Wesley Corpus

According to this model, I should advise every Preacher continually to preach the law; the law grafted upon, tempered by, and animated with, the spirit of the gospel. I advise him to declare, explain, and enforce every command of God; but, meantime, to declare, in every sermon, (and the more explicitly the better) that the first and great command to a Christian is, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ;” that Christ is all in all, our “wisdom, righteous ness, sanctification, and redemption;” that all life, love, strength, are from him alone, and all freely given to us through faith. And it will ever be found, that the law thus preached both enlightens and strengthens the soul; that it both nourishes and teaches; that it is the guide, “food, medicine, and stay,” of the believing soul. Thus all the Apostles built up believers; witness all the Epistles of St. Paul, James, Peter, and John. And upon this plan all the Methodists first set out. In this manner, not only my brother and I, but Mr. Maxfield, Nelson, James Jones, Westell, and Reeves, all preached at the beginning. By this preaching it pleased God to work those mighty effects in London, Bristol, Kingswood, Yorkshire, and New castle. By means of this, twenty-nine persons received remission of sins in one day at Bristol only; most of them, while I was opening and enforcing, in this manner, our Lord’s Sermon upon the Mount. In this manner John Downes, John Bennet, John Haughton, and all the other Methodists, preached, till James Wheatly came among them, who never was clear, perhaps not sound, in the faith. According to his under standing was his preaching; an unconnected rhapsody of unmeaning words, like Sir John Suckling's-- Verses, smooth and scft as cream, In which was neither depth nor stream. Yet (to the utter reproach of the Methodist congregations) this man became a most popular Preacher. He was admired more and more wherever he went, till he went over the second time into Ireland, and conversed more intimately than before with some of the Moravian Preachers. The consequence was, that he leaned more and more both to their doctrine and manner of preaching.