Wesley Corpus

And I believe you have moral endowments which are infinitely more valuable and more amiable than all these. For (if I am not greatly deceived) you bear “good-will to all men.” And may not I add, you fear God? O what might not you do with these abilities! What would be too great for you to attempt and effect! Of what service might you be, not only to your own countrymen, but to all that bear the Christian name ! How might you advance the cause of true, primitive, scriptural Christianity; of solid, rational virtue; of the deep, holy, happy, spiritual religion, which is brought to light by the gospel ! How capable are you of recommending, not barely morality, (the duty of man to man,) but piety, the duty of man to God, even the “worshipping him in spirit and in truth !” How well qualified are you to explain, enforce, defend, even “the deep things of God,” the nature of the kingdom of God “within us;” yea, the interiora regni Dei !” (I speak on supposition of your having the “unction of the Holy One,” added to your other qualifications.) And are you, whom God has so highly favoured, among those who serve the opposite cause? If one might transfer the words of a man to Him, might not one conceive Him to say, Kat av et exeuvov; scal av, Texvov;t Are you disserving the cause of inward religion, labouring to destroy the inward kingdom of God, sapping the foundations of all true, spiritual worship, advancing morality on the ruins of piety? Are you among those who are overthrow ing the very foundations of primitive, scriptural Christianity? which certainly can have noground to stand upon, if the scheme lately advanced be true. What room is there for it, till men repent? know themselves? Without this can they know or love God? O why should you block up the way to repentance, and, consequently, to the whole religion of the heart? “Let a man be a fool,” says the Apostle, “that he may be wise.” But you tell him, he is wise already; that every man is by nature as wise as Adam was in paradise. He gladly drinks in the soothing sound, and sleeps on and takes his rest.