Wesley Corpus

11. To quicken me in making a thankful and diligent use of all the other advantages of this place, I have the opportunity of public prayer twice a day and of weekly communicating. It would be easy to mention many more, and likewise to show many disadvantages, which a person of greater courage and skill than me could scarce separate from a country life. But whatever one of experience and resolution might do, I am very sensible I should not be able to turn aside one of the thousand temptations that would immediately rush upon me. I could not stand my ground, no, not for one month, against intemperance in sleeping, eating, and drinking; against irregularity in study, against a general lukewarmness in my affections and remissness in my actions; against softness and self-indulgence, directly opposite to that discipline and hardship which become a soldier of Jesus Christ. And then, when my spirit was thus dissolved, I should be an easy prey to whatever impertinent company came in my way. Then would the cares of the world and the desire of other things roll back with a full tide upon me. It would be no wonder if, while I preached to others, I myself should be a castaway. I cannot, therefore, but observe that the question does not relate barely to degrees of perfection, but to the very essence and being of it. Agitur de vita et sanguine Turni. Virgil's Aeneid, xii. 765 (Turni de vita et sanguine certant): 'They contend about the life and blood of Turnus.' The point is, whether I shall or shall not work out my salvation, whether I shall serve Christ or Belial.