Eliza Bennis was an early Irish Methodist leader and frequent correspondent with John Wesley. She was one of the first five people to join a Methodist Society in Limerick where she was active in leadership of bands and classes.
Born Eliza Patten in 1725 in Limerick, she married Mitchell Bennis in 1745, parenting four children who reached adulthood. After joining the Methodist Society, she began keeping a journal and recorded her spiritual journey in it through 1779. Along with her voluminous correspondence with John Wesley and other Methodist preachers, this journal provides insight into Irish Methodism as seen through the eyes of someone who experienced holiness/sanctification yet worried that her defects or mistakes might cause her to backslide and fall from sanctifying grace.
In her later years, she emigrated to the United States where she died in 1802. In 1809, her son Thomas published some of her writings as a means of encouraging others to have faith and especially to seek Christian perfection as she had done. (I have yet to run across a picture that is said to be of her, so I found this generic representation of an eighteenth century woman and decided to use it.)
In one letter, written July 15, 1767 to John Wesley, she writes of her concern that she does not feel the same measure of love or clarity of sight or strength of faith that she once experienced, but she claims that "at all times I feel my heart wholly given up to God; yet find also a continuing questioning in my mind about it."
She lays out her perplexity and confusion before Wesley in her letter, and he responds quickly, gently counseling her not to worry about how to label her experience but rather "to go straight to him that loves you, with all your wants, how great or how many soever they are."
He continues by reassuring her that she may receive help by simple faith even though she will naturally "be incompassed with numberless infirmities; for you live in an house of clay, and therefore this corruptible body will more or less press down the soul, yet not so as to prevent your rejoicing evermore, and having a witness that your heart is all his; you may claim this, it is yours for Christ is yours."
I have been reading portions of the letters between her and John Wesley on Facebook, and I really enjoy seeing the dynamics of their relationship as she freely shares her joys and her fears with him and even advises him on whom he stations to the circuit, and as he takes her concerns seriously and encourages her to hold fast to Christ with confidence. While her letters tend to be rather lengthy, Wesley's responses are generally succinct masterpieces of spiritual guidance and offerings of a practical nature. It reminds me that they faced challenges in their inner and outer lives just as we do and that we, too, can seek peace and hope for growing in Christian holiness despite our difficult circumstances.
If you are interested in hearing some of these letters out loud, please go to Travels With Wesley on Facebook at facebook.com/travelswithwesley.
Even if you don't have Facebook, I think you can access them there. I hope you'll join me in diving into this Christian Correspondence between Eliza Bennis and John Wesley and others. I think you'll be glad you did.
Born Eliza Patten in 1725 in Limerick, she married Mitchell Bennis in 1745, parenting four children who reached adulthood. After joining the Methodist Society, she began keeping a journal and recorded her spiritual journey in it through 1779. Along with her voluminous correspondence with John Wesley and other Methodist preachers, this journal provides insight into Irish Methodism as seen through the eyes of someone who experienced holiness/sanctification yet worried that her defects or mistakes might cause her to backslide and fall from sanctifying grace.
In her later years, she emigrated to the United States where she died in 1802. In 1809, her son Thomas published some of her writings as a means of encouraging others to have faith and especially to seek Christian perfection as she had done. (I have yet to run across a picture that is said to be of her, so I found this generic representation of an eighteenth century woman and decided to use it.)
In one letter, written July 15, 1767 to John Wesley, she writes of her concern that she does not feel the same measure of love or clarity of sight or strength of faith that she once experienced, but she claims that "at all times I feel my heart wholly given up to God; yet find also a continuing questioning in my mind about it."
She lays out her perplexity and confusion before Wesley in her letter, and he responds quickly, gently counseling her not to worry about how to label her experience but rather "to go straight to him that loves you, with all your wants, how great or how many soever they are."
He continues by reassuring her that she may receive help by simple faith even though she will naturally "be incompassed with numberless infirmities; for you live in an house of clay, and therefore this corruptible body will more or less press down the soul, yet not so as to prevent your rejoicing evermore, and having a witness that your heart is all his; you may claim this, it is yours for Christ is yours."
I have been reading portions of the letters between her and John Wesley on Facebook, and I really enjoy seeing the dynamics of their relationship as she freely shares her joys and her fears with him and even advises him on whom he stations to the circuit, and as he takes her concerns seriously and encourages her to hold fast to Christ with confidence. While her letters tend to be rather lengthy, Wesley's responses are generally succinct masterpieces of spiritual guidance and offerings of a practical nature. It reminds me that they faced challenges in their inner and outer lives just as we do and that we, too, can seek peace and hope for growing in Christian holiness despite our difficult circumstances.
If you are interested in hearing some of these letters out loud, please go to Travels With Wesley on Facebook at facebook.com/travelswithwesley.
Even if you don't have Facebook, I think you can access them there. I hope you'll join me in diving into this Christian Correspondence between Eliza Bennis and John Wesley and others. I think you'll be glad you did.
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