With holy grimace, and sanctified sob.”[215]
Such were some of the choice epithets heaped upon Wesley and his helpers by this refined and accomplished son of Æsculapius.
On September 27, Wesley thought he “had strength enough to keep a watchnight, which he had not done before for eleven months;” but, at eleven o’clock, he almost lost his voice; and, the next evening, at Weavers’ Hall, Bristol, it entirely failed. He now set out for London, halting at Salisbury on the way. While here, he walked to Old Sarum, “which,” says he, “in spite of common sense, without house or inhabitants, still sends two members to the parliament.”
On October 4, he arrived in London, where he seems to have continued during the remainder of the year. It was a year of great feebleness and affliction; but Wesley, though an invalid, crowded into it as much work as would have been done by any ordinary man in the best of health. What were the works he published?
1. “An Extract of the Rev. John Wesley’s Journal, from November 25, 1746, to July 20, 1749.” 12mo, 139 pages.
2. “An Answer to all which the Rev. Dr. Gill has printed on the Final Perseverance of the Saints.” 12mo, 12 pages.
This is a poem of thirty-seven stanzas of eight lines each, many of which are scorchingly sarcastic. The tract is now extremely scarce, and hence we give the following lengthened quotations. The devil, addressing the elect, is made to say—
“God is unchangeable,
And therefore so are you,
And therefore they can never fail,