Wesley Corpus

22. But I must draw to a conclusion. Your Lordship has without doubt had some success in opposing this doctrine. Very many have, by your Lordship's unwearied endeavors, been deterred from hearing at all; and have thereby probably escaped the being seduced into holiness, have lived and died in their sins. My Lord, the time is short. I am past the noon of life, and my remaining years flee away as a shadow. Your Lordship is old and full of days, having past the usual age of man. It cannot, therefore, be long before we shall both drop this house of earth and stand naked before God; no, nor before we shall see the great white throne coming down from heaven, and Him that sitteth thereon. On His left hand shall be those who are shortly to dwell in everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. In that number will be all who died in their sins, and, among the rest, those whom you preserved from repentance. Will you then rejoice in your success The Lord God grant it may not be said in that hour, 'These have perished in their iniquity; but their blood I require at thy hands’! - I am Your Lordship's dutiful son and servant. To ‘John Smith’ ST. IVES, July 10, 1747. SIR, -- 1. You put me in mind of an eminent man who, preaching at St. James’s, said, ‘If you do not repent, you will go to a place which I shall not name before this audience.’ I cannot promise so much, either in preaching or writing, before any audience or to any person whatever. Yet I am not conscious of doing this very often -- of ‘profusely flinging about everlasting fire’; though it is true I mentioned it in my last letter to you, as I have done now a second time; and perhaps I may mention it yet again. For, to say the truth, I desire to have both heaven and hell ever in my eye, while I stand on this isthmus of life, between these two boundless oceans; and I verily think the daily consideration of both highly becomes all men of reason and religion.