John Wesley's Manifesto

John Wesley's Manifesto – in his own words 1. Be ye ready to distribute to everyone, according to their necessity. 2. Wickedly, devilishly false is that common objection, ‘They are poor only because they are idle…. Find them work…. They will then earn and eat their own bread.’ 3. How many are there in this Christian country that toil, and labor, and sweat… but struggle with weariness and hunger together? Is it not worse for one, after a hard days labour, to come back to a poor, cold, dirty, uncomfortable lodging, and to find there not even the food which is needful to repair his wasted strength? 4. Beware of that common, but accursed, way of making children parrots …. Regard not how much, but how well, to what good purpose, they read…. The end of education ….[is to] help us discover every false judgement of our minds, and to subdue every wrong passion in our hearts… [and] to understand as much as we are able .’ 5. I continue to dream… [of the time when the potential of] each person can be unleashed. 6. Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike? May we not be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion? 7. May not women as well as men bear an honourable part….yield not to the vile bondage any longer. You, as well as men, are rational creatures. You, like them, were made in the image of God.’ 8. In seeking happiness from riches, you are only striving to drink out of empty cups. And let them be painted and gilded ever so finely, they are empty still’ 9. Let none serve you but by his own act and deed, by his own voluntary action. Away with all whips, all chains, all compulsion! … Do with everyone else as you would he should do to you. 10. War: What farther proof of do we need of the utter degeneracy of all nations from the plainest principles of reason and virtue? Of the absolute want, both of common sense and common humanity, which runs through the whole race of mankind? 11. The world is my parish. 12. Lead us beyond an exclusive concern for the well-being of other human beings to the broader concern for the well-being of the birds in our backyards, the fish in our rivers, and every living creature on the face of the earth.