believe that they honor Christ by overthrowing His law,
and that they are magnifying His office while they are destroying His
doctrine! Yea, they honor Him just as Judas did when he said, 'Hail,
Master, and kissed Him.' And He may as justly say to every one of them,
'Betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss?' It is no other than betraying
Him with a kiss, to talk of His blood, and take away His crown; to set
light by any part of His law, under pretense of advancing His gospel. Nor
indeed can any one escape this charge, who preaches faith in any such a
manner as either directly or indirectly tends to set aside any branch of
obedience: who preaches Christ so as to disannul, or weaken in any wise,
the least of the commandments of God."(381)

To those who urged that "the preaching of the gospel answers all the ends
of the law," Wesley replied: "This we utterly deny. It does not answer the
very first end of the law, namely, the convincing men of sin, the
awakening those who are still asleep on the brink of hell." The apostle
Paul declares that "by the law is the knowledge of sin;" "and not until
man is convicted of sin, will he truly feel his need of the atoning blood
of Christ.... 'They that be whole,' as our Lord Himself observes, 'need
not a physician, but they that are sick.' It is absurd, therefore, to
offer a physician to them that are whole, or that at least imagine
themselves so to be. You are first to convince them that they are sick;
otherwise they will not thank you for your labor. It is equally absurd to
offer Christ to them whose heart is whole, having never yet been
broken."(382)

Thus while preaching the gospel of the grace of God, Wesley, like his
Master, sought to "magnify the law, and make it honorable." Faithfully did
he accomplish the work given him of God, and glorious were the results
which he was permitted to behold. At the close of his long life of more
than fourscore years--above half a century spent in itinerant ministry--his
avowed adherents numbered more than half a million souls. But the
multitude that through his labors had been lifted from the ruin and
degradation of sin to a higher and a purer life, and the number who by his
teaching had attained to a deeper and richer experience, will never be
known till the whole family of the redeemed shall be gathered into the
kingdom of God. His life presents a lesson of priceless worth to every
Christian. Would that the faith and humility, the untiring