Wesley Corpus

How going up to town Are you stark, staring mad Will you leap into the fire with your eyes open [See letters of March 14 and Nov. 20.] Keep off. What else have you to do Fly for your life, for your salvation. If you thus tempt the Spirit of God any more who knows what may be the consequence I should not wonder at all to hear you was confined in St. Luke’s Hospital; and then, farewell study! Farewell all hope either of intellectual or moral improvement; for after this poor machine has received a shock of that kind, it is never more capable of close thinking. If you have either sense or religion enough to keep you close to the College, it is well. If not, I see but one possible way to save you from destruction, temporal and eternal. Quit the College at once. Think of it no more, and come away to me. You can take a little advice from me; from other people none at all. You are on the brink of the pit; fly away, or you perish. There is no disagreement at all between the Reflections and the Address to the Clergy. I have followed Mr. Norris’s advice these thirty years, [He read Norris on Christian Prudence to Mrs. Moore on the voyage to Georgia (Journal, i. 125-6). For An Address to the Clergy, see letter of Jan. 7.] and so must every man that is well in his senses. But whether you study more or less does not signify a pin’s point. You are taking all this pains in a sinking ship. Stop the leak, stop the leak, the first thing you do; else what signifies it to adorn the ship As to the qualifications of a gospel minister -- Grace is necessary; learning is expedient. Grace and supernatural gifts are ninety-nine parts in an hundred. Acquired learning may then have its place. -- I am, dear Sammy, Yours affectionately. To Ebenezer Blackwell DUBLIN, April 19, 1756.