Wesley Corpus

The third is a plain narrative of the manner wherein many of Bristol expressed their joy on my coming unexpectedly into the room after I had been some time at London (ii. 457). And this, I conceive, will prove the charge of high treason as well as that of ‘insufferable pride and vanity.’ You say, fourthly: ‘A dying woman, who had earnestly desired to see me, cried out as I entered the room, “Art thou come, thou blessed of the Lord”’ (ii. 483). She did so. And what does this prove The fifth passage is this: ‘In applying which, my soul was so enlarged, that methought I could have cried out (in another sense than poor, vain Archimedes), “Give me where to stand, and I will shake the earth.”’ [See letters of June 11, 1747, sect. 20 (to Bishop Gibson), and Nov. 26, 1762.] My meaning is, I found such freedom of thought and speech (jargon, stuff, enthusiasm to you) that me-thought, could I have then spoken to all the world, they would all have shared in the blessing. 4. The passage which you quote from the third Appeal I am obliged to relate more at large: ‘There is one more excuse for denying this work of God, taken from the instruments employed there’ --that is, that they are wicked men; and a thousand stories have been handed about to prove it. ‘Yet I cannot but remind considerate men in how remarkable a manner the wisdom of God has for many years guarded against this pretence, with regard to my brother and me in particular.’ ‘This pretence -- that is, “of not employing fit instruments.”’ These words are yours, though you insert them as mine. The pre-fence I mentioned was ‘that they were wicked men.’ And how God guarded against this is shown in what follows: ‘From that time both my brother and I, utterly against our will, came to be more and more observed and known; till we were more spoken of than perhaps two so inconsiderable persons ever were before in the nation. To make us more public still, as honest madmen at least, by a strange concurrence of providences, overturning all our preceding resolutions, we were hurried away to America.’