From the Founder....

Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergymen or laymen, such alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the kingdom of heaven upon earth.                                                                                               ~John Wesley

from his letter to Alexander Mather (August 6, 1777)

(and the above quote led me to this one--which I found profoundly convicting)

' It has been affirmed that none of our present preachers are so much alive as they were seven years ago. I fear many are not. But if so they are not fit for the work, which requires much life. Otherwise your labors will be tiresome to yourself, and of little use to the people: tiresome, because you will no longer serve Christ and the people, willingly and cheerfully; of little use, because you will no longer serve them diligently, doing it with your might. I have several reasons to fear it is so with many of you. But let your conscience be the judge,-- Who of you is exemplary, so much alive to God, so as to carry fire with Him wherever you go? Who of you is a pattern of self-denial in little things? Who of you drinks water? why not? Who of you has not four meals a day? Who of you fasts on Friday? why not? Who of you goes through his work willingly and diligently, and on no account disappointing the congregations? Who visits the people on Mr. Baxter's method? Is your heart in the work wholly, not giving way to indolence or unconcernedness, not yielding to the fear of men? '

(also Wesley)
Conversation at the conference at Leeds in 1755:
See Sutcliffe's manuscript History of Methodism, p. 468