Wesley Corpus

Church, after premising that some experience much, some very little, of these pains and throes: “‘When men feel in themselves the heavy burden of sin, see damnation to be the reward of it, behold with the eye of their mind the horror of hell, they tremble, they quake, and are inwardly touched with sorrowfulness of heart, and cannot but accuse themselves, and open their grief unto Almighty God, and call unto him for mercy. This being done seriously, their mind is so occupied, partly with sorrow and heaviness, partly with an earnest desire to be delivered from this danger of hell and damnation, that all desire of meat and drink is laid apart, and loathing of worldly things and pleasures comes in place, so that nothing then liketh them more than to weep, to lament, to mourn, and both with words and behaviour of body to show themselves weary of life.” “Now permit me to ask, What, if, before you had observed that these were the very words of our own Church, one of your acquaintance or parishioners had come and told you that, ever since he heard a sermon at the Foundery, he saw damna tion before him, and beheld with the eye of his mind the hor ror of hell? What, if he had trembled and quaked, and been so taken up partly with sorrow and heaviness, partly with an earnest desire to be delivered from the danger of hell and damnation, as to weep, to lament, to mourn, and both with words and behaviour to show himself weary of life? Would you have scrupled to say, ‘Here is another deplorable instance of the Methodists driving men to distraction?’” (Second Letter to Dr. Church, Vol. VIII. p. 472.) I have now finished, as my time permits, what I had to say, either concerning myself, or on the operations of the Holy Spirit. In doing this, I have used great plainness of speech, and yet, I hope, without rudeness. If anything of that kind has slipped from me, I am ready to retract it. I desire, on the one hand, to “accept no man's person; ” and yet, on the other, to give “honour to whom honour is due.” If your Lordship should think it worth your while to spend any more words upon me, may I presume to request one thing of your Lordship,-to be more serious?