Then, as if intended to answer one of the false accusations which had appeared in _Fogg’s Weekly Journal_ only three weeks before, and to justify one of the practices there condemned, he tells his reverend and learned auditors that this heart religion “does not forbid us, as some have strangely imagined, to take pleasure in anything but God; to suppose this, is to suppose the Fountain of holiness is directly the author of sin; since He has inseparably annexed pleasure to the use of those creatures which are necessary to sustain the life He has given us.” But, at the same time, “every good soldier of Christ will not only renounce the works of darkness, but every appetite too, and every affection, which is not subject to the law of God. Vain hope! that a child of Adam should ever expect to see the kingdom of Christ and of God, without striving, without agonizing first, to enter in at the strait gate,—without a constant and continued course of general self-denial.” “This,” adds Wesley, “is God’s short and plain account of true religion and virtue. Other sacrifices from us He would not; but the living sacrifice of the heart He hath chosen. Let it be continually offered up to God through Christ, in flames of holy love. And let no creature be suffered to share with Him; for He is a jealous God. His throne will He not divide with another; He will reign without a rival. Be no design, no desire admitted there, but what has Him for its ultimate object. This is the way wherein those children of God once walked, who, being dead, still speak to us.”[109] Such then were the principles held by Wesley and the Oxford Methodists, in 1733. From these he never varied; and dark will be the day when they are either abandoned or forgotten by his followers. The other sermon, written in 1733, was founded upon the text, “Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.” Here again we are told that the Holy Spirit “is the great Fountain of holiness to His church. From Him flows all the grace and virtue, by which the stains of guilt are cleansed, and we are renewed in all holy dispositions, and again bear the image of our Creator. He is the immediate Minister of God’s will upon earth, and transacts all the great affairs of the church of Christ.”[110] Precious truths are truths like these. Without them the church, no matter how learned, rich, respectable, and ritualistic, is utterly powerless in converting men. With them, nothing is impossible; for, in such a case, the church has, for the accomplishment of its purposes, not only the resources of man, but the omnipotence of God. In the same year, 1733, Wesley issued his first printed production, “A Collection of Forms of Prayer for every day in the Week.” These prayers were originally intended for the use of his college pupils; but the reader may also gather from them some of the principles and aims of the Oxford Methodists.