Wesley Corpus

To William Law Date: LONDON, May 14, 1738. Source: The Letters of John Wesley (1738) Author: John Wesley --- REVEREND SIR, -- It is in obedience to what I think to be the call of God that I, who have the sentence of death in my own soul, take upon me to write to you, of whom I have often desired to learn the first elements of the gospel of Christ. If you are born of God, you will approve of the design, though it may be but weakly executed... If not, I shall grieve for you, not for myself. For as I seek not the praise of men, so neither regard I the contempt either of you or of any other. For two years (more especially) I have been preaching after the model of your two practical treatises; and all that heard have allowed that the law is great, wonderful, and holy. But no sooner did they attempt to fulfill it but they found that it is too high for man, and that by doing ' the works of the law shall no flesh living be justified.' To remedy this, I exhorted them, and stirred up myself, to pray earnestly for the grace of God, and to use all the other means of obtaining that grace which the all-wise God hath appointed. But still, both they and I were more and more convinced that this is a law by which a man cannot live; the law in our members continually warring against it, and bringing us into deeper captivity to the law of sin. Under this heavy yoke I might have groaned till death, had not an holy man, [Peter Bhler. See Law's reply in Journal, viii. 320-3.] to whom God lately directed me, upon my complaining thereof, answered at once: ‘Believe, and thou shalt be saved. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ with all thy heart, and nothing shall be impossible to thee. This faith, indeed, as well as the salvation it brings, is the free gift of God. But seek, and thou shalt find. Strip thyself naked of thy own works and thy own righteousness, and fly to Him. For whosoever cometh unto Him, He will in no wise cast out.’