Wesley Corpus

You do not appear to have the least idea or conception of what is in the heart of one whom it pleases Him that worketh all in all to employ in a work of this kind. He is in no wise forward to be at all employed therein: he starts back, again and again; not only because he readily foresees what shame, care, sorrow, reproach, what loss of friends, and of all that the world accounts dear, will inevitably follow; but much more because he (in some measure) knows himself. This chiefly it is which constrains him to cry out (and that many times, in the bitterness of his soul, when no human eye seeth him), ‘O Lord, send by whom Thou wilt send, only send not me! What am I A worm! a dead dog! a man unclean in heart and lips!’ And when he dares no longer gainsay or resist, when he is at last ‘thrust out into the harvest,’ he looketh on the right hand and on the left, he takes every step with fear and trembling, and with the deepest sense (such as words cannot express) of ‘Who is sufficient for these things’ Every gift which he has received of God for the furtherance of His word, whether of nature or grace, heightens this fear and increases his jealousy over himself; knowing that so much the stricter must the inquiry be when he gives an account of his stewardship. He is most of all jealous over himself when the work of the Lord prospers in his hand. He is then amazed and confounded before God. Shame covers his face. Yet, when he sees that he ought ‘to praise the Lord for His goodness and to declare the wonders which He doeth for the children of men,’ he is in a strait between two; he knows not which way to turn: he cannot speak; he dares not be silent. It may be for a time he ‘keeps his mouth with a bridle; he holds his peace even from good. But his heart is hot within him,’ and constrains him at length to declare what God hath wrought.