Wesley Corpus

Yea, “the grace of God, which bringeth salvation,” pre sent salvation from inward and outward sin, hath abounded of late years in such a degree, as neither we nor our fathers had known. How extensive is the change which has been wrought on the minds and lives of the people! Know ye not that the sound has gone forth into all the land; that there is scarce a city or considerable town to be found, where some have not been roused out of the sleep of death, and constrained to cry out, in the bitterness of their soul, “What must I do to be saved ?” that this religious concern has spread to every age and sex; to most orders and degrees of men? to abundance of those, in particular, who, in time past, were accounted monsters of wickedness, “drinking in iniquity like water,” and commit ting all “uncleanness with greediness.” 7. In what age has such a work been wrought, considering the swiftness as well as the extent of it? When have such numbers of sinners in so short a time been recovered from the error of their ways? When hath religion, I will not say since the Reformation, but since the time of Constantine the Great, made so large a progress in any nation, within so small a space? I believe, hardly can either ancient or modern history supply us with a parallel instance. 8. Let understanding men observe also the depth of the work, so extensively and swiftly wrought. It is not a slight or superficial thing; but multitudes of men have been so thoroughly “convinced of sin,” that their “bones were smit ten asunder, as it were with a sword dividing the very joints and marrow.” Many of these have been shortly after so filled with “peace and joy in believing,” that, whether they were in the body or out of the body, they could scarcely tell. And in the power of this faith they have trampled under foot what ever the world accounts either terrible or desirable; having evidenced, in the severest trials, so fervent a love to God, so invariable and tender a goodwill to mankind, particularly to their enemies, and such a measure of all the fruits of holi ness, as were not unworthy the apostolic age.