Wesley Corpus

Ye salt of the earth, exert the seasoning, preserving quality which you are favoured with. Bring your contentious brethren in your loving arms of faith and prayer, and lay them at your Father's feet, praying him “to forgive them, as they know not what they do.” Look upwards for help, to Him “who doeth whatsoever pleases him in the armies of heaven, and amongst the sons of men;” knowing it is He alone that “can quench the violence of fire, still the raging of the sea, and the madness of the people.” Much, brethren, depends on you, though “the world account your life madness, and your end to be without honour;” for you are the true “salt of the carth;” you alone preserve it from general putrefaction; and you, under God, are the great means of saving a divided kingdom, “a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evil doers;” and had not the Lord “left you as a small remnant,” we should long since “have been as Sodom and Gomorrah!” But do not you, for your Master’s sake, lose your favour in that unhallowed fire of contention, which the people who know not God are now burning in. The old serpent may herein deceive us, as he has too often done already. As an angel of light he is most likely to succeed, and, under the specious show of doing our country service, betray us, in treating our opponents, into a spirit and temper not from above. And how many may unhappily be influenced and led away with our error, God only knows | But this seems to be the design of the adversary of God and man; and if he can set the Christian world together by the ears, he has gained his point. But again, brethren, we may be deceived respecting the cause itself. Our veneration and respect for the cause we would espouse may betray us into a maze of error, imprudence, false zeal, and bitterness of temper; which must prove highly injurious to the public good. What has been, you know, may be again.