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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

in philosophy? So was I. In antient or modern tongues? So was I also. Are they versed in the science of divinity? I too have studied it many years. Can they talk fluently upon spiritual things? The very same could I do. Are they plenteous in alms? Behold, I gave all my goods to feed the poor. Do they give of their labour as well as their substance? I have laboured more abundantly than them all. Are they willing to suffer for their brethren? I have thrown up my friends, reputation, case, country. I have put my life in my hand wandering into strange lands; I have given my body to be devoured by the deep, parched up with heat, consumed by toil and weariness, or whatsoever God shall please to bring upon me. But does all this (be it more or less, it matters not,) make me acceptable to God? Does all I ever did, or can, know, say, give, do, or suffer, justify me in his sight? If the oracles of God are true, if we are still to abide by the Law and Testimony, all these things, though when ennobled by faith in Christ they are holy, and just, and good, yet without it are dung and dross. Thus then have I learned, in the ends of the earth, that my whole heart is altogether corrupt and abominable, and consequently my whole life: that my own works, my own sufferings, my own righteousness, are so far from reconciling me to an offended God, so far from making any atonement for the least of those sins, which are more in number than the hairs of my head, that the most specious of them need an

Os-that having the sentence and nothing in or of myself sexy Vane no àope but that of being justified e redemption that is in Jesus,-but week I shall find Christ, and be found in be said, that I have faith, (for many gs have I heard from many miserable www.exters,) I answer, so have the devils,

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faith; but still they are strangers to the coveas of promise. The faith I want is a sure trust and confidence in God, that through the merits of Christ my sins are forgiven, and I reconciled to the favour of God. I want that faith which none can have without knowing that he hath it (though many imagine they have it, who have it not); for whosoever hath it is freed from sin; the whole body of sin is destroyed in him: he is freed from fear, having peace with God through Christ, and rejoicing in hope of the glory of God. And he is freed from doubt, having the love of God shed abroad in his heart, through the Holy Ghost which is given unto him, which Spirit itself beareth witness with his spirit, that he is a child of God."

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Yet on reflecting upon the time which he had spent in Georgia, he saw many reasons to bless God for having carried him into that strange land. There he had been humbled and proved, there he had learned to know what was in his heart: there the passage had been opened for him to the writings of holy men in the German, Spanish, and Italian tongues; for he acquired the Spanish in

order to converse with his Jewish parishioners, and read prayers in Italian to a few Vaudois: and there he had been introduced to the church of Herrnhuth,—an event of considerable importance to his future life,

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CHAPTER IV.

OF WHITEFIELD DURING WESLEY'S AB-
WESLEY A PUPIL OF THE MORAVIANS.

WHITEFIELD sailed from the Downs for Georgia a few hours only before the vessel which brought Wesley back from thence cast anchor there. The ships passed in sight of each other, but neither of these remarkable men knew that so dear a friend was on the deck at which he was gazing. But when Wesley landed he learned that his coadjutor was on board the vessel in the offing: it was still possible to communicate with him; and Whitefield was not a little surprized at receiving a letter which contained these words: "When I saw God by the wind which was carrying you out brought me in, I asked counsel of God. His answer you have inclosed." The inclosure was a slip of paper, with this sentence, "Let him return to London." Wesley doubting, from his own experience, whether his friend could be so usefully employed in America as in England, had referred the question to chance, in which at that time he trusted implicitly, and this was the lot which he had drawn. But

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This remarkable instance of Wesley's predilection for the practice of sortilege, is not noticed by either of his biographers. Whitefield himself relates it, in a letter published at the time of their separation. "We sailed immediately," he adds. "Some months after, I received a

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