Wesley Corpus

To Philothea Briggs Date: LONDON, November 3, 1771. Source: The Letters of John Wesley (1771) Author: John Wesley --- DEAR PHILLY,--I am always well pleased to see and hear from you. I answer you, more or less fully, as I have time. Neither do I know how to advise Nancy Greenwood; although I think he is free to marry. Rollin was a pious man and a fine historian. If you read one volume, you would feel whether it enlivened or deadened your soul. The same trial you may make as to serious poetry. Very probably this would enliven your soul; and certainly the volumes of Philosophy may, as Galen entitles his description of the human body, 'An Hymn to the Creator.' Temporal business need not interrupt your communion with God, though it varies the manner of it. It is certain every promise has a condition; yet that does not make the promise of none effect, but by the promise you are encouraged and enabled to fulfil the condition. You might like it better were there no condition; but that would not answer the design of Him that makes it. It is certain there are times of nearer access to God, and that it nearly imports us to improve those precious seasons. But we may find plausible objections against this, and indeed against anything. The more free you are with me, the more you oblige, my dear Philly, Yours affectionately.