Wesley Corpus

That Methodism (so called) -- that is, vital religion, loving faith, in the hearts of those who are vulgarly termed Methodists -- should seem to you, sitting snug at London or Bristol, to be ‘very much in its decline,’ is no wonder. But I, who see things in every place with my own eyes, know it is very much in its increase. Many are daily added to them that believe; many more are continually awakened: so that the Societies from east to west, from north to south, in both kingdoms, increase in grace as well as number. ‘I wish the argument’ (which is no argument at all, as being grounded on a palpable mistake) ‘Be not too home to bear a dispute among honest men.’ Very well! Another clear proof of the love that thinketh no evil. ‘If you had consented.’ This is the very point. I could not consent (which implies some degree of approbation) to what I judged to be totally wrong. Yet nether did I persecute. I inflicted no penalty of any kind on those whom I judged to have done wrong; because I believed they acted from conscience though erroneous: I only mildly advised them to desist. ‘I never will be again united with any who will not let others choose their own religion.’ Then you will never unite with any but knaves; for no honest men who preside over any community will let the members of it do what they judge to be wrong and hurtful to that community without endeavoring to prevent it, at least, by mild, loving friendly advice. ‘I go away, not of choice, but of necessity.’ So you must think till God opens your eyes. ‘Your kindness at our first acquaintance, the Providence that brought us together, and the keeping up that acquaintance after so many snares of the enemy to destroy it, make it sacred as well as dear to me.’ And yet for such a reason as this, -- because I advise you to abstain from doing what I think you have no fight to do, what I judge to be both evil in itself and productive of ill consequences, --for this reason you burst all the bonds asunder and cast away the cords from you. The Lord God enlighten the eyes of your understanding and soften and enlarge your heart!