Upon Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount Discourse IV · §15 · John Wesley

Retirement must not swallow our time

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Yet such retirement must not swallow up all our time. This would be to destroy, not advance, true religion. For that the religion described by our Lord in the foregoing words cannot exist without society, without our living and talking with other people, is plain from this, that several of its most essential branches can have no place if we have no intercourse with the world.

1771 text

2. Yet such retirement must not swallow up all our time; this would be to destroy, not advance true religion. For, that the religion described by our Lord in the foregoing words, cannot subsist without society, without our living and conversing with other men, is manifest from hence, that several of the most essential branches thereof, can have no place, if we have no intercourse with the world.

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About this text

The fourth sermon on the Sermon on the Mount, on Matthew 5:13-16: Christians as salt and light, and why Christianity is a social religion that cannot be hidden.

EditionPrinted in Wesley's 1771 Works, which do not say when he preached it

Wesley's own sermon in updated English wording. The 1771 panel is the text of the Works Wesley himself had printed in 1771. It is public domain.

Reference

Sermon 24 in the 1771 Works. Matthew 5:13-16.

We have not yet re-checked this work against its source. We put this English text into updated wording with AI help. No scholar has yet certified it as faithful and complete. Open the 1771 text under any part to compare.

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