Wesley Corpus

To Samuel Walker Date: LONDON, November 20, 1755. Source: The Letters of John Wesley (1755) Author: John Wesley --- REVEREND AND DEAR SIR, -- I return you many thanks for the welcome letter from Mr. Adam [The reply to the Rev. Thomas Adam (p. 149) is dated Oct. 31. The interval was spent in London, where he stayed until Jan 26.] as well as for your own. I have answered his (which is wrote in a truly Christian spirit), and now proceed to consider yours, after having observed that two of our preachers [Samuel Larwood, John Edwards, Charles Skelton, and John Witford left Wesley. See Journal, iv. 95n; and letters of July 17, 1751, and Aug. 4, 1769.] are gone from us; and none of the remaining (to my knowledge) have at present any desire or design of separating from the Church. Yet I observe, -- 1. Those ministers who truly feared God near an hundred years ago had undoubtedly much the same objections to the Liturgy which some (who never read their Works) have now. [Both his grandfathers were among the sufferers of 1662.] And I myself so far allow the force of several of those objections that I should not dare to declare my assent and consent to that book in the terms prescribed. Indeed, they are so strong that I think they cannot safely be used with regard to any book but the Bible. Neither dare I confine myself wholly to forms of prayer, not even in the church. I use, indeed, all the forms; but I frequently add extemporary prayer either before or after sermon. 2. In behalf of many of the Canons I can say little; of the Spiritual Courts nothing at all. I dare not, therefore, allow the authority of the former or the jurisdiction of the latter. But I am not required to do it. So the difficulty does not lie yet. 3. ‘Whether it be lawful to attend the ministrations of one whom God has not sent me to minister, seeing he expressly disclaims the call of God, which is at least as necessary as the call of man,’ is really a question which (as I said before) I cannot answer to my own satisfaction. Neither can I tell -