Wesley Corpus

15. ‘But the Word of God appears to' you 'to be manifestly against such an instantaneous giving of faith, because it speaks of growth in grace and faith as owing to the slow methods of instruction.’ So do I. But this is not the question. We are speaking, not of the progress, but of the first rise of faith. ‘It directs the gentle instilling of faith by long labor and pious industry.’ Not the first instilling; and we speak not now of the continuance or increase of it. ‘It compares even God's part of the work to the slow produce of vegetables, that, while one plants and another waters, it is God all the while who goes on giving the increase.’ Very true. But the seed must first be sown before it can increase at all. Therefore all the texts which relate to the subsequent increase are quite wide of the present question. Perhaps your thinking the nature of the thing to be so clearly against me may arise from your not clearly apprehending it. That you do not, I gather from your own words: ‘It is the nature of faith to be a full and practical assent to truth.’ Surely no. This definition does in no wise express the nature of Christian faith. Christian, saving faith is a divine conviction of invisible things; a supernatural conviction of the things of God, with a filial confidence in His love. Now, a man may have a full assent to the truth of the Bible (probably attained by the slow steps you mention), yea, an assent which has some influence on his practice, and yet not have one grain of this faith. 16. I should be glad to know to which writings in particular of the last age you would refer me for a thorough discussion of the Calvinistical points. I want to have those points fully settled, having seen so little yet wrote on the most important of them with such clearness and strength as one would desire.