Wesley Corpus

Upon this encouragement we still continued to sit together as usual; to confirm one another as well as we could in our resolutions to communicate as often as we had an opportunity (which is here once a week); and to do what service we could to our acquaintance, the prisoners, and two or three poor families in the town. But the outcry daily increasing, that we might show what ground there was for it, we proposed to our friends, or opponents, as we had opportunity, these or the like questions: -- I. Whether it does not concern all men of all conditions to imitate Him, as much as they can, ' who went about doing good' Whether all Christians are not concerned in that command, ' While we have time, let us do good to all men' Whether we shall not be more happy hereafter, the more good we do now Whether we can be happy at all hereafter, unless we have, according to our power, 'fed the hungry, clothed the naked, visited those that are sick and in prison'; and made all these actions subservient to an higher purpose, even the saving of souls from death Whether it be not our bounden duty always to remember that He did more for us than we can do for Him, who assures us, 'Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me' II. Whether, upon these considerations, we may not try to do good to our acquaintance Particularly, whether we may not try to convince them of the necessity of being Christians Whether of the consequent necessity of being scholars Whether of the necessity of method and industry, in order to either learning or virtue Whether we may not try to persuade them to confirm and increase their industry, by communicating as often as they can Whether we may not mention to them the authors whom we conceive to have wrote best on those subjects Whether we may not assist them, as we are able, from time to time, to form resolutions upon what they read in those authors, and to execute them with steadiness and perseverance