Wesley Corpus

I have been much disappointed since I left London last, expecting to meet with nothing but difficulties, and finding none at all, or such as did but just appear and then vanish into nothing. So it shall always be, if our whole care be cast on Him who careth for us. The rough places shall in due time be all made smooth, and the mountain become a plain. What have we, then, to do but to stand still and see the salvation of God I commend you and yours to His ever-waking love; and am Your affectionate friend and brother. We are to set out toward St. Ives to-morrow. To Mrs. Jones, At Fonmon Castle, Near Cardiff, South Wales. Free-James Erskine. [See Journal, iii. 181; and letter of March 16, 1745.] To the Author of the ‘Craftsman’ [9] [July] 1745. SIR, -- In your late paper of June 22 I find (among many to the same effect) these words: -- ‘Methodists place all merit in faith and grace, and none in good works. This unwarrantable strange sect of a religion, founded on madness and folly, hold that there is no justification by good works, but by faith and grace only. They hereby banish that divine part of our constitution, reason; and cut off the most essential recommendation to heaven, virtue. ‘Men who are far gone in their mad principles of religion suspend the hand of industry, become inactive, and leave all to Providence, without exercising either their heads or hands. ‘The doctrine of Regeneration is essential with political Methodists; who are now regenerated, place all merit in faith, and have thrown good works aside.’ I am pressed by those to whose judgment I pay great regard to take some notice of these assertions; and the rather because you sometimes seem as if you thought the Christian institution was of God. Now, if you really think so, or if you desire that any man should believe you do, you must not talk so ludicrously of Regeneration; for it is an essential doctrine of Christianity. And you may probably have heard, or even read in former years, that it was the Author of this institution who said, ‘Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’