12 Rules of A
1. Be diligent. Be good steward of your time.
2. Be Serious. Let your motto be, Holiness to the Lord. Guard your tongue. Do not make jokes on serious matters, jokes may hurt, jokes may deceive people, jokes that are unfitting.
3. Behave properly with people of the opposite sex.
4. Take no step towards married without solemn prayer to God, careful consideration and consultation with your fellow worker in the church. Make your marriage vows first before God.
5. Believe evil of no-one, unless it is fully proved. Believe the best of people.
6. Speak evil of no- one, keep your thoughts about a person to yourself until you meet that person. Avoid gossip.
7. If you think you see a wrong in someone, speak to that person lovingly and plainly, as soon as you can; if not it may be like a germ that multiplies in your heart, then forgive straight away.
8. Do not put on the effects of a gentleman. You are no more to do with that character than with that of the dancing master. A preacher of Gospel is the servant of all. 9. Be ashamed of nothing but sin. Doing lowly task is not shameful, not of fetching wood (if time permits) or of drawing water, not of cleaning your own shoes or your neighbours.
10. Be punctual. Doing everything exactly at the time. And in general, do not mend our rules, but keep them, not for wrath, but for conscience sake.
11. You have nothing to do but save souls. Therefore spend and be spent in this work, and go always, not only to those who want you most.
12. Act in all things, not according to your will, but as a son of the Gospel, and in union with your brethren. As such, it is your part to employ your time as the Rules direct; partly in visiting and preaching from house to house, partly in reading, meditation and prayer. Above all, if you labor with us in the Lord’s vineyard, it is needful that you should do that part of the work the Conference shall advice, at those times and places which it shall judge most for His Glory. Observe it! It is not your business to preach so many times and to take care of this or that Society, but to save as many souls as you can, to bring as many sinners as you possibly can to repentance, and with all your power to build them up in that holiness without which they cannot see the Lord. And remember, a Methodist preacher is top mind every point, great and small, in Methodist discipline. Therefore you will need all the sense you have, and to have all your wits about you.
