Wesley Corpus

8. You will likewise, at all hazards, stand your ground as to the charge of stoical insensibility. I answered before, ‘How do you support the charge Why, thus: “You say, The servants of God suffer nothing.” And can you possibly misunderstand these words if you read those that immediately follow -- “His body was wellnigh torn asunder with pain: but God made all his bed in his sickness; so that he was continually giving thanks to God and making his boast of His praise.”’ [See letter of Feb. 2, 1745, sect. III, 4.] You reply, ‘If you meant no more than that a man under the sharpest pains may be thankful to God, why did you call this a strange truth’ (page 118). Because I think it is so. I think it exceeding strange that one in such a degree of pain should be continually giving thanks to God. Not that I suppose him ‘insensible of his torments.’ ‘His body,’ I say, ‘was wellnigh torn asunder with pain.’ But the love of God so abundantly overbalanced all pain, that it was as nothing to him. ‘The next instance is as follows: One told you, “Sir, I thought last week there could be no such rest as you describe; none in this world wherein we should be so free as not to desire ease in pain. But God has taught me better; for on Friday and Saturday, when I was in the strongest pain, I never once had one moment's desire of ease.”’ Add, ‘but only that the will of God might be done.’ Neither has this any resemblance of ‘stoical insensibility.’ I never supposed that this person did not feel pain (nor, indeed, that there is any state on earth wherein we shall not feel it), but that her soul was filled with the love of God and thankfully resigned to His will. ‘Another instance is taken from one of your hymns, where are these lines (page 119): Doom, if Thou canst, to endless pains, And drive me from Thy face.’ Add: But if Thy stronger love constrains, Let me be saved by grace. [Poetical Works of J. and C. Wesley, i. 236.]