Wesley Corpus

I feel an inclination to break one of my chains, parochial retirement, which may be a nest for self-indulgence. I leave the matter entirely to the Lord.” “Meantime, he mourned, not only for himself and his friends, but also for the Church of God. ‘The few professors,’ says he, “which I see in these parts, are so far from what I wish them to be, that I cannot but cry out, Lord, how long wilt thou give thy heritage up to desolation? How long shall the Heathen say, Where is now their indwelling God?” In another letter he writes, (dated May 8, 1776) “I see so little fruit in these parts, that I am almost disheartened. I am closely followed with the thought, that faith in the dispensa tion of the Spirit is at a very low ebb. But it may be better in other places. I shall be glad to travel a little, to see the goodness of the land. May God make and keep us humble, loving, disinterested, and zealous!” “These quotations give us not only an example of holy mourning, but likewise of hungering and thirsting after righ teousness. In this he was peculiarly worthy our imitation. He never rested in anything he had either experienced or done in spiritual matters. But this one thing he did: “Forgetting those things that were behind, and reaching forth unto those things which were before, he ‘pressed toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus; he was a true Christian racer, always on the stretch for higher and better things. Though his attainments, both in experience and usefulness, were above the common standard, yet the language of his conversation and behaviour always was, ‘Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfected; but I follow after, if by any means I may apprehend that for which I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.’ He had his eye upon a full conformity to the Son of God; or what the Apostle terms, ‘the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.’ Nor could he be satisfied with anything less. “And he was meek, like his Master, as well as lowly in heart. Not that he was so by nature, but of a fiery, passionate spirit.