Wesley Corpus

“Without me,’ that is, separate from me, ‘ye can do nothing; nothing truly and spiritually good. To evidence this, consider, “(1.) How often do men see the good they should choose, and the evil they should refuse; and yet their hearts have no more power to comply with their light, than if they were arrested by some invisible hand! Their consciences tell them the right way; yet cannot their will be brought up to it. Else, how is it, that the clear arguments on the side of virtue do not bring men over to that side? Although heaven and hell were but a may be, even this would determine the will to holiness, could it be determined by reason. Yet so far is it from this, that men ‘knowing the judgment of God, that they who do such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.’ “(2.) Let those who have been truly convinced of the spirituality of the law, speak, and tell if they then found themselves able to incline their hearts toward it. Nay, the more that light shone into their souls, did they not find their hearts more and more unable to comply with it? Yea, there are some who are yet in the devil’s camp that can tell from their own experience, light let into the mind cannot give life to the will, or enable it to comply therewith. “Secondly. There is in the unrenewed will an averseness to good. Sin is the natural man’s element; and he is as loath to part with it, as the fishes are to come out of the water. He is sick; but utterly averse to the remedy: He loves his disease, so that he loathes the Physician. He is a captive, a prisoner, and a slave; but he loves his conqueror, gaoler, and master: He is fond of his fetters, prison, and drudgery, and has no liking to his liberty. For evidence of this averseness to good in the will of man,-- “Consider, 1. The untowardness of children. How averse are they to restraint ! Are they not ‘as bullocks unaccus tomed to the yoke ’’ Yea, it is far easier to tame young bullocks to the yoke, than to bring young children under dis cipline.