Wesley Corpus

A Word to a Freeholder Source: The Works of John Wesley, Volume 11 (Zondervan) Author: John Wesley --- WHAT are you going to do? to vote for a Parliament man? I hope then you have taken no money. For doubt less you know the strictness of the oath,-that you have received no “gift or reward, directly or indirectly, nor any promise of any, on account of your vote” in the ensuing election. Surely you start at perjury ! at calm, forethought, deliberate, wilful perjury ! If you are guilty already, stop; go no further. It is at the peril of your soul. Will you sell your country? Will you sell your own soul? Will you sell your God, your Saviour? Nay, God forbid! Rather cast down just now the thirty pieces of silver or gold, and say, “Sir, I will not sell heaven. Neither you nor all the world is able to pay the purchase.” I hope you have received nothing else, neither will receive; no entertainment, no meat or drink. If this is given you on account of your vote, you are perjured still. How can you make oath, you have received no gift? This was a gift, if you did not buy it. What! will you sell your soul to the devil for a draught of drink, or for a morsel of bread? O consider what you do | Act as if the whole election depended on your single vote, and as if the whole Parliament depended (and therein the whole nation) on that single person whom. you now choose to be a member of it. But if you take nothing of any, for whom shall you vote? For the man that loves God. He must love his country, and that from a steady, invariable principle. And by his fruits you shall know him. He is careful to abstain from all appearance of evil. He is zealous of good works, as he has opportunity, doing good to all men. He uses all the ordinances of God, and that both constantly and carefully. And he does this, not barely as something he must do, or what he would willingly be excused from ; no, he rejoices in this his reason able service, as a blessed privilege of the children of God. But what, if none of the candidates have these fruits?