Wesley Corpus

‘Nature, these men say, begins the work’ (I know none of them who say so); ‘and then grace helps out the efforts of nature, and persuades a man, though he be not mentioned in Scripture either by name or surname, that Christ died for him’ (page 33). ‘So the Spirit whispers something to the heart of a sinner beside what He publicly speaks in the Scriptures. But will any lover of the Scriptures allow the possibility of this -- that the Spirit should ever speak a syllable to any man beside what He publicly speaks there’ (Page 35.) You will presently allow something wonderfully like it. And you suppose yourself to be a ‘lover of the Scriptures.’ ‘Some of the martyrs were assured of being the friends of Christ’ (page 398). How Which way Nether their name nor surname was mentioned in Scripture! Why, ‘the Holy Ghost assured their hearts and the hearts of the first Christians that their joy was not the joy of the hypocrite, but the beginning of eternal life. Thus their joy was made full and their love perfected by the highest enjoyments it was here capable of. Every believer finds a refreshment to his mind far superior to all the comforts of this life. They stand in God's presence, and have their joy made full in beholding the light of His countenance’ (page 402). Allow the, and we will never dispute whether the Spirit does or does not ‘whisper anything to their hearts.’ It is enough that they have ‘the Spirit of adoption, crying in their hearts, Abba, Father’; and that this ‘Spirit witnesseth with their spirits that they are the children of God.’ ‘The chief time of this agency of the Spirit is while the preachers are declaiming. And the people are in continual expectation of the season of power in heating them.’ (Page 38.) Yea, and reason good, if, as you affirm, ‘hearing is the only mean whereby God gives faith’ (page 391). But we do not affirm so much. We only maintain that ‘faith’ generally ‘cometh by hearing.’