A Garrison of Faith!

In the afternoon I rode to Dover; but the gentleman I was to lodge with was gone a long journey. He went to bed well, but dead in the morning: such a vapor is life! At six I preached, but the house would by no means contain the congregation. Most of the officers of the garrison were there. I have not found so much life here for some years. 

The Journal of John Wesley

Passing moments, citing Authorities

Monday, November 23.--I went to Canterbury. Here I met with the Life of Mahomet, written, I suppose, by the Count de Boulanvilliers. Whoever the author is, he is a very pert, shallow, self-conceited coxcomb, remarkable for nothing but his immense assurance and thorough contempt of Christianity. And the book is a dull, ill-digested romance, supported by no authorities at all; whereas Dean Prideaux (a writer of ten times his sense) cites his authorities for everything he advances.

The Journal of John Wesley 

Gospel vs. Bells

Friday, September 25.--l was desired to preach at Freshford; but the people durst not come to the house because of the smallpox, of which Joseph Allen, "an Israelite indeed," had died the day before. So they placed a table near the churchyard. But I had no sooner begun to speak than the bells began to ring, by the procurement of a neighboring gentleman. However, it was labor lost; for my voice prevailed, and the people heard me distinctly. Nay, a person extremely deaf, who had not been able to hear a sermon for several years, told his neighbors, with great joy that he had heard and understood all, from the beginning to the end.

The Journal of John Wesley 

Formal religion and the eyewitness

Saturday, August 1.--Before I left Glasgow I heard so strange an account that I desired to hear it from the person himself. He was a sexton and yet for many years had little troubled himself about religion. I set down his words and leave every man to form his own judgment upon them: "Sixteen weeks ago, I was walking, an hour before sunset, behind the high kirk; and, looking on one side, I saw one close to me who looked in my face and asked me how I did. I answered, 'Pretty well.' He said, 'You have had many troubles; but how have you improved them?' He then told me all that ever I did; yea, and the thoughts that had been in my heart; adding, 'Be ready for my second coming'; and he was gone I knew not how. I trembled all over, and had no strength in me; but sank down to the ground. From that time I groaned continually under the load of sin, till at the Lord's supper it was all taken away."

The Journal of John Wesley 

Verbal Fencing, Part Four - Gentleness

"But you insist, 'Mr. Wesley affirms the Methodists (that is, all Methodists) to be perfectly holy and righteous.' Where do I affirm this? Not in the tract before us. In the front of this I affirm just the contrary; and that I affirm it anywhere else is more than I know. Be pleased, Sir, to point out the place: till this is done, all you add (bitterly enough) is mere brutum fulmen; and the Methodists (so called) may still declare (without any impeachment of their sincerity) that they do not come to the holy table 'trusting in their own righteousness, but in God's manifold and great mercies.' I am, Sir, 

"Yours, John Wesley."

The Journal of John Wesley

Verbal Fencing, Part Three: The appeal to reason

"Sir, have me excused. This is not 'according to Mr. Wesley.’ I have told all the world I am not perfect; and yet you allow me to be a Methodist. I tell you flatly, I have not attained the character I draw. Will you pin it upon me in spite of my teeth?

"'But Mr. Wesley says, the other Methodists have.' I say no such thing. What I say, after having given a scriptural account of a perfect Christian, is this: 'By these marks the Methodists desire to be distinguished from other men; by these we labor to distinguish ourselves.' And do not you yourself desire and labor after the very same thing?

The Journal of John Wesley 

Verbal Fencing Part Two: The rustling of paper bags

"The occasion of his late attack is this: Five or six and thirty years ago, I much admired the character of a perfect Christian drawn by Clemens Alexandrinus. Five or six and twenty years ago, a thought came into my mind of drawing such a character myself, only in a more scriptural manner and mostly in the very words of Scripture: this I entitled, 'The Character of a Methodist,' believing that curiosity would incite more persons to read it, and also that some prejudice might thereby be removed from candid men. But that none might imagine I intended a panegyric either on myself or my friends, I guarded against this in the very title page, saying both in the name of myself and them, 'Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect.' To the same effect I speak in the conclusion, 'These are the same principles and practices of our sect; these are the marks of a true Methodist'; that is, a true Christian, as I immediately after explain myself: 'by these alone do those who are in derision so called desire to be distinguished from other men.' (P. ii.) 'By these marks do we labor to distinguish ourselves from those whose minds or lives are not according to the gospel of Christ.' (P. 12.)

"Upon this Rusticulus, or Dr. Dodd, says, 'A Methodist, according to Mr. Wesley, is one who is perfect, and sinneth not in thought, word, or deed.' 

The Journal of John Wesley