Wesley Corpus

5. However, you think I assert a thing impossible. What is impossible That the Spirit of God should bear a clear, perceptible witness with our spirit that we are the children of God Surely no! Whether this be the fact or not, no man of reason will say it is impossible. Or that the Spirit of God should cease to bear this witness Neither can the possibility of this be denied. The thing, then, which is supposed impossible is this -- that a man who once had it should ever doubt whether he had it or no; that is (as you subjoin), ‘if he continue sound in mind’ (or understanding) ‘and memory.’ Right! ‘If he continue’; but the very supposition is that in this respect he does not continue so. While he did so continue, he could not doubt. But his understanding is now darkened, and the very traces of that divine work wellnigh erased out of his memory. Nor can I think ‘it is vain to have recourse here to the energeia of the power of darkness.’ I verily believe, as it was the God of heaven who once shone in his heart to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, so it is the god of this world who hath now blinded his heart so that the glorious light cannot shine upon it. 6. If the Quakers hold the same perceptible inspiration with me, I am glad; and it is neither better nor worse for their holding it: although if I ‘distinguish it away,’ I do not hold it at all. But do I distinguish it away or any point which I believe to be the truth of God I am not conscious of this. But when men tack absurdities to the truth of God with which it hath nothing to do, I distinguish away those absurdities and let the truth remain in its native purity. It was several months before my correspondence with you that I thus distinguished away perceptible inspiration; declaring to all men, ‘by “perceiving” or “feeling the operations of the Spirit,” I mean being inwardly conscious of them.’ ‘By “the operations of the Spirit” I do not mean the “manner” in which He operates in a Christian.’