desire that God should be glorified in all things. But did not the falling short of that desire lessen your happiness? Had you still the same degree of communion with God? The same joy in the Holy Ghost? I never saw you so much moved as you appeared to be that evening. Your soul was then greatly troubled. And was not your heart unhinged at all? Was it not ruffled or discomposed? Was your soul all the time calmly stayed on God? Waiting upon him without distraction? Perhaps one end of this close trial was to give you deeper knowledge of yourself and of God? Of his power to save, and of the salvation he hath wrought in you. Most of the trials you have lately met with, have been of another kind; but it is expedient for you to go through both evil and good report.-The conversing with you, either by speaking or writing, is an unspeakable blessing to me. I cannot think of you, without thinking of God. Others often lead me to him; but it is, as it were, going round about: you bring me straight into his presence. I am your affectionate Brother, J. W. TO THE SAME. MY DEAR SISTER, Dublin, April 4, 1758. O THAT I could be of some use to you! I long to help you forward in your way. I want to have your understanding a mere lamp of light, always shining with light from above! I want you to be full of divine knowledge and wisdom, as Jordan in the time of harvest. I want your words to be full of grace, poured out as precious ointment. I want your every work to bear the stamp of God, to be a sacrifice of a sweet smelling savour! Without any part weak, earthly, or human: all holy; divine! The great God, your Father and your Love, bring you to this self-same thing! Begin, soldier of Christ, child of God! Walk worthy of the vocation wherewith thou art called! Remember the faith! Remember the Captain of thy salvation! Fight! Conquer! Die-and IT was impossible to see the distress, into which your layship was thrown, by the late unhappy affair, without bearing a part of it, without sympathizing with you. But may we not see God therein? May we not both hear and understand his voice? We must allow it is generally "small and still:" yet sometimes he speaks in the whirlwind. Permit me to speak to your ladyship with all freedom; not as to a person of quality, but as to a creature whom the Almighty made for himself, and one that is in a few days to appear before him. You were not only a nominal, but a real Christian. You tasted of the powers of the world to come. You knew, God the Father had accepted you, through his eternal Son. And God the Spirit bore witness with your spirit, that you were a child of God. But you fell among thieves, and such as were peculiarly qualified to rob you of your God. Two of these in particular were sensible, learned, well-bred, well-natured, moral men. These did not assault you in a rough, abrupt, offensive manner. No; you would then have armed yourself against them, and have repelled all their attacks. But by soft, delicate, unobserved touches, by pleasing strokes of raillery, by insinuations rather than surly arguments, they, by little and little, sapped the foundation of your faith: perhaps, not only of your living faith, your "evidence of things not seen;" but even of your notional. It is well if they left you so much as an assent to the Bible, or a belief, That Christ is God over all! And what was the consequence of this? Did not your love of God grow cold? Did not you measure back your steps to earth again?" Did not your love of the world revive? Even of those poor, low trifles, which in your very childhood you utterly despised? Where are you now? Full of faith? Looking into the Holiest, and seeing Him that is invisible? Does your heart now glow with love to Him, who is daily pouring his benefits upon you? Do you now even desire it? Do you now say, (as you did almost twenty years ago) Keep me dead to all below, Seeking all my bliss in Thee! Is your taste now for heavenly things? Are not you a lover of pleasure, more than a lover of God? And, O! what pleasure? What is the pleasure of visiting? Of modern conversation? Is there any more reason than religion in it? I wonder, what rational appetite does it gratify? Setting religion quite out of the question, I cannot conceive, how a woman of sense can-relish, should I say? No, but suffer so insipid an entertainment. O that the time past may suffice! Is it not now high time that you should awake out of sleep? Now God calls aloud! My dear lady, now hear the voice of the Son of God and live! The trouble in which your tender parent is now involved may restore all that reverence for her, which could not but be a little impaired, while you supposed she was "righteous over-much." O how admirably does God lay hold of, and "strengthen the things that remain in you?" Your gratitude, your humane temper; your generosity; your filial tenderness? And why is this, but to improve every right temper, to free you from all that is irrational or unholy, to make you all that you were, yea, all that you should be; to restore you to the whole image of God! 1 am, my Lady, your's, &c. J. WESLEY. TO LORD MY LORD, July 26, 1764. UPON an attentive consideration, it will appear to every impartial person, that the uniting of the serious clergy, in the manner I proposed in a former letter, is not a matter of indifferency; but what none can reject, unless at the peril of his own soul. For every article therein mentioned, is undeniably contained in the royal law, the law of love; and consequently the observance thereof, is bound upon every man, as indispensably necessary to salvation. It will appear farther, that every single person may observe it whether the other will or not. For many years, I, for instance, have observed this rule in every article. I labour to do so now, and will, by God's help, whatever others do, observe it to the end. I rejoice that your lordship so heartily concurs in doing what is in your power, to promote a general observance of it. Certainly this is not possible to be effected by merely human means: but it seems your lordship has taken one good step towards it, by communicating it to several. I am persuaded, at the same time, your lordship's approbation and wish is, that it might take place every where. The same step I purpose to take, by sending to each of those gentlemen, the substance of what I wrote to your lordship, and desiring them to tell me freely, whatever objections they have against such a union. As many of those as are grounded on reason, I doubt not, will be easily answered. Those only which spring from some wrong temper must remain, till that temper is subdued. For instance: first, we cannot unite, says one, because we cannot trust one another. I answer to your reason or understanding, no matter whether we can or not. Thus far we must unite, trust or not, otherwise we sin against God: secondly, I can trust you, why cannot you trust me? I can have no private end herein. I have neither personal hopes nor fears from you. I want nothing which you can give me; and I am not afraid of your doing me any hurt; though you may hurt yourself and the cause of God. But I cannot answer your envy, jealousy, pride, or credulity, as long as those remain. Objections, however cut off, will spring up again like hydras' heads. If your lordship has heard any objections, I should be glad to know them. May I be permitted to ask, Have not the objections you have heard, made some impression upon your lordship? Have they not occasioned (if I may speak freely) your lordship's standing aloof from me? Have they not set your lordship farther and farther off, ever since I waited upon you at? Why do I ask? Indeed not upon my own account. Quid mea? Ego in porto navigo. I can truly say, I neither fear, nor desire any thing from your lordship: to speak a rough truth, I do not desire any intercourse with any persons of quality in England. I mean, for my own sake: they do me no good, and I fear I can do none to them. If it be desired, I will readily leave all those to the care of my fellow-labourers. I will article with them so to do, rather than this shall be any bone of contention. Were I not afraid of giving your lordship pain, I would speak yet still further. Methinks you desire I should: that is, to tell you once for all, every thought that rises in my heart. I will then. At present I do not want you, but I really think you want me. For have you a person in all England, who speaks to your lordship so plain and downright as I do? Who remembers not the Peer, but the Man? not the Earl, but the immortal Spirit? Who rarely commends, but often blames, and perhaps would do it oftener if you desired it: who is jealous over you with a godly jealousy, lest you should be less a Christian by being a nobleman? Lest, after having made a fair advance towards heaven, you should measure back your steps to earth again. O my lord, is not such a person as this needful for you in the highest degree? If you have any such, I have no more to say, but that I pray God to bless him to your soul. If you have not, despise not even |