Through the Year with John Wesley

AUGUST 16

I cannot easily part with those I love.
Letter, 22nd October, 1777

They (the Methodists) have many schools for teaching, reading, writing and arithmetic, but only one for teaching the higher parts of learning. This is kept in Kingswood, near Bristol, and contains about forty scholars.
. . . . . . . . . .

Each preacher has his food wherever he labours and twelve pounds a year for clothes and other expenses. If he is married, he has ten pounds a year for his wife. This money is raised by the voluntary contributions of the Societies. It is by these likewise that the poor are assisted where the allowance fixed by the laws of the land does not suffice. Accordingly the stewards of the Societies in London distribute seven or eight pounds weekly among the poor.
. . . . . . . . . .

There are only three Methodist societies in America. … There are five preachers there.
to Professor John Liden of Lund, 1769

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 10:53 AM | Permalink

AUGUST 15

When I can learn nothing else, I like to learn the names of houses and villages as I pass them.
The Life of John Wesley by John Telford, p.272

You were never in your lives in so critical a situation as you are at this time. It is your part to be peacemakers, to be loving and tender to all, but to addict yourselves to no party. In spite of all solicitations, of rough or smooth words, say not one word against one or the other side. Keep yourselves pure, do all you can to help and soften all; but beware how you adopt another’s jar.

See that you act in full union with each other; this is of the utmost consequence. Not only let there be no bitterness or anger but no shyness or coldness between you.
to the Preachers in America, 1775

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 10:52 AM | Permalink

AUGUST 14

Surely the people of this place* were highly favored. Mercy embraced them on every side.
Journal, 28th March, 1790
* -- Burslem

There is, indeed, a wide difference between the relation wherein you stand to the Americans and the relation wherein I stand to all the Methodists. … I am under God the father of the whole family. Therefore I naturally care for you all in a manner no other persons can do. Therefore I in a measure for you all …

But in one point, my dear brother, I am a little afraid both the Doctor* and you differ from me. I study to be little: you study to be great. I creep: you strut along. I found a school: you a college! Nay, and call it after your own names! …

One instance of this has given me great concern. How can you, how dare you suffer yourself to be called Bishop? I shudder, I start at the very thought! Men may call me a knave or a fool, a rascal, a scoundrel, and I am content; but they shall never by my consent call me Bishop!
to Francis Asbury, 1788
* -- Thomas Coke

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 10:51 AM | Permalink

AUGUST 13

At all times it is of use to have a Friend to whom you can pour out your heart without any disguise or reserve.
Letter, 12th November, 1776

Abstain from all spirituous liquors. Touch them not on any pretence whatever.
. . . . . . . . . .

Every day of your life take at least an hour’s exercise … If you can, take it in the open air.
. . . . . . . . . .

Sleep early and rise early, unless you are ill.
. . . . . . . . . .

Beware of anger! Beware of worldly sorrow! Beware of the fear that hath torment! Beware of foolish and hurtful desires! Beware of inordinate affection! Remember the command: “My son, give me thy heart!”
Thoughts on Nervous Disorders

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 10:50 AM | Permalink

AUGUST 12

This doctrine* is the grand depositum which God has lodged with the people called Methodists; and for the sake of propagating this chiefly He appears to have raised us up.
Works, xiii. 9
* -- perfect love or entire sanctification

Is there no remedy for lowness of spirits? Undoubtedly there is, a most certain cure, if you are willing to pay the price for it. But this price is not silver or gold, nor anything purchasable thereby. If you would give all the substance of your house for it, it would be utterly despised. And all the medicines under the sun avail nothing in this distemper. The whole Materia Medica put together will do you no lasting service; they do not strike at the root of the disease; you must remove the cause, if you wish to remove the effect. But this cannot be done by your own strength; it can only be done by the mighty power of God. If you are convinced of this, set about it trusting in Him, and you will surely conquer.
Thoughts on Nervous Disorders

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 10:48 AM | Permalink

AUGUST 11

Why are we more nervous than our forefathers? Because we lie longer in bed; they, rich and poor, slept about eight, when they heard the curfew bell, and rose at four; the bell ringing at that hour (as well as at eight) in every parish in England. …

Yet something may be allowed to irregular passions for these undoubtedly affect the body, the nerves in particular. Even violent joy, though it raises the spirits for a time, does afterwards sink them greatly. And everyone knows what an influence fear has upon our whole frame. Nay, even hope deferred maketh the heart grow sick, puts the mind all out of tune. The same effect have all foolish and hurtful desires. They pierce us through with may sorrows.
Thoughts on Nervous Disorders

But let the “righteousness which is of God by faith” be brought in, and so shall its proud waves be stayed.
Works, v.15

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 4:28 PM | Permalink

AUGUST 10

1. Our design is, with God’s assistance, to train up children in all such things as are needful for them.
2. We take them between the ages of Six and Twelve in order to teach them Reading, Writing, and Sewing; and, if it be desired, the English Grammar, Arithmetic & other Sorts of Needlework.
3. It is our particular Desire, that all who are educated here, may be brought up in the fear of God; And at the utmost distance from Vice in general, so in particular from Idleness & Effeminacy. The Children therefore of tender parents so call’d 9who are indeed offering up their Sons and their Daughters unto Devils) have no Business here: for the rules will not be broken in favour of any person whatsoever. Nor is any Child received unless her parents agree, 1. That she shall observe all the Rules of the House, & 2. That they will not take her from School, no, not a Day, till they take her for good and all.
Rules for the Girls’ School at Kingswood

Can you empty the great deep drop by drop? Then you may reform us by dissuasives from particular vices.
Works, v.15

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 4:26 PM | Permalink

AUGUST 9

Here was my first irregularity, and it was not voluntary but constrained. The second was extemporary prayer. This likewise I believed to be my bounden duty, for the sake of those who desired to watch over their souls. I could not in conscience refrain from it.

When the people joined together, simply to help each other to heaven, increased by hundreds and thousands, still they had no more thought of leaving the Church than of leaving the kingdom. Nay, I continually and earnestly cautioned them against it; reminding them that we were a part of the Church of England.
Separation from the Church

There are no Methodists that will bear no restraints. Explain this at large to the Society.
Works, xiii. 164

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 4:25 PM | Permalink

AUGUST 8

From a child I was taught to love and reverence the Scriptures, the Oracles of God; and next to these, to esteem the Primitive Fathers, the Writers of the first three centuries. Next after the Primitive Church, I esteemed our own, the Church of England, as the most scriptural national Church in the world. I therefore, not only assented to all the doctrines , but observed all the rubric in the Liturgy; and that with all possible exactness.

In this judgment, and with this spirit, I went to America, strongly attached to the Bible, the Primitive Church, and the Church of England, from which I would not vary in one jot or tittle on any account whatever. In this spirit I returned as regular a clergyman as any in the three kingdoms; till after not being permitted to preach in the Churches, I was constrained to preach in the open air.
Separation from the Church

I can see nothing that I have done or suffered that will bear looking at. I have no other plea than this: I the chief of sinners am, but Jesus died for me.
Moore’s Life, II. 389

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 4:25 PM | Permalink

AUGUST 7

When I have an opportunity of doing good, I will permit no man to tie my hands.
Reynolds’ Anecdotes of Wesley, p.25

I firmly believe I am a scriptural episcopos as much as any man in England or in Europe. For the Uninterrupted Succession I know to be a fable which no man ever did or can prove. ...

I submit still (though sometimes with a doubting conscience) to Mitred Infidels. I do indeed vary from them in some points of doctrine and in some points of discipline: (by preaching abroad, for instance, by praying extempore, and by forming Societies.) but not a hair’s breadth further than I believe to be meet, right and my bounden duty. I walk still by the same rule I have done for between forty and fifty years. I do nothing rashly. It is not likely I should. The high day of my blood is over.
Separation from the Church

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 4:23 PM | Permalink

AUGUST 6

As to my own judgment, I still believe the episcopal form of Church government to be both scriptural and apostolical [sic], I mean, well agreeing with the practice and writings of the Apostles. But that it is prescribed in Scripture, I do not believe. This opinion, which I once zealously espoused, I have been heartily ashamed of, ever since I read Bishop Stillingfleet’s Irenicon. I think he has unanswerably proved that neither Christ nor His Apostles prescribe any particular form of Church government, and that the plea of divine right for diocesan episcopacy was never heard of in the Primitive Church.
to the Reverend James Clarke, 1756

If those who “gain all they can,” and “save all they can,” will likewise “give all they can”; then, the more they gain, the more they will grow in grace, and the more treasure they will lay up in heaven.
Works, xiii. 261

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 4:22 PM | Permalink

AUGUST 5

We honour the blessed Virgin as the Mother of the holy Jesus, and as she was a person of eminent piety; but we do not think it lawful to give that honour to her which belongs not to a creature and doth equal her with the Redeemer … We read nothing in the Bible of her bodily assumption into heaven nor of her exaltation to a throne above the angels and archangels.

. . . . . . . . . .

We freely own that Christ is to be adored in the Lord’s Supper; but that the elements are to be adored, we deny.
Reply to the Roman Catechism

The sea breezes may be of service to you, if you have constant exercise.
Letter, 15th September, 1777

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 4:21 PM | Permalink

AUGUST 4

It is a known principle of the Church of England that nothing is to be received as an article of faith, which is not read from the holy Scripture or to be inferred therefrom, by just and plain consequences.

. . . . . . . . . .

I lay this down as an undoubted truth: the more the doctrine of any Church agrees with the Scripture, the more readily ought it to be received. And on the other hand, the more the doctrine of any Church differs from the Scripture, the greater cause we have to doubt of it.
The Advantage of the Church of England

Joy you shall have, if joy be best.
Letter, 16th December, 1772

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 4:18 PM | Permalink

AUGUST 3

My dear Friend, Consider, I am not persuading you to leave or change your religion, but to follow after that fear and love of God without which all religion is vain. I say not a word to you about your opinions or outward manner of worship; but I say all worship is an abomination to the Lord unless you worship Him in spirit and in truth, with your heart as well as your lips, with your spirit and your understanding also. …

We ought, without this endless jangling about opinions, to provoke one an other to love and to good works. Let the points wherein we differ stand aside; here are enough wherein we agree, enough to be the ground of every Christian temper and of every Christian action.
To a Roman Catholic

I am now nearly as I was before my illness; but, I hope, more determined to sell all for the pearl.
Letter, 31st July, 1775

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 4:17 PM | Permalink

AUGUST 2

An evil practice is the depriving the laity of the Cup in the Lord’s Supper. It is acknowledged by all that our Lord instituted and delivered this Sacrament in both kinds, giving the wine as well as the bread to all that partook of it, and that it continued to be so delivered in the Church of Rome for above a thousand years. And yet, notwithstanding this, the Church of Rome now forbids the people to drink of the Cup. A more insolent and barefaced corruption cannot be easily conceived.

Another evil practice in the Church of Rome, utterly unheard of in the ancient Church, is that when there is none to receive the Lord’s Supper, the priest communicates it alone. (Indeed, it is not properly to communicate, when only one receives it.) This likewise is an absolute innovation in the Church of God.
Popery Calmly Considered

Oh what a pearl, of how great price, is the very lowest degree of the peace of God!
Works, xii. 170

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 4:16 PM | Permalink

AUGUST 1

The greatest abuse of all in the Lord’s Supper is the worshipping the consecrated bread. And this the Church of Rome not only practices, but positively enjoins.

. . . . . . . . . .

A more dangerous error in the Church of Rome is the forbidding the clergy to marry. … The Apostle, on the contrary, says: “Marriage is honourable in all.”

. . . . . . . . . .

Lastly, what can more directly tend to destroy truth from off the earth, than the doctrine of the Church of Rome that “no faith is to be kept with heretics”?
Popery Calmly Considered

I believe the merciful God regards the lives and tempers of men more than their ideas. I believe He respects the goodness of the heart more than the clearness of the head.
Works, vii. 354

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 4:12 PM | Permalink

JULY 31

We grant confession to men to be, in many cases, of use, public in case of public scandal; private to a spiritual guide for disburdening of the conscience, and as a help to repentance. But to make auricular confession or particular confession to a priest necessary to forgiveness and salvation, when God has not so made it, is apparently to teach for doctrine the commandment of men; and to make it necessary in all cases is to make of what may be a useful means, a dangerous snare, both to the confessor and those that confess.

. . . . . . . . . .

To pardon sin, and absolve the sinner judicially, so as the conscience may rest firmly upon it, is a power reserved by God to Himself.
Reply to the Roman Catechism

And invite all to this: one love, one present and eternal heaven.
Letter, 16th September, 1774

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 4:10 PM | Permalink

JULY 30

Is not Rome the mother of all Churches? We answer, No. The word of the Lord went forth from Jerusalem. There the Church began. She therefore, not the Church of Rome, is the mother of all Churches. The Church of Rome, therefore, has no right to require any person to believe what she teaches on her sole authority.

. . . . . . . . . .

The Church of Rome is no more the Church in general than the Church of England is. It is only one particular branch of the Catholic or Universal Church of Christ, which is the whole body of believers in Christ, scattered over the whole earth. … In all cases, the Church is to be judged by the Scripture, not the Scripture by the Church.
Popery Calmly Considered

Let your eye be single; aim still at one thing – holy loving faith; giving God the whole heart.
Letter, 16th September, 1774

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 4:09 PM | Permalink

JULY 29

The Service of the Roman Church is everywhere performed in the Latin tongue, which is nowhere vulgarly understood … This irrational and unscriptural practice destroys the great end of public worship.

. . . . . . . . . .

Scripture and antiquity are flatly against transubstantiation. And so are our very senses.
Popery Calmly Considered

The Church of Rome does not scruple to impose upon the consciences of men, in the doctrine of the Mass, various traditions, that have no authority in holy writ.
The Advantage of the Church of England

The Methodists must take heed to their doctrine, their experience, their practice, and their discipline.
to Robert Miller, 1783

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 4:07 PM | Permalink

JULY 28

By this time I should be some judge of man; and if I am, all England and Ireland cannot afford such a body of men, number for number, for sense and true experience both of men and things, as the body of Methodist preachers. Our leaders in London, Bristol and Dublin are by no means weal men. I would not be ashamed to compare them with a like number of tradesmen in every part of the three kingdoms. But I assure you they are no more than children compared to the preachers in Conference, as you would be thoroughly convinced could you but have the opportunity of spending one day among them.
to Alexander Clark, 1772

God keeps you long in this school that you may thoroughly learn to be meek and lowly in heart, and to seek all your happiness in God.
Letter, 27th January, 1776

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 4:06 PM | Permalink

JULY 27

Here therefore my scruples are at an end, and I conceive myself at full liberty, as I violate no order and invade no man’s right, by appointing and sending labourers into the harvest. … And I have prepared a liturgy, little differing from the of the Church of England (I think the best constituted national Church in the world) which I advise all the travelling [sic] preachers to use on the Lord’s Day, in all the congregations, reading the litany only on Wednesdays and Fridays, and praying extempore on all other days. I also advise the elders to administer the Supper of the Lord on every Lord’s Day.

If anyone will point out a more rational and scriptural way of feeding and guiding those poor sheep in the wilderness, I will gladly embrace it.
To American Methodists, 1784

Look up, and receive a fresh supply of grace.
Letter, 2nd March, 1773

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 4:04 PM | Permalink

JULY 26

The Great Salvation is at hand, if you will receive it as the gift of God.
Letter, 21st April, 1787

Lord King’s Account of the Primitive Church convinced me many years ago that bishops and presbyters are the same order, and consequently have the same right to ordain. For many years I have been importuned from time to time to exercise this right, by ordaining part of our travelling [sic] preachers. But I have still refused; not only for peace sake, but because I was determined as little as possible to violate the established order of the national Church to which I belonged.

But the case is widely different between England and North America. Here there are bishops who have a legal jurisdiction. In America, there are none, neither any parish ministers. So that for some hundred miles together there is none either to baptise [sic] or administer the Lord’s Supper.
To American Methodists, 1784

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 4:03 PM | Permalink

JULY 25

I went to a gentleman who is much troubled with what they call lowness of spirits. Many such have I been with before; but in several of them it was no bodily distemper. They wanted something, they knew not what; and were therefore heavy, uneasy, and dissatisfied with everything. The plain truth is, they wanted God, they wanted Christ, they wanted faith; and God convinced them of their want, in a way their physicians no more understood than themselves. Accordingly nothing availed till the great Physician came. For in spite of all natural means, He who made them for Himself would not suffer them to rest till they rested in Him.
Journal, 13th July, 1739

With what is past, or what is to come, we have little to do. Now is the day of Salvation.
Letter, 21st April, 1787

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 3:18 PM | Permalink

JULY 24

A loving word, spoken in faith, shall not fall to the ground.
. . . . . . . . . .

You have this treasure in an earthen vessel; you dwell in a poor shattered house of clay, which presses down the immortal spirit.
. . . . . . . . . .

The knowledge of ourselves is true humility; and without this we cannot be freed from vanity.
. . . . . . . . . .

It is a great thing to spend all our time to the glory of God.
Letter to Miss March, 1760-77

See that you be not ashamed of a good Master, nor of the least of His servants.
Letter, 18th January, 1776

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 3:17 PM | Permalink

JULY 23

I am now, and have been from my youth, a member and minister of the Church of England. And I have no desire to separate from it till my soul separates from my body. Yet if I were not permitted to remain therein without omitting what God requires me to do, it would then become meet and right and my bounden duty to separate from it without delay. To be more particular, I know God has committed me a dispensation of the Gospel. Yea, and my own salvation depends upon preaching it. “Woe is me if I preach not the Gospel.” If then I could not remain in the Church without omitting this, without desisting from preaching the Gospel, I should be under the necessity of separating from it or losing my own soul.
Schism

Blessed be God, I do not slack my labour; I can preach and write still.
Journal, 1st January, 1790

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 3:16 PM | Permalink

JULY 22

In like manner, if I could not continue united to any smaller Society, Church or body of Christians, without committing sin, without lying and hypocrisy, without preaching to others doctrines which I did not myself believe, I should be under an absolute necessity of separating from that Society. And in all these cases the sin of separation, with all the evils consequent upon it, would not lie upon me, but upon those who constrained me to make that separation, by requiring of me such terms of communion as I could not in conscience comply with. But setting aside this case, suppose the Church or Society to which I am now united, does not require me to do anything which the Scripture forbids, or to omit anything which the Scripture enjoins, it is then my indispensable duty to continue therein.
Schism

Envy will invent a thousand things, and with the most plausible circumstances.
Letter, 9th November, 1787

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 3:14 PM | Permalink

JULY 21

I have spoken the more explicitly upon this head because it is so little understood; because so many of those who profess much religion, nay, and really enjoy a measure of it, have not the least conception of this matter, neither imagine such a separation to be any sin at all. They leave a Christian Society with as much unconcern as they would go out of one room into another. They give occasion to all this complicated mischief; and wipe their mouth, and say they have done no evil! Whereas they are justly chargeable before God and man, both with an action that is evil in itself, and with all the evil consequences which may be expected to follow, to themselves, to their brethren and to the world.
Schism

Leave that with Him. The success is His. The work only is yours. Your point is this – work your work betimes; and in His time He will give you a full reward.
Letter, 4th November, 1774

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 6:22 PM | Permalink

JULY 20

Keep to the whole Methodist discipline whoever is pleased or displeased.
Letter, 29th April, 1776

The whole body of Roman Catholics define schism, a separation from the Church of Rome; and almost all our own writers define it, a separation from the Church of England. Thus both the one and the other set out wrong and stumble at the very threshold. …

The immense pains which have been taken both by Papists and Protestants in writing whole volumes against schisms as a separation whether from the Church of Rome or from the Church of England, have been employed to mighty little purpose. They have been fighting with shadows of their own raising.
Schism

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 6:21 PM | Permalink

JULY 19

Do not rashly tear asunder the sacred ties which unite you to any Christian Society. … Take care how you rend the Body of Christ, by separating from your brethren. It is a thing evil in itself. It is a sore evil in its consequences.

Beware of countenancing or abetting and Parties in a Christian Society. Never encourage, much less cause, either by word or action, any division therein. … Leave off contention before it is meddled with; shun the very beginning of strife.

Happy is he that attains the character of a peacemaker in the Church of God.
Schism

Never deny, never conceal, never speak doubtfully of what God hath wrought.
Letter, 12th November, 1776

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 6:20 PM | Permalink

JULY 18

10. Be punctual. Do everything exactly at the time. And, in general, do not mend our rules, but keep them: not for wrath but for conscience’ sake.

11. You have nothing to do but to save souls; therefore spend and be spent in this work. And go always, not to those that want you, but to those that want you most.

12. Act in all things, not according to your own will, but as a son in the Gospel; as such, it is your part to employ your time in the manner which we direct; partly in preaching and visiting from house to house; partly in reading, meditation and prayer. Above all, if you labour with us in our Lord’s vineyard, it is needful that you should do that part of the work which we advise, at those times and places which we judge most for His glory.
Rules of a Helper

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 5:25 PM | Permalink

JULY 17

6. Speak evil of no one; else your word especially would eat as doth a canker. Keep your thoughts within your own breast till you come to the person concerned.

7. Tell everyone what you think wrong in him, and that plainly, and as soon as may be, else it will fester in your heart. Make all haste to cast the fire out of your bosom.

8. Do not affect the gentleman. You have no more to do with his character than with that of a dancing-master. A preacher of the Gospel is a servant of all.

9. Be ashamed of nothing but sin; not of fetching wood (if time permit), or of drawing water; not of cleaning your own shoes or your neighbor’s.
Rules of a Helper

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 5:25 PM | Permalink

JULY 16

Keep your rules, and they will keep you.
Letter, 9th November, 1787

1. Be diligent. Never be unemployed a moment. Never be trifilingly [sic] employed. Never while away time; neither spend any more at any place than is strictly necessary.

2. Be serious. Let your motto be: Holiness to the Lord. Avoid all lightness, jesting and foolish talking.

3. Converse sparingly and cautiously with women; particularly with young women in private.

4. Take no step toward marriage without first acquainting us with your design.

5. Believe evil of no one, unless you see it done, take heed how you credit it. Put the best construction on everything. You know the judge is always supposed to be on the prisoner’s side.
Rule of a Helper

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 5:24 PM | Permalink

JULY 15

It is true, this cannot be done on a sudden; but it may between this and the next Conference. And even as to the drops that many have sold, if their wives sell them at home, well; but it is not proper for any preacher to hawk them about; it has a bad appearance; it does not suit well the dignity of his calling.

Two years after, it was agreed by all our brethren, that no preacher who will not relinquish his trade of buying and selling or of making and vending pills, drops, balsams or medicines of any kind, shall (not) be considered as a travelling [sic] preacher any longer; and that it shall be demanded of all those preachers who have traded in cloth, hardware, pills, drops, balsams or medicines of any kind, at the next Conference whether they have entirely left it off or not.
Minutes of Conversations, 1744

We cannot impute too much to divine Providence, unless we make it interfere with our free agency.
Letter, 26th April, 1777

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 5:23 PM | Permalink

JULY 14

Should our helpers follow trades?

This is an important question; therefore it will be proper to consider it thoroughly. The question is not whether they may occasionally work with their hands, as St. Paul did; but whether it be proper for them to keep shop and follow merchandise. Of those who do so at present, it may be observed, they are unquestionably upright men; they are men of considerable gifts. We see the fruit of their labour, and they have a large share in the esteem and love of the people. All this pleads on their side, and cannot but give us a prejudice in their favor. … But where will it stop? If one preacher follow trade, so may twenty; so may every one. And if any of them trade a little, why not ever so much? Who can fix how far he should go? Therefore, we advise our brethren who have been concerned herein, to give up all, and attend to the one business.
Minutes of Conversations, 1744

Every believer ought to enjoy life.
Letter, 27th July, 1787

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 5:23 PM | Permalink

JULY 13

The sum is: Go into every house, in course, and teach every one therein, young and old, if they belong to us, to be Christians inwardly and outwardly.

Make every particular plain to their understanding. Fix it in their memory. Write it on their heart. In order to (do) this, there must be “line upon line, precept upon precept.” I remember to have heard my father ask my mother: “How could you have the patience to tell that blockhead the same thing twenty times over?” She answered: “Why, if I had told him but nineteen times, I should have lost all my labour.” What patience indeed, what love, what knowledge is requisite for this!
Minutes of Conversations, 1744

Oh let no man think his labor of love is lost because the fruit does not immediately appear.
Journal, 13th June, 1742

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 3:21 PM | Permalink

JULY 12

Which is the best method of preaching?
i. to invite. ii. to convince. iii. to offer Christ. iv. to build up; and to do this, in some measure, in every sermon.
1. Be sure to begin and end, precisely at the time appointed.
2. Endeavour to be serious, weighty and solemn in your whole deportment before the congregation.
3. Always suit your subject to the audience.
4. Choose the plainest texts you can.
5. Take care not to ramble from your text, but keep close to it, and make out from it what you take in hand.
6. Beware of allegorizing or spiritualizing too much.
7. Take care of anything awkward or affected, either in your phrase, gesture or pronunciation.
Minutes of Conversations, 1744

However tempted thereto by profit or pleasure, contract no intimacy with worldy-minded men.
Letter, 1st August, 1786

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 3:20 PM | Permalink

JULY 11

Build all the preaching-houses, if the ground will permit, in the octagon form. It is best for the voice, and, on many accounts more commodious than any other. Let the roof arise one-third of the breadth; this is the true proportion. Have windows and doors enough; and let all the windows be sashed, opening downward. Let there be no tub-pulpit, but a square projection, with a long seat behind. Let there be no backs to the seats, which should have aisles on each side, and be parted in the middle by a rail running along, to divide the men from the women.
Minutes of Conversations, 1744

If we could bring all our preachers, itinerant and local, uniformly and steadily to insist on those two points, Christ dying for us, and Christ reigning in us, we should shake the trembling gates of hell.
Letter, 28th December, 1774

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 9:30 AM | Permalink

JULY 10

Believing is the act of man, but it is the gift of God.
to T. Lessey, 7th January, 1787

Gaining knowledge is a good thing; but saving souls is better. … You will have abundant time for gaining other knowledge if you spend all your mornings therein. Only sleep not more than you need; talk not more than you need; and never be idle, nor triflingly [sic] employed. But if you can do but one, either following your studies or by instructing the ignorant, let your studies alone. I would throw all the libraries in the world rather than be guilty of the perdition of one soul.
. . . . . . . . . . .
True, it is far easier to preach a good sermon than to instruct the ignorant in the principles of religion.
Minutes of Conversations, 1744

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 9:29 AM | Permalink

JULY 9

In the meantime it is your wisdom to make the full use of those which you have.
Letter, 1st August, 1786

Question: Do you not entail a schism on the Church? i.e. is it not probable that your hearers, after your death, will be scattered into all sects and parties, or that they will form themselves into a distinct sect?

Answer: 1. We are persuaded the body of our hearers will, even after our death, remain in the Church, unless they be thrust out.
2. We believe, notwithstanding, either that they will be thrust out, or that they will leaven the whole Church.
3. We do, and will do, all we can to prevent those consequences which are supposed likely to happen after our death.
4. but we cannot, with a good conscience, neglect the present opportunity of saving souls while we live, for fear of consequences which may possibly or probably happen after we are dead.
Minutes of Conversations, 1744

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 9:27 AM | Permalink

JULY 8

It is desired that all things be considered as in the immediate presence of God. That we may meet with a single eye, and as little children, who have everything to learn; that every point which is proposed may be examined to the foundation: that every person may speak freely whatever is in his heart; and that every question that arises may be thoroughly debated and settled …

While we are conversing let us have an especial care to set God always before us. In the intermediate hours, let us redeem all the time we can for private exercises. Therein let us give ourselves to prayer for one another and for a blessing on this our labour.
Minutes of Conversations, 1744

If He sees, and when He sees best, He will put more talents into your hands.
Letter, 1st August, 1786

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 8:08 AM | Permalink

JULY 7

The greatest hindrances … you are to expect from the rich or cowardly or lazy Methodists. But regard them not, neither stewards, leaders nor people. Whenever the weather will permit, go out, in God’s name, into the most public places, and call all to repent and believe the Gospel; every Sunday in particular.

Question: What may we reasonably expect to be God’s design in raising up the preachers called Methodists?
Answer: To reform the nation, particularly the Church; to spread Scriptural holiness over the land.
Minutes of Conversations, 1744

A little fatigue I do not regard, but I cannot afford to lose time.
Letter, 17th February, 1776

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 10:58 AM | Permalink

JULY 6

Then many of the Methodists growing rich, became lovers of the present world. Next they married unawakened or half-awakened wives, and conversed with their relations. Hence, worldly prudence, maxims, customs, crept back upon them, producing more and more conformity to the world. Hence followed gross neglect of relative duties, especially education of children. And this is not easily cured by the Preachers.
Minutes of Conversations, 1744

The poor are the Christians. Let us take care to lay up our treasure in heaven.
Letter, 30th September, 1786

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 10:57 AM | Permalink

JULY 5

What servants, journeymen, labourers, carpenters, bricklayers, do as they would be done by? Which of them does as much work as he can? Set him down for a knave that does not.

Who does as he would be done by, in buying and selling, particularly in selling horses? Write him knave that does not. And the Methodist knave is the worst of all knaves.
Minutes of Conversations, 1744

Be honest, not purloining, not secreting or privately keeping back anything for yourself; not taking, using, disposing or giving away the least thing belonging to your employer, without his leave, without his knowledge and consent first asked and then obtained. To do otherwise is no better then plain theft and cuts off all pretensions to honesty. Equally dishonest it is to hurt or waste anything, or to let it be lost through your carelessness or negligence.
Directions to Servants

The righteousness of Christ is necessary to entitle us to heaven, personal holiness to qualify us for it.
Works, vii. 314

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 10:56 AM | Permalink

JULY 4

For what avails public preaching alone, though we could preach like angels?

I heard Dr. Lupton say, my father, visiting one of his parishioners, who had never missed going to Church for forty years, then lying on his death-bed, asked him: “Thomas, where do you think your soul will go?” “Soul! Soul!” said Thomas. “Yes, do you not know what your soul is?” “Aye, surely,” said he, “Why, it is a little bone in the back, that lives longer than the rest of the body.” So much Thomas had learned by constantly hearing good sermons, for forty years!
Minutes of Conversations, 1744

It is a rule with me to take nothing ill that is well meant.
Letter, 25th September, 1757

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 10:55 AM | Permalink

JULY 3

After all our preaching, many of our people are almost as ignorant as if they had never heard the Gospel. I study to speak as plainly as I can; yet I frequently meet with those who have been my hearers for many years, who know not whether Christ be God or man; or that infant shave any original sin. And how few are there that know the nature of repentance, faith and holiness! Most of them have a sort of confidence that Christ will justify and save them, while the world has their hearts, and they live to themselves. And I have found, by experience, that one of these has learned more from an hour’s close discourse than from ten years’ public preaching.
Minutes of Conversations, 1744

You may line in and to Jesus; yea, and that continually, by simple faith, and holy, humble love.
Letter, 12th August, 1769

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 10:55 AM | Permalink

JULY 2

What cause have we to bleed before the Lord this day, that have so long neglected this great and good work! That have been preachers so many years, and have done so little by personal instruction for the saving of men’s souls! If we had but set on this work sooner, how many more might have been brought to Christ! And how much holier and happier might we have made our Societies before now! And why might we have not done it sooner? There were many hindrances in the way; and so there are still, and always will be; but the greatest hindrance was in ourselves, in our dulness [sic] and littleness of faith and love.
Minutes of Conversations, 1744

You like to be honored, but had you not rather be beloved?
Works, vii. 146

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 10:53 AM | Permalink

JULY 1

On the notice of my death, let all the preachers in England and Ireland repair to London within six weeks.

Let them seek god by solemn fasting and prayer.

Let them draw up articles of agreement to be signed by those who choose to act in concert.

Let those be dismissed who do not choose it in the most friendly manner possible.

Let them choose by votes a committee of three, five or seven, each of whom is to be Moderator in his turn.

Let the Committee do what I do now; propose preachers to be tried, admitted or excluded; fix the place of each preacher for the ensuing year and the time of the next Conference.
To The Travelling [sic] Preachers, 1769

How amiable is courtesy joined to sincerity!
Wesley Studies, p.203

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 10:52 AM | Permalink

JUNE 30

How soon may you hear “the voice that speaks Jehovah near!” Why shall it not be today?
Letter, 26th January, 1774

You are at present one body. You act in concert with each other and by united councils. And now is the time to consider what can be done in order to continue this union. Indeed, as long as I live there will be no great difficulty. I am, under God, a centre of union to all our travelling [sic] as well as local preachers. …

Those who desire or seek any earthly thing, whether honour, profit or ease, will not, cannot continue in the Connexion; it will not answer their design. Some of them, perhaps a fourth of the whole number, will secure preferment in the Church. Others will turn Independents, and get separate congregations.
To The Travelling [sic] Preachers, 1769

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 9:36 AM | Permalink

JUNE 29

Keep at the utmost distance from foolish desires, from desiring any happiness but in God.
Works, xi, 462

I find no decay in my hearing, smell, taste or appetite (though I want but a third of the food I did once), nor do I feel any such thing as weariness, either in traveling or preaching. And I am not conscious of any decay in writing sermons, which I do as readily and, I believe, as correctly as ever.

To what causes can I impute this, that I am as I am? First, doubtless to the power of God, fitting me for the work to which I am called, as long as he pleases to continue me therein; and next, subordinately to this, to the prayers of His children.
Journal, 28th June, 1782

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 9:32 AM | Permalink

JUNE 28

I entered into my eightieth year; but, blessed be God, my time is not “labour and sorrow.” I find no more pain or bodily infirmities than at five-and-twenty.
Journal, 28th June, 1782

I this day enter on my eighty-fifth year. And what cause have I to praise God as for a thousand spiritual blessings, so for bodily blessings also! How little have I suffered yet by “the rush of numerous years.” It is true, I am not so agile as I was in times past; I do not run or walk so fast as I did. My sight is a little decayed. My left eye is grown dim and hardly serves me to read. I have daily some pain in the ball of my right eye, as also in my right temple (occasioned by a blow received some months since), and in my right shoulder and arm, which I impute partly to a sprain and partly to the rheumatism. I find likewise some decay in my memory. …
Journal, 28th June, 1788

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 8:28 AM | Permalink

JUNE 27

Nothing but the mighty power of God can enable him (John Howard) to go through his difficult and dangerous employments. But what can hurt us, if God is on our side?
Journal, 28th June, 1787

Without putting on spectacles (which, blessed be God, I do not wear) I can read a little Latin still.
Freeman’s Journal, 1780

I can face the north wind at seventy-seven better than I could at seven and twenty.
to Samuel Bradburn, 1781

This is the last day of my seventy-eighth year; and (such is the power of God) I fell as if it were my twenty-eighth.
to Charles Wesley, 1781

I am half blind and half lame; but by the help of God I creep on still.
to Thomas Greathead, 1791

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 8:27 AM | Permalink

JUNE 26

You are encompassed with ten thousand mercies; let these sink you into humble thankfulness.
Letter, 26th April, 1777

How impossible it is for a man to see things right when he is angry? Does not passion blind the eyes of the understanding as smoke does the bodily eyes? And how little of the truth can we learn from those who see nothing but through a cloud?

Correction must not be given in anger; if it be so, it will lose its effect on the child, who will think he is corrected, not because he has done a fault, but because the parent is angry.
The Duties of Husbands and Wives, 1770

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 8:26 AM | Permalink

JUNE 25

Beware of indulging gloomy thoughts: they are the bane of thoughtfulness.
Letter, 26th April, 1777

I know not that you have anything to do with fear. Your continual prayer should be for faith and love. I admire a holy man in France who, considering the state of one who was full of doubts and fears, forbade him to think of his sins at all, and ordered him to think only of the love of God in Christ. The fruit was, all his fears vanished away, and he lived and died in the triumph of his faith.
to Mary Bishop, 1770

You fear when no fear is.
to Zachariah Yewdall, 1782

Do right and fear nothing.
to William Holmes, 1788

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 8:24 AM | Permalink

JUNE 24

I abhor the thought of giving to twenty men the power to place or displace the preachers in their congregations. How would he then dare to speak an unpleasing truth? And if he did, what would become of him? This must never be the case, while I live, among the Methodists. … The point must be carried for the Methodist preachers now or never; and I alone can carry it; which I will, God being my helper.
to Samuel Bradburn, 1782

Many years ago, one informed me at London: “The stewards have discovered they are not your stewards, but the people’s, and are to direct, not be directed by you.” The next Sunday I let them drop, and named seven other stewards.

No contentious person shall for the future meet in any Conference. They may dispute elsewhere if they please.
to Thomas Wride, 1785

Still be ready to do and to suffer the whole will of God.
Letter, 21st January, 1777

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 8:23 AM | Permalink

JUNE 23

As long as I live the people shall have no share in choosing either stewards or leaders among the Methodists. We have not and never had any such custom. We are no republicans and never intend to be. It would be better for those that are so minded to go quietly away. I have been uniform both in doctrine and discipline for above these fifty years; and it is a little too late for me to turn to a new path now I am grey-headed.
to John Mason, 1790

It is not possible to avoid all pleasure even of sense, without destroying the body; neither doth God require it at our hands.
Works, xi. 461

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 8:22 AM | Permalink

JUNE 22

I must declare what I find in the Book.
Journal, 2nd November, 1772

Can any man seriously think I despise learning who has ever heard of the school at Kingswood? especially if he knows with how much care and expense and labour I have kept it on foot these twenty years? Let him but read the rules of Kingswood School, and he will urge this objection no more. …

I do not depreciate learning of any kind. The knowledge of the languages is a valuable talent, so is the knowledge of the arts and sciences. Both the one and the other may be employed to the glory of God and the good of man. But yet I ask, Where hath God declared in His Word that He cannot or will not make us e of men that have it not? … You know the apostles themselves, all except St. Paul, were common, unphilosophical, unlettered men.
to Dr. Thomas Rutherford, 1768

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 8:21 AM | Permalink

JUNE 21

I have sometimes thought you are a little like me. My wife used to tell me: “My dear, you are too generous. You don’t know the value of money.” I could not wholly deny the charge. Possibly you may sometimes lean to the extreme. I know you are of a generous spirit. You have an open heart and an open hand. But may it no sometimes be too open, more so than your circumstances will allow.

Is it not an instance of Christian (as well as worldly) prudence, to cut our coat according to our cloth? If your circumstances are a little narrower, should you not contract your expenses too? I need but just give you this hint, which I doubt not you will take kindly.
to his sister-in-law, Mrs. Charles Wesley, 1788

On Scripture and common sense I build all my principles.
to Samuel Sparrow, 1773

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 8:20 AM | Permalink

JUNE 20

It is a stated rule in interpreting Scripture, never to depart from the plain, literal sense, unless it applies an absurdity.
The Church

There are two general ways wherein it pleases God to lead His children to perfection: Doing and Suffering. And let Him take one or the other, we are assured His way is best.
Letter, 17th February, 1774

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 8:19 AM | Permalink

JUNE 19

This is my answer to them that trouble me, and will not let my grey hairs go down to the grave in peace. I am not a man of duplicity; I am not an old hypocrite, a double-tongued knave. … I have no temporal end to serve. I seek not the honour that cometh of men. It is not for pleasure that at this time of life I travel three or four thousand miles a year.
to The Dublin Chronicle, 1789

Leisure and I have taken leave of one another; I propose to be busy as long as I live, if my health is so long indulged to me. In health and sickness I hope I shall ever continue with the same sincerity.
to his brother Samuel, 1726

Dost thou love and serve God? It is enough. I give thee the right hand of fellowship.
Works, viii. 347

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 8:18 AM | Permalink

JUNE 18

I advise you: (1) be electrified (if need be) eight or ten times. (2) keep your body always open, and that by food (as baked, boiled or roasted apples) rather than by physic. (3) Wash your head every morning with cold water, and rub it well with coarse hempen towel. (4) I advise you and Sister Taylor to breakfast three or four weeks on nettle tea. Then you will find preaching, especially in the morning, one of the noblest medicines in the world.
to Thomas Taylor, 1775

O John, pray for an advisable and teachable temper.
Letter, 28th July, 1775

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 8:17 AM | Permalink

JUNE 17

I am glad you come a little nearer the good old Emperor’s advice: “Throw away that thirst for books.”* That thirst is the symptom of an evil disease; and “his own indulgence makes the dreadful dropsy grow.”** What is the real value of a thing but the price it will bear in eternity! Let no study swallow up or entrench upon the hours of private prayer. Nothing is of so much importance. Simplify both religion and every part of learning as much as possible. Be all alive to God, and you will be useful to men.
to Joseph Benson, 1770

* - Marcus Aurelius ** - Horace

O what a deal of work has our Lord to do here on earth! And may we be workers together with Him!
to Letter, 13th May, 1774

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 5:27 AM | Permalink

JUNE 16

I impose my opinions on none. … I make no opinion the term of union with any man; I think and let think. What I want is holiness of heart and life.

. . . . . . . . .

I desire to have a league offensive and defensive, with every soldier of Christ. We have not only one faith, one hope, one Lord, but are directly engaged in one warfare. We are carrying the war into the devil’s own quarters, who therefore summons all his hosts to war. Come then, ye that love Him, to the help of the Lord against the mighty!
to the Rev. J. Venn, 1763

You work for a generous Master. Fight on and conquer all.
Works, xii. 395; Letter, 16th December, 1772

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 5:33 AM | Permalink

JUNE 15

In the evening I went to a Society in Wapping, weary in body and faint in spirit. I intended to speak on Romans 3:19, but could not tell how to open my mouth; and, all the time we were singing, my mind was full of some place, I knew not where, in the Epistle to the Hebrews. I begged God to direct, and opened the book on Hebrews 10:19: “Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which He hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh, – let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.”
Journal, 15th June, 1739

This is the work which I know God has called me to; and sure I am that His blessing attends it.
Journal, 11th June, 1739

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 5:32 AM | Permalink

JUNE 14

A true Protestant believes in God, has a full confidence of His mercy, fears Him with a filial fear, and loves Him with all his soul. He worships God in spirit and in truth; in everything gives Him thanks; calls upon Him with his heart as well as his lips at all times and in all places; honours His holy Name and His Word, and serves Him truly all the days of his life.
To A Roman Catholic

The doing all which religion requires will not lessen, but immensely increase, our happiness.
Works, vii. 500

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 5:31 AM | Permalink

JUNE 13

When I had lived upwards of thirty years, I looked upon myself to stand just in the same relation to my father as I did when I was ten years old. And when I was between forty and fifty, I judged myself fully as much obliged to obey my mother in everything lawful, as I did when I was in my leading-strings.

. . . . . . . . .

Do nothing which you know your parents disapprove.

. . . . . . . . .

I call those cruel parents, who pass for kind and indulgent; who permit their children to contract habits which they know must be afterwards broken.
Obedience to Parents

I frequently find a want of more light; but I want heat more than light.
Letter, 3rd May, 1777

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 5:30 AM | Permalink

JUNE 12

I allow that what is commonly called a religious education frequently does more hurt than good; and that many of the persons who were so educated are sinners above other men, and have contracted an enmity to religion which usually continues all their lives. And this will naturally be the case, if either the religion wherein they are instructed or the manner of instructing then be wrong. How few there are of those that undertake the education of children who understand the nature of religion, who know what true religion us!
Thoughts on Education

I love the poor: in many of them I find pure genuine grace, unmixed with paint, folly, and affectation.
Letter, 25th September, 1757

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 5:29 AM | Permalink

JUNE 11

I have often thought of saying of Dr. Hayward’s when he examined me for priest’s orders: “Do you know what you are about? You are bidding defiance to all mankind. He that would live a Christian priest ought to know that, whether his hand be against every man or no, he must expect every man’s hand should be against him.” It is not strange that every man’s hand who is not a Christian should be against him that endeavours to be so. But is it not hard that even those that are with us should be against us? That a man’s enemies (in some degree) should be those of the same household of faith? Yet so it is. From a time that a man sets himself to his business, very many, even of those who travel the same road, many of those who are before as well as behind him, will lay stumbling-blocks in his way.
to Samuel Wesley, June, 1731

The way to heaven is singularity all over. If you move but one step towards God, you are not as other men are.
Sermon XXVI., §4

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 5:27 AM | Permalink

JUNE 10

Do as much today as you can do without hurting yourself, or disabling you from doing the same tomorrow.
Works, iv.232 (1771 edition)

It is a bad dog that is not worth whistling for.
to Charles Wesley, 1786

A little well-placed raillery will often pierce deeper than solid argument.
The Duty of Reproving Our Neighbour

Is there any fool or madman under heaven who can be compared to him that casts away his own soul, though it were to gain the whole world?
The Important Question

Let the frog swell as long as he can, he will not equal the ox.
to John Downes, 1759

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 2:34 PM | Permalink

JUNE 9

You are no more at liberty to throw away your health than to throw away your life.
Letter, 13th July, 1774

God does not expect us to be sticks or stones. We may grieve and yet not murmur.
to his niece, Sarah Wesley, 1788

You have your hands full of business; but it will not hurt you while your heart is free.
to Ann Bolton, 1783

True religion has nothing sour, austere, unsociable, unfriendly in it.
to Mrs, Chapman, 1737

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 2:33 PM | Permalink

JUNE 8

It is mere groundless imagination that I love persons less for their plain dealing.
Letter, 1st November, 1779

Peter Jaco would willingly travel. But how? Can you help us to a horse that would carry him and his wife? What a pity we could not procure a camel or elephant!
to Christopher Hopper, 1773

I must be on horseback for life, if I would be healthy. Now and then indeed, if I could afford it, I should rest myself for fifty miles in a chaise; but without riding near as much as I do now, I must never look for health.
to Ebenezer Blackwell, 1764

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 2:32 PM | Permalink

JUNE 7

There is a reward for bearing as well as doing His will.
Letter, 2nd March, 1773

It was from an ancient sect of physicians, whom we were supposed to resemble in our regular diet and exercise, that we were originally styled Methodists. … We were High Churchmen in the strongest sense. But we acknowledge as brethren all Dissenters, whether they are Methodist or not.
to Dr. Free, 1758

I positively forbid you or any preacher to be a leader; rather put the most insignificant person in each class to be the leader of it.
to John Cricket, 1783

It is right to add as much solemnity as we can to the admission of new members.
to John Valton, 1783

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 2:31 PM | Permalink

JUNE 6

Labour to be serious, earnest, edifying in your daily conversations.
Letter, 10th August, 1779

The Methodists in general, my Lord, are members of the Church of England. They hold all her doctrines, attend her Service, and partake of her Sacraments. … For what reasonable end would your Lordship drive these people out of the Church? Are they not as quiet, as inoffensive, nay, as pious, as any of their neighbours, except perhaps here and there a hair-brained man who knows not what he is about? … Is it a Christian, yea, a Protestant Bishop, that so persecutes his own flock?
to Dr. Tomline, Bishop of Lincoln, 1790

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 2:29 PM | Permalink

JUNE 5

Stir yourself up before the Lord! Pray that you may be all alive.
Letter, 10th August, 1779

1. I always use a short, private prayer when I attend the service of God …
2. I stand whenever I sing the praise of God in public. …
3. I always kneel before the Lord my Maker when I pray in public.
4. I generally in public use the Lord’s Prayer, because Christ has taught me, when I pray, to say: Our Father.

I advise every preacher connected with me, herein to tread in my steps.
Journal, 5th June, 1766

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 2:28 PM | Permalink

JUNE 4

Walk in the narrowest path of the narrow way, and the Spirit of Glory and of Christ shall rest upon you.
Letter, 12th August, 1774

Loyalty is with me an essential branch of religion, and which I am sorry any Methodist should forget. There is the closest connexion [sic], therefore, between my religious and my political conduct. The selfsame authority enjoining me to fear God and to honour the King.
to Elizabeth Ritchie, 1779

The supposition that the people are the origin of power is every way indefensible.
Thoughts Concerning the Origin of Power

You will never see yourself aright, till He light His candle in your breast.
Works, IX: 464

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 2:26 PM | Permalink

JUNE 3

You believe there is such a thing as light, whether flowing from the sun or any other luminous body. But you cannot comprehend either its nature or the manner wherein it flows. How does it move from Jupiter to the earth in eight minutes, two hundred thousand miles in a moment? How do the rays of the candle brought into the room instantly disperse into every corner? Here are three candles, yet there is but one light. Explain this, and I will explain the Three-One God.

The knowledge of the Three-One God is interwoven with all true Christian faith, with all vital religion.
The Trinity

I care not for labour, but I want time.
Letter, 23rd October, 1779

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 2:25 PM | Permalink

JUNE 2

I dare not insist on anyone’s using the word Trinity or Person. I use them myself without any scruple because I know of none better. But if any man has any scruple concerning them, who shall constrain him to use them? I cannot; much less would I burn a man alive, and that with moist green wood, for saying: “Though I believe the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God, yet I scruple using the words Trinity and Person because I do not find those terms in the Bible.” … I would insist only on the direct words unexplained, just as they lie in the text: “There are Three that bear record in Heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these Three are One.”
The Trinity

And if you use the whole power which is then given, He will not only continue that power, but increase it day by day.
Letter, 3rd June, 1774

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 2:23 PM | Permalink

JUNE 1

Of all preaching, what is usually called Gospel preaching is the most useless, if not the most mischievous; a dull, yea or lively, harangue on the sufferings of Christ or salvation by faith without strongly inculcating holiness. I see more and more that this naturally tends to drive holiness out of the world.
to Charles Wesley, 1772

Do not lightly take the Name of God in your mouth; do not talk of the will of God on every trifling occasion.
The Nature of Enthusiasm

When we are justified, He gives us one talent; to those who use this He gives more. When we are sanctified, He gives us as it were five talents.
Letter, 3rd June, 1779

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 2:22 PM | Permalink

MAY 31

The Lord reigneth and disposes all things, strongly and sweetly, for the good of them that love Him.
Letter, 11th February, 1779

Who was the occasion of the Methodist preachers first setting foot in Leeds? William Shent.

Who was it that invited me and received me when I came? William Shent.

Who was it that stood by me while I preached in the street with stones flying on every side? William Shent.

Who was it that bore the storm of persecution for the whole town and stemmed it at the peril of his life? William Shent.

Whose word did God bless for many years in an eminent manner? William Shent’s.

Who is he that is ready to be broken up and turned into the street? William Shent.

And does nobody care for this? William Shent fell into sin and was publicly expelled the Society; but must he also be starved? … Where is gratitude? Where is compassion? Where is Christianity? Where is humanity? … Let us set him on his feet once more.
to the Society at Keighley, 1779

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 2:43 PM | Permalink

MAY 30

What was their fundamental doctrine? That the Bible is the whole and sole rule both of Christian faith and practice. Hence they learned, I. That religion is an inward principle; that it is none other than the mind that was in Christ; or, in other words, the renewal of the soul after the image of God, in righteousness and true holiness; 2. That this can never be wrought in us, but by the power of the Holy Ghost, 3. That we receive this and every other blessing, merely for the sake of Christ; and, 4. That whosoever hath the mind that was in Christ, the same is our brother and sister and mother.
Thoughts Upon Methodism

Chance has no share in the government of the world.
Letter, 11th February, 1779

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 2:42 PM | Permalink

MAY 29

In November, a large building, the Foundery [sic], being offered him, he began preaching therein, morning and evening; at five in the morning, and seven in the evening, that the people’s labour might not be hindered. From the beginning, the men and women sat apart, as they always did in the Primitive Church. And none were suffered to call any place their own, but the first comers sat down first. They had no pews; and all the benches for rich and poor, were of the same construction. Mr. Wesley began the service with a short prayer; then sung a hymn and preached (usually about half an hour), then sang a few verses of another hymn, and concluded with prayer. His constant doctrine was salvation by faith, preceded by repentance, and followed by holiness.
Thoughts Upon Methodism

If you have two or three that are strong in faith, they will wrestle with God in mighty prayer, and bring down a blessing on all that are round about them.
Letter, 11th February, 1779

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 2:40 PM | Permalink

MAY 28

Still I insist, the fact (of the Trinity) you believe, you cannot deny; but the manner you cannot comprehend.
Sermon, LV, 7

In the year 1729 four young students in Oxford agreed to spend their evenings together. They were all zealous members of the Church of England, and had no peculiar opinions, but were distinguished only by their constant attendance on the Church and Sacrament. In 1735 they were increased to fifteen, when the chief of them embarked for America, intending to preach to the heathen Indians. Methodism then seemed to die away; but it revived again in the year 1738, especially after Mr. Wesley (not being allowed to preach in the Churches) began to preach in the fields.
Thoughts Upon Methodism

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 2:38 PM | Permalink

MAY 27

The knowledge of the Three-One-God is interwoven with all true Christian faith; with all vital religion.
Sermon, LV, 7

Give me leave, my Lord, to say you have mistook and misrepresented this whole affair from the top to the bottom. And I am the more concerned to take notice of this because so many have fallen into the same mistake. It is indeed, and has been from the beginning, the capital blunder of our bitterest adversaries. … It is not our care, endeavour or desire to proselyte any from one man to another; or from one Church, from one congregation or Society, to another, – we would not move a finger to do this, to make ten thousand such proselytes, – but from darkness to light, from Belial to Christ, from the power of Satan to God. Our one aim is to proselyte sinners to repentance.
to Dr. Gibson, Bishop of London, 1747

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 11:25 AM | Permalink

MAY 26

Yet the enemy injected a fear: “If thou dost believe, why is there not a more sensible change?” I answered (yet not I): “That I know not. But this I know: I now have peace with God. And I sin not to-day, and Jesus has forbid me to take thought for the morrow.”

“But is not any sort of fear,” continued the tempter, “a proof that thou dost not believe?” I desired my Master to answer for me, and opened His Book upon those words of St. Paul: “Without were fightings, within were fears.” Then, inferred I, well may fears be within me; but I must go on and tread them under my feet.
Journal, 25th May, 1738

Beware of lukewarmness. Beware of cleaving to the present world. Let your treasure and your heart be above.
Letter, 27th November, 1783

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 11:23 AM | Permalink

MAY 25

The moment I awakened, “Jesus, Master,” was in my heart, and in my mouth; and I found all my strength lay in keeping my eye fixed on Him, and my soul waiting on Him continually. Being again at St. Paul’s in the afternoon, I could taste the good word of God in the anthem: “My song shall be always of the lovingkindness of the Lord; with my mouth will I ever be showing forth Thy truth from one generation to another.”

. . . . . . . . . .

All these days I scarce remember to have opened the Testament but upon some great and precious promise. And I saw more than ever, that the Gospel is in truth but one great promise from the beginning of it to the end.
Journal, 25th May, 1738

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 11:22 AM | Permalink

MAY 24

In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me, that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.

I began to pray with all my might. … I then testified openly. … Then was I taught that peace and victory over sin are essential to faith in the Captain of our salvation.
Journal, 24th May, 1738

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 11:21 AM | Permalink

MAY 23

In this refined way of trusting to my own works and my own righteousness, I dragged on heavily, finding no comfort or help therein, till the time of my leaving England. On shipboard, however, I was again active in outward works; where it pleased God of His free mercy to give me twenty-six of the Moravian brethren for companions, who endeavoured to show me a more excellent way. But I understood it not at first. I was too learned and too wise. So that it seemed foolishness to me. And I continued preaching, and following after, and trusting in, that righteousness whereby no flesh can be justified.

All the time I was at Savannah I was thus beating the air. … I sought to establish my own righteousness; and so laboured in the fire all my days.
Journal, 24th May, 1738

Cleave to Him with your whole heart, and you will have more and more reason to praise Him.
Letter, 13th November, 1778

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 10:18 AM | Permalink

MAY 22

Look up, and wait for happy days!
Letter, 26th October, 1778

When I was about twenty-two, my father pressed me to enter into holy orders. … I began to alter the whole form of my conversation, and to set in earnest upon a new life. I set apart an hour or two a day for religious retirement. I communicated every week, I watched against all sin, whether in word or deed. I began to aim at, and pray for, inward holiness. So that now, doing so much, and living so good a life, I doubted not but I was a good Christian. …

I began to see more and more the value of time. I applied myself closer to study … I advised others to be religious. … The light flowed in so mightily upon my soul, that everything appeared in a new view.
Journal, 24th May, 1738

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 10:17 AM | Permalink

MAY 21

Whenever the Holy Ghost teaches, there is no delay in learning.
Works, VII, 32.

You know it is very natural for me to estimate wisdom and goodness by years, and to suppose the longest experience must be the best. But although there is much advantage in long experience, and we may trust an old soldier more than a novice; yet God is tied down to no rules; he frequently works a great work in a little time, He makes young men and women wiser than the aged, and gives to many in a very short time, a closer and deeper communion with Himself than others attain in a long course of years.
to Miss March, 1774

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 11:19 AM | Permalink

MAY 20

I received the surprising news that my brother had found rest to his soul. His bodily strength also returned from that hour. “Who is so great a God as our God?”
Journal, 19th May, 1738

I was much concerned yesterday when I heard you were likely to marry a woman against the consent of your parents. I have never in an observation of fifty years known such a marriage attended with a blessing. I know not how it should be, since it is flatly contrary to the fifth commandment. I told my own mother, when pressing me to marry: “I dare not allow you a positive voice herein; I dare not marry a person because you bid me. But I must allow you a negative voice: I will marry no person if you forbid. I know it would be a great sin against God.”
to Elijah Bush, 1781

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 11:17 AM | Permalink

MAY 19

Loyalty in with me an essential branch of religion.
Letter, 25th June, 1777

I take knowledge, you are a young man; and as such, extremely peremptory. So was I, till I was more than thirty years old. So I may well make allowance for you. I was likewise as much bigoted to my own opinions as you can be for your life; that is, I thought them deeply important, and that all contrary opinions were damnable errors. Have patience and you will see farther. In a few years you will find out that neither these are half so necessary to salvation, nor those half so destructive as you now imagine.

. . . . . . .

Jealousy and suspiciousness I despise and abhor, as I do hell-fire. And I believe nothing, great or small, without such kind of proof and the nature of the thing allows.
to Samuel Furly, 1762

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 11:16 AM | Permalink

MAY 18

Work your work betimes; and in His time He will give you a full reward.
Letter, 1st November, 1778

There is no other religious Society under heaven which requires nothing of men in order to their admission into it, but a desire to save their souls. Look all around you, you cannot be admitted into the Church or Society of the Presbyterians, Anabaptists, Quakers, or any others, unless you hold the same opinions with them, and adhere to the same mode of worship. The Methodists alone do not insist on your holding this or that opinion, but they think and let think. Neither do they impose any particular mode of worship, but you may continue to worship in your former manner, be it what it may.
Journal, 18th May, 1788

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 11:16 AM | Permalink

MAY 17

The more labour, the more blessing.
Letter, 9th October 1779

Woman, remember the faith! In the name of God, set out again, and do the first works … Begin again without delay. The day after you receive this, go and meet a class or a band. Sick or well, go! If you cannot speak a word, go; and God will go with you. You sink under the sin of omission.
to Ann Bolton, 1790

I have been often musing upon this: Why the generality of Christians, even those that really are such, are less zealous and less active for God, when they are middle-aged than they were when they were young.
to Elizabeth Ritchie, 1784

Fight on and conquer!
to Dorothy Furley, 1757

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 11:11 AM | Permalink

MAY 16

Thou poor sinner, stay not to be any better, but take Him just as you are! Trust Him, praise Him now, the Lord will take you with His sweet force.
Letter, 29th November, 1774

Of all the seats of woe on this side (of) hell few, I suppose, exceed or equal Newgate. If any region of horror could exceed it a few years ago, Newgate in Bristol did; so great was the filth the stench, the misery and wickedness which shocked all who had a spark of humanity left. How was I surprised, then, when Iwas there a few weeks ago! Every part of it, above stairs and below, even the pit wherein the felons are confined at night, is as clean and sweet as a gentlemen’s house. … The prison now has a new face; nothing offends either the eye or ear; and the whole has the appearance of a quiet, serious family. And does not the Keeper of Newgate deserve to be remembered full as well as the Man of Ross?
to the London Chronicle, 1761

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 3:27 PM | Permalink

MAY 15

Exhort all the believers, strongly and explicitly, to go on to perfection; and to expect every blessing God has promised, not tomorrow, but today!
Letter, 7th March, 1779

My mother never would suffer one of her children to go to a dancing-school. But she had a dancing-master to come to her house who taught all of us what was sufficient in her presence. To this I have no objection. If I had convenience, I would be glad to have all our preachers taught, even by a dancing-master, to make a bow and to go in and out of a room.
to James Barry, 1773

Of playing at cards, I say the same as of seeing plays, I could not do it with a clear conscience. But I am not obliged to pass any sentence on those that are otherwise minded.
The More Excellent Way

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 3:26 PM | Permalink

MAY 14

Find preachers of David Brainerds spirit, and nothing can stand before them.
Journal, 8th August, 1767

I am a Church-of-England man; and, as I said fifty years ago so I say still, in the Church I will live and die, unless I am thrust out.

. . . . . . .

Our glorying has been not to be a separate body.
to Henry Moore, 1788

I have one point in view to promote, so far as I am able, vital practical religion; and by the grace of God to beget, preserve and increase the life of God in the souls of men.
to Samuel Walker, 1756

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 3:25 PM | Permalink

MAY 13

Expect from Him, not what you deserve, but what you want – health of soul and health of body.
Letter, 16th August, 1778

The nation is already involved in many troubles. And we know not how many more may follow. Are we able to extricate ourselves out of them all? If we have so much wisdom and strength that we need no help from man, are we quite sure that we need no help from God? I know your Lordship is not of that opinion. But if we need it, why are we ashamed to ask for it? To ask for it in the manner our forefathers did, in solemn public fasting and prayer? …

My Lord, my heart is full. Suffer me to speak; and if I speak as a fool, yet as a fool bear with me. Has your Lordship been ashamed (if every one else was) to mention this to His Majesty? Who besides your Lordship is likely to do it? Did prudence hinder you from doing it? … Now your Lordship has need of the whole armour of God … that you may answer the design of Him who hath raised you up for this very thing, and placed you so near His Majesty that he might have one counselor at least who dares not flatter but will speak the truth from his heart.
Letter to the Earl of Dartmouth, 1775

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 3:24 PM | Permalink

MAY 12

You are all, I hope, pressing on to the mark! See! the prize is before you!
Letter, 19th February, 1779

It was in pursuance of an advice given by Bishop Taylor, in his Rules for Holy Living and Dying, that about fifteen years ago I began to take a more exact account than I had done before, of the matter wherein I spent my time, writing down how I had employed every hour. This I continued to do, wherever I was, till the time of my leaving England. The variety of scenes which I then passed through induced me to transcribe, from time to time, the more material parts of my diary, adding here and there such little reflections as occurred to my mind.
Preface to Journal, 1732

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 3:23 PM | Permalink

MAY 11

I have often repented of judging too severely, but very seldom of being too merciful.
Letter, 20th October, 1787

I am shortly to take my Master’s degree. As I shall from that time be less interrupted by business not of my own choosing, I have drawn up for myself a scheme of studies, from which I do not intend, for some years at least, to vary. I am perfectly come over to your opinion that there may be truths it is not worth while to know. Curiosity, indeed, might be a sufficient plea for our laying out some time upon them, if we had half a dozen centuries of life to come; but, methinks it is great ill-husbandry to spend a considerable part of the small pittance now allowed us in what makes us neither a quick nor a sure return.
Letter to his mother, 1727

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 3:22 PM | Permalink

MAY 10

All the blessings which God hath bestowed upon man are of His mere grace, bounty or favour; His free, undeserved favour; favour altogether undeserved; man having no claim to the least of His mercies. It was free grace that formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into him a living soul and stamped on that soul the image of God, and put all things under his feet. The same free grace continues to us, at this day, life and breath and all things, for there is nothing we are or have or do which can deserve the least thing at God’s hand.
Salvation by Faith

Read the most useful books, and that regularly and constantly.
Large Minutes, 1770, Q.32

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 4:25 PM | Permalink

MAY 9

Why have you not set on foot a weekly subscription in order to lessen your debt? Have neither the preachers nor the people any spirit? Who begins? I will give two shillings and sixpence a week (for a year), if all of you together will make up twenty shillings.
to William Mears, 1790

Mr. Churchey is an honest attorney! Therefore he is poor, and has eight children. Give me a guinea for him, for his own sake, for God’s sake, and for the sake of John Wesley.
Proposals for Printing by Subscription Walter Churchey’s Poems, 1789

If the people were more alive to God, they would be more liberal. There is money enough, and particularly in Somersetshire.
to John Mason, 1784

If you need no book but the Bible, you are not above St. Paul. He wanted others too.
Large Minutes, 1770, Q.32

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 4:23 PM | Permalink

MAY 8

No preacher is to preach three times in a day to the same congregation. It is neither good for his body nor soul.
to Mr. York, 1790

Always conclude the Service within the hour.
to James Ridall, 1787

Speak plain to Brother Ward and Foster, and tell them for me: “Unless you can and will leave off preaching long, I shall think it my duty to prevent you preaching at all among the Methodists.”
to Jeremiah Brettall, 1781

What a blessing it is to have One Friend! How many have never found one in their lives?
Letter, 15th May, 1779

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 4:22 PM | Permalink

MAY 7

If you do build, take care to have windows enough and two broad doors; and do not build a scarecrow of a house.
to John Bredin, 1789

A preaching-house can’t be too light or too airy? Therefore your windows must be large. And let them be sashes, opening downward; otherwise the air coming in would give people cold . . . and see that whatever is done be done neat and strong.
to Edward Bolton, 1769

You must not undertake any building till two-thirds of the money it will cost are subscribed.
to Robert Costerdine, 1769

I hope you will always be diligent in business as one branch of the business of Life.
Letter, 3rd August, 1778

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 3:40 PM | Permalink

MAY 6

Your preaching frequently will be no hindrance, but rather a furtherance (to your health), provided you have the resolution always to observe the Methodist rule of concluding the Service within the hour.
to R. C. Brackenbury, 1781

Be not at everyone’s call. … Never continue the Service above an hour at once, singing, preaching, prayer and all. You are not to judge by your own feelings, but by the word of God. Never scream. Never speak above the natural pitch of your voice; it is disgustful to the hearers. It gives them pain, not pleasure. And it is destroying yourself.
to Sarah Mallett, 1789

Let us work while the day is.
Letter, 7th March, 1779

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 3:39 PM | Permalink

MAY 5

Keep close to your rule, the Word of God, and to your guide, the Spirit of God, and never be afraid of expecting too much.
to Miss March, 1761

We are called to propagate Bible religion through the land – that is, faith working by love, holy tempers and holy lives. Let us do it with our might.
to Joseph Benson, 1777

Remember! you will be rewarded according to your labour, not according to your success.
Letter, 26th August, 1779

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 3:37 PM | Permalink

MAY 4

A smoky room, a cold morning, a rainy day, the dullness or perverseness of those we are with: these, and innumerable little crosses, will help us onward to the Kingdom.
Letter, 2nd December, 1778

Of all gossiping, religious gossiping is the worst; it adds hypocrisy to uncharitableness [sic], and effectually does the work of the devil in the name of the Lord. The leaders in every Society may do much towards driving it out from among the Methodists. Let them in the band or class observe: (1) ‘Now we are to talk of no absent persons, but simply of God and our own souls;’ (2) ‘Let the rule of our conversation here be the rule of all our conversation. Let us observe it (unless in some necessarily exempt cases) at all times and in all places.’ If this be frequently inculcated, it will have an excellent effect.
to Philothea Briggs, 1772

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 3:36 PM | Permalink

MAY 3

Parents are under a peculiar obligation, by daily earnest prayer, to commend their children to God’s protection and blessing. You are, secondly, to bless them by your piety. See that you be such persons in all holy conversation, that from you the blessing of God may descend upon your posterity.
The Duties of Husbands and Wives

The debt which a child owes to a parent is so inconceivably great, that he can never hope fully to discharge it himself. He is therefore to seek the assistance of God, and continually to beg Him that has all power in heaven and earth, to return whatever good his parents have done him, sevenfold into their own bosom.
Directions to Children

We have need to apply the general word, “Take up thy cross, and follow Me,” to a thousand little particulars.
Letter, 2nd December, 1778

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 3:35 PM | Permalink

MAY 2

Let marriage also be sanctified or made holy by prayer. Solemnly pray for the blessing of God. … As therefore it is a brutish profaneness for any man to sit down to his table, as a horse to the manger, without asking the blessing from God first, and to return from it as a fox from his prey, without praising him that gave the food and appetite; so it is a great licentiousness for married persons to come together, as it were, brute beasts, without either prayer or thanksgiving.

This yields a good instruction to young unmarried people, not to rush unadvisedly into this state. A thing of so difficult a nature should not be so hastily undertaken. If they get not first their hearts full of grace, and their heads full of wisdom, they will find their hands full of work, a house full of trouble, and a life full of woe. … He that leaps over a broad ditch with a short staff, will fall into the midst; and he that enters into marriage without grace, shall fall into disquietude and vexation.
The Duties of Husbands and Wives

Little things contrary to our wills may be great blessings.
Letter, 2nd December, 1778

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 3:34 PM | Permalink

MAY 1

We are debtors to all the world. We are called to warn everyone, to exhort everyone, if by any means we may save some.
Letter, 11th December, 1772

Sickness and weakness are things which of themselves are hard enough to be borne. There needs not the addition of unkindness to make the burden heavier.

. . . . . . .

You must faithfully keep each other’s secrets. A man may have occasion to acquaint his wife with things he would not reveal to others; so a woman to acquaint her husband.

. . . . . . .

It is an infallible truth that there is no comfortable living with one whom you cannot trust.

. . . . . . .

If the husband puts a fool’s coat upon his back, can he blame his wife for laughing at him?
The Duties of Husbands and Wives

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 3:32 PM | Permalink

APRIL 30

You have not such another flower in all your gardens.*
Letter, 11th January, 1775

Be peculiarly careful to set before your children the copies and patterns of the virtues which you teach. And let them neither see nor hear anything from you which you would not desire to have copied by them. … We ought to reverence and stand in awe of children, that nothing may be spoke or done in their sight, which may taint their tender minds.

With regard to their spiritual good, your first labour of love is to present them to God in baptism. You are to inure them to good, to instruct and admonish them, to educate them in the knowledge and fear of God, to season their minds as early as possible with the fundamental truths of religion, and in such manner as is best suited to their capacity, to train them up in all holiness. Every instruction should be seconded by example.
The Duties of Husbands and Wives

* - a reference to Nancy Bolton

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 4:52 PM | Permalink

APRIL 29

Look up, and expect him that is mighty to save.
Letter, 18th November, 1780

A string of opinions is no more Christian faith than a string of beads is Christian holiness. It is not an assent to any opinion or any number of opinions. A man may assent to three or three-and-twenty creeds, he may assent to all the Old and New Testament (at least, as far as he understands them), and yet have no Christian faith at all. The faith by which the promise is attained is represented by Christianity as a power, wrought by the Almighty in an immortal spirit inhabiting a house of clay, to see into the world of spirits. … To believe (in the Christian sense) is to walk in the light of eternity. … Does not every thinking man want a window, not so much in his neighbour’s as in his own breast? He wants an opening there of whatever kind, that might let in light from eternity.
to Dr. Middleton, 1748-1749

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 4:51 PM | Permalink

APRIL 28

Methodism, so called, is the old religion, the religion of the Bible, the religion of the Primitive Church, the religion of the Church of England. This old religion is no other than love, the love of God and of all mankind. … This love is the great medicine of life, the never-failing remedy for all the evils of a disordered world, for all the miseries and vices of men. Wherever this is, there are virtue and happiness going hand in hand.
Sermon at the Foundation of the City Road Chapel

When I devoted to God my ease, my time, my fortune, my life, I did not except my reputation.
Life of Charles Wesley, ii. 283

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 4:50 PM | Permalink

APRIL 27

You must not set the great blessing afar off, because you find much war within.
Letter, 18th September, 1780

Come, and let us magnify the Lord together, and labour to promote His Kingdom upon earth. Let us join hearts and hands in this blessed work, in striving to bring glory to God in the highest, by establishing peace and goodwill among men, to the uttermost of our power. First, let our hearts be joined herein; let us unite our wishes and prayers; let our whole soul pant after a general revival of pure religion and undefiled, the restoration of the image of God, pure love, in every child of man. Then, let us endeavour to promote, in our several stations, this Scriptural, primitive religion of love among all.
Sermon at the Foundation of the City Road Chapel

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 4:28 PM | Permalink

APRIL 26

Brethren, I presume the greater part of you also are members of the Church of England. So at least you are called; but you are not so indeed unless you are witnesses of the religion above described. And are you really such? Judge not one another; but every man look into his own bosom. How stands the matter in your own breast? Examine your conscience before God. Are you a happy partaker of this scriptural, this truly primitive religion? Are you a lover of God and all mankind? Does your heart glow with gratitude to the Give of every good and perfect gift? Is your soul warm with benevolence to all mankind?
Sermon at the Foundation of the City Road Chapel

The cheerfulness of faith you should aim at in and above all things.
Letter, 18th September, 1780

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 4:27 PM | Permalink

APRIL 25

The more exercises he uses, winter or summer, the more health he will have.
Letter, 16th January, 1781

Many ask: “Why do you say the Methodists form no distinct party? That they do not leave the Church? Are there not thousands of Methodists who have, in fact, left the Church? Who never attend the Church Service? Never receive the Lord’s Supper there? Nay, who speak against the Church, even with bitterness, in public and private.”

I am glad of so public an opportunity of explaining this, in order to which , it will be necessary to look back some years. The Methodists at Oxford were all one body, and, as it were, one soul; zealous for the religion of the Bible, of the Primitive Church, and, in consequence, of the Church of England; as they believed it came nearer the Scriptural and primitive plan than any other national Church upon earth. When my brother and I returned from Georgia we were in the same sentiments. … Thus far, therefore, all the Methodists were firm to the Church of England.
Sermon at the Foundation of the City Road Chapel

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 4:26 PM | Permalink

APRIL 24

We may likewise observe the depth of the work so extensively and swiftly wrought. Multitudes have been thoroughly convinced of sin; and, shortly after, so filled with joy and love, that whether they were in the body or out of the body, they could hardly tell. And in the power of this love, they have trampled under foot whatever the world accounts either terrible or desirable, having evidenced, in the severest trials, an invariable and tender goodwill to mankind, and all the fruits of holiness. Now so deep a repentance, so strong a faith, such fervent love, and such unblemished holiness, wrought in so many persons in so short a time, the world has not seen for many ages.
Sermon at the Foundation of the City Road Chapel

Be punctual. Whenever I am to go to a place the first thing I do is to get ready; then, what time remains is my own.
to his nephew Samuel

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 4:25 PM | Permalink

APRIL 23

You have need to be all alive yourselves, if you would impart life to others.
Letter, 3rd December, 1780

This revival of religion has spread to such a degree as neither we nor our fathers had known. How extensive has it been! There is scarce a considerable town in the kingdom where some have not been made witnesses of it. It has spread to every age and sex, to most orders and degrees of men; and even to abundance of those who, in time past, were accounted monsters of wickedness.

Consider the swiftness as well as extent of it. In what age has such a number of sinners been recovered in so short a time from the error of their ways?
Sermon at the Foundation of the City Road Chapel

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 4:24 PM | Permalink

APRIL 22

Here were thousands upon thousands, abundantly more than any Church could contain; and numbers among them who never went to any Church or place of worship at all. More and more of them were cut to the heart, and came to me all in tears, enquiring with the utmost eagerness what they must do to be saved. I said: “If all of you will meet me on Thursday evening, I will advise you as well as I can.” The first evening about twenty persons came; the next week thirty or forty. When they were increased to about a hundred, I took down their names and places of abode, intending, as often as it was convenient, to call upon them at their own houses. Thus, without any previous plan or design, began the Methodist Society in England.
Sermon at the Foundation of the City Road Chapel

There is but one thing to do, let us live and die unto Him that died for us.
Letter, 3rd March, 1776

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 4:53 PM | Permalink

APRIL 21

I returned to England in the beginning of February 1738. I was now in haste to retire to Oxford and bury myself in my beloved obscurity. But I was detained in London, week after week, by the Trustees for the Colony of Georgia. In the meantime I was continually importuned to preach in one or another Church, and that not only morning, afternoon and night on Sundays, but on weekdays also. As I was lately come from a far country, vast multitudes flocked together. But in a short time, partly because of those unwieldy crowds, partly because of my unfashionable doctrine, I was excluded from one and another Church, and, at length, shut out of all. Not daring to be silent, after a short struggle between honour and conscience, I made a virtue of necessity, and preached in the middle of Moorfields.
Sermon at the Foundation of City Road Chapel

As it was evidently the providence of God which placed you in your present situation, He will doubtless give you grace sufficient for it.
Letter, 22nd October, 1780

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 4:52 PM | Permalink

APRIL 20

A conversation I had yesterday with Brother Proctor determined me to write immediately. The person at Birr will not do; not only as she is far too young, little more than a child; but as she has only little, if any, Christian experience. You want a woman of middle age, well-tried, of good sense, and of deep experience. Such a one in every respect is Molly Pennington; but whether she is willing to marry or no, I cannot tell. If she is, I hardly know her fellow in the kingdom. If I meet with any, I will send you word.
to Thomas Mason, 1771

Only take care to improve the Sabbaths, and He will stand every day at your right hand.
Letter, 22nd October, 1780

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 4:51 PM | Permalink

APRIL 19

In the ancient Church, when baptism was administered, there were usually two or more Sponsors (so Tertullian calls them), for every person to be baptised. As these were witnesses before God and the Church, of the solemn engagement those persons entered into, so they undertook (as the very word implies) to watch over those souls in a peculiar manner, to instruct, admonish, exhort, and build them up in the faith once delivered to the saints. These were considered as a kind of spiritual parents to the baptised.

See the child be taught … the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ten Commandments, and all the other things which a Christian ought to know and believe to his soul’s health, and that he may be virtuously brought up to lead a godly and a Christian life. …

Waive every other consideration, and choose for their sponsors those persons alone who truly fear and serve God.
Concerning Godfathers and Godmothers

You and I are like bigots to the Bible. We think the Bible language is like Goliath’s sword: that “There is none like it.”
Letter, 25th March, 1772

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 4:49 PM | Permalink

APRIL 18

Fortune in only another name for Providence, only it is covered Providence.
Letter, 2nd January, 1781

I distinctly remember that even in my childhood, even when I was at school, I have often said: “They say the life of a schoolboy is the happiest in the world; but I am sure I am not happy.” When I had lived a few years longer, being in the vigour of youth, a stranger to pain and sickness, and particularly to lowness of spirits (which I do not remember to have felt one quarter of an hour ever since I was born), having plenty of all things, in the midst of sensible and amiable friends, who loved me, and I loved them, and being in the way of life which, of all others, suited my inclinations, still I was not happy! I wondered why I was not, and could not imagine what the reason was. The reason certainly was: I did not know God, the source of present as well as eternal happiness.
Spiritual Worship

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 4:27 PM | Permalink

APRIL 17

Sufferings are the gift of God to you. And they are all intended for your profit, that you may be a partaker of His holiness.
Letter, 26th February, 1780

What can parents do, and mothers more especially, with regard to the atheism that is natural to all the children of men? How is this fed by the generality of parents, even those that love, or, at least, fear God, while in spending hours, perhaps days with their children, they hardly hear the Name of God?

Do not parents feed the atheism of their children further by ascribing the works of creation to nature? Does not the common way of talking about nature leave God quite out of the question?

From the first dawn of reason continually inculcate: God is in this and every place. God made you and me, and the earth, and the sun, and the moon, and everything. And everything is His: heaven and earth and all that is therein. God orders all things. He makes the sun shine, and the wind blow, and the trees bear fruit. Nothing comes by chance: that is a silly word; there is no such thing as chance.
The Education of Children

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 4:26 PM | Permalink

APRIL 16

The more labor, the more blessing.
Letter, 16th March, 1776

You should particularly endeavour to instruct your children, early, plainly, frequently and patiently. Instruct them early from the first hour that you perceive reason begins to dawn. Truth may then begin to shine upon the mind far earlier than we are apt to suppose. And whoever watches the first opening of the understanding, may, by little and little, supply fit matter for it to work upon, and may turn the eye of the soul toward good things, as well as toward bad or trifling ones. Whenever a child begins to speak, you may be assured reason begins to work. I know no cause why a parent should not just then begin to speak of the best things, the things of God.
Family Religion

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 4:25 PM | Permalink

APRIL 15

The generality of parents feed and increase the natural falsehood of their children … Let the wise parent teach them that the author of all falsehood is the devil. … Teach them to abhor and despise, not only lying but all equivocating, all cunning and dissimulation. Use every means to give them a love of truth: of veracity, sincerity and simplicity, and of openness both of spirit and behaviour. … And from their very infancy, sow the seeds of justice in their hearts, and train them up in the exactest practice of it. If possible, teach them the love of justice, and that in the least things as well as the greatest. Impress upon their minds the old proverb: “He that will steal a penny, will steal a pound.” Habituate to them to render unto all their due, even to the uttermost farthing.
The Education of Children

It is a great step toward Christian resignation, to be thoroughly convinced of that great truth, that there is no such thing as Chance in the world.
Letter, 2nd January, 1781

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 3:48 PM | Permalink

APRIL 14

Possibly you may have another difficulty to encounter, and one of a still more trying nature. Your mother, or your husband’s mother, may live with you; and you will do well to shew her all possible respect. But let her on no account have the least share in the management of your children. She would undo all that you had done; she would give them their own will in all things. … In fourscore years I have not met with one woman that knew how to manage grandchildren. My own mother who governed her children so well, could never govern one grandchild. In every other point obey your mother. Give up your will to hers. But with regard to the management of your children, steadily keep the reins in your own hands.
The Education of Children

He prepares occasions of fighting, that you may conquer.
Letter, 6th May, 1774

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 3:47 PM | Permalink

APRIL 13

Trials are only blessings in disguise.
Letter, 24th July, 1780

Never, on any account, give a child anything it cries for. For it is a true observation (and you may make the experiment as often as you please), if you give a child what it cries for, you pay him for crying; and then he will certainly cry again. “But if I do not give it him when he cries, he will scream all day long.” If he does, it is your own fault; for it is in your power effectually to prevent it. For no mother need suffer a child to cry aloud after it is a year old. “Why, it is impossible to hinder it!” So many suppose; but it is an entire mistake. … My own mother had ten children, each of whom had spirit enough. Yet not one of them was ever heard to cry aloud, after it was a year old.
The Education of Children

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 3:46 PM | Permalink

APRIL 12

Do just the same in the absence of your employer as you do when under his eye. Let his absence or presence make no difference to your industry and activity.

Equally dishonest it is to hurt or waste anything, or to let it be lost through your carelessness or negligence.

Whatever is committed to your trust, whether within doors or without, so carefully preserve that it be not lost, spoiled or impaired under your hands. If you see any damage done to your employer’s goods, redress it yourself, if you can; if you cannot, immediately make it known to your employer, that he may find means of redressing it. And not only preserve, but do all that in you lies to increase your employer’s goods.
Directions to Servants

Hang upon Him as a little child, and your eyes shall see the full salvation.
Do., 1780

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 4:18 PM | Permalink

APRIL 11

Why is there sin in the world? Because man was created in the image of God, because he is not mere matter – a clod of earth, a lump of clay – without sense or understanding, but a spirit like his Creator, a being endued not only with sense and understanding, but also with a will exerting itself in various affections. To crown all the rest he was endued with liberty: a power of directing his own affections and actions, a capacity for determining himself or of choosing good or evil. Indeed, had not man been endued with this, all the rest would have been of no use. Had he not been a free as well as an intelligent being, his understanding would have been as incapable of holiness or any kind of virtue as a tree or a block of marble. And, having this power, a power of choosing good or evil, he chose evil.
The Fall of Man

Do not reason, but believe.
to Mrs. Rose, 1780

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 4:17 PM | Permalink

APRIL 10

His grace is sufficient to keep you in, and to deliver you out of, all temptations.
Letter, 14th January, 1780

But what is the rule whereby men are to judge of right or wrong? Whereby their conscience is to be directed? … The Christian rule of right and wrong is the Word of God, the writings of the Old and New Testament. … This is a lantern unto the Christian’s feet, and a light in all his paths. This alone he receives as his rule of right or wrong, of whatever is really good or evil. He esteems nothing good but what is here enjoined, either directly or by plain consequence; he accounts nothing evil but what is here forbidden, either in terms or by undeniable inference.
The Witness of the Spirit (III)

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 4:15 PM | Permalink

APRIL 9

I do not wonder that all the trials you feel do not interrupt the peace of God. They never need.
Letter, 14th January, 1780

God has made us thinking beings, capable of perceiving what is present, and of reflecting or looking back on what is past. In particular, we are capable of perceiving whatsoever passes in our own hearts or lives; of knowing whatsoever we feel or do; and that either while it passes or when it is past. This we mean when we say, man is a conscious being; he hath a consciousness or inward perception, both of things present and past, relating to himself, of his own tempers and outward behaviour. But what we really term conscience implies somewhat more than this. It is not barely the knowledge of our present or the remembrance of our preceding life … its main business is to excuse or accuse, to approve or disapprove, or acquit or condemn. We may understand by conscience, a faculty or power, implanted by God, in every soul that comes into the world, of perceiving what is right or wrong in his own heart or life.
The Witness of the Spirit (III)

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 3:54 PM | Permalink

APRIL 8

Be zealous and active for a good Master, and you will see the fruit of your labor.
Letter, 11th January, 1775

Now, in order to this, there is absolutely required, first, a right understanding of the Word of God, of His holy and acceptable and perfect Will concerning us, as it is revealed therein. For it is impossible we should walk by a rule, if we do not know what it means. There is, secondly, required (which how few have attained!) a true knowledge of ourselves, of our inward tempers and outward conversation, seeing, if we know them not, it is not possible that we should compare them with our rule. For without this, if we have any conscience at all, it can only be an evil conscience. There is, fourthly, required, an inward perception of this agreement with our rule: and this habitual perception, this inward consciousness itself, is properly a good conscience.
The Witness of the Spirit (III)

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 6:05 AM | Permalink

APRIL 7

I must act by my own conscience, not yours. And I really have a conscience.
Letter, 7th March, 1780

Meantime let it be observed, I do not mean hereby, that the Spirit of God testifies this by an outward voice; no, nor always by an inward voice, although He may do this sometimes. Neither do I suppose that he always applies to the heart (though he often may) one or more texts of Scripture. But He so works upon the soul by His immediate influence, and by a strong though inexplicable operation, that the stormy wind and troubled waves subside, and there is a sweet calm; the heart resting as in the arms of Jesus, and the sinner being clearly satisfied that God is reconciled, that all his iniquities are forgiven, and his sins covered.
The Witness of the Spirit (II)

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 8:17 AM | Permalink

APRIL 6

I take nothing ill that was meant well.
Letter, 7th March, 1780

It is hard to find words in the language of men to explain the deep things of God. Indeed, there are none that will adequately express what the children of God experience. But perhaps one might say the testimony of the Spirit is an inward impression on the soul, whereby the Spirit of God directly witnesses to my spirit, that I am a child of God; that Jesus Christ hath loved me and given Himself for me; and that all my sins are blotted out, and I, even I, am reconciled to God.
The Witness of the Spirit (I)

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 8:16 AM | Permalink

APRIL 5

O praise God for all you have; and trust Him for all you want!
Letter, 11th July, 1778

Since I was six years old, I never met with such a severe trial as for some days past. For ten years God has been preparing a fellow labourer for me by a wonderful train of providences. Last year I was convinced of it; therefore I delayed not, but, as I thought, made all sure beyond a danger of disappointment. But we were soon afterwards torn asunder by a whirlwind. In a few months the storm was over. … But it soon returned … I fasted and prayed and strove all I could; but the sons of Zeruiak were too strong for me. The whole world fought against me. Then was the word fulfilled: “Son of man, behold! I take from thee the desire of thine eyes at a stroke; yet thou shalt not lament, neither shall thy tears run down.”
to Thomas Bigg, 1749

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 8:15 AM | Permalink

APRIL 4

I seek two things in this world – truth and love. Whoever assists me in this search is a friend indeed, whether known or unknown to (me).
Letter, 28th June, 1755

About four in the afternoon I set out for Frederica, in a pettiawga – a sort of flat-bottomed barge. The next evening we anchored near Skidoway Island, where the water, at flood, was twelve or fourteen foot deep. I wrapped myself up from head to foot, in a large cloak, to keep off the sand flies, and lay down on the quarter deck. Between one and two I waked under water, being so fast asleep that I did not find where I was till my mouth was full of it. Having left my cloak, I know not how, upon deck, I swam round to the other side of the pettiawga, where a boat was tied, and climbed up by the rope without any hurt, more than wetting my clothes.
Journal, 4th April, 1736

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 8:14 AM | Permalink

APRIL 3

God says to you as well as to me, “Do all thou canst, be it more or less, to save the souls for whom My Son has died.”
Letter, 25th March, 1774

You think the mode of baptism is necessary to salvation. I deny that even baptism itself is so; if it were, every Quaker would be damned, which I can in no wise believe. I hold nothing to be (strictly speaking) necessary to salvation but the mind which was in Christ … I wish your zeal was better employed than in persuading men to be wither dipped or sprinkled. …

I cannot answer it to God to spend any part of that precious time, every hour of which I can employ in what directly tends to the promoting of His love among men, in oppugning or defending this or that form of Church government. … I am called to other work; not to make Church of England men or Baptists, but Christians, men of faith and love.
to the Rev. Gilbert Boyce, 1750

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 8:13 AM | Permalink

APRIL 2

I submitted to be more vile, and proclaimed in the highways the glad tidings of salvation.
Journal, 2nd April, 1739

A few days since, Mr. Whitefield and I desired a friend to ask your advice, to whom it would be proper to make an offer of raising a company of volunteers for His Majesty’s service. We apprehend the number would be about five hundred. Finding Mr. Whitefield has since been persuaded that such an offer is premature, I am constrained to make the following independently of him:

To raise for His Majesty’s service at least two hundred volunteers, to be supported by contributions among themselves; and to be ready in case of an invasion to act for a year (if needed so long) at His Majesty’s pleasure. …

If this be acceptable to His Majesty, they beg to have arms out of the Tower, giving the usual security for their return, and some of His Majesty’s sergeants to instruct them in the military exercise.
to the Honorable James West, M.P., 1756

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 7:21 AM | Permalink

APRIL 1

Can anything but love beget love?
Works, vi. 175.

Thus it was that two young men without a name, without friends, without either power or fortune, set out from College with principles totally different from those of the common people, to oppose all the world, learned or unlearned, to combat popular prejudices of every kind. Our first principle directly attacked all the wickedness, our second all the bigotry, in the world. Thus they attempted a reformation, not of opinions (feathers, trifles not worth the naming), but of men's tempers and lives; of vice in every kind; of everything contrary to justice, mercy or truth. And for this it was that they carried their lives in their hands, that both the great vulgar and the small looked upon them as mad dogs and treated them as such.
to Samuel Sparrow, 1773

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 5:49 AM | Permalink

MARCH 31

Money never stays with me: it would burn if it did. I throw it out of my hands as soon as possible, lest it should find a way into my heart.
Letter, 6th October, 1746

You abound in leisure; I abound in work.
to William Green, 1789

Every good purpose will cool and die away if it is not as soon as possible put in execution. Only let us not undertake too much at a time.
to Peard Dickinson, 1789

You must not give place – no, not for a day – to inactivity. Nothing is more apt to grow upon the soul; the less you speak or act for God, the less you may.
to Elizabeth Ritchie, 1774

Who would wish to live for any meaner purpose than to serve God in our generation?
to R. C. Brackenbury, 1783

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 12:12 PM | Permalink

MARCH 30

Nothing in the Christian system is of greater consequence than the doctrine of Atonement.
Letter, 7th February, 1778

If by Catholic principles you mean any other than scriptural, they weigh nothing with me. I allow no other rule, whether of faith or practice, than the Holy Scriptures; but on scriptural principles I do not think it hard to justify whatever I do. God in scripture commands me, according to my power, to instruct the ignorant, reform the wicked, confirm the virtuous. Man forbids me to do this in another’s parish; that is, in effect, to do it at all, seeing I have now no parish of my own, nor probably ever shall. Whom, then, shall I hear, God or man? …

Suffer me now to tell you my principles in this matter. I look upon all the world as my parish; this far I mean, that in whatever part of it I am I judge it meet, right and my bounden duty to declare unto all that are willing to hear, the glad tidings of salvation.
to the Rev. James Hervey, 1739

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 12:01 PM | Permalink

MARCH 29

Go on to universal self-denial, to temperance in all things, to a firm resolution of taking up daily every cross whereto you are called.
Works, vii. 75

If one wheel in a machine gets out of its place, what disorder must ensue! In the Methodist discipline the wheels regularly stand thus: the assistant*, the preachers, the stewards, the leaders, the people.

But here the leaders, who are the lowest wheel but one, were got quite out of their place. They were got at the top of all, above the stewards, the preachers, and above the assistant himself.

To this chiefly I impute the gradual decay of the work of God in Dublin…. But it may be effectually remedied now…. For the time to come, let each wheel keep its own place. Let the assistant, the preachers, the stewards, the leaders, know and execute their several offices. Let none encroach upon another.
Journal, 3rd April, 1771

(* -- the superintendent)

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 11:54 AM | Permalink

MARCH 28

Meantime, bear your cross, and it will bear you. Seek an inward, not an outward change.
Letter, 26th January, 1774

As long as we dwell in a house of clay it is liable to affect the mind; sometimes by dulling or darkening the understanding, and sometimes more directly by damping and depressing the soul and sinking it into distress and heaviness. In this state doubt or fear of one kind or another will naturally arise. And the prince of this world, who well knows whereof we are made, will not fail to improve the occasion, in order to disturb, though he cannot pollute, the heart which God hath cleansed from all unrighteousness.
to Miss March, 1771

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 11:42 AM | Permalink

MARCH 27

I am no politician; politics lie quite outside my province. …

Perhaps you will say: “Nay, every Englishman is a politician. … We can in a trice reform the State, point out every blunder of this or that Minister, and tell every step they ought to take to be arbiters of all Europe.”

I grant every cobbler, tinker, porter and hackney-coachman can do this. But I am not so deep learned; while they are sure of everything, I am in a manner sure of nothing, except of that very little which I see with my own eyes or hear with my own ears. However, since you desire me to tell you what I think, I will do it with all openness. Only please to remember I do not take upon me to dictate either to you or to any one.
to a friend, 1768

This will endear and sweeten every cross, which is only a painful means of a closer union with Him.
Letter, 1st January 1770

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 11:39 AM | Permalink

MARCH 26

I can't think that when God sent us into the world, He had irreversibly decreed that we should be perpetually miserable in it. If it be so, the very endeavour after happiness in this life is a sin; as it is acting in direct contradiction to the very design of our creation. What are become of all the innocent comforts and pleasures of life, if it is the intent of our Creator that we should never taste them? If our taking up the cross implies our bidding adieu to all joy and satisfaction, how it is reconcilable with what Solomon so expressly affirms of religion -- that her ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace?
to his Mother, 1725

I will not buy a cross, though I can bear it.
letter, 15th January, 1770

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 8:02 AM | Permalink

MARCH 25

All haughtiness, whether of heart, speech, or behavior, vanishes away where love prevails.
Works, vii. 497.

Another of his [Thomas a Kempis’] tenets … is that all mirth is vain and useless, if not sinful. But why then, does the Psalmist so often exhort us to rejoice in the Lord and tell us that it becomes the just to be joyful? I think one could hardly desire a more express text than that in the 68th Psalm: ‘Let the righteous rejoice and be glad in the Lord. Let them also be merry and joyful.’ And he seems to carry the matter as much too far on the other side afterwards, where he asserts that nothing is an affliction to a good man, and that he ought to thank God even for sending him misery. This, in my opinion, is contrary to God design in afflicting us.
to his mother, 1725

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 4:02 PM | Permalink

MARCH 24

What are all the absurd opinions of all the Romanists in the world compared to that of absolute Predestination, that the God of Love, the wise, just, merciful Father of the spirits of all flesh, has from all eternity fixed an absolute, unchangeable, irresistible decree that part of mankind shall be saved, do what they will, and the rest damned, do what they can?
The Trinity

In every place we find working men most susceptible to religion.
Journal, 25th March, 1785

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 4:00 PM | Permalink

MARCH 23

How many proofs must we have that there is no petition too little, any more than too great, for God to grant?
Journal, 27th April, 1755

What, then, shall I say of Predestination? An everlasting purpose of God to deliver some from damnation does, I suppose, exclude all from that deliverance who are not chosen. And if it was inevitably decreed from eternity that such a determinate part of mankind should be saved, and none beside them, a vast majority of the world were only born to eternal death, without so much as a possibility of avoiding it. How is this consistent with either the Divine justice or mercy? Is it merciful to ordain a creature to everlasting misery? Is it just to punish a man for crimes which he could not but commit? How is man, if necessarily determined to one way of acting, a free agent? To lie under either a physical or a moral necessity is entirely repugnant to human liberty.
to his mother, 1725

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 3:59 PM | Permalink

MARCH 22

But sometimes this excellent quality, tenderness of conscience, is carried to an extreme. We find some who fear where no fear is; who are continually condemning themselves without cause; imagining some things to be sinful, which the Scripture nowhere condemns; and supposing other things to be their duty, which the Scripture nowhere enjoins. This is properly termed a scrupulous conscience, and is a sore evil. It is highly expedient to yield to it as little as possible; rather is should be a matter of earnest prayer that you may be delivered from this sore evil, and may recover a sound mind.
Conscience

I see abundantly more than I feel. I want to feel more love and zeal for God.
Letter, 24th February, 1786

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 3:57 PM | Permalink

MARCH 21

Consult duty; not events. We have nothing to do but mind our duty.
. . . . . . . . . .
What advice you would give another, take yourself.
. . . . . . . . . .
Do nothing on which you cannot pray for a blessing. Every action of a Christian that is good is sanctified by the Word and prayer. It becomes not a Christian to do anything so trivial that he cannot pray over it.
. . . . . . . . . .
Above all, sooner forget your Christian name than forget Christ.
Conscience

It is plain God sees it best for you to frequently walk in a thorny path.
Letter, 25th September, 1757

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 3:56 PM | Permalink

MARCH 20

Be serious and frequent in the examination of your heart and life … every evening renew your carriage through the day; what you have done or thought that was unbecoming your character; whether your heart has been instant upon religion and indifferent to the world? Have a special care of two portions of time, namely, morning and evening; the morning to forethink what you have to do, and the evening to examine whether you have done what you ought.

Let every action have reference to your whole life, and not to a part only. Let all your subordinate ends be suitable to the great end of your living. Exercise yourself unto godliness.
Conscience

Hang upon Him that loves you as a little child, living today, and trusting Him for tomorrow.
Letter, 1st January, 1770

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 12:24 PM | Permalink

MARCH 19

One cannot but observe throughout the whole story of Adam and Eve, the inexpressible tenderness and lenity of the almighty Creator from whom they had revolted: “And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him: ‘Where art thou?’” Thus graciously calling him to return, who would otherwise have eternally fled from God.

. . . . . . . . .

“The woman was deceived”, says the Apostle. She believed a lie; she gave more credit to the word of the devil than to the word of God. And unbelief brought forth actual sin.

. . . . . . . . .

Behold then both the justice and mercy of God! His justice in punishing sin. … And His mercy in providing a universal remedy for a universal evil! … That as in Adam all died, so in Christ all might be made alive.
The Fall of Man

It is enough that Christ is yours: and He is wiser and stronger than all the powers of hell. Hang upon Him, and you are safe: lean on Him with the whole weight of your soul.
Works, xii. 371; Letter, 13th July, 1768

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 12:22 PM | Permalink

MARCH 18

As Satan turned the heart of man, from the Creator to the creature; so the Son of God turns his heart back again, from the creature to the Creator.

He entrusts us with only an exceeding small share of knowledge in our present state, lest our knowledge should interfere with our humility, and we should again affect to be as gods.

Here then, we see in the clearest, strongest light, what is real religion: a restoration of man, by Christ, not only to the favour, but likewise to the image of God.
The End of Christ’s Coming

One great office of prayer is to increase our desire of the things we ask for.
Notes on the New Testament, Matthew 6:8

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 12:21 PM | Permalink

MARCH 17

I know, were I myself to preach one whole year in one place, I should preach both myself and most of my congregation asleep. Nor can I believe it was ever the will of our Lord that any congregation should have one teacher only. We have found by long and constant experience that a frequent change of teachers is best. This preacher has one talent, that another. No one whom I ever yet knew has all the talents which are needful for beginning, continuing and perfecting the work of grace in a whole congregation.
to the Rev. Mr. Walker, 1756

Hear what preacher you will; but hear the whole of God, and beware of prejudice and every unkind temper.
Letter, 1759

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 12:20 PM | Permalink

MARCH 16

Are all our preachers merciful to their beasts? Perhaps not. Every one ought, not only to rise it moderately, but also to see with his own eyes, his horse rubbed, fed and bedded.

. . . . . . .

What is it best to take just after preaching? Lemonade; candied orange peel or a little soft, warm ale. But egg and wine is downright poison.
Minutes of conversations, 1744

Let none of you preachers touch any spirituous liquors upon any account.
to Francis Wolfe, 1782

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 12:19 PM | Permalink

MARCH 15

When our mind is hurried, it is hardly possible to retain either the spirit of prayer or of thankfulness.
Works, xii. 171; Letter, 14th July, 1748

I am ashamed of my indolence and inactivity.
Letter, 25th March, 1774

It is right to know ourselves, but not to stop there. This is only of use if it leads us to know Him that loves and saves sinners.
Letter, 2nd April, 1778

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 12:18 PM | Permalink

MARCH 14

Sometimes I cannot do good to others because I am unwilling to do it: shame or pain is in the way; and I do not desire to serve God at so dear a rate. Sometimes I cannot do the good I desire to do because I am in other respects too unholy. I know within myself, were I fit to be so employed, God would employ me in this work. But my heart is too unclean. … Sometimes I cannot accomplish the good I am employed in, because I do not pray more, and more fervently; and sometimes, even when I do pray, and that instantly, because I am not worthy that my prayer should be heard. Sometimes I dare not attempt to assist my neighbour, because I know the narrowness of my heart, that it cannot attend to many things without utter confusion and dissipation of thought.
to his father, 1734

Be equally ready to do and to suffer His whole will; and aspire after all His promises.
Letter, 5th March, 1778

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 12:17 PM | Permalink

MARCH 13

It is a constant rule with us that no preacher should preach above twice a day, unless on Sunday or on some extraordinary time; and then he may preach three times. We know nature cannot long bear the preaching oftener than this, and therefore to do it is a degree of self-murder. Those of our preachers who would not follow this advice have all repented when it was too late.

I likewise advise all our preachers not to preach above an hour at a time, prayer and all; and not to speak louder either in preaching or prayer than the number of hearers requires.
to Thomas Capiter, 1753

Spend and be spent for a good Master.
Letter, 9th December, 1771

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 11:36 AM | Permalink

MARCH 12

You are to cure Robert Swanson of preaching too long.
to Christopher Hopper, 1773

If any other of the preachers exceed their time (about an hour in the whole Service), I hope you will always put them in mind what is the Methodist rule. People imagine the longer the sermon is the more good it will do. This is a grand mistake. The help done on earth God doth it Himself; and He doth not need that we should use many words.
to Mrs. Johnston, 1777

How shall we conquer if we do not fight?
Letter, 21st February, 1786

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 11:34 AM | Permalink

MARCH 11

I really hope the Sunday Schools will be productive of great good to the nation. They spread wider and wider, and are likely to reach every part of the kingdom.
to the Rev. John Fletcher, 1785

Our Sunday Schools at Bolton contain upward of eight hundred children, and are all taught by our own brethren without pay.
to Alexander Suter, 1787

The Sunday Schools have been of great use in every part of England, and to assist in any of them is a noble employment.
to his niece, Sarah Wesley, 1788

Take care of the rising generation.
to Thomas Rankin, 1767

Believe me you can find nothing higher than this (love), till mortality be swallowed up of life.
Letter, 25th October, 1772

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 11:33 AM | Permalink

MARCH 10

I long to have you more and more deeply penetrated by humble, gentle, patient love.
Letter, 25th October, 1772

Be merciful after your power; give as God enables you. If you are not in pressing want, give something, and you will be no poorer for it. Grudge not, fear not; lend unto the Lord, and He will surely repay. If you earn but three shillings a week and give a penny out of it, you will never want. But I do not say this to you who have ten or fifteen shillings a week and give only a penny! To see this has often grieved my spirit. I have been ashamed for you, if you have not been ashamed for yourself. Why, by the same rule that you give a penny, that poor man should give a peppercorn! … Give in proportion to your substance. You can better afford a shilling than he a penny.
to the Societies at Bristol, 1764

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 11:31 AM | Permalink

MARCH 9

I go calmly and quietly on my way doing what I conceive to be the will of God.
Letter, 21st February, 1786

Be active, be diligent; avoid all laziness, sloth, indolence. Fly from every degree, every appearance of it; else you will never be more than half a Christian.

Be cleanly. In this let the Methodists take pattern by the Quakers. Avoid all nastiness, dirt, slovenliness, both in your person, clothes, house, and all about you. Do not stink above ground. This is a bad fruit of laziness; use all diligence to be clean.

Whatever clothes you have, let them be whole; no rents, no tatters, no rags. These are a scandal to either man or woman, being another fruit of vile laziness. Mend your clothes, or I shall never expect you to mend your lives. Let none ever see a ragged Methodist.
to Richard Steele, 1769

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 11:30 AM | Permalink

MARCH 8

Today only is yours. Look up, and He will bless you all today.
Letter, 26th February, 1778

Above thirty years ago a motion was made in Parliament for raising and embodying the militia, and for exercising them (to save time) on Sunday. When the motion was like to pass, an old gentleman stood up and said: “Mr. Speaker, I have one objection to this: I believe an old book called the Bible.” The members looked at one another, and the motion was dropped.

Must not all others who believe the Bible have the very same objection? And from what I have seen, I cannot but think these are still three-fourths of the nation. … Would not all England, would not all Europe, consider this as a virtual repeal of the Bible? And would not all serious persons say: “We have little religion in the land now; but by this step we shall have less still.”
to the Earl of Shelburne, 1782

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 11:29 AM | Permalink

MARCH 7

If you could take one advice, it would have a surprising effect. It is this, “Take no thought for the morrow.”
Letter, 26th February, 1778

I built the first preaching-house which was built for people called Methodists – namely, at Bristol in the year 1739. And, knowing no better, I suffered the first deed of trust to be drawn in the Presbyterian form. But Mr. Whitefield, hearing of this, wrote me a warm letter asking: “Do you consider what you do? If you let the trustees name the preachers, they may exclude you and all your brethren from preaching in the houses they have built. Pray let the deed be immediately cancelled;” to which the trustees immediately agreed.

Afterwards I built the preaching-houses in Kingswood and at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. But I took care that none but myself should have any right to name preachers for them.
to Joseph Benson, 1782

Posted by The Husky Wesleyan at 11:27 AM | Permalink

Search

Last posts

Links

Free Counter

Subscribe to this blog's feed
[What is this?]

Through the Year with John Wesley

Quotes, thoughts, and writings from the founder of Methodism.

Search

Last posts

Archives

Links