Wesley Corpus

May, 1738. REV. J. WESLEY'S JOURNAL. 71 both in public and in private, and read, with the Scriptures, several other books of religion, especially comments on the New Testament. Yet I had not all this while so much as a notion of inward holiness; nay, went on habitually and, for the most part, very contentedly, in some or other known sin: indeed, with some intermission and short struggles, especially before and after the holy communion, which I was obliged to receive thrice a year. I cannot well tell what I hoped to be saved by now, when I was continually sinning against that little light I had ; unless by those transient fits of what many divines taught me to call repentance. 4, When I was about twenty-two, my father pressed me to enter into holy orders. At the same time, the providence of God directing me to Kempis's "Christian Pattern," I began to see, that true religion was seated in the heart, and that God's Law extended to all our thoughts as well as words and actions. I was, however, very angry at Kempis, for being too strict ; though I read him only in Dean Stanhope's translation. Yet I had frequently much sensible comfort in reading him, such as was an utter stranger to before: and meeting likewise with a religious friend, which I never had till now, I began to alter the whole form of my conversation, and to set in earnest upon a new life. I set apart an hour or two a day for religious retirement. I communicated every week. I watched.against all sin, whether in word or deed. I began to aim at, and pray for, inward holiness. So that now, ' doing so much, and living so good a life," I doubted not but I was a good Christian.