JANUARY 5
We do not place the whole of religion (as too many do, God knoweth) either in doing no harm or in doing good or in using the ordinances of God. No, not in all of them together; wherein we know by experience a man may labour many years, and at the end have no true religion at all, no more than he had at the beginning. Much less in any one of these; or, it may be, in a scrap of one of them: Like her who fancies herself a virtuous woman, only because she is not a prostitute; or him who dreams he is an honest man, merely because he does not rob or steal. May the Lord God of my fathers preserve me from such a poor, starved religion as this!
The Character of a Methodist
Who would wish to live for any meaner purpose than to serve God in our generation?
Letter, 10th January, 1783
