Tues. 24.-We spoke with two ships, outward bound, from whom we had the welcome news, of our wanting but one hundred and sixty leagues of the Land's end. My mind was now full of thought; part of which I writ down as follows:

"I went to America, to convert the Indians; but O! who shall convert me? who, what is he that will deliver me from this evil heart of unbelief? I have a fair summer religion. I can talk well; nay, and believe myself, while no danger is near: but let death look me in the face, and my spirit is troubled. Nor can I say, 'To die is gain !'

I have a sin of fear, that when I've spun

My last thread, I shall perish on the shore!

"I think, verily, if the Gospel be true, I am safe: for I not only have given, and do give, all my goods to feed the poor; I not only give my body to be burned, drowned, or whatever God shall appoint for me; but I follow after charity, (though not as I ought, yet as I can,) if haply I may attain it. I now believe the Gospel is true. I show my faith by my works,' by staking my all upon it. I would do so again and again a thousand times, if the choice were still to make. Whoever sees me, sees I would be a Christian. Therefore are my ways not like other men's ways.' Therefore I have been, I am, I am content to be, a by-word, a proverb of reproach.' But in a storm I think, What if the Gospel be not true? Then thou art of all men most foolish. For what hast thou given thy goods, thy ease, thy friends, thy reputation, thy country, thy life? For what art thou wandering over the face of the earth ?-A dream, "a cunningly devised fable!" O! who will deliver me from this fear of death? What shall I do? Where shall I fly from it? Should I fight against it by thinking, or by not thinking of it? A wise man advised me some time since, Be still and go on. Perhaps this is best, to look upon it as my cross; when it comes, to let it humble me, and quicken all my good resolutions, especially that of praying without ceasing; and at other times, to take no thought about it, but quietly to go on in the work of the Lord.'"

6

We went on with a small, fair wind, till Thursday in the afternoon; and then sounding, found a whitish sand at seventy-five fathom: but having had no observation for several days, the captain began to be uneasy, fearing we might either get unawares into the Bristol Channel, or strike in the night on the rocks of Scilly.

Sat. 28.-Was another cloudy day; but about ten in the morning (the wind continuing southerly) the clouds began to fly just contrary to the wind, and, to the surprise of us all, sunk down under the sun, so that at noon we had an exact observation; and by this we found we were as well as we could desire, about eleven leagues south of Scilly. Sun. 29.-We saw English land once more; which, about noon, appeared to be the Lizard Point. We ran by it with a fair wind; and at noon, the next day, made the west end of the Isle of Wight.

Here the wind turned against us, and in the evening blew fresh, so that we expected (the tide being likewise strong against us) to be driven some leagues backward in the night: but in the morning, to our great surprise, we saw Beachy-head, just before us, and found we had gone forward near forty miles.

Toward evening was a calm; but in the night a strong north wind brought us safe into the Downs. The day before, Mr. Whitefield had sailed out, neither of us then knowing any thing of the other. At four in the morning we took boat, and in half an hour landed at Deal: it being Wednesday, February 1, the anniversary festival in Georgia for Mr. Oglethorpe's landing there.

It is now two years and almost four months since I left my native country, in order to teach the Georgian Indians the nature of Christianity but what have I learned myself in the mean time? Why, (what I the least of all suspected,) that I who went to America to convert others, was never myself converted to God. (I am not sure of this.) "I am not mad," though I thus speak; but "I speak the words of truth and soberness;" if haply some of those who still dream may awake, and see, that as I am, so are they.

Are they read in philosophy? So was I. In ancient or modern tongues? So was I also. Are they versed in the science of divinity? I too have studied it many years. Can they talk fluently upon spiritual things? The very same could I do. Are they plenteous in alms? Behold, I gave all my goods to feed the poor. Do they give of their labour as well as of their substance? I have laboured more abundantly than they all. Are they willing to suffer for their brethren? I have thrown up my friends, reputation, ease, country; I have put my life in my hand, wandering into strange lands; I have given my body to be devoured by the deep, parched up with heat, consumed by toil and weariness, or whatsoever God should please to bring upon me. But does all this (be it more or less, it matters not) make me acceptable to God? Does all I ever did or can know, say, give, do, or suffer, justify me in his sight? Yea, or the constant use of all the means of grace? (which, nevertheless, is meet, right, and our bounden duty.) Or that I know nothing of myself; that I am, as touching outward, moral righteousness, blameless? Or (to come closer yet) the having a rational conviction of all the truths of Christianity? Does all this give me a claim to the holy, heavenly, divine character of a Christian? By no means. If the Oracles of God are true, if we are still to abide by "the law and the testimony;" all these things, though, when ennobled by faith in Christ, they are holy and just and good, yet without it are "dung and dross," meet only to be purged away by "the fire that never shall be quenched."

This, then, have I learned in the ends of the earth—that I “am fallen short of the glory of God :" that my whole heart is "altogether corrupt and abominable; and, consequently, my whole life; (seeing it cannot be, that an "evil tree" should "bring forth good fruit :") that "alienated" as I am from the life of God,” I am “a child of wrath,"† an heir of hell that my own works, my own sufferings, my own righteousness, are so far from reconciling me to an offended God, so far from making any atonement for the least of those sins which "are more in number than the hairs of my head,” that the most specious of them, need an atonement themselves, or they cannot abide his righteous judgment; that "having the sentence of death" in my heart, and having nothing

* I had even then the faith of a servant, though not that of a son. I believe not.

in or of myself to plead, I have no hope, but that of being justified freely, "through the redemption that is in Jesus:" I have no hope, but that if I seek I shall find Christ, and "be found in him, not having my own righteousness, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the tighteousneas which is of God by faith,” Phil. iii, 9.

66

If it be said, that I have faith, (for many such things have I heard, from many miserable comforters,) I answer, so have the devils,—a sort of faith; but still they are strangers to the covenant of promise. So the apostles had even at Cana in Galilee, when Jesus first "manifested forth his glory;" even then they, in a sort, "believed on him;" but they had not then "the faith that overcometh the world." The faith I want is, (the faith of a son,) " A sure trust and confidence in God, that, through the merits of Christ, my sins are forgiven, and I reconciled to the favour of God." I want that faith which St. Paul recommends to all the world, especially in his Epistle to the Romans: that faith which enables every one that hath it to cry out, "I live not; but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." I want that faith which none can have without knowing that he hath it; (though many imagine they have it, who have it not ;) for whosoever hath it, is "freed from sin, the" whole "body of sin is destroyed" in him: he is freed from fear, "having peace with God through Christ, and rejoicing in hope of the glory of God." And he is freed from doubt, "having the love of God shed abroad in his heart, through the Holy Ghost which is given unto him ;" which " Spirit itself beareth witness with his spirit, that he is a child of God."

AN EXTRACT

OF THE

REV. MR. JOHN WESLEY'S JOURNAL.

FROM FEBRUARY 1, 1738, TO AUGUST 12, 1738

For this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all long suffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting, 1 Tim. i, 16.

PREFACE.

1. THAT men revile me, and say all manner of evil against me; that I am become as it were a monster unto many; that the zealous of almost every denomination cry out, "Away with such a fellow from the earth :" this gives me, with regard to myself, no degree of uneasiness. For I know the Scripture must be fulfilled, "If they have called the Master of the house Beelzebub, how much more them of his household ?” But it does give me a concern, with regard to those who, by this artifice of the devil, are prevented from hearing that word which is able to save their souls.

2. For the sake of these, and indeed of all who desire to hear the truth of those things which have been so variously related, I have been induced to publish this further account; and I doubt not but it will even hence appear, to all candid and impartial judges, that I have hitherto lived in all good conscience toward God.

3. I shall be easily excused by those who cither love or seek the Lord Jesus in sincerity, for speaking so largely of the Moravian Church; a city which ought to be set upon a hill: their light hath been too long hid under a bushel: it is high time it should at length break forth, and “so shine before men, that others also may glorify their Father which is in heaven."

4. If any should ask, "But do you think even this Church is perfect, without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing?" I answer plainly, "No; though I trust it will be, when patience has had its perfect work." But neither do I think it right to entertain the world with the spots of God's children.

5. It has been further asked, whether I imagine God is to be found only among them. I reply, “By no means. I know there is a God in England, and we need not go to seek him in strange lands." I know that in our own, he is very nigh unto all that call upon him; and therefore I think those unwisc (to say no more) who run to inquire after him in Holland or Germany.

6. When I went, the case was widely different. God had not then "made bare his arm" before us as he hath row done; in a manner (I will be bold to say) which had not been known either in Holland or Gerinany at that time, when He who ordereth all things wisely, according to "the counsel of his own will," was pleased by mɛ to open the intercourse between the English and the Moravian Church.

7. The particular reason which obliged me to relate so much of the conversation I had with those holy men, is this: In September, 1738, when I returned from Ger many, I exhorted all I could to follow after that great salvation, which is through faith in the blood of Christ; waiting for it, "in all the ordinances of God," and in “doing good, as they had opportunity, to all men." And many found the beginning of that salvation, being justified freely, having peace with God through Christ, rejoicing in hope of the glory of God, and having his love shed abroad in their hearts. 8. But about September, 1739, while my brother and I were absent, certain men crept in among them unawares, greatly troubling and subverting their souls; telling them, they were in a delusion; that they had deceived themselves, and had no true faith at all. "For," said they, "none has any justifying faith, who has ever any doubt or fear, which you know you have; or who has not a clean heart, which you know you have not: nor will you ever have it, till you leave off using the means of grace, (so called;) till you leave off running to church and sacrament, and praying, and singing, and reading either the Bible, or any other book; for you cannot use these things without trusting in them. Therefore, till you leave them off, you can never have true faith; you can never till then trust in the blood of Christ."

9. And this doctrine, from the beginning to this day, has been taught as the doctrine of the Moravian Church. I think, therefore, it is my bounden duty to clear the Moravians from this aspersion; and the more, because I am perhaps the only person now in England that both can and will do it. And I believe it is the peculiar providence of God that I can: that two years since the most eminent members of that Church should so fully declare both their experience and judgment, touching the very points now in question.

10. The sum of what has been asserted, as from them, is this :—

“(1.) That a man cannot have any degree of justifying faith, till he is wholly freed from all doubt and fear; and till he has, in the full, proper sense, a new, a clean heart.

"(2.) That a man may not use the ordinances of God, the Lord's Supper in particular, before he has such a faith as excludes all doubt and fear, and implies a new, a clean heart."

In flat opposition to this, I assert,

❝(1.) That a man may have a degree of justifying faith, before he is wholly freed from all doubt and fear; and before he has, in the full, proper sense, a new, a clean heart.

"(2.) That a man may use the ordinances of God, the Lord's Supper in particular before he has such a faith as excludes all doubt and fear, and implies a new, a clean heart."

I further assert, "This I learned (not only from the English, but also) from the Moravian Church."

And I hereby openly and earnestly call upon that Church, (and upon Count Zinzendorf in particular, who, I trust, is not ashamed or afraid to avow any part of the Gospel of Christ,) to correct me, and explain themselves, if I have misunderstood or misrepresented them.

JOHN WESLEY.

LONDON, Sept. 29,

1740.