Wesley Corpus

You say (2): ‘As to that strange something which you call faith, after all you have told us about it, we are at as great a loss to tell distinctly what it is as when you began’ (ibid.). This is another slander. You are at no loss (as will presently appear) to tell what Mr. Hervey means by faith. Whether it be right or wrong, his account of it is as clear and distinct as any that ever was given. You say (3): ‘The popular preachers’ (so you term Archbishop Tillotson, Dr. Lucas, Crisp, Doddridge, Watts, Gill; Mr. Guthrie, Boron, Erskine, Willison [John Willison (1680-1750), minister of South Church, Dundee, 1716.]; Mr. Flavel, Marshall; Mr. Griffith Jones, Hervey, Romaine, Whitefield, Wesley) ‘never tell us what they mean by faith but by some labored circumlocutions’ (page 282). This is a third palpable slander, as your own words prove: 'They say, Faith is a real persuasion that Christ hath died for me’ (page 5). Are you not here told what they mean by faith, and that without any circumlocution at all You confute your own slander still farther by adding three more: (4) ‘They make a pious resolve the ground of our acceptance with God’ (page 360). No, never. Not one of the writers you have named ever did or does so now. (5) ‘The faith they talk of is only a timid resolve, joined with a fond conjecture.’ Or (6) ‘It is a fond, presumptuous wish, greatly embarrassed with doubts and difficulties.’ (Page 404.) Slander all over. We make the righteousness and blood of Christ the only ground of our acceptance with God. And the faith we talk of is neither more nor less than a divine conviction that Christ loved me and gave Himself for me. You say (7): ‘All who preach this doctrine are of the world, and speak of the world; therefore the world heareth them’ (page 14). 'Therefore they will always be attended by the body of the people’ (page 37).