says,

While it continued Wesley made a resolution to apply his spiritual labours not only to the whole crew collectively, but to every separate individual; and in the performance of this resolution he recovered his former elasticity of spirit, feeling no more of that fearfulness and heaviness which had lately weighed him down. Upon this change he "one who thinks the being in Orco, as they phrase it, an indispensable preparative for being Christian, would say I had better have continued in that state; and that this unseasonable relief was a curse not a blessing. Nay, but who art thou, O man, who in favour of a wretched hypothesis, thus blasphemest the good gift of God? Hath not he himself said,This also is the gift of God, if a man have power to rejoice in his labour?' Yea, God setteth his own seal to his weak endeavours, while he thus answereth him in the joy of his heart.""

The state of his mind at this time is peculiarly interesting, while it was thus agitated and impelled toward some vague object, as yet he knew not what, by the sense of duty and of power, and while those visitations of doubt were frequent, which darken the soul when they pass over it. “I went to America," he says, "to convert the Indians; but oh! who shall convert me? Who, what is he that will deliver me from this evil heart of unbelief? I have a fair summer religion, I can talk well, nay, and believe myself, while no danger is near but let death look me in the face and my spirit is troubled; nor can I say to die is gain. I think verily if the Gospel be true, I am safe: for

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

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known than myself, which I confess I conquered, not in a martial posture, but on my knees." What is remarkable in Wesley's case is that these misgivings of faith should have been felt by him chiefly in times of danger, which is directly contrary to general experience.

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And now he reviewed the progress of his own religious life. "For many years I have been tossed about by various winds of doctrine. asked long ago What must I do to be saved?' The Scripture answered, Keep the commandments, believe, hope, love.-I was early warned against laying, as the Papists do, too much stress on outward works, or on a faith without works, which as it does not include, so it will never lead to true hope or charity. Nor am I sensible that to this hour I have laid too much stress on either. But I fell among some Lutheran and Calvinist authors, who magnified faith to such an amazing size, that it hid all the rest of the commandments. I did not then see that this was the natural effect of their overgrown fear of popery, being so terrified with the cry of merit and good works, that they plunged at once into the other extreme; in this labyrinth I was utterly lost, not being able to find out what the error was, nor yet to reconcile this uncouth hypothesis, either with Scripture or common sense. The English writers, such as Bishop Beveridge, Bishop Taylor, and Mr. Nelson, a little relieved me from these well-meaning wrong-headed Germans. Only when they interpreted Scripture in different ways, I was often much at a loss. And there

was one thing much insisted on in Scripture,the unity of the church, which none of them, I thought, clearly explained. But it was not long before Providence brought me to those who shewed me a sure rule of interpreting Scripture, consensus veterum: Quod ab omnibus, quod ubique, quod semper creditum; at the same time they sufficiently insisted upon a due regard to the one church at all times and in all places. Nor was it long before I bent the bow too far the other way: by making antiquity a co-ordinate rather than sub-ordinate rule with Scripture; by admitting several doubtful writings; by extending antiquity too far; by believing more practices to have been universal in the ancient church than ever were so; by not considering that the decrees of a provincial synod could bind only that province, and the decrees of a general synod only those provinces whose representatives met therein; that most of those decrees were adapted to particular times and occasions, and consequently when those occasions ceased, must cease to bind even those provinces. These considerations insensibly stole upon me as I grew acquainted with the mystic writers, whose noble descriptions of union with God and internal religion, made every thing else appear mean, flat, and insipid. But in truth they made good works appear so too : yea, and faith itself, and what not? They gave me an entire new view of religion, nothing like any I had before. But alas! it was nothing like that religion which Christ and his apostles loved and taught. I had a plenary dispensation, from all the commands of

God; the form was thus: Love is all; all the commands beside are only means of love: you must chuse those which you feel are means to you, and use them as long as they are so. Thus were all the bands burst at once; and though I could never fully come into this, nor contentedly omit what God enjoined, yet, I know not how, I fluctuated between obedience and disobedience. I had no heart, no vigour, no zeal in obeying, continually doubting whether I was right or wrong, and never out of perplexities and entanglements. Nor can I at this hour give a distinct account, how or when I came a little back toward the right way; only my present sense is this, all the other enemies of Christianity are triflers, the mystics are the most dangerous; they stab it in the vitals, and its most serious professors are most likely to fall by them."

Having landed at Deal, the returning missionary recorded solemnly his own self-condemnation and sense of his own imperfect faith. “It is now,” he said, “two years and almost four months since I left my native country, in order to teach the Georgian Indians the nature of Christianity. But what have I learnt myself meantime? Why,-what I the least of all suspected, that I, who went to America to convert others, was never myself converted to God. I am not mad, though I thus speak, but I speak the words of truth and soberness; if haply some of those who still dream may awake, and see that as I am, so are they. Are they read