Wesley Corpus

May our thankfulness crown the new year, as the Lord’s patience and goodness have renewed our life. Permit me to beseech an interest in your prayers also. Ask that I may be willing to receive all that God is willing to bestow. Ask that I may meekly suffer and zealously do all the will of God in my present circumstances; and that, living or dying, I may say, ‘To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” If God calls me soon, I beg he may, in his good providence, appoint a more faithful shepherd over you. You need not fear but he will. For these many months you have had no famine of the word. And what God hath done for months, he can do for years; yea, all the years of your life. Only pray. Ask, and you shall have. Meet me at the throne of grace, and you shall meet at the throne of glory “Your affectionate, obliged, unworthy Minister, fg J. F.” 5. To a friend, meantime, he wrote thus: “With respect to my soul, I calmly wait, in unshaken resignation, for the full salvation of God; ready to trust him, to venture on his faithful love, and on the sure mercies of David, either at midnight, noon-day, or cock-crowing. For my time is in his hand; and his time is best, and shall be my time. Death hath lost his sting; and I thank God I know not what hurry of spirits is, or unbelieving fears, under the most trying circumstances. Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift l” 6. He now spent part of his time at Bristol, but the greatest part at Brislington. In one place or the other, as well as at Newington, he was visited by many respectable persons. Many of these were Calvinists; several of whom bore witness to his deep piety and exalted spirit. But a Dissenting Minister, after pressing him hard, with regard to some of his opinions, told him, with great warmth, “Mr. Fletcher, you had better have been gasping for life with an asthma, or have had all your limbs unstrung by a palsy, than to have wrote those Checks.” Mr. Fletcher replied, “Sir, I then wanted more love, and I do so still:” And in his highest fervours of divine love, he always acknowledged his want of more. 7.