Wesley Corpus

‘I suppose by “devotion” you mean public worship; by the “true ends” of it, the love of God and man; and by “a due and regular attendance on the public offices of religion, paid in a serious and composed way,: the going as often as we can to our parish church and to the sacrament there administered. If so, the question is, Whether this attendance on those offices does not produce the love of God and man. I answer, Sometimes it does, and sometimes it does not. I myself thus attended them for many years, and yet am conscious to myself that during that whole time I had no more of the love of God than a stone. And I know many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of serious persons who are ready to testify the same thing.’ [A Farther Appeal, Part 1. See Works, viii. 61.] I subjoined: (1) ‘We continually exhort all who attend on our preaching to attend the offices of the Church. And they do pay a more regular attendance there than ever they did before. (2) Their attending the church did not, in fact, answer those ends at all till they attended this preaching also. (3) It is the preaching remission of sins through Jesus Christ which alone answers the true ends of devotion.’ II. 13. ‘They censure the clergy,’ says your Lordship, ‘as less zealous than themselves in the several branches of the ministerial function. For this they are undeservedly reproached by these noisy itinerant leaders.’ (Charge, pp. 24-5.) My Lord, I am not conscious to myself of this. I do not willingly compare myself with any man; much less do I reproach my brethren of the clergy, whether they deserve it or not. But it is needless to add any more on this head than what was said above a year ago: