Wesley Corpus

He then that has any other design in undertaking or executing the office of a Minister than purely this, to glorify God and save souls, his eye is not single. Of consequence, it is evil; and there fore his “whole body” must be “full of darkness.” “The light which is in” him “is” very “darkness;” darkness covers his whole soul; he has no solid peace; he has no blessing from God; and there is no fruit of his labours. It is no wonder that they who see no harm in this, see no harm in adding one living to another, and, if they can, another to that; yet still wiping their mouth, and saying, they have done no evil. In the very first step, their eye was not single; therefore their mind was filled with darkness. So they stumble on still in the same mire, till their feet “stumble on the dark mountains.” It is pleaded, indeed, that “a small living will not main tain a large family.” Maintain / How 2 It will not clothe. them “in purple and fine linen;” nor enable them to fare “sumptuously every day:” But will not the living you have now afford you and yours the plain necessaries, yea, and conveniencies, of life? Will it not maintain you in the frugal, Christian simplicity which becomes a Minister of Christ? It will not maintain you in pomp and grandeur, in elegant luxury, in fashionable sensuality. So much the better. If your eyes were open, whatever your income was, you would flee from these as from hell-fire. It has been pleaded, Secondly, “By having a larger income, I am able to do more good.” But dare you aver, in the presence of God, that it was singly with this view, only for this end, that you sought a larger income 2 If not, you are still condemned before God; your eye was not single. * This quotation from Horace is thus translated by Boscawen : “This is fell poison's blackest juice.”-EDIT. Do not therefore quibble and evade. This was not your motive of acting.