9.23.2017 (2017) The Benedict Option by Rod Dreher (a strategy for christians in a post-christian nation)

 Chapter 1 - The Great Flood

(note - author starts with the recounting of an unexpectedly horrific flood and the shock and surprise and unpreparedness it was greeted with by those whose lives were greatly changed for the worse by it...and likens that to Bible believers who are living in the US in this time of great, horrific change of the spiritual landscape..)


2 in my 2006 book Crunchy Cons, which explored a countercultural, traditionalist conservative sensibility ,  I brought up the work of philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, who declared that Western civilization had lost its mooring. the time was coming, sad Mac,  when men and women of virtue would understand that continued full participation in mainstream society was not possible for those who wanted to live a life of traditional virtue. these people would find new ways to live in community, he said, just as Saint Benedict, the sixth-century father of Western monasticism, responded to the collapse of Roman civilization by founding a monastic order.

I called the strategic withdrawal prophesied by MacIntyre 'the Benedict Option'.  the idea is that serious Christian conservatives could no longer live business-as- usual lives in America, that we have to develop creative, communal solutions to help us hold on to our faith and our values in a world growing ever more hostile to them.  we would have to choose to make a decisive leap  into a truly countercultural way of living Christianity or we would doom our children and our children's children to assimilation.
the steady decline of Christianity and the steady increase in hostility to traditional values came  to a head in April 2015,  when the state of Indiana passed a version of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration act.  the law merely provided a valid religious liberty defence for those sued for discrimination.it did not guarantee that those defendants
3  would prevail.  gay rights activists loudly loudly protested, calling the law bigoted - and for the first time ever, big business took sides in the culture war, coming down firmly on behalf of gay rights. indiana backed down under corporate pressure - as did Arkansas a week later.

this was a watershed event. it showed that if big business objected, even Republican politicians in red states would not take a stand, even a mild one, for religious freedom. professing orthodox biblical christianity on sexual matters was now though to be evidence of intolerable bigotry. conservative christians had been routed. we were living in a new country.
and then 2 months later the US Supreme Court declared a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. the decision was popular with the American people, which had, over the previous decade, undergone a staggering shift on gay rights and same-sex marriage. the decision was popular with the American people, which had, over the previous decade, undergone a staggering shift on gay rights and same-sex marriage. no sooner was the right  to gay marriage achieved than activists and their political allies, the Democratic Party, began pushing for  transgender rights.

Post Obergefell, christians who hold to the biblical teaching about sex and marriage have the same status in culture and increasingly in law, as racists. ( oh Lord, help me as a professing follower of You never treat any person who has sinned or is sinning in a way that I would not like to be treated by them...except to tell them about what Jesus says about what they are or have done...if that is Your direction for me to them...even if it is deemed 'illegal' by men...)  the culture war that began  with the Sexual Revolution in the 1960s has now ended in (note - political) defeat for christian conservatives. the cultural left - which is to say, increasingly the American mainstream - has no intention of living in postwar peace. it is pressing forward with a harsh, relentless occupation, one that is aided by the cluelessness of christians who don't understand what's happening. don't be fooled:  the upset presidential victory of Donald Trump has at best given  us a bit more time to prepare for the inevitable.
I have written The Benedict Option  to wake up the church and to encourage it to act to strengthen itself, while there is still time. if we want to survive, we have to return to the roots of our faith, both in thought and in practice.

(note - christians under attack have options: in the Bible are examples of those who were directed of the Lord to
1. FLEE  (Elijah, the Apostle Peter etc. ),
2. BEAR WITNESS TO THE TRUTH CONFIDENTLY, REJOICING AND BEING EXCEEDING GLAD (means skip about with mirth!) for great is our reward in heaven! matt. 5.12;
3. LIVE IN degrees of SEPARATION FROM SOCIETY all the way to the near complete separation from a surrounding, hostile society as put forth in this book, and
4. FIGHT as God's  leading might be (Jesus in telling His disciples to put away their swords in the face of death-dealing (to Himself) confrontation with the Jewish religious authorities and their hirelings) at times  (He says, if My kingdom were of this world, my followers would FIGHT.))

we are going to have to learn habits of the heart forgotten by believers in the West. we are going to have to change our lives and our approach to life, in radical ways. in short, WE ARE GOING TO HAVE TO BE THE CHURCH, without compromise, no matter what it costs.

this book does not offer a political agenda. now is it a spiritual how-to manual, nor a standard decline and fall lament...

10  in 2005, sociologists Christin Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton examined the religious and spiritual lives of American teens from a wide variety of backgrounds. what they found was that in most cases, teenagers adhered to a mush pseudo religion the researchers deem Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (MTD)
MTD has 5 basic tenets;
1. a God exists who created and orders the world and watches over human life on earth.
2. God wants people to be good, nice and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.
3  the central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
4. God does not need to be particularly involved in one's life except when He is needed to resolve a problem.
5. God people go to heaven when they die.

this creed, they found, is especially prominent among Catholic and Mainline Protestant tees. evangelical teens fared measurably better but were still far from historic biblical orthodoxy. (the researchers) claim the MTD is colonizing existing Christian churches, destroying biblical Christianity from within and replacing it with a pseudo-Christianity that is 'only tenuously connected to the actual historical Christian tradition.
MTD is not entirely wrong. after all, God does exist, and He does want us to be good. (yet..it's mostly about  improving one's self-esteem and subjective happiness and getting along well with others. 

15  Rome's fall left behind a staggering degree of material poverty, the result of both the disintegration of Rome's complex trad network and the loss of intellectual and technical sophistication.
in these miserable conditions, the church was often the strongest - and perhaps the only  -government people had. within the broad embrace of the church, monasticism provided much-needed help an hope to the peasantry and thanks to Benedict, a renewed focus on spiritual life led many men and women to leave the world and devote themselves wholly to God within the walls of monasteries under the Rule....
16  in his book After Virtue, philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre likened the present cultural moment to the fall of the Roman Empire in the West.  he argued that the West has abandoned reason and the tradition of the virtues in giving itself over to the relativism that is now flooding our world today. we are governed not by faith or by reason or by any combination of the two. we are governed by what Mac called Emotivism: the idea that all moral choices are nothing more than expressions of what the choosing individual feels is right.
Mac said that a society that governed itself according to emotivist principles would look a lot like the modern West,in which the liberation of the individual's will is thought to be the greatest good.  a virtuous society, by contrast, is one that shares belief in objective moral goods and the practices necessary for human beings to embody those goods in community.
...in  a post-virtue society, individuals hold maximal  freedom of though and action and society itself becomes 'a collection of strangers, each pursuing his or her own interests under minimal constraints.

achieving this kind of society requires
1. abandoning objective moral standards;
2. refusing to accept any religiously or culturally binding narrative originating outside oneself, except as chosen
3. repudiating memory of the past as irrelevant and
17  4. distancing oneself from community as well as any unchosen social obligations

this state of mid approximates the condition known as barbarism when we think of barbarians, we imagine wild, rapacious tribesmen rampaging through cities, heedlessly destroying the structures and institutions of civilization simply because they can. Barbarians are governed only by their will to power and neither know nor care a thing about what they are annihilating.

18  ...recognizing  the toxins of modern secularism, as well as the fragmentation cause by relativism, Benedict Option christians look to Scripture and to Benedict's Rule for ways to cultivate practices and communities.

Chapter 2 - The Roots of the Crisis

22  the loss of the christian religion is why the West has been fragmenting for some time now, a process that is accelerating. how did it happen? there were 5 landmark events over 7 centuries that rocked Western civilization and stripped it of its ancestral faith:

23  -in the 14the century, the loss of belief in the integral connection between God and Creation - or in philosophic terms, transcendent reality and material reality
-the collapse of religious unity and religious authority in the Protestant Reformation of the 16the century
-the 18th century Enlightenment, which displaced the christian religion with the cult of Reason, privatized religious life and inaugurated the age of democracy
-the Industrial Revolution (ca. 1760-1840) and the growth of capitalism in the 19th and 20th centuries
-The Sexual Revolution  (1960- now)

24  Medievals experienced the divine as far more present in their daily lives. as it had been for most people, christian and otherwise, throughout history, religion was everywhere and -this is crucial - as a matter not merely of belief by of experience. in the mind  of medieval christendom, the spirit world and the material world penetrated each other. the division between them was thin and porous. another way to put this is that the medievals experienced everything in the world sacramentally...

sacramentalism had a much broader and deeper meaning in the mind of the Middle Ages. people of those days took all things that existed, even time, as in some sense sacramental. that is, they believed that God was present everywhere and revealed Himself to us Through people, places and thing through which His power flowed.

...Medieval man held that reality - what was Really real - was outside himself and that dwelling in the darkness of he Fall, he could not fully perceive it.but he could relate to it intellectually through faith and reason and know it through conversion of he heart. the entire universe was woven into God's own Being, in ways that are difficult for 
25  modern people, even believing christians, to grasp. christians of the Middle Ages tgook Paul's words recorded in acts - 'in Him we live and move and have our being' - and in his letter to the Colossians - 'He is before all things and in Him all things hold together' - in a much more literal sense than we do.
Medieval Europe was no christian utopia. the church was spectacularly corrupt, and the violent exercise of power - at times by the church itself -seemed to rule the world . yet despite the radical brokenness of their world, medievals carried within their imagination the powerful vision of integration.  in the medieval consensus, men construed reality in a way that empowered them to harmonize everything conceptually and find meaning amid the chaos. 

the medieval conception of reality is an old idea, one that predates christianity. in his final book The Discarded Image, C.S.Lewis, who was a professional medievalist, explained that plato believed that two things could relate to each other only through a third thing. in what l called the medieval 'Model',  everything that existed was related to every other thing that existed, through their shared relation ship to God. our relationship to the world is mediated through God, and our relationship to God is mediated through the world.
humankind dwelled not in a cold, meaningless universe but in a Cosmos (def - order, form, arrangement),  in which everything had meaning because it participated in the life of the Creator. says, L, 'every particular fact and story became more interesting and more pleasurable if, by being properly fitted in, it carried one's mind back to the Model as a whole.

26  for the medievals, says L, regarding the cosmos was like 'looking at a great building' - perhaps like the Chartres cathedral - 'overwhelming in its greatness but satisfying in its harmony.

the medieval model held all of Creation to be bound in a complex unity that encompassed all of time and space. it reached its apogee (def - highest, most distant point) in the highly complex, rationalistic theology known as Scholasticism, of which the brilliant 13th century  Dominican friar Thomas Aquinas (1225-74) was the greatest exponent.
the core teaching of Scholasticism include the principle that all things exist and have a God-given essential nature independent of human thought. this position is called 'metaphysical realism'.  from this principle comes what Charles Taylor identifies as the 3 basic bulwarks upholding he medieval christian 'imaginary' - that is, the vision of reality accepted by all orthodox christians from the early church through the high Middle Ages:
-the world and everything in it is part of a harmonious whole ordered by God and filled with meaning - and all things are signs pointing to God.
-society is grounded in that higher reality.
-the world is charged with spiritual force.

these 3 pillars had to crumble before the modern world could arise from the rubble, Taylor says. and crumble they did...
....the theologian who did the most to topple the mighty oak of the medieval model - that is, Christian metaphysical realism - was a Franciscan from the British Isles, William of Ockham (1285-1347).

27  the ax he and his theological allies created to do the job was a big idea that came to called nominalism.
realism holds that the essence of a thing is built into its existence by God and its ultimate meaning is guaranteed by this connection to the transcendent order. this implies that Creation is comprehensible because it is rationally ordered by God and a revelation of Him.

'the heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork, says the psalmist. the sense that the material world discloses the workings of the transcendent order was present in ancient philosophy and in many world religions, even nontheistic ones like Taoism. metaphysical realism tells us that the awe we feel in the presence of nature, beauty or goodness - the feeling that there must be more than what we experience with our senses - is a reasonable intuition. it doesn't tell us who god is, but it tells us that we are not imagining things: something - or someone  - is there.

Aquinas puts it like this: 'to know that someone is approaching is not the same as to know that Peter is approaching, even though it is Peter who is approaching.  through prayer and contemplation, we may build on that intuition and come to know the identity of the One we sense. for example, the yearning for meaning and truth that all humans have, says David Bentley Hart, is simply a manifestation of the metaphysical structure of all reality.
...for Ockham, if something is good, it is because God desired it to be so.  the meaning of all things derives from God's sovereign will - that is, not because of what He is, or because of His participation in their being, but because of what He commands. if He calls something good today and the same thing evil tomorrow, that is His right.
this idea implies that objects have no intrinsic meaning,
28  only the meaning assigned to them and therefore no Meaningful existence outside the mind. a table is just wood and nails arranged in a certain way, until  we give it meaning by naming it 'table'. (nomen is the Latin word for 'name', hence nominalism.)

in Ock's thought, God is an all-powerful entity who is totally separate from Creation. God has to be, taught Ock, or else His freedom to act would be bound by the laws He made. a truly omnipotent God cannot be restrained by anything, in his view. if something is good, therefore, it is good because God said so. God's will, therefore, is more important than God's intellect.

this sounds like angels-dancing-on-the- head-of -a-pin stuff, but its importance cannot be overstate. medieval metaphysicians believed nature pointed to God. Nominalists did not. they  believed there is no inner meaning existing objectively within nature and discoverable by reason. meaning is extrinsic (def - not essential or inherent) - that is imposed from the outside, by God  - and accessible to humans by faith in Him and His revelation alone.
if this sounds like plain good sense to you, then you begin to grasp how revolutionary nominalism was. what was once a radical theory would, in time, become the basis for the way most people understood the relationship between God and Creation. it made the modern world possible - but as we will see, it also set the stage for man enthroning himself in the place of God.

ideas don't occur in a vacuum. as C.S. Lewis put it, 'we are all very properly, familiar with the idea that in every age the human mind is deeply influenced by the accepted Model of the universe. but there is a two-way traffic; the Model is also influenced by the prevailing temper of mind. nominalism emerged from a restless civilization whose people were questing for something different. the Middle Ages were an age of intense faith and spirituality, but as even the art of poetry of the 14th century showed, humanity began turning its gaze away from the heavens and toward this world.

after Ockham,  the so-called natural philosophers - thinkers who studied nature, the precursors of scientists - began to shed the metaphysical
29  baggage bequeathed to them by Aristotle and his medieval christian successors. they discovered that one didn't need to have a philosophical theory about a natural phenomenon's being in order to examine it empirically and draw conclusions.
meanwhile, in the world of art and literature, a new emphasis on naturalism and individualism emerged. the old world, with its metaphysical certainties, its formal hierarchies, and its spiritual focus gradually ceased to hold the imagination of Western man, art became less symbolic, less idealized, less focused on religious themes, and more occupied with the life of man.

the Model shuddered under philosophical assault, but horrifying events outside the world of art and ideas also shook it to the core.  War - especially the Hundred Years War between France and England - wracked western Europe, which also suffered a catastrophic 14th century famine. worst of all was the Black Death, a plague that killed between one-third and one-half of all Europeans before burning itself out. few civilizations could withstand those kinds of traumas without tremendous upheavals.

for all these reasons, the Model broke apart. metaphysical realism had been defeated. what emerged was a new individualism, a this-worldliness that would inaugurate the historical period called the Renaissance. the defeat of metaphysical realism inaugurated a new and dynamic phase of Western history - one that would culminate in a religious revolution.

Renaissance and Reformation


Renaissance is a French word meaning 'rebirth'. it refers to the cultural efflorescence that accompanied the West's rediscovery of the Greek and Roman roots of its civilization. it is important to note that the term was not applied to the period bridging the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the modern era until the 19th century.
30  it contains within it the secular progressive belief that the religiously focused medieval period was a time of intellectual and artistic sterility - a ludicrous judgment but an influential one.

nevertheless, the Renaissance does mark a distinct change in European culture, which shifted its focus from the glory of God to the glory of man, 'we can become what we will, ' said Pico della Mirandola (1463-94), the archetypal Renaissance philosopher. it was not an open form of satanic defiance - indeed, Pico uttered that famous line in an oration in which he cautioned against abusing God's gift of free will - but those words express the Renaissance's optimism about human nature and its possibilities.
what was being reborn in the Renaissance?
the classical spirit of ancient Greece and Rome, which had gone into eclipse following the fifth century collapse of the Western Roman Empire, and the subsequent advent of the christian medieval  period. while the late medieval period concentrated on the rediscovery of Greek philosophical texts, Italian scholars of he 14th century led the way in reviving ancient literature and history.  'Man is the measure of all things, said the ancient Greek philosopher Protagoras,  in a line that also described the spirit of the new age dawning upon europe.
Renaissance humanism began to consider the world through classical insights and emphasized the study of poetry , rhetoric and other disciplines we not call the humanities. though humanist culture was not as narrowly focused on the faith as its medieval predecessor, it was by no means anti-christian.  the Ren brought into Western christianity a greater concern for the individual, for freedom and for the dignity of man as bearing the image of God.

Medieval christianity focused on the fall of man, but the more humanistic christianity of he Renaissance centered on man's potential. christian humanism was far more individualistic than what came before it and it sought to christianize the classical model of the hero, the man of virtue. scholasticism emphasized reason and intellect as the way to relate to God; christian humanism focused on the will.
31  the danger was that christian humanists would become too enamoured of human potential and man's capacity for self-creation and lose sight of his chronic inclination toward sin. this was a temptation to which the Italian humanists were particularly susceptible. they were all too pleased to cast off the sackcloth and ashes of medieval asceticism and revel in the glory and vigor of the sensual life. not so with the humanists of northern Europe, who were more modest in their piety and restrained in their optimism about human nature. they were more drawn to Scripture than to philosophy and were concerned primarily with reforming the church toward a more rigorous morality and a more democratic religious life. they viewed with skepticism, even disdain, the sensuality that had overtaken European life, especially in the church.

Renaissance Rome was a cesspit of vice and the corruption reached far beyond the papal court and the Vatican walls. many bishops  were despised for their worldliness, while drunken and ignorant parish clergy, indifferent to the Gospel, were disrespected by their angry flocks as the church hemorrhaged spiritual and moral authority, the clamor for change rose .  but the Renaissance popes, prisoners of their own greed and tastes for opulence, refused to listen. they thought what they had would last forever.

it took an Augustinian monk named Martin Luther to shatter their illusions - and with it, the religious unity of the West...
32  ...Reformation-era christians  - Protestants - would no longer bow before what the Reformers believed to be superstition and idolatry. Scripture was heir only authority in religious matters...

because religion was inseparable from politics and culture, the Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation, quickly led to a series of savage wars that shredded Europe. to be fair, the Wars of Religion were as political, social, and economic as they were religious but the religious basis for the wars caused weary European intellectuals to explore ways of living peaceably with the schism between Rome and the Reformers.

The Dawn of the Enlightenment

the Scientific Revolution indirectly suggested a possible way out.

even as the Wars of Religion raged, science made rapid advances.

33  the Scientific Revolution was a roughly 200 year period of staggering advances in science and mathematics that began with Copernicus (1473-1543),  who showed that the earth was not the fixed center of Creation and ended with Newton (1642-1727), whose breakthough discoveries lad the foundation for modern physics. the era overturned he aristotelian-Christian cosmos - a hierarchical model of reality in which all things exist organically through their relationship with God - in favor of a mechanical universe ordered by laws of nature, with no necessary grounding in the transcendent.

most leaders of the Scientific Revolution were professing christians, but the revolution's grounding lay undeniably in nominalism. if he material world could be studied and understood on its own, without reference to God, then science can exist on its own, without reference to God, than science can exist on its own, without reference to Go, then science can exist on its own, free of theological controversy. 
this practical proposition allowed science to develop unhindered by metaphysical and religious suppositions. science focused on facts about the material world that could be demonstrated and it had an empirical method of testing hypotheses to prove or disprove their claims.

and science Worked,  in practical ways. Sir Francis Bacon, an important late Renaissance philosopher and founder of the scientific method, famously said that scientific discovery ought to be applied 'for the relief of man's estate' - that is, to improve the lives of humans by reducing their pain, suffering and poverty. this was a turning point in the history of ideas. the natural world  was to be taken no longer as something to be contemplated as in any way an icon of the divine, but rather as something to be understood and manipulated by the will of humankind for its own sake. in this way, the Scientific Revolution further distanced god from Creation in the minds of men.

the Scientific Revolution culminated in the life and work of Sir Isaac Newton, a physicist, mathematician, and unorthodox christian who fabricated a new model of the universe that explained its physical workings in a wholly mechanical way. Newton certainly believed that

34  the laws of motion he discovered had been established by God. yet Newton's God, in contrast to the God of traditional christian metaphysics, was like a divine watchmaker who fashioned a time piece, wound it and let it carry on with His further involvement.

the explosion of science changed Western epistemology, the study of how we know what we know. Aristotelian science, which dominated the Middle Ages, was based on metaphysicl concepts about the essential nature of things. the new science jettisoned the metaphysical baggage and reasoned from empirical observations alone. philosopher and mathematician Rene Descartes (1596-1650) would change the approach to the epistemological question even further. whereas Bacon said we should develop models by reasoning from empirical observation, Des took a more purely rationalsitic approach.
Des taught the the best method was to begin by accepting as true only clear ideas that were beyond doubt. you should accept nothing as truth on the basis of authority and you should even doubt your senses. only those things of which you can be certain are true. and the first principle of all under this method is, 'I think, therefore I am.
....what Des did  - and what makes him the father of modern philosophy - was to invert the medieval approach to knowledge. to the Scholastics reality was an objective state and humankind's role was first to understand the metaphysical nature of reality. only then could humans begin to explore knowledge of the world and everything within it. Des, on the other hand, began all inquiry with radical subjectivity, declaring that the first principle of knowledge was that the Self is conscious of itself.
35  Descartes's philosophy opened the door to the world-changing project dubbed 'the Enlightenment'  by its cheerleaders eager to contrast it to the supposedly dark days when revealed religion had its death grip on the Western mind. at its core, the Enlightenment was an attempt by European intellectuals to find a common basis outside religion for determining moral truth.  the success of science led moral philosophers to explore how disinterested reason, which was so successful in the realm of science, could show the West a nonsectarian was to live.

the philosophers of the Enlightenment sought to use reason alone to establish a new basis for political and social life, one that was separated from the past. they tried to create a secular morality that any reasonable person could understand and affirm, and they believed that this was possible. they also advocated science and technology as a way to impose man's rational will upon nature and they extolled the freely choosing individual.
for our purposes, the Enlightenment matters because it was a decisive break with the christian legacy of the West. God, if he was mentioned at all,  was not the
God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob but the nondescript divinity of the Deists. Deism, a rationalistic school of thought that emerged in the En, holds that God is a cosmic architect who created the universe but does not interact with it. Deism rejects biblical religion and the supernatural and bases its principles on what can be know about God - the 'Supreme Being' - through reason alone.

most of the American Founding Fathers were either confessed Deists like Benjamin Franklin (also a Freemason) or strongly influenced by Deism (eg. Thomas Jefferson)  Deism was a powerful intellectual force in 18th century American life. John Locke, the English political philosopher whose teaching  was a great influence on the American founding, was technically not a Deist - his belief in miracles contradicted the Deists' watchmaker God - but his philosophy was strongly consonant with deist principles.
36  Locke believed that the autonomous individual, born as a blank slate, with on innate nature, is the fundamental unit of society. the purpose of the government, according to Locke, is not to pursue virtue but rather to establish and guard a social order under which individuals can exercise they will within reason. government exists to secure the rights of these individuals to life, liberty and property. the authors of the Declaration of Independence changed this formulation to 'life, liberty and the pursuit of Happiness'., a phrase every American schoolchild learns in his civic catechism.

the US Constitution, a Lockean document, privatizes religion, separating it from the state. every American schoolchild learns to consider this a blessing and perhaps it is. but segregating the sacred from the secular in this way profoundly shaped the American religious consciousness.

for all the good that religious tolerance undoubtedly brought to a young country with a diverse and contentious population of Protestant sectarians and a Catholic minority, it also  laid the groundwork for excluding religion from the public square by making it a matter of private, individual choice. in the American order, the state's role is simply to act as a referee among individuals and factions. the government has no ultimate conception of the good and it regards its own role as limited to protecting the rights of individuals.
when a society is thoroughly christian, this is an ingenious way to keep the peace and allow for general flourishing. but from the Christian point of view, Enlightenment liberalism contained the seeds of Christianity's undoing.
in a letter to soldiers in 1798, John Adams, a Founding Father and practicing Unitarian, remarked:
we had no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. it is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

Adams understood that liberty under the Constitution could only work if the people were virtuous, restraining their passions and directing them toward the good - as defined, presumably, by Adams's rationalistic religious belief. fortunately, having gone through the First Great Awakening of the mid-eighteenth century, America was strongly Evangelical and citizens had a strong shared idea of the Good and a shared definition of virtue. unfortunately, this would not last.

Democracy, Capitalism, Romanticism:  The Calamitous Nineteenth Century.

in the middle of the 18th century, new technological breakthroughs began to give man unprecedented power over nature. this led to an explosion in manufacturing and commerce, which brought revolutionary changes to society. the socially stable was of life based on farming and crafts came to an end. Peasants moved en masse to cities, where they became workers in the new factories. the social hierarchies of the traditional family and village began to dissolve.

the same was true in politics. the American Revolution in 1776 overthrew monarchy and established a constitutional republic. the far bloodier French Revolution of 1789 was much more radical attempting near-totalitarian refashioning of French society in the name of republicanism. its terror ended in the dictatorship of Napoleon Bonaparte, who restored order, but the violence unleashed by the revolution and its ideals rocked Europe for the rest of he century. it shook monarchies and established orders, using the ideals of liberty and democracy to batter older authoritarian structures.

around the same time, artists and intellectuals began to rebel against Enlightenment reason and the effects of the Industrial Revolution
38  the Romantics, as they wee called, found many aspects of the new rationalist, mechanized society distasteful but had no interest in returning to the christian world. they prized emotion, individuality, nature and personal freedom.
they advocated an ideal of the heroic, creative individual, one who rejects the strictures of society, one who follows his feelings and intuitions.  for the Romantics, meaning and release from the ugliness of modern society was to be found in art, nature, and culture. theirs was a primitivist reaction against the cold rationalism of the preceding age.
though a man of the Enlightenment era, philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78) became the father of Romanticism. Rou advanced the idea that man is born naturally good but is corrupted by society. from Rou came the modern notion that the freer a society is, the more virtuous it is.  the people, in expressing the 'general will',  are always right.
Alexis de Tocqueville, a young French aristocrat traveling through America in 1831-2, observed Rou's egalitarian ideals in practice. in Democracy in America, Toc concluded that democracy was the future of Europe, but observed that with its drive for equality which entailed making standards relative to the majority's will, democracy risked eliminating the virtues that made self-rule possible. democracies will succeed only if 'mediating institutions', including the churches, thrive.

in the 19th century, intellectual elites understood that the world around them was quickly fragmenting. 'all that is solid melts into air, said Marx and Engles's Communist Manifesto (1848),  which accurately observed that the Industrial Revolution had destroyed old certainties. writing a generation after Charles Darwin published his Origin of Species in 1859, German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche understood natural selection to mean that there is no divine plan guiding man's development. it is random, based on the survival of the fittest. Nietzsche drew on Darwin to formulate a philosophy extolling strength and the individual will.

39  'God is dead and we have killed Him, said Nietzsche, stating a blunt truth about the West's nascent atheism...
despite the disillusionment of artists, philosophers and other culture producers, the 19th century was a time of great religious fervor in England and America.  the Victorian era in England stretched from 1837 until the turn of the 20the century and featured a popular Christianity that was muscular, moralistic and disciplined.  it was notably civic-minded, with a strong emphasis on social reform. this reformist Evangelicalism spread to the US, sparking the Third Great Awakening,  which brought explosive growth in Protestant churches and laid the groundwork for the Social Gospel movement. rising European immigration brought Catholics pouring into American cities by the hundreds of thousand.
the important changes, though, took place among the cultural elites, who continued to shed any semblance of traditional christianity.  in America, from 1870 through 1930, these elites worked what sociologist Christian Smith terms a 'secular revolution'. they harnessed the energy and tumult of industrialization to remake society along broadly 'progressive' lines.

the effects of this progressive movement on American religious life were vast. it began the long liberalization of Mainline Protestantism by infusing it with a passion for social reform, over and against personal
40  piety and evangelizing. progressives turfed the Protestant religious establishment out of universities and other leading cultural institutions.  it pushed religion to the margins of public life, advocating science as the primary source of society's values and as a guide to social change. within christianity, it replaced the religious model of the human person with a psychological model centered on the Self. and progressives' political ardor for greater democracy and egalitarianism (def - belief in the equality of all people, esp. in political, economic or social life) found expression in church life by eroding the authority of the clergy and Scripture.

the 20the century arrived amid a wave of optimism about the West's future. it was a time of hope and faith in progress. the dream came to a catastrophic end in 1914, with the outbreak of the deadliest war the world had ever seen.

The Triumph of Eros

the mass savagery of World War I, 4 years of grinding combat that consumed the live of 17,000,000 soldiers and civilians, shattered European ideals and dealt a mortal blow to what remained of Christendom. the war's aftermath accelerated the abandonment of traditional sources of cultural authority. sexual morality loosened. new styles of art and literature arose, making a conscious and definitive break with the discredited values of the prewar world.

Western civilization had been abandoning christianity fro quite some time, but it still had a sense of progress and purpose to unify it and to give its people direction and order to their lives. none of the progress -scientific, technological, economic, political, or social - prevented Europe from turning itself into a charnel house.
this was the period in which the West moved from what sociologist Zygmunt Bauman called 'solid modernity' - a period of social change that was still fairly predictable and manageable  -to 'liquid modernity',  our present condition, in which change is so rapid that no social institutions had time to solidify.
41  Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, found his true genius not as a scientist but as a quasi -religious figure who discerned and proclaimed the Self as a deity to replace the Christian religion. yet F's immense cultural authority depended on his role as an icon of science. among secularized elites, who disseminated F's views widely through mass media, F's vision had the force of revelation precisely because elites  believed it to e scientific.

to F, religion was nothing more that a man-made mechanism to cope with life and to manage instincts that, if allowed to run free, would make civilization impossible. Western man had lost God, and with that a sense that there was a higher authority to give life ultimate meaning. but man had to get on with life somehow.
F's answer was to replace religion with psychology.  in his therapeutic vision, we should stop the fruitless searching for a nonexistent source of meaning and instead seek self-fulfillment. the pursuit of  happiness was not a quest for unity with God, or sacrificial dedication to a cause greater than oneself but rather a search to satisfy the Self.
in the past, a person looked outside himself to learn what he was to do with his life. but in modernity, when we know that religion and all claims to transcendent values are an illusion, we must look into ourselves for the secret to our won well-being . psychology did not necessarily intend to change a man's character, as in the old Christian therapies of repentance as a step toward conforming to god's will, but rather to help that man become comfortable with who he is.

Sociologist Philip Rieff, the great interpreter of F, described the shift of Western consciousness like this:  'Religious man was born to be saved. Psychological man is born to be pleased.

the 1960s were the decade in which Psychological Man came fully into his won. in that decade, the freedom of the individual to fulfill his own desires became our cultural lodestar (def - or 'loadstar'- 1. a star that shows the way 2. Polaris (North star) 3. something that serves as a guide or on which the attention is fixed.) and the rapid falling away of American morality from its christian ideal began as a result. despite a conservative backlash in the 1980s, Psychological Man won decisively and now owns the culture - including most churches  - as
42  surely as the Ostrogothes, Visigothes, Vandals, and other conquering peoples owned the remains of the Western Roman Empire.

in 1966, at the beginning of this new age, Rieff published a study called The Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith After Freud,  a book that still stuns with its prescience. (def - knowledge of things before they exist or happen.) in it Ri, an unbeliever, argued that the West, amid unprecedented liberty and prosperity, was going through a profound cultural revolution. it had not become atheist, but it had spiritualized desire and embraced the secular 'gospel of self-fulfillment.

most people understood that Western culture had been slowly moving away from christianity since the Enlightenment, but Rieff said the process had gone much farther than most people realized.

in Rieff's theory of culture, A CULTURE IS DEFINED BY WHAT IT FORBIDS.  each culture has its own 'order of therapy' - a system that teaches its members what is permitted within its bounds and gives them sanctioned was to let off the pressure of living by the community's rules. which are traditionally rooted in religion. moreover, the asceticism in a culture - that is, the ideal of self-denial - cannot be an end in itself, because that would destroy a culture. rather, it must be a 'positive asceticism' that links the individual negating his own particular desires to the achievement of a higher, positive, life-affirming goal.
the main thing that helps a culture survive, Re wrote, is 'the power of its institutions to bind and loose men in the conduct of heir affairs with reasons which sink so deep into the self that they become commonly and implicitly understood'.  a culture begins to die, he went on,  'when its normative institutions fail to communicate ideals in ways that remain inwardly compelling, first of all to the cultural elites themselves.
in other words, the Judeo-Christian culture of the West was dying because it no longer deeply believed in Christian sacred order, with it's 'thou shalt nots'. and it had no way of agreeing on the 'thou shall nots' that every culture must have to restrain individual passions and direct them to socially beneficial ends. what made our condition so revolutionary

43  he said, was that for the first time in history, the West was attempting to build a culture on the Absence of belief in a higher order that commanded our obedience. in other words, we were creating an 'anti-culture', one that made the foundation for a stable culture impossible.

that is, instead of teaching us what we must deprive ourselves of to be civilized, we have a culture build on a cult of desire, one that tells us we find meaning and purpose in releasing ourselves from the old prohibitions, as we self-directed individuals choose.

'Eros must be raised to the level of a religious cult in modern society, not because we really are that obsessed with it. but because the myth  of freedom demands it, says political philosopher Stephen L. Gardner.  'it is in carnal desire that the modern individual believes be affirms his 'individuality'  the body must be the true 'subject' of desire because the individual must be the author of his own desire.

the Romantic ideal of the self-created man finds its fulfillment in the newest vanguards of  the Sexual Revolution, transgendered people.  they refuse to be bound by biology (note - read 'God', our creator)
and have behind them an elite movement teaching new generations that gender is whatever the choosing individual wants it to be. the advent of the birth control pill in the 1960s made it possible for mankind to extend its conquest and subjection of nature to the will to the human body itself. transgenderism is the logical next step, after which will come the deconstruction of any obstructions, in law or in custom, to freely chosen polygamous arrangements.

sure, there will be costs to extending the Sexual Revolution. we saw them in its first phase. the 1970s,  the so called Me Decade, was when the 1960s came to the rest of America. the divorce rate, rising in the 1960s, mushroomed in the 1970s. abortions skyrocketed. but there was no going back. the new order found its constitutional confirmation in the Supreme Court's   1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision reaffirming abortion rights. justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the pro-choice majority, explained (no doubt unintentionally) how the Sexual Revolution depends on a radical, even nihilistic, (def - '"nothing"; total rejection of established laws and institutions) conception of freedom:
44  at the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe and of the mystery of human life.
here is the end point of modernity:  the autonomous, freely choosing individual, finding meaning in no one by himself.
'everyone has a right to develop their own form of life, grounded on their own sense of what is really important or of value. people are called upon to be true to themselves and to seek their own self - fulfillment.  what this consists of, each must, in the last instance, determine for him or herself.. no one else can or should try to dictate its content. (note - this encapsulates the death sentence for any  nation...when they consciously do only what they want rather than what God wants.)

of course every age has had its morally lax people and people who have forsaken ideals and commitments to pursue their heart's desire.  in fact, every one of us christians is like that at times; it's called sin. what's distinct about the present age, says Taylor, is that 'today many people feel called to do this, feel they ought to do this, feel their lives would be somehow wasted or unfulfilled if  they didn't do it.
what is 'it'? following your own heart, no matter what society says or the church or anybody else. this kind of thinking is devastating to every kind of social stability but especially to the church. the church, a community that authoritatively teaches and disciples its members, cannot withstand a revolution in which each member becomes, in effect, his own pope. churches - Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox - that are nothing more than a loosely bound assembly of individuals committed to finding their own 'truth', are no longer the church in any meaningful sense, because there is no shared belief.
in this sense, christians today may think we stand in opposition to secular culture, but in truth we are as much creatures of our own time
45  a secular people are, as Charles Taylor puts it, 'the entire ethical stance of moderns supposes and follows on from the death of God (and of course, of the meaningful cosmos).  we may deny that God is dead,  but to accept religious individualism and its theological support structure. Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, is to declare that
God may not be quite dead, but He is in hospice care and confined to the bed.

let's review a timeline of how the West arrived at this blasted heath of atomization, fragmentation, and unbelief.
14th century:  the defeat of metaphysical realism by NOMINALISM in medieval theological debates removed the linchpin linking the transcendent and the material worlds. in nominalism, the MEANING of objects and actions in the material world DEPENDS ENTIRELY ON  what MAN assigns it. war and plague  brought the medieval system crashing down.
15th : the RENAISSANCE dawned with a new optimistic outlook on HUMAN POTENTIAL and began shifting the West's vision and social imagination from God to man, whom it saw as 'the measure of all things'.
16th: REFORMATION broke the religious unity of Europe.  in Protestant lands,  it birthed an unresolved CRISIS OF RELIGIOUS AUTHORITY,  which over the coming centuries would case unending schisms.
17th - the WARS OF RELIGION resulted in the further DISCREDITing of RELIGION and the founding of he modern nation-state. the SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION struck the final blow to the organic medieval model of the cosmos, replacing it with a vision of the UNIVERSE as A MACHINE. the mind-body split proclaimed by DESCARTES APPLIED THIS TO the body.  MAN became alienated from the natural world.
18th - The ENLIGHTENMENT attempted to create a PHILOSOPHICAL FRAMEWORK FOR LIVING in and governing society ABSENT RELIGIOUS REFERENCE. REASON THE POLESTAR of public life , with RELIGION- considered a burden from the Dark Ages - RELEGATED TO the PRIVATE LIFE. the French and American revolutions broke with the old regimes and their hierarchies and inaugurated a democratic, egalitarian age.

19th:  the success of the INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION pulverized the agrarian way of life, uprooted masses from rural areas and brought them into the CITIES. relations among people came to be defined by MONEY. the ROMANTIC MOVEMENT REBELLED AGAINST THIS IN THE NAME OF INDIVIDUALISM and passion. ATHEISM and MARXist-influenced  progressive social reform spread among cultural elites.

20th: the horrors of the TWO WORLD WARS severely DAMAGED FAITH IN the gods of reason and progress and IN the GOD of Christianity.  with the growth of technology and mass CONSUMER society, people began to pay more attention to themSELVES and to fulfilling their individual DESIRES. the SEXUAL REVOLUTION exalted the desiring individual as the center of the emerging social order, deposing an enfeebled Christianity as the Ostrogoths deposed the hapless last emperor of the Western roman Empire in the fifth century.

the long journey from a medieval world wracked with suffering by pregnant with meaning has delivered us to a place of once unimaginable comfort but emptied of significance and connection. THE WEST HAS LOST THE GOLDEN THREAD THAT BINDS US TO GOD, CREATION AND EACH OTHER.  unless we find it again, there is no hope of halting our

48  Chapter 3 - A Rule for Living

you can't go back to the past, but you can go to Norcia. and the glimpse of the christian past a pilgrim gets there is also, I am confident, a glimpse of the christian future.

Norcia - the modern name of Benedict of Nursia's birthplace - is a walled town that sits on a broad plateau at the end of a road that winds for 35 miles through harsh mountain country. it is easy to imagine how isolated Norcia was in Ben's day - and why, to our knowledge, the saint went down the mountain, never to return.
the suppression of the Norcia monastery happened in 1810 under laws imposed by Napoleon Bonaparte, then the ruler of norther Italy. Napoleon was a tyrant who inherited the anti-christian legacy of he French Revolution and used it to devastate the Catholic Church in all territories under French imperial rule. Napoleon was the dictator of a
49  French state so anticlerical that many in Europe speculated that he was the Antichrist.

legend has it that in an argument with a cardinal, Napoleon pointed out that he had the power to destroy the church.
'Your majesty, the cardinal replied, we, the clergy, have done our best to destroy the church for the last 1800 years. we have not succeeded and neither will you.
4 years after sending the Benedictines away from their home of nearly a millennium, Nap's empire was in ruins and he was in exile. today, the sound of Gregorian chants can once again be heard in the saint's hometown, a melodious rebuke to the apostate emperor. sometimes the past, as an American novelist famously said, is not even past.
the Monastery of St. Benedict is not the world's first Benedictine monastery. monks did not establish themselves in this town until the 10th century (or possibly earlier;  written records only go back to the 900s). most of the men who refounded the monastery are young Americans  who have chosen to give their lives wholly to God as Benedictine monks - and not just as monks but as Benedictines committed to living out the fullness of their tradition.
as I settled into the quiet of my monastery guest room after a morning in Norcia, I reflected on how unlikely it was that from this  small town high in the mountains came the spark that kept the light of faith alive in europe through very hard times. that spark shone forth in a world when,  in the words of the english lay Benedictine Esther de Waal,  ' life was an urgent struggle to make sense of what was happening'.  Like today, I though, then drifted off to sleep.

the next morning I met Father Cassian inside the monastery for a talk. He stands tall, his short hair and beard are steel-gray and his demeanor is serious and,  will, monklike.  but then he speaks, in his gentle baritone, you feel as if you are talking to your own father. Father Cassian speaks  warmly and powerful of the integrity and joy of the  
50  Benedictine life, which is so different from that of our fragmented  modern world.

though the monks here have rejected the world. 'there's not just a No;  there's a Yes too,  Father Cassian says. It's both that we reject what is not life-giving and that we build something new. and we spend a lot of time in the rebuilding and people see that too, which is why people flock to the monastery. we have so much involvement with guests and pilgrims that it's exhausting. but that is what we do. we are rebuilding. that's the Yes that people have to hear about.

Rebuilding what? I asked.
'to use Pope Benedict's phrase, which he repeated many times,  the Western world today lives as though God does not exist, he says.  'I think that's true. fragmentation, fear, disorientation, drifting - those are widely diffused characteristics of our society.
Yes, I thought, this is exactly right. when we lost our christian religion in modernity, we lost the thing that bound ourselves together and to our neighbors and anchored us in both the eternal and the temporal orders. we are adrift in liquid modernity, with no direction home.

and this monk was telling me that he and his brothers in the monastery saw themselves as working on the restoration of Christian belief and christian culture. how very Benedictine. I leaned in to hear more. 
this monastery, Father Cassian explained and the life of prayer within it, exist as a sign of contradiction to the modern world,  the guardrail have disappeared and the world risks careering (def - to run or move rapidly along;  to go full speed) off a cliff, but we are so captured by the lights and motion of modern life that we don't recognize the danger. the fores of dissolution from popular culture are too great for individuals or families to resist on their own.  we need to embed ourselves in stable communities of faith.
Benedict's Rule is a detailed set of instructions for how to organize and govern a monastic community, in which monks  (and separately nuns)  live together in poverty and chastity.  that is common to all monastic living, but Benedict's Rule adds 3 distinct vows: obedience

51  stability (fidelity to the same monastic community until death), and conversion of life, which means dedicating oneself  to the lifelong work of deepening repentance.  the Rule also includes directions for dividing each day into periods of prayer, work and reading of Scripture and other sacred texts. the saint taught his followers how to live apart from the world, but also how to treat pilgrims and strangers who come to the monastery.
far from being a way of life for the strong and disciplined, Benedict's Rule was for the ordinary and weak, to help them grow stronger in faith.  when Ben began forming his monasteries, it was common practice for monastics to adopt a written rule of life, and Ben's Rule was a simplified and (though it seems quite rigorous to us) softened version of an earlier rule. Ben had a noteworthy sense of compassion for human frailty, saying in the prologue to the Rule that he hoped to introduce 'nothing harsh and burdensome'  but only to be strict enough to strengthen  the hearts of the brothers 'to run the way of God's commandments with unspeakable  sweetness and love'. he instructed his abbots to govern as strong but compassionate fathers and not to burden the brothers under his authority with things they are not strong enough to handle.
for example, in his chapter giving the order of manual labor, Ben says,  'let all things be done with moderation, however, for the sake of the faint-hearted. this is characteristic of Benedict's wisdom.  he did not want to break his spiritual sons; he wanted to build them up.

despite the very specific instructions found in the Rule, it's not a checklist for legalism.  'the purpose of the Rule is to free you. that's a paradox that people don't grasp readily, Father Cassian said.

if you have a field covered with water because of poor drainage, he explained, crops either won't grow there, or they will rot. if you don't drain it, you will have a swamp and disease. but if you can dig a drainage channel, the field will become contained within the walls of the channel, it will flow with force and can accomplish things.
'A Rule works that way, to channel your spiritual energy, your work, your activity, so that you're able to accomplish something, Father Cassian said.
'Monastic life is very plain, he continued.  'People from the outside perhaps have a romantic vision, perhaps what they see on television, of monks sort of floating around the cloister.  there is that, and that's attractive, but basically, monks get up in the morning, they pray, they do their work, they pray some more. they eat, they pray, they do some more work, they pray some more and then they go to bed. it's rather plain, just like most people. the genius of Saint Benedict is to find the presence of God in everyday life.
people who are anxious, confused and looking for answers are quick to search for solutions in the pages of books or on the Internet,  looking for that 'killer app' that will make everything right again. the Rule tells us: No, it's not like that .  you can achiever the peace and order you seek only by making a place within your heart and within your daily life for the grace of God to take root. divine grace is freely given, but God will not force us to receive it. it takes constant effort on our part to get out of God's way and let His grace heal us and change us. to this end, what we think does not matter as much as what ewe do - and how faithfully we do it.
a man who wants to get in shape and has read the best bodybuilding books will get nowhere unless he applies that knowledge in eating healthy food and working out daily.  that takes sustained willpower. in time, if he's faithful to the practices necessary to achieve his goal,  the man will start to love eating well and exercising so much that he is not pushed toward doing  so by willpower but rather drawn to it by love. he will have trained his heart to desire the good.

so too with the spiritual life. right belief (orthodoxy) is essential, but holding the correct doctrines in your mind does you little good if your heart-the seat of the will - remains unconverted. that requires putting those right beliefs into action through right practice (orthopraxy),  which over time achieves the goal Paul set for Timothy when
53  he commanded him to 'discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. I Timothy 4.7

the author of !! Peter explains well the way the mind, the heart,and the body work in harmony for spiritual growth.
'now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence and in your moral excellence, knowledge and in your knowledge, self-control and in your self-control, perseverance and in your perseverance, godliness and in your godliness, brotherly kindness and in your brotherly kindness, love. for f these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.  II Pet. 1.5-8

though it quotes Scripture in nearly every one of its short chapters,  the Rule is not the Gospel. it is a proven strategy for living the Gospel  in an intensely christian way. it is an instruction manual for who to form one's life around the service of Jesus Christ, within a strong community. it is not a collection of theological maxims but a manual of practices through which  believers can structure their lives around prayer, the Word of God and the ever-deepening awareness that, as the saint says, 'the divine presence is everywhere and that 'the eyes of he Lord are looking on the good and evil in very place'. Prov. 15.3
the Rule is for monastics, obviously, but its teaching are plain enough to be adapted by lay christians for their own use.  it provides a guide to serious and sustained christian living in a fashion that reorders us interiorly, bringing together what is scattered within our own hearts and orienting it to prayer. if applied effectively, it disciplines the life we share with others, breaking down barriers that keep the love of God from passing among us and makes us more resilient without hardening our hearts.
in the Benedict Option, we are not trying to repeal 700 years of history, as if that were possible. nor are we trying to save the
54  West. we are only trying to build a christian way of life that stands as an island of sanctity and stablility amid the high tide of liquid modernity. we are not looking to create heaven on earth; we are simply looking for a  way to be strong in faith through a time of great testing.  the Rule, with its vision of an ordered life centered around Christ the the practices it prescribes to deepen our conversion, can help us achieve that goal.

ORDER
if a defining characteristic of the modern world is disorder, than the most fundamental act of resistance is to establish order. if we don't have internal order,  we will be controlled by our human passions and by the powerful outside forces who are in greater control of directing liquid modernity's deep currents...
...the point of life, for individual persons, for the church and for the state, is to pursue harmony with that transcendent, eternal order.
55  to order the world rightly as christians requires regarding all things as pointing toChrist. chap. 19 of the Rule offers a succinct example of the connection between a disciplinary teaching and the unseen order. in it, Ben insturcts his monks to keep their minds focused on the presence of God and His Angels...
'we believe that the divine presence is everywhere and that 'the eyes of the Lord are looking on the good and the evil in every place.  (Prov. 15.3) writes Ben...

57  'the structure of live in the monastery, the things you do every day, is not just pointless repetition... its to train your heart and your spirit so that when you need it, when you don't feel strong enough to will yourself to get through a difficult moment, fall back on your training.  you know that you wouldn't be strong enough to do it if you hadn't been kind of working at it and putting all the auxiliary (def - additional, reserve things in place.

PRAYER

that radiance is a fruit of dep and constant prayer. the Apostle Paul told the church in Thessalonica to 'pray without ceasing' I Thess. 5.17. benedictines consider thie entire lives to be an attempt

58  to fulfill this command. strictly speaking, prayer is communication,  either privately or in community, with God. more broadly, prayer is maintaining an unfailing awareness of the divine presence and doing all thins with Him in mind...

to prayer is to engage in contemplation. the word has a particular meaning to monastics. it refers to what they believe is the highest state of the christian life;  to free oneself from the cares of he flesh to adore and praise God and to reflect on His truth.  this is in opposition to the active life, which is to do good works in the world.
think of the Gospel story of the sisters Martha and Mary.  (note - Jesus said of Mary, who sat at His feet and did not help Martha to fix a mean...that Mary had 'chosen the better part'...)

for the monks, prayer is not simply words they speak. each monk spends several hours daily doing lectio divina, a Benedictine method of
59  Scripture study that involves reading a Scripture passage, meditating  on it, praying about it and finally contemplating its meaning for the soul...

60  WORK

...if you know anything about  the Benedictines, you will probably  have heard that their motto is ora et labora - Latin for 'prayer and work'...'Idleness is the enemy of the soul, says St. Ben in Chapter 48 of the Rule the idea is that to be idle is to open the door to slothfulness.

61  ..the work must serve not ourselves but God and God alone...if they come to be proud of their work, the abbot must find something else for them to do. ...humility is that important.  and monks must be scrupulously honest in their business dealings...because in all things God must be glorified.

...'any time we take something neutral, something material, and we make something out of it for the sake of giving glory to God, it becomes sacramental, it becomes a channel of grace.

62  'by means of the work in the kitchen, I'm establishing order.  I'm exercising my God-given governance of the creative world, he sad.  'from a human perspective, work is so important because it helps us exercise that God-commanded dominance over the earth. and from a practical point of view, it provides for ourselves and others. it's important for us to know that through our work, we are making an important contribution to the community.

'we are called to love...work is a concerted way of showing our love for others. in that sense it can become very transformative - and very prayerful too.

'too often it's seen as a burden and it doesn't have to be...

in days to come, circumstances will compel christians - particularly those in certain professions  - to rethink our relationship to our work. 

63  ASCETICISM

this comes from the Greek word askesis, meaning 'training'. the life prescribed by the Rule is thoroughly ascetic. Monks fast regularly, live simply, refuse comfort and abide by the strict rules of the monastery. this is not a matter of earning spiritual merit. rather, the monk knows the human heart and how its passions must be reined in through disciplined living. Ascet is an antidote to the poison of self-centeredness common in our culture, which teaches us that satisfying our own desires is the key to the good live. 

65  STABILITY

..a tree that is repeatedly uprooted and transplanted will be hard pressed to produce healthy fruit. so it is with people and their spiritual lives.
66 Sygmunt

9.21.2017 PRIMITIVE PHYSIC (def - 'medicine') by John Wesley

note: the title goes on 'or and easy and natural method of curing mi=ost Disases...Hom sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto ;the 23rd edition;1791

the preface

23 when man came first out of the hands of the great Creator, clothed in body as well as in soul, with immortality and incorruption,  there was no place for physic or the art of healing. as he knew no sin, so he knew no pain, no sickness, weakness, or bodily disorder. the habitation wherein the angelic mind, the Divinae Particula Aurae, abode, although originally formed out of the dust of the earth, was liable to no decay. it had no seeds of corruption or dissolution within itself. and there was nothing without to injure it: heaven and earth and all the hosts of them were mild, benign and friendly to human nature. the entire creation was at peace  with man, so long as man was at peace with his Creator. so that well might the morning-stars sing together and all the sons of God shout for joy.

2, but since man rebelled against the Sovereign of heaven and earth, how entirely is the scene changed! the incorruptible frame hath put on corruption, the immortal has put on mortality. the seeds of weakness and pain, of sickness and death, are now lodged in our inmost substance; whence a thousand disorders continually spring, even without the aid of external violence. and how is the number of these increased by every thing round about us? the heavens, the earth and all things contained therein, conspire to punish the rebels against their Creator. the sun and moon shed unwholesome influences from above; the earth exhales poisonous damps from beneath:  the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, the fishes of the sea, are in a state of hostility:  the air itself that surrounds us
24  on every side, is replete with the shafts of death: yea, the food we eat, daily saps the foundation of that life which cannot be sustained without it.  so has the Lord of all secured the execution of his decree,  - 'Dust thou rt and unto dust thou shalt return.
3. but can nothing be found to lessen those inconveniences, which cannot be wholly removed? to soften the evils of life and prevent in part the sickness and pain to which we are continually exposed? without question there may. one grand preventative of pain and sickness of various kinds, seems intimated by the grand Author of Nature in the very sentence that intails death upon us:  'in the sweat of they face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return to the ground. the power of exercise,  both to preserve and restore health, is greater than can well be conceived: especially in those who add temperance thereto; who, if they do not confine themselves altogether to eat either 'Bread or the herb of the Field' (which God does not require them to do), yet steadily observe both that kind and measure of food, which experience shews to be most friendly to health and strength.

4. it is probable Physic, as well as Religion, was in the first ages chiefly traditional: every father delivering down to his sons, what he had himself in like manner received, concerning the manner of healing both outward hurts and the diseases incident to each climate  and the medicines which were of he greatest efficacy for the cure of each disorder. it is certain this is the method wherein the art of healing is preserved among the Americans to this day. their diseases indeed are exceeding few;  nor do they often  occur by reason of their continual exercise and (till of late)  universal temperance. but if any are sick or bit by a serpent, or town by a wild beast, the fathers immediately tell their children what remedy to apply. and it is rare that the patient suffers long; thos medicines being quick, as well as generally infallible.
5. hence it was, perhaps, that the Ancients, not only of Greece and Rome, but even of barbarous nations, usually assigned physic a divine original. and indeed it was a natural thought, that He  who had taught it to the very beasts and birds the
25  Cretan Stag, the Egyptian Ibis, could not be wanting to teach man,
Anctius his Animal, mentisque capacious altae:
yea, sometimes even by those meaner creatures:  for it was easy to infer, 'if this will heal that creature, whose flesh is nearly of the same texture with mine, then in a parallel case it will heal me.  the trial was made:  the cure was wrought; and Experience and Physic grew up together.

6. and has not the Author of Nature taught us the use of many other medicines, by what is vulgarly termed Accident? thus one walking some years since in a grove of pines, at a time when many in the neighboring town were afflicted with a kind of new distemper, little sores in the inside of the mouth, a drop of the natural gum fell from one of the trees on the book which he was reading.  this he took up and thoughtlessly applied to one of those sore places. finding the pain immediately cease he applied it to another,  which was also presently healed. the same remedy he afterwards imparted to others, and it did not fail to heal any that applied it. and doubtless numberless remedies have been thus casually discovered in every age and nation.
7. thus  far physic was wholly founded on experiment. the European, as well as the American, said to his neighbour, are you sick? drink the juice of this herb and your sickness will be at an end. are you in a burning heat? leap into that river and then sweat till you are well. has the snake bitten you? chew and apply that root and the poison will not hurt you. thus ancient men, having a  little experience joined with common sense and common humanity, cured both themselves and their neighbors of most of the distempers, to which every nation was subject.
8. but in process of time, men of a philosophical (def - from Greek words for friend/lover of + wisdom)  turn were not satisfied with this. they began  to enquire how they might Account for these things?  how such Medicines wrought such effects?  they examined the human body and all its parts;  the nature of the flesh, veins, arteries, nerves;  the structure of the brain, heart, lungs, stomach, bowels; with the springs of the
26  several kinds of animal functions. they explored the several kinds of animal and mineral, as well as vegetable substances. and hence the whole order of physic, which had obtained to that time, came gradually to be inverted.  men of learning began to set aside experience;  to build physic  upon hypothesis; to form theories if diseases and their cure and to substitute these in the place of experiments.
9. as theories increased, simple medicines were more and more disregarded and disused:  till in a course of years the greater part of them were forgotten, at least in the politer nations.  in the room of these, abundance of new ones were introduced by reasoning, speculative men: and those more and more difficult to be applied, as being more remote from common observation.  (note - think beginnings of Big Pharma.) hence rules for the application of these and medical books were immensely multiplied; till at length  physic became an abstruse science, quite out of the reach of ordinary men.
10.  physicians now began to be had in admiration, as persons who were something more than human. and profit attended their employ as well as honour; so that they had now 2 weighty reasons for keeping the bulk of mankind at a distance, that they might not pry into the mysteries of the profession. to this  end, they increased those difficulties by design, which began in a manner by accident.  they filed their writings with abundance of technical terms,  utterly unintelligible  to plain men.  they affected to deliver their rules, and to reason upon them, in an abstruse and philosophical manner, they represented the critical knowledge of Astronomy, Natural Philosophy (and what not?  some of them insisting on that of astronomy and Astrology too) as necessarily previous to the understanding the art of healing.  those who understood only how to restore the sick to health, they branded with the name of Empirics. they introduced into practice abundance of compound medicines, consisting of so many ingredients, that it was scarce possible for common people to know which it was that wrought the cure: abundance of exotics, neither the nature nor names of which neither had skill, nor fortune, nor time to prepare:  ye and of dangerous ones, such as they could not use, without hazarding
27  life, by by the advice of a physician.  and thus both their honour and gain were secured, a vast majority of mankind being utterly cut off from helping either themselves or their neighbours, or once daring to attempt it.
11. yet there have not been wanting, from time to time, some lovers of mankind, who have endeavoured (even contrary to their own interest)  to reduce physic to its ancient standard:  who have laboured to explode it out of all the hypotheses and fine spun theories and to make  it a plain intelligible thing, as it was in the beginning: having on more mystery in it than this,  'such a medicine removes such a pain.  these have demonstrably shewn, that neither the knowledge of Astrology, Astronomy, Natural Philosophy, nor even Anatomy itself, is absolutely necessary to the quick and effectual cure of most diseases incident to human bodies:  nor yet any chimical or exotic or compound medicine, but a single plant or root duly applied. so that every man of common sense (unless in some rare cases)  may prescribe either to himself or his neighbour; and may be very secure from doing harm, even where he can do no good
12. even in the last age there was something of this kind done, particularly by the great and good Dr. Sydenham:  and in the present, by his pupil Dr. Dover, who has pointed out simple medicines for many diseases. and some such may be found in the writings  of the learned and ingenious Dr. Chenyne: who doubtless would have communicated many more to the world, but for the melancholy reason he gave one of his friends,  that prest him with some passages in his works, which too much countenanced the modern practice,  'O Sir, we must do something to Oblige the Faculty, or they will tear us in pieces.
13. without any regard to this, without any concern about the obliging or disobliging any man living, a mean had has made here some little attempt towards a plain and easy way of curing most diseases. I have only consulted  herein, Experience, Common sense, and the common Interest of mankind. and supposing they can be cured this easy way, who would desire to use any other? who would not wish to have a Physician always in his house and one that attends without fee or reward?

28  to be able (unless in some few complicated cases) to prescribe to his family, as well as himself?

14. if it be said, but what need is there of such attempt?  I answer, the greatest that can possibly be conceived. is it not needful in the highest degree, to rescue men from the jaws of destruction?  from wasting their fortunes, as thousands have done and continue to do daily?  from pining away in sickness and pain,either through the ignorance or dishonesty of Physicians? yea and may times throwing away their lies, after their health, time and substance?
is it enquired, but are there not books enough already, on every part of the art of medicine?  yes, too many 10 times over, considering how little to the purpose the far greater part of them speak. but beside this, they are too dear for poor men to buy and too hard for plain men to understand. do you say,  'but there are enough of these collections of Receipts. (def - recipe) where? I have not seen one yet, either in our own or any other tongue, which contains only safe and cheap and easy medicines. in all that have yet fallen into my hand, I find many dear and many far-fetched medicines:  besides many of so dangerous a kind, as a prudent man would never meddle with. and against the greater part of hose medicines there is a further objection:  they consist of too many ingredients. the common method of compounding and de-compounding medicines, an never  be reconciled to Common Sense. experience shews, that one thing will cure most disorders, at least s well as 20 put together. then why do you add the other 19?  only to swell the Apothecary's bill: may, possibly, on purpose to prolong the distemper, that the Doctor and he may divide the spoil.

but admitting there is some quality in the medicine proposed which has need to be Corrected; will not one thing correct it as well as 20?  it is probable, much better. and if not, there is a sufficiency of other medicines, which need no such correction.
how often, by this compounding medicines of opposite qualities, is the virtue of both utterly destroyed? nay, how often do those joined together destroy life,  which single might have preserved it? this occasioned that caution of the great Boerha(a)ve, against mixing things without evident necessity,
29  and without full proof of the effect they will produce when joined together, as ell as of that they produce when asunder:  seeing (as he observes) several things, which separately taken, are safe and powerful medicines, when compounded, not only lose their former powers, but commence a strong and deadly poison.
15.  as to the manner of using the medicines here set down, I should advise, as soon as you know your distemper, (which is very easy, unless in a complication of disorders and then you would do well to apply to a Physician that fears God): first, use the first of the remedies for tat disease which occurs in the ensuing collection;  (unless some other of them e easier to be had, and then it may do just as well.) Secondly, after a competent time, if it takes no effect, use the second, the third and so on.  I have purposely set down (in most cases) several remedies for each disorder;  not only because all are not equally easy to be procured at all times, and in all places:  but likewise because the medicine which cures one man, will not always cure another of the same distemper. nor will it cure the same man at all times. therefore it was necessary to have a variety. however, I have subjoined the letter (I) to those medicines which some think to be Infallible.  Thirdy, Observe all the time the greatest exactness in your regimen or manner of living.  abstain from all mixed, all high-seasoned food. use plain diet, easy of digestion; and this as sparingly as you can, consistent with ease and strength. drink only water, if it agrees with your stomach; if not, good clear, small beer. use as much exercise daily in the open air as you can without weariness. sup at 6 or 7,  on the lightest food: go to bed early and rise betimes. (def - early, in good time). to persevere with steadiness in this course, is often more than half the cure.  above all, add to the rest, (for it is not labour lost) that old unfashionable Medicine, Prayer. and have faith in God who 'killeth and maketh alive, who bringeth down to the grave and bringeth up.
16.  for the sake of those who desire, through the blessing of God, to retain the health which they have recovered, I have added a few plain, easy Rules, chiefly transcribed from Dr. Cheyne.

30  I. 1. THE AIR WE BREATHE IS OF GREAT CONSEQUENCE TO OUR HEALTH.  those who have been long abroad in Easterly or Northerly winds, should drink some thin and warm Liquor going to be, or a draught (def - drink)  of toast and water.
2. tender people should have those who lie with them, or are much about them, sound, sweet and healthy.
3. every one that would preserve health, should be as clean and sweet as possible in their houses, clothes and furniture.

II.  1. the great rule of eating and drinking is, to suit the quality and quantity of the food to the strength of our digestion;  to take always such a sort and such a measure of food as fits light and easy to the stomach.
2 all pickled or smoaked or salted food, and all high-seasoned is unwholesome.
3. nothing conduces more to health, than abstinence and plain food, with due labour.
4. for studious persons, about 8 ounces of animal food, and 12 of vegetable  in 24 hours is sufficient.
5. water is the wholesomest of all drinks: quickens the appetite and strengthens the digestion most.
6. strong and more especially spirituous liquors, are a certain, though slow, poison.
7. experience shews, there is very seldom any danger in leaving hem off all at once.
8. strong liquors do not prevent the mischiefs of a Surfeit (def - excessive, immoderate, intemperate; to feed to excess or satiety), nor carry it off so safely as water.
9. malt liquors ( except clear, small beer or small ale, of due age) are exceeding hurtful to tender persons.
10. coffee and tea are extremely hurtful to persons who have weak nerves.

III. 1. tender persons should eat very light suppers; and that two or three hours before going to bed.
2.  they ought constantly to go to bed about nine and rise at four or five.

IV.  1.  a due degree of Exercise is indispensably necessary to health and long life.
2. walking is the best exercise for those who are able to bear it;
31  riding for those who are not. the open air, when the weather is fair, contributes much to the benefit of exercise.
3. we may strengthen an weak part of the body by constant exercise. thus the lungs may be strengthened by loud speaking or walking up an easy ascent; the digestion and the nerves, by riding; the arms and hams (note - where * is used the definition is from Noah Webster's 1828 dictionary; def - a buttock with its associated thigh ..usually plural) by strongly rubbing them daily.
4. the studious ought to have stated times for exercise, at least 2 or 3 hours a day:  the one half of this before dinner, the other before going to bed.
5. they should frequently shave and frequently wash their feet.
6. those who read or write much, should learn to do it standing; other wise it will impair their health.
7. the fewer clothes any one uses, by day or night, the hardier he will be.
8. exercise, first, should be always on an empty stomach; secondly, should never be continued to weariness; thirdly, after it, we should take care to cool by degrees; otherwise we shall catch cold.
9. the flesh brush (* def - a brush for exciting action in the skin by friction.) is a most useful exercise, especially to strengthen any part that is weak.
10. cold-bathing is of great advantage to health:  it prevents abundance of diseases. it  promotes perspiration, helps the circulation of the blood, and prevents the danger of catching cold. tender people should pour water upon the head before they go in and walk swiftly. to jump in with the head foremost, is too  great a shock to nature.

V. 1. Costiveness (* causing  constipation..bowels slow-moving or immobilized) cannot  long conflict with health. therefore care should be taken to remove it at the beginning and when it is removed, to prevent its return, by soft, cool. opening (clear bowels by removal of costiveness...)diet.
2. obstructed perspiration (vulgarly called catching cold) is one great source of diseases. whenever there appears the least sign of this, let it be removed by gentle sweats. (note - cause sweating by exercise.)
VI. 1. the passions (note - the feeling of the mind or the sensible effect of impression:  excitement, perturbation or agitation of the mind as desire, fear, hope, joy, grief, love, hatred...violent agitation...occasioned by offense, injury, insult hence violent anger.)
2. all violent and sudden passions dispose to or actually throw people into acute diseases. 
3. the slow and lasting passions, such as grief and hopeless love, bring on chronical diseases.
4. till the passion, which caused th disease, is calmed,  medicine is applied in vain.
5. the love of God, as it is the sovereign remedy of all miseries, so in particular it effectually prevents all the bodily disorders the passions introduce, by keeping the passions themselves within due bounds. and by the unspeakable joy and perfect calm, serenity and tranquility it gives the mind, it becomes the most powerful of all the means of health and long life.

9.15.2017 John Wesley Journal Volume 1 (Nov. 1,1739 - Sept.3.1741) pp243-335, complete

*243  TO THE MORAVIAN CHURCH

1. I am constrained, at length, to speak my present sentiments concerning you, according to the best light I have and this, not only upon my own account, that, if I judge amiss, I  may receive better information, but for the sake of all those who either live or seek the Lord Jesus in sincerity. many of these have been utterly at a loss who to judge and the more so, because they could not but observe, (as i have often done with sorrow of heart) that scarce any have wrote concerning you (unless such as were extravagant in your commendation) who were not evidently prejudiced against you. hence they either spoke falsely, laying to your charge things which you knew not or at least, unkindly, putting the worst construction on things of a doubtful nature and setting what perhaps was not strictly right in the very worst light it would bear. whereas,  (in my apprehension) none is capable of judging right, or assisting others to judge with, concerning you, unless he can speak of you as he does the friend who is as his own soul.
2. yet it is not wholly for their sake, but for your own also that I now write. it may be, the 'Father of lights'  the Giver of 'every good

*244  gift', may even by a mean instrument speak to your hearts. my continual desire and prayer to God is, that you may clearly see 'what is that good and perfect will' of the Lord and fully discern how to separate that which is precious among you from the vile. (def -  of little worth, base, cheap)

3. I  have delayed thus long, because I loved you and was, therefore, unwilling to grieve you in any thing and likewise because I was afraid of creating another obstacle to that union which (if I know my own heart in any degree) I desire above all things under heaven. but I dare not longer delay, lest my silence should be a snare to any others of the children of God and lest you yourselves should be more confirmed in what I  cannot reconcile to the Law and the Testimony. this would strengthen the bar which I long to remove and were that once taken out of the way, I should rejoice to be a door keeper in the house of god, a hewer of wood or drawer of water, among you. surely I would follow you to the ends of the earth or remain with you in the uttermost parts of the sea.

4.  what unites my heart to you is, the excellency (in many respects) of the doctrine taught among you:  Your laying the true foundation, 'God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself' ; your declaring the free grace of God the cause and faith the condition, of justification; your bearing witness to those great fruits of faith,'righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost' and that sure mark thereof,  'He that is born of god doth not commit sin'.

5. I magnify the grace of God which is in many among you, enabling you to love Him who hath first loved us; teaching you, in whatsoever state

*245  you are,therewith to be content; causing you to  trample under foot the just of the flesh, the lust of the eye and the pride of life and k, above all, giving you to love one another in a manner the world knoweth not of.

6. I praise God that He hath delivered and yet doth deliver, you from those outward sins that overspread the face of the earth. o cursing, no light of false swearing, no profaning the name of God, is heard among you. no robbery or theft, no gluttony or drunkenness, no whoredom or adultery, no quarrelling or brawling,  (those scandals of the Christian name,) are found within your gates. no diversions but such as become saints, as may be used in the name of the Lord Jesus. you regard not outward adorning, but rather desire the ornament of  a serious, meek and quiet spirit. you are not slothful in business, but labour to eat your own bread and wisely manage 'the mammon of unrighteousness', that ye may have to give to others also, to feed the hungry and cover the naked with a garment.

7. I love and esteem you for your excellent discipline, scarce inferior to that of the apostolic age;  for your due subordination of officers, every one knowing and keeping his proper rank; for your exact division of the people under your charge, so that each may be fed with food convenient for them,  for your care that all who are employed in the service of the Church should frequently and freely confer together and, in consequence thereof, your exact and seasonable knowledge of the state of every member and your ready distribution either of spiritual or temporal relief, as every man hath need.

8.  perhaps, then, some of you will say, 'if you

*246  allow all this, what more can you desire? the following extract will answer you at large, wherein i have first given a naked relation  (among other things) of many facts and conversations that passed between us in the same order of time as they occurred and then summed up what i cannot approve of yet, that it may be tried by the word of God.

9.  this I have endeavoured to do with a tender hand; relating no more than I believed absolutely needful; carefully avoiding all tart and unkind expressions, all that i could foresee would be disobliging to you or any farther offensive that was implied in the very nature of the thing; labouring every where to speak consistently with that deep sense which is settled in my heart, that you are (though I cannot call you Rabbi, infallible) yet far, far better and wiser than me.

10  and if any of you will smite me friendly and reprove me; if you will show me wherein I have erred, either in the matter or manner of the following relation or any part thereof,I will, by the grace of God, confess it before angels and men, in whatsoever way you shall require.

Meanwhile do not cease to pray for Your weak, but still affectionate Brother, John Wesley
London 6.24.1744

*248  Nov. 1, 1739  I left Bristol and , on sat. ,  came to London. the first person I met with there, was one whom I had left strong in thee faith and zealous of good works; but she now told me. Mr. Molther had fully convinced her, she never had any faith at all; and had advised her, till she received faith, to be still, ceasing from outward works;  which she had accordingly done and did  not doubt but in a short time she should find the advantage of it.
in the evening Mr. Bray, also, was highly commending the being still before the Lord. he likewise spoke largely of he great danger that attended the doing of outward works and of the folly of people that keep running about to church and sacrament, 'as I, said he, did till very lately.

11.4  our society met at 7 in the morning and continued silent till 8. one then spoke of looking unto Jesus and exhorted us all to lie still in His hand.
in the evening I met the women of our society at Fetter-Lane; where some of our brethren strongly intimated that none of them had any true faith; and then asserted, in plain terms,
1. that, till they had true faith, they ought to be still; that is  (as they explained themselves) to abstain from the means of grace, as they are called; the Lord's Supper in particular.
2. that the ordinances are not the means of grace, there being no other means  of grace, there being no other means than Christ.
11.7  being greatly desirous to understand the ground of this matter, I had a long conference with Mr. Spangenberg. I agreed with all he said of the power of faith. i agreed, that 'whosoever is' by faith 'born of God doth not commit sin'.  but I  COULD NOT AGREE, either, THAT NONE HAS ANY FAITH, SO LONG AS HE IS LIABLE TO ANY DOUBT OR FEAR or, that till we have it, we ought to abstain from the Lord's Supper or the other ordinances of God.

at 8, our society met at Fetter Lane. we sat an hour without speaking. the rest of the time was spent in dispute; one having proposed a question concerning the Lord's supper, which many warmly affirmed none ought to receive, till he had 'the full assurance of faith'.
I observed every day more and more, the advantage Satan had gained over us. many of those who once knew n whom they had believed, were thrown into idle reasonings and thereby filled with doubts and fears, from which they now found no way to escape.  many were induced to deny the gift of God and affirm they never had any faith at all; especially those who had fallen again into sin and, of consequence, into darkness; and almost all these had left off the means of grace, saying they must now cease from their own works;  they must now trust in Christ alone; they were poor sinners, and had nothing to do but to lie at his feet.
till Sat. the 10th, I think I did not meet with one woman of the society who had not been upon the point of casting away her confidence in God. I then indeed found one, who, when many (according to their custom) laboured to persuade her she had no faith, replied, with a spirit they were not able to resist, 'I know that the life which I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me: and He has never left me one moment, since the hour He was made know to me in the breaking of bread'.
what is to be inferred from this undeniable matter of fact,  - one that had no faith received it in the Lord's Supper? Why,
1. that there are means of grace, that is, outward ordinances, whereby the inward grace of God is ordinarily conveyed to man; whereby the faith that brings salvation is conveyed to them who before had it not.
2. that one of these means is the Lord's Supper. and,
3. that he who has not this faith ought to wait for it, in the use both of this and of the other means which God hath ordained.
all this week I endeavoured also by private conversation to

*249 comfort the feeble-minded' and to bring back 'the lame' which had been 'turned out of the way' if haply it might be healed.

11.12 I left London and in the evening expounded, at Wycombe, the story of he Pharisee and the Publican. the next morning, a young gentleman overtook me on the road and after awhile, asked me if I had seen Whitefield's Journals. i told him I had. 'and what do you think of them? ,,Don't you think that are d--n'd cant, enthusiasm from end to end?  I think so. I asked him, 'Why do you think so?  he replied, 'Why, he talks so much about joy and stuff and inward feelings. as I hope  to be saved, I cannot tell what to make of it?  I asked, 'DID YOU EVER FEEL THE LOVE OF GOD IN YOUR HEART? if not, how should you tell what to make of it? whatever is spoke of he religion of the heart and of he inward workings of the Spirit of God, must appear enthusiasm to those who have not felt them; that is, if they take upon them to judge of the things which they own they know not.

...11.15 in the afternoon I exhorted 4 or 5000 people ...NEITHER TO NEGLECT NOR REST IN THE MEANS OF GRACE. in the evening I endeavoured to lift up the hands that hung down, by declaring, 'He will not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax.

...11.19 I earnestly exhorted those who had believed, to beware of 2 opposite extremes,  - the one, the thinking while they were in light and joy, that the work was ended,
when it was just begun;
the other,k the thinking when they were in heaviness, that it was not begun, because they found it was not ended.

*251...11.25  again, in explaining those words,  'the kingdom of God' (or true religion) 'is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost,  I insisted, that every follower of Christ ought to expect and pray for that 'peace of God which passeth all understanding', that 'rejoicing in hope of the glory of God' which is even now 'unspeakable and full of glory' and above all,  (as being the very life and soul of religion,k without which it is all dead show,) 'the love of God, shed abroad in' his 'heart by the Holy Ghost given unto him.  but all this is 'enthusiasm from end to end', to those who have the form of godliness, but not the power....11.27  ..'few persons have lived long in the West of England,who have not heard of the colliers of Kingswood and of our present undertaking there, the account was as follows:
'few persons have lived long in the West of England, who have not heard of the colliers of Kingswood; a people famous from the beginning hitherto, for neither fearing God nor regarding man:  so ignorant of the things of god, that they seemed but one remover from the beasts that perish; and therefor utterly without desire of instruction, as well as without the means of it.
'many last winter used tauntingly to say of Mr. Whitefield, 'if he will convert Heathens, why does not he go to the colliers of Kingswood? in spring he did so. and as there were thousands who resorted to no pace of public worship, he went after them into their own wilderness, 'to seek and save that which was lost'. when he was called away, others went into 'the highways and hedges, to compel them to come in'.  and, by the grace of God, their labour was not in vain. the scene is already changed. Kingswood does not now, as a year ago, resound with cursing and blasphemy. it is no more filled with drunkenness and uncleanness and the idle diversions that naturally lead thereto. it is no longer full of wars and fightings, of clamour and bitterness, of wrath and envyings . peace and love are there. great numbers of people are mild, gentle and easy to be intreated.

*252  11.28  WE left Tiverton and the next day reached Bristol. on Fri. many of us joined in prayer, for one that was grievously tormented. she raged more and more for about 2 hours and then our Lord gave here rest.
5 were in the some agony in the evening. I ordered them to be removed to the door, that their cries might neither drown my voice, nor interrupt the attention of the congregation. but after sermon, they were brought into the room again, where a few of us continued in prayer to God (being determined not to go till we had an answer of peace) till 9 the next morning. before that time, 3 of them sang praise to God: and the others were eased, though not set at liberty.

12.4 I was violently attacked by some who were exceeding angry at those who cried out so; 'being sure', they said, 'it was all a cheat and that any one might help crying out, if he would'. J. Bl. was one of those who were sure of this. about

*253  8 the next morning while he was alone in his chamber, at private prayer, so horrible a dread overwhelmed him, that he began crying out with all his might. all the family was alarmed. several of them came running up into his chamber; but he cried out so much the more, till his breath was utterly spent. God then rebuked the adversary; and he is now less wise in his own conceit...

*259  ..'.Many (note - referring to the Moravians who were being corrupted by the belief of 'stillness') who were beginning to build holiness and good works, on the true foundation of faith in Jesus, being now wholly unsettled and lost in vain reasonings and doubtful disputations;
'Many others being  brought into a false unscriptural stillness; so that they are not likely to come to any true foundation;
and many  being grounded on a faith which is without works;  so that they who were right before, are wrong now.
1.1.1740  I endeavoured to explain to our brethren the true, Christian, scriptural  stillness, by largely unfolding those solemn words,  'Be still and know that I am God.

1.2 - I earnestly besought them all to 'stand in the old paths' and no longer to subvert one another's souls by idle controversies and strife of words. they all seemed convinced. we then CRIED TO GOD  (note - often used by Wesley) to heal all our backslidings ; and He sent forth such a spirit of peace and love, as we had not know for many months before. 
1.3 - I left London and the next evening came to Oxford:  where I spent the 2 following days, in looking over the letters which I had received for the 16 or 18 years last past. how few traces of inward religion are here! I found but one among all my correspondents who declared,(what I well remember, at that time I knew not how to understand,)  that God had 'shed abroad His love in His heart'.  and given him the 'peace that passeth all understanding'.  but who believed His report? should I conceal a sad truth, or declare it for the profit of others? he was expelled out of his society, as a madman; and, being disowned by his friends, and despised and forsaken of all men, lived obscure and unknown for a few months and then went to Him whom his soul loved.

1.7 - I left Oxford. in the evening I preached at Burford; the next evening at Malmsbury:  and on Wed. 9, I once more described the 'exceeding great and precious promises' at Bristol.

*260  1.12 - I explained the former part of Hebrews 6 and many were 'renewed again to repentance. Sun, 13, while the sacrament was administering at the house of a person that was sick in Kingswood, a woman, who had been before much tempted of the devil, sunk down as dead. one could not perceive by any motion of her breast, that she  breathed; and her pulse was hardly discernible. a strange sort of dissimulation (def - the act of making or becoming unlike) this! I would wish those who think it so, only to stop their own breath one hour and I  will then subscribe to their opinion.

1.14  I began expounding the Scriptures in order, at the new-room, at 6  in the morning; by which means many more attend the College prayers (which immediately follow) than ever before...

1.20  ..Kingswood...and the woman who had been torn of the devil last week, was now made partaker of this salvation; being above measure filled with the love of God and with all peace and joy in believing.
1.21  I preached at Hannam, 4 miles from Bristol. in the evening I made a collection in our congregation for the relief of the poor, without Lawford's Gate; who having no work, (because of the severe frost) and no assistance from the parish wherein they lived, were reduced to the last extremity. I made another collection on Thursday; and a third on Sunday; by which we were enabled to feed a hundred, sometimes a hundred and fifty, a day, of those whom we found to need it most.

*261  one came to me in the evening, to know if a man could not be saved without the faith of assurance. I answered,
1. I cannot approve of your terms, because they are not scriptural.  i find no such phrase as either 'faith of assurance' or 'faith of adherence' in the Bible. besides, you speak as if there were two faiths in one Lord.  whereas, St. Paul tells us, there is  but one faith in one Lord.
2. by 'Ye are saved by faith', I understand, ye are saved from your inward and outward sins.
3. I never yet knew one soul thus saved without what you call 'the faith of assurance'; I mean a sure confidence that, by the merits of Christ, he was reconciled to the favor of God. 

*262  2.6  I think it was the next time I was there (London), that the Ordinary of Newgate came to me and with much vehemence told me, he was sorry I should turn Dissenter from the Church of England. I told him, if it was so, I did not know it: at which he seemed a little surprised; and offered at something by way of proof, but which needed not a reply.

our 20th Article defines a true Church, 'a congregation of faithful people (or holy believers) in England, among whom the pure word of God is preached, and the sacraments duly administered. who then are the worst Dissenters from this Church?
1. Unholy men of all kinds: swearers, Sabbath-breakers, drunkards, fighters, whoremongers,

*263  liars, revilers, evil-speakers; the passionate, the gay, the lovers of money, the lovers of dress, or of praise,  the lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God: all these are Dissenters of the highest sort, continually striking at the root of the Church; and themselves belonging in truth to no Church, but to the synagogue of Satan.
2. men unsound in the faith; those who deny the Scriptures of truth; those who deny the Lord that bought them; those who deny justification by faith alone, or the present salvation which is by faith;  these also are dissenters of a very high kind:  for they likewise strike at the foundation; and were their principles universally to obtain, there could be no true Church upon earth.
Lastly, those who unduly administer the Lord's Supper to such as have neither the power nor the form of godliness. these, too, are gross Dissenters from the Church of England and should not cast the first stone at others.
2.12  - the young man who was to die the next day, gave me a paper, part of which was as follows:
'as I am to answer to the Lord of justice and truth, before whom I am to appear  naked tomorrow,

I came to Bristol with a design to go abroad, either as a surgeon or in any other capacity that was suiting. it was there that I unfortunately saw Mr. Ramsey, he told me, after one or two interviews, that he was in the service of Mr. John Wesley; and that he would introduce me to him, which he did. I cannot but say, i was always fond of the doctrine that I heard from him:  however, unhappily I consented with Mr. Ramsey and I believe between us we might take more than 30 pounds out of the money collected for building the school in Kingswood. 

I acknowledge the justice of God in overtaking me for my sacrilege, in taking that money which was devoted to  God. but He, I trust, has forgiven me this and all my sins, washing them away in the blood of the Lamb.                                                                                           Gwillam Snowde

I knew not in the morning whether to rejoice or grieve, when they informed me he was reprieved for 6 weeks; and afterwards, that he was ordered for transportation. but known unto God are all his works!

*264  2.21 I had a long conference with those whom I esteem very highly in love. but I could not yet understand them on one point,  - CHRISTIAN OPENNESS AND PLAINNESS OF SPEECH.  they pleaded for such a reservedness and closeness of conversation as I could in no wise reconcile with St. Paul's direction,  'BY MANIFESTATION OF THE TRUTH' to commend OURSELVES TO EVERY MAN'S CONSCIENCE IN THE SIGHT OF GOD'.  yet I scarce knew what to think, considering they had the practice of their whole church on their side: till i opened my Testament on these words, 'what is that to thee? Follow thou Me.

3.1  many that were in heaviness being met together. we CRIED TO GOD  to comfort their souls. one of these soon found that God heareth the prayer. she had before been under the physician's hands; her relations taking it for granted she was 'beside herself'.  but the Great Physician alone knew how to heal her sickness.
..we..Wed 3.5, came to Bristol. it was easy to observe here, in how different a manner God works now, from what He did last spring.

*265  He then poured along like a rapid food, overwhelming all before Him.  whereas now
He deigns His influence to infuse,
secret, refreshing as the silent dews.

3.18  in the evening, just after I had explained, as they came in course, those comfortable words of God to St. Paul,
'Be not afraid; but speak and hold not thy peace.  for AI am with thee and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee;  for I have much people in this city,'  - a person spoke aloud in the middle of the room, 'Sir, I am come to give you notice, that, at the next Quarter Sessions, you will  be prosecuted for holding a seditious conventicle.'
3.28 from these words,  '
then was Jesus led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil, I took occasion to describe that wilderness state, that state of doubts and fears and strong temptation, which so many go

*266  through in different degrees, after  they have received remission of sins.

3.29 I spent another hour with one I  had twice conversed with before; and with much the same effect.  he asked wherein the doctrine I preach differed from the doctrine preached by other Ministers of the Church. I told him,  'I hope not at all from that which is preached by many other Ministers.  but from that which is preached, by some,  it differs thus:  I preach the doctrine of the Church and they do not.  after he had long a zealously laboured to prove, that all ministers preached as I did and there was no difference of doctrine at all; I was obliged to leave him abruptly;  and should indeed have feared, that my time had been spent to small purpose, but for one piece of history which I then learned, viz. (def - 'that is to say') that he had gone to the Bishop, before his Lordship left Bristol and informed him that I said in the public congregation, I had had a conference with Bishop and 12 clergymen and had put them all to silence...
4.1  while I was expounding the former part of the 23rd chapter of the Acts, (how wonderfully suited to the occasion! though not by my choice,) the floods began to lift up their voice. some or other of the children of Belial had laboured to disturb us several nights before :  but now it seemed as if all the host of the aliens were come together with one consent. not only the court and the alleys, but all the street, upwards and downwards, was filled with people, shouting, cursing and swearing and ready to swallow the ground with fierceness and rage.  the Mayor sent order, that they should disperse. but they set him at nought. the chief constable came next in person, who was, till then, sufficiently prejudiced

*267  against us. but they insulted him also in so gross a manner, as, I believe, fully opened his eyes.  at length the Mayor sent several of his officers, who took  the ringleaders into custody and did not go till all the rest were dispersed. surely he hath been to us 'the minister of God for good.

4.2  the rioters were brought up to the Court,  the Quarter Sessions being held that day. they began to excuse themselves by saying  many things of me. but the Mayor cut them all short, saying,  'what Mr. Wesley is, is nothing to you. I will keep the peace:  I will have no rioting in this city.

calling at Newgate in the afternoon,  I was informed that the poor wretches under sentence of death were earnestly desirous to speak with me; but that it could not be;  Alderman Beecher having just then sent an express order that they should not. I cite Alderman Beecher to answer for these souls at the judgment-seat of Christ.
4.3  I went into the room, weak and faint.  the scripture that came in course was,  'after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the god of my fathers. I know not whether God hath been so with us from the beginning hitherto:  he proclaimed, as it were, a general deliverance to the captives. the chains fell off:  they arose and followed Him. the cries of desire, joy and love were on every side.  fear, sorrow, and doubt fled away. verily thou hast 'sent a gracious rain upon thine inheritance, and refreshed it when it was weary.
on Good Friday I was much comforted by Mr. T's sermon at all-Saints, which was according to the truth of the Gospel; as well as by the affectionate seriousness wherewith he delivered the holy bread to a very large congregation. may the good Lord fill him with all the life of love and with all 'spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus.
4.7  at the pressing instance of Howel Harris, I again set out for Wales.

4.8  I preached at Ponty-Pool, on,  'by grace ye are saved, through faith' and in

*268  the evening at Lanhithel, 3 miles from thence, on,  'I know that in me dwelleth no good thing.

3.9  after reading prayers in Lanhithel church, I preached on those words,  'I will heal their backsliding,  I will love them freely.  in the afternoon Howel Harris told me how earnestly many had laboured to prejudice him against me; especially those who had gleaned up all the idle stories at Bristol and retailed  (def - to relate, repeat in detail) them in their own country. and yet these are good christians! these whisperers, tale-bearers, backbiters, evil speakers! just such christians as murderers or adulterers.  'Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.

3.10  after preaching thrice, I rode to Watford, 5 miles from Cardiff,  where a few of us joined together in prayer and in provoking one another to love and to good works.

3.12  after preaching at Lanvachas  in the way...I came to Bristol and heard the melancholy news, that - one of the chief of those who came to make the disturbance on the 1st instant, had hanged himself. he was cut down, it seems, alive; but died in less than an hour. ...a third came to me himself, and confessed, he was hired that night and made drunk on purpose; but when he came to the door, he knew not what was the matter, he could not stir, nor open his mouth.

3.14  I was explaining the 'liberty' we have 'to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus',  when one cried out, as in an agony, 'Thou art a hypocrite, a devil, an enemy to the Church.  this is false doctrine. it is not the doctrine of the

*269  Church. it is damnable doctrine. it is the doctrine of devils.  I did not perceive that any were hurt thereby;  but rather strengthened, by having such an opportunity of confirming their love toward him and returning good for evil.
3.19  I received a letter from Mr. Simpson and another from Mr. William Oxlee, informing me that our poor brethren  in Fetter-Lane were again in great confusion;  and earnestly desiring that, if it were possible, I would come to London without delay.
3.21  I set out and the next evening reached London.
3.23  I went to  Mr. Simpson. he told me, all the confusion was owing to my brother, who would preach up the ordinances:  'whereas believers, said he, are not subject to ordinances; and unbeliever have nothing to do with them:  they ought to be still; otherwise they will be unbelievers all the days of their life.
after a fruitless dispute of about 2 hours, I returned home with a heavy heart. Mr. Molther was taken ill this day. I believe it was the had of God that was upon him. in the evening our society met; but cold, weary, heartless, dead.
I found nothing of brotherly love among them now;
but a harsh,dry, heavy, stupid spirit.
for 2 hours they looked one at another, when they looked up at all,
as if one half was afraid of the other;
yea, as if a voice were sounding in their ears, 'take ye heed every one of his neighbour:
trust ye not in any brother:
for every brother will utterly supplant, and
every neighbour will walk with slanders.

I think not so few as 30 persons spoke to me in these two days, who had been strongly solicited,
1. to deny what God had done for their souls ;
to own they never had living faith.
2. to be still till they had it;
to leave off all the means of grace; not to go to church not to communicate; not to search the Scripture;  not to use private prayer;  at least, not so much or not vocally or not at any stated times.

3.25  my brother and I went to Mr. Molther again and spent 2 hours in conversation with him. he now also explicitly

*270  affirmed,
1. that there are no degrees in faith;
that none has any faith who has ever any doubt or fear;
and that none is justified till he has a clean heart, with the perpetual indwelling of Christ and of the Holy Spirit.
2. that every one who has not this, ought, till he has it, to be still:
that is, as he explained, it, not to use the ordinances. or means of grace, so called.
He also expressly asserted,
1. that to those who have a clean heart, the ordinances are not matter of duty.
they may use them or they may not.
2. that those who have not a clean heart, ought not to use them;  (particularly not to communicate)
because God neither commands nor designs they should;  (commanding them to none, designing them only for believers)
and because they are not means of grace; there being no such thing as means of grace, but Christ only

10 or 12 persons spoke to me this day also and many more the day following, who had been greatly troubled by this new gospel and thrown into the utmost heaviness and indeed, wherever  I went, I found more and more proofs of the grievous confusion it had occasioned;  many coming to me day by day, who were once full of peace and love; but were now again plunged into doubts and fears, and driven even to their wit's end.
I was now utterly at a loss what course to take;  finding no rest for the sole of my foot.  these 'vain janglings'  pursued me wherever I went and were always sounding in my ears.

3.30  I went to my friend, (that was!) Mr. St of Islington. but he also immediately entered upon the subject, telling me, now he was fully assured, that no one has any degree of faith till he is perfect as God is perfect.
I asked,  'have you then no degree of faith?
he said,  'No; for I  have not a clean heart'.
I turned and asked his servant, 'Esther, have you a clean heart?
she said, 'No; my heart is desperately wicked:
but I have no doubt o fear.
I know my Saviour loves me and I love Him;  I feel it every moment.
I then plainly told her master, 'Here is an end of your reasoning.
this is the state, the existence of which you deny.

then I went to the little society here, which had stood untainted from the beginning, but the plague was now spread to them also. one of them, who had been long full of joy in believing, now denied she had any faith at all; and said,

*271  till she had, she would communicate  no more.
another, who said, she had the  'faith that overcometh the world',
added, she had not communicated for some weeks; and it was all one to her whether she did or no;
for a believer was not subject to ordinances.

in the evening, one of the first things started at Fetter Lane was, the question concerning the ordinances. but I entreated we might not be always disputing; but rather give ourselves unto prayer.

I endeavoured all this time, both by explaining in public those scriptures which had been misunderstood, and by private conversation, to bring back those who had been led out of the way; and having now delivered my own soul,
5.2  I left London..the next evening came to Bristol...

5.7 I prayed with  poor helpless sinner, who had been 'all his lifetime subject to bondage'.  but our Lord now proclaimed deliverance to the captive and he rejoiced with joy unspeakable.  all the next day his mouth was filled with praise, and on Friday he fell asleep.

5.9  I was a little surprised at some, who were buffeted of Satan in an unusual manner, by such a spirit of laughter as they could in no wise resist, though it was pain and grief unto them. I could scarce have believed the account they gave me had I not known the same  thing 10 or 11 years ago. part of Sunday, my brother and I then used to spend in walking in the meadows and singing psalms. but one day, just as we were beginning to sing, he burst out into a loud laughter. I asked him, if he was distracted; and began to be very angry and

*272  presently after to laugh as loud as he. nor could we possibly refrain, though we were ready to tear ourselves in pieces, but we were forced to go home without singing another line.

5.13  in the evening I went to Upton,  a little town five or six miles from Bristol and offered to all those who had ears to hear, 'repentance and remission of sins'.  the devil knew his kingdom hook and therefore stirred up his servants to ring bells, and make all the noise they could but my voice prevailed, so that most of those what were present heard 'the word which is able to save their souls.

5.14  I visited one of our colliers, who was ill of the small-pox.  his soul was full of peace, and a day or two after, returned to God that gave it.
5.17  I found more and more undeniable proofs, that
THE CHRISTIAN STATE IS A CONTINUAL WARFARE ; and that
WE HAVE NEED EVERY MOMENT  TO 'WATCH AND PRAY,
LEST WE ENTER INTO TEMPTATION'.
outward trials indeed were now removed and peace was in all our borders.
but so much the more did inward trials abound; and 'if one member suffered, all the members suffered with it.  so strange a sympathy did I  never observe before:
whatever considerable temptation fell on any one, unaccountably spreading itself to the rest, so that exceeding few were able to escape it.

5.18  I endeavoured to explain those important words of St. Peter, 'Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as if some strange thing happened unto you.
...literally, 'Marvel not at the burning in you which is for your trial.

5.21  in the evening such a spirit of laughter was among us, that many were much offended.  but the attention of all was fixed on poor L S, whom we all knew to be no dissembler. one so violently and variously town of he evil one did I never see before. sometimes she laughed till almost strangled;  then broke out into cursing and blaspheming;  then stamped and struggled with incredible strength, so that 4 or 5 could scarce hold her:  then cried out,  'O eternity, eternity!  O that I had no soul! O that I had never been born! at last she faintly called on Christ to help her. and he violence of her pangs ceased.
most of our brethren and sisters were now fully convinced.

*273  that those who were under this strange temptation could not help it. only E B and Anne H were of another mind; being still sure, any one might help laughing if she would  this they declared to many on Thursday; but
5.23,  God suffered Satan to teach them better. both of them were suddenly seized in the same manner as the rest and laughed whether they would or no, almost without ceasing.  thus they continued  for 2 days, a spectacle to all; and were then, upon prayer made for them, delivered in a moment.

6.9  a woman came to me from Deptford, sent (as she said) from God. I gave her the hearing: and she spoke great

*274  words and true.  but I remembered, 'Judge nothing before the time.

6.11  I went with Mr. Ingham to Islington, purposely to talk with Mr. Molther. but they said, he was so ill, he could not be spoken
6.13  a great part of our society joined with us in prayer and kept, I trust, an acceptable fast unto the Lord.
6.19  ...we discovered another snare of the devil. the woman of Depford had spoke plain ti Mr. Humphreys, ordering him not to preach, to leave off doing good and, in a word, to be still. we talked largely with her and she was humbled in the dust, under a deep sense of the advantage Satan had gained over her.
in the evening Mr. Acourt complained, that Mr. Nowers had hindered his going into our society. Mr. Nowers answered, 'It was by Mr.C. Wesley's order.
'What, said Mr. Acourt,  do you refuse admitting a person into  your society, only because he differs from you in opinion?
I answered,  'No, but what opinion do you mean?
He said, 'that of election. I hold, a certain number  is elected from eternity. and these must and shall be saved. and the rest of mankind must and shall be damned. and many of your society hold the same.
I replied, 'I never asked whether they hold it or no. only let them not trouble others by disputing about it.
'What, wherever you come?
'Yes, wherever I come.
'Why then would you come among us, who you know are of another mind?
'Because you are all wrong and I am resolved to set you all right. 'I fear your

*275  coming with this view would neither profit you nor us.
He concluded, 'then I will go and tell all the world, that you and your brother are false prophets.  and I tell you, in one fortnight, you will all be in confusion.
6.20 I mentioned this to our society and, without entering into the controversy, besought all of them who were weak in the faith, not to receive one another  to doubtful disputations'; but simply to follow after holiness and the things that make for peace.
6.22 finding there was no time to delay, without utterly destroying the cause of God, I began to execute what I had long designed,  - to strike at the root of the grand delusion. accordingly, from those words of Jeremiah,  'Stand ye in the way, ask for the old paths, ' I took occasion to give a plain account, both of the work which God had begun among us, and of he manner wherein the enemy had sown his tares among the good seed, to this effect:  -
'after we had wandered many years in the new path, of salvation by faith and works;  about 2 years ago it pleased God to show us the Old Way, of salvation by Faith only. and many soon tasted of this salvation, 'being justified freely, having peace with God, rejoicing in hope of the glory of God,  and having His 'love shed abroad in their hearts.  these now ran the way of His commandments:  they performed  all their duty to God and man. they walked in all the ordinances of he Lord; and through these means, which he had appointed for that end, received  daily grace to help in time of need, and went on from faith to faith.
'but, 8 or 9 months ago, certain men arose, speaking contrary to the doctrines we had received. they affirmed, that we were all in a wrong way still;  that we had no faith at all;  that faith admits of no degrees and consequently weak faith is no faith;  that none is justified till he has a clean heart and is incapable of any doubt or fear.
'they affirmed also, that there is no commandment in the New Testament, but 'to believe';  that no other duty lies upon us; and that when a man does believe, he is not bound or obliged to do any thing which is commanded there:  In particular, that he is not subject to ordinances, that is, (as they explained it) is not bound or obliged to pray, to communicate, to read or hear the Scriptures;  but may or may not use any of these things,

*276  (being in no bondage, ) according as he finds his heart free to it.  'they farther affirmed, that a believer cannot use any of these as a means of grace;  that indeed there is no such thing as any means of grace,  this expression having no foundation in Scripture: and that an unbeliever, or one who has not a clean heart, ought not to use them at all;  ought not to prey, or search the Scriptures or communicate, but to 'be still'  that is, leave off these 'works of he law, and then  he will surely receive faith, which, till he is still, he cannot have.
'all these assertions I propose to consider. the first was, that weak faith is no faith.

'by weak faith i understand,
1. that which is mixed with fear, particularly of not enduring to the end.
2. that which is mixed with doubt, whether we have no deceived ourselves, and whether our sins be indeed forgiven.
3. that which has not yet purified the heart fully, not from all its idols. and thus weak I find the faith  of almost all believers to be, within a short time after they have first peace with God

'Yet that weak faith is faith appears,
1. from St. Paul,  'Him that is weak in faith, receive.
2.  from St. John, speaking of believers who were little children, as well as of young men and fathers.
3.from our Lord's won words, 'why are yea fearful, O yea of little faith? O thou of little faith wherefore didst thou doubt?  I have prayed for thee, (Peter) that thy faith fail thee not.  therefore he then had faith.  yet so weak was that faith, that not only doubt and fear, but gross sin in the same night prevailed over him.
'nevertheless he was 'clean, by the word' Christ had 'spoken to him' that is, justified; though it is plain he had not a true heart.
'therefore, there are degrees in faith; and weak faith  may yet be true faith.

6.23  I considered the second assertion, that there is but one commandment in the New Testament, viz., 'to believe'  that no other duty lies upon us and that a believer is not obliged to do any thing as commanded.
'how gross, palpable a contradiction is this, to the whole tenor of the New Testament! every part of which is full of commandments, from St. Matthew to the Revelation! but it is enough to observe,
1. that this bold affirmation is shamelessly

*277  contrary to our Lord's own words, 'Whosoever shall break one of the least of these commandments, shall e called he least in the kingdom of heaven' , for nothing can be more evident, that that he here speaks of more than one, of several commandments, which every soul, believer or not, is obliged to keep as commanded.
2. that this whole scheme is overturned from top to bottom, by that other sentence of our Lord,  'when ye have done all that is commanded you, say, we have done no more than it was our duty to do.
3. that although to do what God commands us is a believer's privilege, that does not affect the question. he does it nevertheless, as his bounden duty and as a command of God.
4. that this is the surest evidence of his believing, according to our Lord's  own words, 'If ye love me',  (which cannot be unless ye believe, ) keep My commandments.
5. that to desire to do what God commands, but not as a command, is to affect, not freedom, but independency. such independency as St. Paul had not; for though the Son had made him free, yet was he not without law to God, but under the law to Christ:  such as the holy angels have not: for they fulfill his commandments, and hearken to the voice of his words:  yea, such as Christ Himself had not;  for 'as the Father' had given him 'commandment', so He 'spake'.

6.24  the substance of my exposition in the morning, on,  'why yet are ye subject to ordinances? was

'from hence it has been inferred, that christians  are not subject to the ordinances of Christ;  that believers need not, and unbelievers may not, use them; that these are not obliged, and those are not permitted, so to do;  that these do sin when they do not abstain.

'but with how little reason this has been inferred, will sufficiently appear to all who consider,
1.  that the ordinances here spoken of by St. Paul are evidently Jewish ordinances; such as, 'Touch not, taste not, handle not'  and those, mentioned a few verses before , concerning meats and drinks, and new moons and Sabbaths.
2. that, consequently, this has no reference to the ordinances of Christ; such as, prayer, communicating and searching the Scriptures.
3. that Christ Himself spake , that 'men' ought 'always to pray' and commands, 'not to forsake the assembling ourselves together';  to search the Scriptures, and to eat bread and drink wine, in remembrance of Him.
4. that the commands of Christ oblige

*278  all who are called by His name, whether ( in strictness) believers or unbelievers;  seeing 'whosoever breaketh the least of these commandments, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven.
in the evening I preached on,  'cast not away your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward.
'ye who have know and felt your sins forgiven, cast not away your confidence,
1. though your joy should die away,  your love wax cold, and your peace itself be roughly assaulted: though,
2. you should find doubt or fear, or strong and uninterrupted temptation; yea, though,
3. you should find a body of sin still in you and thrusting sore at you that you might fall.

'the first case may be only a fulfilling of your Lord's words,  'Yet a little while and ye shall not see Me'.  but He will come unto you again and your hearts shall rejoice and your joy no man taketh from you.
'Your being in strong temptation, yea, though it should rise so high as to throw you into an agony, or to make you fear that god had forgotten you,
is no more a proof that you are not a believer,
than our Lord's agony and His crying, 'My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? was a proof that He was not the son of God.
'your finding sin remaining in you still, is no proof that you are not a believer.
sin does remain in one that is justified, though it has not dominion over him. for he has not a clean heart at first, neither are 'all things' as yet 'become new'.  but fear not, thought you have n evil heart.  yet  little while, and you shall be endued with power from on high, whereby you may 'purify yourselves, even as He is pure' and be 'holy, as He which hath called you is holy.

6.25  from those words, 'all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, I took occasion to speak of he ordinances of God,  as they are means of grace.
'although this expression of our Church, 'means of grace',  be not found in Scripture; yet, if the sense of it undeniably is, to cavil (def -to raise and irritating or trivial objection) at the term is a mere strife of words.
'but the sense of it is undeniably found in Scripture. for God hath in Scripture ordained prayer, reading of hearing  and the receiving the Lord's supper, as the ordinary means of conveying His grace to man. and first, prayer. for thus saith the Lord, 'Ask and it shall be given you. if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God. here God plainly ordains prayer

*279  as the means of receiving whatsoever grace we want; particularly that wisdom from above which is the chief fruit of the grace of God.
'here, likewise, God commands all to pray, who desire to receive any grace from Him. here is no restriction as to believers or unbelievers;  but, least of all, as to unbelievers:  for such, doubtless, were most of those to whom he said, 'ask and it shall be given you.

'we know, indeed, that the prayer of an unbeliever is full of sin. yet let him remember that which is written of one who could not then believe, for he had not so much as heard the Gospel, 'Cornelius, thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God.

6.26  I showed, concerning the Holy Scriptures,
1. that to search, (that is, read and hear them),  is a command of God.
2. that this command is given to all, believers or unbelievers.
3. that this is commanded or ordained as a means of grace, a means of conveying the grace of God to all, whether unbelievers (such as those to whom he first gave this command, and those to whom faith cometh by hearing ) or believers, who by experience know, that 'all Scripture is profitable',  or a means to this end,  'that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished to all good works.

6.27  I preached on,  'Do this in remembrance of Me.

'In the ancient Church, EVERY ONE WHO WAS BAPTIZED COMMUNICATED (def - to administer the eucharist to) DAILY. so in the Acts we read, they 'all continued daily in the breaking of bread and in prayer.
'but in latter times, many have affirmed, that the Lord's Supper is not a converting, but a confirming ordinance.
'and among us it has been diligently taught, that none but those who are converted, who have received the Holy ghost, who are believers in the full sense, ought to communicate.

'but experience shows the gross falsehood of that assertion, that the Lord's Supper is not a converting ordinance. ye are the witnesses.  for many now present know, the very beginning of your conversion to god (perhaps, in some, the first deep conviction) was wrought at the Lord's supper.  now, one single instance of this kind overthrows he whole assertion.

'the falsehood of the other assertion appears both from Scripture precept and example. our Lord commanded those very men who were then unconverted, who had not yet received.

*280  the Holy Ghost,  who (in the full sense of the word)  were not believers,  to do this 'in remembrance of Him'. here the precept is clear. and to these he delivered the elements with his own hands. here is example equally indisputable.
6.28  I showed at large,
1. that the LORD'S SUPPER was ordained by God, to be A MEANS OF CONVEYING to men either PREVENTING OR JUSTIFYING OR SANCTIFYING GRACE, according to their several necessities.
2. that the persons for whom it was ordained, are all those who know and feel that they want the grace of God, either to restrain them from sin or to show their sins forgiven or to renew their souls in the image of God.
3. that inasmuch as we come to His table, not to give Him anything,  but to receive whatsoever he sees best for us, there is no previous preparation indispensably necessary, but a desire to receive whatsoever he pleases to give. and
4.that no fitness is required at the time of communicating, but a sense of our state, of our utter sinfulness and helplessness; every one who knows he is fit for hell, being just fit to come to Christ, in this as well as all other ways of His appointment.
6.29  I preached in the morning at Moorfields and in the evening at Kennington, on  Titus3.8 and endeavoured at both places to explain and enforce the Apostle's direction, that those 'who have believed, be careful to maintain good works'.  the works I particularly mentioned were, praying, communicating, searching the Scriptures; feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, assisting the stranger and visiting or reliving those that are sick or in prison. several of our brethren, of Fetter-Lane, being met in the evening, Mr. Simpson told them I had been preaching up the works of the law;  'which, added Mr. V,  'we believers are no more bound to obey, than the subjects of the King of England are bound to obey the laws of the King of France.
7.2  I went to the society;  but I found their hearts were quite estranged.
7.4  I met a little handful of them, who still stand in the old paths;  but how long they may stand God knoweth, the rest being continually pressing upon them.
7.9  I came to an explanation once more with them all together;  but with no effect at all.

7.15   we had yet another conference at large, but in vain; for all continued in their own opinions.

7.16  one desired me to look into an old book, and

*281  give her my judgment of it: particularly of what was added at the latter end.  this, I found, was, 'The Mystic Divinity of Dionysius' and several extracts nearly allied thereto, full of the same 'super-essential darkness'.  I borrowed the book, and going in the evening to Fetter-Lane, read one of those extracts, to this effect:
'The Scriptures are good; prayer is good; communicating is good; relieving our nei9ghboru is goo; but to one who is not born of God,  none of these is good, but all very evil. for him to read the Scriptures or to pray or to communicate or to do any outward work is deadly poison.
First, let him be born of God.
till then let him not do any of these things. for if he does, he destroys himself.

after reading this twice or thrice over, as distinctly as I could, I asked,  'My brethren, is this right or is it wrong? Mr. Bell answered immediately, 'It is right; it is all right. It is the truth. to this we must all come or we never can come to Christ. Mr. Bray said,  'I believe our brother Bell did not hear what you read or did not rightly understand.  but Mr. Bell replied short,  'yes, I heard every word; and I understand it well. I say, it is the truth;  it is the very truth; it is the inward truth.

many then laboured to prove, that my brother and i laid too much stress upon the ordinances. to  put this matter beyond dispute,  'I, said Mr. Bowes,  used the ordinances 20 years; yet I found not Christ. but i left them off only for a few weeks and I found Him then.  and I am now as close united to Him as my arm is to my body.
one asked, whether they would suffer Mr. Wesley to preach at Fetter-Lane. after a short debate, it was answered,  'No.  this pace is taken for the Germans.  some asked, whether the Germans had converted any soul in England: whether they had not done us much hurt, instead of good; raising a division of which we could see no end:  and whether God did not many times use Mr. W for the healing our divisions,  when we were all in confusion. several roundly replied,  'Confusion! what do you men? we were never in any confusion at all.  I said,  'Brother Edmonds, you ought not to say so;  because I have your letters now in my hands.  Mr. Edmonds replied, 'that is not the first time I have put darkness for light and light for darkness.

*282  we continued in useless debate till about 11. I then gave them up to God.

7.18  a few of us joined with my mother in the great sacrifice of thanksgiving and then consulted how to proceed with regard to our poor brethren of Fetter-Lane; we all saw the thing was now come to a crisis, and were therefor unanimously agreed what to do.
 7.20  at Mr. Seward's earnest request, I preached once more in Moorfields, on the 'work of faith',  and the 'patience of hope' and the 'labour of love'.  a zealous man was so kind as to free us from most of the noisy, careless hearers,  (or spectators rather)  by reading, meanwhile at a small distance a chapter in the 'Whole Duty of Man'.  I wish neither he nor they may ever read o worse book;  though I can tell them of a better,  - the Bible...
..at Fetter-Lane...(W said) 'I believe that these assertions (1. that there is no such thing as weak faith:  that there is no justifying faith where there is ever any doubt of fear.. 2. that a man ought not to use...ordinances of God, ..before he has such a faith as excludes all doubt and fear.
...'I have warned you hereof again and again and besought you to turn back to the Law and the Testimony.  I have borne with you long, hoping you would turn. but as I find you more and more confirmed in the error of your ways, nothing now remains, but that i should give you up to god. you that are of the same judgment, follow me.
I then, without saying any thing more, withdrew, as did I, 18..of the society.

7.23  our little company met at the Foundery, instead of Fetter-Lane. about 25 of our brethren God hath given us already, all of whom think and speak the same thing; 7 or 8 or 40 likewise, of he 50 women that were in Band, desired to cast in their lot with us.

*283  8.1  I described that 'rest' which remaineth for the people of God.

8.3  at St. Luke's our parish church, was such a sight as, I believe, was never seen there before: several hundred communicants, from whose very faces one might judge, that they indeed sought Him that was crucified.
8.4  I dined with one who told me, in all simplicity, 'Sir, I thought last week, there could be no such rest as you described;  none in this world, wherein we should be so free as not to desire ease in pain.  but God has taught me better, for on Friday and Saturday, when i was in the strongest pain, I never once had one moment's desire of ease; but only, that the will of God might be done.

in the evening many were gathered together at Long-Lane, on purpose to make a disturbance; having procured a woman to begin, well known in those parts, as neither fearing God nor regarding man, the instant she broke out, I turned full upon her and declared the love of our Lord had for Her soul. we then prayed that He would confirm the word of His grace. she was struck to the heart and shame covered her face. from her I turned to the rest, who melted away like water and were as men that had no strength. but surely some of them shall find who is their 'rock and their strong salvation.

*284  8.10  from Gal. 4.3,  I earnestly warned all who had tasted the grace of God,
1. not to think they were justified, before they had a clear assurance that God had forgiven their sins;  bringing in a calm peace, the love of God and dominion over all sin.
2.  not to think themselves any thing after they had this; but to press forward to the prize of their high calling, even a clean heart, thoroughly renewed after the image of God, in righteousness and true holiness
8.11  40 or 50 of those who were seeking salvation desired leave to spend the night together, at the society room, in prayer and giving thanks.  before 10 I left then and lay down. but i could have no quiet rest,  being quite uneasy in my sleep, as I found others were too, that were asleep in other parts of the house. between 2 and 3 in the morning I was waked and desired to come down stairs. I immediately heard such a confused noise, as if a number of men were all putting to the sword. it increased when I came into the room and began to pray. one whom I particularly observed to be roaring aloud for pain was J W, who had been always, till then, very sure that 'none cried out by hypocrites'.  so had Mrs. S also. but when too now cried to God with a loud and bitter cry. it was not long before God heard from His holy place. He spake and all our souls were comforted. He bruised Satan under our feet; and sorrow and sighing fled away.
8.16  I called on one who, being at Long-Lane on Mon., the 4th instant, was exceeding angry at those that 'pretended to be in fits',  particularly at one who dropped down just by her. she was just going 'to kick her out of the way',  when she dropped down herself and continued in violent agonies for an hour. being afraid, when she came to herself, that her mother would judge of her as she herself had done of others, she resolved to hide it from her. but the moment she came into the house, she dropped down in as violent an agony as before. I left her weary and heavy-laden, under a deep sense of he just judgment of God.
8.17  I enforced that necessary caution,  'Let him that standeth take he fall'.  let him that is full of joy and love, take heed lest he fall into pride;  he that is in calm peace, lest he fall into desire;  and he that is in heaviness

*285  through manifold temptations, lest he fall into anger or impatience.

I afterwards heard a sermon, setting forth the duty of getting a good estate and keeping a good reputation. is it possible to deny (supposing the Bible true) that such a Preacher is a 'blind leader of the blind.?
8.20  I offered remission of sins to a small serious congregation near Deptford. toward he end, a company of persons came in, dressed in habits fit for their work and laboured greatly either to provoke or divert the attention of the hearers. but no man answering them a word, they were soon weary, and went away.
8.21  I was deeply considering those points wherein our German brethren affirm we err from the faith and reflecting how much holier some of them were than me, or any people I had yet known.  but I was cut short in the midst by those words of St. Paul, (I Tim. 5.21)  'I charge thee before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that thou observe these things, without preferring one before another, doing nothing by partiality.
8.22  I was desired to pray with an old hardened sinner, supposed to be at the point of death. he knew not me; nor ever had heard me preach. I spoke much; but he opened not his mouth. but no sooner did I name 'the Saviour of sinners. than he burst our,  'The Saviour of sinners indeed! I know it: for He has saved Me. he told me so on Sunday morning and he said, I should not die yet, till I had heard his children preach his Gospel, and had told my old companions in sin, that he is ready to save them too.

8.23  a gentlewoman (one Mrs. C)  desired to speak with me and related a strange story:  on Sat., the 16th instant..one Mrs. G. of Northampton, deeply convinced of sin and therefore an abomination to her husband, was by him put into Bedlam. on Tues. she slipped out of the gate with some other company and after awhile, not knowing whither to go, sat down at Mrs. C's door. Mrs.

*286  C.., knowing nothing of her, advised her the next day to go to Bedlam again..and went with her, where she was then chained down and treated in the usual manner.  this is the justice of men! a poor highwayman (def - a holdup man, riding on horse, who robbed people on the road) is hanged; and Mr. G. esteemed a very honest man!
8.28  I desired one who had seen affliction herself to go and visit Mrs. G. in bedlam;  where it pleased God greatly to knit their hearts together and with His comforts to refresh their souls.

9.1  ...at 7, it pleased God to apply those words to the hearts of many backsliders, 'How shall I give thee up, Ephraim?  how shall I deliver thee, Israel? how shall I make thee as Admah?  How shall I set thee as Zeboim? Mine heart is turned within Me,  My repentings are kindled together. Hosea 11.8

9.3  I met with one who, having been lifted up with the abundance of joy which God had given her, had fallen into such blasphemies and vain imaginations as are not common to men. in the afternoon I found another instance, nearly, I Fae, of the same kind: one who, after much of the love of God shed abroad in her heart, was become wise far above what is written and set her Private Revelations (so called) on the self-same foot with the written word. she zealously maintained,
1. that Christ had died for angels as well as me.
2. that none of the angels kept their first estate;  but all sinned, less or more.
3. that by the death of Christ three things were effected: one part of the fallen spirits were elected and immediately confirmed in holiness and happiness, who are now the holy angels; another part of them having  more deeply sinned, were Reprobated, who are now devils; and the third part, allowed a farther trial; and in order thereto, sent down from heaven and imprisoned in bodies of flesh and blood, who are now human souls.  in the evening i earnestly besought them all to keep clear of vain speculations and seek only for the pain, practical 'truth, which is after godliness'. 

9.4  a remarkable cause was tried:  some time since, several men made a great disturbance during the evening sermon here, behaving rudely to the women and striking the men

*287  who spake not to them.  a Constable standing by, pulled out his staff and commanded them to keep the peace. upon this one of hem swore he would be revenged; and going immediately to a Justice, mad oath, that he (the Constable) had picked his pocket, who was accordingly bound over to the next Sessions. at these, not only the same man, but 2 of his companions, swore the same thing. but there being 18 or 20 witnesses on the other side, the Jury easily saw through the whole proceeding and without going out at all or any demur (def - objection), brought in the prisoner not guilty.
9.5  our Lord brought home many of His vanished ones. in the evening we cried mightily unto Him, that brotherly love might continue and increase. and it was according to our faith.

9.6  I met the Band in Kingswood and warned them, with all authority, to beware of being wise above that is written and to desire to know nothing but Christ crucified...

9.10  I visited one that was in violent pain and consumed away with pining sickness; but in 'every thing giving thanks' and greatly 'rejoicing in hope of the glory of God. from her we went to another, dangerously ill of the small pox, but desiring neither life nor ease, but only the holy will of God. if these are unbelievers, (as some of the still brethren have lately told them,) I am content to be an unbeliever all my days.
9.11  I visited a poor woman, who. lying ill between her 2 sick children, without either physic or food convenient for her, was mightily praising God her Saviour and testifying, as often as she could speak, her desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ.
9.14  as I returned home in the evening, I had no sooner stepped out of the coach, than the mob, who were gathered in great numbers about my door, quite close me in. I rejoiced and blessed god, knowing this was the time I  had long been looking for and immediately spake to those that were next me, of 'righteousness and judgment to come'.  at first not many heard, the noise round about us being exceeding great.  but the silence spread farther and farther, till I had a quiet, attentive congregation:  and when I left them they all showed much love and dismissed me with many blessings. 

*288  9.16  many more, who came in among us as lions, in a short space became as lambs;  the tears trickling apace down their cheeks, who at first most loudly contradicted and blasphemed. I wonder the devil has not wisdom enough to discern that he is destroying his own kingdom. I believe he has never yet, any one time, caused this open opposition to the truth of God, without losing one, or more, of his servants, who were found of God, without losing one or more of his servants, who were found of God, while they sought Him not.
9.17  a poor woman gave me an account of what, I think, ought never to be forgotten. it was 4 years, when said, since her son, Peter Shaw, then 19 or 20 years old, by hearing the sermon of Mr. W, fell into great uneasiness. she though he was ill and would have sent for a physician;  but he said, 'No, no. sent for Mr. W. he was sent for and came; and after asking her a few questions, told her, 'The boy is and get a coach and carry him to Dr. M. use my name. I have sent several such to him'.  accordingly, she got a coach and went with him immediately to Dr. M's house. when the Doctor came in,  the young man rose and said,  'Sir, Mr. W has sent me to you. the Doctor asked, 'Is Mr. W your Minister? and bid him put out his tongue. then, without asking any questions, he told his mother, 'Choose your Apothecary and I will prescribe. according to his prescriptions they, the next day, blooded him largely, confined him to a dark room and put a strong blister on each of his arms, with another over all his head. but still he was as 'mad' as before, praying or singing, or giving thanks continually.  of which having laboured to cure him for 6 weeks in vain, though he was now so weak he could not stand alone, his mother dismissed the Doctor and Apothecary, and let him be 'beside himself' in peace.
9.18  the prince of the air made another attempt in defence of his tottering kingdom. a great number of men having got into the middle of the Foundery began to speak big, swelling words; so that my voice could hardly be heard, while I was reading the 11th chapter of the Acts. but immediately after , the hammer of the word brake the rocks in pieces: all quietly heard the glad tidings of salvation and some, I trust, not in vain.
9.22 wanting a little time for retirement, which it was almost impossible for me to have in London, I went to Mr.

*289  Piers's, at Bexley; where, in the mornings and evenings, I expounded the Sermon on the Mount; and had leisure during the rest of he day for business of other kinds.

9.28 I began expounding the same scripture at London. in the afternoon I described to a numerous congregation at Kennington, the life of god in the soul. one person who stood on the mount made a little noise at first; but a gentleman, whom I knew not, walked up to him and without saying one word, mildly took him by the hand and led him down. from that time he was quiet till he went away.

when I came home, I found an innumerable mob round the door, who opened all their throats the moment they saw me. I desired my friends to go into the house; and then walking into the midst of the people, proclaimed 'the name of the Lord, gracious and merciful and repenting him of the evil'.  they stood staring one at another. I told them, they could not flee from the face of this great God: and therefor besought them, that we might all join together in crying to Him for mercy. to this they readily agreed;  I then commended them to His grace and went undisturbed to the little company within.

9.30  as I was expounding the 12th of the Acts, a young man with some others, rushed in, cursing and swearing vehemently  and so disturbed all near him, that, after a time, they put him out. I observed it and called to let him come in, that our Lord might bid his chains fall off. as soon as the sermon was over, he came and declared before us all that he was a smuggler, then going on that work; as his disguise, and the great bag he had with him, showed  but he said he must never do this more: for he was now resolved to have the Lord for his God.
10.5  I explained the difference between being called a christian and being so; and God overruled the madness of the people, so that after I had spoken a few words. they were quiet and attentive to the end.

10.6  while i was preaching at islington and rebuking sharply those that had made shipwreck of the faith, a woman dropped down, struck. as was supposed, with death, having the use of all her limbs quite taken from her:  but she knew the next day, she should 'not die, but live and declare the lovingkindness of the Lord.

*290  10.14  I met with a person who was to be pitied indeed. he was once a zealous Papist;  but, being convinced he was wrong, cast off  Popery and christianity together. he told me at once, 'Sir, I scorn to deceive you, or any man living:  don't tell me of your Bible. I value it not. I do not believe a word of it.  I asked, 'do you believer there is a God? and what do you believe concerning Him? he replied, 'I know there is a God and I believe Him to be the soul of all, the Anima Mundi. if he be not rather, as I sometimes think is more probable, to To Pan (note - greek for 'The All' ?) the whole compages (def -'together'  + 'to fasten'; the compaction or junction of parts into a whole; solid or fir structure, consistency (as a quality) )of body and spirit, everywhere diffused. but farther than this, I know not: all is dark; my thought is lost. whence I come, I  know not; nor what or why I am; nor whither I am going;  but this I know, I am unhappy.  I am weary of life. I wish it were at an end.  I told him I would pray to the God in whom I believed, to show him more light before he went hence and to convince him, how much  advantage every way a believer in Christ had over an infidel.
10.19  I found one who was a fresh instance of that strange truth,  'the servants of God suffer nothing'.  his body was well nigh torn asunder with pain,  but God made all his bed in is sickness.  so that he was continually giving thanks to god and making his boast of His praise.

10.23  I was informed of an awful providence. a poor wretch, who was here last week, cursing and blaspheming and labouring with all his might to hinder the word of God, had

*291  afterwards boasted to many, that he would come again on Sunday and no man should stop his mouth then.  but on Friday God laid His hand upon him and on Sunday he was buried.

10.27  the surprising news of poor Mr. S's death was confirmed. surely God will maintain His own cause. righteous art Thou, O Lord!
...11. 3 we distributed, as every one had need, among the numerous poor of our society, the clothes of several kinds, which many who could spare them had brought for that purpose.

11.10 early in the morning I set out and the next evening came to Bristol.

i found my brother (to supply whose absence I came) had been in Wales for some days. the next morning I set out and the next evening came to Bristol.

I found my brother (to supply whose absence I came) had been in Wales for some days. the next morning I inquired particularly into the state of the little flock. in the afternoon we met together to pour out our souls before God and beseech Him to bring back into the way those who had erred from His commandments.
I spent the rest of the week in speaking with as many as I could, either comforting the feeble-minded, or confirming the wavering or endeavouring to find and save that which was lost.

11.16  after communicating at St. James's, our parish church, with a numerous congregation, I visited several of the sick. most of them were ill of the spotted fever;which, they informed me, had been extremely mortal; few persons recovering from it. but God had said, 'Hitherto shalt thou come' . I believe there was not one with whom we were, but recovered.

...the next 3 days, I visited many more partly of those that were sick or weak, partly of 'the lame' that

*292  had been 'turned out of the way',  having a confidence in god, that He would yet return unto every one of these and leave a blessing behind Him...
11.25  after several methods proposed for employing those who were out of business, we determined to make a trial of one which several of our brethren recommended to us. our aim was, with as little expense as possible, to keep them at once from want and from idleness;  in order to which, we took 12 of he poorest, and a teacher, into the society-room,  where they were employed for 4 months, till spring came on, in carding and spinning of cotton.  and the design answered.  they were employed and maintained with very little more than the produce of their own labour.

11.28  a gentleman came to me full of good-will, to exhort me not to leave the Church or (which was the same thing in his account) to use extemporary prayer, which, said he, 'I will prove to a demonstration to be no prayer at all. for you cannot do two things at once. but thinking how to pray and praying are 2 things. Ergo, you cannot both think and pray at once'.  now, may it not be proved by the self-same demonstration, that praying by a form is no prayer at all? ie. 'You cannot do 2 things at once. but reading and praying are 2 things. Ergo, you cannot both read and pray at one. Q.E.D.

12.1  finding many of our brethren and sisters offended at each other, I appointed the several accusers to come and speak face to face with the accused. some of them came almost every day this week. and most of the offences vanished away. where any doubt remained, I could only advise them each to look  to his own heart and to suspend their judgments of each other, till God should 'bring to light the hidden things of darkness.
12.12  having received many unpleasing accounts concerning our little society in Kingswood, I left London and after

*293  some difficulty and danger, by reason of much ice on the road, on Sat. evening came to my brother at Bristol, who confirmed to me what I did not desire to hear.

12.14  I went to Kingswood, intending, if it should please God, to spend some time there, if haply i might e an instrument in His hand, of repairing the breaches which had been made;  that we might again, with one heart and one mouth, glorify the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

12.15  I began expounding, both in the morning and evening,our Lord's Sermon upon the Mount.  in the daytime I laboured to heal the jealousies and misunderstandings which had arisen, warning every man and exhorting every man, 'see that ye fall not our by the way.

12.16  in the afternoon I preached  on,  'Let patience have her perfect work.  the next evening Mr. Cennick came back from a little journey into Wiltshire. I was greatly surprised when I went to receive him, as usual, with open arms, to observe him quite cold; so that a stranger would have judged he had scarce ever seen me before.  however, for the present, I said nothing, but did him honour before the people.
12.19 I pressed him to explain his behaviour. he told me many stories which he had heard of me.  yet it seemed to em, something was still behind.  so I desired we might meet again in the morning.

12.20  a few of us had a long conference together. Mr. C now told me plainly he could not agree with me, because I did not preach the truth, in particular with regard to Election. we then entered a little into the controversy,  but without effect.
12.21  in the morning I enforced those words, 'Beloved,  if God so loved us, we ought to love one another.  3 of our sisters I saw in the afternoon,  all supposed to be near death and calmly rejoicing in hope of speedily going to Him whom their souls loved.

at the love-feast which we had in the evening at Bristol, 70 or 80 of our brethren and sisters from Kingswood were present, notwithstanding the heavy snow. we all walked back together, through the most violent storm of sleet and snow which I ever remember; the snow also lying above knee-deep in many places. but our hears were warmed, so that we went on, rejoicing and praising God for the consolation.

*294...12.25  I met with such a case, as I do not remember either to have known or heard of before. L S,  after many years' mourning, was filled with  peace and joy in believing. in the midst of this, without any discernible cause, such a cloud suddenly overwhelmed her, that she could not believe her sins were ever  forgiven her at all; nor that there was any such  thing as forgiveness of sins. she could not believe that the Scriptures were true; not that there was any heaven or hell, or angel or spirit or any God. one more I have since found in the same state. so sure it is, that all faith is the gift of God; which the moment he withdraws, the evil heart of belief will poison the whole soul.

12.26  I returned early in the morning to Kingswood, in order to preach at the usual hour. but my congregation was gone to hear Mr C, so that (except a few from Bristol) I had not above 2 or 3 men, and as many women, the same number I had had once or twice before.

12.30  I was sent for by one who had been a zealous opposer of 'this way'.  but the Lover of souls now opened her eyes, and cut her off from trusting in  the multitude of her good works.  so that, finding no other hope left, she fled, poor and naked, to the blood of the covenant, and, a few days after, gladly gave up her soul into the hands of her faithful Redeemer.

at 6, the body of Alice Philips being brought into the room, I explained,  'Today shalt thou be with Me in paradise. this was she whom her master turned away the last year, for receiving the Holy ghost. and she had then scarce where to lay her head. but she hath now an house of God, eternal in the heavens.

12.31  many from Bristol came over to us and our love was greatly confirmed toward each other. at half an hour after 8, the house was filled from end to end, where we concluded

*295  the year, wrestling with God in prayer and praising Him for the wonderful work which He had already wrought upon earth.
1.1.1741  I explained,  'if any man be in Christ he is anew creature.  but many of our brethren, I found, had no ears to hear;  having disputed away both their faith and love. in the evening, out of the fulness that was given me, I expounded those words of St. Paul, (indeed of every true believer) 'to me to live is Christ and to die is gain. 1
1.3  the bodies of Anne Cole and Elizabeth Davis were buried. I preached before the burial on, 'blessed are the dead which die in the Lord:  even so saith the Spirit; for they rest from their labours and their works do follow them. sometime after Elizabeth Davis was speechless, being desired to hold up her hand, if she knew she was going to
God, she looked up and immediately held up both her hands . on Wed., I had asked Anne Cold, whether she chose to live or die. she said, 'I do not choose either, I choose nothing. I am in my saviour's hands  and I have no will but His.  yet I now He will restore me soon. and so He did, in a few hours, to the paradise of God.
1.4  I showed the absolute necessity of 'forgetting the  things that are behind', whether works, sufferings or gifts if we would 'press toward the mark for the praise of our high calling'.

in the evening, all the Bands being present, both of Bristol and Kingswood, I simply related what God had done by me, for them of Kingswood in particular; and what return many of them had made, for several months last past, by their continual disputes, divisions and offences causing me to go heavily all the day long.
1.7  I found  another believer, patiently waiting for the salvation of God; desiring neither health, nor ease nor life nor death;  but only that His will should be done.
1.8  I expounded the 23rd Psalm and many were led forth by the waters of comfort.  two especially, who never knew till then, that their 'iniquities were forgiven and their sin covered.

1.11 I met with a surprising instance of the power of the devil. while we were at the room, Mrs. J, sitting at home, took the Bible to read,k but on a sudden threw it away, saying, 'I am good enough; I will never read or pray more. she was in the same mind when i came often repeating, 'I

*296  used to think I was full of sin and that I sinned in everything I did,  but now I know better. I am a good christian. I never did any harm in my life.  I don't desire to be any better than I am. she spoke many things to the same effect, plainly showing that the spirit of pride and of lies, had the full dominion over her. (the next day) I asked 'do you desire to be healed?  she said, 'I am whole.  'But do you desire to e saved?  she replied, 'I am saved;  I ail nothing; I am happy. yet it was easy to discern, she was in the most violent agony, both of body and mind; sweating exceedingly, notwithstanding the sever frost and not continuing in the same posture a moment. upon our beginning to pray, she raged beyond measure; but soon suck down as dead. in a few minutes she revived and joined in prayer. we left her for the present in peace.
1.12  in the evening our souls were so filled with the spirit of prayer and thanksgiving, that I could scarce tell how to expound, till I found where it is written,  'My song shall be always of the lovingkindness of the Lord.  with my mouth will I ever be showing Thy truth, from one generation to another.
all this day, Mrs. J was in a violent agony, till, starting up in the evening, she said, 'now they have done. they have just done. C prayed and Humphreys preached.  ( and indeed so they did.)  'and they are coming hither  as fast as they can. quickly after they came in. she immediately cried out, 'Why, what do you come for? you can't pray. you know you can't.  and they could not open their mouths, so that, after a short time they were constrained to leave her as she was.

many came to see her on Tuesday. to every one of whom she spoke, concerning either their actual or their heart sins and that so closely, that several of them went away in more haste than they came. in the afternoon Mr. J sent to Kingswood for me. she told him 'Mr. Wesley won't come tonight; he will come in the morning. but god has begun and He will end the work by Himself. before 6 in the morning AI shall be well. and about a quarter before 6  the next morning , after lying quiet awhile she broke out, 'peace be unto thee (her husband) peace be unto this house. the peace of god is come to my soul. I know that my Redeemer liveth. and for several days her mouth was filled with His praise, and her 'talk was wholly of His wondrous works.
1.15  I went to one of our brothers, who, being (as was

*297  supposed) struck with death, was rejoicing with joy unspeakable.  his mouth overflowed with praise and his eyes with tears, in hope of going soon to Him he loved.

1.19  I found, from several accounts ,  it was absolutely necessary for me to be at London. I therefore desired the society to meet in the evening and having settled things in the best manner I could, on Tues. set out and on wed. evening met our brethren at the Foundery.

1.22  I began expounding where my brother had left off, viz. at the 4th chapter of the first Epistle of St John. he had not preached the morning before; nor intended to do it any more. 'the Philistines are upon thee, Samson' but the Lord is not departed from thee', He shall strengthen thee yet again and thou shalt be 'avenged of them for the loss of they eyes.

1.25  I enforced that great command,  'as we have opportunity, let us do good unto all men. and in the evening those solemn words, 'take heed, brethren, lest thee be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.
1.30  I preached in the morning on, 'then shall they fast in those days' and in the afternoon spent a sweet hour in prayer with some hundreds of our society.

2.1   a private letter, wrote to me by Mr. Whitefield, having been printed without either his leave or mine, great numbers of copies were given to our people, both at the door an in the Foundry itself. having procured one of them, i related ( after preaching) the naked fact to the congregation and told them, 'i will do just what I believe Mr. Whitefield would

*298  were he here himself. upon which I tore it in pieces before them all. every one who had received it, did the same. so that in 2 minutes there was not a whole copy left. Ah! poor Ahithophel!

2.4  being the general Fast Day, I preached in the morning on those words, 'shall I not visit for these things, saith the Lord? shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this? coming from the service at St. Luke's,  I found our house so crowded, that the people were ready to tread one upon another. I had not designed to preach, but seeing such a congregation, I could not think it right to send them empty away and therefore expounded the parable of the barren fig tree. O that it may at length bear fruit?
from hence I went to Deptford, where many poor wretches were got together, utterly void both of common sense and common decency. thy cried aloud, as if just come from 'among the tombs'.  but they could not prevail against the Holy One of God . many of them were altogether confounded, and, I trust, will come again with a better mind.
2.10  ..before I  began to preach, many men of the baser sort, having mixed themselves with the women, behaved so indecently, as occasioned much disturbance. a Constable commanded them to keep the peace. in answer to which they knocked him down. some who were near seized on 2 of them and by shutting the doors prevented any farther contest...

2.16 while I was preaching in Long-Lane, the host of the aliens gathered together. and one large stone ((many of which they threw went just over my shoulder. but no one was hurt in any degree: for Thy 'kingdom
ruleth over all'.
all things now being settled according to my wish, on 2.17, I left London.   in the afternoon I reached Oxford and

*299  leaving my horse there, set out on foot for Stanton-Harrcourt. the night overtook me in about an hour, accompanied with heavy rain. being wet and weary and not well knowing my way, I could not help saying in my heart, (though ashamed of my want of resignation to God's will), O that Thou woulds 'stay the bottles of heaven' or, at least, give me light or an honest guide or some help in the manner thou knowest! presently the rain ceased,  the moon broke out and a friendly man overtook me, who set me upon his own horse and walked by my side, till we came to Mr. Gambold's door.

2.18  I walked on to Burford; on Thursday to Malmsbury and the next day to Bristol.
2.21  I inquired, as fully as I could, concerning the divisions and offences which, notwithstanding the earnest cautions I had given, began afresh to break out in Kingswood. in the afternoon I met a few of the Bands there,  but it was a cold uncomfortable meeting.

2.22 I endeavoured to show them the ground of many of their mistakes, from those words, 'ye need not that any man teach you, but as that same anointing teacheth you' a text which had been frequently brought in support of he rankest enthusiasm. Mr. Cennick and 15 or 20 others, came up to me after sermon. I told them they had not done right in speaking against me behind my back. Mr. C, Ann A and Thomas Bissicks, as the mouth of the rest, replied, they had said no more of me behind my back than they would say to my face, which was that I did preach up man's faithfulness and not the faithfulness of God.
in the evening was our love feast in Bristol.  in the conclusion of which, there being mention made that many of our brethren at Kingswood had formed themselves into a separate society, I related to them at large the effects of the separations which had been made from time to time in London and likewise the occasion of this, namely, Mr. C's preaching other doctrine than that they had before received. the natural consequence was, that when my brother and I preached the same which we had done from the beginning, many censured and spoke against us both; whence arose endless strife and confusion.
TB replied, why, we preached  that there is righteousness in man. I said, 'so there is, after the righteousness of Christ is imputed to him through faith. but who told you that what we preached was false

*300  doctrine? Whom would you have believed this from, but Mr. C?  Mr. C answered, 'You do preach righteousness in man. I did say this : and I say it still. however, we are willing to join with you, but we will also meet apart from you,  for we meet to confirm one another in those truths which you speak against.
I replied, 'You should have told me this before and not have supplanted me in my own house, stealing the hearts of the people and, by private accusations, separating very friends.  He said, 'i have never privately accused you. I said, 'My brethren judge and read as follows:
To the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield.

My dear brother,                                                                                                       Jan. 17, 1741

that you might come quickly, I have written a second time.

I sit solitary, like Eli, waiting what will become of the ark. and while I wait and fear the carrying of it away from among my people, my trouble increases daily. how glorious did the Gospel seem once to flourish in Kingswood!  I spake of the everlasting love of Christ with sweet power. but now brother Charles is suffered to open his mouth against this truth, while the frighted sheep gaze and fly, as if no shepherd was among them. it is just as though Satan was now making war with the saints in a more than common way. O pray for the distressed lambs  yet left in this place, that they faint not! surely they would, if preaching would do it:  for they have nothing  whereon to rest, (who now attend on the sermons)_ but their own faithfulness.
with Universal Redemption, brother Charles pleases he world. Brother John follows him in every thing. I believe no atheist can more preach against Predestination than they and all who believe Election are counted enemies to God and called so.
Fly dear brother. I am as alone: I am in the midst of the plague. if God give thee leave, make haste.

Mr C stood up and said, 'that letter is mine. I sent it to Mr. Whitefield and I do not retract any thing in it, nor blame myself for sending it.
Perceiving some of our brethren began to speak with warmth, I desired he would meet me at Kingswood on Saturday, where

*301  each of us could speak more freely and that all things might sleep till then.

2.24  the Bands meeting at Bristol. I read over the names of the United Society, being determined that no disorderly walker should remain therein. accordingly, I took an account of every person,
1. to whom any reasonable objection was mad.
2. who was not know to and recommended by some, on whose veracity i could depend.
to those who were sufficiently recommended, ticket were give on the following days. most of the rest I had face to face with their accusers and such as either appeared to be innocent or confessed their faults and promised better behaviour, were then received into the society. the others were put upon trial again, unless they voluntarily expelled themselves. about 40 were by this means separated from us; I trust only for a season.
2.28  I met the Kingswood Bands again and heard all who desired it at large: after which, I read the following paper:
'by many witnesses it appears, that several members of he Band society in Kingswood have made it their common practice to scoff at the preaching of Mr. John and Charles Wesley,
that they have censured and spoken evil of them behind their backs, at the very time they professed love and esteem to their faces,
that they have studiously endeavoured to prejudice other members of that society against them and, in order thereto have belied and slandered them in divers instances.

'therefore, not for their opinions, nor for any of them, (whether they be right or wrong)  but for the causes above-mentioned, viz., for their scoffing at the word and Ministers of God,
for their tale-bearing, backbiting and evil-speaking,
for their dissembling (def - give a false or misleading appearance to) lying and slandering.

I, John W, by the consent and approbation of the Band society in Kingswood, do declare the persons above mentioned to be no longer members thereof. neither will they be so accounted, until they shall openly confess their fault and thereby do what in them lies, to remove the scandal they have given.

at this they seemed a little shocked at first, but Mr. C, TB and AA,  soon recovered and said they had head both my brother and me many times preach Popery. however, they would join with us if we would,  but that they would not won they had done anything amiss.

*302  I desired them to consider of it yet again and give us their answer the next evening.

the next evening,
3.1  they gave the same answer as before. however, I could not tell how to part, but exhorted them to wait yet a little longer and wrestle with God, that they might know His will concerning them.

3.6  being still fearful of doing any thing rashly or contrary to the great law of love, I consulted again with many of our brethren, concerning the father steps I should take. in consequence of which, on

3.7 all who could of the society being met together, I  told them, open dealing was best and I would therefore tell them plainly what I thought (setting all opinions aside)  had been wrong in many of them, viz.,
1. their despising the ministers of god and slighting His ordinances
2. their not speaking or paying when met together, till they were sensibly moved thereto and
3. their  dividing themselves from their brethren and forming a separate society.

that we could not approve of delaying this matter, because the confusion that was already increasing daily.
that upon the whole, we believed the only way to put a stop to these growing evils was, for every one now to take his choice and quit one society or the other.

TB replied,  'it is our holding Election is the true cause of your separating from us.
I answered,  'you know in your own conscience it is not. there are several Predestinarians in our societies both at London and Bristol;  nor did I  ever yet  put any one out of either because he held that opinion.
He said, 'Well, we will break up our society, on condition you will receive and employ Mr. C as you did before.
I replied, 'My brother has wronged me much. but he doth not say, 'I rent'.
Mr. C said, 'unless in not speaking in your defence, I do not know that I have wronged you at all.

I rejoined, 'It seems then nothing remains, but for each to choose which society he pleases.

then, after a short time spent in prayer, Mr. C went out and about half of those who were present, with him.
3.8  after preaching at Bristol,   on the abuse and the right use of the Lord's supper, I earnestly besought them at Kingswood to beware of offending 'in tongue', either against justice, mercy or truth. after sermon, the remains of our

*303  society met and found we had great reason to bless God, for that, after 52 were withdrawn,  we had still upwards of 90 left. O may these, at least, hold 'the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace!'

I will shut up this melancholy subject with part of a letter wrote by my brother about this time,

'If you think proper, you may show Brother c what follows.  (N.B. I did not think it proper then.)

'My dearest brother John C,  in much love and tenderness I speak.you came to Kingswood upon my brother's sending for you. you served under him in thee Gospel as a son. I need not say how well he loved you. you used the authority he gave you, to overthrow his doctrine: you every where contradicted it:  (whether true or false is not the question) but you ought first to have fairly told him, 'I preach contrary to you. are you willing, not withstanding, that I should continue in your house gainsaying (def - deny, dispute, contradict) you?If you are not, I have no place in these regions. you have a right to this open dealing. I now give you fair warning: shall I  stay here opposing you or shall I depart?
'my brother, have you dealt thus honestly and openly with him? No, but you have stolen q2ay the people's heart from him. and when some of them basely treated their best friend, god only excepted, how patiently did you take it! when did you ever vindicate us, as we have you? why did you not plainly tell them, 'You are eternally indebted to these men. think not that I will stay among you, to head a party against my dearest friend - and brother, as he suffers me to call him having humbled himself for my sake and given me (no Bishop, Priest or Deacon) the right hand of fellowship. if I hear one word more is spoken against him I will leave you that moment and never see your face more.

this had been just and honest and not more than we have deserved at your hands. I say We; for god is my witness, how condescendingly loving I have been toward you. yet did you so forget yourself, as both openly and privately to contradict my doctrine;  while, in the mean time, i was as a deaf man that heard not, neither answered a word, either in private or public.

ah, my brother! I am distressed for you. I would,  but you will not receive my saying. therefore I  can only commit you to Him who hath commanded us to forgive one another, even as God. for Christ's sake, hath forgiven us.

*304  I preached twice a Kingswood and twice at Bristol, on those words of a troubled sou,  'O that I had wings like a dove; for then would I flee away and be at rest.

one of the notes I received today was as follows;  'a person whom god has visited with a fever and has wonderfully preserved 7 days in a hay-mow,  without any sustenance but now and then a little water out of a ditch, desires to return god thanks. the person is present and ready to declare what God has done both for his body and soul. for the three first days of his illness, he felt nothing but the terrors of the Lord, greatly fearing lest he should drop into hell; till after long and earnest prayer, he felt himself given up to the will of god and equally content to live or die. then he fell into a refreshing slumber and awaked full of peace and the love of God.

3.17  from these words, 'shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?  I preached a sermon  (which I have not done before in kingswood-school since it was built) directly on Predestination. on Wed.  (and every Wednesday and Thurs. ) I saw the sick in Bristol: many of whom I found were blessing God for His seasonable visitation. in the evening i put those of the women who were grown slack, into distinct Bands by them selves and sharply reproved many for their unfaithfulness to the grace of God: who bore witness to His word, by pouring upon us all the spirit of mourning and supplication.

3.19  I visited many of the sick and among the rest, JW,  who was in grievous pain both of body and mind. after a short time spent in prayer, we left her. but her pain was gone. her soul being in full peace and her body also so strengthened, that she immediately rose and the next day went abroad.

3.21  I explained, in the evening, the 33rd chapter of Ezekiel. in applying which, I was suddenly seized with such a pain in my side, that I could not speak. I knew my remedy and immediately kneeled down. in a moment the pain was gone and the voice of the Lord cried aloud to the sinners, 'Why will ye die, O house of israel?
3.23  I visited the sick in Kingswood. one of whom surprised me much. her husband died of the fever some days before. she was seized immediately after his death, then her eldest daughter, then another and another of her children, 6 of whom were now sick round about her, without either physic,

*305  money, food or any visible means of procuring it. who but a christian can at such a time say from the heart,  'Blesssed be the name of the Lord?
finding all things now, both at Kingswood and Bristol. far more settled than I expected, I complied with my brother's request and setting out on 3.25, the next day came to London.

3.28  having heard much of Mr. Whitefield's unkind behaviour, since his return from Georgia, I went to him to hear him speak for himself, that I might know how to judge. I much approved of his plainness of speech. he told me, he and i preached 2 different gospels and therefore he not only would not join with or give me the right hand of fellowship, but was resolved publicly to preach against me  and my brother, wheresoever he preached at all. Mr. Hall (who went with me) put him in mind of the promise he had made but a few days before, that, whatever his private opinion was, he would never publicly preach against us. he said, that promise was only an effect of human weakness and he was now of another mind.
3.30 I fixed an hour every day for speaking with each of the Bands, that no disorderly walker might remain among them, now any of a careless or contentious spirit. and the hours from 10 to 2, on every day but Saturday, i set apart for speaking with any who should desire it.

4.1  at his earnest and repeated request, i went to see one under sentence of death in the New Prison. but the keeper told me , Mr. Wilson (the Curate of the parish) had given charge I should not speak with him. i am clear from the blood of this man. let Mr. Wilson answer for it to God.

4.4  I believed both love and justice required that I should speak my sentiments freely to Mr. Wh, concerning the letter he had published, said to be in answer to my Sermon on Free Grace. the sum of what I observed to him was this,
1. that it was quite imprudent to publish it at all, as being only the putting of weapons into their hands, who loved neither the one nor the other.
2. that if he was constrained to bear his testimony (as he termed it) against the error I was in, he might have done it by publishing a treatise on this head, without ever calling my name in question.
3. that what he had published was a mere burlesque (def - an artistic composition especially literary or dramatic that, for the sake of laughter, vulgarizes lofty material ...)upon an answer, leaving 4

*306  of my 8 arguments untouched and handling the other 4 in so gentle a manner, as if he was afraid they would burn his fingers:  however, that,
4. he had said enough of what was wholly foreign to the question, to make an open (and probably, irreparable ) breach between him and me: seeing  'for a treacherous wound and for the bewraying (def - reveal, expose, betray) of secrets,every friend will depart.

4.6 I had a long conversation with Peter Bohler. )note - a Moravian friend..I believe)  i marvel how I refrain from joining these men. I scarce ever see any of them but my heart burns within me. i long to be with them and yet I am kept from them.
4.7  I dined with one who had been a professed atheist for upwards of 20 years. but coming some months since to make sport with the word of god, it cut him to the heart. and he could have no rest day nor night, till the God whom he had denied spake peace to his soul.

in the evening, having desired all the Bands to meet,  I read over the names of the United Society and marked those who were of a doubtful character, that full inquiry might be made concerning them.

on 4.9  at the meeting of that society, I read over the names of these and desired to speak with each of them the next day, as soon as they had opportunity. many of them afterwards gave sufficient proof, that they were seeking Christ in sincerity. the rest I determined to keep on trial, till the doubts concerning them were removed.
4.10  in the evening, at short's Gardens, I read over, in order to expound, the 8th chapter to the Romans. but thoughts and words crowded in so fast upon me, that I could get not farther than the first verse: nor indeed, than that single clause, 'who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

4.14  I was much concerned for one of our sisters, who, having been but a few times with the still brethren was on a sudden so much wiser than her teachers, that i could neither understand her, nor she me.  nor could I help being a little surprised at the profound indifference she showed, who a few days before would have plucked out her eyes, had it been possible and given them to me.

4.15  I explained at Greyhound-lane, the latter part o the 4th chapter to the Ephesians. i was so weak in body, that I could hardly stand, but my spirit was much strengthened.

I found myself growing sensibly weaker all thurs; so

*307    that on Fri. 17, I could scarce get out of bed and almost as soon as I was up, was constrained to lie down again. nevertheless I made shift to drag myself on, in the evening, to Short's Gardens. having, not without difficulty, got up the stairs, i read those words,  9though scarce intelligibly, for my voice too was almost gone) 'whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate.  in a moment both my voice and strength returned:  and from tat time, for some weeks, I found such bodily strength, as i had never done before, since my landing in america.
5.20 being greatly concerned for those who were tossed about with diverse winds of doctrine , many of whom were again entangled in sin and carried away captive by Satan at his will; I besought God to show me where these would end and opened my Bible on these words, 'and there was nothing lacking to them, neither small nor great, neither sons nor daughters, neither spoil nor any thing that they had taken them. David recovered all.'
5.21  I wrote to my brother, then at Bristol, in the following words:

as yet I dare in no wise join with the Moravians:
1. because their general scheme is mystical, not scriptural;  refined in every point above what is written; immeasurably beyond the plain Gospel.
2. because there is darkness and closeness in all their behaviour and guile in almost all their words.
3. because they not only do not practise, but utterly despise and decry, self-denial and the daily cross.
4. because they conform to the world, in wearing gold and gay or costly apparel.
5. because they are by no means zealous of good works, or at least only to their own people:
for these reasons (chiefly) II will rather, God being my helper, stand quite alone than join with them: I mean till I have full assurance, that they are better acquainted with 'the truth as it is in Jesus.

5.1  I was with one who told me, she had been hitherto taught of man; but now she was taught of God only. she added,  that God had told her not to partake of the Lord's Supper any more; since she fed upon Christ continually. O who is secure from Satan transforming Himself into an angel of light.

in the evening I went to a little love feast which peter Bohler made for those 10  who joined together on this day 3

*308  years,  'to confess our faults one to another'. 7 of us were present; one being sick and two unwilling to come. surely the time will return, when there shall be again
Union of mind, as in us all one soul!
5.2  I had a conversation of several hours with P. Bohler and Mr. Spangenberg.  our subject was, a new creature; Mr. spangenberg's account of which was this:
'the moment we are justified, a new creature is put into us. this is otherwise termed, the new man.

but notwithstanding, the old creature or the old man remains in us till the day of our death.
and in this old man there remains an old heart, corrupt and abominable. for inward corruption remains in the soul as long as the soul remains in the body.

but the heart which is in the new man is clean. and the new man is stronger than the old;  so that though corruption continually strives, yet while we look to Christ it cannot prevail.

I asked him,  'Is there still an old man in you?

he said,  'yes and will be as long s I live.

I said, 'Is there then corruption in your heart?

he replied, 'In the heart of my old man there is:  but not in the heart of my new man.

I asked,  'does the experience of your brethren agree with yours?

he answered,  'I know what I have now spoken is the experience of all the brethren and sisters throughout our Church.

a few of our brethren and sisters sitting by, then spoke what they experienced.
He told them with great emotion, (his hand trembling much,) 'You all deceive your own souls.
there is no higher state than that I have described.
you are in a very dangerous error.
you know not your own hearts.
you fancy your corruptions are taken away, whereas they are only covered.
inward corruption never can be taken away, till our bodies are in the dust.

was there inward corruption in our Lord?
Or, cannot the servant be as his Master?

*309   5.6  was a day on which we agreed to meet for prayer and humbling our souls before God, if haply he might show us His will concerning our re-union with our brethren of Fetter-lane. and to this intent all the men and women Bands met at one in the afternoon. nor did our Lord cast out our prayer, or leave Himself without witness among us.  but it was clear to all, even those who were before the most eagerly desirous of it, that the time was not come.
1. because they had not given up their most essentially erroneous doctrines and,
2. because many of us had found so much guile in their words, that we could scarce tell what they really held and what not.
5.7  I reminded the United  Society, that
many of our brethren and sisters had not needful food;
many were destitute of convenient clothing;
many were out of business and that without their own fault and
many sick and ready to perish:
that I had done what in me lay to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to employ the poor and to visit the sick, but was not, alone, sufficient for these things and therefore desired all whose hearts were as my heart,
1. to bring what clothes each could spare, to be distributed among those  that wanted most.
2. to give weekly a penny or what they could afford, for the relief of the poor and sick.

my design, I told them, is to employ,  for the present, all the women who are out of business and desire it, in knitting.
to these we will first give the common price for what work they do and then add, according as they need.

12 persons are appointed to inspect these and to visit and provide things needful for the sick.

each of these is to visit all the sick within their district, every other day: and to meet on Tuesday evening, to give an account of what they have done and consult what can be done farther.

this week the Lord of the harvest began to put in His sickle among us. on Tues. our brother Price, our sister Bowes on Wed., today our sister Hawthorn, died. they

*310   all went in full and certain hope, to Him whom their soul loved.

5.8 I found myself much out of order. however, I made shift to preach in the evening,  but on Sat. my bodily strength quite failed, so that for several hours I could scarce lift up my head. Sun. 10 I was obliged to lie down most part of the day, being easy only in that posture. yet in the evening my weakness was suspended, while I  was calling sinners to repentance. but at our love-feast which followed, beside the pain in my back and head and the fever which still continued upon me, just as I began to pray,  I was seized with such a cough, that I could hardly speak. at the same time came strongly into my mind, 'These signs shall follow them that believe. I called on Jesus aloud, to 'increase my faith' and to 'confirm the word of His grace. while I was speaking , my pain vanished away:  the fever left me;  my bodily strength returned;and  for may weeks I felt neither weakness nor pain.  'Unto Thee O Lord, do I give thanks.
5.14  hearing that one was in a high fever, of whom I had for some time stood in doubt, I went to her and asked how she did. she replied,  'I am very ill,  but I am very well. O I am happy, happy, happy!  for my spirit continually rejoices in God my Saviour.  all the angels in heaven rejoice in my Saviour. and i rejoice with them, for i am united to Jesus.
she added, 'How the angels rejoice over an heir of salvation! How they now rejoice over me! and I am partaker of their joy. O my Saviour, how happy am I in Thee!

5.15  I called again. she was saying as i came in, 'My Beloved is mine and He hath cleansed me from all sin.  O how far is the heaven above the earth! so far hath He set my sins from me. O how did He rejoice, when 'He was heard in that He feared! He was heard and He gained a possibility of salvation for me and all mankind. It is finished:  His grace is free for all: i am a witness:  I was the chief of sinners, a backsliding sinner, a sinner against light and love: But I am washed: I am cleansed.

I asked,  'Do you expect to die now?  she said, 'It is not shown me that I shall. but life or death is all one to me. I shall not change my company. yet I shall more abundantly rejoice when we stand before the Lord;  you and i and all the other children which He hath given you.

*311  in the evening I called upon her again, and found her weaker and her speech much altered. I asked her,  'Do you now believe?  do not you find your soul in temptation? she answered, smiling and looking up,  'There is the Lamb:  and where He is, what is temptation?  I have no darkness, no cloud. the enemy may come, but he hath no part in me.  I said,  'but does not your sickness hinder you? she replied, 'Nothing hinders me. it is the Spirit of my Father that worketh in me: and nothing hinders that Spirit. my body indeed is weak and in pain: but my soul is all joy and praise.

5.16  I mentioned this to Peter Bohler. but he told me, 'there is no such state on earth. sin will and must always remain in the soul. the old man will remain till death. the old nature is like an old tooth.  you may break off one bit and another and another, but you can never get it all away. the stump of it will stay as long as you live and sometimes will ache too.

5.18  at the pressing instance of my brother, I left London, and the next evening met him at Bristol. I was a little surprised when i came into the room, just after he had ended his sermon.  some wept aloud; some clapped their hands; some shouted and the rest sang praise; with whom (having soon recovered themselves) the whole congregation joined. so I trust, if ever God were pleased that we should be swallowed up in the voice of praise and thanksgiving.

5.20  I spent most of the morning  in speaking with the new members of the society. in the afternoon I saw the sick; but not one in fear, neither repining against God.

5.21  in the evening i published the great decree of god, eternal, unchangeable, (so miserably misunderstood and misrepresented by vain men that would be wise) 'He that believeth shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be damned.
5.23  at a meeting of the Stewards of the society, (who receive and expend what is contributed weekly) it was found needful to retrench the expenses;  the contributions not answering thereto and it was accordingly agreed to discharge 2 of the Schoolmasters at Bristol; the present fund being barely sufficient to keep 2 Masters and a Mistress here and one Master and a Mistress at Kingswood.

*312  5.25  having settled all the business on which I came, i set out early and on Tues. called at Windsor. I found here also a few, who have peace with God and are full of love both to Him and to one another. in the evening I preached at the Foundery, on,  'stand still and see the salvation of the Lord.
5.29  I spent an hour with poor Mr. M---e. his usual frown was vanished away. his look was clear, open and composed. . he listened to the word of reconciliation with all possible marks of deep attention, though he was too weak to speak. before I went , we commended him to the grace of God, in confidence that our prayer was heard: to whom, at 2 in the morning, he resigned his spirit, without any sigh or groan.
62  I spoke plainly to Mr. Piers, who told me he had been much shaken by the still brethren. but the snare is broken: I left him rejoicing in hope and praising God for the consolation. 

6.4   I exhorted a crowded congregation, not to 'receive the grace of god in vain'.  the same exhortation i enforced on the society: (about 900 persons) and by their fruits it doth appear that they begin to love one another, 'not in word' only,  'but in deed and in truth'.

6.7  I preached in Charles' Square, on,  'the hour is coming and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God and they that hear shall live'.  a violent storm began about the middle of the sermon: but these things move not those who seek the Lord. so much the more was His power present to heal; insomuch that many of our hearts danced for joy, praising 'the glorious God that maketh the thunder.
6.8  I set out from Enfield-Chace for Leicestershire. in the evening we came to Northampton: and the next afternoon to Mr. Ellis's at Markfield, 5 or 6 miles beyond Leicester.

*313  for these 2 days, I had made an experiment which I had been so often and earnestly pressed to do:  Speaking to none concerning the things of God, unless my heart was free to it. and what was the event? Why,
1. that i spoke to none at all for 80 miles together:  No, not even to him that travelled with me in the chaise, unless a few words at first setting out. 2
2. that I had no cross either to bear or to take up and commonly in an hour or 2 fell fast asleep.
3. that I had much respect shown me wherever I came; everyone behaving to me, as to a civil, good-natured gentleman. O how pleasing is all this to flesh and blood! Need ye 'compass sea and land, to make 'proselytes'  to this?

*314  ...one of our company seemed a little offended when I had done, at 'a vile fellow, notorious all over the country for cursing, swearing and drunkeness; though he was now grey-headed, being near 80 years of age. he came to me and catching me hold by the hands, said,  'Whether thou art a good or a bad man, I know not; but I know the words thou speakest are good.  i never heard the like in all my life. O that God would set them home upon My poor soul!  He then burst into tears so that he could speak no more. 

*315    6.14  I rode to Nottingham again and at 8 preached at the market-place,  to an immense multitude of people, on 'the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live. i saw only one or two who behaved lightly,  whom I immediately spoke to and they stood reproved. yet soon after, a man behind me began aloud to contradict and blaspheme; but upon my turning to him, he stepped behind a pillar and in a few minutes disappeared.

in the after noon we returned to markfield. the church was so excessive hot (being crowded in every corner) that I could not, without difficulty, read the Evening Service. being afterwards informed that abundance of people were still without, who could not possibly get into the church, I went out to them and explained that great promise of our Lord, 'i will heal their backslidings: I will love them freely.  in the evening i expounded in the church,on her who 'loved much, because she had much forgiven.

*316  ... 6.16  in the evening I came to London and preached on those words, (Gal. 6.15) 'In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.  after reading Luther's miserable comment upon the text,  I thought it my bounden duty openly to warn the congregation against that dangerous treatise and to retract whatever recommendation I might ignorantly have given of it.

*317...6.28  I showed in the morning at large,  'where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty';  liberty from sin; liberty to be, to do and to suffer, according to the written word. at 5 I preached at Charles' Square,  to the largest congregation that, I believe, was ever seen there on, 'Almost Thou persuadest me to be a Christin'.  as soon as I had done,I quite lost my voice. but it was immediately restored, when i came to our little flock,with the blessing of the gospel of peace; and I spent an hour and half in exhortation and prayer, without any hoarseness, faintness o weariness...

7.4  I  had much talk with Mr. V---, who allowed,
1. that there are many (not one only) commands of God, both to believers and unbelievers and,
2, that the Lord's Supper, the Scripture and both public and private prayer, are god's ordinary means of conveying grace to man. but what will this private confession avail, so long as the quite contrary is still declared in those '16 Discourses' published to all the worked and never yet either corrected or retracted? 
7.6  looking for a book in our College Library, I took down, by mistake, the Works of Episcopius;  which opening on an account of the Synod of Dort, I believed it might be useful to read it through. but what a scene is here disclosed!  I wonder not at the heavy curse of God, which so soon after fell on our Church and nation. what a pity it is, that the Holy Synod

*318  of Trent and that of Dort, did not sit at the same time; nearly allied as they were, not only as to the Purity of Doctrine which each of them established, but also as to the Spirit wherewith they acted; if the latter did not exceed!
7.9  being in the Bodleian Library, I light on Mr. Calvin's account of the case of Michael Serevtus; several of whose letters he occasionally inserts; wherein Servetus often declares in terms, 'I believe the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God, Mr. Calvin, however,  paints him such a monster as never was,  -and Arian, a blasphemer and what not:  besides strewing over him his flowers of 'dog, devil, swine' and so on;  which are the usual appellations he give to his opponents. but still he utterly denies his being the cause of Servetus's death. 'No, says he, I only advised our Magistrates, as having a right to restrain heretics by the sword, to seize upon and try that arch-heretic. but after he was condemned, I Said Not One Word About His Execution'!

7.10  I rode to London and preached at Short's Gardens, on,  'the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.  Sun, 12.  while I was showing, at Charles' Square, what it is 'to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God', a great shout began. many of the rabble had brought an ox, which they were vehemently labouring to drive in among the people. but their labour was in vain, for in spite of them all he ran round and round, one way and the other and at length broke through the midst of them clear away, leaving us calmly rejoicing and praising God.

*319  7.22  at the repeated instance of some that were there,i went over to Abingdon. i preached on,  'What must i do to be saved?  both the yard and house were full. but so stupid, senseless a people, both in a spiritual and natural sense, i scarce ever saw before. yet God is able, of 'these stones, to raise up children to Abraham. 
7.27  finding notice had been given, that i would preach in the evening at Hackney,I went thither, and openly declared those glad tidings, 'By grace are ye saved through faith. many, we heard, had threatened terrible things;  but no man opened his mouth. perceive ye not yet,that 'greater is He that is in us, than He that is in the world?
7.28  I visited one that was going heavily and in fear  'through the valley of the shadow of death.  but god heard the prayer and soon lifted up the light of His countenance upon her;  so that she immediately broke out into thanksgiving and the next day quietly fell sleep.

7.31  hearing that one of our sisters (Jane Muncy) was ill, I went to see her. she was one of he first women bands at

*320   Fetter-lane and, when the controversy concerning the means of grace began, stood in the gap and contended earnestly for the ordinances once delivered to the saints. when, soon after, it was ordered, that the unmarried men and women should have no conversation with each other, she again withstood to the face those who were 'teaching for doctrines the commandments of men'.  nor could all the sophistry of those who are, without controversy, of all men living the wisest in their generation, induce her either to deny the faith she had received, or to be less zealous in recommending and careful in practising good works. insomuch that many times, when she had been employed in the labour of love, till 8 or 9 in the evening, she then sat down and wrought with her hands till 12 or 1 in the morning; not that she wanted any thing herself, but that she might have to give to others for necessary uses.

from the time that she was made leader of one or two bands, she was more eminently a pattern to the flock:  in self-denial of every kind, in openness of behaviour, in simplicity and godly sincerity, in steadfast faith, in constant attendance on all the public and all the private ordinances of god. and as she had work to do which she knew not of. the master of the house was one who 'cared for none of these things'.  but he observed her and was convinced. so that he then began to understand and lay to heart the things that bring a man peace at the last.

in a few days the fever abated or settled, as it seemed, into an inward imposthume (def -abcess); so that she could not breath without violent pain, which increased day and night. when I came in, she stretched out her hand said, 'Art thou come, thou blessed of the Lord? praise be the name of my Lord for this.  I asked, 'Do you faint, now you are chastened of him?  she said, 'O No, no, no; I faint not; I murmur not; I rejoice evermore. I said, 'But can you in everything give thanks? she replied, 'Yes; I do, I do. I said, 'God will make all your bed in your sickness. she cried out,'He doesn't he does; I have nothing to do but to praise Him.
in the same state of mind, though weaker and weaker in

*321  body , she continued till Tuesday following; when several of those who had been in her Band being present, she fixed her eyes upon them and fell into a kind of agonizing prayer, that God would keep them from the evil one. but in the afternoon, when I  came,  she was quite calm again and all her words were prayer and praise. the same spirit she breathed when Mr. Maxfield called the next day and soon after he went, she slept in peace.  'A mother in Israel' hast thou been and 'thy works shall praise thee in the gates!'
8.1 I had along conversation with Mr. Ingham. we both agreed,
1. that none shall finally be saved, who have not, as they had opportunity, done all good works and
2. that if a justified person does not do good, as he has opportunity, he will lose the grace he has received; and if he 'repent'  not, and do the former works',  will perish eternally. but with regard to the unjustified, (if I understand him, we wholly disagreed. He believed it is not the will of God, that they should wait for faith in doing Good. I believe, this is the will of God and that they will never find Him unless they seek Him in this way.
8.12  I visited one whom God is purifying in the fire, in answer to the prayers of his wife, whom he was just going to beat,  (which he frequently did) when God smote him in a

*322  moment, so that his hand dropped and he fell down upon the ground, having no more strength than a new-born child. he has been confined to his bed ever since; but rejoices in hope  of the glory of God...
8.20  a clergyman having sent me word, that if I would preach in the evening on the text he named, he would come to hear me, I preached on that text, Matt. 7.15.  and strongly enforced the caution of our Lord, to 'beware of false Prophets', that is, all Preachers who do not speak as the oracles of God.

8.26  I was informed of a remarkable conversation, at which one of our sisters was present a day or 2 before; wherein a gentleman was assuring his friends, that he himself was in Charles-Square,  when a person told Mr. Wesley to his face, that he, Mr. W,  had paid 20 pounds already, on being convicted for selling Geneva and that he now kept 2 Popish Priests in his house. this gave occasion to another to mention what he had himself heard, at an eminent Dissenting Teacher's, viz., that it was beyond dispute, Mr. W had large remittances from Spain, in order

*323  to make a party among the poor and that as soon as the Spaniards landed, he was to join them with 20,000 men.
8.31  I began my course of preaching on the Common Prayer. Tues. 9.1 I read over Mr Whitefield's account of God's dealing with his soul. great part of this I know to be true. O 'let not mercy and truth forsake thee! bind them about they neck! write them upon the table of thy heart!
9.3  James Hutton having sent me word, that Count Zinzendorf would meet me at 3 in the afternoon, I went at that time to Gray's Inn Walks. the most material part of our conversation (which I dare not conceal) was as follows:  To spare the dead I do not translate...(note - what follows is three pages of latin).

*326  John Wesley, a presbyter of the church of God in England, to the Church of God at Hernhuth in Upper Lusatia.
1. it may seem strange, that such an one as i am should take upon me to write to you. you I believe to be dear children, through faith which is in Jesus.  me you believe (as some of you have declared) to be 'a child of the devil, a servant of corruption'  yet whatsoever i am, or whatsoever you are, I beseech you to weigh the following words; if haply God,l who 'sendeth by whom He will send, may give you light thereby; although 'the mist of darkness' (as one of you affairs) should be reserved for me for ever.
2. my design is, freely and plainly to speak whatsoever i have seen or heard among you, in any part of your Church, which seems not agreeable to the Gospel of Christ. and my hope is, that the God whom you serve, will give you thoroughly to weigh what is spoken and if in any thing 'ye have been otherwise minded' than the truth is, 'will reveal even this unto you.
3.  and First, with regard to christian salvation, even the present salvation which is through faith, I have heard some of you affirm,
1. that it does not imply the proper taking away our sins, the cleansing our souls from all sin, but only the tearing the system of sin in pieces.
2. that it does not imply liberty from sinful thoughts.

4. I have heard some of you affirm, on the other hand,
A. THAT IT DOES IMPLY LIBERTY FROM THE COMMANDMENTS OF GOD, so that one who is saved through faith, is not obliged or bound to obey them, does not do anything as a commandment, or as a duty.
to support which they have affirmed, that there is
(foot - in the answer to this letter, which I received some weeks after, this is explained as follows:  'all things which are a Commandment to the natural man, are a Promise to all that have been justified.  the thing itself is not lost, but the notion which people are wont to have of commandments, duties, etc. I reply,  1. if this be all you mean, why do you not  say so explicitly to all men?  2. whether this be all,  let any  reasonable man judge, when he has read what is here subjoined.

no commandment in the New Testament but to believe;
that there is no duty required therein, but that of believing, and
that to the believer  there is no commandment at all.
B. that IT DOES IMPLY LIBERTY TO CONFORM TO THE WORLD

*327  by talking on useless, if not trifling subjects;

(foot #1 - the brethren  answer to this, 'We believe it much better to discourse out of the newspapers, than to chatter about holy things to no purpose'. perhaps so. but what is this to the point? I believe both the one and the other to be useless and therefore an abomination to the Lord.
this objection then stands in full force, the fact alleged being rather defended than denied.
the joining in worldly diversions in order to do good,  (another charge which cannot be denied,) I think would admit of the same defence, viz., 'that there are other things as bad'.)

by talking on useless, if not trifling subjects;
by joining in worldly diversions in order to do good;
by putting on of gold and costly apparel
the joining in worldly diversions in order to do good
by putting on of gold and costly apparel, or by continuing in those professions, the gain of which depends on ministering hereto.

 (foot #2- 'we wear, say the brethren, neither gold nor silver'. you forget. I have seen it with my eyes. 'but we judge nobody that does'. How! then you must judge both St. Peter and Paul false witnesses before God. 'and because those professions that minister thereto (to sin, to what God has flatly forbidden ) relate to trade and trade is a thing relating to the Magistrate, we therefore let all these things alone, entirely suspending our judgment concerning them.'
what miserable work is here! because trade relates to the Magistrate, am i not to consider whether my trade be innocent or sinful? then, the keeper of a Venetian brothel is clear. the Magistrate shall answer for him to God!

C. THAT IT DOES IMPLY LIBERTY TO AVOID PERSECUTION,

by not reproving even those who sin in your sight

(foot #3 - this fact also you grant and defend thus:  'the power of reproving relates either to outward things or to the  heart. nobody has any right to  the former, but the Magistrate. (Alas, alas what casuistry (def - specious, deceptive, over subtle  reasoning..especially in the  area of morality) is this?) and if one will speak to the heart, he must be first sue that the Savior has already got hold of it'.  what then must become of all other me? O how pleasing is all this to  flesh and blood!

by not letting your light shine before those men who love darkness rather than light;
by not using plainness of speech and a frank, open carriage to all men.

nay, by a close, dark, reserved conversation and behaviour, especially toward strangers and in many of you I have more than once found (what you called, 'being wise as serpents')
much subtlety,
much evasion and disguise,
much guile and dissimulation.
you appeared to be what you were not or not to be what you were. you so studied 'to become all things to all men',  as to take the colour and shape of any that were near you so that your practice was indeed no proof of your judgment; but only an indication of your design, (nulli loedere or) and of your conformity to that (not scriptural) maxim, sinere mundum vadere ut vult:  Nam vult vadere. (foot - to let the world go as it will: for it will go.)

*328  Secondly, with regard to that faith through which we are saved, I have heard many of you say, 'A man may have justifying faith and not know it'.
others of you, who are now in England, (particularly Mr. Molther)  I have heard affirm, (foot - in the preface to the second Journal the Moravian Church is cleared from this mistake.)
that there is no such thing as weak faith;
that there are no degrees in faith;
that there is no justifying faith, where there is ever any doubt;
that there is no justifying faith without the plerophory (def - fullness of assurance; plApophoros = bringing satisfaction), the clear, abiding witness of the Spirit;
that there is no justifying faith, where there is not, in the full, proper sense, a new or clean heart and
that those who have not these 2 gifts, are only awakened, not justifiied.

thirdly, as to the way to faith, here are many among us, whom some of your brethren have advised (what it is not to be supposed they would as yet speak to me, or in their public preaching)*

(foot - the substance of the answer to this and the following paragraph is
1. that none ought to communicate till he has faith, that is, a sure trust in the mercy of God through Christ. this is granting the charge.
2. that 'if the Methodists hold, this sacrament is a means of getting faith,  they must act according to their persuasion'.
we do hold it and know it to be so, to many of those who are previously convinced of sin. 

*continued...not to use those ordinances which our Church terms 'mesns of greace', till they have such a faith as implies a clean heart and excludes all possibility of doubting. they have advised them, till then,
not to search the Scriptures,
not to pray,
not to communicate (def - partake of the Eucharist)
and have often affirmed that to do these things, is seeking salvation by works; and that till these works are laid aside, no man can receive faith, for, 'No man, say they, can do these things without trusting in them.
 if he doesn't not trust in them, why does he do them?

7. to those who answered,  'It is our duty to use the ordinances of Christ, the use of which is now bound upon Christians as a duty, or which we are commanded to use. as to those you mention in particular, (ie. prayer, communicating and searching the Scripture)  if a man have faith, he need not, if he have not, he must not use them. a believer may use them, though not as enjoined, but an unbeliever (as before defined) may not'.
8. to those who answered,  'I hope God will through these means convey his grace to my soul, they replied,
'there is no such thing as means of grace. Christ has not ordained any such  in His Church.  but if

*329  there were, they are nothing to you
for you are dead;
you have no faith; and
you cannot work while you are dead.
therefore, let these thing alone till you have faith.

9. and some of our English brethren , who are joined with yours, have said openly,
'You will never have faith till you leave running about to church and sacrament and societies'.

another of them has said, (in his public expounding),
'as many go to hell by praying as by thieving'.

another, 'I knew one, who, leaning over the back of a chair, received a great gift.  but he must kneel down to give God thanks:  so he lost it immediately. and I know not whether he will ever have it again'.

and yet another, 'You have lost your first joy, therefore you pray. that is the Devil'.

10. let not any of you, my brethren, say, 'We are not chargeable with what they speak.
indeed you are for you can hinder it, if you will.
therefore, if you do not, it must be charged upon you.
if you do not use the power which is in your hands and thereby prevent their speaking thus,
you do, in effect, speak thus yourselves.
you make their words your own and are, accordingly chargeable with every ill consequence which may flow therefrom.

11. Fourthly, with regard to your Church *(see FOOT below) you greatly,  yea, above measure, exalt yourselves and despise others.
i have scarce heard one Moravian brother, in my life, own his Church to be wrong in any thing.

many of you I have heard speak of your Church, as if it were (go to *330 below

*FOOT - 'a religion' you say, 'and a Church, are not all one.
a religion is an assembly wherein the Holy Scriptures are taught after a prescribed rule.'
( Wesley) this is too narrow a definition.
for there are many Pagan (as well as a Mahometan) religions.
rather a religion is a method of worshipping God, whether in a right or a wrong manner.

'the Lord has such a peculiar hand in the several constitutions of religion, that one ought to respect every one of them.'
(Wesley) I  cannot possibly. I cannot respect, either the Jewish (as it is now) or the Romish religion.
you add,
'a Church (I will not examine whether there are any in this present age or whether there is no other beside ours) is a congregation of sinners who have obtained forgiveness of sins. that such a congregation should be in an error, cannot easily happen'.

I find no reason, therefore, to retract any thing which is advanced on this or any of the following heads.

(NOTE: IS THE DEVIL (means, 'LIAR') NOT IN EVIDENCE HERE? .. in this intense dispute between John Wesley and the Moravian Church,...a group from whom came some of the most godly saints whose godly life and example were used of God to draw Wesley from a state of great religious uncertainty to genuine faith in Christ? one time, reading through I and II Timothy I was struck by the number a Paul's instructions concerning the use of the tongue. he hedged it in and restricted it to, if I remember properly, using the tongue to proclaim the Bible and a REFUSAL TO GET INVOLVED WITH DISPUTES ABOUT WORDS. it seems Wesley seeks to follow this pattern, by here,  delivering his soul and putting the discussion behind him.)

*330  infallible) or, so led by the Spirit, that it was not possible for it to err in any thing.

some of you have said, that there is no true church on earth by yours;  yea, that there are no true Christians out of it. and your own members you require to have implicit faith in her decisions and to pay implicit obedience to her directions.

12. Fifthly, you receive not the ancient , but the modern Mystics, as the best interpreters of Scripture and in conformity to these, you mix much of man's wisdom with the wisdom of God.  you greatly refine the plain religion taught by the letter of Holy Writ and philosophize on almost every part of it, to accommodate it to the Mystic theory. hence you talk much, in a manner wholly unsupported by Scripture,  against mixing nature with grace, against imagination and concerning the animal spirits, mimicking the power of the Holy Ghost. hence your brethren zealously caution us against animal joy, against natural love of one another and against selfish love of God; against which (or any of them) there is no one caution in all the Bible. and they have, in truth, greatly lessened, and had well nigh destroyed, brotherly love from among us.
13. in conformity to the Mystics, you likewise greatly check joy in the Holy Ghost, by such cautions against sensible comforts, as have no tittle of Scripture to support them. hence also your brethren here damp the zeal of babes in Christ, talking much of false zeal, forbidding them to declare what God hath done for their souls, even when their hearts burn within them to declare it and comparing those to uncorked bottles, who simply and artlessly speak of the ability which God giveth.

14. hence, lastly, it is, that you undervalue good works, (especially works of outward mercy) never publicly insisting on the necessity of them, nor declaring their weight and excellency. hence, when some of your brethren have spoken of them, they put them on a wrong foot; viz.  'if you find yourself moved, if your heart is free to it, then reprove, exhort, relieve.  by this means you wholly avoid the taking up your cross, in order to do good and also substitute an uncertain, precarious inward

*331  motion, in the place of the plain written word. nay, one of your members has said of good works in general, (whether works of piety or of charity) ' a believer is no more obliged to do these works of the Law,  than a subject of the King of England is obliged to obey the laws of the King of France.

15  My brethren, whether ye will hear or whether ye will forbear,  I have now delivered my own soul. and this I  have chosen to do in an artless manner, that if any thing should come home to your hearts, the effect might evidently flow, not from the wisdom of man, but from the power of God.
                                                                                                                  August 8, 1740

thus have I declared and in the plainest manner I can, the real controversy between us and the Moravian brethren, an unpleasing task, which I have delayed, at least, as long as I could with a clear conscience. but i am constrained at length nakedly to speak the thing as it is, that i may not hinder the work of God.
I am very sensible of the objection which has so often been made, viz.,  'You are inconsistent with yourself. you did tenderly love, highly esteem and zealously recommend these very men. and now you do not love or esteem them at all. you not only do not recommend them, but are bitter against them; nay and rail at them, before all the world.
 this is partly true and partly false. that the whole case may be better understood, it will be needful to give a short account of what has occurred between us from the beginning.

my first acquaintance with the Moravian brethren began in my voyage to Georgia. being then with many of them in the same ship, I narrowly observed their whole behaviour. and I greatly approved of all I saw. therefore I unbosomed myself to them without reserve.

from Feb 14, 1735 to Dec. 2, 1737, being with them (except when I went to Frederica or Carolina) twice or thrice every day, i loved and esteemed them more and more. yet a few things I could not approve of. these i mentioned to them from time to time and then commended the cause to God.  

in Feb. following I met with peter Bohler. my heart clave to him as soon as he spoke. and the more we conversed, so much the more did I esteem both him and all the Moravian

*332  Church, so that I had no rest in my spirit till I executed the design which I had formed long before till after a short stay in Holland, I hastened forward, first to Marienborn and then to Hernhuth.

in Sept. 1738, soon after my return to England, I began the following letter to the Moravian Church. but being fearful of trusting my own judgment, I determined to wait yet a little longer and so laid it by unfinished
My Dear Brethren,
I cannot but rejoice in your steadfast faith, in your love to our blessed Redeemer, your deadness to the world; your meekness, temperance, chastity and love of one another. I greatly approve of your Conferences and Bands;  of your method of instructing children and , in general, of your great care of the  souls committed to your charge.
but of some other things I stand in doubt, which I will mention in love and meekness. and I wish that, in order to remove those doubts, you would on each of those heads,
First Plainly answer, whether the fact be as I suppose and, if so,
Secondly, consider whether it be right.
Do you not wholly neglect joint fasting?
is not the Count all in all?
are not the rest mere shadows, calling him Rabbi, almost implicitly both believing and obey him?
is there no something of levity in your behaviour? are you, in general, serious enough?
are you zealous and watchful to redeem time?
do you not sometimes fall into trifling conversation?
do you not magnify your own Church too much?
do you believe any who are not of it to be in gospel liberty?
are you not straitened in your love?
do you love your enemies and wicked men as yourselves?
do you not mix human wisdom with divine; joining worldly prudence to heavenly?
do you not use cunning, guile or dissimulation (def - the act of making or becoming unlike) in many cases?
are you not of a close, dark, reserved temper and behaviour
is not the spirit of secrecy the spirit of your community?
have you that child-like openness, frankness and plainness of speech, so manifest to all in the Apostles and first Christians?

it may easily be seen that my objections, then, were nearly

*333 the same as now. yet I cannot say my affection was lessened at all, till after Sept. 1739,  when certain men among us began to trouble their brethren and subvert their souls. however, i cleared the Moravians still and laid the whole blame on our English brethren.
but  from Nov. 1, I could not but see (unwilling as I was to see them) more and more things which I could in no wise reconcile with the Gospel of Christ. and these I  have set down with all simplicity, as they occurred in order of time: believing myself indispensably obliged so to do, both in duty to God and man.
yet do I this, because I love them not? God knoweth;  yea and in part I esteem them still, because I verily believe, they have a sincere desire to serve God, because many of them have tasted of His love and some retain it in simplicity, because they love one another,  because they have So Much of the truth of the Gospel and So Far abstain from outward sin and, lastly,  because their discipline is, in most respects, so truly excellent.
'but why then are you bitter against them? I do not know that I am. let the impartial reader judge. and if any bitter word has escaped my notice, I here utterly retract it. 'but do not you rail at them? I hope not. god forbid that I should rail at a Turk, infidel or heretic. to one who advanced the most dangerous error, I durst say no more than, 'The Lord rebuke thee'. but i would point out what those errors were and, I trust, in the spirit of meekness. 
in this spirit, my brethren, I have read and endeavoured to consider, all the books you have published in England, that I might inform myself whether, on farther consideration, you had retracted the errors which were advanced before. but it does by no means appear that you have retracted any of them,  for, waiving the odd and affected phrases therein; the weak, mean, silly, childish expressions; the crude, confused and indigested notions; the whims, unsupported either by Scripture or sound reason; yea, waiving those  assertions which, though contrary to Scripture and matter of fact, are, however, of no importance; those 3 grand errors run through almost all those books, viz., Universal Salvation, Antinomianism and a kind of new-reformed Quietism.
1. Can Universal Salvation be more explicitly asserted than it is in these words?

*334  'By this His name All can and Shall obtain life and salvation (Sixteen Discourses, p. 30) this Must include all Men,  at least and May include all Devils too.

Again,  'The name of the wicked will not be so much as mentioned on the great day.  (Seven Discourses, p.22) and if they are not so much as Mentioned, they cannot be Condemned.)

2. How can Antinomianism, (foot - I speak of Antinomian doctrine, abstracted from practice, good or bad.)  that is, making void the Law through faith, be more expressly taught than it is in these words-
'To believe certainly, that Christ suffered death fro us:  this is the true means to be saved at once:

'we want no more. for the history of Jesus coming into the world,  'is the power of god unto salvation to every one that believeth;  the bare historical knowledge of this.  (Sixteen Discourses, p. 57)

'there is but One Duty, which is that of Believing'. (Ibid., p. 193)

from any demand of the Law, no man is obliged now to go one step, to give away one farthing, to eat or omit one morsel.' (Seven Discourses, p.ll)
'What did our Lord do with the Law?  He abolished it'.  (Ibid., p33)

'Here one may think,  - this is a fine sort of Christianity,  where nothing good is commanded and nothing bad is forbid.  But thus it is'. (Ibid. ,p. 34)
'So one ought to speak now. all commands and prohibitions are unfit for our times.  (Ibid)

3. Is not the very essence of Quietism (though in a new shape) contained in these wards?-

'The whole matter lies in this, that we should Suffer Ourselves to be Relieved'.  (Sixteen Discourses, p. 17)
'One must Do Nothing, but Quietly Attend the voice of the Lord.

'To tell men who have not experienced the power of grace, what they should do and how they ought to behave, is as if you should send a lame man upon an errand'.  (Ibid., p.70)

'the beginning is not to be made with doing what our Saviour has commanded. for whosoever will begin with doing, 

*335  when he is dead, he can do nothing at all, but whatever he doeth in his own activity, is but a cobweb, that is, good for nothing. (Ibid,. pp. 72,81)
'as soon as we Remain Passive before Him as the wood which a table is to be made from, then something comes of us.(Seven Discourses, p.22)

O my brethren, let me conjure you yet again, in the name of our common Lord,  'if there by any consolation of love, if any bowels and mercies',  remove 'the fly' out of 'the pot of ointment' , separate 'the precious from the vile!' Review, I beseech you, your whole work and see if Satan hath gained no advantage over you. 'Very excellent things' have been spoken of thee, O thou city of God. but may not 'He which hath the sharp sword with two edges' say, Yet, 'I have a few things against thee? ' O that ye would repent of these, that ye might be 'a glorious Church:  not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing'.
3 things, above all, permit Me, even Me, to press upon you , with all the earnestness of love. First, with regard to your doctrine,  that ye purge out from among you the leaven of Antinomianism, wherewith you are so deeply infected and no longer 'make void the law through faith
Secondly, with regard to your discipline, that ye 'call no man Rabbi, Master,' Lord of your faith,  'upon earth'. subordination, I know , is needful and I can show you such a subordination, as in fact answers all Christian purposes and yet as widely distant from that among You, as the heavens are from the earth. Thirdly, with regard to your practice, that ye renounce all craft, cunning, subtlety, dissimulation; wisdom, falsely so called, that in all simplicity and godly sincerity' ye 'have your conversation in this world',  that ye use 'great plainness of speech' to all, whatever ye suffer thereby; seeking only, 'by manifestation of the truth'.  to 'commend' yourselves 'to every man's conscience in the sight of God.'