1744

To Richard Viney [1]

To King George II [2]

March 5, 1744.

To THE KING'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY.

The humble Address of the Societies in England and Wales, in derision called Methodists.

MOST GRACIOUS SOVEREIGN, -- So inconsiderable as we are, ‘a people scattered and peeled, and trodden under-foot, from the beginning hitherto,’ we should in no wise have presumed even on this great occasion to open our lips to your Majesty, had we not been induced, indeed constrained, so to do by two considerations: the one, that, in spite of all our remonstrances on that head, we are continually represented as a peculiar sect of men, separating ourselves from the Established Church; the other, that we are still traduced as inclined to Popery, and consequently disaffected to your Majesty.

Upon these considerations we think it incumbent upon us, if we must stand as a distinct body from our brethren, to tender for ourselves our most dutiful regards to your sacred Majesty; and to declare, in the presence of Him we serve, the King of kings and Lord of lords, that we are a part (however mean) of that Protestant Church established in these kingdoms; that we unite together for this and no other end -- to promote, so far as we may be capable, justice, mercy, and truth, the glory of God, and peace and goodwill among men; that we detest and abhor the fundamental doctrines of the Church of Rome, and are steadily attached to your Majesty’s royal person and illustrious house.

We cannot, indeed, say or do either more or less than we apprehend consistent with the written Word of God; but we are ready to obey your Majesty to the uttermost in all things which we conceive to be agreeable thereto. And we earnestly exhort all with whom we converse, as they fear God, to honor the King. We of the clergy in particular put all men in mind to revere the higher powers as of God; and continually declare, ‘Ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience’ sake.’

Silver and gold (most of us must own) we have none; but such as we have we humbly beg your Majesty to accept together with our hearts and prayers. May He who hath bought us with His blood, the Prince of all the kings of the earth, fight against all the enemies of your Majesty with the two-edged sword that cometh out of His mouth! And when He calleth your Majesty from this throne, full of years and victories, may it be with that voice, ‘Come, receive the kingdom prepared for thee from the beginning of the world!’

These are the continual prayers of your Majesty's dutiful and loyal subjects,

JOHN WESLEY, &c.

To John Haime [3]

[March] 1744.

It is a great blessing whereof God has already made you a partaker; but if you continue waiting upon Him, you shall see greater things than these. This is only the beginning of the kingdom of heaven, which He will set up in your heart. There is yet behind the fullness of the mind that was in Christ; 'righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.' It is but a little thing that men should be against you while you know that God is on your side. If He give you any companion in the narrow way, it is well; and it is well if He do not. So much the more will He teach and strengthen you by Himself: He will strengthen you in the secret of your heart; and by-and-by He will raise up, as it were out of the dust, those who shall say, 'Come, and let us magnify His name together.' But by all means miss no opportunity. Speak, and spare not. Declare what God has done for your soul; regard not worldly prudence; be not ashamed of Christ, or of His word, or of His servants. Speak the truth in love, even in the midst of a crooked generation; and all things shall work together for good until the work of God is perfect in your soul.

To John Nelson [4]

May 1744.

Well, my brother, is the God whom you serve able to deliver you and do you find Him faithful to His word Is His grace still sufficient for you I doubt it not. He will not suffer you to be weary or faint in your mind. But He had work for you to do which you knew not of, and thus His counsel was to be fulfilled. O lose no time! Who knows how many souls God may by this means deliver into your hands Shall not all these things be for the furtherance of the gospel And is not the time coming when we shall cry out together, ‘Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that hath loved us’

To the Moravian Church [5]

LONDON, June 24, 1744.

To THE MORAVIAN CHURCH, [So called by themselves, though improperly (Wesley).] MORE ESPECIALLY THAT PART OF IT NOW OR LATELY RESIDING IN ENGLAND.

1. I am constrained at length to speak my present sentiments concerning you, according to the best light I have: and this, not only upon my own account that (if I judge amiss) I may receive better information, but for the sake of all those who either love or seek the Lord Jesus in sincerity. Many of these have been utterly at a loss how to judge; and the more so because they could not but observe (as I have often done with sorrow of heart) that scarce any have wrote concerning you (unless such as were extravagant in your commendation) who were not evidently prejudiced against you. Hence they either spoke falsely, laying to your charge things which you knew not; or at least unkindly putting the worst construction on things of a doubtful nature, and setting what perhaps was not strictly right in the very worst light it would bear. Whereas (in my apprehension) none is capable of judging right, or assisting others to judge right, concerning you, unless he can speak of you as he does of the friend who is as his own soul.

2. Yet it is not wholly for their sake but for your own also that I now write. It may be the ‘Father of lights,’ the Giver of ‘every good gift,’ may even by a mean instrument speak to your hearts. My continual desire and prayer to God is that you may clearly see ‘what is that good and perfect will’ of the Lord, and fully discern how to separate that which is precious among you from the vile.

3. I have delayed thus long because I loved you, and was therefore unwilling to grieve you in anything; and likewise because I was afraid of creating another obstacle to that union which (if I know my own heart in any degree) I desire above all things under heaven. But I dare no longer delay, lest my silence should be a snare to any others of the children of God, and lest you yourselves should be more confirmed in what I cannot reconcile to the law and the testimony. This would strengthen the bar which I long to remove; and were that once taken out of the way, I should rejoice to be a doorkeeper in the house of God, an hewer of wood or drawer of water among you. Surely I would follow you to the ends of the earth, or remain with you in the uttermost parts of the sea.

4. What unites my heart to you is the excellency (in many respects) of the doctrine taught among you: your laying the true foundation, ‘God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself’; your declaring the free grace of God the cause, and faith the condition, of justification; your bearing witness to those great fruits of faith, ‘righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost’; and that sure mark thereof, ‘He that is born of God doth not commit sin.’

5. I magnify the grace of God which is in many among you, enabling you to love Him who hath first loved us; teaching you, in whatsoever state you are, therewith to be content; causing you to trample under-foot the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life; and, above all, giving you to love one another in a manner the world knoweth not of.

6. I praise God that He hath delivered, and yet doth deliver, you from those outward sins that overspread the face of the earth. No cursing, no light or false swearing, no profaning the name of God, is heard among you. No robbery or theft, no gluttony or drunkenness, no whoredom or adultery, no quarrelling or brawling (those scandals of the Christian name), are found within your gates. No diversions but such as become saints, as may be used in the name of the Lord Jesus. You regard not outward adorning, but rather desire the ornament of a serious, meek, and quiet spirit. You are not slothful in business, but labor to eat your own bread; and wisely manage ‘the mammon of unrighteousness,’ that ye may have to give to others also, to feed the hungry, and cover the naked with a garment.

7. I love and esteem you for your excellent discipline, scarce inferior to that of the apostolic age; for your due subordination of officers, every one knowing and keeping his proper rank; for your exact division of the people under your charge, so that each may be fed with food convenient for them; for your care that all who are employed in the service of the Church should frequently and freely confer together; and, in consequence thereof, your exact and seasonable knowledge of the state of every member, and your ready distribution either of spiritual or temporal relief, as every man hath need.

8. Perhaps, then, some of you will say, ‘If you allow all this, what more can you desire’ The following extract [The Fourth Part of the Journal (Nov. 1, 1739-Sept. 3, 1741).] will answer you at large, wherein I have first given a naked relation (among other things) of many facts and conversations that passed between us in the same order of time as they occurred; and then summed up what I cannot approve of yet, that it may be tried by the Word of God.

9. This I have endeavored to do with a tender hand: relating no more than I believed absolutely needful; carefully avoiding all tart and unkind expressions, all that I could foresee would be disobliging to you, or any farther offensive than was implied in the very nature of the thing; laboring everywhere to speak consistently with that deep sense which is settled in my heart that you are (though I cannot call you Rabbi, infallible) yet far, far better and wiser than me.

10. And if any of you will smite me friendly and reprove me, if you will show me wherein I have erred, either in the matter or manner of the following relation or any part thereof, I will by the grace of God confess it before angels and men in whatsoever way you shall require.

Meanwhile do not cease to pray for

Your weak but still affectionate brother.

To John Bennet [6]

[June 1744.]

You are in great danger of running from one extreme to the other, from Calvinism to Pelagianism.

If the Bible be true, then none is a Christian who has not the marks of a Christian there laid down. One of these is the love of God, which must be felt (if it is in the soul) as much as fire upon the body. Another is the witness of God's Spirit with my spirit that I am a child of God. Till I have these marks I am not a Christian; and no power can give me these but that which made the world.

It is God alone who worketh in me both to will and to do of His good pleasure. Faith is seeing God; love is feeling God.

You may order your affairs so as to ride with me to London to our Conference. Then we can clear these things up more fully. Mercy and truth be with you.

To Mrs. Hutton [7]

OXON, August 22, 1744

MADAM,--Had I no other motive to speak than gratitude for past favors, I ought not to be wholly silent.

1. Dreams and visions were never allowed by us to be certain marks of adoption; no, not though they were supposed to be from God. Therefore this mistake, whosesoever it is, is none of mine.

2. Neither did we ever allow the falling into fits (whether natural or preternatural) to be a certain mark; yet we believe the Spirit of God, sharply convincing the soul of sin, may occasion the bodily strength to fail. And what outward effects may possibly follow I believe no man living has skill enough to determine.

3. The power which God may sometimes permit the devil to have either over the soul or body is of quite another consideration. Yet even at those times He can constrain the father of lies to speak some truth, if it be for His own glory. But let those facts plead for themselves. Those persons are now alive; and not one of them is a member of our Society.

4. Fits (as you term them) are not left off. They are frequent now, both in Europe and America, among persons newly convinced of sin. I neither forward nor hinder them.

5. I love Calvin a little, Luther more; the Moravians, Mr. Law, and Mr. Whitefield far more than either. I have many reasons likewise to esteem and love Mr. Hutton. But I love truth more than all. Nor does it appear to me yet that he has dealt near so tenderly with me (since our opinions differed) as I have done with him.

6. In every congregation in England which I remember to have observed there was undeniably a faulty respect of persons. In our chapel there is a place kept for Lady Huntingdon [Lady Huntingdon was a regular worshipper at West Street Chapel.] till the Creed; if she does not come before then, any one takes it that is next, as also when she is out of town. I doubt whether this respect to her be not too great; but I yield in this point to my brother’s judgment.

7. We have no 5s. or 2s. 6d. places at the Foundry, nor ever had, nor ever will. If any one asks me for a place in the gallery (we make no distinction but between men and women), he has it; I refuse none. And some hundreds have places there who pay nothing at all. First come also is first served, at every time of preaching. And the poorest have frequently the best places, because they come first.

I am glad you mentioned the volume of Bishop Bull, [The Huttons had evidently lent Bishop Bull's Teachings of the Spirit to Wesley. See letter of Jan. 1739, and his reference (Journal, ii. 144d) on Feb. 22 – ‘10.30 at James Hutton’s read Bishop Bull upon the teachings of the Spirit.’] for I had quite forgot whose it was. I will look for it, and send it.

I desire the continuance of yours and Mr. Hutton’s prayers.

Your obliged and affectionate servant.

To Mrs. Hutton, In College Street, Westminster.

To the Countess of Huntingdon [8]

OXFORD, August 1744.

MADAM, -- It has been a common remark for many years that poetry, which might answer the noblest purposes, has been prostituted to the vilest, even to confound the distinctions between virtue and vice, good and evil; and that to such a degree that, among the numerous poems now extant in our language, there is an exceeding small proportion which does not more or less fall under this heavy censure. So that a great difficulty lies on those who are not willing, on the one hand, to be deprived of an elegant amusement; nor, on the other, to purchase it at the hazard of innocence or virtue.

Hence it is that many have placed a chaste collection of English poems among the chief desiderata of this age. Your mentioning this a year or two ago, and expressing a desire to see such a collection, determined me not to delay the design I had long had of attempting something in this kind. I therefore revised all the English poems I knew, and selected what appeared most valuable in them. Only Spenser’s Works I was constrained to omit, because scarce intelligible to the generality of modern readers.

I shall rejoice if the want of which you complained be in some measure supplied by the following collection; of which this at least may be affirmed, --there is nothing therein contrary to virtue, nothing that can any way offend the chastest ear, or give pain to the tenderest heart. And perhaps whatever is really essential to the most sublime divinity, as well as the purest and most refined morality, will be found therein. Nor is it a small circumstance that the most just and important sentiments are here represented with the utmost advantage, with all the ornaments both of wit and language, and in the clearest, fullest strongest light.

I inscribe these poems to you, not only because you was the occasion of their thus appearing in the world, but also because it may be an inducement to many to read them. Your name, indeed, cannot excuse a bad poem; but it may recommend good ones to those who would not otherwise consider whether they were good or bad. And I am persuaded they will not be unacceptable to you, were it only on this account --that many of them describe what a person of quality ought, and what I trust you desire, to be.

My heart’s desire and prayer to God for you is that you may never rest short of this: That ‘whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are venerable, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are honorable; if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, you may think on these things: and my God shall supply all your need, according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.’ -- I am

Your Ladyship’s obliged and obedient servant for Christ's sake.

To Thomas Church [9]

LONDON, December 22, 1744.

REVEREND SIR, -- Since this was in the press I have seen your Remarks upon my ‘last Journal.’ I will endeavor, as you desire, ‘attentively to consider the points’ therein ‘objected to me.’ In the meantime I am, reverend sir,

Your servant for Christ’s sake.

Editor’s Introductory Notes: 1744

[1] A letter which has not survived is mentioned in the manuscript Diary of Richard Viney (January 22, 1744). ‘About noon the postboy brought me a letter from Mr. Wesley, dated Bristol, January 14. He wrote that he had received mine [asking for an interview] but a day or two before, that his brother [Charles] is to go to Newcastle this winter, and therefore he should not be in Yorkshire before May; but that he thinks to be in London on the 31st inst., that any time in the next month he should be glad to see me there. That at any time or in any place my company would be agreeable to him. He subscribes himself “Affectionate brother.” N.B.--To-morrow will be four weeks since I wrote to him.’ The Diary shows that Viney arrived in London on February 18, 1744, and spent nine days as inmate in Wesley’s family at the Foundry, then returned to Pudsey. Viney gives a long account of his visit. He attended the early morning services, and Wesley employed him in writing out lists of tradesmen with whom the Methodists were to deal. See W.H.S. xiii. 152; xiv. 25-31, 49-54.

[2] In February 1744 there were rumors of a French invasion, and all Papists were ordered to leave London. It was reported that Wesley was a Papist and a secret agent of the Pretender. The news of the invasion, says Charles Wesley in his Journal, February 20, ‘only quickened us in our prayers especially for His Majesty King George.’ Charles was consulted about the Address, but replied: ‘My objection to your Address in the name of the Methodists is, that it would constitute us a sect -- at least, it would seem to allow that we are a body distinct from the National Church; whereas we are only a sound part of that Church. Guard against this; and in the name of the Lord address to-morrow.’ See Journal, iii. 123-4; C. Wesley's Journal. i. 353-5.

[3] John Haime had heard Charles Wesley at Brentford, and had been greatly helped by some conversation with him. He had come safely through the battle of Dettingen; and at Ghent, in the winter quarters of the Army, had formed a little Society of soldiers. He wrote to Wesley on February 2, 1744, for advice. His labors in the Army were apostolic. See Journal, iii. 115-16 Wesley’s Veterans, i. 1-59.

[4] John Nelson was pressed for a soldier on May 4, 1744, Wesley was at Birstall on the 15th and on June II met Nelson at Durham. He was discharged on July 28 by an order from the Earl of Stair, Commander-in-Chief in South Britain. After his release he says, ‘Now I find the words true which Mr. John Wesley wrote to me at York,’ and quotes this passage. Nelson was in York from May 14 to June 7. See Wesley's Veterans, iii. 104-53; and heading to letter of March 16, 1745.

[5] This letter forms the Preface to the Fourth Part of Wesley's Journal, the date being that of its publication. See the notes there, vol. ii. pp. 309, 500.

[6] John Bennet was born at Chinley. Lady Huntingdon introduced him to Wesley, and he became an itinerant in 1743, He created a ‘Round’ of Methodist Societies in Derbyshire, Cheshire, and Lancashire, Wesley was in Derbyshire on June 15, 1744, and rode through Epworth to London, reaching there on the 20th. The Conference met on Monday, June 25. It was the first Conference, and Bennet's Minutes (published in 1896 by the Wesley Historical Society) show that he and three other lay preachers were invited to be present. What a tragic scene it is! -- Wesley riding to the first of the great succession of Conferences with the man who was to inflict on him the most grievous sorrow of his life! See letter of September 7, 1749.

[7] When Samuel Wesley, jun., left Westminster for Tiverton, the Huttons invited John and Charles to use their house as they had used Samuel's, and treated them with the utmost kindness. Mr. and Mrs. Hutton were still living in College Street, Westminster. He died in 1750, and his wife on July 6, 1752 Benham says they both ‘had a love for the Brethren.’ One of James Hutton's hymns, set to music by Brother Schlicht, his mother described as ‘heavenly.’ It is also said that she wrote a very sharp letter to Wesley ‘about his contradictions in his Journal; for praising the Brethren and then saying all he could against them.’ This is the Fourth Part of the Journal, in which the separation from the Society at Fetter Lane is described. The letter of June 24, 1744, is prefixed to it. The Moravian Minutes upon it are dated July 12. Here Wesley replies to Mrs. Hutton, See Journal, ii. 307-500; Benham's Hutton, pp, 33, 127, 156n, 260.

[8] This letter appears as a dedication 'To the Right Honorable the Countess of Huntingdonin A Collection of Moral and Sacred Poems from the most celebrated English Authors, which Wesley published in three volumes in 1744. See letter of February 8, 1745, to Dodsley.

[9] Thomas Church’s Remarks were dated November 3, 1744; so that this brief letter, which appears on the last page of Part I of A Farther Appeal, is a striking illustration of Wesley’s viligant promptness as a defender of Methodism. His Answer is dated February 2, 1745.

Edited by Jerry James (Pastor), converted to HTML by Trent Friberg, and formatted by Michael Mattei 1998 Wesley Center for Applied Theology. All rights reserved. No for-profit use of this text is permitted without the express, written consent of the Wesley Center for Applied Theology of Northwest Nazarene College, Nampa, Idaho 83686 USA. Contact the webmaster for permission.