Wesley Corpus

A dissipated nation is one where the people in general are vehemently attached to the pleasures of sense and imagination. The smaller vulgar in England are at present passionately fond of the lowest pleasures both of sense and fancy; while the great vulgar are equally engrossed by those they account a higher kind. Meantime they are all equally dissipated, although in different ways; and so indeed is every man and woman that is passionately attached to external pleasure. 4. But without dwelling any longer on the surface of things, let us search the matter to the bottom, and inquire, wherein lies the original ground of human dissipation. Let this be once pointed out, and it will place the whole question in the clearest light. 5. Man is an immortal spirit, created in the image and for the enjoyment of God. This is the one, the only end of his being; he exists for no other purpose. God is the centre of all spirits; and while they cleave to Him, they are wise, holy, and happy; but in the same proportion as they are separated from Him, they are foolish, unholy, and unhappy. This disunion from God is the very essence of human dissipation; which is no other than the scattering the thoughts and affections of the creature from the Creator. Wherefore fondness for sensual enjoyments of any kind; love of silly, irrational pleasures; love of trifling amusements; luxury, vanity, and a thousand foolish desires and tempers, are not so properly dissipation itself, as they are the fruits of it, the natural effects of being unhinged from the Creator, the Father, the centre of all intelligent spirits. 6. It is this against which the Apostle guards in his advice to the Christians at Corinth: “This I speak, that ye may attend upon the Lord without distraction.” It might as well be rendered, without dissipation, without having your thoughts any way scattered from God. The having our thoughts and affections centred in God, this is Christian simplicity; the having them in any degree ancentred from God, this is dissipation.