Wesley Corpus

That we can never be so certain of the pardon of our sins as to be assured they will never rise up against us, I firmly believe. We know that they will infallibly do so if ever we apostatize, and I am not satisfied what evidence there can be, of our final perseverance till we have finished our course. But I am persuaded we may know if we are now in a state of salvation, since that is expressly promised in the Holy Scriptures to our sincere endeavors, and we are surely able to judge of our own sincerity. As I understand faith to be an assent to any truth upon rational grounds, I don't think it possible without perjury to swear I believe anything, unless I have rational grounds for my persuasion. Now, that which contradicts reason can’t be said to stand on rational grounds; and such undoubtedly is every proposition which is incompatible with the Divine Justice or Mercy. I can therefore never say I believe such a proposition, since 'tis impossible to assent upon reasonable evidence where it is not in being. What, then, shall I say of Predestination An everlasting purpose of God to deliver some from damnation does, I suppose, exclude all from that deliverance who are not chosen. And if it was inevitably decreed from eternity that such a determinate part of mankind should be saved, and none beside them, a vast majority of the world were only born to eternal death, without so much as a possibility of avoiding it. How is this consistent with either the Divine Justice or Mercy Is it merciful to ordain a creature to everlasting misery Is it just to punish man for crimes which he could not but commit How is man, if necessarily determined to one way of acting, a free agent To lie under either a physical or a moral necessity is entirely repugnant to human liberty. But that God should be the author of sin and injustice (which must, I think, be the consequence of maintaining this opinion) is a contradiction to the clearest ideas we have of the divine nature and perfections.