Wesley Corpus

O sad reckoning ! As many thoughts, words, actions, so many sins; and the longer thou livest, thy accounts swell the more. Should a tear be dropped for every sin, thine eyes must be ‘fountains of tears. For nothing but sin comes from thee; thy heart frames nothing but evil imaginations; there is nothing in thy life, but what is framed by thy heart; therefore, there is nothing in thy heart or life but evil. “And all thy religion, if thou hast any, is lost labour, if thou art not born again: Truly then thy duties are sins. Would not the best wine be loathsome in a foul vessel ? So is the religion of an unregenerate man. Thy duties cannot make thy corrupt soul holy; but thy corrupt heart makes them unclean. Thou wast wont to divide thy works into two sorts; to count some good, and some evil. But thou must count again, and put all under one head; for God writes on them all, ‘Only evil.” “And thou canst not help thyself. What canst thou do to take away thy sin, who art wholly corrupt? Will mud and filth wash our filthiness? And wilt thou purge out sin by sinning? Job took a potsherd to scrape himself, because his hands were as full of boils as his body. This is the case of thy corrupt soul, so long as thou art in a state of nature. Thou art poor indeed, extremely ‘miserable and poor;” thou hast no shelter, but a refuge of lies; no garment for thy soul, but ‘filthy rags;” nothing to nourish it, but husks that cannot satisfy. More than that, thou hast got such a bruise in the loins of Adam, that thou art “without strength,’ unable to do anything. Nay, more than all this, thou canst not so much as seek aright, but liest helpless, as an infant exposed in the open field. “O that ye would believe this sad truth! How little is it believed in the world ! Few are concerned to have their evil lives reformed; but fewer far, to have their evil nature changed. Most men know not what they are; as the eye, which, seeing many things, never sees itself. But until ye know every one ‘the plague of his own heart, there is no hope of your recovery.