Wesley Corpus

We have been long disputing about Christians, about Christianity, and the evidence whereby it is supported. But what do these terms mean Who is a Christian indeed What is real, genuine Christianity And what is the surest and most accessible evidence (if I may so speak) whereby I may know that it is of God May the God of the Christians enable me to speak on these heads in a manner suitable to the importance of them! Section I. 1. I would consider, first, Who is a Christian indeed What does that term properly imply It has been so long abused, I fear, not only to mean nothing at all, but (what was far worse than nothing) to be a cloak for the vilest hypocrisy, for the grossest abominations and immoralities of every kind, that it is high time to rescue it out of the hands of wretches that are a reproach to human nature, to show determinately what manner of man he is to whom this name of right belongs. 2. A Christian cannot think of the Author of his being without abasing himself before Him, without a deep sense of the distance between a worm of earth and Him that sitteth on the circle of the heavens. In His presence he sinks into the dust, knowing himself to be less than nothing in His eye, and being conscious, in a manner words cannot express, of his own littleness, ignorance, foolishness. So that he can only cry out from the fullness of his heart, 'O God I what is man what am I'