Wesley Corpus

How much love of the world; desire of pleasure, of ease, of getting money! How little brotherly love 1 What continual judging one another ! What gossiping, evil-speaking, tale-bearing ! What want of moral honesty! To instance only in one or two particulars: Who does as he would be done by, in buying and selling, particularly in selling horses! Write him a knave that does not. And the Methodist knave is the worst of all knaves. (2.) Family religion is shamefully wanting, and almost in every branch. And the Methodists in general will be little the better, till we take quite another course with them. For what avails public preaching alone, though we could preach like angels? We must, yea, every travelling Preacher must, instruct them from house to house. Till this is done, and that in good earnest, the Methodists will be little better than other people. Our religion is not deep, universal, uniform; but superficial, partial, uneven. It will be so, till we spend half as much time in this visiting, as we now do in talking uselessly. Can we find a better method of doing this than Mr. Baxter's? If not, let us adopt it without delay. His whole tract, entitled Gildas Salvianus, is well worth a careful perusal. A short extract from it I will subjoin. Speaking of this visiting from house to house, he says: “We shall find many hinderances, both in ourselves, and in the people. “l. In ourselves there is much dulness and laziness; so that there will be much ado to get us to be faithful in the work. “2. We have a base, man-pleasing temper; so that we let men perish, rather than lose their love. We let them go quietly to hell, lest we should anger them. “3. Some of us have also a foolish bashfulness. We know not how to begin, and blush to contradict the devil. “4. But the greatest hinderance is, wea mess of faith. ‘Our whole motion is weak, because the spring of it is weak. “5. Lastly, we are unskilful in the work. How few know how to deal with men, so as to get within them, and suit all our discourse to their several conditions and tempers; to choose the fittest subjects, and follow them with a holy mixture of seriousness, and terror, and love, and meekness l’’ (P.