Wesley Corpus

9. A second charge which you advance is that 'we suppose every man's final doom to depend on God's sovereign will and pleasure' (I presume you mean on His absolute, unconditional decree), that we 'consider man as a mere machine,' that we suppose believers 'cannot fall from grace' (page 31). Nay, I suppose none of these things. Let those who do answer for themselves. I suppose just the contrary in Predestination Calmly Considered, a tract published ten years ago.[See Works, x. 204-59.] 10. A third charge is: 'They represent faith as a supernatural principle, altogether precluding the judgement and understanding, and discerned by some internal signs; not as a firm persuasion founded on the evidence of reason, and discernible only by a conformity of life and manners to such a persuasion' (page 11). We do not represent faith 'as altogether precluding,' or at all 'precluding, the judgement and understanding'; rather as enlightening and strengthening the understanding, as clearing and improving the judgement. But we do represent it as the gift of God--yea, and a 'supernatural gift': yet it does not preclude 'the evidence of reason'; though neither is this its whole foundation. 'A conformity of life and manners' to that persuasion 'Christ loved me and gave Himself for me' is doubtless one mark by which it is discerned, but not the only one. It is likewise discerned by internal signs: both by the witness of the Spirit, and the fruit of the Spirit--namely, 'love, peace, joy, meekness, gentleness,' by all 'the mind which was in Christ Jesus.' 11. You assert, fourthly: 'They speak of grace, that it is as perceptible to the heart as sensible objects are to the senses; whereas the Scriptures speak of grace, that it is conveyed imperceptibly; and that the only way to be satisfied whether we have it or no is to appeal not to our inward feelings but our outward actions' (page 32).