Wesley Corpus

I put that author into your hands, not because he is fit for the first learners of the rudiments of Christianity who are to be prepared for baptism, but because you were a clergyman that had made profession of divinity, had read as you said with much approbation and benefit the two practical discourses and many other good books, and because you seemed to me to be of a very inquisitive nature and much inclined to meditation. In this view nothing could be more reasonable than that book, which most deeply, excellently, and fully contains the whole system of Christian faith and practice, and is an excellent guide against all mistakes both in faith and works. What that book has not taught you I am content that you should not have learnt from me. You say the two maxims I mention may imply but do not express, ‘He is our propitiation, through faith in His blood.’ Is not this, therefore, a mere contest about words and expressions When I refer you to these two maxims or texts of Scripture, will you confine me to them alone Does not my quoting them necessarily refer to every part of Scripture of the same import When Christ says, ‘Without Me ye can do nothing’; when the Apostle says, ‘There is no other name given under heaven by which we can be saved’; when he says, ‘We are sanctified through faith in His blood’ and ‘through faith in Him,’ is there anything here but a difference of words, or one and the same thing imperfectly and only in part expressed I mentioned not the answer to the Plain Account, &c., as a proof of the manner of my conversation with you, but of my faith in Christ as the Atonement for us by His blood at this time, which is what you directly questioned and called upon me for.