Wesley Corpus

But as perfect holiness is not found on earth, so neither is perfect happiness. [In this life adult Christians are saved from all sin, and are made perfect in love. See Mr. Wesley's "Plain Account of Christian Perfection." -- Edit.] Some remains of our disease will ever be felt, and some physic be necessary to heal it. Therefore we must be, more or less, subject to the pain of cure, as well as the pain of sickness. And, accordingly, neither do "the wicked" here "cease from troubling," nor can "the weary be at rest." Who, then will "deliver" us "from the body of this death" Death will deliver us. Death shall set those free in a moment, who "were all their life-time subject to bondage." Death shall destroy at once the whole body of sin, [This doctrine, that we are saved from sin by death, is nowhere taught in sacred Scripture, as Mr. Wesley afterwards perceived, and demonstrated in the treatise just mentioned, and in several of his Sermons. -- Edit.] and therewith of its companion, -- pain. And therefore, "there the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary be at rest." The Scriptures give us no account of the place where the souls of the just remain from death to the resurrection; but we have an account of their state in these words: In explaining which I shall consider, I. How the wicked do here trouble good men; and, II. How the weary are there at rest." [I.] Let us consider, First, how the "wicked" here "trouble" good men. And this is a spacious field. Look round the world; take a view of all the troubles therein: How few are there whereof the wicked are not the occasion! "From whence come wars and fightings among you" Whence all the ills that embitter society; that often turn that highest of blessings into a curse, and make it "good for man to be alone" "Come they not hence," from self-will, pride, inordinate affection in one word, from wickedness And can it be otherwise, so long as it remains upon earth As well may "the Ethiopian change his skin," as a wicked man cease to trouble both himself and his neighbour, but especially good men: Inasmuch as, while he is wicked he is continually injuring either them, or himself, or God.