Wesley Corpus

And this you yourself account for extremely well. Sed oportet Palaemonem esse memorem. [‘But Palaemon ought to posses a good memory.’ Palaemon was the most famous grammarian in Rome and master of Quintillian.] ‘What a figure would a small number of ministers make in the Church either of England or Scotland who should agree to maintain the plain, obvious sense of their own public standards of doctrine, and insist upon an adherence to that sense as a term of holding communion with them in the sacred institutions! Their situation in the national Church would be very uncomfortable as well as extremely ridiculous. For many enemies would soon be awakened against them, to distress and misrepresent them in various respects.’ (Page 465.) Thus much as a specimen of your veracity. I object, secondly, that you know not what faith is. You talk about it, and labor and sweat, and at last come to a most lame and impotent conclusion. You say: ‘That Christ died for me is a point not easily settled, a point which the Scripture nowhere ascertains’ (the very thought, and nearly the words, of Cardinal Bellarmine, in his dispute with our forefathers): ‘so far from it, that it affirms the final. perdition of many who have great confidence of their interest in Christ’ (this only proves that many fancy they have what they have not, which I suppose nobody will deny); ‘yea, and declares that “wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction”’ (page 14). It is so; but this is nothing to the point -- the nature of true faith. ‘Nature, these men say, begins the work’ (I know none of them who say so); ‘and then grace helps out the efforts of nature, and persuades a man, though he be not mentioned in Scripture either by name or surname, that Christ died for him’ (page 33). ‘So the Spirit whispers something to the heart of a sinner beside what He publicly speaks in the Scriptures. But will any lover of the Scriptures allow the possibility of this -- that the Spirit should ever speak a syllable to any man beside what He publicly speaks there’ (Page 35.) You will presently allow something wonderfully like it. And you suppose yourself to be a ‘lover of the Scriptures.’