Wesley Corpus

Peter and Paul false witnesses before God. ‘And because those professions that minister thereto’ (to sin, to what God has flatly forbidden) ‘relate to trade, and trade is a thing relating to the magistrate, we therefore let all these things alone, entirely suspending our judgment concerning them.’ What miserable work is here! Because trade relates to the magistrate, am I not to consider whether my trade be innocent or sinful Then the keeper of a Venetian brothel is clear. The magistrate shall answer for him to God!]* or by continuing in those professions the gain of which depends on ministering hereto. (3) That it does imply liberty to avoid persecution, by [This fact also you grant, and defend thus: ‘The power of reproving relates either to outward things or to the heart. Nobody has any right to the former but the magistrate.’ (Alas! alas I what casuistry is this!)’ And if one will speak to the heart, he must be first sure that the Savior has already got hold of it.’ What, then, must become of all other men Oh how pleasing is all this to flesh and blood!]* not reproving even those who sin in your sight; by not letting your light shine before those men who love darkness rather than light; by not using plainness of speech, and a frank, open carriage to all men -- nay, by a close, ark, reserved conversation and behavior, especially toward strangers. And in many of you I have more than once found (what you called being wise as serpents) much subtlety, much evasion and disguise, much guile and dissimulation. You appeared to be what you were not, or not to be what you were. You so studied ‘to become all things to all men,’ as to take the color and shape of any that were near you. So that your practice was indeed no proof of your judgment, but only an indication of your design nulli laedere os, [Terence's Adelphi, v. iv. 10: ‘To insult no one to his face.’] and of your conformity to that (not scriptural) maxim, Sinere roun-durn vadere ut vult : ham vult vadere. [‘To let the world go as it will: for it will go.’]*