Wesley Corpus

‘Instead of judging of his spiritual estate by the improvement of his heart, he rests only on ecstasies.’ Neither is this my case. I rest not on them at all. Nor did I ever experience any. I do judge of my spiritual estate by the improvement of my heart and the tenor of my life conjointly. ‘He is very liable to err.’ So indeed I am. I find it every day more and more. But I do not yet find, that this is owing to my want of ‘considering things coolly and carefully.’ Perhaps you do not know many persons (excuse my simplicity in speaking it) who more carefully consider every step they take. Yet I know I am not cool or careful enough. May God supply this and all my wants! ‘He is very difficult to be convinced by reason and argument, as he acts upon a supposed principle superior to it, the direction of God's Spirit.’ I am very difficult to be convinced by dry blows or hard names, (both of which I have not wanted,) but not by reason and argument. At least that difficulty cannot spring from the cause you mention; for I claim no other direction of God's Spirit, than is common to all believers. ‘Whoever opposes him is charged with resisting or rejecting the Spirit.’ What! whoever opposes me, John Wesley Do I charge every such person with rejecting the Spirit No more than I charge him with robbing on the highway. I cite you yourself, to confute your own words. For, do I charge you with rejecting the Spirit ‘His own dreams must be regarded as oracles.’ Whose I desire neither my dreams nor my waking thoughts may be regarded at all, unless just so far as they agree with the oracles of God. ‘Whatever he does, is to be accounted the work of God.’ You strike quite wide of me still. I never said so of what I do. I never thought so. Yet I trust what I do is pleasing to God. ‘Hence he talks in the style of inspired persons.’ No otherwise inspired than you are, if you love God. ‘And applies Scripture phrases to himself, without attending to their original meaning, or once considering the difference of times and circumstances.’ I am not conscious of any thing like this.