Wesley Corpus

Meet me not at the great day in your sins and in your blood. Meet me in the robe of Christ's merits, and in ‘the white linen’ (the purity of heart and life) ‘which is the righteousness of the saints. Let all wickedness be gone for ever with the old year; and with the new year begin a new life; a life of renewed devotion to God, and increasing love to our neighbour. “Though I hope to see much more of the goodness of God in the land of the living than I do see, yet, blessed be the divine mercy, I see enough to keep my mind at all times unruffled, and to make me calmly willing to resign my soul into the hands of my faithful Creator. I desire your public thanks for all the favours which he continually showeth me. 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 LiFE OF MIR. FLETCHER. 313 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.