Wesley Corpus

9. Both these blessings, the continual presence of useful and uninterrupted freedom from trifling acquaintance, are exceedingly endeared to me, whenever I have spent but one week out of this place. The far greatest part of the conversation I meet with abroad, even among those whom I believe to be real Christians, turns on points that are absolutely wide of my purpose, that no way forward me in the business of life. Now, though they may have time to spare, I have none; it is absolutely necessary for such an one as me to follow, with all possible care and vigilance, that excellent advice of Mr. Herbert: Still let thy mind be bent, still plotting where, And when, and how the business may be done. [George Herbert's The Temple, 'The Church Porch,' stanza 57.] And this, I bless God, I can in some measure do, so long as I avoid that bane of piety, the company of good sort of men, lukewarm Christians (as they are called), persons that have a great concern for but no sense of religion. But these undermine insensibly all my resolutions, and quite steal from me the little fervor I have; and I never come from among these saints of the world (as J. Valdesso [Juan de Valdes (Ital. Valdesso), born about 1500 at Cuenca in Castile, labored unceasingly by tongue and pen for religious reform. In his Alfabeto Christiano he insists that the soul must choose between God and the world. He died in 1540 or 1541.] calls them) faint, dissipated, and shorn of all my strength, but I say, ' God deliver me from an half-Christian.'