Wesley Corpus

To his Brother Samuel Date: OXON, February 13, 1735. Source: The Letters of John Wesley (1735) Author: John Wesley --- DEAR BROTHER, --Neither you nor I have any time to spare; so I must be as short as I can. There are two questions between us; one relating to being good, the other to doing good. With regard to the former: 1. You allow I enjoy more of friends, retirement, freedom from care, and divine ordinances than I could do elsewhere: and I add (1) I feel all this to be but just enough; (2) I have always found less than this to be too little for me; and therefore (3) whatever others do, I could not throw up any part of it without manifest hazard to my salvation. As to the latter: 2. I am not careful to answer 'what good I have done at Oxford,' because I cannot think of it without the utmost danger. ' I am careful about what I may do at Epworth,' (1) because I can think of it without any danger at all; (2) because I cannot, as matters now stand, avoid thinking of it without sin. 3. Another can supply my place at Epworth better than at Oxford, and the good done here is of a far more diffusive nature. It is a more extensive benefit to sweeten the fountain than to do the same to particular streams. 4. To the objection, You are despised at Oxford, therefore you can do no good there, I answer: (1) A Christian will be despised anywhere. (2) No one is a Christian till he is despised. (3) His being .despised will not hinder his doing good, but much further it by making him a better Christian. Without contradicting any of these propositions, I allow that every one to whom you do good directly must esteem you, first or last. -- N.B. A man may despise you for one thing, hate you for a second, and envy you for a third. 5. God may suffer Epworth to be worse than before. But I may not attempt to prevent it, with so great hazard to my own soul.