Wesley Corpus

To Samuel Sparrow Date: WINDMILL HILL, October 9, 1773. Source: The Letters of John Wesley (1773) Author: John Wesley --- DEAR SIR,--On Scripture and common sense I build all my principles. Just so far as it agrees with these I regard human authority. God could not command me to worship a creature without contradicting Himself: therefore, if a voice from heaven bade me honor a creature as I honor the Creator, I should know this is the voice of Satan, not of God. The Father and the Son are not ' two beings,' but ' one.' As He is man, the Father is doubtless 'greater than the Son'; who as such 'can do nothing of Himself,' and is no more omniscient than omnipresent. And as man He might well say, ' I ascend to my Father and your Father,' and pray to His Father and His God. He bids His disciples also to pray to Him, but never forbids their praying to Himself. I take this to be the plain, obvious, easy meaning of our Lord’s words, and the only one wherein they are reconcilable with an hundred passages both of the Old and New Testament. With regard to original sin (I mean the proneness to evil which is found in every child of man), you have supposed it in the essays with which you favored me [See letter of Feb. 26, 1772, to him], almost from the beginning to the end: and you have frequently asserted it; although you could not assert it in plainer terms than the honest, unbiased heathens have done: Vitiis nemo sine nascitur [Horace’s Satires, I.iii.68: ‘No one is born without vices’]. Hence Omnes natura proclives ad libidinem [Terence’s Andria, I. i. 51. ‘All, by nature are prone to evil desire’]. Hence Dociles imitandis turpibus et pravis omnes sumus [Juvenal’s Satires, xiv. 41: ‘All are apt to imitate shameful and vicious things’]. But I believe nothing can set this point in a more clear and strong light than the tract which I beg you to accept of [Fletcher’s Appeal]. Accept likewise the best wishes of, dear sir, Your affectionate servant.