Wesley Corpus

You add: ‘This prayer is met by the divine love, and changed into hymns and songs and thanksgivings’ (ibid.). It is so when, ‘being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.’ ‘This state of fervor melts away all earthly passions and affections, and leaves no inclination in the soul but to delight in God alone ' (ibid.). It is certain this is the genuine effect of' the love of God shed abroad in the heart'; which expression of St. Paul, I suppose, means the same with ‘this state of fervor.’ ‘Then its prayer changes again, and continually stands in fullness of faith, in purity of love, in absolute resignation to do and be what and how his Beloved pleaseth. This is the last state of the spirit of prayer, and is our highest union with God in this life.’ (Page 173.) Assuredly it is: fullness of faith, beholding with open face the glory of the Lord; purity of love, free from all mixture of its contrary, yielding the whole heart to God; absolute resignation, excluding every degree of self-will, sacrificing every thought, word, and work to God. But do we change directly from our first love into the highest union with God Surely not. There is an intermediate state between that of ‘babes in Christ’ and that of fathers. You yourself are very sensible there is, although you here speak as if there were not. You go on: ‘People who have long dwelt in this fervor are frighted when coldness seizes upon them’ (page 174) -- that is, when they lose it, when their love grows cold. And certainly, well they may, if this fervor was to bring them to ‘fullness of faith, purity of love, and absolute resignation.’ Well they may be affrighted, if that fervor be lost before ‘it has done its work.’ Indeed, they might be affrighted when it is not lost, if that which follows be true: ‘Fervor is good, and ought to be loved; but distress and coldness are better. It brings the soul nearer to God than the fervor did.’ (Pages 175-6.) The fervor, you said, brought the soul to ‘its highest union with God in this life.’ Can coldness do more Can it bring us to an union higher than the highest