Wesley Corpus

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. 351.) And we have many difficulties to grapple with in our people. 1. Too many of them will be unwilling to be taught, till we conquer their perverseness by the force of reason and the power of love. 2. And many are so dull that they will shun being taught for fear of showing their dulness. And indeed you will find it extremely hard to make them understand the very plainest points. 3. And it is still harder to fix things on their hearts, without which all our labour is lost. If you have not, therefore, great seriousness and fervency, what good can you expect? And, after all, it is grace alone that must do the work. 4. And when we have made some impressions on their hearts, if we look not after them, they will soon die away. But as great as this labour of private instruction is, it is absolutely necessary. For, after all our preaching, many of our people are almost as ignorant as if they had never heard the gospel. I speak as plain as I can, yet I frequently meet with those who have been my hearers many years, who know not whether Christ be God or man. And how few are there that know the nature of repentance, faith, and holiness! Most of them have a sort of confidence that God will save them, while the world has their hearts. I have found by experience, that one of these has learned more from one hour's close discourse, than from ten years’ public preaching. And undoubtedly this private application is implied in those solemn words of the Apostle: “I charge thee, before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and dead at his appearing, preach the word, be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering.” Obrethren, if we could but set this work on foot in all our societies, and prosecute it zealously, what glory would redound to God!