"Children, as soon as I am released, sing a psalm of praise to God."
Susanna Wesley
Death of Wesley’s Mother
I left Bristol in the evening of Sunday, July 18, and on Tuesday came to London. I found my mother on the borders of eternity. But she had no doubt or fear nor any desire but (as soon as God should call) "to depart and be with Christ."
Friday, 23.—About three in the afternoon I went to my mother and found her change was near. I sat down on the bedside. She was in her last conflict, unable to speak but I believe quite sensible. Her look was calm and serene, and her eyes fixed upward while we commended her soul to God. From three to four the silver cord was loosing, and the wheel breaking at the cistern; and then without any struggle, or sign, or groan, the soul was set at liberty. We stood round the bed and fulfilled her last request, uttered a little before she lost her speech:
Sunday, August 1.—almost an innumerable company of people being gathered together, about five in the afternoon, I committed to the earth the body of my mother, to sleep with her fathers. The portion of Scripture from which I afterward spoke was: "I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works" [Rev. 20:11, 12]. It was one of the most solemn assemblies I ever saw or expect to see on this side eternity.
We set up a plain stone at the head of her grave, inscribed with the following words:
Here lies the Body
of
MRS. SUSANNAH WESLEY,
the youngest and last surviving daughter of
Dr. Samuel Annesley.
_______
In sure and steadfast hope to rise,
And claim her mansion in the skies,
A Christian here her flesh laid down,
The cross exchanging for a crown.
True daughter of affliction, she,
Inured to pain and misery,
Mourn’d a long night of griefs and fears,
A legal night of seventy years.
The Father then reveal’d His Son,
Him in the broken bread made known;
She knew and felt her sins forgiven,
And found the earnest of her heaven.
Meet for the fellowship above,
She heard the call, "Arise, my love!’
"I come," her dying looks replied,
And lamblike, as her Lord, she died.
John Wesley’s Four Resolutions
With regard to my own behavior, I now renewed and wrote down my former resolutions.
1. To use absolute openness and unreserve with all I should converse with.
2. To labor after continual seriousness,
not willingly indulging myself in any the least levity of behavior, or in laughter; no, not for a moment.
3. To speak no word which does not tend to the glory of God; in particular, not to talk of worldly things. Others may, nay, must. But what is that to thee? And,
4. To take no pleasure which does not tend to the glory of God;
thanking God every moment for all I do take, and therefore rejecting every sort and degree of it which I feel I cannot so thank Him in and for.
-From the Journals of John Wesley
Mercy Drops Online Bible Classes
More Susanna Wesley Resources
Read about Susanna Wesley-The Woman
Read about Susanna Wesley-The Mother
Read about Susanna Wesley-Rules for Her Children
Read about Susanna Wesley-Her Journey's End
http://www.ccel.org/w/wesley/journal/journal.htm