Wesley Corpus

Oh that you may be ever as dead to the world as you are now! I apprehend the greatest danger from that quarter. If you should be induced to seek happiness out of Christ, how soon would your good desires vanish! especially if you should give way to the temptation to which your person, your youth, and your fortune will not fail to expose you. If you escape this snare, I trust you will be a real Christian, having the power as well as the form of religion. I expect you will then have likewise better health and spirits; perhaps to-morrow. But O, take Christ to-day! I long to have you happy in Him! Surely few have a more earnest desire of your happiness than, my very dear Lady, Your Ladyship's most affectionate servant. To a Gentleman [16] WIGAN, July 13, 1764. DEAR SIR,--There was one thing when I was with you that gave me pain: you are not in the Society. But why not Are there not sufficient arguments for it to move any reasonable man Do you not hereby make an open confession of Christ, of what you really believe to be His work, and of those whom you judge to be in a proper sense His people and His messengers By this means do not you encourage His people and strengthen the hands of His messengers And is not this the way to enter into the spirit and share the blessing of a Christian community Hereby, likewise, you may have the benefit of the advices and exhortations at the meeting of the Society, and also of provoking one another at the private meetings to love and to good works.