The Journal

OF THE REV.

John Wesley, A.M.

sometime fellow of lincoln college, oxford

ENLARGED FROM ORIGINAL MSS., ANNOTATIONS, MAPS, AND ILLUSTRATIONS

edited by

Nehemiah Curnock

assisted by experts

STANDARD EDITION

Vol. I–VIII

London

ROBERT CULLEY • CHARLES H. KELLY

25–35 city road, and 26 paternoster row, e.c.

1909–1916

Copyright

Entered at Stationers’ Hall

Preface

Wesley’s Journal was originally published in a series of ‘Extracts,’ each filling a small duodecimo volume of a hundred pages or more. The first was printed in Bristol by ‘S. and F. Farley, and sold at the New School-house in the Horsefair.’ It is not dated; but as the last entry was made on Wednesday, February 1, 1738, and the Second Extract is dated 1740, it is safe to infer that in or about 1739 the Journal was issued to the public. In some version or other it had, however, long been known to the Holy Club and to members of the Wesley family; for the Journal originally, as Wesley himself intimates in the Preface, was written for private use, and it was not the ‘design or desire’ of the writer ‘to trouble the world with any’ of what he modestly calls his ‘little affairs.’ At one time there must have been in existence many copies and several versions of the Georgia Journal, possibly also of the Second Extract. The Diary, to which Wesley refers in the first paragraph of his Preface, shows conclusively that he transcribed his Journal and ‘Accounts’; whilst allusions in letters and other circumstances prove that these transcriptions were intended to serve the purpose of private letters to his mother and brother and sisters, and to such friends as James Hutton, John Clayton, and Richard Morgan. The versions, differing from the printed Extract and from one another, were prepared each for a special purpose. One, for instance, seems to have been the first rough draft of a business-like document intended for presentation to the Georgia Trustees in London. Precisely such a document was presented in the spring of 1738, but has not yet been discovered in the archives of the Colonial Office. Another ‘version,’ limited to the voyage of the Simmonds, was drafted for the special information of Samuel Wesley, at that time head master of Blundell’s School in Tiverton. It is now in the possession of an old Devonshire family. A third copy, or version, was published in 1741, and was entitled

An Extract from the Rev. Mr. John Wesley’s Journal with regard to the Affidavit made by Captain Robert Williams (John 7:51). London: printed in the year 1741. 12mo, pp. 12.

The Rev. Richard Green’s notes on this scarce publication are of special interest:

The affidavit is mentioned in the Preface to the Journal (Works, vol. i. p. 3). See also Tyerman’s Life of Wesley, vol. i. pp. 429–30.

This very rare tract consists of such portions of Wesley’s Journal printed in 1739 as relate to the accusation and trial of Wesley for refusing the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper to a communicant in Savannah. The first date given (p. ...