Wesley Corpus

Wed. 18.--Being the day of the national fast, we met at four in the morning. I preached on Joel ii, 12, &c. At nine our service n West-street began. At five I preached at the Foundery again, on, “The Lord sitteth above the water floods.” Abundance of people were at West-street chapel, and at the Foundery, both morning and evening; as also (we understood) at every place of public worship, throughout London and Westminster. And such a solemnity and seriousness every where appeared as had not been lately seen in England. We had within a short time given away some thousands of little tracts among the common people. And it pleased God hereby to provoke others to jealousy. Insomuch that the lord mayor had ordered a large quantity of papers, dissuading from cursing and swearing, to be printed, and distributed to the trainbands. And this day, ‘“‘ An Earnest Exhortation to Serious Repentance” was given at every church door, in or near London, to every person who came out; and one left at the house of every householder who was absent from church. I doubt not but God gave a blessing therewith. And perhaps then the sentence of desolation was recalled. It was on this very day that the duke’s army was so remarkably preserved in the midst of the ambuscades at Clifton Moor. The rebels fired many volleys upon the king’s troops, from the hedges and walls, behind which they lay. And yet, from first to last, only ten or twelve men fell, the shot flying over their heads. Wed. 25.--I talked with a young man, who seemed to be under strong convictions: but, I fear, only seemed. I am surprised that, in so many years, this is the first hypocrite of the kind I have met with; the first who appeared to have deliberately put on the mask ot religion, purely to serve a secularend. Fri. 27.--Having received a long letter from Mr. Hall, earnestly pressing my brother and me to renounce the 562 REV. J. WESLEY’S JOURNAL. [ Dec. 1745 Church of England, (for not complying with which advice he soon renounced us,) I wrote to him as follows :---