Wesley Corpus

You blame me (2) for teaching heterodox doctrine concerning faith and good works (I am obliged to put the meaning of many of your straggling sentences together as well as I can). As to the former, which you still awkwardly and unscripturally style the grace of assurance (a phrase I never use), you say: 'You have given it a true Methodistical gloss. But where are the proofs from Scripture Not one single text.' Sir, that is your ignorance. I perceive the Bible is a book you are not acquainted with. Every sentence in my account is a text of Scripture. I purposely refrained from quoting chapter and verse, because I expected you would bewray your ignorance, and show that you was got quite out of your depth. As your old friend Mr. Vellum says, 'You will pardon me for being jocular.' To one who seriously desired information on this point I would explain it a little farther. Faith is an evidence or conviction of things not seen, of God, and the things of God. This is faith in general. More particularly it is a divine evidence or conviction that Christ loved me and gave Himself for me. This directly leads us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling; not with slavish, painful fear, but with the utmost diligence, which is the proper import of that expression. When this evidence is heightened to exclude all doubt, it is the plerophory or full assurance of faith. But any degree of true faith prompts the believer to be zealous of good works.