Wesley Corpus

To the Methodist Conference Date: CHESTER, April 7, 1785. Source: The Letters of John Wesley (1785) Author: John Wesley --- MY DEAR BRETHREN, - Some of our traveling preachers have expressed a fear that after my decease you would exclude them either from preaching in connection with you or from some other privileges which they now enjoy. I know no other way to prevent any such inconvenience than to leave these my last words with you. I beseech you by the mercies of God that you never avail yourselves of the Deed of Declaration to assume any superiority over your brethren, but let all things go on among those itinerants who choose to remain together exactly in the same manner as when I was with you so far as circumstances will permit. 'In particular, I beseech you, if you ever loved me and if you now love God and your brethren, to have no respect of persons in stationing the preachers, in choosing children for Kingswood School, in disposing of the Yearly Contribution and the Preachers' Fund or any other public money. But do all things with a single eye, as I have done from the beginning. Go on thus, doing all things without prejudice or partiality, and God will be with you even to the end.'