Wesley Corpus

Nearly allied to this is the ‘gross superstition of those who think to put devotion upon God instead of honesty’: I mean, who practice neither justice nor mercy, and yet hope to go to heaven because they go to church and sacrament. Can you find no such men in the Church of England I find them in every street. Nine times in ten, when I have told a tradesman, ‘You have cheated me; sold me this for more than it is worth, which I think is a breach both of justice and mercy. Are you a Christian Do you hope to go to heaven’ his answer, if he deigned any answer at all, has been to this effect: ‘As good a Christian as yourself! Go to heaven! Yes, sure; for I keep my church as well as any man.’ Now, what can be plainer than that this man keeps his church, not only as an act of goodness, but as a commutation instead of goodness -- as something which he hopes will do as well, will bring him to heaven, without either justice or mercy Perhaps, indeed, if he fell into adultery or murder, it might awaken him out of his dream, and convince him, as well as his neighbors, that this worship is not a mitigation but an aggravation of his wickedness; but nothing short of this will. In spite of all your reasoning and mine, he will persist in thinking himself a good Christian; and that if his ‘brother have aught against him,’ yet all will be well so he do but constantly ‘bring his gift to the altar.’ I entreat you, sir, to make the experiment yourself; to talk freely with any that come in your way. And you will surely find it is the very thing which almost destroys the (so called) Christian world. Every nominal Christian has some bit or scrap of outward religion, either negative or positive; either he does not do in some respect like other men, or he does something more than they. And by this, however freely he may condemn others, he takes care to excuse himself, and stifles whatever convictions he might otherwise have ‘that the wrath of God abideth on him.’