Wesley Corpus

To Hannah Ball Date: BRADFORD, July 7. 1772. Source: The Letters of John Wesley (1772) Author: John Wesley --- MY DEAR SISTER,--From what has lately occurred you may learn a good lesson--not to build your faith on a single text of Scripture, and much less on a particular sense of it. Whether this text be interpreted in one or the other way, the work of God in your soul is the same. Beware, therefore, of supposing that you are mistaken in the substance of your experience because you may be mistaken with regard to the meaning of a particular scripture. Pray; and observe that God Himself may, and frequently does, apply a scripture to the heart (either in justifying or sanctifying a soul) in what is not its direct meaning. Allowing, then, that the passage mentioned directly refers to heaven, yet this would be no manner of proof that you were deceived as to that work of God which was wrought in your soul when it was applied to you in another meaning.--My dear sister, adieu!