{"id":"jw/letters-digest/1733","corpus":"jw-letters-digest","type":"letter-year-digest","author":"john-wesley","title":"Letters 1733","title_alt":[],"text_basis":null,"date_composed":null,"date_precision":"unknown","date_note":null,"numbering":{"bicentennial":null,"jackson_running":null,"sugden":null},"source_edition":{"editor":null,"title":null,"edition":null,"place":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"volume":null,"pages":null,"scan_url":null,"scan_page_ids":null},"transcription":{"derived_from":null,"corrected_against_scan":false,"corrector":null,"corrected_on":null},"modernization":"none","license_text":"Public Domain Mark 1.0","license_apparatus":"CC BY 4.0","wikidata":null,"prev":null,"next":null,"part_of":"jw-letters-digest","editorial_note":null,"source_id":"jw-letters-1733","passage_ids":["jw-letters-1733-000","jw-letters-1733-001","jw-letters-1733-002","jw-letters-1733-003","jw-letters-1733-004","jw-letters-1733-005","jw-letters-1733-006","jw-letters-1733-007","jw-letters-1733-008","jw-letters-1733-009","jw-letters-1733-010"],"word_count":3194,"themes_auto":["assurance","catholic-spirit","christology","experience","free-will","justifying-grace","reign-of-god","scriptural-authority","social-holiness","trinity","universal-redemption","works-mercy","works-piety"],"open":false,"closed_reason":"abridged-digest-duplicates-individual-letters-same-year","legacy_ids":["jw-letters-1733-000","jw-letters-1733-001","jw-letters-1733-002","jw-letters-1733-003","jw-letters-1733-004","jw-letters-1733-005","jw-letters-1733-006","jw-letters-1733-007","jw-letters-1733-008","jw-letters-1733-009","jw-letters-1733-010"],"passages":[{"id":"jw-letters-1733-000","author":"john-wesley","source_id":"jw-letters-1733","source_title":"Letters 1733","source_type":"letter","year":null,"chunk_index":0,"text":"To his Mother 1 February 15, 1733. DEAR MOTHER, I am glad to hear that my father continues recovering, though it can be but very slowly, considering how his strength is exhausted. 'Tis well if this time spring does not betray him into a relapse, by tempting him out before his health is confirmed. Of poor Becky my sister Molly says not one word, so I presume she is as she was; and hope I may make the same inference as to you viz. that you are only half tired to death. The more I think of the reason you gave me at Epworth for speaking little upon religious subjects, the less it satisfies me. ' We shall all be of your mind when we are of your age.' But who will assure us that we shall ever be of that age Or suppose we should, is it not better to be of that mind sooner Is not a right faith of use at thirty as well as at sixty and are not the actions that flow from a right faith as rewardable now as then I trust they are, and do therefore earnestly desire that, whatever general or particular rules of life your own reflection and experience have suggested to you, I may be tried whether I will conform to them or no. If I do not, the blame lights on me. At this season especially I would not neglect any help for mortifying the flesh and the lusts thereof, for throwing off the affections of the earthly Adam, and putting on the image of the heavenly. If I am to be surrounded with the snares of flesh and blood yet many years, will you not give me the best advices to break through them that you can If I, as well as you, am soon to be laid in the balance, so much the rather assist me, that I may not be found wanting.","word_count":326,"source_url":null,"themes":["free-will","justifying-grace","works-mercy"],"created_at":"2026-01-30T07:47:09.162857"},{"id":"jw-letters-1733-001","author":"john-wesley","source_id":"jw-letters-1733","source_title":"Letters 1733","source_type":"letter","year":null,"chunk_index":1,"text":"You observed when I was with you that I was very indifferent as to having or not having Epworth living. I was, indeed, utterly unable to determine either way; and that for this reason: I knew if I could stand my ground here and approve myself a faithful minister of our blessed Jesus, by honor and dishonor, through evil report and good report, then there was not a place under heaven like this for improvement in every good work. But whether I can stem the torrent which I saw then, but see now much more, rolling down from all sides upon me, that I know not. True, there is One who can yet either command the great water-flood that it shall not come nigh me, or make way for His redeemed to pass through. But then something must be done on my part; and should He give me even that most equitable condition, ' according to thy faith be it unto thee,' yet how shall I fulfill it Why, He will look to that too; my father and you helping together in your prayers, that our faith fail us not. I am, dear mother, Your dutiful and affectionate Son. To his Father June 13, 1733.","word_count":205,"source_url":null,"themes":["trinity","justifying-grace","free-will"],"created_at":"2026-01-30T07:47:09.162965"},{"id":"jw-letters-1733-002","author":"john-wesley","source_id":"jw-letters-1733","source_title":"Letters 1733","source_type":"letter","year":null,"chunk_index":2,"text":"The effects of my last journey, The Diary for May 1733 says, 'Journey to Epworth 1.0.6.' He spent Sunday with his friend Clayton in Manchester, and then went on to Epworth. I believe, will make me more cautious of staying any time from Oxford for the future; at least, till I have no pupils to take care of, which probably will be within a year or two. One of my young gentlemen told me at my return that he was more and more afraid of singularity; another, that he had read an excellent piece of Mr. Locke's; 2 John Locke (1632-1704) His nephew, Lord Chancellor King, had a decisive influence on Wesley's ecclesiastical views (see letter of Dec. 30, 1745, p. 54). The piece referred to is that on' Authority '(Essay, folio ed. p. 341): 'The wrong measure or probability which keeps in ignorance or error more people than all the other together is the giving up our assent to the common received opinions, either. of our friends or party, neighborhood or country.' which had convinced him of the mischief of regarding authority. Both of them agreed that the observing of Wednesday as a fast was an unnecessary singularity; the Catholic Church (that is, the majority of it) having long since repealed by contrary custom the injunction she formerly gave concerning it. Robert Nelson, the Nonjuror (1656-1715), whose Festivals and Fasts was much commended in the Holy Club, says of the 'ancient Christians': ' Their weekly fasts were kept on Wednesdays and Fridays, because on the one our Lord was betrayed and on the other crucified. These fasts were called their stations, from the military word of keeping their guard, as Tertullian observes.' See letter of Jan. 13, 1735. A third, who could not yield to this argument, has been convinced by a fever and Dr. Frewin. Richard Frewin (1681-1761), of Christ Church, physician. and Camden Professor of Ancient History, 1727, See letter of Jan. 14, 1734. Our seven-and-twenty communicants at St. Mary's were on Monday shrunk to five; and the day before, the last of Mr. Clayton's pupils who continued with us informed me that he did not design to meet us any more.","word_count":365,"source_url":null,"themes":["christology","catholic-spirit","social-holiness"],"created_at":"2026-01-30T07:47:09.163053"},{"id":"jw-letters-1733-003","author":"john-wesley","source_id":"jw-letters-1733","source_title":"Letters 1733","source_type":"letter","year":null,"chunk_index":3,"text":"My ill success, as they call it, seems to be what has frightened every one away from a falling house. On Sunday I was considering the matter a little more nearly; and imagined that all the ill consequences of my singularity were reducible to three diminution of fortune, loss of friends and of reputation. As to my fortune, I well know, though perhaps others do not, that I could not have borne a larger than I have; and as for that most plausible excuse for desiring it, ' While I have so little, I cannot do the good I would,' I ask, Can you do the good God would have you do It is enough ! Look no farther. For friends, they were either trifling or serious: if triflers, fare them well a noble escape; if serious, those who are more serious are left, whom the others would rather have opposed than forwarded in the service they have done and still do us. If it be said, ' But these may leave you too; for they are no firmer than the others were ': first, I doubt that fact; but, next, suppose they should, we hope then they would only teach us a nobler and harder lesson than they have done hitherto ' It is better to trust in the Lord than to put any confidence in man.' And as for reputation, though it be a glorious instrument of advancing our Master's service, yet there is a better than that a clean heart, a single eye, a soul full of God! A fair exchange, if by the loss of reputation we can purchase the lowest degree of purity of heart 1 We beg my mother and you would not cease to work together with us, that, whatever we lose, we may gain this; and that, having tasted of this good gift, we may count all things else but dung and dross in comparison of it. To his Mother August 17, 1753,","word_count":331,"source_url":null,"themes":["catholic-spirit","universal-redemption","trinity"],"created_at":"2026-01-30T07:47:09.163126"},{"id":"jw-letters-1733-004","author":"john-wesley","source_id":"jw-letters-1733","source_title":"Letters 1733","source_type":"letter","year":null,"chunk_index":4,"text":"The thing that gives offence here is the being singular with regard to time, expense, and company. This is evident beyond exception, from the case of Mr. Smith, William Smith, Fellow of Lincoln, and apparently one of the Oxford Methodists. On Aug. L x732, Clayton wrote to Wesley (who was then in London, where he was elected a member of the S.P.C.K., and visited William Law at Puthey) that since he had left Oxford no one had attacked Smith and himself. ' I have gone every day to Lincoln, big with expectations to hear of some mighty attack made upon Mr. Smith; but, I thank God, I have always been disappointed: for not one of the Fellows has once so much as tried to shake him or to convert him from the right way, c.' After his return from Georgia, at Oxford on Feb. 11, 1737, Charles Wesley (see his Journal, i. 68) exhorts 'poor languid Smith' to resume all his rules of holy living. one of our Fellows, who no sooner began to husband his time, to retrench unnecessary expenses, and to avoid his irreligious acquaintance, but he was set upon, by not only all those acquaintance, but many others too, as if he had entered into a conspiracy to cut all their throats; though to this day he has not advised any single person, unless in a word or two and by accident, to act as he did in any of those instances.","word_count":245,"source_url":null,"themes":["catholic-spirit","universal-redemption","works-piety"],"created_at":"2026-01-30T07:47:09.163195"},{"id":"jw-letters-1733-005","author":"john-wesley","source_id":"jw-letters-1733","source_title":"Letters 1733","source_type":"letter","year":null,"chunk_index":5,"text":"It is true, indeed, that 'the devil hates offensive war most '; and that whoever tries to rescue more than his own soul from his hands, will have more enemies and meet with greater opposition than if he was content with 'having his own life for a prey.' That I try to do this is likewise certain; but I cannot say whether I 'rigorously impose any observances on others ' till I know what that phrase means. What I do is this: when I am entrusted with a person who is first to understand and practice, and then to teach, the law of Christ, I endeavor, by an intermixture of reading and conversation, to show him what that law is that is, to renounce all insubordinate love of the world, and to love and obey God with all his strength. When he appears seriously sensible of this, I propose to him the means God hath commanded him to use in order to that end; and, a week, or a month, or a year after, as the state of his soul seems to require it, the several prudential means recommended by wise and good men. As to the times, order, measure, and manner wherein these are to be proposed, I depend upon the Holy Spirit to direct me, in and by my own experience and reflection, joined to the advices of my religious friends here and elsewhere. Only two rules it is my principle to observe in all cases: first, to begin, continue, and end all my advices in the spirit of meekness, as knowing that' the wrath ' or severity' of man worketh not the righteousness of God '; and, secondly, to add to meekness longsuffering, in pursuance of a rule which I fixed long since never to give up any one till I have tried him at least ten years. How long hath God had pity on thee","word_count":319,"source_url":null,"themes":["works-piety","assurance","universal-redemption"],"created_at":"2026-01-30T07:47:09.163262"},{"id":"jw-letters-1733-006","author":"john-wesley","source_id":"jw-letters-1733","source_title":"Letters 1733","source_type":"letter","year":null,"chunk_index":6,"text":"If the wise and good will believe those falsehoods which the bad invent, because I endeavour to save myself and my friends from them, then I shall lose my reputation, even among them, for, though not perhaps good, yet the best actions I ever did in my life. This is the very case. I try to act as my Lord commands: ill men say all manner of evil of me, and good men believe them. There is a way, and there is but one, of making my peace: God forbid I should ever take it! I have as many pupils as I need, and as many friends; when more are better for me, I shall have more. If I have no more pupils after these are gone from me, I shall then be glad of a curacy near you: if I have, I shall take it as a signal that I am to remain here. Whether here or there, my desire is to know and feel that I am nothing, that I have nothing, and that I can do nothing. For whenever I am empty of myself, then know I of a surety that neither friends nor foes, nor any creature, can hinder me from being 'filled with all the fullness of God.' Let not my father's or your prayers be ever slack in behalf of Your affectionate Son. To Richard Morgan December 17, 1733.","word_count":235,"source_url":null,"themes":["trinity","experience","justifying-grace"],"created_at":"2026-01-30T07:47:09.163323"},{"id":"jw-letters-1733-007","author":"john-wesley","source_id":"jw-letters-1733","source_title":"Letters 1733","source_type":"letter","year":null,"chunk_index":7,"text":"SIR, The bank-note sent by Mr. Huey was exchanged today. I have paid Mr. Lasher 11 17s. 6d. of the 50 (and the 9 in my brother's hands), the Bursar 24 for caution-money, and 40s. the usual fee for his admission into the common-room. Mr. Morgan usually rises about six, and has not yet been wanting in diligence. He seldom goes out of college unless upon business or to walk for his health, which I would willingly persuade him to do every day. He loses no time at taverns or coffee-houses, and avoids as much as possible idle company, which every gentleman here will soon be pestered with if he has not some show of resolution. Some evenings every week he spends in the common-room, and others with my brother and me. Of his being admitted into our Society (if it deserves so honorable a title) there is no danger. All those gentlemen whom I have the happiness to converse with two or three times a week upon a religious account would oppose me to the utmost should I attempt to introduce among them at those important hours one of whose prudence I had had so short a trial and who was so little experienced in piety and charity. Several of the points you mention deserve a fuller consideration than I have leisure to give them. I shall ever own myself extremely obliged for the freedom with which you mention them, and have endeavored to answer you with the same freedom, which I am persuaded will not be disagreeable to you. That my dear friend, now with God, was much disordered in his understanding. I had often observed long before he left England. That he was likewise sincerely religious, all observed; but whoever had seen his behavior in the successive stages of his illness might as easily have mistaken darkness for light as his madness for his religion. They were not only different, but opposite too; one counteracting the other from its beginning. I cannot better describe his religion than in the words of the person who wrote his elegy: Mild, sweet, serene, and tender was her mood, Nor grave with sternness, nor with lightness free! Against example resolutely good, Fervent in zeal and warm in charity! Who ne'er forsook her faith for love of peace, Nor sought with fire and sword to show her zeal;","word_count":396,"source_url":null,"themes":["free-will","social-holiness","catholic-spirit"],"created_at":"2026-01-30T07:47:09.163607"},{"id":"jw-letters-1733-008","author":"john-wesley","source_id":"jw-letters-1733","source_title":"Letters 1733","source_type":"letter","year":null,"chunk_index":8,"text":"Duteous to rulers when they most oppress, Patient in bearing ill, and doing well. Description of Divine Religion, from The Battle of the Sexes, stanza xxxv., by his brother Samuel. For 'tender' (line 1) read 'cheerful,' for 'rulers' (line 7) 'princes.' Wesley quotes the last line in the obituary of Robert Swindells (Minutes, x783). Directly contrary to every article of this was his madness. It was harsh, sour, cloudy, and severe. It was sometimes extravagantly light and sometimes sternly serious. It undermined his best resolutions by an absurd deference to example. It damped the fervor of his zeal and gradually impaired the warmth of his charity. It had not, indeed, as yet attacked his duteous regard for his superiors, nor drove him to exterminate sin by fire and sword; for when it had so obscured that clear judgment whereon his holiness stood that his very faith and patience began to be in danger, the God whom he served came to his rescue and snatched him from the evil to Come. 'But though his religion was not the same with his madness, might it not be the cause of it ' I answer, No. 'Tis full as reasonable to believe that light is darkness as that it is the cause of it. We may just as well think that mildness and harshness, sweetness and sternness, gentleness and fury are the same thing, as that the former are the causes of the latter, or have any tendency thereto. 'But he said himself his distemper was religious madness, and who should know better than himself' Who should know the truth better than one out of his senses Why, any one that was in them, especially any one that had observed the several workings of his soul before the corruptible body pressed it down; when his apprehension was unclouded, his' judgment sound, and his reason cool and unimpaired. Then it was that he knew himself and his Master; then he spoke the words of truth and soberness, and justified by those words the wisdom he loved, only not as much as he adorned it by his life.","word_count":353,"source_url":null,"themes":["reign-of-god","justifying-grace","scriptural-authority"],"created_at":"2026-01-30T07:47:09.163754"},{"id":"jw-letters-1733-009","author":"john-wesley","source_id":"jw-letters-1733","source_title":"Letters 1733","source_type":"letter","year":null,"chunk_index":9,"text":"True it is God was pleased, for the trial both of him and us, to visit him with a grievous illness. As his illness increased his reason declined, and consequently his religion built upon it. Till that melancholy effect of his disease, I challenge all the fools who counted his preceding life madness to point out one extreme he was in of any sort or one instance of his zeal which was not according to knowledge. 'Tis easy for any of them to declaim in general against enthusiasm and carrying things too far, and even to prevail upon an unwary mind, shattered by sickness, to plead guilty to the accusation. But let them come to particulars, and I do hereby undertake to prove that every fact they allege against him is either absolutely false or that it is agreeable to the strictest rules both of piety and Christian prudence. His fasting (or abstinence rather, for I do not know that he ever fasted one day) I least of all 'except; as being firmly persuaded, from careful and repeated observations, that had he continued it he had been alive to this day. Nor are there wanting as great names for this opinion as any that advised on the contrary, who believe that wine and free diet to one in his circumstances was as sure a recipe as shooting him through the head. I acknowledge your goodness in having a far better opinion of me than I deserve, or, I trust in God, shall ever desire. I have many things to add when time permits, but one I dare not defer a moment. 'Tis absolutely necessary to guard your surviving son against the least suspicion of my over-great zeal or strictness. You are fully sensible he is in no danger of either. But if he once fancies I am, that fancy will cut me off from all possibility of doing him any substantial service. whatever advice I may have occasion to give with regard to his moral conduct, ' much religion hath made thee mad ' will be a sufficient answer to all. For your sake and his I beg to know (what I should otherwise not think it worth while to bestow one thought upon) any overt acts of my enthusiasm which pass current in Ireland either with the gay or the serious part of the world.","word_count":396,"source_url":null,"themes":["universal-redemption","free-will","catholic-spirit"],"created_at":"2026-01-30T07:47:09.163886"},{"id":"jw-letters-1733-010","author":"john-wesley","source_id":"jw-letters-1733","source_title":"Letters 1733","source_type":"letter","year":null,"chunk_index":10,"text":"My brother gladly joins with me in acknowledging all your favors both to him and to, good sir, Your obliged and obedient servant.","word_count":23,"source_url":null,"themes":["catholic-spirit","universal-redemption"],"created_at":"2026-01-30T07:47:09.163911"}]}