Wesley Corpus

'Friday, December 2. I proposed to set out for Carolina about noon. But about ten the Magistrates sent for me, and told me I must not go out of the province; for I had not answered the allegations laid against me. I replied, "I have appeared at six or seven courts in order to answer them. But I was not suffered so to do." After a few more words, I said, "You use me very ill; and so you do the Trustees. You know your business, and I know mine." 'In the afternoon they published an order forbidding any to assist me in going out of the province. But I knew I had no more business there. So as soon as Evening Prayer was over, the tide then serving, I took boat at the Bluff for Carolina.' This is the plain account of the matter. I need only add a remark or two on the pleasantry of my censurer. 'He had recourse as usual to his revelations: "I consulted my friends whether God did not call me to England"' (page 242). Not by revelations-- these were out of the question; but by clear, strong reasons. 'The Magistrate soon quickened his pace by declaring him an enemy to the public peace.' No; that senseless assertion of Mr. Causton made me go neither sooner nor later. 'The reader has seen him long languish for persecution.' What, before November 1737 I never languished for it either before or since. But I submit to what pleases God. 'To hide his poltroonery in a bravado, he gave public notice of his apostolical intention' (page 243). Kind and civil! I may be excused from taking notice of what follows. It is equally serious and genteel. 'Had his longings for persecution been without hypocrisy.' The same mistake throughout. I never longed or professed to long for it at all. But if I had professed it ever since I returned from Georgia, what was done before I returned could not prove that profession to be hypocrisy. So all this ribaldry serves no end; only to throw much dirt, if haply some may stick.