John Wesley's description of 'the religion of the Bible': 'no other than love'

I'm neither a Wesleyan nor a Methodist, but I admire much of what I've read of and by John Wesley so far. I especially love his concise description of God as the One who is 'Holy Love'. The following passage is from three points he made in a sermon in 1777 entitled 'On Laying the Foundation of the New Chapel, Near the City-Road, London'. I imagine there are a number of very good and helpful ways to sum up the Christian faith: Wesley's is one I think true and beautiful. I wonder if we would ever put it this way? Would non-Christians ever think of our faith as such? These are sobering questions for me.

Wesley recounts something of the birth and growth of Methodism and then has this to say about Christianity:

'1. What is Methodism? What does this new word mean? Is it

not a new religion? This is a very common, nay, almost an universal supposition; but nothing can be more remote from the truth. It is a mistake all over. Methodism, so called, is the old religion, the religion of the Bible, the religion of the Primitive Church, the religion of the Church of England. This old religion, (as I observed in the "Earnest Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion,") is "no other than love, the love of God and of all mankind; the loving God with all our heart, and soul, and strength, as having first loved us,--as the fountain of all the good we have received, and of all we ever hope to enjoy; and the loving every soul which God hath made, every man on earth, as our own soul. This love is the great medicine of life; the never-failing remedy for all evils of a disordered world; for all the miseries and vices of men. Wherever this is, there are virtue and happiness going hand in hand: there is humbleness of mind, gentleness, longsuffering, the whole image of God; and, at the same time, a "peace that passeth all understanding," with "joy unspeakable and full of glory." This religion of love, and joy, and peace, has its seat in the inmost soul; but is ever showing itself by its fruits, continually springing up, not only in all innocence, (for love worketh no ill to his neighbour,) but, likewise, in every kind of beneficence,--spreading virtue and happiness all around it.

'2. This is the Religion of the Bible, as no one can deny, who reads it with any attention. It is the religion which is continually inculcated therein, which runs through both the Old and New Testament. Moses and the Prophets, our Blessed Lord and his Apostles, proclaim with one voice, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy soul, and thy neighbour as thyself." The Bible declares, "Love is the fulfilling of the law," "the end of the commandment," of all the commandments which are contained in the Oracles of God. The inward and outward fruits of this love are also largely described by the inspired writers; so that whoever allows the Scripture to be the Word of God, must allow this to be true Religion.

'3. This is the Religion of the Primitive Church, of the whole Church in the purest ages. It is clearly expressed, even in the small remains of Clemens Romanus, Ignatius, and Polycarp; it is seen more at large in the writings of Tertullian, Origen, Clemens Alexandrinus, and Cyprian; and, even in the fourth century, it was found in the works of Chrysostom, Basil, Ephrem Syrus, and Macarius. It would be easy to produce "a cloud of witnesses," testifying the same thing; were not this a point which no one will contest, who has the least acquaintance with Christian antiquity.'