Wesley Corpus

Once more, sir, let me beg you to consider whether your extreme roughness, and morose and sour behavior, at least on many occasions, can possibly be the fruit of a living faith in Christ. If not, may the God of peace and love fill up what is yet wanting in you ! -- I am, reverend sir, Your humble servant. To William Law [7] LONDON, May 20, 1738. REVEREND SIR, -- I sincerely thank you for a favor I did not expect, and presume to trouble you once more. How I have preached all my life; how qualified or unqualified I was to correct a translation of Kempis, and translate a preface to it; whether I have now, or how long I have had, a living faith; and whether I am for separating the doctrine of the Cross from it; what your state or sentiments are; and whether Peter Bhler spoke truth in what he said when two beside me were. present -- are circumstances on which the main question does not turn, which is this and no other: Whether you ever advised me, or directed me to books that did advise, to seek first a living faith in the blood of Christ You appeal to three facts to prove you did: (1) That you put Theologia Germanica into my hands. (2) That you published an answer to The Plain Account of the Sacrament. And (3) That you are governed through all you have writ and done by these two fundamental maxims of our Lord -- ‘Without Me ye can do nothing,' and 'If any man will come after Me, let him take up his cross and follow Me.’ The facts I allow, but not the consequence. In Theologia Germanica I remember something of Christ our Pattern, but nothing express of Christ our Atonement. The answer to The Plain Account I believe to be an excellent book, but not to affect the question. Those two maxims may imply but do not express that third -- ‘He is our propitiation through faith in His blood.’ ‘But how are you chargeable with my not having had this faith’ If, as you intimate, you discerned my spirit, thus: