Wesley Corpus

They would regard nothing done in the usual way. All this was lost upon them. The ordinary preaching of the word of God, they would not even deign to hear. So the devil made sure of these careless ones; for who should pluck them out of his hand? Then God was moved to jealousy, and went out of the usual way to save the souls which he had made. Then, over and above what was ordinarily spoken in his name in all the houses of God in the land, he commanded a voice to cry in the wilderness, “Pre pare ye the way of the Lord. The time is fulfilled. The king dom of heaven is at hand. Repent ye, and believe the gospel.” 23. Consider coolly, if it was not highly expedient that something of this kind should be. How expedient, were it only on the account of those poor sinners against their own souls who, to all human appearance, were utterly inaccessible every other way ! And what numbers of these are still to be found, even in or near our most populous cities ! What mul titudes of them were, some years since, both in Kingswood, and the Fells about Newcastle! who, week after week, spent the Lord’s day, either in the alc-house, or in idle diversions, and never troubled themselves about going to church, or to any public worship at all. Now, would you really have desired that these poor wretches should have sinned on till they dropped into hell? Surely you would not. But by what other means was it possible they should have been plucked out of the fire? Had the Minister of the parish preached like an angel, it had profited them nothing; for they heard him not. But when one came and said, “Yonder is a man preaching on the top of the mountain,” they ran in droves to hear what he would say; and God spoke to their hearts. It is hard to conceive anything else which could have reached them. Had it not been for field-preaching, the uncommonness of which was the very circumstance that recommended it, they must have run on in the error of their way, and perished in their blood. 24. But suppose field-preaching to be, in a case of this kind, ever so expedient or even necessary, yet who will contest with us for this province?