Wesley Corpus

This is rank enthusiasm. If you need no book but the Bible, you are got above St. Paul. He wanted others too. “Bring the books,” says he, “but especially the parchments,” those wrote on parchment. “But I have no taste for reading.” Contract a taste for it by use, or return to your trade. “But I have no books.” I will give each of you, as fast as you will read them, books to the value of five pounds. And I desire the Assistants would take care that all the large societies provide our Works, or at least the Notes, for the use of the Preachers. (2.) In the afternoon follow Mr. Baxter's plan. Then you will have no time to spare: You will have work enough for all your time. Then, likewise, no Preacher will stay with us who is as salt that has lost its savour. For to such this em ployment would be mere drudgery. And in order to it, you will have need of all the knowledge you have, or can procure. The sum is, Go into every house in course, and teach every one therein, young and old, if they belong to us, to be Christians inwardly and outwardly. Make every particular plain to their understanding; fix it in their memory; write it in their heart. In order to this, there must be “line upon line, precept upon precept.” What patience, what love, what knowledge is requisite for this! Q. 33. In what particular method should we instruct them? A. You may, as you have time, read, explain, enforce, (1.) “The Rules of the Society.” (2.) “Instructions for Children.” (3.) The fourth volume of “Sermons.” And, (4) Philip Henry’s “Method of Family Prayer.” We must needs do this, were it only to avoid idleness. Do we not loiter away many hours in every week? Each try himself: No idleness can consist with growth in grace. Nay, without exactness in redeeming time, you cannot retain the grace you received in justification. But what shall we do for the rising generation? Unless we take care of this, the present revival will be res unius aetatis ; it will last only the age of a man. Who will labour herein? Let him that is zealous for God and the souls of men begin now.