Treatise Advice To The People Called Methodists
| Author | John Wesley |
|---|---|
| Type | treatise |
| Year | None |
| Passage ID | jw-treatise-advice-to-the-people-called-methodists-000 |
| Words | 365 |
Advice to the People Called Methodists
Source: The Works of John Wesley, Volume 8 (Zondervan)
Year: 1745
Author: John Wesley
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IT may be needful to specify whom I mean by this ambigu
ous term; since it would be lost labour to speak to Methodists,
so called, without first describing those to whom I speak. * Thus translated by Francis:
“To the instruction of a humble friend,
Who would himself be better taught, attend.”-EDIT. By Methodists I mean, a people who profess to pursue (in
whatsoever measure they have attained) holiness of heart and
life, inward and outward conformity in all things to the revealed
will of God; who place religion in an uniform resemblance of
the great object of it; in a steady imitation of Him they wor
ship, in all his imitable perfections; more particularly, in jus
tice, mercy, and truth, or universal love filling the heart, and
governing the life. You, to whom I now speak, believe this love of human kind
cannot spring but from the love of God. You think there can
be no instance of one whose tender affection embraces every
child of man, (though not endeared to him either by ties of
blood, or by any natural or civil relation,) unless that affection
flow from a grateful, filial love to the common Father of all;
to God, considered not only as his Father, but as “the Father
of the spirits of all flesh;” yea, as the general Parent and
Friend of all the families both of heaven and earth. This filial love you suppose to flow only from faith, which
you describe as a supernatural evidence (or conviction) of
things not seen; so that to him who has this principle,
The things unknown to feeble sense,
Unseen by reason's glimmering ray,
With strong commanding evidence
Their heavenly origin display. Faith lends its realizing light,
The clouds disperse, the shadows fly;
The Invisible appears in sight,
And God is seen by mortal eye. You suppose this faith to imply an evidence that God is mer
ciful to me a sinner; that he is reconciled to me by the death of
his Son, and now accepts me for his sake.