Wesley Corpus

To his Mother Date: OXON, July 29, 1725 Source: The Letters of John Wesley (1725) Author: John Wesley --- DEAR MOTHER, -- I must in the first place beg you to excuse my writing so small, since I shall not otherwise have time to make an end before the post goes out; as I am not sure I shall, whether I make haste or no. The King of Poland has promised what satisfaction shall be thought requisite in the affair of Thorn [In 1724 a riot occurred at Thorn in Poland between Jesuit students and Protestants who were accused of sacrilege. The aged President of the City Council and several leading citizens were executed in December. The Protestant Powers of Europe were indignant, and the Poles especially annoyed by the speech of the English minister at Ratisbon. See Morfill's Poland, p. 2o3; and letter of Nov.]; so that all Europe seemed now disposed for peace as well as England, though the Spaniards daily plunder our merchantmen as fast as they can catch them in the West Indies. [Spain was hoping to regain her lost possessions across the Atlantic, and sought to monopolize the commerce of the most important part of the New World, and the rigid exercise of the right of search on the high seas gave rise to many acts of violence and barbarity (Lecky's England. in the Eighteenth Century, i. 449). In 1727 she besieged Gibraltar.] You have much obliged me by your thoughts on Dr. Taylor, [See letter of Feb. 28, 1730.] especially with respect to humility, which is a point he does not seem to me sufficiently to dear. As to absolute humility (if I may venture to make a distinction, which I don't remember to have seen in any author), consisting in a mean opinion of ourselves, considered simply, or with respect to God alone, I can readily join with his opinion. But I am more uncertain as to comparative, if I may so term it; and think some, plausible reasons may be alleged to show it is not in our power, and consequently not a virtue, to think ourselves the worst in every company.