Wesley Corpus

of danger, and, whilst we are only in our pro bation for heaven, we must not think ourselves secure from all possibility of miscarriage. True it is, we are inheritors of the kingdom of heaven, and we have the gracious promise of our merciful Father to secure our title to it. But it must be duly considered, that all his promises are conditional, and that he has given us power to perform (for the power to fulfil it is his gift) our part of the condition ; if we bury our talent in the napkin, and will not fulfil it, we cannot claim our crown. Our covenant with God consists in perpetual war against the world, the flesh, and the devil. These are our spiritual foes, which assail us with never-ceasing vigilance, and as long as we live upon this earth, and carry about with us a body of sin and death, so long must we be unavoidably exposed as well to their attacks, as to the attacks of that powerful and invisible enemy, who is represented in the Holy Scrip tures as going to and fro in the world, seeking whom he may devour. We know the power and malice of this spiritual adversary, nor are we ignorant of his devices, whereby he lieth