Wesley Corpus

Alas, I fear neither they (the greater part at least) nor you know what this religion means; or have any more notion of it, than the peasant that holds the plough of the religion of a Gymnosophist. It is well if the genuine religion of Christ has any more alli ance with what you call religion, than with the Turkish pil grimages to Mecca, or the Popish worship of our Lady of Loretto. Have not you substituted, in the place of the reli gion of the heart, something (I do not say equally sinful, but) equally vain, and foreign to the worshipping of God “in spirit and in truth?” What else can be said even of prayer, (public or private,) in the manner wherein you generally perform it? as a thing of course, running round and round in the same dull track, without either the knowledge or love of God, without one heavenly temper, either attained or improved ! O what mockery of God is this! And yet even this religion, which can do you no good, may do you much harm. Nay, it is plain it does; it daily increases your pride, as you measure your goodness by the number and length of your performances. It gives you a deep contempt of those who do not come up to the full tale of your virtues. It inspires men with a zeal which is the very fire of hell, furious, bitter, implacable, unmerciful; often to a degree that extin guishes all compassion, all good nature and humanity, Inso much that the execrable fierceness of spirit, which is the natural fruit of such a religion, hath many times, in spite of all ties, divine and human, broke out into open violence, into rapine, murder, sedition, rebellion, civil war, to the desolation of whole cities and countries. Tantum haec religio potuit suadere malorum !" 3. Now, if there be a God, and one that is not a mere idle * So much mischief this religion does ! spectator of the things that are done upon earth, but a re warder of men and nations according to their works, what can the event of these things be? It was reasonable to believe that he would have risen long ago and maintained his own cause, either by sending the famine or pestilence among us, or by pouring out his fury in blood.