John Wesley

“ Thursday September 4. Blessed be God for the comfort I had in hearing dear Mr. W. at Penryn. I was tempted to impatience, both in the morning, when my husband stayed long before he set out: and at noon, when I was disappointed of being in Mr. W.’s company. But I looked up, and felt nothing but calmness and quietness of spirit.
Tuesday 9. I waked between four and five, with praises in my mouth. Glory be to God, I find an inlarged heart, to run the ways of the Lord with great delight. His love is sweeter than honey to my taste, and my will is swallowed up in his. ”

“ Would you help to increase that load, which made him cry out, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Does not your soul shudder at the thought? O my friend would you not rather die, gladly die, for this your suffering Lord? Would you not gladly be cut in ten thousand pieces to save him one pang? I know you would. And will you not strive against that sin, which increased his sufferings? Will you not strive, my love?—Yes, sure you will. Is not every thing we can give up by far too small a return for what the Redeemer has done for us? ”

“ Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. These are the words of the God of truth: and can you then, my dear friend, be discouraged because you are now mourning after this God, who only hides himself from you, that you may more earnestly seek him?—Heaviness may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. There certainly is no heaviness like this heaviness: when a soul has been sensible (though in the least degree) of the influences of the sun of righteousness, and finds his all-cheering beams withdrawn, how painful, how heavy is the darkness! ”

“ Tuesday 5. My poor heart still continued dead; no life, no power in drawing near to God. Still my soul is as a barren wilderness. Lord, water me with the dew of thy grace, then the wilderness will become a fruitful land, and the desert, springs of water.
Sunday 17. In retirement, both before and after preaching, I found my soul greatly led out to pray for faith, for myself, and my dear parents, and a measure of confidence, that God would hear my prayer: but alas for me, in the afternoon levity again prevailed, and I lost both the confidence, and power to pray for it. ”

“ Oh what a blessing of God accompanies the words of one who is uniformly a Christian, of one who spends and is spent for the service of his master, of one who has no view but the glory of God and the salvation of souls! Who would not strive earnestly to follow so bright an example? The very sight of such a person animates the soul in its warfare. O what soul, which is the least alive to God, would not even agonize to be perfectly renewed after the image of Christ? Is your heart, is my heart so dead, that this will not affect it?—Alas, I grieve for mine own—may God give me to rejoice for your’s. ”

“ And I begged the Lord to shew me, if there was any evil root left? As far as I know myself, I do not find there is: I do firmly believe, he hath purified me from all sin. But I am big with the desire of living nearer God: O how dear was he to me this night? Thou art altogether lovely: thou art fairer than the sons of men.
Thursday 14. Glory be to God, there has been a cry in my dear mother’s soul all this day. Lord, increase it! Thou hast set her sins in array before her. May she never rest till she rests in thee! ”

“ I found indeed they were not; for my soul was at home sweetly replenished with every blessing I could have hoped for at the altar. How much are those to be pitied who know not the love of God! How much are those to be pitied who set their hearts on any thing in this infant-state of existence! How poor, how low, how trifling is every thing, that does not look towards eternity! I have such an experimental sense of the nothingness of all worldly things, that they seem no more to me than dancing puppets ”

“ Happy are those who shall stand unmoved in the time of temptation. Happy are those who when all nature is agonizing around them can fly to the only rock of refuge, and there find shelter from the storm, and shadow from the heat. But above all happy are those, who shall have the glory of suffering for their Redeemer, of sealing their testimony with their blood, or in the midst of the fire shouting for joy, and blessing God for a martyr’s crown. ”

“ Oh, how sweet is a spirit of devotion, a spirit of seriousness and divine solemnity, a spirit of gospel simplicity, love, tenderness! Oh, how desirable, and how profitable to the Christian life, is a spirit of holy watchfulness, and godly jealousy over ourselves; when we are afraid of nothing so much as that we shall offend the blessed God, whom we apprehend, to be a father and a friend; whom we love and long to please! Surely this is a temper, worthy of the highest ambition and closest pursuit of intelligent creatures. ”

“ And may all the words he delivered be watered with the dew of thy heavenly grace!
Tuesday 16. Glory be to God, he has kept me in the hour of strong temptation. The enemy bears me a tyrannous hatred, and stirs up my bosom friends against me. Lord, thou knowest they lay to my charge things I know not. But thou art to me a place of broad rivers. And these light afflictions will work out for me an eternal weight of glory.
Wednesday, October 1. Blessed be God, he keeps me in trials from those who are nearest and dearest to me. What a powerful energy has love? ”

“ I MOURN for you, and may you mourn too from your very inmost soul, till God himself gives you the true comfort. Oh thou dear backslider, what shall I say? How shall I find words strong enough to make a lasting impression on a heart so inconstant, so slothful, and careless? Oh that the Spirit of God would assist my weak endeavours, and point my otherwise unavailing words! You own you do not strive earnestly: alas I too plainly see you do not. But the blessed Comforter strives with you, and still you resist and grieve him. ”

“ No examples of vital religion, no one to urge or encourage you to seek redemption! But the Almighty can indeed work by the weakest means, and the poorest instruments; nothing is too hard for the Lord: and Oh may he perfect the work he has begun!—Oh gracious and ever-blessed Redeemer, continue thy mercy to this brother of my soul; convince him more and more of the dreadful state he is in by nature, and the absolute necessity of justification by faith alone! ”

“ What can be more absurd than for one who desires to be a Christian, who desires the mind which was in Christ, who desires that justification by faith, which alone can produce in the heart true humility and meekness, deadness to the world, constant resignation to God, and fervent desire to do his will: than for such a person (in all the extravagance and glare of dress) to be swimming or skipping about a room, and wishing to draw the attention and admiration of the most vile and profligate part of the human species? ”

“ I HOPE your present circumstances do not prevent your constant watching over your own heart, and pressing forward in the way of holiness. In the midst of all these prospects death may come! And are you fit to die? We cannot too often ask ourselves this question. We cannot be too serious. There is only a moment between us and eternity. May the Lord Jesus so prepare us, that at whatever hour he calls we may be ready, our lamps trimmed, and we ourselves as those who wait for the bridegroom. Adieu, my dear. May the Almighty preserve you from all evil. ”

“ Set before your eyes your sins, with all their aggravations; and when your soul is weighed down to the dust under a sense of your own vileness, then throw yourself at the foot of the cross: there lie as a loathsome leper before the almighty healer: there let your parched soul gasp (with the utmost stretch of all your faculties) after those life-giving streams which flowed from Christ’s hands, his feet, his pierced side; and there keep the eye of your mind fixed, until the still small voice be heard in your soul—“Be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee.” ”

“ O my God, give me thyself; then shall this wilderness become like a watered garden which thou hast planted.
Thursday 24. I found my mind kept in a serious frame all the day, blessed be God.
Friday 25. I continued in a serious frame, which I bless God, lasted all the day. O how much sweeter is it to be in such a state, than to enjoy all that the world calls pleasure! But indeed it is only they who term it so. The people of God see there is no pleasure in these foolish things; for surely nothing can satisfy an immortal soul created for the enjoyment of God, but God himself. ”

“ I am to behave to people, whom I know to be my bitter enemies, whom I know to be continually seeking occasions of evil against me, as if they were my dear friends. Here every faculty of the soul is alarmed, and nature shrinks back affrighted. But what does grace say? “Lord I thank thee for this glorious trial! What a blessing is it I should be permitted to drink of the same cup my Saviour drank of! Oh bless these mine enemies; fill their hearts with thy love; let thy will be perfected both in them and me.” This temptation is conquered, but another and a more trying one immediately succeeds. ”

“ Constant and heart-felt resignation is a bulwark against every trial, and a foundation for solid peace, and joy transcendently pure. The whole state of a soul made perfect in love stands in that one petition, Thy will be done: and if we could but preserve that temper which these words describe, I know not what could hurt us. Suppose now when I first wake in a morning I should lift up my heart, “Lord I bless thee for this new day which thou hast given me. In this day I shall have fresh manifestations of thy will concerning me, either in comforts or in sufferings. ”

“ A spectacle for men and angels! A soul standing up under the intolerable weight of original sin! Troubled on every side! perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted by sin, the world, and the devil, but not forsaken; cast out, but not destroyed; walking on as evenly under that load of darkness, as if she had been in the broad light of God’s countenance. Whosoever thou art that seekest Christ sorrowing, go thou and do likewise.
In this agony she continued, till it pleased God to visit her with her last sickness. ”

“ How does a taste of thy love make every other love insipid! And a ray of thy light darken the brightest of created Beings! Oh when, when shall our souls be wholly swallowed up in thee! When shall we know thee even also as we are known! Thou knowest the desire of our hearts. Thou seest how our souls stretch, and pant after thee, even to fainting! Oh give us to drink of the waters of life, even in this our pilgrimage, until we come to drink freely of them from that river, which proceedeth out of the throne of God, and of the Lamb for ever and ever. Amen, Lord Jesus. ”

“ You must pray without ceasing, even in the fullest sense of the words and constantly strive to have strongly painted in your imagination Jesus Christ, and him crucified. There is nothing I think more tends to humble us, than the consideration of the sufferings of Christ. When you find yourself going to say or do any thing with a view to praise, think, this temper, this vanity of mine added to the weight of my Saviour’s sufferings, and made more bitter his cup of bitterness. Oh, if you had a soul capable of feeling, if you have one spark of gratitude, can you think this, and sin? ”

“ Oh Spirit of truth, descend on thine unworthy servants, and make us fully sensible of the seal of our redemption! Convince us still more deeply of our sins, and make us still more fully to know, that they are washed away by the blood of Jesus. Thou knowest the burdens we labour under, the dissipations of our thoughts, our wandrings in prayer, our spiritual sloth, and all the hardness of our hearts. Stir us up earnestly to seek after the things of God, and fix our inconstant minds. Thou knowest that we desire (for this desire comes from thee) that the love of the Father may abide in our hearts. ”

“ Why should we sink with any particular trials, we are called to encounter in the world? Death and eternity are just before us; a few tossing billows more will waft us to the world of spirits, and we hope (through infinite grace) into endless pleasures. Let us then “run with patience the race that is set before us.” And Oh that we could depend more upon the living God, and less upon our own wisdom and strength! Dear brother, may the God of all grace comfort your heart, and succeed your studies, and make you an instrument of good to his people. ”

“ Let other souls glory in mount Tabor; my joy shall be to stay with thee on mount Calvary, that I may be made conformable to thy death. Such would be the language of a soul truly sensible of the great benefit of suffering, and embracing, with sweet complacency, the cross, which thus united it with its Redeemer. May this be the language of your soul and mine; then shall we be found unshaken in the fiery trial, and come out as gold purified seven times. But after all, what suffering have I had in this illness? It can scarce be called suffering, when God sensibly supports. ”