Wesley Corpus

I firmly believe ‘we are accounted righteous before God, justified only for the merit of Christ.’ But let us have no shifting the terms. ‘Only through Christ’s imputed righteousness' are not the words of the Article, neither the language of our Church. Much less does our Church anywhere affirm ‘that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to the ungodly, who have no qualifications’ (page 28), no repentance, no faith; nor do the Scriptures ever affirm this. The reflection on the general inference I so entirely agree with as to think it worth transcribing: ‘If you have faith and repentance, you want no other signs or evidences of your justification. But if you have not these, to pretend to any other assurances, tokens, feelings, or experiences, is vain and delusive.’ Does he know any one who maintains that a man may be in a state of justification and yet have no faith or repentance But the marks and evidences of true faith which the Scripture has promised must not be discarded as vain or delusive. The Scripture has promised us the assurance of faith, to be wrought in us by the operation of God. It mentions ‘the earnest of the Spirit,’ and speaks of ‘feeling after the Lord’ and finding Him; and so our Church in her Seventeenth Article speaks of ‘feeling in ourselves the working of the Spirit of Christ,’ and in the Homily for Rogation Week of ‘feeling our conscience at peace with God through remission of our sin.’ So that we must not reject all ‘assurances, tokens, feelings, and experiences’ as ‘vain and delusive.’ Nor do I apprehend Dr. T. ever intended to say that we must reject all inward feelings, but only those which are without faith or repentance. And who would not reject these His very words are, ‘If you have not these, to pretend to any other feelings is vain and delusive.’ I say so too. Meantime he is undoubtedly sensible that there is a ‘consolation in love,’ a ‘peace that paseth all understanding ,’ and a ‘joy that is unspeakable and full of glory.’ Nor can we imagine him to deny that these must be felt, inwardly felt, wherever they exist.