Wesley Corpus

They no more speak of Scripture than of miracles. They manifestly speak of what passes in the heart, the spirit, the inmost soul of a believer, and that only.’ 8. But you would say, ‘Suppose this scripture to prove that it should be so, can you show by facts that it is so’ Not if you take it for granted that every one who speaks of having this witness in himself is an enthusiast. You are then in no danger of proof from this quarter. You have a short answer to every fact which can be alleged. But you turn the tables. You say it is I who allow that ‘many of God's children do not continue in sound mind and memory.’ I allowed: (1) A man feels the testimony of God's Spirit, and cannot then deny or doubt his being a child of God. (2) After a time this testimony is withdrawn: not from every child of God; many retain the beginning of their confidence steadfast unto the end. (3) Then he may doubt whether that testimony was of God, and perhaps at length deny that it was, especially if his heart be hardened by the deceitfulness of his sin. And yet he may be all this time in every other respect of ‘sound memory as well as understanding.’ In this respect I allowed he is not -- that is, ‘his understanding is now darkened, and the very traces of that divine work wellnigh erased out of his memory.’ So I expressly determined the sense wherein I allowed ‘he does not continue in sound mind and memory.’ But did I allow that even then he was non compos mentis -- a madman in the common sense Nothing less: I allowed no more than, the divine light being withdrawn, his mind was again dark as to the things of God; and that he had forgotten t aTas t pa at ‘aat, [2 Pet. i. 9 ‘The purification from his former sins.’] wellnigh as if it had never been.