Wesley Corpus

12. Above all, let it be observed, that this religion has no mixture of vice or unholiness. It gives no man of any rank or profession the least license to sin. It makes no allowance to any person for ungodliness of any kind. Not that all who follow after have attained this, either are already perfect. But however that be, they plead for no sin, either inward or out ward. They condemn every kind and degree thereof, in themselves as well as in other men. Indeed, most in them selves; it being their constant care to bring those words home to their own case, “Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.” 13. Yet there is not found among them that bitter zeal in points either of small or of great importance, that spirit of persecution, which has so often accompanied the spirit of reformation. It is an idle conceit, that the spirit of persecu tion is among the Papists only . It is wheresoever the devil, that old murderer, works; and he still “worketh in ” all “the children of disobedience.” Of consequence, all the children of disobedience will, on a thousand different pretences, and in a thousand different ways, so far as God permits, persecute the children of God. But what is still more to be lamented is, that the children of God themselves have so often used the same weapons, and persecuted others, when the power was in their own hands. Can we wholly excuse those venerable men, our great Re formers themselves, from this charge? I fear not, if we impar tially read over any history of the Reformation. What wonder is it then, that, when the tables were turned, Bishop Bonner or Gardiner should make reprisals; that they should measure to others (indeed good measure, shaken together) what had before been measured to them? Nor is it strange, when we consider the single case of Joan Bocher, that God should suffer those (otherwise) holy men, Archbishop Cranmer, Bishop Ridley, and Bishop Latimer, to drink of the same cup with her. 14. But can you find any tincture of this in the case before us?