Wesley Corpus

If any man’s temper, or words, or actions, are contradictory to right reason, it is evident to a demonstration, they are contra dictory to this. Produce any possible or conceivable instance, and you will find the fact is so. The lives, therefore, of those who are called Christians, is no just objection to Christianity. 28. We join with you then in desiring a religion founded on reason, and every way agreeable thereto. But one question still remains to be asked, What do you mean by reason 2 I sup pose you mean the eternal reason, or the nature of things; the nature of God, and the nature of man, with the relations neces sarily subsisting between them. Why, this is the very religion we preach; a religion evidently founded on, and every way agreeable to, eternal reason, to the essential nature of things. Its foundation stands on the nature of God and the nature of man, together with their mutual relations. And it is every way suitable thereto; to the nature of God; for it begins in know ing him: And where, but in the true knowledge of God, can you conceive true religion to begin? It goes on in loving him and all mankind; for you cannot but imitate whom you love: It ends in serving him; in doing kis will; in obeying him whom we know and love. 29. It is every way suited to the nature of man; for it begins in a man’s knowing himself; knowing himself to be what he really is,--foolish, vicious, miserable. It goes on to point out the remedy for this, to make him truly wise, vir tuous, and happy; as every thinking mind (perhaps from some implicit remembrance of what it originally was) longs to be. It finishes all, by restoring the due relations between God and man; by uniting for ever the tender Father, and the grate ful, obedient son; the great Lord of all, and the faithful ser vant; doing not his own will, but the will of Him that sent him 30. But perhaps by reason you mean the faculty of reason ing, of inferring one thing from another.