Wesley Corpus

- 15. Allow that, in doing this, they have some particularities of opinion, (for humanum est errare et nescire,”) or some little, odd customs, which you do not conceive to be grounded upon • It is the lot of humanity to be ignorant of many things, and liable to error.-EDIT. strict-reason, yet so long as neither those customs nor those opinions prevent the advancement of that great end, ought you not, as areasonableman, to rejoice in theincrease of solid virtue? especially when you consider, that they do not impose their own opinions on other men; that (whatever they are) they think and let think, and condemn no man barely for his opinion; nei ther blame you for not regarding those little prudential rules which many observe by their own full and free consent. 16. Ought not every lover of mankind to have something more than a common regard for those who both labour and suffer reproach, in order to promote that love in every place; and to remove every method of speaking or acting, every temper, contrary to love? Ought not you who are truly moral men, (a lovely and venerable character,) to have some value for those who spend and are spent to advance genuine morality? who spare no pains, if by any means they may induce any of their countrymen, in any part of the nation, to practise justice, mercy, and truth, in all their intercourse with each other? to behave in every circumstance and relation according to those eternal rules, invariably observing the royal law, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself;” and, “Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do unto them.” 17. If you are a lover of mankind, must you not sympathize with those who suffer evil in various kinds, for this very thing, because they do good to mankind, looking for no reward on this side heaven? As to the idle tale of their laying up treasures on earth, it neither agrees with fact nor reason. Not with fact; for it is notorious, that those who before piqued themselveson owing no man anything, are now indebted in larger sums, than, humanly speaking, they can ever pay. Not with reason; for if riches had been their aim, they would have sought out the rich, not the poor; not the tinners in Cornwall, the colliers of Kingswood, the keelmen in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.