Wesley Corpus

But now the sun of my earthly joys is set for ever, and my soul filled with an anguish which only finds its consolation in a total resignation to the will of God. When I was asking the Lord, if he pleased, to spare him to me a little longer, the following promise was impressed on my mind: ‘Where I am, there shall my servants be, that they may behold my glory.” Lord, hasten the time !” 18. There is little need of adding any farther character of this man of God to the foregoing account, given by one who wrote out of the fulness of her heart. I would only observe, that for many years I despaired of finding any inhabitant of Great Britain, that could stand in any degree of comparison with Gregory Lopez, or Monsieur de Renty. But let any impartial person judge if Mr. Fletcher was at all inferior to them. Did he not experience as deep communion with God, and as high a measure of inward holiness, as was experienced by either one or the other of those burning and shining lights? And it is certain, his outward light shone before men with full as bright a lustre as theirs. But if any would draw a parallel between them, there are two circumstances which should be well observed. One is, we are not assured that the writers of their lives did not extenuate, if not suppress, their faults. And some faults we are assured there were; namely, some touches of superstition, and some of idolatry, as the worship of images, angels, and saints; the Virgin Mary in particular. But I have not suppressed, or even extenuated, anything in Mr. Fletcher's life. Indeed, I know nothing that needed to be extenuated, much less to be suppressed. A second circumstance is, that the writers of their lives could not have so full a knowledge of them as I, and much more Mrs. Fletcher, had; being eye and ear witnesses of his whole conduct. Consequently, we knew that his life was not sullied with any taint of idolatry or superstition. I was intimately acquainted with him for thirty years. I conversed with him morning, moon, and night, without the least reserve, during a journey of many hundred miles; and in all that time I never heard him speak an improper word, or saw him do an improper action.