The Distraction of Success & Wealth

Sunday, 18.--I preached in the morning in Princess Street, to a numerous congregation. Two or three gentlemen, so called, laughed at first; but in a few minutes they were as serious as the rest. On Monday evening I gave our brethren a solemn caution not to "love the world, neither the things of the world." This will be their grand danger: as they are industrious and frugal, they must needs increase in goods. This appears already: in London, Bristol, and most other trading towns, those who are in business have increased in substance seven-fold, some of them twenty, yea, a hundred-fold. What need, then, have these of the strongest warnings, lest they be entangled therein and perish?

The Journal of John Wesley