Wesley Corpus

“But for these laymen to exhort at all is a violation of all order.” What is this order of which you speak? Will it serve instead of the knowledge and love of God? Will this order rescue those from the snare of the devil, who are now taken captive at his will? Will it keep them who are escaped a little way, from turning back into Egypt? If not, how should I answer it to God, if, rather than violate I know not what order, I should sacrifice thousands of souls thereto? I dare not do it. It is at the peril of my own soul. Indeed, if by order were meant true Christian discipline, whereby all the living members of Christ are knit together in one, and all that are putrid and dead immediately cut off from the body; this order I reverence, for it is of God. But where is it to be found? in what diocese, in what town or parish, within England or Wales? Are you Rector of a parish? Then let us go no farther. Does this order obtain there? Nothing less. Your parishioners are a rope of sand. As few (if any) of them are alive to God; so they have no connexion with each other, unless such as might be among Turks or Heathens. Neither have you any power to cut off from that body, were it alive, the dead and putrid members. Perhaps you have no desire; but all are jumbled together without any care or concern of yours. It is plain, then, that what order is to be found is not among you who so loudly contend for it, but among that very people whom you continually blame for their violation and contempt of it. The little flock you condemn is united together in one body, by one Spirit; so that “if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one be honoured, all rejoice with it.” Nor does any dead member long remain; but as soon as the hope of recovering it is past, it is cut off. Now, suppose we were willing to relinquish our charge, and to give up this flock into your hands, would you observe the same order as we do now with them and the other souls under your care? You dare not; because you have respect of persons.