John Wesley — in their own words
54 quotations, each traced to the exact paragraph it comes from. Follow any of them into the full text — free, and without an account.
A Plain Account of Christian Perfection 5
Love has purified his heart from envy, malice, wrath, and every unkind temper.
The pure love of our neighbour, springing from the love of God, thinketh no evil, believeth and hopeth all things.
The foundation is faith, purifying the heart; the end love, preserving a good conscience.
The heart has more heat than the eye; yet it cannot see.
Every new victory which a soul gains is the effect of a new prayer.
Sermons on Several Occasions 49
As God is love, so man, dwelling in love, dwelt in God, and God in him.
God justifieth not the godly, but the ungodly; not those that are holy already, but the unholy.
No works are good, which are not done as God hath willed and commanded them to be done.
Believe in the Lord Jesus; and thou, even thou, art reconciled to God.
The religion of Christ rises infinitely higher, and lies immensely deeper, than all these.
Christ indeed cannot reign, where sin reigns; neither will he dwell where any sin is allowed.
A man may be in God’s favour though he feel sin; but not if he yields to it.
God gives this faith; in that moment we are accepted of God; and yet, not for the sake of that faith, but of what Christ has done and suffered for us.
The righteousness of Christ is the whole and sole foundation of all our hope.
The very same is the case with every soul that truly hungers and thirsts after righteousness.
Prayer is the lifting up of the heart to God: All words of prayer, without this, are mere hypocrisy.
If you move but one step towards God, you are not as other men are.
The way to hell has nothing singular in it; but the way to heaven is singularity all over.
Abhor sin far more than death or hell; abhor sin itself, far more than the punishment of it.
God hath given this honour to love alone: Love is the end of all the commandments of God.
God can give the end without any means at all; but you have no reason to think He will.
May we not be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion?
A man of a truly catholic spirit has not now his religion to seek.
We think of what we love; but we do not love God; therefore, we think not of him.
Let not the thought of receiving more grace to-morrow, make you negligent of to-day.
It is love excluding sin; love filling the heart, taking up the whole capacity of the soul.
Faith is the condition, and the only condition, of sanctification, exactly as it is of justification.
What we love we delight in: But no man has naturally any delight in God.
We have by nature, not only no love, but no fear of God.
The body dies when it is separated from the soul; the soul, when it is separated from God.
We know everyone who has peace with God, through Jesus Christ, has power over all sin.
Every child of man is in a thousand mistakes, and is liable to fresh mistakes every moment.
We might have loved God the Creator, God the Preserver, God the Governor; but there would have been no place for love to God the Redeemer.
With regard to the Most High, man and all the concerns of men are nothing, less than nothing, before Him.
The world is the men that know not God, that neither love nor fear him.
Reason, however cultivated and improved, cannot produce the love of God; which is plain from hence: It cannot produce either faith or hope; from which alone this love can flow.
Next to the love of God, there is nothing which Satan so cordially abhors as the love of our neighbour.
The love of the creature is changed to the love of the Creator; the love of the world into the love of God.
Religion is the love of God and our neighbour; that is, every man under heaven.
No man living is entirely destitute of what is vulgarly called natural conscience.
Nothing is higher than this, but Christian love; the love of our neighbour, flowing from the love of God.
If we love Him, we cannot but love one another, as Christ loved us.
You cannot deceive him; for he is infinite wisdom: You cannot fly from him; for he is every where: You cannot bribe him; for he is righteousness itself!
Every action of a Christian that is good, is sanctified by the word and prayer.
The root of all religion is faith, without which it is impossible to please God.
No suffering, but that of Christ, has any power to expiate sin; and no fire, but that of love, can purify the soul, either in time or in eternity.
Many indeed think of being happy with God in heaven; but the being happy in God on earth never entered into their thoughts.
The righteousness of Christ is doubtless necessary for any soul that enters into glory: But so is personal holiness too, for every child of man.
Sin is then overcome, but it is not rooted out; it is conquered, but not destroyed.
Whatsoever good is in man, or is done by man, God is the author and doer of it.
Faith worketh by love; faith overcometh the world; faith purifieth the heart; faith, in the smallest measure, removeth mountains.
Outward religion may be where inward is not; but if there is none without, there can be none within.
Christ is not only God above us; which may keep us in awe, but cannot save; but he is Immanuel, God with us, and in us.
The fruits of this Spirit must not be mere moral virtues, calculated for the comfort and decency of the present life; but holy dispositions, suitable to the instincts of a superior life already begun.