Wesley Corpus

I answer, (not to descend to particulars) as to their inward life, if I may so speak, they “lived the life which is hid with Christ in God.” “They were crucified with Christ. Nevertheless they lived; yet not they, but Christ lived in them.” So that each of them could say, “The life which I now live in the flesh,” even in this mortal body, “I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” And this faith continually wrought by love, that “love of God” which was “shed abroad in their hearts,” and was a peren nial “fountain of water, springing up into everlasting life.” By this loving faith their hearts were purified from anger, from pride, from all vile affections, from the love of money, of power, of pleasure, of ease, from the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eye, and the pride of life; all their “affections being set on things above, not on things of the earth.” In a word, that “mind” was “in them which was in Christ Jesus.” Let but this mind be in every Clergyman of our Church, and Popery will vanish out of the kingdom. 8. As to the outward life of the Apostles, it was, in the general, holy and unblamable in all things. Herein did they exercise themselves day and night, with regard to every word and action, “to have a conscience void of offence toward God and man.” And their continual ground of “rejoicing was this, the testimony of their conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity they had had their conversation in the world.” They were temperate in all things. They denied them selves, and took up their cross daily. They “kept under their bodies, and brought them into subjection,” even in the midst of distresses and persecutions, “lest by any means, after they had preached to others, they themselves should have become castaways.” They were, in every respect, burning and shining lights; they went about doing good as they had opportunity, doing good of every kind, and in every possible degree, to all men. They abstained from all appearance of evil; they overcame evil with good.