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.
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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.
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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 |


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 |


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 |


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.
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Every day of your life take at least an hour’s exercise … If you can, take it in the open air.
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Sleep early and rise early, unless you are ill.
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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 |


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 |


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 |


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 |


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 |


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 |


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 |


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 |


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.

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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 |


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.

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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 |


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 |


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 |


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.

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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.”

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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 |


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.

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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 |


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.

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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 |


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.

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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 |


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 |


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 |


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 |


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 |