Wesley Corpus

To his Brother Samuel Date: LONDON, October 30, 1738. Source: The Letters of John Wesley (1738) Author: John Wesley --- DEAR BROTHER, -- That you will always receive kindly what is so intended I doubt not. Therefore I again recommend the character of Susurrus, [See letter of July 7, p. 251] both to you and my sister, as (whether real or reigned) striking at the root of a fault of which both she and you were, I think, more guilty than any other two persons I have known in my life. Oh may God deliver both you and me from all bitterness and evil-speaking, as well as from all false doctrine, heresy, and schism! With regard to my own character, and my doctrine likewise, I shall answer you very plainly. By a Christian I mean one who so believes in Christ as that sin hath no more dominion over him; and in this obvious sense of the word I was not a Christian till May the 24th last past. For till then sin had the dominion over me, although I fought with it continually; but surely then, from that time to this it hath not, such is the free grace of God in Christ. What sins they were which till then reigned over me, and from which by the grace of God I am now free, I am ready to declare on the house-top, if it may be for the glory of God. If you ask by what means I am made free (though not perfect, neither infallibly sure of my perseverance), I answer, By faith in Christ; by such a sort or degree of faith as I had not till that day. My desire of this faith I knew long before, though not so clearly till Sunday, January the 8th last, when, being in the midst of the great deep, I wrote a few lines in the bitterness of my soul, some of which I have transcribed [Journal, i. 415-16.] ; and may the good God sanctify them both to you and me! -- ‘By the most infallible of all proofs, inward feeling, I am convinced, -- ‘1. Of unbelief; having no such faith in Christ as will prevent my heart's being troubled, which it could not be if I believed in God and rightly believed also in Him.