Wesley Corpus

never be used with propriety. It must import either too much or too little ; for every plea sure, weighed with the circumstances that attend it, is either more ;or less than innocent. If it tends to the love of God it is more ; if it does not, it is less. Pleasures of all sorts used in that proportion wherein they enliven and strengthen our minds, arid render us more fit for discharging the duties of our responsive stations, deserve a better title than that of in nocent ; they are virtuous and rewardable: and pleasure of any sort, used in any other proportion deserves not so good an epithet, as implying a sinful and punishable waste of time and other talents which God hath lent us. If these be the innocent pleasures which are meant in the objection, we own that the love of God does destroy them ; but it deprives us of none which in any way conduce to that even cheerfulness, which is both the parent and daughter of divine love, and the life of virtue and the beauty of holiness. The clearness and strength of reason with which one of our most celebrated divines (Young's Sermons, ii. 184) confirms this im-