Wesley Corpus

7. Instead of giving a direct answer to this, you have recourse to the same supposition with his Lordship of Lichfield and Coventry -- namely, that there was once an inward, perceptible testimony of the Spirit, but that it was peculiar to the early ages of the Church. ‘There are three ways,’ say you, ‘in which the Holy Spirit may be said to bear witness with our spirit that we are the children of God: (1) By external, miraculous attestations. (2) By internal, plainly perceptible whispers.’ (I must add, ‘not in words, at least not always, but by some kind of impressions equivalent thereto.’) ‘(3) By His standing testimony in the Holy Scriptures. The Apostles had all these three; Origen and Chrysostom probably the two latter. But if St. Bernard, several hundred years after, pretended to any other than the third, his neighbors would naturally ask for proof, either that it should be so by Scripture or that it was so by facts.’