Wesley Corpus

After expounding to some hundreds in the Back Lane, I went as usual to the schoolroom, where the pains of hell came about three persons, who soon after saw the light of heaven. At Baptist Mills on Wednesday I explained to two thousand or two thousand five hundred, ‘All things are lawful for me; but all things edify not.’ At seven the women bands met, and agreed to defer admitting any new members till the next month and to wait a little longer before they excluded those who had for some time excluded themselves, if haply they might return. At Baldwin Street William Farnell and Richard Hereford were excluded the Society, as being not only unwilling to attend it, but utterly incapable (as yet) of improving by it. I was afterward much enlarged in prayer for Mrs. Grevil. Oh that she could again feel herself a lost sinner! I went on Thursday in the afternoon to preach on the south edge of Kingswood, near a sort of a village called the Cupolas; but the people not having notice, but few came: so that, having used some prayer with them, I promised to come again the next day, and then preached on ‘Believe, and thou shalt be saved.’ Saturday, 30th, Anne Williams (Ant. Williams's wife) was the thirteenth time tapped for the dropsy. She desires to be dissolved and to be with Christ; but gives herself up to Him for life or for death. To about twelve hundred in the Bowling Green I showed many lawful things edify not. At Weavers’ Hall Kitty Deschamps (about fourteen), Prudence Woodward, and five more roared for the very disquietness of their heart, and all, upon prayer, were relieved and sang praise unto our God and unto the Lamb that liveth for ever and ever. Yours in Christ. [Wesley wrote to the Rev. John Oulton (Baptist pastor of Leominster) on July 9 and 28; but these letters have not been preserved. See Journal, ii. 240d, 247d; W.H.S. xi. 118-19. Mr. Oulton's reply to the first letter is given in the Supplement to the Arrninian Magazine, 1797, PP. 25-6.] To Dr. Stebbing [15] July 31, 1739.