To Ebenezer Blackwell (July 12, 1758)

https://wesleyworks.ecdsdev.org/letters/1758-07-12-ToEbenezerBlackwell

To Ebenezer Blackwell Bandon
July 12, 1758

Really, sir, you had made me almost angry at an innocent person— I mean, innocent of the fault supposed. I wrote to Mr. Downing

1George Downing (c. 1729–1809) was a priest in the Church of England sympathetic with the Evangelical revival, at least with its 'regular' wing who stressed conformity to church law. He was rector of Ovington, Essex, and also served as chaplain to William Legge, the second Earl of Dartmouth.

nearly at the time I wrote to you; and seeing no name, I read part of your letter as from him, and thought 'My wife did very wrong to trouble him with matters of this kind, which might do him more harm than good'. Time and patience will remove many other troubles, and show them to have no more foundation than this.

While you have so eloquent a person

2Apparently referring to Mary Wesley.

at your elbow, and I am two or three hundred miles off, I have little to say. It may be time enough when I return to London. At present I would only make two or three cursory remarks.

1) That letter was not left on a chair, but taken out of my pocket.

3See JW's letter to Sarah Ryan, Jan. 27, 1756.

2) It was not letters, but a letter of mine (and one which did not signify a straw) which Sarah Crosby some time since showed to three or four persons, and of which she will hear these ten years.

4'years' is clear in the manuscript, but JW perhaps meant to write 'weeks'.

I write to her when I judge it my duty so to do; but I have not wrote these ten or twelve weeks.

3) If you softened or salved over anything I wrote in the letter from Bedford,

5JW was in Bedford Mar. 9–10; no letter to his wife of this date has survived.

you did her an irreparable damage. What I am is not the question there, but what she is, of which I must needs be a better judge than you, for I wear the shoe—as you must needs be a better judge of Mrs. [Elizabeth] Blackwell's temper than I.

4) 'She is now full of anger.' High day! Anger! For what? Why because when Captain Dansey called upon me in Dublin (on the 7th of April) and asked, 'Sir, have you any commands? I am just sailing for Bristol', I said, 'Yes. Here is a letter. Will you deliver it with your own hands?'

6No letter from JW to his wife has survived from this period either.

He promised he would, and that was our whole conversation.

5) But suppose he delivered this about the 12th of April, why did she not write for a month before? What excuse or pretence for this?

6) I certainly will, as long as I can hold a pen, assert my right of conversing with whom I please. Reconciliation or none, let her look to that. If the unbeliever will depart, let her depart. That right I will exert just when I judge proper, giving an account only to God and my own conscience. Though (as it happens) the last letter I wrote to Sarah Ryan was in the beginning of May.

7This letter has not survived.

7) My conscience bears me witness before God that I have been as 'cautious as I ought to have been'; for I have rigorously kept my rule, 'To do everything and omit everything which I could with a safe conscience for peace sake'.

But there is no fence against a flail, against one that could tell Thomas Walsh calmly and deliberately (he begs this may not be mentioned again, nor his name brought into the question), 'His parting words to me were, "I hope I shall see your wicked face no more.' " Can you ever be safe against being deceived by such an one but by not believing a word you hear?

In a week or two I shall be looking out for a ship. You people in England are bad correspondents. Both Mr. Downing, Mr. Venn,

8On Henry Venn (1725–97), see 26:535 in this edn.

and Mr. Madan

9Martin Madan (1725–90) was a 'spiritual son' of JW, awakened under his preaching. But Madan soon aligned with more Calvinist-leaning evangelicals like Lady Huntingdon, David Jones, William Romaine, and George Whitefield.

are a letter in my debt; and yet I think they have not more business than I have. How unequally are things distributed here! Some want time, and some want work! But all will be set right hereafter. There is no disorder on that shore.

Wishing all happiness to you and all that are with you, I remain, dear sir,
Yours most affectionately,
J.W.

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