Wesley Corpus

1791 To Richard Rodda LONDON [January]. 1791. DEAR RICHARD, -- It was madness to make that matter up. I would rather have thrown it into Chancery. [See letter of Nov. 20, 1789, to him.] Charles Bond is determined, it is plain, to sell the Methodists for a wife. I do not see how you can help it. Sammy and you have done your pain. His blood is not upon your head. [Samuel Bradburn was Rodda's colleague. Bond, fourth preacher in the Manchester Circuit, was stationed at Coventry in 1791, at Norwich in 1791, and in 1793 'desisted from traveling.' See letter of July 7, 1786.] Perhaps greater consequences than yet appear may follow from the dissentions at Mr. Bayley's chapel. [Dr. Cornelius Bayley. See letter of Oct. 12, 1778.] However, it is your duty to go straight forward, breathing nothing but peace and love. I do not depend upon taking any more journeys. But if my life is prolonged I shall probably be at Manchester about the usual time. Peace be with you all! -- I am, dear brother, Your affectionate friend and brother. To Mr. Rodda, At the Preaching-house, In Manchester. To John Fry [1] CITY ROAD, January 1, 1791. MY FRIEND, -- The sum of what I said to you and to Dr. Hamilton was this: 'I will revise that part of the Ecclesiastical History; and if I am convinced any of it is wrong, I will openly retract it.' I have revised it again and again, but I am not convinced that any part of it is wrong; on the contrary, I am fully persuaded it is all the naked truth. What the Quakers (so called) are or do now is nothing to the purpose, I am thoroughly persuaded they were exactly such as they are described in this History. Your present summary exactly answers the account Barclay's Apology given in the 135th page of the History. O be content! I love you well; do not constrain me to speak. I do not want to say anything of George Fox; but I hope he was stark mad when he wrote that medley of nonsense, blasphemy, and scurrility styled his 'Great Mystery.' But I love and esteem you and many of the present Quakers; and am Your real friend. To Adam Clarke LONDON, January 3, 1791.