Wesley Corpus

You remark: (11) ‘He talks in the style of inspired persons.’ I answered, ‘No otherwise inspired than you are, if you love God.’ You reply, ‘The point was not whether you are actually inspired, but whether you have talked in the style of those who were so’ (Second Letter, p. 126). That was so much the point that, if it were allowed, it would overturn your whole argument. For if I was inspired (in your sense), you could not term that inspiration enthusiasm without blasphemy; but you again mistake my words. The plain meaning of them is, that I talk in the style of those persons who are ‘no otherwise inspired than you are, if you love God.’ You remark: (12) ‘He applies Scripture phrases to himself, without attending to their original meaning or once considering the difference of times and circumstances’ (page 62). I answered: ‘I am not conscious of anything like this. I apply no Scripture phrase either to myself or any other without carefully considering, both the original meaning and the secondary sense, wherein (allowing for different times and circumstances) it may be applied to ordinary Christians.’ [See letter of Feb. 2, 1745, sect.111, 5.] You reply: ‘This also you deny to have done; holding, however, some secondary sense (what it is you have not told us) in which Scripture phrases may be applied to ordinary Christians.’ I have largely told you what I mean by a secondary sense, in the First Part of the Farther Appeal. You add: ‘Many things which were truly written of the preaching of Christianity at first, you have vainly applied to yourselves.’ Sir, I am to answer only for myself; as I will for that expression, ‘Behold, the day of the Lord is come; He is again visiting and redeeming His people!’ 3. I come now to what you expatiate upon at large as the two grand instances of my enthusiasm. The first is plainly this: At some rare times, when I have been in great distress of soul, or in utter uncertainty how to act in an important case which required a speedy determination, after using all other means that occurred, I have cast lots or opened the Bible. And by this means I have been relieved from that distress or directed in that uncertainty.