Wesley Corpus

The doctrine of Pure Love as it is stated in the fourth book and elsewhere (the loving God chiefly is not solely for His inherent perfections) I once firmly espoused. But I was at length unwillingly convinced that I must give it up or give up the Bible. And for near twenty years I have thought, as I do now, that it is at least unscriptural, if not anti-scriptural; for the Scripture gives not the least intimation, that I can find, of any higher, or indeed any other, love of God than that mentioned by St. John - ‘We love Him, because He first loved us.’ And I desire no higher love of God till my spirit returns to Him. Page 313: ‘There can be but two possible ways of curing moral evil -- the sensation of pleasure in the discovery of truth, or the sensation of pain in the love of error.’ So here is one who has searched out the Almighty to perfection! who knows every way wherein He can exert His omnipotence! I am not clear in this. I believe it is very possible for God to act in some third way. I believe He can make me as holy as an archangel without any sensation at all preceding. Page 324: ‘Hence it is that the chaos mentioned in the 1st chapter of Genesis cannot be understood of the primitive state of nature.’ Why not, if God created the world gradually as we are assured He did In the fifth book (page 334) I read a more extraordinary assertion than any of the preceding: ‘The infusion of such supernatural habits by one instantaneous act is impossible. We cannot be confirmed in immutable babes of good but by a long-continued repetition of free acts.’ I dare not say so. I am persuaded God can this moment confirm me immutably good. Page 335: ‘Such is the nature of finite spirits that, after a certain degree of good habits contracted, they become unpervertible and immutable in the love of order.’ If so, ‘after a certain degree of evil habits contracted, must they not become unconvertible and immutable in the hatred of order’ And if Omnipotence cannot prevent the one, neither can it prevent the other.