John Wesley's Extract of The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living and Dying

PART I

THE RULE AND EXERCISES OF HOLY LIVING

I.

OF THE GENERAL INSTRUMENTS AND MEANS SERVING TO A HOLY LIFE

Introduction

It is necessary that every man should consider that since God has given him an excellent nature, an understanding soul, and an immortal spirit, having made him lord over the beasts, and but a little lower than the angels; he has appointed for him a work and a service great enough to employ those abilities, and has designed him to a state of life after this, to which he can only arrive by that service and obedience. Therefore, as every man is wholly God’s own portion by the title of creation, so all our labor and care, all our powers and faculties, must be wholly employed in the service of God, even all the days of our life; that this life being ended, we may live with him forever. Neither is it sufficient that we think of the service of God as a work of small employment, but that it be done by us as God intended it; that it be done with great earnestness and passion, with much zeal and desire; that we refuse no labor, that we bestow upon it much time, that we use the best guides, and arrive at the end of glory by all the ways of grace, of prudence, and religion.

And, indeed, if we consider how much of our lives is taken up by the needs of nature, how many years are wholly spent before we come to any use of reason, how many years more before that reason be useful to us to any great purposes; how imperfect our discourse is made by our evil education, false principles, ill company, bad examples, and lack of experience; how many parts of our best years are wholly spent in eating and sleeping, in necessary businesses and unnecessary vanities; in learning arts and sciences, languages or trades; that little portion of hours that is left for the practice of piety and walking with God is so short, that were not the goodness of God infinitely great, it might seem unreasonable to expect of him eternal joys in heaven, even after spending well those few minutes which are left for God and God’s service. And yet the fruit that comes from the many days of vanity is very little. But from the few hours we spend in prayer and the exercises of a pious life, the return is great and profitable; and what we sow in the minutes of a few years grows up to crowns and scepters in a glorious eternity.

1. Therefore, although it cannot be enjoined that the greatest part of our time should be spent in the direct actions of devotion, yet it is not only a duty, but also a great providence, to lay aside for the services of God and the businesses of the Spirit as much as we can. Because God rewards our minutes with eternal happiness; and the greater portion of our time we give to God, the more we treasure up for ourselves. No man is a better merchant than he who lays out his time upon God, and his money upon the poor.

2. It becomes us to remember and adore God’s goodness, for God has not only permitted us to serve the necessities of our nature, but has made them parts of our duty; that if we, by directing these actions to the glory of God, intend them as instruments to continue our persons in his service, he, by adopting them into religion, may turn our nature into grace, and accept our natural actions as actions of religion. God is pleased to esteem it a part of his service for us to eat or drink, so it be done temperately, and as may best preserve our health; that our health may enable us to perform our services toward him. And there is not one minute of our lives (after we have come to the use of reason), but we are and may be doing the work of God, even then when we most of all serve ourselves.

3. To which if we add, that in these and all other actions of our lives, we always stand before God, acting, and speaking, and thinking in his presence; and that it matters not that we have our conscience sealed with secrecy, since it lies open to God; it will concern us to behave ourselves carefully, as in the presence of our Judge.

These three considerations, applied to the several parts and instances of our lives, will be, like Elisha stretched upon the child, apt to put life and quickness into every part of it, and to make us live the life of grace, and do the work of God. I shall therefore, by way of introduction, reduce them to practice, and show how every Christian may improve all and each of them to the advantage of piety, in the whole course of his life.

Section I

The First General Instrument of Holy Living: Care of Our Time

He who is choice of his time will also be choice of his company, and choice of his actions; lest the first engage him in vanity and loss, and the latter, by being criminal, be a throwing of his time and himself away, and a going back in the accounts of eternity. God has given to man a short time upon earth, and yet upon this short time eternity depends; so that for every hour of our life (after we know good from evil), we must give an account to the great Judge of men and angels.

For we must remember that we have a great work to do: many enemies to conquer, many evils to prevent, much danger to run through, many difficulties to be mastered, many necessities to serve, and much good to do; many children to provide for, or many friends to support, or many poor to relieve, or many diseases to cure; besides our private and our public cares, and duties of the world, which the providence of God has adopted into the family of religion.

The life of every man may (and, indeed, must) be so ordered that it may be a perpetual serving of God. The greatest trouble and most busy trade, when they are necessary, or charitable, or profitable, in order to any of those ends which we are bound to serve, whether public or private, being a doing of God’s work. For God provides the good things of the world to serve the needs of nature, by the labors of the ploughman, the skill and pains of the artisan, and the dangers and traffic of the merchant; these men are in their callings the ministers of the divine providence, and the stewards of the creation, and servants of a great family of God, the world, in procuring necessaries for food and clothing, ornament and physic. In their proportions also, a king, a priest, a prophet, a judge, and an advocate, doing the work of their employment according to their proper rules, are doing the work of God; because they serve those necessities that God has made, and yet made no provisions for them but by their ministry. So that no man can complain that his calling takes him off from religion, his calling itself, and his very worldly employment, is a serving of God; and if it be pursued, according to the rules of Christian prudence, will leave void spaces enough for prayers and retirements of a more spiritual religion.

God has given every man work enough to do that there is no room for idleness; and yet has so ordered the world that there is space for devotion. He who has the fewest businesses of the world, is called upon to spend more time in the dressing of his soul. And he who has the most affairs, may so order them that they shall be a service to God; at certain periods, they are blessed with prayers and actions of religion, and all day long are hallowed by a holy intention. And so long as idleness is quite shut out from our lives, all the sins of wantonness, softness, and effeminacy are prevented. Therefore, to a busy man temptations are fain to climb up together with his business, and sins creep upon him only by accidents and occasions; whereas to an idle person they come in a full body, and with open violence and restless importunity.

Idleness is called the sin of Sodom and her daughters, and, indeed, is the burial of a living man; an idle person being so useless to any purposes of God and man that he is like one who is dead: he only lives to spend his time and eat the fruits of the earth. He is like a vermin or a wolf, when their time comes they die and perish, and in the meantime do no good; they neither plough nor carry burdens, all they do either is unprofitable or mischievous.

Idleness is the greatest prodigality in the world. It throws away that which is invaluable, in respect of its present use, and irreparable when it is past. But the way to secure and improve our time we may practice in the following rules.

Rules for Employing Our Time

1. In the morning, when you awake, accustom yourself to think first on God. At night also, let him close your eyes. And let your sleep be necessary and healthful, not beyond the needs of nature.

2. Let every man who has a calling be diligent in it, so as not to neglect it in any of those times which are usually and by the custom of prudent persons and good husbands employed in it.

3. Let all the intervals or void spaces of time be employed in prayers, reading, meditating, charity, and means of spiritual and corporal health; ever remembering so to work in our calling, as not to neglect the work of our high calling, but to begin and end the day with God.

4. Avoid the company of busy-bodies and all such as are apt to talk much to little purpose; for no man can be provident of his time who is not prudent in the choice of his company. And if one of the speakers is trifling, he who hears and he who answers are equal losers of their