Wesley Corpus

4, Perhaps my employments of another kind may not allow me to give any farther answer to them who " say all manner of evil of me falsely,'' and seem to "think that they do God service." Suffice it, that botl. they and I shall shortly "give an accunt to Him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead." See ee Oxon, October 18, 1730, Sir, The occasion of my giving you this trouble is of a very extraordinary nature. On Sunday last I was informed (as no doubt you will be ere long) that my brother and I had killed your son: that the rigorous fasting which he had imposed upon himself, by our advice, had increased his illness and hastened his death. Now though, considering it in itself, "it is a very small thing with me to be judged by man's judgment ;" yet as the being thought guilty of so mischievous an imprudence might make me the less able to do the work I came into the world for, I am obliged to clear myself of it, by observing to you, as I have done to others, that your son left off fasting about a year and a half since ; and tnat it is not yet half a year since I began to practise it. I must not let this opportunity slip of doing my part toward giving you a juster notion of some other particulars, relating both to him and myself, which have been industriously misrepresented to you. In March last he received a letter from you, which, not being able to read, he desired me to read to him; several of the expressions whereof I perfectly remember, and shall do, till I too am called hence. I then determined, that if God was pleased to take away your son before me, I would justify him and myself, which I now do with all plainness and simplicity, as both my character and cause required.