Wesley Corpus

But see that you deceive not your own soul; for this is not a point of small importance. And by this you may know : If you love God, then you are happy in God; if you love God, riches, honours, and the pleasures of sense are no more to you than bubbles on the water: You look on dress and equipage, as the tassels of a fool’s cap; diversions, as the bells on a fool's coat. If you love God, God is in all your thoughts, and your whole life is a sacrifice to him. And if you love mankind, it is your one design, desire, and endeavour, to spread virtue and happiness all around you; to lessen the present sorrows, and increase the joys, of every child of man; and, if it be possible, to bring them with you to the rivers of pleasure that are at God’s right hand for evermore. But where shall you find one who answers this happy and amiable character? Wherever you find a Christian; for this, and this alone, is real, genuine Christianity. Surely you did not imagine that Christianity was no more than such a system of opinions as is vulgarly called faith; or a strict and regular attendance on any kind of external worship. O no! Were this all that it implied, Christianity were indeed a poor, empty, shallow thing; such as none but half-thinkers could admire, and all who think freely and generously must despise. But this is not the case; the spirit above described, this alone, is Christianity. And, if so, it is no wonder that even a celebrated unbeliever should make that frank declaration, “Well, after all, these Christian dogs are the happiest fellows upon earth !” Indeed they are. Nay, we may say more; they are the only happy men upon earth; and that though we should have no regard at all to the particular circumstances above mentioned; suppose there was no such thing as a comet in the universe, or none that would ever approach the solar system; suppose there had never been an earthquake in the world, or that we were assured there never would be another; yet what advantage has a Christian (I mean always a real, scriptural Christian) above all other men upon earth !