01 To Dr Conyers Middleton
| Author | John Wesley |
|---|---|
| Type | letter |
| Year | None |
| Passage ID | jw-letter-1749-01-to-dr-conyers-middleton-091 |
| Words | 386 |
3. Secondly. Christianity promises this character shall be mine, if I will not rest till I attain it. This is promised both in the Old Testament and the New. Indeed, the New is in effect all a promise; seeing every description of the servants of God mentioned therein has the nature of a command, in consequence of those general injunctions: 'Be ye followers of me, as I am of Christ' (1 Cor. xi. 1); 'Be ye followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises' (Heb. vi. 12). And every command has the force of a promise in virtue of those general promises: 'A new heart will I give you; . . . and I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and ye shall keep My judgements, and do them' (Ezek. xxxvi. 26-7); 'This is the covenant that I will make after those days, saith the Lord; I will put My laws into their minds, and write them in their hearts' (Heb. viii. 10). Accordingly, when it is said, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind' (Matt. xxii. 37), it is not only a direction what I shall do, but a promise of what God will do in me; exactly equivalent with what is written elsewhere: 'The Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart, and the heart of thy seed' (alluding to the custom then in use), 'to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul' (Deut. xxx. 6).
4. This being observed, it will readily appear, to every serious person who reads the New Testament with that care which the importance of the subject demands, that every particular branch of the preceding character is manifestly promised therein, either explicitly under the very form of a promise, or virtually under that of description or command.
5. Christianity tells me, in the third place, how I may attain the promise--namely, by faith.
But what is faith Not an opinion, no more than it is a form of words; not any number of opinions put together, be they ever so true. A string of opinions is no more Christian faith than a string of beads is Christian holiness.