Wesley Corpus

Probably the reason you saw it not before was, because you knew none but nominal Christians; men who professed to believe more, (in their way of believing,) but had no more of the knowledge or love of God than yourselves: So that with regard to real, inward religion, you stood upon even ground. And perhaps in many branches of outward .religion the advantage was on your side. May the Lord, the God of the Christians, either reform these wretches, or take them away from the earth, that lay this grand stumbling-block in the way of those who desire to know the will of God! O ye who desire to know his will, regard them not! If it be possible, blot them out of your remembrance. They neither can nor will do you any good. O, suffer them not to do you harm ! Be not prejudiced against Christianity ‘by those who know nothing at all of it: Nay, they condemn it, all real substantial Christianity; they speak evil of the thing they know not; they have a kind of cant word for the whole religion of the heart; they call it enthusiasm. I will briefly lay before you the ground of the matter, and appeal to you yourselves for the reasonableness of it. 21. What a miserable drudgery is the service of God, unless I love the God whom I serve | But I cannot love one whom I know not. How then can I love God till I know him? And how is it possible I should know God, unless he make .himself known unto me? By analogy or proportion? Very good. But where is that proportion to be found? What proportion does a creature bear to its Creator? What is .the proportion between finite and infinite? I grant, the existence of the creatures demonstratively shows the existence of their Creator. The whole creation speaks that there is a God. But that is not the point in question. I know there is a God. Thus far is clear. But who will show ·me what that God is?