Wesley Corpus

MY DEAR SISTER, -- I was glad to receive one more line from you--perhaps the last that I shall receive. It is now many years since I gave you advice, which God enabled you to take and to break off your connection with an ungodly man--a very uncommon instance of resolution. You have had many trials of various kinds since then; -but the Lord has delivered you out of all, and He has honored you by making you the instrument of much good for many years successively. He has given you to be of use to many unawakened and many believing souls. He now honors you by making you a partaker of His sufferings: so much the more shall you be conformed to His death and know the power of His resurrection. You are well-nigh worn out in a good cause; yet a little longer, and pain is no more. Look up, my dear friend. The prize is before us: we are on the point of meeting to part no more. In time and eternity you will be united with Your ever affectionate brother. To Adam Clarke LONDON, November 26, 1789. DEAR ADAM, -- The account you send me of the continuance of the great work of God in Jersey gives me great satisfaction. [Clarke had evidently heard good news from the Channel Islands. Miss Johnson was one of the Bristol saints.] To retain the grace of God is much more than to gain it. Hardly one in three does this. And this should be strongly and explicitly urged upon those who have tasted of perfect love. If we can prove that any of our leaders or local preachers either directly or indirectly speak against it, let him be a leader or a preacher no longer. I doubt whether he should continue in the Society; because he that could speak thus in our congregations cannot be an honest man.