Wesley Corpus

To his Brother Samuel Source: The Letters of John Wesley (1739) Author: John Wesley --- [January] 1739. MY DEAR BROTHER, -- ... I think Bishop Bull's sermon on the Witness of the Spirit (against the Witness of the Spirit it should rather be entitled) is full of gross perversions of Scripture and manifest contradictions both to Scripture and experience. I find more persons day by day who experience a clear evidence of their being in a state of salvation. But I never said this continues equally clear in all as long as they continue in a state of salvation. Some, indeed, have testified, and the whole tenor of their life made their testimony unexceptionable, that from that hour they have felt no agonies at all, no anxious fears, no sense of dereliction. Others have. But I much fear we begin our dispute at the wrong end. I fear you dissent from the fundamental Articles of the Church of England. I know Bishop Bull does. I doubt you do not hold justification by faith alone. If not, neither do you hold what our Articles teach concerning the extent and guilt of original sin; neither do you feel yourself a lost sinner: and if we begin not here, we are building on the sand. Oh may the God of love, if my sister or you are otherwise-minded, reveal even this unto you. Your affectionate Brother.