Wesley Corpus

4. The passage which you quote from the third Appeal I am obliged to relate more at large: ‘There is one more excuse for denying this work of God, taken from the instruments employed there’ --that is, that they are wicked men; and a thousand stories have been handed about to prove it. ‘Yet I cannot but remind considerate men in how remarkable a manner the wisdom of God has for many years guarded against this pretence, with regard to my brother and me in particular.’ ‘This pretence -- that is, “of not employing fit instruments.”’ These words are yours, though you insert them as mine. The pre-fence I mentioned was ‘that they were wicked men.’ And how God guarded against this is shown in what follows: ‘From that time both my brother and I, utterly against our will, came to be more and more observed and known; till we were more spoken of than perhaps two so inconsiderable persons ever were before in the nation. To make us more public still, as honest madmen at least, by a strange concurrence of providences, overturning all our preceding resolutions, we were hurried away to America.’