Wesley Corpus

To Mary Cooke Date: LONDON, December 14, 1785. Source: The Letters of John Wesley (1785) Author: John Wesley --- I love to see the handwriting of my dear Miss Cooke even before I open the letter. The thinking of you gives me very sensible pleasure ever since you spoke so freely to me. There is a remedy for the evil of which you complain--unprofitable reasonings; and I do not know whether there is any other. It is the peace of God. This will not only keep your heart, your affections, and passions as a garrison keeps a city, but your mind likewise, all the workings and all the wanderings of your imagination. And this is promised: 'Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find.' Though it seem to tarry long, True and faithful is His word. A small measure of it you have frequently found, which may encourage you to look for the fullness. But if you were to give scope to your reasonings, there would be no end: the further you went the more you would be entangled; so true it is that, to our weak apprehension, The ways of Heaven are dark and intricate, Puzzled with mazes, and perplexed with error. [The Spectator.] But that peace will silence all our hard thoughts of God and give us in patience to possess our souls. I believe, at the time that any first receive the peace of God, a degree of holy boldness is connected with it, and that all persons when they are newly justified are called to bear witness to the truth. Those who use the grace which is then freely given to them of God will not only have the continuance of it, but a large increase; for 'unto him that hath' (that is, uses what he hath), 'shall be given, and he shall have more abundantly.' We shall grow in boldness the more, the more we use it; and it is by the same method, added to prayer, that we are to recover anything we have lost. Do what in you lies, and He will do the rest,