12 To The Earl Of Dartmouth
| Author | John Wesley |
|---|---|
| Type | letter |
| Year | None |
| Passage ID | jw-letter-1761-12-to-the-earl-of-dartmouth-004 |
| Words | 378 |
'(iv) These principles they industriously propagate among their followers.' Indeed they do not: the bulk of their followers know just nothing of the matter. They industriously propagate among them nothing but inward and outward holiness.
(7) 'Now these are oppositions to the most fundamental principles and essentially constituent parts of our Establishment; and not of ours only, but of every ecclesiastical Establishment that is or ever has been in the Christian world.'
'The most fundamental principles'! No more than the tiles are the most fundamental principles of an house. Useful, doubtless, they are; yet you must take them off if you would repair the rotten timber beneath. 'Essentially constituent parts of our Establishment'! Well, we will not quarrel for a word. Perhaps the doors may be essentially constituent parts of the building we call a church. Yet, if it were on fire, we might innocently break them open or even throw them for a time off the hinges. Now this is really the case. The timber is rotten--yea, the main beams of the house; and they want to place that firm beam, salvation by faith, in the room of salvation by works. A fire is kindled in the Church, the house of the living God: the fire of love of the world, ambition, covetousness, envy, anger, malice, bitter zeal--in one word, of ungodliness and unrighteousness. Oh who will come and help to quench it? Under disadvantages and discouragements of every kind, a little handful of men have made a beginning; and I trust they will not leave off till the building is saved or they sink in the ruins of it.
4. To sum up the whole. A few irregular men openly witness those truths of God which the regular clergy (a few excepted) either suppress or wholly deny.
Their word is accompanied with the power of God, convincing and converting sinners. The word of those is not accompanied with power: it neither wounds nor heals.
The former witness the truth and the power of God by their own life and conversation: therefore the world, men who know not God, hate them and speak all manner of evil against them falsely. The latter are of the world: therefore the world loves its own and speaks honourably of them.