Wesley Corpus

«20, My next position is this: till he is thus despised, no man is in a state of salvation. And this is a plain consequence of the former; for if all that are ‘ not of the world. are therefore despised by those that are, Journal I.--9° 126 REV. J. WESLEY’S JOURNAL. [ April, 1739. then, till a man is despised, he is ‘of the world ;’ that is, out of a state of salvation. Nor is it possible for all the trimmers between God and the world to elude the consequence ; unless they can prove that a man may be ‘of the world,’ and yet be in a state of salvation. I must therefore, with, or without the consent of these, keep close to my Saviour’s judg- ment, and maintain, that contempt is a part of the cross which every man bears who follows him; that it is the badge of his discipleship, the stamp of his profession, the constant seal of his calling; insomuch that though a man may be despised without being saved, yet he cannot be saved without being despised. ; “21. I should not spend any more words on this great truth, but that it is at present voted out of the world. The masters in Israel, learned men, men of renown, seem absolutely to have forgotten it: nay, and censure those who have not forgotten the words of their Lord, as ‘ settersforth of strange doctrine.’ Yet they who hearken to God rather than man, must lay down one strange position more,--That the being despised is absolutely necessary to our doing good-in the world: if not to our doing some good, (for God may work by Judas,) yet to our doing so much good as we otherwise might: seeing we must know God, if we would fully teach others to know him. But if we do, we must be despised of them that know him not. ‘ Where then is the scribe? Where is the