JANUARY 30
Your calling is not only to do good, but to do all the good you possibly can.
Letter, 27th October, 1784
I have thrown up my friends, reputation, ease, country; I have put my life in my hand, wandering in strange lands; I have given up my body to be devoured by the deep, parched up with heat, consumed by toil and weariness, or whatsoever God should please to bring upon me. But does all this (be it more or less, it matters not) make me acceptable to God? Does all I ever did or can know, say, give, for or suffer, justify me in His sight? Yea, or the constant use of all the means of grace? – (which nevertheless is meet, right and our bounden duty). Or that I know nothing of myself; that I am as touching outward moral righteousness blameless? Or, to come closer yet, the having a rational conviction of all the truths of Christianity? Does all this give me a claim to the holy, heavenly, divine character of a Christian? By no means.
Journal, 29th January, 1738
