Wesley Corpus

You are, indeed, somewhat pitiable in speaking wrong on this head, because you do it in ignorance. But this plea cannot be allowed when you gravely advance that trite, threadbare objection concerning the Lord's Supper, without taking any notice that I have answered it again and again, both to Mr. Church and to the late Lord Bishop of London. 41. Your thirteenth proof is this: ‘Mr. Wesley has taught us that infirmities are no sins.’ Sir, you have taught me to wonder at nothing you assert; else I should wonder at this. The words I suppose you refer to stand in the sermon on Salvation by Faith; though you do not choose to show your reader where they may be found, -- ‘He that is by faith born of God sinneth not (1) by any habitual sin: nor (2) by any willful sin: nor (3) by any sinful desire; for he continually desireth the holy and perfect will of God: nor (4) doth he sin by infirmities, whether in act, word, or thought; for his infirmities have no concurrence of his will, and without this they are not properly sins.’ And this you seriously declare ‘is a loophole to creep out of every moral and religious obligation’! In the same paragraph you say I have strongly affirmed that ‘all our works and tempers are evil continually; that our whole heart is altogether corrupt and abominable, and consequently our whole life; all our works, the most specious of them, our righteousness, our prayers, needing an atonement themselves’ (i. 423, 464; ii. 89, 249-50[See letter of July 31, 1739.]). I do strongly affirm this. But of whom In all these places but the last of myself only. In every one but this I speak in the singular number, and of myself when confessedly an unbeliever. And of whom do I speak in that last place Of unbelievers, and them only. The words are, ‘All our tempers and works in our natural state are only evil continually.’ Now, sir, where is your loophole to creep out If you have none, I fear every impartial man will pass sentence upon you that you have no regard either to moral or religious obligations.