Wesley Corpus

But, however this be, can you be adorned at the same time with costly apparel and with good works; that is, in the same degree as you might have been, had you bestowed less cost on your apparel? You know this is impossible; the more you expend on the one, the less you have to expend on the other. Costliness of apparel, in every branch, is there fore immediately, directly, inevitably destructive of good works. You see a brother, for whom Christ died, ready to perish for want of needful clothing. You would give it him gladly; but, alas, “it is corban, whereby he might have been profited.” It is given already, not indeed for the service of God, not to the treasury of the temple; but either to please the folly of others, or to feed vanity or the lust of the eye in yourself. Now (even suppose these were harmless. tempers, yet) what an unspeakable loss is this, if it be really true, that “every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour !” if there be indeed a reward in heaven for every work of faith, for every degree of the labour of lovel IV. 1. As to the advice subjoined, it is easy to observe, that all those smaller things are, in their degree, liable to the sanc objections as the greater. If they are gay, showy, pleasing to the eye, the putting them on does not spring from a single view to please God. It neither flows from, nor tends to advance, a meek and quiet spirit. It does not arise from, nor anyway promote, real, vital godliness. 2. And if they are in anywise costly, if they are purchased with any unnecessary expense, they cannot but, in proportion to that expense, be destructive of good works. Of conse quence, they are destructive of that charity which is fed thereby; hardening our heart against the cry of the poor and needy, by inuring us to shut up our bowels of compassion toward them. 3. At least, all unnecessary expenses of this kind, whether small or great, are senseless and foolish. This we may defy any man living to get over, if he allows there is another world.