Wesley Corpus

4, Perhaps my employments of another kind may not allow me to give any farther answer to them who “ say all manner of evil of me falsely,’’ and seem to “think that they do God service.” Suffice it, that botl. they and I shall shortly “give an acc~unt to Him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead.” See ee Oxon, October 18, 1730, Sir,--The occasion of my giving you this trouble is of a very extraordinary nature. On Sunday last I was informed (as no doubt you will be ere long) that my brother and I had killed your son: that the rigorous fasting which he had imposed upon himself, by our advice, had increased his illness and hastened his death. Now though, considering it in itself, “it is a very small thing with me to be judged by man’s judgment ;” yet as the being thought guilty of so mischievous an imprudence might make me the less able to do the work I came into the world for, I am obliged to clear myself of it, by observing to you, as I have done to others, that your son left off fasting about a year and a half since ; and tnat it is not yet half a year since I began to practise it. I must not let this opportunity slip of doing my part toward giving you a juster notion of some other particulars, relating both to him and myself, which have been industriously misrepresented to you. In March last he received a letter from you, which, not being able to read, he desired me to read to him; several of the expressions whereof I perfectly remember, and shall do, till I too am called hence. I then determined, that if God was pleased to take away your son before me, I would justify him and myself, which I now do with all plainness and simplicity, as both my character and cause required.