Do you know what you are about?

I have often thought of a saying of Dr. Hayward's when he examined me for priest's orders: 'Do you know what you are about? You are bidding defiance to all [people]. He that would live a Christian priest ought to know that, whether his hand should be against every man or no, he must expect every man's hand should be against him.'

It is not strange that every man's hand who is not a Christian should be against him to endeavors to be so. But is it not hard that even those that are with us should be against us? That a man's enemies (in some degree) should be those of the same household of faith? Yet so it is. From the time that a man sets himself to his business, very many, even of those who travel the same road, many of those who are before as well as behind him, will lay stumbling-blocks in his way.

Letter of The Rev. John Wesley, A.M., to his father Rev. Samuel Wesley
June, 1731