Wednesday with the Wesleys

“‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”   —Matthew 22:37-40

 

John Wesley’s guidance to the early Methodist Societies about how they were to live in the love of God and neighbor included the following: 

First, by doing no harm, by avoiding evil in every kind. 

Second, by doing good, by being, in every kind, merciful  after their power; as they have opportunity, doing good of every possible sort, and as far as is possible, to all men;—to their  bodies, of the ability which God giveth, by giving food to the hungry, by clothing the naked, by visiting or helping them that are sick, or in prison;—to their souls, by instructing reproving, or exhorting all they have any intercourse with…. By running with patience the race that is set before them, “denying themselves, and taking up their cross daily”; submitting to bear the reproach of Christ, to be as the filth and offscouring of the world; and looking that men should “say all manner of evil of them falsely for the Lord’s sake.” 

Third, by attending upon all the ordinances of God. Such are the public worship of God; the ministry of the Word, either read or expounded; the Supper of the Lord; family and private prayer; searching the Scriptures; and fasting, or abstinence.

 

—Wesley, John, “The Nature, Design, and General Rules of the United Societies,” § 4, 9:70, § 5, 9:72, and § 6, 9:73 in Works, 1739.