Wesley Corpus

132 REV. J« WESLEY'S JOURNAL. [May, 1739 ’ Saturday, 12, the first stone was laid, with the voice of praise and thanksgiving. ‘Thad not at first the least apprehension or design of being personally engaged, either in the expense of this work, or in the direction of it : having appointed eleven feoffees, on whom I supposed these burdens would fall of course. But I quickly found my mistake; first with regard to the expense: for the whole undertaking must have stood still, had not I immediately taken upon myself the payment of all the work men; so that before I knew where I was, I had contracted a debt of more than a hundred and fifty pounds. And.this I was to discharge how I could; the subscriptions of both societies not amounting to one quarter of the sum. And as to the direction of the work, I presently received letters from my friends in London, Mr. Whitefield in particular, backed with a message by one just come from thence, that neither he nor they would have any thing to do with the building, neither contribute any thing toward it, unless I would instantly discharge all feoffees, and do every thing in my own name. Many reasons they gave for this; but one was enough, viz. ‘that such feoffees always would have it in their power to control me ; and if I preached not as they liked, to turn me out of the room I had built.” I accordingly yielded to their advice, and calling all the feoffees together, cancelled (no man opposing) the instrument made before, and took the whole management into my own hands. Money, it is true, I had not, nor any human prospect or probability of procuring it: but I knew “the earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof’? and in his name set out, nothing doubting. In the evening, while I was declaring that Jesus Christ had “ given himself a ransom for all,” three persons, almost at once, sunk down as dead, having all their sins set in array before them. But in a short time they were raised up, and knew that “ the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world,” had taken away their sins.