Wesley Corpus

We are doubtless to love good men more than others; but to have inserted it where I was only to prove that we were to love them, and not how much, would not, I think, have been to my purpose. Where our Savior exerts His authority against His opposers, I cannot think it safe for me to follow Him. I would much sooner in those cases act by His precepts than 'example: the one was certainly designed for me, the other possibly was not. The Author had power to dispense with His own laws, and wisdom to know when it was necessary: I have neither. No one would blame a man for using such sharpness of speech as St. Stephen does; especially in a prayer made in the article of death, with the same intention as his. III. What you understand as spoken of rulers, I expressly say of private men: ' As well every ruler as every private man must act in a legal way; and the latter might with equal reason apply the civil sword himself as use violent means' (by which I here mean reviling, studiously and unnecessarily defaming, or handing about ill stories of wicked men) 'to preserve the Church.' 1. I believe it to be more especially the duty of governors to try to amend scandalous offenders. 2. That flagrant immorality is a sufficient reason to shun any one. 3. That to the weak and private Christian it is an unanswerable reason for so doing. 4. That in many cases a private Christian, in some a clergyman, is not obliged to admonish more than once. But this being allowed, still the main argument stands, that the Scripture nowhere authorizes a private person to do more than to shun an heretic, or (which I expressly mention) an obstinate offender. I had not the least thought of any retrospect in them, neither when I wrote or spoke those words, 'If Providence has pointed you out, &c.'