Sunday, November 23, 1735
At night I was awakened by the tossing of the ship and roaring of the wind, and plainly showed I was unfit, for I was unwilling, to die.
Friday, November 21, 1735
Fri. 21 . — One recovering from a dangerous illness desired to be instructed in the nature of the Lord’s supper. I thought it concerned her to be first instructed in the nature of Christianity; and, accordingly, fixed an hour a day to read with her in Mr. Law’s Treatise on Christian Perfection.
Thursday, November 20, 1735
Thur. 20 . — We fell down into Yarmouth road, but the next day were forced back into Cowes. During our stay here there were several storms; in one of which two ships in Yarmouth road were lost.
The continuance of the contrary winds gave my brother an opportunity of complying with the desire of the Minister of Cowes, and preaching there three or four times. The poor people flocked together in great numbers.
We distributed a few little books among the more serious of them, which they received with all possible expressions of thankfulness.
The continuance of the contrary winds gave my brother an opportunity of complying with the desire of the Minister of Cowes, and preaching there three or four times. The poor people flocked together in great numbers.
We distributed a few little books among the more serious of them, which they received with all possible expressions of thankfulness.
Sunday, November 16, 1735
Sun. 16 . — Thomas Hird, and Grace his wife, with their children, Mark, aged twenty-one, and Phebe, about seventeen, late Quakers, were, at their often-repeated desire, and after careful instruction, admitted to baptism.
Saturday, November 1, 1735
We came to St. Helen’s harbor, and the next day into Cowes road. The wind was fair, but we waited for the man-of-war which was to sail with us. This was a happy opportunity of instructing our fellow-travelers. May He whose seed we sow, give it the increase!
Friday, October 31, 1735
We sailed out of the Downs. At eleven at night I was waked by a great noise. I soon found there was no danger. But the bare apprehension of it gave me a lively conviction what manner of men those ought to be who are every moment on the brink of eternity.
Fri. October 24, 1735
Fri. 24 . — Having a rolling sea, most of the passengers found the effects of it. Mr. Delamotte was exceeding sick for several days; Mr. Ingham, for about half an hour. My brother’s head ached much. Hitherto it hath pleased God, the sea has not disordered me at all; nor have I been hindered one quarter of an hour from reading, writing, composing, or doing any business I could have done on shore.
During our stay in the Downs, some or other of us went, as often as we had opportunity, on board the ship that sailed in company with us, where also many were glad to join in prayer and hearing, the word.
During our stay in the Downs, some or other of us went, as often as we had opportunity, on board the ship that sailed in company with us, where also many were glad to join in prayer and hearing, the word.
Tuesday, October 21, 1735
We sailed from Gravesend. When we were past about half the Goodwin Sands, the wind suddenly failed. Had the calm continued till ebb, the ship had probably been lost. But the gale sprang up again in an hour, and carried us into the Downs.
We now began to be a little regular. Our common way of living was this: From four in the morning till five each of us used private prayer. From five to seven we read the Bible together, carefully comparing it (that we might not lean to our own understandings) with the writings of the earliest ages. At seven we breakfasted. At eight were the public prayers. From nine to twelve I usually learned German, and Mr. Delamotte, Greek. My brother wrote sermons, and Mr. Ingham instructed the children. At twelve we met to give an account of one another what we had done since our last meeting, and what we designed to do before our next. About one we dined.
The time from dinner to four we spent in reading to those whom each of us had taken in charge, or in speaking to them severally, as need required. At four were the evening prayers; when either the second lesson was explained (as it always was in the morning), or the children were catechized and instructed before the congregation. From five to six we again used private prayer. From six to seven I read in our cabin to two or three of the passengers (of whom there were about eighty English on board), and each of my brethren to a few more in theirs.
At seven I joined with the Germans in their public service, while Mr. Ingham was reading between the decks to as many as desired to hear. At eight we met again to exhort and instruct one another. Between nine and ten we went to bed, where neither the roaring of the sea nor the motion of the ship could take away the refreshing sleep which God gave us.
We now began to be a little regular. Our common way of living was this: From four in the morning till five each of us used private prayer. From five to seven we read the Bible together, carefully comparing it (that we might not lean to our own understandings) with the writings of the earliest ages. At seven we breakfasted. At eight were the public prayers. From nine to twelve I usually learned German, and Mr. Delamotte, Greek. My brother wrote sermons, and Mr. Ingham instructed the children. At twelve we met to give an account of one another what we had done since our last meeting, and what we designed to do before our next. About one we dined.
The time from dinner to four we spent in reading to those whom each of us had taken in charge, or in speaking to them severally, as need required. At four were the evening prayers; when either the second lesson was explained (as it always was in the morning), or the children were catechized and instructed before the congregation. From five to six we again used private prayer. From six to seven I read in our cabin to two or three of the passengers (of whom there were about eighty English on board), and each of my brethren to a few more in theirs.
At seven I joined with the Germans in their public service, while Mr. Ingham was reading between the decks to as many as desired to hear. At eight we met again to exhort and instruct one another. Between nine and ten we went to bed, where neither the roaring of the sea nor the motion of the ship could take away the refreshing sleep which God gave us.
Monday, October 20, 1735
Believing the denying ourselves, even in the smallest instances, might, by the blessing of God, be helpful to us, we wholly left off the use of flesh and wine and confined ourselves to vegetables food—chiefly rice and biscuit.
Friday, October 17, 1735
I began to learn German in order to converse with the Germans, six-and-twenty of whom we had on board. On Sunday, the weather being fair and calm, we had the morning service on quarterdeck. I now first preached extempore and then administered the Lord’s Supper to six or seven communicants.
To his Brother Samuel
GRAVESEND, ON BOARD THE ‘SlMMONDS,’
October 15, 1735.
DEAR BROTHER, -- I presented Job to the Queen on Sunday, and had many good words and smiles. [A folio volume in Latin, entitled Dissertationes in Librum Jobi, by his father, and dedicated by permission to Queen Caroline. John Wesley presented a copy to her Majesty on Oct. 12, 1735. Dr. Clarke (Wesley Family, i. 330) says that Wesley told him that when he was introduced the Queen was romping with her maids of honor. She stopped her play, heard him graciously, and when he presented the book on bended knee she looked at the outside, said ' It is very prettily bound,' and laid it down in a window without opening a leaf. He rose, bowed, and retired. The Queen bowed, smiled, spoke several kind words, and immediately resumed her sport.] Out of what is due to me on that account, I beg you would first pay yourself what I owe you; and if I live till spring, I can then direct what I would have done with the remainder.
The uncertainty of my having another opportunity to tell you my thoughts in this life obliges me to tell you what I have often thought of, and that in as few and plain words as I can. Elegance of style is not to be weighed against purity of heart; purity both from the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye, and the pride of life. Therefore whatever has any tendency to impair that purity is not to be tolerated, much less recommended, for the sake of that elegance. But of this sort (I speak not from the reason of the thing only, nor from my single experience) are the most of the classics usually read in great schools; many of them tending to inflame the lusts of the flesh (besides Ovid, Virgil's Aeneid, and Terence's Eunuch), and more to feed the lust of the eye and the pride of life. I beseech you, therefore, by the mercies of God, who would have us holy, as He is holy, that you banish all such poison from your school; that you introduce in their place such Christian authors as will work together with you in building up your flock in the knowledge and love of God. For assure yourself, dear brother, you are even now called to the converting of heathens as well as I.
So many souls are committed to your charge by God, to be prepared for a happy eternity. You are to instruct them, not only in the beggarly elements of Greek and Latin, but much more in the gospel. You are to labor with all your might to convince them that Christianity is not a negation or an external thing, but a new heart, a mind conformed to that of Christ, ' faith working by love.'
We recommend you and yours to God. Pray for us. -- I am
Your affectionate Brother and servant in Christ.
GRAVESEND, ON BOARD THE ‘SlMMONDS,’
October 15, 1735.
DEAR BROTHER, -- I presented Job to the Queen on Sunday, and had many good words and smiles. [A folio volume in Latin, entitled Dissertationes in Librum Jobi, by his father, and dedicated by permission to Queen Caroline. John Wesley presented a copy to her Majesty on Oct. 12, 1735. Dr. Clarke (Wesley Family, i. 330) says that Wesley told him that when he was introduced the Queen was romping with her maids of honor. She stopped her play, heard him graciously, and when he presented the book on bended knee she looked at the outside, said ' It is very prettily bound,' and laid it down in a window without opening a leaf. He rose, bowed, and retired. The Queen bowed, smiled, spoke several kind words, and immediately resumed her sport.] Out of what is due to me on that account, I beg you would first pay yourself what I owe you; and if I live till spring, I can then direct what I would have done with the remainder.
The uncertainty of my having another opportunity to tell you my thoughts in this life obliges me to tell you what I have often thought of, and that in as few and plain words as I can. Elegance of style is not to be weighed against purity of heart; purity both from the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye, and the pride of life. Therefore whatever has any tendency to impair that purity is not to be tolerated, much less recommended, for the sake of that elegance. But of this sort (I speak not from the reason of the thing only, nor from my single experience) are the most of the classics usually read in great schools; many of them tending to inflame the lusts of the flesh (besides Ovid, Virgil's Aeneid, and Terence's Eunuch), and more to feed the lust of the eye and the pride of life. I beseech you, therefore, by the mercies of God, who would have us holy, as He is holy, that you banish all such poison from your school; that you introduce in their place such Christian authors as will work together with you in building up your flock in the knowledge and love of God. For assure yourself, dear brother, you are even now called to the converting of heathens as well as I.
So many souls are committed to your charge by God, to be prepared for a happy eternity. You are to instruct them, not only in the beggarly elements of Greek and Latin, but much more in the gospel. You are to labor with all your might to convince them that Christianity is not a negation or an external thing, but a new heart, a mind conformed to that of Christ, ' faith working by love.'
We recommend you and yours to God. Pray for us. -- I am
Your affectionate Brother and servant in Christ.
Tuesday, October 14, 1735
Mr. Benjamin Ingham, of Queen College, Oxford; Mr. Charles Delamotte, son of a merchant, in London, who had offered himself some days before; my brother, Charles Wesley, and myself, took boat for Gravesend, in order to embark for Georgia. Our end in leaving our native country was not to avoid want (God having given us plenty of temporal blessings) nor to gain the dung or dross of riches or honor; but singly this — to save our souls; to live wholly to the glory of God. In the afternoon we found the “Simmonds” off Gravesend and immediately went on board.
To Dr. Burton [4]
October 10, 1735.
DEAR SIR, -- I have been hitherto unwilling to mention the grounds of my design of embarking for Georgia, for two reasons,---one, because they were such as I know few men would judge to be of any weight: the other, because I was afraid of making favorable judges think of me above what they ought to think; and what a snare this must be to my own soul I know by dear-bought experience.
But, on farther reflection, I am convinced that I ought to speak the truth with all boldness, even though it should appear foolishness to the world, as it has done from the beginning; and that, whatever danger there is in doing the will of God, He will support me under it. In His name, therefore, and trusting in His defense, I shall plainly declare the thing as it is.
My chief motive, to which all the rest are subordinate, is the hope of saving my own soul. I hope to learn the true sense of the gospel of Christ by preaching it to the heathen. They have no comments to construe away the text; no vain philosophy to corrupt it; no luxurious, sensual, covetous, ambitious expounders to soften its unpleasing truths, to reconcile earthly-mindedness and faith, the Spirit of Christ and the spirit of the world. They have no party, no interest to serve, and are therefore fit to receive the gospel in its simplicity. They are as little children, humble, willing to learn, and eager to do the will of God; and consequently they shall know of every doctrine I preach whether it be of God. By these, therefore, I hope to learn the purity of that faith which was once delivered to the saints; the genuine sense and full extent of those laws which none can understand who mind earthly things.
A right faith will, I trust, by the mercy of God, open the way for a right practice; especially when most of those temptations are removed which here so easily beset me. Toward mortifying the desire of the flesh, the desire of sensual pleasures, it will be no small thing to be able, without fear of giving offense, to live on water and the fruits of the earth. This simplicity of food will, I trust, be a blessed means, both of preventing my seeking that happiness in meats and drinks which God designed should be found only in faith and love and joy in the Holy Ghost; and will assist me---especially where I see no woman but those which are almost of a different species from me--to attain such a purity of thought as suits a candidate for that state wherein they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.
Neither is it a small thing to be delivered from so many occasions, as now surround me, of indulging the desire of the eye. They here compass me in on every side; but an Indian hut affords no food for curiosity, no gratification of the desire of grand or new or pretty things: though, indeed, the cedars which God hath planted round it may so gratify the eye as to better the heart, by lifting it to Him whose name alone is excellent and His praise above heaven and earth.
If by the pride of life we understand the pomp and show of the world, that has no place in the wilds of America. If it mean pride in general, this, alas ! has a place everywhere: yet there are very uncommon helps against it, not only by the deep humility of the poor heathens, fully sensible of their want of an instructor, but that happy contempt which cannot fail to attend all who sincerely endeavor to instruct them, and which, continually increasing, will surely make them in the end as the filth and offscouring of the world. Add to this, that nothing so convinces us of our own impotence as a zealous attempt to convert our neighbor; nor, indeed, till he does all he can for God, will any man feel that he can himself do nothing.
Farther: a sin which easily besets me is unfaithfulness to God in the use of speech. I know that this is a talent entrusted to me by my Lord, to be used, as all others, only for His glory. I know that all conversation which is not seasoned with salt, and designed at least to administer grace to the hearers, is expressly forbid by the Apostle, as corrupt communication, and as grieving the Holy Spirit of God; yet I am almost continually betrayed into it by the example of others striking in with my own bad heart. But I hope, from the moment I leave the English shore, under the acknowledged character of a teacher sent from God, there shall no word be heard from my lips but what properly flows from that character: as my tongue is a devoted thing, I hope from the first hour of this new era to use it only as such, that all who hear me may know of a truth the words I speak are not mine but His that sent me.
The same faithfulness I hope to show through His grace in dispensing the rest of my Master's goods, if it please Him to send me to those who, like His first followers, have all things common. What a guard is here against that root of evil, the love of money, and all the vile attractions that spring from it ! One in this glorious state, and perhaps none but he, may see the height and depth of that privilege of the first Christians, 'as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing all things.'
I then hope to know what it is to love my neighbor as myself, and to feel the powers of that second motive to visit the heathens, even the desire to impart to them what I have received--a saving knowledge of the gospel of Christ. But this I dare not think on yet. It is not for me, who have been a grievous sinner from my youth up, and am yet laden with foolish and hurtful desires, to expect God should work so great things by my hands; but I am assured, if I be once fully converted myself, He will then employ me both to strengthen my brethren and to preach His name to the Gentiles, that the very ends of the earth may see the salvation of our God.
But you will perhaps ask: 'Cannot you save your own soul in England as well as in Georgia ?' I answer,--No; neither can I hope to attain the same degree of holiness here which I may there; neither, if I stay here, knowing this, can I reasonably hope to attain any degree of holiness at all: for whoever, when two ways of life are proposed, prefers that which he is convinced in his own mind is less pleasing to God and less conducive to the perfection of his soul, has no reason from the gospel of Christ to hope that he shall ever please God at all or receive from Him that grace whereby alone he can attain any degree of Christian perfection.
To the other motive--the hope of doing more good in America--it is commonly objected that 'there are heathens enough in practice, if not theory, at home; why, then, should you go to those in America ? ' Why ? For a very plain reason: because these heathens at home have Moses and the Prophets, and those have not; because these who have the gospel trample upon it, and those who have it not earnestly call for it; ' therefore, seeing these judge themselves unworthy of eternal life, lo, I turn to the Gentiles.'
If you object, farther, the losses I must sustain in leaving my native country, I ask,--Loss of what ? of anything I desire to keep ? No; I shall still have food to eat and raiment to put on--enough of such food as I choose to eat and such raiment as I desire to put on; and if any man have a desire of other things, or of more food than he can eat, or more raiment than he need put on, let him know that the greatest blessing which can possibly befall him is to be cut off from all occasions of gratifying those desires, which, unless speedily rooted out, will drown his soul in everlasting perdition.
'But what shall we say to the loss of parents, brethren, sisters--nay, of the friends which are as my own soul, of those who have so often lifted up my hands that hung down and strengthened my feeble knees, by whom God hath often enlightened my understanding and warmed and enlarged my heart ?' What shall we say? Why, that if you add the loss of life to the rest, so much the greater is the gain; for though ' the grass withereth and the flower fadeth, the word of our God shall stand for ever.' Say that, when human instruments are removed, He, the Lord, will answer us by His own self; and the general answer which He hath already given us to all questions of this nature is: ' Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left father, or mother, or lands, for My sake, but shall receive an hundredfold now in this time with persecutions, and in the world to come eternal life.'
October 10, 1735.
DEAR SIR, -- I have been hitherto unwilling to mention the grounds of my design of embarking for Georgia, for two reasons,---one, because they were such as I know few men would judge to be of any weight: the other, because I was afraid of making favorable judges think of me above what they ought to think; and what a snare this must be to my own soul I know by dear-bought experience.
But, on farther reflection, I am convinced that I ought to speak the truth with all boldness, even though it should appear foolishness to the world, as it has done from the beginning; and that, whatever danger there is in doing the will of God, He will support me under it. In His name, therefore, and trusting in His defense, I shall plainly declare the thing as it is.
My chief motive, to which all the rest are subordinate, is the hope of saving my own soul. I hope to learn the true sense of the gospel of Christ by preaching it to the heathen. They have no comments to construe away the text; no vain philosophy to corrupt it; no luxurious, sensual, covetous, ambitious expounders to soften its unpleasing truths, to reconcile earthly-mindedness and faith, the Spirit of Christ and the spirit of the world. They have no party, no interest to serve, and are therefore fit to receive the gospel in its simplicity. They are as little children, humble, willing to learn, and eager to do the will of God; and consequently they shall know of every doctrine I preach whether it be of God. By these, therefore, I hope to learn the purity of that faith which was once delivered to the saints; the genuine sense and full extent of those laws which none can understand who mind earthly things.
A right faith will, I trust, by the mercy of God, open the way for a right practice; especially when most of those temptations are removed which here so easily beset me. Toward mortifying the desire of the flesh, the desire of sensual pleasures, it will be no small thing to be able, without fear of giving offense, to live on water and the fruits of the earth. This simplicity of food will, I trust, be a blessed means, both of preventing my seeking that happiness in meats and drinks which God designed should be found only in faith and love and joy in the Holy Ghost; and will assist me---especially where I see no woman but those which are almost of a different species from me--to attain such a purity of thought as suits a candidate for that state wherein they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.
Neither is it a small thing to be delivered from so many occasions, as now surround me, of indulging the desire of the eye. They here compass me in on every side; but an Indian hut affords no food for curiosity, no gratification of the desire of grand or new or pretty things: though, indeed, the cedars which God hath planted round it may so gratify the eye as to better the heart, by lifting it to Him whose name alone is excellent and His praise above heaven and earth.
If by the pride of life we understand the pomp and show of the world, that has no place in the wilds of America. If it mean pride in general, this, alas ! has a place everywhere: yet there are very uncommon helps against it, not only by the deep humility of the poor heathens, fully sensible of their want of an instructor, but that happy contempt which cannot fail to attend all who sincerely endeavor to instruct them, and which, continually increasing, will surely make them in the end as the filth and offscouring of the world. Add to this, that nothing so convinces us of our own impotence as a zealous attempt to convert our neighbor; nor, indeed, till he does all he can for God, will any man feel that he can himself do nothing.
Farther: a sin which easily besets me is unfaithfulness to God in the use of speech. I know that this is a talent entrusted to me by my Lord, to be used, as all others, only for His glory. I know that all conversation which is not seasoned with salt, and designed at least to administer grace to the hearers, is expressly forbid by the Apostle, as corrupt communication, and as grieving the Holy Spirit of God; yet I am almost continually betrayed into it by the example of others striking in with my own bad heart. But I hope, from the moment I leave the English shore, under the acknowledged character of a teacher sent from God, there shall no word be heard from my lips but what properly flows from that character: as my tongue is a devoted thing, I hope from the first hour of this new era to use it only as such, that all who hear me may know of a truth the words I speak are not mine but His that sent me.
The same faithfulness I hope to show through His grace in dispensing the rest of my Master's goods, if it please Him to send me to those who, like His first followers, have all things common. What a guard is here against that root of evil, the love of money, and all the vile attractions that spring from it ! One in this glorious state, and perhaps none but he, may see the height and depth of that privilege of the first Christians, 'as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing all things.'
I then hope to know what it is to love my neighbor as myself, and to feel the powers of that second motive to visit the heathens, even the desire to impart to them what I have received--a saving knowledge of the gospel of Christ. But this I dare not think on yet. It is not for me, who have been a grievous sinner from my youth up, and am yet laden with foolish and hurtful desires, to expect God should work so great things by my hands; but I am assured, if I be once fully converted myself, He will then employ me both to strengthen my brethren and to preach His name to the Gentiles, that the very ends of the earth may see the salvation of our God.
But you will perhaps ask: 'Cannot you save your own soul in England as well as in Georgia ?' I answer,--No; neither can I hope to attain the same degree of holiness here which I may there; neither, if I stay here, knowing this, can I reasonably hope to attain any degree of holiness at all: for whoever, when two ways of life are proposed, prefers that which he is convinced in his own mind is less pleasing to God and less conducive to the perfection of his soul, has no reason from the gospel of Christ to hope that he shall ever please God at all or receive from Him that grace whereby alone he can attain any degree of Christian perfection.
To the other motive--the hope of doing more good in America--it is commonly objected that 'there are heathens enough in practice, if not theory, at home; why, then, should you go to those in America ? ' Why ? For a very plain reason: because these heathens at home have Moses and the Prophets, and those have not; because these who have the gospel trample upon it, and those who have it not earnestly call for it; ' therefore, seeing these judge themselves unworthy of eternal life, lo, I turn to the Gentiles.'
If you object, farther, the losses I must sustain in leaving my native country, I ask,--Loss of what ? of anything I desire to keep ? No; I shall still have food to eat and raiment to put on--enough of such food as I choose to eat and such raiment as I desire to put on; and if any man have a desire of other things, or of more food than he can eat, or more raiment than he need put on, let him know that the greatest blessing which can possibly befall him is to be cut off from all occasions of gratifying those desires, which, unless speedily rooted out, will drown his soul in everlasting perdition.
'But what shall we say to the loss of parents, brethren, sisters--nay, of the friends which are as my own soul, of those who have so often lifted up my hands that hung down and strengthened my feeble knees, by whom God hath often enlightened my understanding and warmed and enlarged my heart ?' What shall we say? Why, that if you add the loss of life to the rest, so much the greater is the gain; for though ' the grass withereth and the flower fadeth, the word of our God shall stand for ever.' Say that, when human instruments are removed, He, the Lord, will answer us by His own self; and the general answer which He hath already given us to all questions of this nature is: ' Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left father, or mother, or lands, for My sake, but shall receive an hundredfold now in this time with persecutions, and in the world to come eternal life.'
From the Minutes of the Trustees Octo 10, 1735
Octo. 10, 1735. — John Wesley appointed Missionary at Savannah.
October 1735 -- the beginings of our Journey
Gentle reader, I recall a letter I wrote to a father of one of my peers, a Mr. Morgans and in it lies a describes the incidents which led to the formation of the Holy Club and to the social activities from which, that which some derisively call "Methodism" has evolved. Perhaps this letter can help better elucidate my desire to minister to those in the Americas.
The letter was written from Oxford in 1732.
Dear Mr. Morgan
November, 1729, at which time I came to reside at Oxford, your son my brother, myself, and one more agreed to spend three or four evenings in a week together. Our design was to read over the classics, which we had before read in private, on common nights, and on Sunday some book in divinity. In the summer following, Mr. M. told me he had called at the gaol to see a man who was condemned for killing his wife; and that, from the talk he had with one of the debtors, he verily believed it would do much good if anyone would be at the pains of now and then speaking with them.
This he so frequently repeated that on August 24, 1730, my brother and I walked with him to the castle. We were so well satisfied with our conversation there that we agreed to go thither once or twice a week; which we had not done long before he desired me to go with him to see a poor woman in the town, who was sick. In this employment too, when we came to reflect upon it, we believed it would be worth while to spend an hour or two in a week; provided the minister of the parish, in which any such person was, were not against it. But that we might not depend wholly on our own judgments, I wrote an account to my father of our whole design; withal begging that he, who had lived seventy years in the world and seen as much of it as most private men have ever done, would advise us whether we had yet gone too far and whether we should now stand still or go forward.
In pursuance of directions, I immediately went to Mr. Gerald, the Bishop of Oxford’s chaplain, who was likewise the person that took care of the prisoners when any were condemned to die (at other times they were left to their own care); I proposed to him our design of serving them as far as we could and my own intention to preach there once a month, if the bishop approved of it. He much commended our design and said he would answer for the bishop’s approbation, to whom he would take the first opportunity of mentioning it. It was not long before he informed me he had done so and that his lordship not only gave his permission, but was greatly pleased with the undertaking and hoped it would have the desired success.
Soon after, a gentleman of Merton College, who was one of our little company, which now consisted of five persons, acquainted us that he had been much rallied the day before for being a member of the Holy Club; and that it was become a common topic of mirth at his college, where they had found out several of our customs, to which we were ourselves utter strangers. Upon this I consulted my father again.
Upon encouragement we still continued to meet together as usual; and to confirm one another, as well as we could, in our resolutions to communicate as often as we had opportunity (which is here once a week); and do what service we could to our acquaintance, the prisoners, and two or three poor families in the town.
The letter was written from Oxford in 1732.
Dear Mr. Morgan
November, 1729, at which time I came to reside at Oxford, your son my brother, myself, and one more agreed to spend three or four evenings in a week together. Our design was to read over the classics, which we had before read in private, on common nights, and on Sunday some book in divinity. In the summer following, Mr. M. told me he had called at the gaol to see a man who was condemned for killing his wife; and that, from the talk he had with one of the debtors, he verily believed it would do much good if anyone would be at the pains of now and then speaking with them.
This he so frequently repeated that on August 24, 1730, my brother and I walked with him to the castle. We were so well satisfied with our conversation there that we agreed to go thither once or twice a week; which we had not done long before he desired me to go with him to see a poor woman in the town, who was sick. In this employment too, when we came to reflect upon it, we believed it would be worth while to spend an hour or two in a week; provided the minister of the parish, in which any such person was, were not against it. But that we might not depend wholly on our own judgments, I wrote an account to my father of our whole design; withal begging that he, who had lived seventy years in the world and seen as much of it as most private men have ever done, would advise us whether we had yet gone too far and whether we should now stand still or go forward.
In pursuance of directions, I immediately went to Mr. Gerald, the Bishop of Oxford’s chaplain, who was likewise the person that took care of the prisoners when any were condemned to die (at other times they were left to their own care); I proposed to him our design of serving them as far as we could and my own intention to preach there once a month, if the bishop approved of it. He much commended our design and said he would answer for the bishop’s approbation, to whom he would take the first opportunity of mentioning it. It was not long before he informed me he had done so and that his lordship not only gave his permission, but was greatly pleased with the undertaking and hoped it would have the desired success.
Soon after, a gentleman of Merton College, who was one of our little company, which now consisted of five persons, acquainted us that he had been much rallied the day before for being a member of the Holy Club; and that it was become a common topic of mirth at his college, where they had found out several of our customs, to which we were ourselves utter strangers. Upon this I consulted my father again.
Upon encouragement we still continued to meet together as usual; and to confirm one another, as well as we could, in our resolutions to communicate as often as we had opportunity (which is here once a week); and do what service we could to our acquaintance, the prisoners, and two or three poor families in the town.
To John Robson [3]
September 30, 1735.
DEAR SIR, -- The dining in the hall on Friday seems to me utterly unjustifiable. It is giving offense in the worst sense, giving men occasion to think that innocent which is grossly sinful. The plausible pretenses for throwing off the very form of godliness that must be esteemed if we will do good; that we must keep those things private wherein we differ from the world, and so on, you will find fully examined in Nicodemus. [Wesley read Nicodemus; or, A Treatise on the Fear of Man, by August H. Francke, on his voyage to Georgia. He abridged it for Methodist readers in 1739. See Diary in Journal, i. 121, 300-1; Green's Wesley Bibliography, No. 12.] The Bishops can no more dispense with the law (the reason of which still subsists) than you or I can. Fasting is not a means of chastity only, but of deadness to pleasure, and heavenly-mindedness, and consequently necessary (in such measure as agrees with health) to all persons in all times of life. Had I been less strict, as 'tis called, I should have not only not done more good than I have (that is, God by me), but I never should have done any at all, nor indeed desired to do any. Till a man gives offense he will do no good; and the more offense he gives by adhering to the gospel of Christ the more good he will do, and the more good he does the more offense he will give. As to lukewarm company, I can only advise you (1) to keep out of it -- as much as you can; (2) when you cannot, to pray before, after, and during your stay in it fervently and without ceasing: but this you can't do---I know it; but God can make you able to do it, and in Him you must put your trust.
I am not satisfied (as I have told the Rector for this twelvemonth past) that the Wednesday fast [See letter of June 13, 1733.] is strictly obligatory; though I believe it very ancient, if not apostolical. He never saw what I writ upon it.
Dr. Tilly's sermons [William Tilly's Sixteen Sermons preached before the University of Oxford at St. Mary's (Phil. ii. 12-13). 'The grace of God shown to be not only consistent with the liberty of man's will, but the strongest obligation to our own endeavors' (2 Sermons. 1712).] on Free Will are the best I ever saw. His text is, 'Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.' May you all assist one another so to do, and be not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. ?a?a?a?e? te ????????, &c. Bear ye one another's burdens. I charge Mr. Robson in the name of the Lord Jesus that he no longer halt between two opinions. If the Lord be God, serve Him, love Him with all your heart, serve Him with all your strength; and pray for us that faith and utterance may be given us, that we may speak boldly as we ought to speak.
September 30, 1735.
DEAR SIR, -- The dining in the hall on Friday seems to me utterly unjustifiable. It is giving offense in the worst sense, giving men occasion to think that innocent which is grossly sinful. The plausible pretenses for throwing off the very form of godliness that must be esteemed if we will do good; that we must keep those things private wherein we differ from the world, and so on, you will find fully examined in Nicodemus. [Wesley read Nicodemus; or, A Treatise on the Fear of Man, by August H. Francke, on his voyage to Georgia. He abridged it for Methodist readers in 1739. See Diary in Journal, i. 121, 300-1; Green's Wesley Bibliography, No. 12.] The Bishops can no more dispense with the law (the reason of which still subsists) than you or I can. Fasting is not a means of chastity only, but of deadness to pleasure, and heavenly-mindedness, and consequently necessary (in such measure as agrees with health) to all persons in all times of life. Had I been less strict, as 'tis called, I should have not only not done more good than I have (that is, God by me), but I never should have done any at all, nor indeed desired to do any. Till a man gives offense he will do no good; and the more offense he gives by adhering to the gospel of Christ the more good he will do, and the more good he does the more offense he will give. As to lukewarm company, I can only advise you (1) to keep out of it -- as much as you can; (2) when you cannot, to pray before, after, and during your stay in it fervently and without ceasing: but this you can't do---I know it; but God can make you able to do it, and in Him you must put your trust.
I am not satisfied (as I have told the Rector for this twelvemonth past) that the Wednesday fast [See letter of June 13, 1733.] is strictly obligatory; though I believe it very ancient, if not apostolical. He never saw what I writ upon it.
Dr. Tilly's sermons [William Tilly's Sixteen Sermons preached before the University of Oxford at St. Mary's (Phil. ii. 12-13). 'The grace of God shown to be not only consistent with the liberty of man's will, but the strongest obligation to our own endeavors' (2 Sermons. 1712).] on Free Will are the best I ever saw. His text is, 'Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.' May you all assist one another so to do, and be not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. ?a?a?a?e? te ????????, &c. Bear ye one another's burdens. I charge Mr. Robson in the name of the Lord Jesus that he no longer halt between two opinions. If the Lord be God, serve Him, love Him with all your heart, serve Him with all your strength; and pray for us that faith and utterance may be given us, that we may speak boldly as we ought to speak.
To Richard Morgan
Oxon, January 15, 1734.
SIR, -- Going yesterday into your son's room, I providentially cast my eyes upon a paper that lay upon the table, and, contrary to my custom, read a line or two of it, which soon determined me to read the rest. It was a copy of his last letter to you; whereby, by the signal blessing of God, I came to the knowledge of his real sentiments, both with regard to myself and to several other points of the highest importance.
In the account he gives of me and those friends who are as my own soul, and who watch over it that I may not be myself a castaway, are some things true: as, that we imagine it is our bounden duty to spend our whole lives in the service of Him that gave them, or, in other words, 'whether we eat or drink, or whatever we do, to do all to the glory of God'; that we endeavor, as we are able, to relieve the poor by buying books and other necessaries for them; that some of us read prayers at the prison once a day; that I administer the sacrament once a month, and preach there as often as I am not engaged elsewhere; that we sit together five evenings in a week; and that we observe, in such manner as our health permits, the fasts of the Church. Some things are false, but taken up upon trust, so that I hope Mr. Morgan believed them true: as, that we almost starve ourselves; that one of us had like lately to have lost his life by too great abstinence; that we endeavor to reform notorious whores and to lay spirits in haunted houses; that we all rise every day at five o'clock; and that I am President of the Society. And some things are not only false, but I fear were known so to be when he related them as true (inasmuch as he had then had the repeated demonstration of both his eyes and ears to the contrary): such as that the Society consists of seven members (I know no more than four of them); that from five to eight in the morning they sing psalms and read some piece of divinity; and that they are emaciated to such a degree that they are a frightful sight. As to the circumstance of the brasier's wife (no intimate of mine) I am in doubt; though she positively denies she ever said so.
As strange as it may appear that one present upon the spot should so far vary from the truth in his relation, I can easily account, not only for his mistake, but for his designed misrepresentation too. The company he is almost daily with (from whom, indeed, I should soon have divided him, had not your letter's coming in the article of time tied my hands) abundantly accounts for the former; as his desire to lessen your regard for me, and thereby obviate the force of any future complaint, which he foresaw I might some time have occasion to make to you, does for the latter. And, indeed, I am not without apprehension that some such occasion may shortly come. I need not describe that apprehension to you. Be pleased to reflect what were the sentiments of your own heart when the ship that took your son from you loosed from shore; and such (allowing for the superior tenderness of a parent) are mine. Such were my father's before he parted from us; when, taking him by the hand, he said, 'Mr. Morgan between this and Easter is your trial for life: I even tremble when I consider the danger you are in; and the more because you do not yourself perceive it.' Impute not, sir, this fear either to the error of my youth or to the coldness of his age. Is there not a cause? Is he not surrounded, even in this recess, with those who are often more pernicious than open libertines? -- men who retain something of outward decency, and nothing else; who seriously idle away the whole day, and reputably revel till midnight, and ff not drunken themselves, yet encouraging and applauding those that are so; who have no more of the form than of the power of godliness, and though they do pretty often drop in at public prayers, coming after the most solemn part of them is over, yet expressly disown any obligation to attend them. 'Tis true they have not yet laughed your son out of all his diligence; but how long it will be before they have, God knows. They zealously endeavor it at all convenient opportunities; and temporal views are as unable to support him under such an attack as his slender notions of religion are; of which, he often says, he thinks he shall have enough if he constantly says his prayers at home and in the chapel. As to my advice on this or any other head, they had secured him pretty wall before; and your authority added to theirs has supplied him with armor of proof against it. I now beg to know what you would have me do. Shall I sit still, and let him swim down the stream? Or shall I plunge in, bound as I am hand and foot, and oppose myself to his company, his inclinations, and his father?
Why, you say I am to incite him to live a sober, virtuous, and religious life. Nay, but first let us agree what religion is. I take religion to be, not the bare saying over so many prayers, morning and evening, in public or in private; not anything superadded now and then to a careless or worldly life; but a constant ruling habit of soul, a renewal of our minds in the image of God, a recovery of the divine likeness, a still-increasing conformity of heart and life to the pattern of our most holy Redeemer. But if this be religion, if this be that way to life which our blessed Lord hath marked out for us, how can any one, while he keeps close to this way, be charged with running into extremes ? 'Tis true there is no going out of it, either to the right hand or to the left, without running into an extreme; and, to prevent this, the wisdom of the Church has in all ages appointed guides for the unexperienced, lest they should wander into by-paths and seek death in the error of their life. But while he is in the right way, what fear is there of your son's going too fast in it ? I appeal to your own experience. Have you observed any such disposition in him as gives you ground to suspect he will love God too well or keep himself too 'unspotted from the world'? Or has his past life been such as that you have just reason to apprehend the remainder of it should too much resemble that of our blessed Master? I will go farther. Have you remarked, in the various scenes you have gone through, that youth in general is apt to run into the extreme of piety? Is it to this excess that the fervor of their blood and the impetuosity of their passions hurry them? But we may not stop here. Is there any fear, is there any possibility, that any son of Adam, of whatever age or degree, should too faithfully do the will of his Creator or too exactly tread in the steps of his Redeemer? Suppose the time now come when you feel within yourself that the silver cord of life is loosed, that the dust is returning to the earth as it was, and the spirit unto God who gave it. The snares of death overtake you. Nothing but pain is on the one hand, eternity on the other. The tears of the friends that surround your bed bear witness with the pangs of your own heart that it has few pulses more to beat before you launch out into the sea without a shore, before the soul shall part from your quivering lips and stand naked before the judgment-seat of God. Will you then be content with having served God according to the custom of the place you was in? Will you regret your having been, even from your youth, ' more pure and holy than the rest of mankind'? Will you complain to the ministering spirits who receive your new-born soul that you have been 'over-zealous in the love of your Master'? Ask not me, a poor, fallible, sinful mortal, never safe either from the snares of ill example or the treachery of my own heart; but ask them, ask Him who died to make you and me and your son zealous of good works, whether you may be excused for your solicitude, your too successful solicitude, to prevent his falling into this extreme! How needless has he made that solicitude already ! But I spare you. The good God be merciful to us both!
Think not, sir, that interest occasions the concern I show. I despise and abhor the thought. From the moment my brother told me, 'Mr. Morgan will be safer with you than me; I have desired he may be sent to you,' I determined (though I have never mentioned it to him) to restore to him whatsoever is paid me upon Mr. Morgan's account. It is, with regard to me, an accursed thing. There shall no such cleave unto me. I have sufficient motives without this to assist your son, so long as he will accept of my assistance. He is the brother of my dear friend, the son of one that was my friend till great names warped him from his purpose; and, what is infinitely more, the creature of my God, and the redeemed and fellow heir of my Savior. That neither the cares of the world, nor the fair speeches and venerable titles of any who set up their rest therein, may prevent our attaining our better inheritance, is the earnest prayer of, sir,
Your most obliged and most obedient servant.,
I beg, if you favor me with another letter, it may not be enclosed in Mr. Morgan's.
Oxon, January 15, 1734.
SIR, -- Going yesterday into your son's room, I providentially cast my eyes upon a paper that lay upon the table, and, contrary to my custom, read a line or two of it, which soon determined me to read the rest. It was a copy of his last letter to you; whereby, by the signal blessing of God, I came to the knowledge of his real sentiments, both with regard to myself and to several other points of the highest importance.
In the account he gives of me and those friends who are as my own soul, and who watch over it that I may not be myself a castaway, are some things true: as, that we imagine it is our bounden duty to spend our whole lives in the service of Him that gave them, or, in other words, 'whether we eat or drink, or whatever we do, to do all to the glory of God'; that we endeavor, as we are able, to relieve the poor by buying books and other necessaries for them; that some of us read prayers at the prison once a day; that I administer the sacrament once a month, and preach there as often as I am not engaged elsewhere; that we sit together five evenings in a week; and that we observe, in such manner as our health permits, the fasts of the Church. Some things are false, but taken up upon trust, so that I hope Mr. Morgan believed them true: as, that we almost starve ourselves; that one of us had like lately to have lost his life by too great abstinence; that we endeavor to reform notorious whores and to lay spirits in haunted houses; that we all rise every day at five o'clock; and that I am President of the Society. And some things are not only false, but I fear were known so to be when he related them as true (inasmuch as he had then had the repeated demonstration of both his eyes and ears to the contrary): such as that the Society consists of seven members (I know no more than four of them); that from five to eight in the morning they sing psalms and read some piece of divinity; and that they are emaciated to such a degree that they are a frightful sight. As to the circumstance of the brasier's wife (no intimate of mine) I am in doubt; though she positively denies she ever said so.
As strange as it may appear that one present upon the spot should so far vary from the truth in his relation, I can easily account, not only for his mistake, but for his designed misrepresentation too. The company he is almost daily with (from whom, indeed, I should soon have divided him, had not your letter's coming in the article of time tied my hands) abundantly accounts for the former; as his desire to lessen your regard for me, and thereby obviate the force of any future complaint, which he foresaw I might some time have occasion to make to you, does for the latter. And, indeed, I am not without apprehension that some such occasion may shortly come. I need not describe that apprehension to you. Be pleased to reflect what were the sentiments of your own heart when the ship that took your son from you loosed from shore; and such (allowing for the superior tenderness of a parent) are mine. Such were my father's before he parted from us; when, taking him by the hand, he said, 'Mr. Morgan between this and Easter is your trial for life: I even tremble when I consider the danger you are in; and the more because you do not yourself perceive it.' Impute not, sir, this fear either to the error of my youth or to the coldness of his age. Is there not a cause? Is he not surrounded, even in this recess, with those who are often more pernicious than open libertines? -- men who retain something of outward decency, and nothing else; who seriously idle away the whole day, and reputably revel till midnight, and ff not drunken themselves, yet encouraging and applauding those that are so; who have no more of the form than of the power of godliness, and though they do pretty often drop in at public prayers, coming after the most solemn part of them is over, yet expressly disown any obligation to attend them. 'Tis true they have not yet laughed your son out of all his diligence; but how long it will be before they have, God knows. They zealously endeavor it at all convenient opportunities; and temporal views are as unable to support him under such an attack as his slender notions of religion are; of which, he often says, he thinks he shall have enough if he constantly says his prayers at home and in the chapel. As to my advice on this or any other head, they had secured him pretty wall before; and your authority added to theirs has supplied him with armor of proof against it. I now beg to know what you would have me do. Shall I sit still, and let him swim down the stream? Or shall I plunge in, bound as I am hand and foot, and oppose myself to his company, his inclinations, and his father?
Why, you say I am to incite him to live a sober, virtuous, and religious life. Nay, but first let us agree what religion is. I take religion to be, not the bare saying over so many prayers, morning and evening, in public or in private; not anything superadded now and then to a careless or worldly life; but a constant ruling habit of soul, a renewal of our minds in the image of God, a recovery of the divine likeness, a still-increasing conformity of heart and life to the pattern of our most holy Redeemer. But if this be religion, if this be that way to life which our blessed Lord hath marked out for us, how can any one, while he keeps close to this way, be charged with running into extremes ? 'Tis true there is no going out of it, either to the right hand or to the left, without running into an extreme; and, to prevent this, the wisdom of the Church has in all ages appointed guides for the unexperienced, lest they should wander into by-paths and seek death in the error of their life. But while he is in the right way, what fear is there of your son's going too fast in it ? I appeal to your own experience. Have you observed any such disposition in him as gives you ground to suspect he will love God too well or keep himself too 'unspotted from the world'? Or has his past life been such as that you have just reason to apprehend the remainder of it should too much resemble that of our blessed Master? I will go farther. Have you remarked, in the various scenes you have gone through, that youth in general is apt to run into the extreme of piety? Is it to this excess that the fervor of their blood and the impetuosity of their passions hurry them? But we may not stop here. Is there any fear, is there any possibility, that any son of Adam, of whatever age or degree, should too faithfully do the will of his Creator or too exactly tread in the steps of his Redeemer? Suppose the time now come when you feel within yourself that the silver cord of life is loosed, that the dust is returning to the earth as it was, and the spirit unto God who gave it. The snares of death overtake you. Nothing but pain is on the one hand, eternity on the other. The tears of the friends that surround your bed bear witness with the pangs of your own heart that it has few pulses more to beat before you launch out into the sea without a shore, before the soul shall part from your quivering lips and stand naked before the judgment-seat of God. Will you then be content with having served God according to the custom of the place you was in? Will you regret your having been, even from your youth, ' more pure and holy than the rest of mankind'? Will you complain to the ministering spirits who receive your new-born soul that you have been 'over-zealous in the love of your Master'? Ask not me, a poor, fallible, sinful mortal, never safe either from the snares of ill example or the treachery of my own heart; but ask them, ask Him who died to make you and me and your son zealous of good works, whether you may be excused for your solicitude, your too successful solicitude, to prevent his falling into this extreme! How needless has he made that solicitude already ! But I spare you. The good God be merciful to us both!
Think not, sir, that interest occasions the concern I show. I despise and abhor the thought. From the moment my brother told me, 'Mr. Morgan will be safer with you than me; I have desired he may be sent to you,' I determined (though I have never mentioned it to him) to restore to him whatsoever is paid me upon Mr. Morgan's account. It is, with regard to me, an accursed thing. There shall no such cleave unto me. I have sufficient motives without this to assist your son, so long as he will accept of my assistance. He is the brother of my dear friend, the son of one that was my friend till great names warped him from his purpose; and, what is infinitely more, the creature of my God, and the redeemed and fellow heir of my Savior. That neither the cares of the world, nor the fair speeches and venerable titles of any who set up their rest therein, may prevent our attaining our better inheritance, is the earnest prayer of, sir,
Your most obliged and most obedient servant.,
I beg, if you favor me with another letter, it may not be enclosed in Mr. Morgan's.
To Richard Morgan
December 17, 1733.
SIR,--The bank-note sent by Mr. Huey was exchanged today. I have paid Mr. Lasher £11 17s. 6d. of the £50 (and the £9 in my brother's hands), the Bursar £24 for caution-money, and 40s. the usual fee for his admission into the common-room. Mr. Morgan usually rises about six, and has not yet been wanting in diligence. He seldom goes out of college unless upon business or to walk for his health, which I would willingly persuade him to do every day. He loses no time at taverns or coffee-houses, and avoids as much as possible idle company, which every gentleman here will soon be pestered with if he has not some show of resolution. Some evenings every week he spends in the common-room, and others with my brother and me. Of his being admitted into our Society (if it deserves so honorable a title) there is no danger. All those gentlemen whom I have the happiness to converse with two or three times a week upon a religious account would oppose me to the utmost should I attempt to introduce among them at those important hours one of whose prudence I had had so short a trial and who was so little experienced in piety and charity.
Several of the points you mention deserve a fuller consideration than I have leisure to give them. I shall ever own myself extremely obliged for the freedom with which you mention them, and have endeavored to answer you with the same freedom, which I am persuaded will not be disagreeable to you.
That my dear friend, now with God, was much disordered in his understanding. I had often observed long before he left England. That he was likewise sincerely religious, all observed; but whoever had seen his behavior in the successive stages of his illness might as easily have mistaken darkness for light as his madness for his religion. They were not only different, but opposite too; one counteracting the other from its beginning. I cannot better describe his religion than in the words of the person who wrote his elegy:
Mild, sweet, serene, and tender was her mood,
Nor grave with sternness, nor with lightness free!
Against example resolutely good,
Fervent in zeal and warm in charity!
Who ne'er forsook her faith for love of peace,
Nor sought with fire and sword to show her zeal;
Duteous to rulers when they most oppress,
Patient in bearing ill, and doing well. [Description of Divine Religion, from The Battle of the Sexes, stanza xxxv., by his brother Samuel. For 'tender' (line 1) read 'cheerful,' for 'rulers' (line 7) 'princes.' Wesley quotes the last line in the obituary of Robert Swindells (Minutes, x783).]
Directly contrary to every article of this was his madness. It was harsh, sour, cloudy, and severe. It was sometimes extravagantly light and sometimes sternly serious. It undermined his best resolutions by an absurd deference to example. It damped the fervor of his zeal and gradually impaired the warmth of his charity. It had not, indeed, as yet attacked his duteous regard for his superiors, nor drove him to exterminate sin by fire and sword; for when it had so obscured that clear judgment whereon his holiness stood that his very faith and patience began to be in danger, the God whom he served came to his rescue and snatched him from the evil to
Come.
'But though his religion was not the same with his madness, might it not be the cause of it ?' I answer, No. 'Tis full as reasonable to believe that light is darkness as that it is the cause of it. We may just as well think that mildness and harshness, sweetness and sternness, gentleness and fury are the same thing, as that the former are the causes of the latter, or have any tendency thereto.
'But he said himself his distemper was religious madness, and who should know better than himself?' Who should know the truth better than one out of his senses? Why, any one that was in them, especially any one that had observed the several workings of his soul before the corruptible body pressed it down; when his apprehension was unclouded, his' judgment sound, and his reason cool and unimpaired. Then it was that he knew himself and his Master; then he spoke the words of truth and soberness, and justified by those words the wisdom he loved, only not as much as he adorned it by his life.
True it is God was pleased, for the trial both of him and us, to visit him with a grievous illness. As his illness increased his reason declined, and consequently his religion built upon it. Till that melancholy effect of his disease, I challenge all the fools who counted his preceding life madness to point out one extreme he was in of any sort or one instance of his zeal which was not according to knowledge. 'Tis easy for any of them to declaim in general against enthusiasm and carrying things too far, and even to prevail upon an unwary mind, shattered by sickness, to plead guilty to the accusation. But let them come to particulars, and I do hereby undertake to prove that every fact they allege against him is either absolutely false or that it is agreeable to the strictest rules both of piety and Christian prudence.
His fasting (or abstinence rather, for I do not know that he ever fasted one day) I least of all 'except; as being firmly persuaded, from careful and repeated observations, that had he continued it he had been alive to this day. Nor are there wanting as great names for this opinion as any that advised on the contrary, who believe that wine and free diet to one in his circumstances was as sure a recipe as shooting him through the head.
I acknowledge your goodness in having a far better opinion of me than I deserve, or, I trust in God, shall ever desire. I have many things to add when time permits, but one I dare not defer a moment. 'Tis absolutely necessary to guard your surviving son against the least suspicion of my over-great zeal or strictness. You are fully sensible he is in no danger of either. But if he once fancies I am, that fancy will cut me off from all possibility of doing him any substantial service. whatever advice I may have occasion to give with regard to his moral conduct, ' much religion hath made thee mad ' will be a sufficient answer to all. For your sake and his I beg to know (what I should otherwise not think it worth while to bestow one thought upon) any overt acts of my enthusiasm which pass current in Ireland either with the gay or the serious part of the world.
My brother gladly joins with me in acknowledging all your favors both to him and to, good sir,
Your obliged and obedient servant.
December 17, 1733.
SIR,--The bank-note sent by Mr. Huey was exchanged today. I have paid Mr. Lasher £11 17s. 6d. of the £50 (and the £9 in my brother's hands), the Bursar £24 for caution-money, and 40s. the usual fee for his admission into the common-room. Mr. Morgan usually rises about six, and has not yet been wanting in diligence. He seldom goes out of college unless upon business or to walk for his health, which I would willingly persuade him to do every day. He loses no time at taverns or coffee-houses, and avoids as much as possible idle company, which every gentleman here will soon be pestered with if he has not some show of resolution. Some evenings every week he spends in the common-room, and others with my brother and me. Of his being admitted into our Society (if it deserves so honorable a title) there is no danger. All those gentlemen whom I have the happiness to converse with two or three times a week upon a religious account would oppose me to the utmost should I attempt to introduce among them at those important hours one of whose prudence I had had so short a trial and who was so little experienced in piety and charity.
Several of the points you mention deserve a fuller consideration than I have leisure to give them. I shall ever own myself extremely obliged for the freedom with which you mention them, and have endeavored to answer you with the same freedom, which I am persuaded will not be disagreeable to you.
That my dear friend, now with God, was much disordered in his understanding. I had often observed long before he left England. That he was likewise sincerely religious, all observed; but whoever had seen his behavior in the successive stages of his illness might as easily have mistaken darkness for light as his madness for his religion. They were not only different, but opposite too; one counteracting the other from its beginning. I cannot better describe his religion than in the words of the person who wrote his elegy:
Mild, sweet, serene, and tender was her mood,
Nor grave with sternness, nor with lightness free!
Against example resolutely good,
Fervent in zeal and warm in charity!
Who ne'er forsook her faith for love of peace,
Nor sought with fire and sword to show her zeal;
Duteous to rulers when they most oppress,
Patient in bearing ill, and doing well. [Description of Divine Religion, from The Battle of the Sexes, stanza xxxv., by his brother Samuel. For 'tender' (line 1) read 'cheerful,' for 'rulers' (line 7) 'princes.' Wesley quotes the last line in the obituary of Robert Swindells (Minutes, x783).]
Directly contrary to every article of this was his madness. It was harsh, sour, cloudy, and severe. It was sometimes extravagantly light and sometimes sternly serious. It undermined his best resolutions by an absurd deference to example. It damped the fervor of his zeal and gradually impaired the warmth of his charity. It had not, indeed, as yet attacked his duteous regard for his superiors, nor drove him to exterminate sin by fire and sword; for when it had so obscured that clear judgment whereon his holiness stood that his very faith and patience began to be in danger, the God whom he served came to his rescue and snatched him from the evil to
Come.
'But though his religion was not the same with his madness, might it not be the cause of it ?' I answer, No. 'Tis full as reasonable to believe that light is darkness as that it is the cause of it. We may just as well think that mildness and harshness, sweetness and sternness, gentleness and fury are the same thing, as that the former are the causes of the latter, or have any tendency thereto.
'But he said himself his distemper was religious madness, and who should know better than himself?' Who should know the truth better than one out of his senses? Why, any one that was in them, especially any one that had observed the several workings of his soul before the corruptible body pressed it down; when his apprehension was unclouded, his' judgment sound, and his reason cool and unimpaired. Then it was that he knew himself and his Master; then he spoke the words of truth and soberness, and justified by those words the wisdom he loved, only not as much as he adorned it by his life.
True it is God was pleased, for the trial both of him and us, to visit him with a grievous illness. As his illness increased his reason declined, and consequently his religion built upon it. Till that melancholy effect of his disease, I challenge all the fools who counted his preceding life madness to point out one extreme he was in of any sort or one instance of his zeal which was not according to knowledge. 'Tis easy for any of them to declaim in general against enthusiasm and carrying things too far, and even to prevail upon an unwary mind, shattered by sickness, to plead guilty to the accusation. But let them come to particulars, and I do hereby undertake to prove that every fact they allege against him is either absolutely false or that it is agreeable to the strictest rules both of piety and Christian prudence.
His fasting (or abstinence rather, for I do not know that he ever fasted one day) I least of all 'except; as being firmly persuaded, from careful and repeated observations, that had he continued it he had been alive to this day. Nor are there wanting as great names for this opinion as any that advised on the contrary, who believe that wine and free diet to one in his circumstances was as sure a recipe as shooting him through the head.
I acknowledge your goodness in having a far better opinion of me than I deserve, or, I trust in God, shall ever desire. I have many things to add when time permits, but one I dare not defer a moment. 'Tis absolutely necessary to guard your surviving son against the least suspicion of my over-great zeal or strictness. You are fully sensible he is in no danger of either. But if he once fancies I am, that fancy will cut me off from all possibility of doing him any substantial service. whatever advice I may have occasion to give with regard to his moral conduct, ' much religion hath made thee mad ' will be a sufficient answer to all. For your sake and his I beg to know (what I should otherwise not think it worth while to bestow one thought upon) any overt acts of my enthusiasm which pass current in Ireland either with the gay or the serious part of the world.
My brother gladly joins with me in acknowledging all your favors both to him and to, good sir,
Your obliged and obedient servant.
To his Brother Samuel
Oxon, March 4, 1735.
DEAR BROTHER, -- I had rather dispute, if I must dispute, with you than with any man living, because it may be done with so little expense of time and words.
The question is now brought to one point, and the whole of the argument will be in a single syllogism:
Neither hope of doing greater good nor fear of any evil ought to deter you from what you have engaged yourself to.
But you have engaged yourself to undertake the cure of a parish:
Therefore neither that hope nor that fear ought to deter you from it.
The only doubt is whether I have engaged myself or not. You think I did at my ordination, ' before God and His high-priest.' I think I did not.
However, I own I am not the proper judge of the oath I then took. It being certain and allowed by all-- 'Verbis in quibus quis jurejurando adigitur, sensum genuinum, ut et obligationem sacramenti et modum et mensuram praestari a mente non praestantis, sed exigentis juramentum.' [The words are probably a quotation from an English Canonist, and have been thus translated: 'To words in which any one is caused to take an oath, the true meaning, and also the manner and extent of the obligation of the oath, is supplied from the mind, not of the taker of the oath, but of him who demands it.' See Journal, i. 29.]
Therefore it is not I, but the high-priest of God before whom I contracted that engagement, who is to judge of the nature and extent of it. Accordingly the post after I received yours I referred it entirely to him,[ Dr. Potter, trs. to Canterbury1737.] proposing this single question to him, Whether I had at my ordination engaged myself to undertake the cure of any parish or no? His answer runs in these words:
REVD. SIR, -- It doth not seem to me that at your ordination you engaged yourself to undertake the cure of any parish, provided you can as a clergyman better serve God and His Church in your present or some other station.
Now, that I can as a clergyman better serve God and His Church in my present station I have all reasonable evidence. [See letters of Feb. 15, 1733, and Dec. 10, 1734.]
Oxon, March 4, 1735.
DEAR BROTHER, -- I had rather dispute, if I must dispute, with you than with any man living, because it may be done with so little expense of time and words.
The question is now brought to one point, and the whole of the argument will be in a single syllogism:
Neither hope of doing greater good nor fear of any evil ought to deter you from what you have engaged yourself to.
But you have engaged yourself to undertake the cure of a parish:
Therefore neither that hope nor that fear ought to deter you from it.
The only doubt is whether I have engaged myself or not. You think I did at my ordination, ' before God and His high-priest.' I think I did not.
However, I own I am not the proper judge of the oath I then took. It being certain and allowed by all-- 'Verbis in quibus quis jurejurando adigitur, sensum genuinum, ut et obligationem sacramenti et modum et mensuram praestari a mente non praestantis, sed exigentis juramentum.' [The words are probably a quotation from an English Canonist, and have been thus translated: 'To words in which any one is caused to take an oath, the true meaning, and also the manner and extent of the obligation of the oath, is supplied from the mind, not of the taker of the oath, but of him who demands it.' See Journal, i. 29.]
Therefore it is not I, but the high-priest of God before whom I contracted that engagement, who is to judge of the nature and extent of it. Accordingly the post after I received yours I referred it entirely to him,[ Dr. Potter, trs. to Canterbury1737.] proposing this single question to him, Whether I had at my ordination engaged myself to undertake the cure of any parish or no? His answer runs in these words:
REVD. SIR, -- It doth not seem to me that at your ordination you engaged yourself to undertake the cure of any parish, provided you can as a clergyman better serve God and His Church in your present or some other station.
Now, that I can as a clergyman better serve God and His Church in my present station I have all reasonable evidence. [See letters of Feb. 15, 1733, and Dec. 10, 1734.]
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