Wesley Corpus

Inquire, then, ‘Which are greater, the numbers of serious men perplexed and deluded by these teachers, or of notorious sinners brought to repentance and good life,’ within the forest of Kingswood Many, indeed, of the inhabitants are nearly as they were, are not much better or worse for their preaching, because the neighboring clergy and gentry have successfully labored to deter them from hearing it. But between three and four hundred of those who would not be deterred are now under the care of those preachers. Now, what number of these were serious Christians before Were fifty were twenty were ten Peradventure there might five such be found. But it is a question whether there could be or no. The remainder were gross, open sinners, common swearers, drunkards, Sabbath-breakers, whoremongers, plunderers, robbers, implacable, unmerciful, wolves and bears in the shape of men. Do you desire instances of more ‘notorious sinners’ than these I know not if Turkey or Japan can afford them. And what do you include in ‘repentance and good life’ Give the strictest definition thereof that you are able, and I will undertake these once notorious sinners shall be weighed in that balance and not found wanting. 8. Not that all the Methodists (so called) ‘were very wicked people before they followed us.’ There are those among them, and not a few, who are able to stop the boasting of those that despise them, and to say, ‘Whereinsoever any of you is bold, I am bold also’; only they ‘count all these things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus.’ But these we found, as it were, when we sought them not. We went forth to ‘seek that which was lost’ (more eminently lost); ‘to call’ the most flagrant, hardened, desperate ‘sinners to repentance.’ To this end we preached in the Horsefair at Bristol, in Kingswood, in Newcastle; among the colliers in Staffordshire and the tinners in Cornwall; in Southwark, Wapping, Moorfields, Drury Lane, at London. Did any man ever pick out such places as these in order to find ‘serious, regular, well-disposed people’ How many such might then be in any of them I know not. But this I know, that four in five of those who are now with us were not of that number, but were wallowing in their blood, till God by us said unto them, ‘Live.’