Wesley Corpus

Now, what is this but using outward works as commutations for inward holiness For (1) These men love not inward holiness; they love the world; they love money; they love pleasure or praise: therefore the love of God is not in them; nor, consequently, the Christian love of their neighbor. Yet (2) They are in no wise convinced that they are in the broad way which leads to destruction. They sleep on and take their rest. They say, ‘Peace, peace,’ to their soul, though there is no peace. But on what presence Why, on this very ground -- because (3) They do such and such outward works; they go to church, and perhaps to the Lord’s Table; they use in some sort private prayer; they give alms; and therefore they imagine themselves to be in the high road to heaven. Though they have not ‘the mind that was in Christ,’ yet they doubt not but all is safe, because they do thus and thus, because their lives are not as other men’s are. This is what I mean by using outward works as commutations for inward holiness. I find more and more instances every day of this miserable self-deceit. The thing is plain and clear. But if you dislike the phrase, we will drop it and use another. Nearly allied to this is the ‘gross superstition of those who think to put devotion upon God instead of honesty’: I mean, who practice neither justice nor mercy, and yet hope to go to heaven because they go to church and sacrament. Can you find no such men in the Church of England I find them in every street. Nine times in ten, when I have told a tradesman, ‘You have cheated me; sold me this for more than it is worth, which I think is a breach both of justice and mercy. Are you a Christian Do you hope to go to heaven’ his answer, if he deigned any answer at all, has been to this effect: ‘As good a Christian as yourself! Go to heaven! Yes, sure; for I keep my church as well as any man.’