Wesley Corpus

Is it not an adjudged case, that it is no harm to tell lies in the way of trade; to say that is the lowest price which is not the lowest; or that you will not take what you do take immediately? Insomuch that it is a proverb even among the Turks, when asked to abate of their price, “What I do you take me to be a Christian?” So that never was that caution more seasonable than it is at this day: “Take ye heed every one of his neighbour, and trust ye not in any brother: For every brother will utterly supplant, and they will deceive every one his neighbour.” 25. And as for those few who abstain from outward sins, is their heart right with God? May he not say of us also, as of the Jews, “This people is uncircumcised in heart?” Are not you? Do you then “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your strength?” Is he your God and your all, the desire of your eyes, the joy of your very heart? Rather, do you not “set up your idols in your heart?” Is not your belly your God, or your diversion, or your fair reputation, or your friend, or wife, or child? That is, plainly, do not you delight in some of these earthly goods, more than in the God of heaven? Nay, perhaps you are one of those grovel ling souls that “pant after the dust of the earth !” Indeed, who does not? Who does not get as much as he can 2 Who of those that are not accounted covetous, yet does not gather all the money he can fairly, and perhaps much more? For are they those only whom the world rank among misers that use every art to increase their fortune; toiling early and late, spending all their strength in “loading themselves with thick clay?” How long? Until the very hour when God calleth them; when he saith unto each of them, “Thou fool! this night shall thy soul be required of thee! And whose shall those things be which thou hast prepared ?” 26.