Consider this matter, I intreat you, a little farther. Here are thirty thousand persons (perhaps somewhat more) of whom I take care, watching over their souls as he that must give ♦account. In order hereto it lies upon me (so I judge) at the peril of my own salvation, to know not only their names, but their outward and inward states, their difficulties and dangers. Otherwise how can I know either how to guide them aright, or to commend them to God in prayer? Now if I am willing to make these over to _you_, will _you_ watch over them in the same manner? Will _you_ take the same care (or as much more as you please) of each soul as I have hitherto done? Not such _curam animarum_ as you have taken these ten years in your own parish. Poor empty name! Has not your _parish_ been in fact, as much a _sine cure_ to _you_ as your _prebend_? Oh what account have _you_ to give to the great Shepherd and Bishop of souls!
♦ “account, in” replaced with “account. In” per Errata
18. There is one more _excuse_ for denying this work of God, taken from the _instruments_ employed therein: that is, “That they are _wicked_ men.” And a thousand stories have been handed about to prove it.
But you may observe, their _wickedness_ was not heard of, till after they _went about doing good_. Their reputation for _honesty_ was till then unblemished but it was impossible it should continue so, when they were publickly employed in _testifying of the world, that its deeds were evil_. It could not be but the scriptures should be fulfilled. _The servant is not above his master. If they have called the master of the house beelzebub, how much more them of his houshold?_
* Yet I cannot but remind considerate men, in how remarkable a manner the wisdom of God has for many years guarded against this pretence, with respect to my brother and me in particular. Scarce any two men in _Great-Britain_, of our rank, have been so held out, as it were, to all the world; especially of those who from their childhood had always loved and studiously sought retirement. And I had procured what I sought, I was quite safe, as I supposed, in a little country town, when I was required to return to _Oxford_, without delay, to take the charge of some young gentlemen, by Dr. _Morley_, the only man then in _England_ to whom I could deny nothing. From that time both my brother and I (utterly against our will) came to be more and more observed and known, till we were more spoken of, than, perhaps, two so inconsiderable persons ever were before in the nation. To make us more publick still, as _honest_ madmen at least, by a strange concurrence of providences overturning all our preceding resolutions, we were hurried away to _America_. However, at our return from thence, we were resolved to retire out of the world at once; being sated with noise, hurry and fatigue, and seeking nothing but to be at rest. Indeed for a long season, the greatest pleasure I had desired, on this side eternity was
Tacitum Sylvas inter reptare salubres, Quærentem quicquid dignum sapiente bonoque.
And we had attained our desire. We wanted nothing. We looked for nothing more in this world, when we were dragged out again, by earnest importunity, to preach at one place and another, and another, and so carried on, we knew not how, without any design but the general one, of saving souls, into a situation, which had it been named to us at first, would have appeared far worse than death.
* 19. What a surprising _apparatus_ of Providence was here! And what stronger demonstrations could have been given, of men’s acting from _a zeal_ for God, whether it were _according to knowledge_ or no? What persons could, in the nature of things, have been (antecedently) less liable to exception, with regard to their _moral character_, at least, than those the all-wise God hath now employed? Indeed I cannot devise what manner of men could have been more unexceptionable on all accounts. Had God endued us with greater natural or acquired abilities, that very thing might have been turned into an objection. Had ♦we been remarkably _defective_, it would have been matter of objection, on the other hand. Had we been _dissenters_ of any kind, or even _low-church men_, (so called) it would have been a great stumbling-block in the way of those who are _zealous for the church_. And yet had we continued in the impetuosity of our _high-church zeal_, neither should we have been willing to converse with _dissenters_, nor they to receive any good at our hands. Some objections were kept out of the way, by our known _contempt_ of money and preferment: and others, by that rigorous strictness of life, which we exacted, not of others, but ourselves only. Insomuch, that twelve or fourteen years ago, the censure of one who had narrowly observed us, (_me_, in particular) went no farther than this;