Wesley Corpus

To the Editor of the 'London Magazine' Editor's Introductory Notes: 1760 Date: LONDON, December 12, 1760. Patience, dear sir, patience! or I am afraid your choler will hurt your constitution as well as your argument. Be composed, and I will answer your queries, 'speedily, clearly, and categorically.' Only you will give me leave to shorten them a little, and to lay those together which have some relation to each other. Source: The Letters of John Wesley (1760) Author: John Wesley --- Permit me likewise, before I enter on particulars, to lay a few circumstances before you which may add some light to the subject and give you a clearer knowledge of the people with whom you are so angry. About thirty years since, I met with a book written in King William's time, called The Country Parson's Advice to his Parishioners. There I read these words: 'If good men of the Church will unite together in the several parts of the kingdom, disposing themselves into friendly societies, and engaging each other in their respective combinations to be helpful to each other in all good, Christian ways, it will be the most effectual means for restoring our decaying Christianity to its primitive life and vigour and the supporting of our tottering and sinking Church.' A few young gentlemen then at Oxford approved of and followed the advice. They were all zealous Churchmen, and both orthodox and regular to the highest degree. For their exact regularity they were soon nicknamed Methodists; but they were not then, or for some years after, charged with any other crime, real or pretended, than that of being righteous over-much. [See letter of June 11, 1731, to his mother.] Nine or ten years after, many others 'united together in the several parts of the kingdom, engaging in like manner to be helpful to each other in all good, Christian ways.' At first all these were of the Church; but several pious Dissenters soon desired to unite with them. Their one design was to forward each other in true, scriptural Christianity.