Wesley Corpus

1738 An Unexpected Return [1] COLLEGE STREET, January 2, 1738. DEAR BROTHER, -- From my soul I congratulate you upon your latest glorious treatment; nor do I less envy you. It is now that you begin to be a disciple of Christ. I have just read over the returned papers without any emotion but that of joy. Had I even resolved to have set up my test, your present trial would have broken my resolution and forced me back to America, to partake with you in your sufferings for the Gospel. Such you may most assuredly reckon, what you now labor under (I should rather say, what you now rejoice and glory in), for it is not the mixture of infirmity that can prevent God's accepting you as endured for His sake. If you have the testimony of a good conscience, your sufferings are interpretatively His, and human wisdom can never dispute you out of it. We know that worldly and even partially good men, the strangers as well as the enemies to the cross of Christ, observing some fallings in God's children, ascribe the whole of their persecutions to those only. The scandal of the cross with them is ceased, the reproach of Christ no longer subsists, the contrariety betwixt His light and darkness, betwixt His spirit and the spirit of the world is at an end, and our conformity to our persecuted Master is all resolved into want of prudence. In vain do we press them with the plain words of Scripture, all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution; the disciple is not above His Master; if they have persecuted Me they will also persecute you,' and a thousand others. Experience only can convince them that the sense of these scriptures is literal and eternal. But this I need not tell you. You know the absolute impossibility of being inwardly conformed to Christ, without this outward conformity, this badge of discipleship, those marks of Christ. You marvel not, as if some new thing happened unto you, but rejoiced in tribulation, as knowing that hereunto you are called, and can only be made perfect through these sufferings.