Wesley Corpus

“ Observe again, this is not the foundation. It is not this by which you are justified. This is not the righteousness, this is no part of the righteousness, by which you are reconciled unto God. You grieve for your sins. You are deeply humble. Your heart is broken. Well; but all this is nothing to your justification. #The remission of your sins is not owing to this cause, either in whole or in part. Your humiliation and contrition have no influence on that. Nay, observe further, that it may hinder your justification; that is, if you build any thing upon it; if you think, ‘I must be so or so contrite. I must grieve more, before I can be justified. Understand this well. To think you must be more contrite, more humble, more grieved, more sensible of the weight of sin, before you can be justified, is to lay your contrition, your grief, your humiliation, for the foundation of your being justified; at least, for a part of the found ation. Therefore it hinders your justification; and a hinderance it is which must be removed before you can lay the right foundation. ‘The right foundation is, not your contrition, (though that is not your own,) not your righteousness, nothing of your own; nothing that is wrought in you by the Holy Ghost; but it is something without you, viz. the righteousness and the blood of Christ. “For this is the word, ‘To him that believeth on God that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.’ See ye not, that the foundation is nothing in us? There isno connection between God and the ungodly. There is no tie to unite them. They are altogether separate from each other. They have nothingincommon. ‘There is nothing less or more in the ungodly, to join them to God. Works, righteousness, contrition? No; ungodliness only. This then do, if you will lay a right foundation. Go straight to Christ with all your ungodliness. Tell him, ‘Thou, whose eyes are as a flame of fire searching my heart, seest that lam ungodly. I plead nothing else. I do not say, lam humble or contrite; but Iam ungodly. Therefore bring me to him that justifieth the ungodly. Let thy blood be the propitiation for me. For there is nothing in me but ungodliness.’