He[He]adds, “After the delivery of this, I bless God I received with as great quiet and satisfaction as I hope I should die with, if God should call me to witness to the truth with my last breath.”
“If in the heat of controversy I have unadvisedly used any expressions in this or in any other of my writings, that either may reflect too severely on a whole body of men, among whom I doubt not there are many who fear God and have a zeal for Him, though I think it is not according to knowledge, or which have not been agreeable to the spirit of Christianity and the example of my great Master, I do heartily, very heartily, ask pardon both of God and them, as I desire the same for my greatest enemies; and having written this, and again and again reviewed and weighed it, I am not much concerned for the consequence of it as to this world, but shall conclude as our Church does one part of our Litany, ‘In all time of our tribulation, in all time of our wealth, in the hour of death, and in the day of judgment—good Lord, deliver us.’”
We now subjoin two letters written by Mr Wesley in the year in which his last controversial work was published. Both were addressed to his son Samuel, now King’s Scholar, in Westminster School:—
“Epworth, October 2, 1707.
“Dear Sam,—Read the histories of Joseph, of Daniel, and of Lot; and, if you please, the thirteenth satire of Juvenal.
“Remember, God sees, and will punish and reward.
“If you can get no other time to say your prayers, you may do it as you seem to be reading, for done it must be, or you know what follows! But have not you time when you sit up to watch?
“That God may evermore preserve you, is the prayer of your affectionate father,
“Samuel Wesley.”[[191]]
“Epworth, Dec. 29, 1707.