Wesley Corpus

To draw toward a conclusion: whosoever they are that ‘despise me, and make no account of my labors,’ I know that they are ‘not in vain in the Lord,’ and that I have not ‘fought as one that beateth the air.’ I still see (and I praise ‘the Father of Lights, from whom every good and perfect gift descendeth’) a continual increase of pure religion and undefiled, of the love of God and man, of the ‘wisdom’ which is ‘pure and peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and of good fruits.’ I see more and more of those ‘who before lived in a thorough contempt of God’s ordinances, and of all duties, now zealously discharging their duties to God and man, and walking in all His ordinances blameless.’ A few, indeed, I have seen draw back to perdition, chiefly through a fear of being ‘righteous overmuch.’ And here and there one has fallen into Calvinism or turned aside to the Moravians. But I doubt not these ‘are in a better state’ than they were before they heard us. Admit they are in error, yea and die therein, yet who dares affirm they will perish everlastingly But, had they died in gross sin, we are sure they had fallen into ‘the fire that never shall be quenched.’ I have now considered, as far as my time would permit, not everything in your letter, whether of moment or no, but those points which I conceived to be of the greatest weight. That God may lead us both into all truth, and that we may not drop our love in the pursuit of it, is the continued prayer of, reverend sir, Your friend and servant for Christ's sake. To the Editor of the ‘London Magazine’ [3] LONDON, June 18, 1746. SIR, -- I delayed answering your letter of March 18 till I could be fully informed of the facts in question.