Susannah Wesley to Her Son, John (1725)

Take this rule:

• whatever weakens your reason,
  
• impairs the tenderness of your conscience,
  
• obscures your sense of God,
  
• or takes away your relish of spiritual things;
  
• in short, whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind,

that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself.