The “method” instilled by Susanna Wesley, both in her rectory home-school and in correspondence, became an early form of “Methodism” in the autumn of 1729. It was then that her son John returned to Oxford to take up his duties as a tutor and was pulled into a small circle of undergraduates (his brother Charles and a couple of his friends) who met from time to time to read devotional works together. Under his leadership the group grew into a “shifting network”1 of Oxonians who engaged in various pious and charitable activities and earned for themselves such nicknames as Supererogation Men, the Holy Club, and Methodists. More serious notoriety came in August 1732 with the death of William Morgan, one of the original members; his demise, as well as the mental and physical symptoms attending his illness, was attributed to the ascetic excesses of Oxford Methodist discipline.2
Susanna’s response to all this is predictably supportive of her sons. In correspondence with John and (beginning here in two double letters) also with Charles, she offers advice and sympathy in the early stages of the Morgan case (see 12 July 1731 and both parts of the double letter of 21 February 1732). Further, in the 25 October 1732 letter there is warm agreement with the aims of their “small society” and “all its pious and charitable actions”; continuing helpful discussion about the most useful devotional books; and interest expressed in other members of her sons’ circle, two of whom (John Whitelamb and Westley Hall) would soon become her sons-in-law.
However, she also shows a more critical side, most clearly visible in the accusation that John might “rigorously impose any observances on others” (fragments of a letter written before 16 August 1733). And there are several maternal jibes at her sons’ lack of concern for their health and at their habit, as “two scruffy travelers,” of saving money by walking home from Oxford (see again the letter of 25 October 1733).
As in other sets of correspondence, family news provides the other main interest in these letters. Two extended narratives—one on Samuel Wesley’s near-disastrous fall from a wagon, the other detailing Uncle Matthew Wesley’s “surprise” visit to Epworth and his offer to “adopt” Patty—and an additional shorter one on the intricacies of renting (or working) the glebe (see in the following letter) furnish further evidence of the precarious financial situation at home. The girls have not all been provided for, and the Rev. Mr. Wesley is failing—no wonder the plaintive note at the end of the 25 October letter, where she begins expressing concern over what happens when he dies.
To John Wesley
12 July 1731
MA: addressed to “John Wesley Fellow of Lincoln … Oxon.” Note added to Charles Wesley. John Wesley’s endorsement: “m[y] F[athe]r’s Fall.” FB, 1:291–292, with two omissions.
July 12, [1]731
Dear Jacky,
I am sorry to put you to the expense of another letter so soon, but I’m so uneasy about poor John Whitelamb3 that I hope you will excuse it. I presently desired your father to give him one of those guineas you mentioned in yours by Mr. Horbery,4 and he very readily consented to it, being I believe much pleased with Whitelamb’s letter to him. This I hope will be some small relief, though it can bear no proportion to his great necessities. I am glad you have chosen Mr. Isham5 your rector, for I think he is friendly to you, as the late rector was, and perhaps you may have power to get something for poor starving Johnny, whose deplorable case I have much at heart and do daily most earnestly recommend to divine providence, for I know what a great temptation it is to want food convenient.
The particulars of your father’s fall are as follows. On Friday before Whit Sunday (the 4th of June) he and I, Molly, and young Nanny Brown were going in our waggon to see the ground we hire of Mrs. Knight at Low Melwood. He sat in a chair at one end of the waggon, I in another at ‘tother end, Molly between us, and Nanny behind me. Just before we reached the Close, going down a small hill, the horses took into a gallop. Out flew your father and his chair. Nanny, seeing the horses run, hung all her weight on my chair, and kept me from keeping him company. She cried out to William to stop the horses and that her master was killed. The fellow leapt out of the seat and stayed the horses, then ran to Mr. Wesley. But ere he got to him Harry Dixon, who was coming from Ferry, Mrs. Knight’s man, and Jack Glew, were providentially met together, and raised his head, upon which he had pitched, and held him backward, by which means he began to respire, for ’tis certain by the blackness in his face that he had never drawn breath from the time of his fall till they helped him up. By this time I was got to him, asked him how he did, and persuaded him to drink a little ale, for we had brought a bottle with us. He looked prodigiously wild, but began to speak, and told me he ailed nothing. I informed him of his fall. He said he knew nothing of any fall, he was as well as ever he was in his life. We bound up his head, which was very much bruised, and helped him into the waggon again, and set him at the bottom of it while I supported his head between my hands, and Will led the horses softly home. I sent presently for Mr. Harper, who took a good quantity of blood from him, and then he began to feel pain in several parts, particularly in his side and shoulder. He had a very ill night, but on Saturday. morning Mr. Harper came again to him, dressed his head, and gave him something which much abated the pain in his side. We repeated the dose at bedtime, and on Whit Sunday he preached twice, and gave the Sacrament, which was too much for him to do, but nobody could dissuade him from it. On Monday he was ill, slept almost all day. On Tuesday the gout came, but with two or three nights taking Bateman it went off again, and he has since been better than could be expected. We thought at first the waggon had gone over him, but it only went over his gown sleeve, and the nails took a little skin off of his knuckles, but did him no further hurt.
My brother Wesley6 had designed to have surprized us and had traveled under a feigned name from London to Gainsbro. But there sending his man out to see for a guide into the Isle 7 next day which was Thursday, the man told one that keeps our market his master’s name and that he was going to see his brother, which was minister of Epworth. The man thus informed met with Molly in the market about an hour before my brother got thither; she, full of the news, hastened home and told us her uncle Wesley was coming to see us, but we could hardly believe her. ’Twas odd to observe how all the town took the alarm and were upon the gaze as if some great prince had been about to make his entry. He rode directly to John Dawson’s, but we had soon notice of his arrival and sent John Brown with an invitation to our house. He expressed some displeasure at his servant for letting us know of his coming, for he intended to have sent for Mr. Wesley to dine with him at Dawson’s and then come to visit us in the afternoon; however, he soon followed John home, where we were all ready to receive him with great satisfaction. His behaviour among us was perfectly civil and obliging. He spoke little to the children the first day, being employed (as he afterwards told them) in observing their carriage and seeing how he liked them. But afterwards he was very free and expressed great kindness to them all. He was strangely scandalized at the poverty of our furniture and much more at the meanness of the children’s habit. He always talked more freely with your sisters of our circumstances than to me and told them he wondered what his brother had done with his income, for ‘twas visible he had not spent it in furnishing his house or clothing his family. We had a little talk together sometimes, but it was not often we could hold a private conference, and he was very shy of speaking anything relative to the children before your father, or indeed of any other matter. I informed him as far as I handsomely8 could of our losses etc., for I was afraid lest he should think I was about to beg of him, but the girls (with whom he had many private discourses) I believe told him everything they could think on. He was particularly pleased with Patty, and one morning before Mr. Wesley came down, he asked me if I was willing to let Patty go and stay a year or two with him at London. “Sister,” says he, “I have endeavoured already to make one of your children easy while she lives,9 and if you please to trust Patty with me, I will endeavour to make her so, too.” Whatever others may think, I thought this a generous offer, and the moreso because he had done so much for Suky and Hetty. I expressed my gratitude as well as I could and would have had him speak to your father, but he would not himself; he left that to me. Nor did he ever mention it to Mr. Wesley till the evening before he left us.
He always behaved himself very decently at family prayers and in your fathers absence said grace for us before and after meat. Nor did he ever interrupt our privacy, but went into his own chamber when we went into ours. He staid from Thursday till the Wednesday after, then left us to go to Scarborough. From whence he returned the Saturday sennight10 after, intending to stay with us a few days. But finding your sisters gone the day before to Lincoln, he would leave us on Sunday morning, for he said he might see the girls before they set forward for London. He overtook them at Lincoln and had Mrs. Taylor, Em., [and] Kez. with the rest to supper with him at the Angel.11 On Monday they breakfasted with him; then they parted, expecting to see him no more till they came to London, but on Wednesday he sent his man to invite them to supper at night. On Thursday he invited them to dinner, at night to supper, and on Friday morning to Breakfast, when he took his leave of them and rode for London. They got into town on Saturday about noon, and that evening Patty writ me an account of her journey.
Before Mr. Wesley went to Scarbro’ I informed him of what I knew of Mr. Morgan’s case.12 When he came back he told me that he had tried the spa13 at Scarbro’, and could assure me that it far excelled all the spas in Europe, for he had been at them all, both in Germany and elsewhere. That at Scarbro’ there were two springs, as he was informed, close together, which flowed into one basin, the one a chalybeate 14 the other a purging water, and that he did not believe there was the like in any part of the world. Says he, “If that gentleman you told me of could by any means be gotten thither, though his age is the most dangerous time in life for his distemper, yet I am of opinion those waters would cure him.” I thought good to tell you this, that you might, if you please, inform Mr. Morgan of it, if ’tis proper.
The matter of the tithe stands thus.15 You know Charles Tate died about Easter. His sons after his death desired Mr. Wesley to continue them in partnership this year, which he granted. But afterwards, when the great drought had consumed most of the flax, they sued for a release, of which I was glad, though he was nothing pleased; yet however he released them, and now we have it all in our own hands. This has thrown us into more debt for two horses and another waggon, but still I hope we shall do pretty well, for though line16 fails, we are likely to have a large crop of barley, which they say will bear a good price.
This new turn in our affairs will make it very expedient for Emly to come home, for I cannot manage both house and tithe, and though Molly be a good girl, she is unequal to the work. If Mr. Wesley will but agree with her I shall be very glad; if not, I doubt17 he must let his tithe. I am old and infirm and can’t do as I have done, therefore must have help, or drop the business.
Your father has let Wroot tithe to Will Atkinson this year, and a brave year he is like to have. But he would not take Canby ground off our hands, so we have burned near twenty acre of it, which if it please God to bless and to send us a good crop of rapes,18 we may come to get something by that unfortunate bargain at last.
Dear Jacky, 1 can’t stay now to talk about Hetty and Patty; only this, I hope better of both than some others do.
I pray God to bless you. Adieu.
Dear Charles,
Though I have spent my time and almost filled up my paper, yet I must thank you for yours by Mr. Horbery. That same gentleman came to Epworth last Thursday about noon and told us the pleasing news of your and your brother’s health. I suppose ere this ye have received mine of the 5th instant; you would do well to burn yours, for I wrote perhaps too warmly about the Christ Church gentlemen, though I was strangely provoked at them.19
Dear Charles, my love and blessing attends ye both.
Adieu.
Remember my love to poor starving Johnny.20 Service to Mr. Kirkham.21
To John Wesley
21 February 1731/32
MA (a double letter, including one to Charles Wesley also). FB 1:326–327, omits sections of the second and third paragraphs.
Monday, February 21, [l]731-2
Dear Jacky,
I thank God I am much better than I have been, though far from being in health; yet a little respite from much pain I esteem a great mercy. If you had any design to visit our family this spring (which for your own sake I could wish you had not) my health or sickness will be of little consequence; your entertainment would be the same, and I am no company.
I have time enough now, more than I can make a good use of, but yet for many reasons I care not to write to anyone. I never did much good in my life when in the best health and vigour, and therefore I think it would be presumption in me to hope to be useful now; ’tis more than I can well do to bear my own infirmities and other sufferings as I ought and would do. All inordinate affection to present things may, by the grace of God and a close application of our own spirits to the work, be so far conquered as to give us very little or no trouble. But when affliction comes once to touch our purely natural appetites, which we can never put off but with the body itself, when every member of the body is the seat of pain and our strong and, I think, innocent propension to ease and rest, is crossed in every article, then comes on the severity of our trial. Then it is not an ordinary measure of divine succour and support that will enable us to continue steadfast in the spirit and disposition of Jesus Christ. This was the very case of our dear Lord! He had no irregular passions or sinful appetites ever to combat with, but he had what was infinitely harder to be sustained, the greatest contradiction of sinners against the purity of his nature, to undergo, and all his innocent natural appetites voluntarily to sacrifice in a death exquisitely painful! and attended with circumstance very grievous to be borne by human nature, though in its utmost perfection!
I am heartily sorry for Mr. Morgan. ’Tis no wonder that his illness should at last affect his mind; ’tis rather to be admired that it has not done it long ago. It’s a common case, and what all who are afflicted with any indisposition a great while together experience as well as he. Such is our make, such the condition of embodied spirits, that they cannot act with freedom or exert their native powers when the bodily organs are out of tune. This shows how necessary it is for people (especially the young) to improve the present blessing of health and strength by laying a strong foundation of piety towards God, of submission, patience and all other Christian virtues before the decline of life, before the shadows of the even lengthens [sic] upon them and those years draw nigh in which without solid piety they can find no pleasure.
The young gentleman you mention seems to me to be in the right concerning the real presence of Christ in the sacrament. I own I never understood by the real presence more than what he has elegantly expressed, “that the divine nature of Christ is then eminently present to impart (by the operation of his Holy Spirit) the benefits of his death to worthy receivers.” 22 And surely the divine presence of our Lord, thus applying the virtue and merits of the great atonement to each true believer, makes the consecrated bread more than a bare sign of Christ’s body, since by his so doing we receive not only the sign but with it the thing signified, all the benefits of his incarnation and passion! But still, however this divine institution may seem to others, to me ’tis full of mystery. Who can account for the operations of God’s Holy Spirit? Or define the manner of his working upon the spirit in man, either when he enlightens the understanding or excites and confirms the will, and regulates and calms the passions without impairing man’s liberty? Indeed the whole scheme of our redemption by Jesus Christ is beyond all things mysterious. That God! the Mighty God! the God of the spirits of all flesh! The possessor of heaven and earth! Who is being itself! And comprehends in his most pure nature absolute perfection and blessedness! That must necessarily be infinitely happy in and of himself! That such a being should in the least degree regard the salvation of sinners! That he himself! the offended, the injured, should propose terms of reconciliation and admit them into covenant upon any conditions! is truly wonderful and astonishing! As God did not make the world because he needed it, so neither could that be any reason for his redeeming it. He loved us, because he loved us! And would have mercy, because he would have mercy! 23 Then the manner of man’s redemption, the way by which he condescends to save us, is altogether incomprehensible! Who can unfold the mystery of the hypostatic union! Or forbear acknowledging with the Apostle, that “without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness, God manifested in the flesh!”24 That the divine person of the Son of God should (if it may be permitted so to speak) seern so far to forget his dignity and essential glory! as to submit to a life of poverty, contempt, and innumerable other sufferings for above thirty years and conclude that life in inexpressible torments! And all this to heal and save a creature that was at enmity against God and desired not to be otherwise. Here is public and benevolent affection in its utmost exaltation and perfection! And this is “the love of Christ,” which, as the Apostle justly observes, “passeth knowledge!”25
I have been led away so far by this vast subject! that I have hardly left myself time or room to add more. The writing anything about my way of education I am much averse from.26 It can’t (I think) be of service to anyone to know how I, that have lived such a retired life for so many years (ever since I was with child of you), used to employ my time and care in bringing up my children. No one can, without renouncing the world in the most literal sense, observe my method, and there’s few (if any) that would entirely devote above twenty years of the prime of life in hope to save the souls of their children (which they think may be saved without so much ado); for that was my principal intention, however unskillfully or unsuccessfully managed.
Dear Jacky, my love and blessing is ever with you. Adieu.
To Charles Wesley
21 February 1731–1732
MA. Part of a double letter immediately following the preceding one to John.
[No heading, see previous half of the same double letter.]
Dear Charles,
Though you have not had time to tell me so since we parted, yet I hope you are in health, and when you are more at leisure, I shall be glad to hear you are so from yourself. I should be pleased enough to see ye here this spring, if it was not upon the hard condition of your walking hither. But that always terrifies me, and I am commonly so uneasy for fear ye should kill yourselves with coming so far on foot, that it destroys much of the pleasure I should otherwise have in conversing with ye.
I fear poor Patty has several enemies at London and that they have put it in her head to visit us this summer. I am apt to believe that, if they get her once out of my brother’s house, they will take care to keep her thence for ever. ’Tis pity that honest, generous girl has not a little of the subtlety of the serpent with the innocence of the dove.27 She is no match for those which malign her, for she scorns to do an unworthy action and therefore believes everybody else does so, too. Alas, ’tis great pity that all the human species are not so good as they ought to be.
Prithee what is become of J[ohn] Whitelamb: is he yet alive? Where is Mr. Morgan? If with you, pray give my service to him. I am sorry the wood drink did him no service. I never knew it fail before, if drank regularly; but perhaps he was too far gone before he used it. I doubt28 he eats too little or sleeps cold, which last poisons the blood above all things.
Dear Charles, I send you my love and blessing.
Em, Molly, Kez send their love to ye both.
24 July 1732
AM, 1784, pp. 462–464 (“On Obedience to Parents”); collated with Journal, 3 (1 August, 1742): 34–39 FB, 1:330–331. This famous long letter on the education of her children appears in part III of this volume.
To John Wesley
25 October 1732
State Library of Victoria, Melbourne; copy in MA;
FB, 1:344–346
October 25, [1]732
Dear Jacky,
I was very glad to hear ye got safe to Oxford and should have told you so sooner had I been at liberty from pain of body and other severer trials not convenient to mention. Let everyone enjoy the present hour. Age and successive troubles are sufficient to convince any reasonable man that ’tis a much wiser and safer way to deprecate great afflictions than to pray for them; and that our Lord well knew what was in man when he directed us to pray, “Lead us not into temptation.” 29
I think heretic Clark[e], in his exposition on the Lord’s Prayer, is more in the right than Castaniza concerning temptations.30 His words are as follow: “We are encouraged to glory in tribulation, and to count it all joy when we fall into divers temptations, etc. Nevertheless ’tis carefully to be observed that when the scripture speaks on this manner concerning rejoicing in temptations, it always considers them under this view, as being experienced, and already in great measure overcome. For otherwise, as to temptations in general, temptations unexperienced, of which we know the danger but not the success, our Saviour teaches us to pray, Lead us not into temptation. And again, Watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. Our nature is frail, our passions strong, our wills biased; and our security, generally speaking, consists much more certainly in avoiding great temptations than in conquering them. Wherefore we ought continually to pray that God would pleased so to order and direct things in this probation state as not to suffer us to be tempted above what we are able, but that he would with the temptation also make a way to escape, that we may be able to bear it. Our Lord directed his disciples, when they were persecuted in one city, to flee into another. And they who refuse to do it when it is in their power lead themselves into temptation, and tempt God.”31
I can’t tell how you represented your case to Dr. Huntington.32 I have had occasion to make some observation in consumption and am pretty certain that several symptoms of that distemper are beginning upon you and that unless you take more care than you do, you’ll put the matter past dispute in a little time. But take your own way. I have already given you up, as I have some before which once were very dear to me. Charles, though I believe not in a consumption, is in a fine state of health for a man of two or three and twenty that can’t eat a full meal but he must presently throw it up again. ’Tis great pity that folks should be no wiser and that they can’t hit the mean in a case where it is so obvious to view that none can mistake it, which do not do it on purpose.
I heartily join with your small society in all their pious and charitable actions, which are intended for God’s glory; and am glad to hear Mr. Clayton and Mr. Hall 33 has met with desired success. May ye still in such good works go on and prosper.34 Though absent in body, I am present with ye in spirit and daily recommend and commit ye all to divine providence. You do well to wait on the bishop, because ’tis a point of prudence and civility, though (if he be a good man) I can’t think it in the power of anyone to prejudice him against you.35
Your arguments against horse races do certainly conclude against masquerades, balls, plays, operas, and all such light and vain diversions, which, whether the gay people of the world will own it or no, does strongly confirm and strengthen “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life”;36 all which we must renounce, or renounce our God and hope of eternal salvation. I will not say ’tis impossible for a person to have any sense of religion which frequents those vile assemblies, but I never throughout the course of my long life knew so much as one serious Christian that did. Nor can I see how a lover of God can have any relish for such vain amusements.
The Life of God in the Soul of Man37 is an excellent good book and was an acquaintance of mine many years ago; but I have unfortunately lost it. There’s many good things in Castaniza, more in Baxter,38 yet are neither without faults, which I overlook for the sake of their virtues; nor can I say of all the books of divinity I have read which is the best; one is best at one time, one at another, according to the temper and disposition of the mind.
Mr. Horbery is for Oxford soon, by whom if I can I will write Mr. Whitelamb, to whom pray give my love and service and tell him though I can’t show my esteem for him all the ways I would, yet I daily remember him.
I must tell ye, Mr. John Wesley, Fellow of Lincoln, and Mr. Charles Wesley, Student of Christ Church, that ye are two scrubby travellers and sink your characters strangely by eating nothing on the road […] 39 to save charges. I wonder ye are not ashamed of yourselves. Surely if ye will but give yourselves leave to think a little, ye will return to a better mind.
Your sisters send their love to you and Charles, and I my love and blessing to ye both.40
Adieu
Your father is in a very bad state of health; he sleeps little and eats less. He seems not to have any apprehension of his approaching exit, but I fear he has but a short time to live. ’Tis with much pain and difficulty that he performs divine service on the Lord’s day, which sometimes he is forced to contract very much. Everybody observes his decay but himself, and people really seem much concerned both for him and his family.
The two girls, being uneasy in the present situation, do not apprehend the sad consequences which (in all appearance) must attend his death so much as I think they ought to do; for as bad as they think their condition now, I doubt41 it will be far worse when his head is laid.
Before 16 August 1733
John Whitehead, The Life of the Rev. John Wesley … (Dublin: John Jones, 1805), 1:443–445; FB, 1:354–355. Fragments of an “angry letter from my mother” are quoted in John’s reply, 17 August 1733. S. W. was apparently criticizing the (overly strict?) discipline of the Holy Club.
… the devil hates offensive war most, and … whoever tries to rescue more than his own soul from his hands will have more enemies and meet with greater opposition than if he was content with “having his own life for a prey.”42
… [you] rigorously impose any observances on others …
1. The phrase is Henry D. Rack’s, Reasonable Enthusiast: John Wesley and the Rise of Methodism (Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1989), p. 87.
2. For a summary and useful primary sources on this phase of Wesley’s life see Richard P. Heitzenrater, The Elusive Mr. Wesley: Vol. One. John Wesley His Own Biographer (Nashville: Abingdon, 1984), pp. 63–74.
3. A native of Wroot, Whitelamb was taken under the wing of Samuel Wesley, who helped send him to Oxford, where John Wesley gave him free tuition. Upon graduation and ordination, the elder Wesley arranged for Whitelamb to succeed him as rector of Wroot and authorized his marriage to his daughter Mary in December 1733.
4. Matthew Horbery had been an undergraduate at Lincoln and in 1733 would be elected a fellow of Magdalen. His father had been vicar of Haxey, a parish adjoining Epworth, which he still occasionally visited.
5. Eusby Isham had been a fellow of Lincoln since 1718 and was elected rector on 9 July 1731, with John Wesley’s support, following the death of the incumbent, John Morley. See Y H. H. Green, The Young Mr. Wesley … (New York: St. Martin’s, 1961), pp. 127–29.
6. Samuel’s brother Matthew, the physician who had taken care of Suky and Hetty after the rectory fire until a new rectory could be built. Following this visit he would also take his niece Patty (Martha) to spend time with his family in London. His will provided considerable sums for Martha, Hetty, Anne, and two of their children. See Stevenson, pp. 52–53.
7. The Isle of Axholme, local designation for the fen-surrounded area where Epworth was situated.
8. Appropriately.
9. Probably a reference to Hetty, to whom he gave £500 at her marriage. See Frederick Maser, The Story of John Wesley’s Sisters, or Seven Sisters in Search of Love (Rutland, Vt.: Academy Books, 1988), p. 59.
10. “Seven night,” that is, a week.
11. Emily and Kezzy were both employed in Mrs. Taylor’s school in Lincoln. Their presence there was good reason for the other sisters to stop en route from Epworth to London.
12. William Morgan, an undergraduate of Christ Church College, was a “charter member” of the Holy Club, the small group of pious students that John Wesley led after his return to Oxford in 1729. It was largely Morgan who moved the club to begin a ministry to prisoners and their families. His increasing ill health, madness, and subsequent death in August 1732 were attributed by his father, a government official in Dublin, to the excessive religious zeal of the Holy Club. See Green, Young Mr. Wisely, pp. 168–71. Further references crop up in ensuing letters.
13. S. W. uses the archaic spelling “spaw.”
14. A mineral spring.
15. This paragraph gives insight into the business problems surrounding a rectory family. Part of the priest’s maintenance was whatever profit he could make from the glebe land, which could either be managed himself or rented out. In the Wesley family it is apparent that much of this burden fell to the rector’s wife.
16. Flax.
17. Suspect.
18. Turnips.
19. Charles had earlier described his college as “the worst place in the world to begin a reformation in,” a place where religion was ridiculed. Green, Young Mr. Wesley, p. 152.
20. John Whitelamb. See note 3.
21. Robert Kirkham, undergraduate of Merton College, friend of the Wesley brothers, and member of the Holy Club.
22. John Wesley’s letter of 26 January to his mother has not survived, but his answering letter of 28 February 1731/32 indicates that he was probably quoting William Morgan. See FB, p. 328.
23. Echoes of Exodus 33:19 and Romans 9:15.
24. Nearly exact quotation of 1 Timothy 3:16; quotation marks in holograph.
25. Ephesians 3:19; my quotation marks.
26. Susanna finally relented, supplying her son with a summary of her child-rearing practices in the famous long letter of 24 July 1732, reprinted in part III of this volume.
27. See Matthew 10:16.
28. Suspect.
29. Matthew 6:13; Luke 11:4.
30. A reference to Lorenzo Scupoli, The Spiritual Combat, Richard Lucas, Trans. (London: Samuel Keble, 1698), then falsely attributed to Juan de Castaniza; the Wesleys probably read from the 1698 translation of Richard Lucas, whose own work on religious perfection S. W commented on at some length in her journal, q.v. in part II of this volume. Lucas was at the time rector of St. Katherine, Coleman Street. S. W probably has several of the book’s chapters in mind: chap. 7, “Of the Manner of Fighting Against Sensual Motions, and of the Acts That the Will Must Produce to Acquire a Habit of Vertue”; chap. 10, “Of the Manner of Fighting or Subduing the Lusts of the Flesh or Concupisence”; chap. 17, “How the Devil, by the Means of General Good Purposes, Endeavours to Hinder Our Progress in Virtue”; chap. 18, “How the Devil Strives to Draw Us from the Way of Virtue.” Samuel Clarke (1675–1729), a friend of William Whiston, flirted with Arianism and Unitarianism but successfully avoided official censure, retaining the living of St. James’s, Westminster, until his death.
31. S. W is excerpting material from Samuel Clarke’s An Exposition of the Church-Catechism (London: James and John Knapton, 1729), published posthumously. In discussing the sixth petition of the Lord’s Prayer, he says: “Nay, on the contrary, we are incouraged even to glory in Tribulations [Rom.v. 3]; and to count it all joy, when we fall into divers Temptations [Jam.i.2]: Considering that the Tryal of our Faith, is much more pretious than of Gold that perisheth [I Pet.i.7]; and that Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for when he is tried, he shall receive the Crown of Life [Jam.i.12],
“Nevertheless ’tis carefully to be observed, that when the Scripture speaks in this manner concerning Rejoicing in Temptations, it always considers them under This view, as being experienced, and already in great measure overcome. For otherwise, as to Temptations in general, Temptations unexperienced, and of which we know the Danger, but not the Success; our Saviour teaches us to pray, ‘Lead us not into temptation:’ And again, Watch and pray, least ye enter into Temptation [Mar.xiv.38]. Our Nature is frail, our Passions strong, our Wills biassed; And our security, generally speaking, consists much more certainly in avoiding great Temptations, than in conquering them. Wherefore we ought continually to pray, that God would be pleased so to order and direct things in This Probation-state, as not to suffer us to be tempted above what we are able [I Cor.x.13]; but that he would with the Temptation also make a way to escape, that we may be able to bear it. Our Lord directed his Disciples, when they were persecuted in One City, to flee into another [Matt.x.2.3]. And they who refuse to do so, when it is in their Power; lead Themselves into Temptation, and tempt God” (Pages 267–269, with marginal biblical citations inserted).
32. Apparently a physician he was consulting; I can find no other references to him.
33. John Clayton, a fellow of Brasenose College, and Westley Hall, an undergraduate of Lincoln, one of Wesley’s pupils and later his brother-in-law (in a disastrous marriage to his sister Martha in 1735), were both members of the Holy Club. As the singular verb might indicate, S. W has included Hall as an afterthought: “& Mr. Hall” is inserted above the line after the sentence was finished.
34. Resonances of 1 Kings 22:15 and 2 Chronicles 18:14.
35. Earlier in the month, Wesley and Clayton had visited John Potter, then bishop of Oxford and later archbishop of Canterbury, to discuss the confirmation of a prisoner they had been working with, under Holy Club auspices. See Green, Young Mr. Wesley p. 182.
36. Nearly exact quotation of 1 John 2:16; my quotation marks.
37. This work, published anonymously, has since been attributed to the Scottish Episcopalian Henry Scougal. Its subtitle reads, “Or, the Nature and Excellency of the Christian Religion: With the Methods of Attaining the Happiness It Proposes; Also an Account of the Beginnings and Advances of a Spiritual Life, 2nd ed.(London: T. Dring and J. Weld, 1691). The MS has the title in quotation marks.
38. S. W could be referring to any of dozens of the practical works of Richard Baxter (1615-1691), the best known of which are. The Christian Directory and The Saints Everlasting Rest. John Wesley later abridged the latter in his Christian Library. Baxter had been an old friend of Susanna’s father, Samuel Annesley. See John Newton, Susanna Wesley and the Puritan Tradition in Methodism (London: Epworth, 1968), pp. 29, 138ff. For details on Baxter’s approach and a complete checklist of his publications, see N. H. Keeble, Richard Baxter; Puritan Man of Letters (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), particularly, chap. 4 (“The Pastor and Practical Divine”), pp. 69–93, and the “Baxter Bibliography,” pp. 156–84.
39. Several words are clipped out of the letter.
40. There follows here an endorsement in John Wesley’s hand, employing the same abbreviate script used in LB: “Eating on Road: J. Whitelamb: my father: Society.”
41. Suspect.
42. See Jeremiah 38:2; quotation marks in MS.
