Wesley Corpus

To Thomas Rankin Date: EPWORTH, July 21, 1774. Source: The Letters of John Wesley (1774) Author: John Wesley --- DEAR TOMMY,--In yours of May the 30th you give me an agreeable account of your little Conference in Philadelphia. I think G. Shadford and you desire no novelties, but love good old Methodist discipline and doctrine. I have been lately thinking a good deal on one point, wherein perhaps we have all been wanting. We have not made it a rule, as soon as ever persons were justified, to remind them of going on to perfection. Whereas this is the very time preferable to all others. They have then the simplicity of little children, and they are fervent in spirit, ready to cut off the right hand or to pluck out the right eye. But if we once suffer this fervor to subside, we shall find it hard enough to bring them again to this point.--I am, &c.