“Then the word of the LORD came to me: Mortal, your kinsfolk, your own kin, your fellow exiles, the whole house of Israel, all of them, are those of whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said, ‘They have gone far from the LORD; to us this land is given for a possession.’ Therefore say: Thus says the Lord GOD: Though I removed them far away among the nations, and though I scattered them among the countries, yet I have been a sanctuary to them for a little while in the countries where they have gone. Therefore say: Thus says the Lord GOD: I will gather you from the peoples, and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel. When they come there, they will remove from it all its detestable things and all its abominations. I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them; I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, so that they may follow my statutes and keep my ordinances and obey them. Then they shall be my people, and I will be their God. But as for those whose heart goes after the detestable things and their abominations, I will bring their deeds upon their own heads, says the Lord GOD.” Ezekiel 12:14-21

“In a small treatise, ‘The Character of a Methodist,’ published in 1742, Wesley stated that the marks of real Methodists are that they have the love of God shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Spirit and that they love their neighbors. He also pointed out that this was in fact the essence of Christianity and the Methodists were those who understood this reality.”