Wesley Corpus

Mon. 12.--I left London, and in the evening expounded, at Wycombe, the story of the Pharisee and the Publican. The next morning, a young gentleman overtook me on the road, and, after awhile, asked me if I had seen Whitefield’s Journals. I told him I had. “And what do you think of them?’ said he. ‘ Don’t you think they are d--n’d cant, enthusiasm from end to end? I think so.” I asked him, “ Why do you think so?” He replied, “ Why, he talks so much about joy and stuff, and inward feelings. As I hope to be saved, I cannot tell what to make of it?” _ I asked, “ Did you ever feel the love of God in your heart? If not, how should you tell what to make of it? Whatever is spoke of the religion of the heart, and of the inward workings of the Spirit of God, must appear enthusiasm to those who have not felt them ; that is, if they take upon them to judge of the things which they own they know not.” At four in the afternoon I came to Oxford, and to a small company in the evening explained the nature and extent of that salvation wherewith, “by grace, we are saved through faith.” The next evening I showed, what it is to believe ; as well as, more largely, what are the fruits of true believing; from those words of the Apostle, “ This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.” Thur. 15.--My brother and I set out for Tiverton. About eleven I preached at Burford. On Saturday evening I explained, at Bristol, the nature and extent of Christian perfection: and at nine in the morning preached at Bath, on, “I know that in me dwelleth no good thing.” In the afternoon I exhorted four or five thousand people at Bristol,, neither to neglect nor rest in the means of grace. In the evening I endeavoured to lift up the hands that hung down, by declaring, “ He will not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax.” Mon. 19.--I earnestly exhorted those who had believed, to beware of two opposite extremes,---the one, the thinking while they were in light and joy, that the work was ended, when it was but just begun Nov. 1739. | REV. J. WESLEY S JOURNAL. 169