Wesley Corpus

To his Brother Samuel Date: BRISTOL, May 10, 1739. Source: The Letters of John Wesley (1739) Author: John Wesley --- DEAR BROTHER, -- The having abundance of work upon my hands is only a cause of my not writing sooner. The cause was rather my unwillingness to continue an unprofitable dispute. The gospel promises to you and me, and our children, and all that are afar off, even as many of those whom the Lord our God shall call as are not disobedient unto the heavenly vision, 'the witness of God's Spirit with their spirit that they are the children of God’ [See letters of Nov. 30, 1738, and Jan. 1739.]; that they are now at this hour all accepted in the Beloved: but it witnesses not that they shall be. It is an assurance of present salvation only; therefore not necessarily perpetual, neither irreversible. I am one of many witnesses of this matter of fact, that God does now make good this His promise daily, very frequently during a representation (how made I know not, but not to the outward eye) of Christ either hanging on the cross or standing on the right hand of God. And this I know to be of God, because from that hour the person so affected is a new creature both as to his inward tempers and outward life. ‘Old things are passed away, and all things become new.’ A very late instance of this I will give you. While we were praying at a Society here, on Tuesday the 1st instant, the power of God (so I call it) came so mightily among us that one, and another, and another fell down as thunder-struck. In that hour many that were in deep anguish of spirit were all filled with peace and joy. Ten persons, till then in sin, doubt, and fear, found such a change that sin had no more dominion over them; and, instead of the spirit of fear, they are now filled with that of love and joy and a sound mind. A Quaker who stood by was very angry at them, and was biting his lips and knitting his brows, when the Spirit of God came upon him also, so that he fell down as one dead. We prayed over him, and he soon lifted up his head with joy and joined with us in thanksgiving.