Wesley Corpus

The first of these we account, as it were, the porch of religion; the next, the door; the third, religion itself. That repentance or conviction of sin, which is always pre vious to faith, (either in a higher or lower degree, as it pleases God,) we describe in words to this effect:-- “When men feel in themselves the heavy burden of sin, see damnation to be the reward of it, behold with the eye of their mind the horror of hell; they tremble, they quake, and are inwardly touched with sorrowfulness of heart, and cannot but accuse themselves, and open their grief unto Almighty God, and call unto him for mercy. This being done seriously, their mind is so occupied, partly with sorrow and heaviness, partly with an earnest desire to be delivered from this danger of hell and damnation, that all desire of meat and drink is laid apart, and loathing of all worldly things and pleasure comethin place. So that nothing them liketh them more, than to weep, to lament, to mourn; and both with words and behaviour of body to show themselves weary of life.” Now, permit me to ask, What, if, before you had observed that these were the very words of our own Church, one of your acquaintance or parishioners had come and told you, that ever since he heard a sermon at the Foundery, he “saw damnation” before him, “and beheld with the eye of his mind the horror of hell?” What, if he had “trembled and quaked,” and been so taken up “partly with sorrow and heaviness, partly with an earnest desire to be delivered from the danger of hell and damnation,” as to “weep, to lament, to mourn, and both with words and behaviour to show himself weary of life?” Would you have scrupled to say, “Here is another ‘deplorable in stance’ of the ‘Methodists driving men to distraction l’ See, “into what excessive terrors, frights, doubts, and perplexities, they throw weak and well-meaning men quite oversetting their understandings and judgments, and making them liable to all these miseries.’” I dare not refrain from adding one plain question, which I beseech you to answer, not to me, but to God: Have you ever experienced this repentance yourself? Did you ever “feel in yourself that heavy burden of sin?” of sin in general, more especially, inward sin; of pride, anger, lust, vanity?