Wesley Corpus

It is a fearful thing to be lukewarm, and thereby fall into the hands of the living God. Be humbly zealous for your own salvation and for God’s glory. And forget not to care for each other's salvation. The case of wicked Cain is very common; the practice of many says, with that wretch, ‘Am I my brother's keeper?” O pray God to keep you by his mighty power through faith unto salvation | Keep your selves in the love of God, and keep one another by example, reproof, exhortation, encouragement, social prayer, and a faithful use of all the means of grace. Use yourselves to bow at Christ's feet as your Prophet. Go to him continually for the holy anointing of his Spirit, who will be a Teacher always near, always with you and in you. If you have that inward Instructer, you will suffer no material loss, though your outward Teachers should be removed. “While you have the light of God’s word, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of the light, fitted for the kingdom of eternal light; where, I charge you, prepare to meet with joy “Your affectionate, though unworthy, t “Brother and Minister, 4. I subjoin part of a letter wrote some time before, in the same spirit, to his parishioners at Madeley:-- “December 28, 1776. “MY DEAR PARISHIoNERs, “THE weakness of my body confining me from you, I humbly submit to the divine dispensation. And I ease the trouble of my absence from you, by being present with you in spirit, and by reflecting on the pleasure I have felt in years past, in singing with you, “Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given.’ This truth let us receive with all readiness, and we shall meet in Christ, the centre of lasting union. And our hearts shall be full of the song of angels, ‘Glory be unto God in the highest ! On earth peace, good-will toward men l’ In order to this, may the eyes of your understanding be more and more opened to see the need of a Redeemer, and to behold the suitableness, freeness, and fulness of the redemp tion wrought out by the Son of God! This wish glows in my soul so ardently, that it brings me down upon my knees while I write.