Wesley Corpus

I incline to think, it is not withdrawn without some fault on our part. But, be that as it may, I have now only to do with those who are still able to “receive this saying.” 6. To this happy few I say, (1) Know the advantages you enjoy, many of which are pointed out by the Apostle himself. You may be without carefulness. You are under no necessity of “caring for the things of the world.” You have only to “care for the things of the Lord, how you may please the Lord.” One care alone lies upon you, how you “may be holy both in body and spirit.” You may “attend upon the Lord without distraction;” while others, like Martha, are cumbered with much serving, and drawn hither and thither by many things, you may remain centred in God, sitting, like Mary, at the Master’s feet, and listening to every word of his mouth. You enjoy a blessed liberty from the “trouble in the flesh,” which must more or less attend a married state, from a thousand nameless domestic trials which are found, sooner or later, in every family. You are exempt from numberless occasions of sorrow and anxiety, with which heads of families are entangled; especially those who have sickly, or weak, or unhappy, or disobedient children. If your servants are wicked, you may put them away, and your relation to them ceases. But what could you do with a wicked son or daughter? How could you dissolve that relation? Above all, you are at liberty from the greatest of all entanglements, the loving one creature above all others. It is possible to do this without sin, without any impeachment of our love to God. But how inconceivably difficult | to give God our whole heart, while a creature has so large a share of it ! How much more easily may we do this, when the heart is, tenderly indeed, but equally attached to more than one; or, at least, without any great inequality | What angelic wisdom does it require to give enough of our affection, and not too much, to so near a relation | And how much easier is it (just to touch on one point more) wholly to conquer our natural desires, than to gratify them exactly so far as Christian temperance allows!