Midweek Message for September 15th

(The Foundry, London)

Wednesday, September 15, 1762

We had our quarterly meeting. The next day I appointed the children to meet. I expected twenty, but I suppose there were fourscore; all of them wanting, many desiring, instruction. The more I converse with the believers in Cornwall, the more that I am convinced that they have sustained a great loss for want of hearing the doctrine of Christian Perfection clearly and strongly enforced. I see wherever this is not done, the believers grow dead and cold. Nor can this be prevented in them, but by keeping up in them an hourly expection of being perfected in love. I say an hourly expectation; for to expect it at death, or some time hence, is much the same as not expecting it at all.

- John Wesley in his Journal (The doctrine of Christian Perfection is explained here)