Wesley Corpus

9. This I have endeavored to do with a tender hand: relating no more than I believed absolutely needful; carefully avoiding all tart and unkind expressions, all that I could foresee would be disobliging to you, or any farther offensive than was implied in the very nature of the thing; laboring everywhere to speak consistently with that deep sense which is settled in my heart that you are (though I cannot call you Rabbi, infallible) yet far, far better and wiser than me. 10. And if any of you will smite me friendly and reprove me, if you will show me wherein I have erred, either in the matter or manner of the following relation or any part thereof, I will by the grace of God confess it before angels and men in whatsoever way you shall require. Meanwhile do not cease to pray for Your weak but still affectionate brother. To John Bennet [6] [June 1744.] You are in great danger of running from one extreme to the other, from Calvinism to Pelagianism. If the Bible be true, then none is a Christian who has not the marks of a Christian there laid down. One of these is the love of God, which must be felt (if it is in the soul) as much as fire upon the body. Another is the witness of God's Spirit with my spirit that I am a child of God. Till I have these marks I am not a Christian; and no power can give me these but that which made the world. It is God alone who worketh in me both to will and to do of His good pleasure. Faith is seeing God; love is feeling God. You may order your affairs so as to ride with me to London to our Conference. Then we can clear these things up more fully. Mercy and truth be with you. To Mrs. Hutton [7] OXON, August 22, 1744 MADAM,--Had I no other motive to speak than gratitude for past favors, I ought not to be wholly silent. 1. Dreams and visions were never allowed by us to be certain marks of adoption; no, not though they were supposed to be from God. Therefore this mistake, whosesoever it is, is none of mine.