Wesley Corpus

To Samuel Bradburn Source: The Letters of John Wesley (1786) Author: John Wesley --- December, 1786. DEAR SAMMY, - You know I love you. Ever since I knew you I have neglected no way of showing it that was in my power. And you know how I esteem you for .your zeal and activity, for your love of discipline, and for your gifts which God has given you - particularly quickness of apprehension, and readiness of utterance, especially in prayer. Therefore I am jealous over you, lest you should lose any of the things you have gained, and not receive a full reward; and the more so because I fear you are wanting in other respects. And who will venture to tell you so You will scarce know how to bear it from me unless you lift up your heart to God. If you do this, I may venture to tell you what I fear without any further preface. I fear you think of yourself more highly than you ought to think. Do not you think too highly of your own understanding of your gifts, particularly in preaching, as if you were the very best preacher in the Connection of your own importance, as if the work of God here or there depended wholly or mainly on you and of your popularity, which I have found, to my surprise, far less, even in London, than I expected May not this be much owing to the want of brotherly love With what measure you mete, men will measure to you again. I fear there is something unloving in your spirit - something not only of roughness, but of harshness, yea of sourness! Are you not also extremely open to prejudice, and not easy to be cured of it so that whenever you are prejudiced you commence bitter, implacable, unmerciful If so, that people are prejudiced against you is both the natural and the judicial consequence. I am afraid lest your want of love to your neighbors should spring from want of love to God, from want of thankfulness. I have sometimes heard you speak in a manner that made me tremble; indeed, in terms that not only a weak Christian but even a serious Deist would scruple to use.