Wesley Corpus

But, waving the things that are past, which of you now convinceth us of sin? Which of you (I here more especially appeal to my brethren, the Clergy) can personally convict us of any ungodliness or unholiness of conversation? Ye know in your own hearts, (all that are candid men, all that arenot utterly blinded with prejudice,) that we “labour to have a conscience void of offence both toward God and toward man.” Brethren, I would to God that in this ye were even as we. But indeed (with grief I speak it) ye are not. There are among yourselves ungodly and unholy men; openly, undeniably such; drunkards, gluttons, returners of evil for evil, liars, swearers, profaners of the day of the Lord. Proof hereof is not wanting, if ye require it. Where then is your zeal against these? A Clergyman, so drunk he can scarce stand or speak, may, in the presence of a thousand people," set upon another Clergyman of the same * At Epworth, in Lincolnshire. Church, both with abusive words and open violence. And what follows? Why, the one is still allowed to dispense the sacred signs of the body and blood of Christ: But the other is not allowed to receive them,--because he is a field Preacher. 73. O ye pillars and fathers of the Church, are these things well-pleasing to Him who hath made you Overseers over that flock which he hath purchased with his own blood? O that ye would suffer me to boast myself a little ! Is there not a cause? Have ye not compelled me? Which of your Clergy are more unspotted in their lives, which more unwearied in their labours, than those whose “names ye cast out as evil,” whom ye count “as the filth and off-scouring of the world?” Which of them is more zealous to spend and be spent, for the lost sheep of the house of Israel? Or who among them is more ready to be offered up for their flock “upon the sacrifice and service of their faith ?” 74.