Within John Wesley’s 1787 sermon on the ‘Duty of Reproving our Neighbor‘ there is a curious part that touches Anglican ‘Degrees of Love’. This is surprising given the stereotype of evangelicals which abstract the physicality of men. Here, Wesley accounts for a certain priority with man’s familial relations as it pertains within the universal commission of the Gospel.
After speaking on the kinds of sin anxious for reproof, Wesley is compelled to identify who properly constitutes our neighbor. He begins with a general and naturally catholic admission that our neighbor consists of all men by reason of a Creator, since “every child of man, everyone that breathes the vital air, all that have souls” may be offered salvation. As part of the salvific plan repentance is a condition where Christians have a brotherly role to call out sin. If we let a fellow man’s sin pass our reproof, Wesley says, “their blood will God require at our hands”.(1)