Wesley Corpus

‘“‘T have seen upon this occasion, more than ever I could have imagined, how intolerable the doctrine of faith is to the mind of man; and how peculiarly intolerable to religious men. One may say the most unchristian things, even down to Deism; the most enthusiastic things, so they proceed but upon mental raptures, lights, and unions; the most severe vhings, even the whole rigour of ascetic mortification: and all this will be May, 1738.] REV. J. WESLEY’S JOURNAL. 69 forgiven. But if you speak of faith in such a manner as makes Christ a Saviour to the utmost, a most universal help and refuge;--in such a manner as takes away glorying, but adds happiness to wretched man ;-- as discovers a greater pollution in the best of us than we could before _ acknowledge, but brings a greater deliverance from it than we could before expect: if any one offers to talk at this rate, he shall be heard with the same abhorrence as if he was going to rob mankind of their salvation, their Mediator, or their hopes of forgiveness. I am persuaded that a Montanist or a Novatian, who from the height of his purity should look down with contempt upon poor signers, and exclude them from all mercy, would not be thought such an overthrower of the Gospel, as he who should learn, from the Author of it, to be a friend of publicans and sinners, and to sit down upon the level with them, as soon as they begin to repent.