Wesley Corpus

“Suppose ye that I am come to send peace upon earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division: For from henceforth there shall be five divided in one house, three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother-in-law against the daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against the mother-in-law.” (Luke xii. 51-53.) “And the foes of a man shall be they of his own household.” (Matt. x. 36.) Thus it was from the very beginning. For is it to be sup posed that a heathen parent would long endure a Christian child, or that a heathen husband would agree with a Chris tian wife? unless either the believing wife could gain her husband; or the unbelieving husband prevailed on the wife to renounce her way of worshipping God; at least, unless she would obey him in going no more to those societies, or con venticles, (etaptat) as they termed the Christian assemblies? 4. Do you think, now, I have an eye to your case? Doubt less I have ; for I do not fight as one that beateth the air. “Why have not I a right to hinder my own wife or child from going to a conventicle? And is it not the duty of wives to obey their husbands, and of children to obey their parents?” Only set the case seventeen hundred years back, and your own conscience gives you the answer. What would St. Paul have said to one whose husband forbade her to follow this way any more? What directions would our Saviour have given to him whose father enjoined him not to hear the gospel? His words are extant still: “He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me. And he that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me.” (Matt. x. 37.) Nay more, “If any man cometh to me, and hateth not,” in compari son of me, “his father, and mother, and wife, and children, yea, and his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” (Luke xiv. 26.) “O, but this is not a parallel case! For they were Heathens; but I am a Christian.” A Christian | Are you so? Do you understand the word?