Wesley Corpus

2.--I preached again in the Foundery, which had been repairing for several weeks. It is not only firm and safe, (whereas before the main timbers were quite decayed,) but clean and decent, and capable of receiving several hundreds JT1Ore. 160 Rev. J. wesLEY’s [Feb. 1764. Sun. 5.--I began Mr. Hartley’s ingenious “Defence of the Mystic Writers.” But it does not satisfy me. I must still object, 1. To their sentiments. The chief of them do not appear to me to have any conception of church communion. Again, they slight not only works of piety, the ordinances of God, but even works of mercy. And yet most of them, yea, all that I have seen, hold justification by works. In general, they are “wise above what is written,” indulging themselves in many unscriptural speculations. I object, 2. To their spirit, that most of them are of a dark, shy, reserved, unsociable temper. And that they are apt to despise all who differ from them, as carnal, unenlightened men. I object, 3. To their whole phraseology. It is both unscriptural, and affectedly mysterious. I say, affectedly; for this does not necessarily result from the nature of the things spoken of St. John speaks as high and as deep things as Jacob Behmen. Why then does not Jacob speak as plain as him? Mon. 6.--I opened the new chapel at Wapping, well filled with deeply attentive hearers. Thursday, 16. I once more took a serious walk through the tombs in Westminster Abbey. What heaps of unmeaning stone and marble ! But there was one tomb which showed common sense; that beautiful figure of Mr. Nightingale, endeavouring to screen his lovely wife from Death. Here indeed the marble seems to speak, and the statues appear only not alive. After taking Brentford, Deptford, Welling, and Seven oaks, in my way, on Thursday, 23, I rode to Sir Thomas I'Anson’s, (at New-Bounds, two miles beyond Tunbridge,) just quivering on the verge of life, helpless as a child, but (as it seems) greatly profited by this severe dispensation. The hall, stair-case, and adjoining rooms, just contained the people in the evening. One poor backslider, whom Providence had brought thither, was exceedingly wounded. I left her resolved to set out once more, if haply God might heal her. Fri. 24.--I returned to London. Wednesday, 29. I heard “Judith,” an Oratorio, performed at the Lock.