the kingdom, and preaching the worst of heresies.’
‘A number’! Where? Within these nine years past, I have heard
of two, and no more (besides that lunatic clergyman [See letter of June
25, 1746, sect. 10.]), who have gone about thus, though I doubt sent neither
of God nor man. But I have heard of no heresy which they preached; only
a little smooth, undigested nonsense. Nor can the ill done by these balance
the thousandth part of the good already done by the preaching of other
laymen — namely, the turning so many bold, barefaced servants of
the devil into humble, holy servants of God.
However, evil ‘will happen if any State
faction shall join the irregulars.’ If they shall! Yea, if they shall
attempt it (which is far enough off), the irregulars will not join them.
We bless God that the Government is at present very fully convinced of
this.
‘But if unsent well-meaning laymen may preach,
unsent ill-meaning laymen will, upon the first opportunity, spread sedition
like wild-fire.’ Yea, and clergymen as well as laymen, sent as well
as unsent. Thus it ever was, and I presume ever will be.
10. That ‘the irregularities of Mr. Cartwright
[Thomas Cartwright was the Puritan Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity
at Cambridge in 1569. He lectured and preached against the habits worn
by the clergy; and criticized the Constitution of the Church of England,
and argued for that of Geneva. He was removed from the professorship in
1570. See Walton's Hooker, p. 138.] did more harm in the course of a century
than all the labors of his life did good' is by no means plain to me;
and the less so, because I cannot learn from Mr. Stripe [John Strype (1643-1737)
wrote a History of the Life and Actions of Edmund Grindal, who zealously
opposed Cartwright.] or any other impartial writer (whatever his mistakes
in judgement were) that he fell into any irregularities at all. I look
upon him and the body of Puritans in that age (to whom the German Anabaptists
bore small resemblance) to have been both the most learned and most pious
men that were then in the English nation. Nor did they separate from the
Church, but were driven out, whether they would or no. The vengeance of
God which fell on the posterity of their persecutors, I think, is no imputation
on Mr. Cartwright or them; but a wonderful scene of divine Providence,
visiting the sins of the fathers upon their children (when they also had
filled up the measure of their iniquities) unto the third and fourth generation.
I am not careful for what may be an hundred years
hence. He who governed the world before I was born shall take care of
it likewise when I am dead. My part is to improve the present moment.
And whatever may be the fruits of laypreaching when you and I are gone
to our long home, every serious man has cause to bless God for those he
may now see with his eyes, for the saving so many souls from death and
hiding a multitude of sins. The instances glare in the face of the sun.
Many, indeed, God hath taken to Himself; but many more remain, both young
and old, who now fear God and work righteousness.
11. Perhaps a parallel drawn from physic may
hold more exactly than you was apprised of. For more than twenty years
I have had numberless proofs that regular physicians do exceeding little
good. From a deep conviction of this, I have believed it my duty, within
these four months last past, to prescribe such medicines to six or seven
hundred of the poor as I knew were proper for their several disorders.
[See letter of Jan. 26.] Within six weeks nine in ten of them who had
taken these medicines were remarkably altered for the better; and many
were cured of diseases under which they had labored for ten, twenty, forty
years. Now, ought I to have let one of these poor wretches perish because
I was not a regular physician? to have said, ‘I know what will cure
you; but I am not of the College: you must send for Dr. Mead’? [For
Dr. Richard Mead, see heading to letter of Sept. 28, 1745.] ‘Before
Dr. Mead had come in his chariot, the man might have been in his coffin.
And when the doctor was come, where was his fee? What! he cannot live
upon nothing! So, instead of an orderly cure, the patient dies; and God
requires his blood at my hands!’ [See letter of May 4, 1748.]
12. But you think, ‘if one should look out
of his grave in the middle of the next century, he would find the orderly
preaching at St. Luke's and St. Church had done more good than the disorderly
preaching at Kennington.’ I cannot learn, by all the inquiries I
have made, that at present it does any good at all; that either Dr. Bulkeley
[See letter of June 17, 1746, sect. III. 5.] or Dr. Gally [Henry Gally,
Vicar of St. Giles’ in-the-Fields 1732-69.] has in all these years
converted one sinner to God. And if a man saves no souls while he is alive,
I fear he will save few after he is dead.
But ‘it does abundance less harm.’
Perhaps not so, neither. ‘He that gathereth not with Me scattereth,’
more especially if he be a preacher. He must scatter from Him, if he does
not gather souls to God. Therefore a lifeless, unconverting minister is
the murderer-general of his parish. He enters not into the kingdom of
heaven himself, and those that would enter in he suffers not. He stands
in the gap between them and true religion. Because he has it not, they
are easy without it. Dead form contents him, and why not them? ‘Sure
it is enough if we go as far as our guide!’ And if he is not outwardly
vicious, he the more effectually secures them from all inward, solid virtue.
How choice a factor for hell is this! destroying more souls than any Deist
in the kingdom! I could not have blamed St. Chrysostom if he had only
said, ‘Hell is paved with the skulls of such Christian priests!’
13. I must be short on what remains. You suppose
the impression made on men's minds by this irregular way of preaching
is chiefly owing to ‘the force of novelty.’ I believe it was
to obviate this very supposition that my preaching has so rarely made
any impression at all till the novelty of it was over. When I had preached
more than six score times at this town, I found scarce any effect; only
that abundance of people heard, and gaped and stared, and went away much
as they came. And it was one evening, while I was in doubt if I had not
labored in vain, that such a blessing of God was given as has continued
ever since, and I trust will be remembered unto many generations.
You ascribe it likewise in part to ‘a natural
knack of persuasion.’ If either by a natural or an acquired power
of persuasion I can prevail upon sinners to turn to God, am I to bury
even that talent in the earth? ‘No; but try if you cannot do more
good in a college or in a parish.’ [See letter of March 20, 1739,
to James Hervey.] I have tried both, and I could not do any substantial
good, either to my pupils or my parishioners. Among my parishioners in
Lincolnshire I tried for some years; but I am well assured I did far more
good to them by preaching three days on my father's tomb than I did by
preaching three years in his pulpit.
But you ‘know no call I have to preach up
and down, to play the part of an itinerant evangelist.’ Perhaps you
do not. But I do: I know God hath required this at my hands. To me, His
blessing my work is an abundant proof; although such a proof as often
makes me tremble. But ‘is there not pride or vanity in my heart’?
There is; yet this is not my motive to preaching. I know and feel that
the spring of this is a deep conviction that it is the will of God, and
that, were I to refrain, I should never hear that word, ‘Well done,
good and faithful servant,’ but, ‘Cast ye the unprofitable servant
into outer darkness, where is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.’
To Ebenezer Blackwell
SHEFFIELD, May 14, 1747.
DEAR SIR, — Are you not getting weary and
faint in your mind? Do you continue to strive for the mastery? It is a
good though painful fight. I am sometimes afraid of your turning back
before you conquer. Your enemies are many, and your strength is small.
What an amazing thing it will be, if you should endure to the end!
I doubt you will sometimes be in danger by a
snare you are not aware of: you will often meet with persons who labor
till they are delivered of all they know, and who (perhaps ‘with
very good intent, but little wit’) will tell you abundance of things,
good or bad, of the Society, or any member of it. Now, all this is poison
to your soul. You have only to give an account of yourself to God. Oh
may you do it with joy, and not with grief! — I am, dear sir,
Your very affectionate servant.
To Dr. Gibson, Bishop of London [3]
TO DR. GIBSON, BISHOP OF LONDON
Let me not, I pray you, accept any man's
person; neither let me give flattering titles unto man. For I know not
to give flattering titles; in so doing my Maker would soon take me away.--Job
xxxii. 21-2.
LONDON, June 11, 1747.
MY LORD, — 1. When abundance of persons
have for several years laid to my charge things that I knew not, I have
generally thought it my duty to pass it over in silence, to be 'as one
that heard not.' But the case is different when a person of your Lordship's
character calls me forth to answer for myself. Silence now might be interpreted
contempt. It might appear like a sullen disregard, a withholding honor
from him to whom honor is due, were it only on account of his high office
in the Church, more especially when I apprehend so eminent a person as
this to be under considerable mistakes concerning me. Were I now to be
silent, were I not to do what was in my power for the removal of those
mistakes, I could not ‘have a conscience void of offence,’ either
‘towards God or towards man.’
2. But I am sensible how difficult it is to speak
in such a manner as I ought and as I desire to do. When your Lordship
published those queries under the title of Observations, [Observations
upon the Conduct and Behaviour of a Certain Sect, usually distinguished
by the name of Methodist. 1744. See Green's Anti-Methodist Publications,
No. 164.] I did not lie under the same difficulty; because, as your name
was not inscribed, I had ‘the liberty to stand, as it were, on even
ground.’ But I must now always remember to whom I speak. And may
the God ‘whom I serve in the gospel of His Son’ enable me to
do it with deep seriousness of spirit, with modesty and humility, and
at the same time with the utmost plainness of speech, seeing we must ‘both
stand before the judgment-seat of Christ.’
3. In this, then, I entreat your Lordship to
bear with me, and in particular when I speak of myself (how tender a point!)
just as freely as I would of another man. Let not this be termed boasting.
Is there not a cause? Can I refrain from speaking, and be guiltless? And
if I speak at all, ought I not to speak (what appears to me to be) the
whole truth? Does not your Lordship desire that I should do this? I will,
then, God being my helper. And you will bear with me in my folly (if such
it is), with my speaking in the simplicity of my heart.
4. Your Lordship begins: ‘There is another
species of enemies, who give shameful disturbance to the parochial clergy,
and use very unwarrantable methods to prejudice their people against them,
and to seduce their flocks from them — the Methodists and Moravians,
who agree in annoying the Established ministry, and in drawing over to
themselves the lowest and most ignorant of the people, by presences to
greater sanctity’ (Charge, p. 4).
But have no endeavors been used to show them
their error? Yes; your Lordship remarks, ‘Endeavors have not been
wanting. But though these endeavors have caused some abatement in the
pomp and grandeur with which these people for some time acted’ (truly,
one would not have expected it from them!), ‘yet they do not seem
to have made any impression upon their leaders.’ (Page 6.)
Your Lordship adds: ‘Their innovations in
points of discipline I do not intend to enter into at present; but to
inquire what the doctrines are which they spread’ (page 7). ‘Doctrines
big with pernicious influences upon practice’ (page 8).
Six of these your Lordship mentions, after having
premised, ‘It is not at all needful, to the end of guarding against
them, to charge the particular tenets upon the particular persons among
them’ (page 7). Indeed, my Lord, it is needful in the highest degree.
For if the minister who is to guard his people, either against Peter Bohler,
Mr. Whitefield, or me, does not know what our particular tenets are, he
must needs ‘run as uncertainly and fight as one that beateth the
air.’
I will fairly own which of these belong to me.
The indirect practices which your Lordship charges upon me may then be
considered, together with the consequences of these doctrines and your
Lordship's instructions to the clergy.
5. ‘The first that I shall take notice of,’
says your Lordship, ‘is the Antinomian doctrine’ (page 8). The
second, ‘that Christ has done all, and left nothing for us to do
but to believe’ (page 9). These belong not to me. I am unconcerned
therein. I have earnestly opposed, but did never teach or embrace them.
‘There is another notion,’ your
Lordship says, ‘which we find propagated throughout the writings
of those people, and that is the making inward, secret, and sudden impulses
the guides of their actions, resolutions, and designs’ (page 14).
Mr. Church urged the same objection before: ‘Instead of making the
Word of God the rule of his actions, he follows only his secret impulse.’
I beg leave to return the same answer: ‘In the whole compass of language
there is not a proposition which less belongs to me than this. I have
declared again and again that I make the Word of God “the rule”
of all my actions, and that I no more follow any “secret impulse”
instead thereof than I follow Mahomet or Confucius.’ [See letter
of Feb. 2, 1745, sect. iii 5.]
6. Before I proceed, suffer me to observe, here
are three grievous errors charged on the Moravians, Mr. Whitefield, and
me conjointly, in none of which I am any more concerned than in the doctrine
of the Metempsychosis! But it was ‘not needful to charge particular
tenets on particular persons.’ Just as needful, my Lord, as it is
not to put a stumbling-block in the way of our brethren; not to lay them
under an almost insuperable temptation of condemning the innocent with
the guilty. I beseech your Lordship to answer in your own conscience before
God whether you did not foresee how many of your hearers would charge
these tenets upon me — nay, whether you did not design they should.
If so, my Lord, is this Christianity? Is it humanity? Let me speak plain.
Is it honest heathenism?
7. I am not one jot more concerned in instantaneous
justification as your Lordship explains it — namely, ‘A sudden,
instantaneous justification, by which the person receives from God a certain
seal of His salvation or an absolute assurance of being saved at last’ (Charge, p. 11). ‘Such an instantaneous working of the Holy
Spirit as finishes the business of salvation once for all’ (ibid.).
I neither teach nor believe it, and am therefore clear of all the consequences
that may arise therefrom. I believe ‘a gradual improvement in grace
and goodness,’I mean in the knowledge and love of God, is a
good ‘testimony of our present sincerity towards God’; although
I dare not say it is ‘the only true ground of humble assurance,’
or the only foundation on which a Christian builds his ‘hopes of
acceptance and salvation.’ For I think ‘other foundation’
of these ‘can no man lay than that which is laid, even Jesus Christ.’
8. To the charge of holding ‘sinless perfection,’
as your Lordship states it, I might likewise plead, Not guilty; seeing
one ingredient thereof in your Lordship’s account is ‘freedom
from temptation’ (page 17). Whereas I believe ‘there is no such
perfection in this life as implies an entire deliverance from manifold
temptations.’ But I will not decline the charge. I will repeat once
more my coolest thoughts upon this head; and that in the very terms which
I did several years ago, as I presume your Lordship cannot be ignorant: —
‘What, it may be asked, do you mean by “one
that is perfect” or “one that is as his Master”? We mean
one in whom is “the mind which was in Christ,” and who so “walketh
as He walked”; a man that “hath clean hands and a pure heart,”
or that is “cleansed from all filthiness of flesh and spirit”;
one “in whom there is no occasion of stumbling,” and who accordingly
“doth not commit sin.” To declare this a little more particularly:
we understand by that scriptural expression, “a perfect man,”
one in whom God hath fulfilled His faithful word — “From all
your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you. I will also
save you from all your uncleanness.” We understand hereby one whom
God hath sanctified throughout, even in “body, soul, and spirit”;
one who “walketh in the light, as He is in the light,” in whom
“is no darkness at all; the blood of Jesus Christ His Son” having
cleansed “him from all sin.”
‘This man can now testify to all mankind,
“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet I live not,
but Christ liveth in me.” He “is holy, as God who called him
is holy,” both in life and “in all manner of conversation.”
He “loveth the Lord his God with all his heart, and serveth Him with
all his strength.” He “loveth his neighbor” (every man)
“as himself”; yea, “as Christ loved us” — them
in particular that “despitefully use him and persecute him,”
because “they know not the Son, neither the Father.” Indeed,
his soul is all love, filled with “bowels of mercies, kindness, meekness,
gentleness, longsuffering.” And his life agreeth thereto, full of
“the work of faith, the patience of hope, the labor of love.”
And “whatsoever he doeth, either in word or deed,” he doeth
“it all in the name,” in the love and power, “of the Lord
Jesus.” In a word, he doeth the will of God “on earth, as it
is done in heaven.”
‘This is to be “a perfect man,”
to be “sanctified throughout, created anew in Jesus Christ”;
even “to have an heart so all-flaming with the love of God”
(to use Archbishop’s Ussher’s words), “as continually to
offer up every thought, word, and work as a spiritual sacrifice, acceptable
unto God through Christ.” In every thought of our hearts, in every
word of our tongues, in every work of our hands, “to show forth His
praise who hath called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.”
Oh that both we and all who seek the Lord Jesus in sincerity may thus
“be made perfect in one”!’
9. I conjure you, my Lord, by the mercies of
God, if these are not the words of truth and soberness, point me out wherein
I have erred from the truth; show me clearly wherein I have spoken either
beyond or contrary to the Word of God. But might I not humbly entreat
that your Lordship, in doing this, would abstain from such expressions
as these, ‘If they will but put themselves under their direction
and discipline . . . after their course of discipline is once over’
(page 15), as not suitable either to the weight of the subject or the
dignity of your Lordship’s character. And might I not expect something
more than these loose assertions, — that this is ‘a delusion
altogether groundless, a notion contrary to the whole tenor both of the
Old and New Testament'; that 'the Scriptures forbid all thought of it,
as vain, arrogant, and presumptuous’; that they ‘represent all
mankind, without distinction, as subject to sin and corruption’ (‘subject
to sin and corruption’! strong words!) ‘during their continuance
in this world; and require no more than an honest desire and endeavor
to find ourselves less and less in a state of imperfection’ (pages
15-16).
Is it not from your Lordship's entirely mistaking
the question, not at all apprehending what perfection I teach, that you
go on to guard against the same imaginary consequences as your Lordship
did in the Observations? Surely, my Lord, you never gave yourself
the trouble to read the answer given in the Farther Appeal, to every objection
which you now urge afresh; seeing you do not now appear to know any more
of my sentiments than if you had never proposed one question nor received
one answer upon the subject!
10. If your Lordship designed to show my real
sentiments concerning the last doctrine which you mention, as one would
imagine by your adding ‘These are his own words’ (page 18),
should you not have cited all my own words — at least, all the words
of that paragraph, and not have mangled it as Mr. Church did before? It
runs thus:
‘Sat. 28. — I showed at large, in order
to answer those who taught that none but they who are full of faith and
the Holy Ghost ought ever to communicate: (1) That the Lord’s Supper
was ordained by God to be a means of conveying to men either preventing,
or justifying, or sanctifying grace, according to their several necessities.
(2) That the persons for whom it was ordained are all those who know and
feel that they want the grace of God, either to restrain them from sin,
or to “show their sins forgiven,” or to “renew their souls”
in the image of God. (3) That inasmuch as we come to His Table, not to
give Him anything, but to receive whatsoever He sees best for us, there
is no previous preparation indispensably necessary but a desire to receive
whatsoever He pleases to give. And (4) That no fitness is required at
the time of communicating but a sense of our state, of our utter sinfulness
and helplessness; every one who knows he is fit for hell being just fit
to come to Christ in this as well as all other ways of His appointment.’ (Journal, ii. 361-2.)
In the second letter to Mr. Church I explain
myself farther on this head: ‘I am sorry to find you still affirm
that, with regard to the Lord’s Supper also, I “advance many
injudicious, false, and dangerous things. Such as: (1) That ‘a man
ought to communicate without a sure trust in God's mercy through Christ.’”
You mark these as my words; but I know them not. (2) “That there
is no previous preparation indispensably necessary, but a desire to receive
whatsoever God pleases to give.” But I include abundantly more in
that desire than you seem to apprehend, even a willingness to know and
do the whole will of God. (3) “That no fitness is required at the
time of communicating” (I recite the whole sentence) “but a
sense of our state, of our utter sinfulness and helplessness; every one
who knows he is fit for hell being just fit to come to Christ in this
as well as in all other ways of His appointment.” But neither can
this sense of our utter sinfulness and helplessness subsist without earnest
desires of universal holiness.’ [See letter of June 17, 1746, sect.
II. 7.]
And now, what can I say? Had your Lordship never
seen this? That is hardly to be imagined. But if you had, how was it possible
your Lordship should thus explicitly and solemnly charge me, in the presence
of God and all my brethren (only the person so charged was not present),
with ‘meaning by those words to set aside self-examination, and repentance
for sins past, and resolutions of living better for the time to come,
as things no way necessary to make a worthy communicant’? (Charge,
p. 18.)
If an evidence at the Bar should swerve from
truth, an equitable judge may place the thing in a true light. But if
the judge himself shall bear false witness, where then can we find a remedy?
Actual preparation was here entirely out of the
question. It might be absolutely and indispensably necessary, for anything
I had either said or meant to the contrary; for it was not at all in my
thoughts. And the habitual preparation which I had in terms declared to
be indispensably necessary was ‘a willingness to know and to do the
whole will of God’ and ‘earnest desires of universal holiness.’
Does your Lordship think this is ‘meant to set aside all repentance
for sins past and resolutions of living better for the time to come’?
11. Your Lordship next falls with all your might
upon that strange assertion, as you term it, ‘We come to His Table,
not to give Him anything, but to receive whatsoever He sees best for us.’
‘Whereas,’ says your Lordship, ‘in the exhortation at the
time of receiving, the people are told that they must give most humble
and hearty thanks . . . and immediately after receiving, both minister
and people join in offering and presenting themselves before God’
(pages 20-1). O God! in what manner are the most sacred things here treated!
the most venerable mysteries of our religion! What quibbling, what playing
upon words, is here! ‘Not to give Him anything.’ ‘Yes,
to give Him thanks.’ O my Lord, are these the words of a Father of
the Church?
12. Your Lordship goes on: ‘To the foregoing
account of these modern principles and doctrines it may not be improper
to subjoin a few observations upon the indirect practices of the same
people in gaining proselytes’ (pages 23-4).
I. ‘They persuade the people that the Established
worship, with a regular attendance upon it, is not sufficient to answer
the ends of devotion.’
Your Lordship mentioned this likewise in the
Observations. In your fourth query it stood thus: ‘Whether a due
and regular attendance on the public offices of religion, paid in a serious
and composed way, does not answer the true ends of devotion.’ Suffer
me to repeat part of the answer then given:
‘I suppose by “devotion” you mean
public worship; by the “true ends” of it, the love of God and
man; and by “a due and regular attendance on the public offices of
religion, paid in a serious and composed way,: the going as often as we
can to our parish church and to the sacrament there administered. If so,
the question is, Whether this attendance on those offices does not produce
the love of God and man. I answer, Sometimes it does, and sometimes it
does not. I myself thus attended them for many years, and yet am conscious
to myself that during that whole time I had no more of the love of God
than a stone. And I know many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of serious
persons who are ready to testify the same thing.’ [A Farther Appeal,
Part 1. See Works, viii. 61.]
I subjoined: (1) ‘We continually exhort
all who attend on our preaching to attend the offices of the Church. And
they do pay a more regular attendance there than ever they did before.
(2) Their attending the church did not, in fact, answer those ends at
all till they attended this preaching also. (3) It is the preaching remission
of sins through Jesus Christ which alone answers the true ends of devotion.’
II. 13. ‘They censure the clergy,’
says your Lordship, ‘as less zealous than themselves in the several
branches of the ministerial function. For this they are undeservedly reproached
by these noisy itinerant leaders.’ (Charge, pp. 24-5.)
My Lord, I am not conscious to myself of this.
I do not willingly compare myself with any man; much less do I reproach
my brethren of the clergy, whether they deserve it or not. But it is needless
to add any more on this head than what was said above a year ago:
‘I must explain myself a little on that
practice which you so often term “abusing the clergy.” I have
many times great sorrow and heaviness in my heart on account of these
my brethren. And this sometimes constrains me to speak to them in the
only way which is now in my power; and sometimes, though rarely, to speak
of them — of a few, not all in general. In either case, I take an
especial care (1) to speak nothing but the truth; (2) to speak this with
all plainness; and (3) with love and in the spirit of meekness. Now, if
you will call this abusing, railing, or reviling, you must. But still
I dare not refrain from it. I must thus rail, thus abuse sinners of all
sorts and degrees, unless I will perish with them.’[See letter of
June 17, 1746, sect. vi. II.]
III. 14. ‘They value themselves upon extraordinary
strictnesses and severities in life, and such as are beyond what the rules
of Christianity require. They captivate the people by such professions
and appearances of uncommon sanctity. But that which can never fail of
a general respect is a quiet and exemplary life, free from the many follies
and indiscretions which those restless and vagrant teachers are apt to
fall into.’ (Charge, p. 25.)
By ‘extraordinary strictnesses and severities,’
I presume your Lordship means the abstaining from wine and animal food;
which, it is sure, Christianity does not require. But if you do, I fear
your Lordship is not thoroughly informed of the matter of fact. I began
to do this about twelve years ago, when I had no thought of ‘annoying
parochial ministers,’ or of ‘captivating’ any ‘people’
thereby, unless it were the Chicasaw or Choctaw Indians. But I resumed
the use of them both, about two years after, for the sake of some who
thought I made it a point of conscience; telling them, ‘I will eat
flesh while the world standeth’ rather than ‘make my brother
to offend.’ Dr. Cheyne advised me to leave them off again, assuring
me, ‘Till you do, you will never be free from fevers.’ And since
I have taken his advice, I have been free (blessed be God) from all bodily
disorders. [I continued this about two years (Wesley). See Tyerman’s Wesley, i.28-9; and letter of Nov. 1, 1724.] Would to God I knew
any method of being equally free from all ‘follies and indiscretions’!
But this I never expect to attain till my spirit returns to God.
15. But in how strange a manner does your Lordship
represent this! What a construction do you put upon it! ‘Appearances
of an uncommon sanctity, in order to captivate the people. Pretensions
to more exalted degrees of strictness, to make their way into weak minds
and fickle heads.’ (Page 25.) ‘Pretences to greater sanctity,
whereby they draw over to themselves the most ignorant of the people’
(page 4). If these are ‘appearances of uncommon sanctity' (which,
indeed, might bear a dispute), how does your Lordship know that they are
only appearances? that they do not spring from the heart? Suppose these
were 'exalted degrees of strictness,’ is your Lordship absolutely
assured that we practice them only ‘to make our way into weak minds
and fickle heads'? Where is the proof that these 'presences to greater
sanctity’ (as your Lordship is pleased to phrase them) are mere presences,
and have nothing of reality or sincerity in them?
My Lord, this is an accusation of the highest
nature. If we are guilty, we are not so much as moral heathens. We are
monsters, not only unworthy of the Christian name, but unfit for human
society. It tears up all presences to the love of God and man, to justice,
mercy, or truth. But how is it proved? Or does your Lordship read the
heart, and so pass sentence without any proof at all? O my Lord, ought
an accusation of the lowest kind to be thus received, even against the
lowest of the people? How much less can this be reconciled with the apostolical
advice to the Bishop of Ephesus! — ‘Against a presbyter receive
not an accusation, but before two or three witnesses’; and those
face to face. When it is thus proved, ‘them that sin, rebuke before
all.’ Your Lordship doubtless remembers the words that follow (how
worthy to be written in your heart!): ‘I charge thee, before God,
and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that thou observe these
things without preferring one before another, doing nothing by partiality’ (I Tim. v. 19-21).
IV. 16. ‘They mislead the people into an
opinion of the high merit of punctual attendance on their performances,
to the neglect of the business of their stations’ (page 26). My Lord,
this is not so. You yourself in this very Charge have cleared us from
one part of this accusation. You have borne us witness (page 10) that
we disclaim all merit, even in (really) good works; how much more in such
works as we continually declare are not good, but very evil! such as the
attending sermons, or any public offices whatever, ‘to the neglect
of the business of our station.’
When your Lordship urged this before in the Observations,
I openly declared my belief ‘that true religion cannot lead into
a disregard or disesteem of the common duties and offices of life; that,
on the contrary, it leads men to discharge all those duties with the strictest
and closest attention; that Christianity requires this attention and diligence
in all stations and in all conditions; that the performance of the lowest
offices of life, as unto God, is truly a serving of Christ; and that this
is the doctrine I preach continually’ [A Farther Appeal, Part I.
See Works, viii. 46.]; — a fact whereof any man may easily be informed.
Now, if after all this your Lordship will repeat the charge as if I had
not once opened my mouth concerning it, I cannot help it. I can say no
more. I commend my cause to God.
17. Having considered what your Lordship has
advanced concerning dangerous doctrines and indirect practices, I now
come to the instructions your Lordship gives to the clergy of your diocese.
How awful a thing is this! The very occasion
carries in it a solemnity not to be expressed. Here is an angel of the
Church of Christ, one of the stars in God’s right hand, calling together
all the subordinate pastors, for whom he is to give an account to God;
and directing them (in the name and by the authority of ‘the great
Shepherd of the sheep, Jesus Christ, the First-begotten from the dead,
the Prince of the kings of the earth’) how to ‘make full proof
of their ministry,' that they may be 'pure from the blood of all men’;
how to ‘take heed unto themselves, and to all the flock over which
the Holy Ghost hath made them overseers’; how to ‘feed the flock
of God, which He hath purchased with His own blood’! To this end
they are all assembled together. And what is the substance of all his
instructions? ‘Reverend brethren, I charge you all, lift up your
voice like a trumpet, and warn and arm and fortify all mankind against
a people called Methodists!’
True it is, your Lordship gives them several
advices; but all in order to this end. You direct them to ‘inculcate
the excellency of our Liturgy as a wise, grave, and serious service’;
to ‘show their people that a diligent attendance on their business
is a serving of God’; ‘punctually to perform both the public
offices of the Church and all other pastoral duties’; and to ‘engage
the esteem of their parishioners by a constant regularity of life.’ But all these your Lordship recommends eo nomine as means to that
great end--the arming and fortifying their people against the Moravians
or Methodists and their doctrines.
Is it possible? Could your Lordship discern no
other enemies of the gospel of Christ? Are there no other heretics or
schismatics on earth, or even within the four seas? Are there no Papists,
no Deists in the land? Or are their errors of less importance? Or are
their numbers in England less considerable or less likely to increase?
Does it appear, then, that they have lost their zeal for making proselytes?
Or are all the people so guarded against them already that their labor
is in vain? Can your Lordship answer these few plain questions to the
satisfaction of your own conscience?
Have the Methodists (so called) already monopolized
all the sins as well as errors in the nation? Is Methodism the only sin,
or the only fatal or spreading sin, to be found within the Bills of Mortality?
Have two thousand (or more) ‘ambassadors of Christ and stewards of
the mysteries of God’ no other business than to guard, warn, arm,
and fortify their people against this? O my Lord, if this engrosses their
time and strength (as it must, if they follow your Lordship's instructions),
they will not give an account with joy, either of themselves or of their
flock, in that day!
18. Your Lordship seems in some measure sensible
of this, when you very gently condemn their opinion who think the Methodists ‘might better be disregarded and despised than taken notice of and
opposed, if it were not for the disturbance they give to the parochial
ministers, and their unwarrantable endeavors to seduce the people from
their lawful pastors’ (Charge, p. 22). The same complaint
with which your Lordship opened your Charge: ‘They give shameful
disturbances to the parochial clergy; they annoy the Established ministry,
using very unwarrantable methods, first to prejudice their people against
them, and then to seduce their flocks from them’ (page 4).
Whether we seduce them or no (which will be presently
considered), I am sorry your Lordship should give any countenance to that
low, senseless, and now generally exploded slander that we do it for a
maintenance. This your Lordship insinuates by applying to us those words
of Bishop Sanderson: [Robert Sanderson (1587-1663), Fellow of Lincoln
College 1606; Regius Professor of Divinity, Oxford, 1642; Bishop of Lincoln
1660. Izaak Walton in his Lives calls him ‘This pattern of meekness
and primitive innocence.’] ‘And all this to serve their own
belly, to make a prey of the poor deluded proselytes; for by this means
the people fall unto them, and thereout suck they no small advantage’
(page 15). Your Lordship cannot but know that my Fellowship and my brother's
Studentship afford us more than sufficient for life and godliness, especially
for that manner of life which we choose, whether out of ostentation or
in sincerity. [Charles Wesley’s Studentship yielded £4 a year paid
quarterly, and £16s. 8d. annually for ‘livery,’
i.e. clothes. Had he been resident he would have had free rooms and ‘commons,’ or diet. Both Fellowship and Studentship were terminable on marriage.
For Wesley's income, see Works, vii. 36.]
19. But do we willingly ‘annoy the Established
ministry’ or ‘give disturbance to the parochial clergy’?
My Lord, we do not. We trust herein to have a conscience void of offence.
Nor do we designedly ‘prejudice their people against them.’
In this also our heart condemneth us not. But you ‘seduce their flocks
from them.’ No, not even from those who feed themselves, not the
flock. All who hear us attend the service of the Church, at least as much
as they did before. And for this very thing are we reproached as bigots
to the Church by those of most other denominations.
Give me leave, my Lord, to say you have mistook
and misrepresented this whole affair from the top to the bottom. And I
am the more concerned to take notice of this because so many have fallen
into the same mistake. It is indeed, and has been from the beginning,
the p??ts? ?e?d??, ‘the capital blunder,’ of our bitterest adversaries;
though how they can advance it I see not, without ‘loving,’
if not ‘making, a lie.’ It is not our care, endeavor, or desire
to proselyte any from one man to another; or from one church (so called),
from one congregation or society, to another, — we would not move
a finger to do this, to make ten thousand such proselytes,--but from darkness
to light, from Belial to Christ, from the power of Satan to God. Our one
aim is to proselyte sinners to repentance, the servants of the devil to
serve the living and true God. If this be not done in fact, we will stand
condemned, not as well-meaning fools, but as devils incarnate. But if
it be, if the instances glare in the face of the sun, if they increase
daily, maugre all the power of earth and hell; then, my Lord, neither
you nor any man beside (let me use great plainness of speech) can ‘oppose’
and 'fortify people against us,' without being found even ‘to fight
against God.’
20. I would fain set this point in a clearer
light. Here are in and near Moorfields ten thousand poor souls, for whom
Christ died, rushing headlong into hell. Is Dr. Bulkeley, the parochial
minister, both willing and able to stop them? [See letter of June 17,
1746, sect. III. 5.] If so, let it be done, and I have no place in these
parts: I go and call other sinners to repentance. But if, after all he
has done and all he can do, they are still in the broad way to destruction,
let me see if God will put a word even in my mouth. True, I am a poor
worm that of myself can do nothing. But if God sends by whomsoever He
will send, His word shall not return empty. All the messenger of God asks
is, ??? p?? st? (no help of man!) ?a? ??? ????s?. [Give me where to stand,
and I will shake the earth' (Archimedes and his lever). See letter in
Dec. 1751, sect. 3, to Bishop Lavington.] The arm of the Lord is revealed.
The lion roars, having the prey plucked out of his teeth. And ‘there
is joy in the presence of the angels of God over’ more than ‘one
sinner that repenteth.’
21. Is this any annoyance to the parochial minister?
Then what manner of spirit is he of? Does he look on this part of his
flock as lost, because they are found of the great Shepherd? My Lord,
great is my boldness toward you. You speak of the consequences of our
doctrines. You seem well pleased with the success of your endeavors against
them, because, you say, they ‘have pernicious consequences, are big
with pernicious influences upon practice, dangerous to religion and the
souls of men’ (pages 8, 22). In answer to all this, I appeal to plain
fact. I say once more: ‘What have been the consequences (I would
not speak, but I dare not refrain) of the doctrines I have preached for
nine years last past? By the fruits shall ye know those of whom I speak;
even the cloud of witnesses, who at this hour experience the gospel which
I preach to be the power of God unto salvation. The habitual drunkard
that was is now temperate in all things; the whoremonger now flees fornication;
he that stole, steals no more, but works with his hands; he that cursed
or swore, perhaps at every sentence, has now learned to serve the Lord
with fear and rejoice unto Him with reverence; those formerly enslaved
to various habits of sin are now brought to uniform habits of holiness.
These are demonstrable facts: I can name the men, with their places of
abode. One of them was an avowed Atheist for many years; some were Jews;
a considerable number Papists; the greatest part of them as much strangers
to the form as to the power of godliness.’
My Lord, can you deny these facts? I will
make whatever proof of them you shall require. But if the facts be allowed,
who can deny the doctrines to be in substance the gospel of Christ? ‘For
is there any other name under heaven given to men whereby they may thus
be saved?’ or is there any other word that thus ‘commendeth
itself to every man's conscience in the sight of God’?
22. But I must draw to a conclusion. Your Lordship
has without doubt had some success in opposing this doctrine. Very many
have, by your Lordship's unwearied endeavors, been deterred from hearing
at all; and have thereby probably escaped the being seduced into holiness,
have lived and died in their sins. My Lord, the time is short. I am past
the noon of life, and my remaining years flee away as a shadow. Your Lordship
is old and full of days, having past the usual age of man. It cannot,
therefore, be long before we shall both drop this house of earth and stand
naked before God; no, nor before we shall see the great white throne coming
down from heaven, and Him that sitteth thereon. On His left hand shall
be those who are shortly to dwell in everlasting fire, prepared for the
devil and his angels. In that number will be all who died in their sins,
and, among the rest, those whom you preserved from repentance. Will you
then rejoice in your success? The Lord God grant it may not be said in
that hour, 'These have perished in their iniquity; but their blood I require
at thy hands’! – I am
Your Lordship's dutiful son and servant.
To ‘John Smith’
ST. IVES, July 10, 1747.
SIR, -- 1. You put me in mind of an eminent man
who, preaching at St. James’s, said, ‘If you do not repent,
you will go to a place which I shall not name before this audience.’
I cannot promise so much, either in preaching or writing, before any audience
or to any person whatever. Yet I am not conscious of doing this very often
— of ‘profusely flinging about everlasting fire’; though
it is true I mentioned it in my last letter to you, as I have done now
a second time; and perhaps I may mention it yet again. For, to say the
truth, I desire to have both heaven and hell ever in my eye, while I stand
on this isthmus of life, between these two boundless oceans; and I verily
think the daily consideration of both highly becomes all men of reason
and religion.
2. I think likewise (or I would not spend five
words upon the head) that these are nearly concerned in our present question.
To touch only on one branch of it: if I live in willful sin, in a sinful ‘deviation from established order,’ am I not in the way to hell?
I cannot take it any otherwise. I cannot help ‘blending these two
inquiries together.’ I must therefore speak seriously, or not at
all; and yet, I trust, ‘without losing my temper.’ Do you complain
of this first, that I may not complain? It appears to me that you show
more eagerness of spirit, more warmth and resentment, in your last than
you ever have done from the beginning.
3. You spoke of ‘a number of unsent
persons going about and preaching the worst of heresies.’ I answered,
‘Within these nine years I have heard of two, and no more, who have
gone about thus, though I doubt neither sent of God nor man.’ Their
names were Jonathan Wildboar, [At Bristol, on July 29, 1740 (see his Journal),
Charles Wesley says: 'One, pestered with the Predestinarians, desired
me to expound Rom. ix. I did, through Christ strengthening me, in an extraordinary
manner. The poor creature Wildboar contradicted and blasphemed, and even
called for damnation upon his own soul, if Christ died for all, and if
God was willing that all men should be saved. The power of the Lord was
present so much the more ‘I have not known a more triumphant night
since I knew Bristol.’ John Wesley's Diary for Oct. 20, 1740, shows
that he was at Mrs. ‘Wildbore’s’ house in London.] and
Thomas Smith,[Wesley published an advertisement on Aug. 3, 1748, warning
the public against this ‘cheat and impostor’ (Journal, iii.
365).] alias Moor, alias I know not what — for I fear he changed
his name as often as his place. It is not unlikely that either of these
might steal as well as lie, which they have done abundantly, particularly
in claiming acquaintance with Mr. Whitefield or me wherever they judged
it would recommend them to their hearers. I should not be surprised to
hear of two more such; but I have not yet, in all the counties I have
gone through between London and Berwick-upon-Tweed, or between Deal and
the Land's End.
4. I would to God all the clergy throughout the
land were ‘zealous for inward, solid virtue.’ But I dare not
say one in ten of those I have known are so in any degree. The two clergymen
of this place, on a late public occasion, were led home at one or two
in the morning in such a condition as I care not to describe. One of them
is rector of Lelant also (a parish east of St. Ives), of Twidnack, to
the south, and Zennor, to the west. At Zennor he keeps another assistant,
and one who is just as sober as himself, and near as zealous--not, indeed,
for inward or outward virtue, but against these ‘scoundrels that
pretend to preach in his parish.’
5. I never ‘attempted to deny’ that
the novelty of our manner of preaching has induced thousands and ten thousands
to hear us who would otherwise never have heard us at all, nor perhaps
any other preacher. But I utterly deny that ‘the effects wrought
on many of them that heard were owing to novelty, and that only.’ The particular effects wrought at Epworth [Where he preached with extraordinary
effect on his father's tombstone on June 6, 1742 (Journal, iii.
19). His defence of field-preaching is given in Parts I and III of A
Farther Appeal. See Works, viii.113-119, 229-31.] were these:
many drunkards, many unjust and profane men, on whom both my father and
I had for several years spent our strength in vain, from that time began
to live, and continue so to do, a sober, righteous, and godly life. Now,
I deny that this effect can be owing to novelty, or to any principle but
the power of God.
If it be asked, But were there not ‘the
same hearers, the same preachers, and the same God to influence in the
church as on the tombstone’? I answer: (1) There were not all the
same hearers in the church--not above one-third of them; (2) there was
the same preacher in the church, but he did not then preach the same doctrine;
and therefore, (3) though there was the same God, there was not the same
influence or blessing from Him.
6. The sum of what I offered before concerning
perceptible inspiration was this: ‘Every Christian believer has a
perceptible testimony of God's Spirit that he is a child of God.’
You objected that there was not one word said of this, either in the Bible
or in the Appeal, to which I referred. I replied: ‘I think there
is in the Bible, in the 16th verse of the 8th chapter to the Romans. And
in the Farther Appeal this place is proved to describe the ordinary
privilege of every Christian believer.’
This is there shown, both by Scripture, by reason,
and by authority, particularly that of Origen and Chrysostom, whom his
Lordship of Lichfield had cited in his Charge [Richard Smallbroke, Bishop
of Lichfield 1730-49, published treatises against Whiston and Woolaston.
In a Charge, delivered in 1741 and published in 1744, he set himself ‘to
obviate the Contagion of those Enthusiastical Pretensions that in several
parts of the nation have lately, as well as formerly, betrayed whole Multitudes
either into an unreasonable Presumption of their Salvation, or into melancholy
if not desponding Opinions about it.’ He attempted to prove, with
the aid of Origen and Chrysostom’s homily on I Cor. ii. 4, that the
‘demonstration of the Spirit and power’ referred to the miracles
of the apostolic age (pp. 15, 26, 31-2), and that the Testimony of the
Spirit, in the Sense of the Holy Scriptures, is abusively pretended to
by a new sect of Enthusiastical Seducers among us.’ Whitefield wrote
Some Remarks upon a late Charge against Enthusiasm, and Wesley answered
the Bishop in A Farther Appeal.] as asserting just the contrary. But,
waiving authorities, I reasoned thus: ‘You allow there is a testimony
of the Spirit with our spirit that we are the children of God. But you
say it is not a perceptible one. How is this? Let us examine it thoroughly.
It is allowed (1) the Spirit of God (2) bears testimony to my spirit (3)
that I am a child of God. But I am not to perceive it. Not to perceive
what? the first, second, or third particular? Am I not to perceive what
is testified — that I am a child of God? Then it is not testified
at all. This is saying and unlaying in the same breath. Or am I not to
perceive that it is testified to my spirit? Yea, but I must perceive what
passes in my own soul! Or, lastly, am I to perceive that I am a child
of God, and that this is testified to my spirit, but not to perceive who
it is that testifies? not to know it is the Spirit of God? O sir, if there
be really a man in the world who hath this testimony in himself, can it
be supposed that he does not know who it is that testifies? who it is
that speaks to his heart?’
7. Instead of giving a direct answer to this,
you have recourse to the same supposition with his Lordship of Lichfield
and Coventry — namely, that there was once an inward, perceptible
testimony of the Spirit, but that it was peculiar to the early ages of
the Church.
‘There are three ways,’ say you, ‘in
which the Holy Spirit may be said to bear witness with our spirit that
we are the children of God: (1) By external, miraculous attestations.
(2) By internal, plainly perceptible whispers.’ (I must add, ‘not
in words, at least not always, but by some kind of impressions equivalent
thereto.’) ‘(3) By His standing testimony in the Holy Scriptures.
The Apostles had all these three; Origen and Chrysostom probably the two
latter. But if St. Bernard, several hundred years after, pretended to
any other than the third, his neighbors would naturally ask for proof,
either that it should be so by Scripture or that it was so by facts.’
Well, then, let us suppose St. Bernard and one
of his neighbors to be talking together on this subject. On St. Bernard's
saying, ‘The Spirit of God bears witness with my spirit that I am
a child of God,’ his neighbor replies, ‘I suppose He does, but
not by an inward, plainly perceptible testimony.’ ‘Yes, by an
inward, plainly perceptible testimony. I now have this testimony in myself;
I plainly perceive that I am a child of God, and that it is His Spirit
who testifies it to my spirit.’ ‘I fear you are somewhat enthusiastically
given. I allow God’s standing testimony in the Scriptures; but I
cannot allow that there is now any such thing as this inward testimony,
unless you can either prove by Scripture that it should be so or by facts
that it is so.’ ‘Are not these words Scripture: “The Spirit
itself beareth testimony with our spirit that we are the children of God”?’
‘Yes; but the question is, how they are to be understood: for I deny
that they speak of an inward testimony. They speak of the outward, standing
testimony of God in the Holy Scriptures.’ ‘You put a manifest
force upon the text. You cannot prove that it speaks of any outward testimony
at all. But the words immediately preceding prove to a demonstration that
it speaks of an inward testimony: “Ye have not received the spirit
of bondage unto fear” (is not fear an inward thing?); “but ye
have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father!”
The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children
of God, even the same Spirit which “God hath sent forth into our
hearts, crying, Abba, Father I”’ ‘I do not deny that the
Spirit bears witness with our spirit. But I deny your peculiar interpretation
of this text. I deny that this text at all favors an inward, perceptible
testimony.’ ‘The Spirit which God hath sent into my heart, and
which now cries in my heart “Abba, Father,” now beareth testimony
with my spirit that I am a child of God. How can these words be interpreted
at all but of an inward, perceptible testimony?’ ‘I tell you,
of God's standing testimony in Scripture.’ ‘This is a palpable
violence to the words. They no more speak of Scripture than of miracles.
They manifestly speak of what passes in the heart, the spirit, the inmost
soul of a believer, and that only.’
8. But you would say, ‘Suppose this scripture
to prove that it should be so, can you show by facts that it is so?’ Not if you take it for granted that every one who speaks of having this
witness in himself is an enthusiast. You are then in no danger of proof
from this quarter. You have a short answer to every fact which can be
alleged.
But you turn the tables. You say it is I who
allow that ‘many of God's children do not continue in sound mind
and memory.’ I allowed: (1) A man feels the testimony of God's Spirit,
and cannot then deny or doubt his being a child of God. (2) After a time
this testimony is withdrawn: not from every child of God; many retain
the beginning of their confidence steadfast unto the end. (3) Then he
may doubt whether that testimony was of God, and perhaps at length deny
that it was, especially if his heart be hardened by the deceitfulness
of his sin. And yet he may be all this time in every other respect of
‘sound memory as well as understanding.’ In this respect I allowed
he is not — that is, ‘his understanding is now darkened, and
the very traces of that divine work wellnigh erased out of his memory.’
So I expressly determined the sense wherein I allowed ‘he does not
continue in sound mind and memory.’ But did I allow that even then
he was non compos mentis -- a madman in the common sense? Nothing less:
I allowed no more than, the divine light being withdrawn, his mind was
again dark as to the things of God; and that he had forgotten t?? ?aTa??sµ??
t?? p??a? a?t?? ‘aµa?t???, [2 Pet. i. 9 ‘The purification
from his former sins.’] wellnigh as if it had never been.
9. But you say, ‘If variable facts be produced,
to-day asserted, to-morrow denied.’ Nay, the facts, whether asserted
or denied, are still invariable. ‘But if they be ever doubted or
denied, they never were plainly perceptible.’ I cannot discern any
force in that consequence: however, if they are afterward ‘denied,
they are not from Him “in whom is no variableness, neither shadow
of turning.”’ Neither is this consequence good. Though God is
ever the same, man may either assert or deny His works. ‘The spirit
of man and his fancies or opinions may vary; but God and His facts cannot.’
Thus far they can and do: God does not now bear witness as He did before.
And this variation of the fact makes way for a variation in the judgment
of him who had that witness, but now hath it not. ‘You may be fully
of opinion to-day that the Scriptures are of God, and doubt of this to-morrow.
But what is this to the purpose?’ Very much. I am as fully convinced
to-day that the Scriptures are of God as that the sun shines. And this
conviction (as every good gift) cometh from the Father of lights. Yet
I may doubt of it to-morrow. – I may throw away the good gift of
God. ‘But we were speaking not of man’s opinions, but of God's
facts.’ We were speaking of both — of man's opinions, or judgment,
concerning God's facts. ‘But could he to whom Christ said, “Thy
sins are forgiven thee,” ever doubt or deny that Christ said so?’
I question not but in process of time he might, particularly if he drew
back unto perdition. But, however that be, it is no ‘blasphemous
supposition,’ but a plain, undeniable truth, that the god of this
world can obliterate what the God of heaven has strongly imprinted upon
the soul — yea, and that he surely will, unless we stir up the gift
of God which is in us by earnestly and continually watching unto prayer.
I presume you do not deny that a believer, one
who has the witness in himself, may make ‘shipwreck of the faith,’
and consequently lose the witness (however it be explained) which he once
had of his being a child of God? The darkness which then covers his soul
again, I ascribe (in part) to the energy of Satan, who evergei, ‘worketh,’
according to the Apostle, in the children of unbelief, whether they did
once believe or no. And has he not much power even on the children of
God — to disturb, though not to destroy? to throw fiery darts without
number, especially against those who as yet are but weak in the faith?
to inject doubts and fears? sometimes unbelieving, sometimes even blasphemous
thoughts? And how frequently will they be wounded thereby, if they have
not put on the whole armor of God!
10. You add: ‘If we reply, There are enthusiasts
in the world, you can keep your temper no longer; and the only answer
is, If we perceive not that witness in ourselves, we are ignorant of the
whole affair, and doomed to the “everlasting fire prepared for the
devil and his angels.”’ I said not so. I can keep my temper
(blessed be God) if you call me an hundred enthusiasts, if you affirm
I am ten times more of an enthusiast than that poor Quaker probably was.
[‘Smith’ referred to a Quaker which he was fully persuaded was
who had brought him a message received from God.] The sharpest word I
said was, ‘If a man does not know who it is that testifies with his
spirit he is a child of God, he is ignorant of the whole affair.’
But I felt no anger when I said this. Nor do I now. Though I still think
(because you say it yourself) that you are ignorant of this whole affair,
of the inward testimony for which I contend. Yet am I far from dooming
you to everlasting fire. What you know not, I trust God will reveal unto
you. Least of all was this my ‘only answer to your supposition 'that
this perceptible testimony is only an imagination, unless I am altogether
in a dream.’ I have given some other answer, and a pretty full one,
to the objection — such an one, I think, as the nature of the thing
admits, at least as my capacity would allow.
11. I have largely considered, both in the Third
Part of the Appeal and in the latter part of the Second Letter
to Mr. Church, the unreasonableness of the common demand to prove our
doctrine by miracles. I cannot but refer you to those tracts, having neither
time nor inclination actum agere. [‘To do the same thing repeatedly.’]
Only I would weigh what you have now advanced in support of that demand.
‘If the enthusiast is as confident of his inspiration as one really
inspired is of his, a third person has a right to call for other proof
than confident assertions’ — that is, for miracles. So you explain
yourself in the following sentence. Let us try how this consequence will
hold in a particular instance: ‘The Spirit said unto Paul, Go not
into Macedonia.’ When he related this to his companions, ought they
to have replied, ‘We call for other proof of this than your confident
assertion, seeing enthusiasts are as confident of theirs as you are of
this revelation’? If you say, ‘They had seen his miracles at
other times’; I know not that: perhaps they had, perhaps they had
not. But to step a little forward: ‘If in the days of Origen and
Chrysostom external miraculous powers were ceased, while internal inspiration
still remained,’ what becomes of your demand here? It is totally
excluded; although there were, in those days also, pretenders to what
they had not.
And yet there might have been other sufficient
reasons for believing the assertion of Origen, Chrysostom, and St. Bernard
too, that they had this internal testimony. Such was, besides the holiness
of their lives, that great and standing miracle — their saving so
many souls from death and hiding a multitude of sins.
12. There are at least as many pretenders
to the love of God as there are to the witness of His Spirit. But does
this give me a right, if a man asserts he loves God, to demand his proving
that assertion by miracles? Not so; but by their fruits I shall know a
real and a pretended love of God. And in the same manner may I know him
that has the witness of God's love from an enthusiastic pretender to it.
But if a man disclaims it, he sets himself out of the question. It is
beyond dispute that he has it not.
Neither do I want miracles in order to determine
my judgment with regard to scriptures variously interpreted. I would not
say in this case, ‘Show me a sign,’ but ‘Bring forth your
strong reasons’; and according to these, weighed in an even, impartial
scale, would I incline to one side or the other.
13. From the beginning of our correspondence
I did not expect you to alter your judgment touching those points wherein
we differed. But I was willing (and am so still) to hear and consider
whatever you should advance concerning them: and so much the rather, because
in the greatest points we do agree already; and in the smaller, we can
bear with each other, and speak what we apprehend to be the truth in love.
Let us bless God for this, and press on to the mark. It cannot be long
before we shall be quite of one mind, before the veil of flesh shall drop
off, and we shall both see pure light in the unclouded face of God.
To the Clergyman at Tredinny [4]
TREDINNY, July 14, 1747.
REVEREND SIR,--I was exceedingly surprised when
I was informed yesterday of your affirming publicly in the church, in
the face of a whole congregation, 'Now Wesley has sent down for an hundred
pounds; and it must be raised directly. Nay, it is true.' O sir, is this
possible? Can it be that you should be so totally void, I will not say
of conscience, of religion, but of good nature as to credit such a tale?
and of good manners and common sense as thus to repeat it?
I must beg that you would either justify or retract
this (for it is a point of no small concern), and that I may know what
you propose to do, before I set out for London.--I am, reverend sir,
Your brother and servant for Christ's sake.
To the Clergyman at Tredinny,
In Buryan Parish, Cornwall.
To Ebenezer Blackwell [5]
ST. IVES, July 18, 1747.
DEAR SIR,--Are you not yet weary and faint in
your mind? weary of striving to enter in at the strait gate? I trust you
are not, and that you never will till you enter into the kingdom. Many
thoughts of that kind will probably rise in your heart; but you will have
power to trample them under your feet. You have nothing to do with the
things that are behind: the prize and the crown are before you. So run
that you may obtain, desiring only to apprehend that for which you are
apprehended of Christ Jesus.
A great door and effectual is opened now, almost
in every corner of this country. Here is such a change within these two
years as has hardly been seen in any other part of England. Wherever we
went we used to carry our lives in our hands; and now there is not a dog
to wag his tongue. Several ministers are clearly convinced of the truth;
few are bitter; most seem to stand neuter. Some of the gentlemen (so called)
are almost the only opposers now drinking, reveling, cursing, swearing
gentlemen, who neither will enter into the kingdom of heaven themselves,
nor suffer any others if they can prevent it. The most violent Jacobites
among these are continually crying out that we are bringing the Pretender;
and some of these worthy men bear His Majesty's commission as Justices
of the Peace.
My best wishes attend Mrs. Blackwell, who, I
hope, measures step for step with you in the way to the kingdom.--I am,
dear sir,
Your affectionate servant.
I set out for Bristol on Thursday.
To his Brother Charles [6]
BEERCROCOMB. July 31, 1747.
DEAR BROTHER,--Yesterday I was thinking on a
desideratum among us, a genesis problematica on Justifying Faith.
A skeleton of it, which you may fill up, or any one that has leisure,
I have roughly set down.
Is justifying faith a sense of pardon? Negatur.
I. Every one is deeply concerned to understand
this question well: but preachers most of all; lest they should either
make them sad whom God hath not made sad, or encourage them to say peace
where there is no peace.
Some years ago we heard nothing about either
justifying faith or a sense of pardon: so that, when we did hear of them,
the theme was quite new to us; and we might easily, especially in the
heat and hurry of controversy, lean too much either to the one hand or
to the other.
II. By justifying faith I mean that faith which
whosoever hath not is under the wrath and curse of God. By a sense of
pardon I mean a distinct, explicit assurance that my sins are forgiven.
I allow (1) that there is such an explicit assurance;
(2) that it is the common privilege of real Christians; (3) that it is
the proper Christian faith, which purifieth the heart and overcometh the
world.
But I cannot allow that justifying faith is such
an assurance, or necessarily connected therewith.
III. Because, if justifying faith necessarily
implies such an explicit sense of pardon, then every one who has it not,
and every one so long as he has it not, is under the wrath and under the
curse of God. But this is a supposition contrary to Scripture as well
as to experience. Contrary to Scripture (Isa. l.10; Acts x. 34). Contrary
to experience: for Jonathan Reeves, &c. &c., had peace with God,
no fear, no doubt, before they had that sense of pardon; and so have I
frequently had.
Again, the assertion that justifying faith is
a sense of pardon is contrary to reason; it is flatly absurd. For how
can a sense of our having received pardon be the condition of our receiving
it?
IV. If you object, (1) ‘Job, Thomas, St.
Paul, &c., had this sense,’ I grant they had; but they were justified
before they had it. (2) ‘We know fifteen hundred persons who have
this assurance.’ Perhaps so; but this does not prove that they were
not justified till they received it. (3) 'We have been exceedingly blessed
in preaching this doctrine.' We have been blessed in preaching the great
truths of the gospel; although we tacked to them, in the simplicity of
our hearts, a proposition which was not true. (4) ‘But does not our
Church give this account of justifying faith?’ I am sure she does
of saving or Christian faith; I think she does of justifying faith too.
But to the law and testimony. All men may err; but the word of the Lord
shall stand for ever.
To Ebenezer Blackwell [7]
DUBLIN, August 13, 1747.
DEAR SIR, -- I have found a home in this strange
land. I am at Mr. Lunell's just as at the Foundry; only that I have not
such attendance here, for I meet the people at another part of the town.
For natural sweetness of temper, for courtesy and hospitality, I have
never seen any people like the Irish. Indeed, all I converse with are
only English transplanted into another soil; and they are much mended
by the removal, having left all their roughness and surliness behind them.
They receive the word of God with all gladness
and readiness of mind. The danger is that it should not take deep root,
that it should be as seed falling on stony ground. But is there not the
same danger in England also? Do not you find it in London? You have received
the word with joy, and it begins to spring up; but how soon may it wither
away! It does not properly take root till we are convinced of inward sin,
till we begin to feel the entire corruption of our nature. I believe sometimes
you have found a little of this. But you are in the hands of a good Physician;
who, if you give yourself up to His guidance, will not only wound, but
also make whole.
Mr. Lunell and his family desire their best respects
to Mrs. Blackwell and you. His daughter can rejoice in God her Saviour.
They propose to spend the winter in England.--I am, dear sir,
Your affectionate servant.
I cannot forget Mrs. Dewal, whether I see her
or not.
To a Preacher
[LONDON], November 1747.
MY DEAR BROTHER,--In public speaking speak not
one word against opinions of any kind. We are not to fight against notions
but sins. Least of all should I advise you once to open your lips against
Predestination. It would do more mischief than you are aware of. [See
heading to letter of March 3.] Keep to our one point --present inward
salvation by faith, by the divine evidence of sins forgiven.
Your affectionate brother.
To Westley Hall [8]
LONDON, December 22, 1747.
DEAR BROTHER, — I. When you was at Oxford
with me fourteen or fifteen years since, you was holy and unblameable
in all manner of conversation. I greatly rejoiced in the grace of God
which was given unto you, which was often a blessing to my own soul. Yet
even then you had frequently starts of thought which were not of God,
though they at first appeared to be. But you was humble and teachable,
you was easily convinced, and those imaginations vanished away.
2. More than twelve years ago you told me God
had revealed it to you that you should marry my youngest sister. I was
much surprised, being well assured that you was able to receive our Lord’s
saying (so you had continually testified) and to be an ‘eunuch for
the kingdom of heaven’s sake.’ But you vehemently affirmed the
thing was of God; you was certain it was His will. God had made it plain
to you that you must marry, and that she was the very person. So you asked
and gained her consent, and fixed the circumstances relating thereto.
3. Hence I date your fall. Here were several
faults in one: (1) you cast away the precious gift of God; (2) you leaned
altogether to your own understanding, not consulting either me, who was
then the guide of your soul, or the parents of your intended wife, before
you had settled the whole affair; and (3) while you followed the voice
of nature, you said it was the voice of God.
4. In a few days you had a counter-revelation
that you was not to marry her but her sister. This last error was far
worse than the first. But you was now quite above conviction. So, in spite
of her poor, astonished parent, of her brothers, of all your vows and
promises, you shortly after jilted the younger and married the elder sister.
The other, who had honored you as an angel from heaven, and still loved
you much too well (for you had stole her heart from the God of her youth),
refused to be comforted. From that time she fell into a lingering illness,
which terminated in her death. And doth not her blood still cry unto God
from the earth? Surely it is upon your head.
5. Till this time you was a pattern of lowliness,
meekness, seriousness, and continual advertence to the presence of God;
and, above all, of self-denial in every kind, and of suffering all things
with joyfulness.
But there was now a worm at the root of the gourd.
Yet it did not presently wither away, but for two years or more after
your marriage you behaved nearly the same as before.
Then anger and surliness began to appear, particularly
towards your wife. But it was not long before you was sensible of this,
and you seemed to have conquered it.
6. You went up to London ten years ago, and met
Mr. Whitefield, come from Georgia. After this you began to speak on any
head--not with your usual diffidence and self-abasement, but with a kind
of confidence in your own judgment and an air of self-sufficiency. A natural
consequence was, the treating with more sharpness and contempt those who
opposed either your judgment or practice.
7. You came to live at London. You then for a
season appeared to gain ground again. You acted in concert with my brother
and me; heard our advice, and sometimes followed it. But this continued
only till you contracted a fresh acquainta
