Wesley Corpus

To Philothea Briggs Date: LONDON, October 6, 1771. Source: The Letters of John Wesley (1771) Author: John Wesley --- MY DEAR PHILLY,--I commend you for not meddling with medicines, [See letter of Sept. 13.] except some of those simple ones in the Primitive Physick. Perhaps youth, with abstinence from tea and whatever else you feel hurts you, may restore your health. And, while it continues, this weakness may be of excellent use by weaning you from the love of present things. The first Appeal is a complete treatise of itself independent on the rest. This, therefore, may be given to any one without the others, which makes the expense easy. But to your friend you might give or lend them all. And if she has sense enough to read them impartially, she will learn to speak and write without ambiguity, just according to common sense. You may tell her, 'If you was doing those works, thinking to merit salvation thereby, you was quite wrong. But if you was doing them because they are the appointed way wherein we wait for free salvation, you was quite right.' But you need only send her Mr. Fletcher's Letters, and they will clear up the point sufficiently.--I always am, dear Philly, Yours affectionately.