John Bennet也是号人物── 卫理宗的重量级传道人,他在英国北部植堂非常成功,很具影响力。不过他的加尔文主义神学底子,始终与走亚米念路线的卫斯理宗隔隔不入,再加上约翰・卫斯理因为葛蕾丝的事对他始终怀有苦毒。(注3)1752年,在一场不愉快的神学激辩之后, Bennet愤而离开卫理宗,并且带走一大票会众。
1. 原文:‘This is too great a blessing for me! I can’t tell how to believe it! This is all I could have wished for under heaven, if I had dared to wish for it!’
2 . 原话是这样说的 “Undeniably the most useful woman in ye Kingdom…..Shew me one in all ye English Annals, whom God so employ’d in so high a degree. I might say, In all ye History of the Church, from ye Death of our Lord to this day”
3. JM心中对Bennet的苦毒,可以从下面的书信落,略知一二: ‘I left with you my dearest friend, one I loved above all on earth, and fully designed for my wife. To this woman you proposed marriage, without either my knowledge or consent…You wrote me word you would take no farther step without my consent but…you tore her from me…
‘I think you have done me the deepest wrong which I can receive on this side the grave. But I spare you. ‘Tis but for a little time, and I shall be where the weary are at rest.’ (见John Pollock所着John Wesley传记,第21章。)
4. 见John Pollock所着John Wesley传记p.238。出版:Hodder & Stoughton Religious (May 1, 1989)