FEBRUARY 10
What is the real value of a thing but the price it will bear in eternity?
Letter, 30th November, 1770
I have often replied: (1) It were better for me to die than not to preach the gospel of Christ; yea, and in the fields, either where I may not preach in the Church or where the Church will not contain the congregation. (2) That I use the Service of the Church every Lord’s Day, and it has never yet appeared to me that any rule of the Church forbids my using extemporary prayer on other occasions.
But methinks I would go deeper. I would enquire, What is the end of all ecclesiastical order? Is it not to bring souls from the power of Satan to God, and to build them up in his fear and love? Order, then, is so far valuable as it answers these ends; and if it answers them not, it is nothing worth.
to John Smith, 1746
