Wesley Corpus

“J, That the ordinances here spoken of by St. Paul are evidently Jewish ordinances; such as, ‘Touch not, taste not, handle not;? and those mentioned a few verses before, concerning meats and drinks, and new moons, and sabbaths. 2. That, consequently, this has no reference to the ordinances of Christ; such as, prayer, communicating, and searching the Scriptures. 3. That Christ himself spake, that ‘men’ ought ‘always to pray ;) and commands, ‘not to forsake the assembling ourselves together; to search the Scriptures, and to eat bread and drink wine, in remembrance of him. 4. That the commands of Christ oblige all who are called by his name, whether (in strictness) believers or unbelievers ; seeing ‘ whosoever breaketh the least of these commandments, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven.’ ” In the evening I preached on, “Cast not away your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward.” “Ye who have known and felt your sins forgiven, cast not away your confidence, 1. Though your joy should die away, your love wax cold, and your peace itself be roughly assaulted: Though, 2. You should find doubt or fear, or strong and uninterrupted temptation; yea, though, 3. You should find a bodv of sin still in you, and thrusting sore at you that you might fall. “ The first case may be only a fulfilling of your Lord’s words, ‘ Yet a little whic and ve shall notsee me.’ But he ‘ will come unto you again, and your hearts shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from vou.’ Pt gee eee 188 REY. J. WESLEY’S JOURNAL. [June, 1740 “ Your being in strong temptation, yea, though it snould rise so high as to throw you iato an agony, or to make you fear that God had forgotten you, is no more a proof that you are not a’ believer, than our Lord’s agony, and his crying, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ?’ was a proof that he was not the Son of God.