Wesley Corpus

Is it possi ble in the nature of things? Si virtus conspiceretur oculis, (said the old Heathen,) mirabiles amores excitaret sui.” How much more if you see Him who is the original fountain, the great archetype of all virtue, will that sight raise in you a love that is wonderful, such as the gay and busy world know not of ! 23. What benevolence also, what tender love to the whole of human kind, will you drink in, together with the love of God, from the unexhausted source of love! And how easy is it to conceive that more and more of his image will be then transfused into your soul; that from disinterested love, all. other divine tempers will, as it were naturally, spring: Mildness, gentleness, patience, temperance, justice, sincerity, contempt of the world; yea, whatsoever things are venerable: and lovely, whatsoever are justly of good report! • This quotation from Cicero is thus translated by Addison --“If virtue. could be made the object of sight, she would (as Plato says) excite in us a won derful love.”--EDIT. And when you thus love God and all mankind, and are transformed into his likeness, then the commandments of God will not be grievous; you will no more complain that they destroy the comforts of life: So far from it, that they will be the very joy of your heart; ways of pleasantness, paths of peace! You will experience here that solid happiness which you had elsewhere sought in vain. Without servile fear or anxious care, so long as you continue on earth, you will gladly do the will of God here as the angels do it in heaven; and when the time is come that you should depart hence, when God says, “Arise, and come away,” you will pass with joy unspeakable out of the body, into all the fulness of God. Now, does not your own heart condemn you if you call this religion enthusiasm? O leave that to those blind zealots who tack together a set of opinions and an outside worship, and call this poor, dull, lifeless thing by the sacred name of Chris tianity | Well might you account such Christianity as this a mere piece of empty pageantry, fit indeed to keep the vulgar in awe, but beneath the regard of a man of understanding.