Wesley Corpus

Enjoy while you may the advantage which I had once, and shall have again when God sees best.--I am Your affectionate brother. Certainly you may say to me whatever you have a mind, either by writing or speaking. To Mr. Jones Editor's Introductory Notes: 1759 [12] LONDON, August 22, 1759. SIR,--Nothing is more certain than that the kingdom of God is not divided against itself; that peace and joy in the Holy Ghost are no ways obstructive of righteousness, even in the highest degree of it. Hold fast, therefore, that whereunto you have attained, and in peace and joy wait for perfect love. We know this is not of works, lest any man should boast; and it is no more of sufferings than it is of works. Nothing is absolutely pre-required but a sense of our want; and this may be a calm, peaceful, yet joyful sense of it. When I was lately in Rotherham, I talked with eleven persons who seem to be perfected in love. [Wesley says in the Journal for Aug. 2, 1759: 'Thence I went on to Rotherham, and talked with five men and six women (as I had done with many others before in various places) who believe they are saved from sin. And this fact I believe, that they "rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing, and in everything give thanks." I believe they feel nothing but love now: what they will do, I leave to God.' ] Of these Jane Green (the wife of one of our preachers) was facile princeps--higher and deeper in experience than them all; and she never was in darkness or heaviness one hour during the second conviction. Only she felt in a manner not to be expressed her own foolishness, emptiness, and nothingness. And in this state she quietly continued till God said, 'Be thou clean.'