Wesley Corpus

There is abundantly greater danger of this when we fancy we have no longer need to ‘be taught of man.’ To this your late writings directly lead. One who admires them will be very apt to cry out, ‘I have found all that I need know of God, of Christ, of myself, of heaven, of hell, of sin, of grace, and of salvation’ (Part 114 p. 4). And the rather because you yourself affirm roundly, ‘When once we apprehend the all of God and our own nothingness’ (which a man may persuade himself he does in less than four-and-twenty hours), ‘it brings a kind of infallibility into the soul in which it dwells; all that is vain and false and deceitful is forced to vanish and fly before it' (Part I. p. 95). Agreeably to which you tell your convert, ‘You have no questions to ask of anybody’ (Spirit of Love, Part II. p. 218). And if, notwithstanding this, he will ask, ‘But how am I to keep up the flame of love’ you answer, ‘I wonder you should want to know this. Does a blind or sick or lame man want to know how he should desire sight, health, or limbs’ (Spirit of Prayer, Part II. p. 165.) No; but he wants to know how he should attain and how he should keep them. And he who has attained the love of God may still want to know how he shall keep it. And he may still inquire, ‘May I not take my own passions or the suggestions of evil spirits for the workings of the Spirit of God’ (page 198). To this you answer, ‘Every man knows when he is governed by the spirit of wrath, envy, or covetousness as easily and as certainly as he knows when he is hungry’ (ibid.). Indeed he does not; neither as easily nor as certainly. Without great care he may take wrath to be pious zeal, envy to be virtuous emulation, and covetousness to be Christian prudence or laudable frugality. ‘Now, the knowledge of the Spirit of God in yourself is as perceptible as covetousness.’ Perhaps so; for this is as difficultly perceptible as any temper of the human soul. ‘And liable to no more delusion.’ Indeed it need not; for this is liable to ten thousand delusions.