In both these texts, Wesley is essentially talking about the holiness that comes from social interaction through the kind of “mutual accountability in fellowship” that you are talking about. Basically, he’s talking about stuff like bands and class meetings, not changing the minimum wage law and building houses for the poor.

It’s not that Wesley didn’t care about what we would consider social justice and social outreach. It was one of the central features of his ministry, going back to his Oxford days. But he just had a different name for it: works of mercy, which were those acts of Christian charity toward the poor and suffering.

There is a sense in which you can think of social holiness as logically extending into the realm of the kind of social ministry that Wesley called works of mercy, but it’s just that that wasn’t the meaning he had in mind when he wrote the two passages cited above. It’s not splitting hairs; it’s rather a matter of being disciplined in our use of language.

Hope you are doing well, and send us some photos of your little “O”.