Wesley Corpus

But ‘complaints,’ you say, ‘of their errors, come very ill from you, because you have occasioned them.’ Nay, if it were so, for that very cause they ought to come from me. If I had occasioned an evil, surely I am the very person who ought to remove it as far as I can; to recover, if possible, those who are hurt already, and to caution others against it. 14. On some of those complaints, as you term them, you remark as follows: -- ‘Many of those who once knew in whom they had believed’ (these are my words) ‘were thrown into idle reasonings, and thereby filled with doubts and fears’ (page 13). ‘This,’ you add, ‘it is to be feared, has been too much the case of the Methodists in general. -- Accordingly we find, in this Journal, several instances, not barely of doubts and fears, but of the most desperate despair. This is the consequence of resting so much on sensible impressions. -- Bad men may be led into presumption thereby; an instance of which you give,’ (Journal, ii. 415). That instance will come in our way again: ‘Many of those who once knew in whom they had believed were thrown,’ by the Antinomians, ‘into idle reasonings, and thereby filled with doubts and fears. This,’ you fear, ‘has been the case with the Methodists in general.’ You must mean, (to make it a parallel case,) that the generality of the people now termed Methodists were true believers till they heard us preach, but were thereby thrown into idle reasonings, and filled with needless doubts and fears. Exactly contrary to truth in every particular. For, (1.) They lived in open sins till they heard us preach, and, consequently, were no better believers than their father the devil. (2.) They were not then thrown into idle reasonings, but into serious thought how to flee from the wrath to come. Nor, (3.) Were they filled with needless doubts and fears, but with such as were needful in the highest degree, such as actually issued in repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. ‘Accordingly, we find in this Journal several instances of the most desperate despair’ (ii. 333, 347, 410). Then I am greatly mistaken. But I will set down at length the several instances you refer to: --