[29] A book entitled "The Country Parson's Advice to his Parishioners."
"Oxon, February 20, 1735. I am surprised that you should have desired that 'Collection of Prayers,'[30] and be wholly unconcerned about them ever after. Indeed, they will be of no service to you, unless you grant me this one postulatum: 'that we must renounce ourselves.' What the meaning of this phrase may be, the preface to the Prayers will best inform you. I did not doubt of its meeting with but a cold reception, it being at first view so very contrary to flesh and blood. For, perhaps, you may think that this renouncing of ourselves must necessarily lead us (as it certainly does) to acts of self-denial and mortification; and that we probably may be saved without them. And lest you should after all imagine that true religion consists in anything besides an entire renewal of our nature into the image of God, I have sent you a book entitled 'The Life of God in the Soul of Man,' which will inform you what true religion is, and by what means you may attain it; as, likewise, how wretchedly most people err in their sentiments about it, who suppose it to be nothing else but a mere model of outward performances, without ever considering that all our corrupt passions must be subdued, and a complex habit of virtues, such as meekness, lowliness, faith, hope, and the love of God and of man, be implanted in their room, before we can have the least title to enter into the kingdom of God; our Divine Master having expressly told us that 'unless we renounce ourselves, and take up our cross daily, we cannot be His disciples.' I shall be glad to hear whether you keep up morning prayers, and how often you receive the Holy Communion, there being nothing which so much be-dwarfs us in religion as starving our souls by keeping away from the heavenly banquet."
[30] Probably, "A Collection of Forms of Prayer for every Day in the Week," printed by Wesley in 1733,--his first publication, and originally intended for his pupils in Lincoln College.
"Oxon, March 6, 1735. I find, by what I can gather from your own and my brother's expressions, that my late letters have met with but a cold reception, and that you seem desirous of hearing no more of so seemingly ungrateful a subject as submitting our wills to the will of God, which is all that is implied in the phrase of _renouncing ourselves_. Alas, sir! what is there that appears so monstrously terrible in a doctrine that is the constant subject of our prayers, whenever we put up the petition, 'Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven;' the import of which seems to be this: 1. That we do everything that God wills, and nothing but what He wills; 2. That we do everything He wills, _only_ in the _manner_ He wills; 3. That we do those things He wills, only _because_ He wills. This is all I have been endeavouring to inculcate in my late letters. Dear sir, be not dismayed. The difficulty lies only in our first setting out. Be but vigorous at the first onset, and never fear a conquest. The renewal of our nature is a work of great importance. It is not to be done in a day; we have not only a new house to build up, but an old one to pull down. The means which are necessary to be used in order to attain this end, our cursed adversary the devil would represent to us in the most hideous forms imaginable; but, believe me, sir, there is really more pleasure in these formidable duties of self-denial and mortification, than in the highest indulgences of the greatest epicure upon earth."