Wesley Corpus

Every proposition which I have anywhere advanced concerning those operations of the Holy Ghost, which I believe are common to all Christians in all ages, is here clearly maintained by our own Church. Being fully convinced of this, I could not well understand for many years how it was that, on the mentioning any of these great truths, even among men of education, the cry immediately arose, 'An enthusiast, an enthusiast!' But I now plainly perceive this is only an old fallacy in a new shape. To object enthusiasm to any person or doctrine is but a decent method of begging the question. It generally spares the objector the trouble of reasoning, and is a shorter and easier way of carrying his cause. For instance: I assert that 'till a man "receives the Holy Ghost" he is without God in the world; that he cannot know the things of God unless God reveal them unto him by His Spirit-- no, nor have even one holy or heavenly temper without the inspiration of the Holy One.' Now, should one who is conscious to himself that he has experienced none of these things attempt to confute these propositions either from Scripture or antiquity, it might prove a difficult task. What, then, shall he do Why, cry out, 'Enthusiasm! Fanaticism!' and the work is done. 'But is it not mere enthusiasm or fanaticism to talk of the new birth' So one might imagine from the manner in which your Lordship talks of it: 'The Spirit did not stop till it had manifested itself in the last effort of its power--the new birth. The new birth began in storms and tempests, in cries and ecstasies, in tumults and confusions. Persons who had no sense of religion --that is, no ecstatic feelings, or pains of the new birth. What can be the issue of the new birth, attended with those infernal throes Why would he elicit sense from these Gentiles, when they were finally to be deprived of it in ecstasies and new births All these circumstances Mr. Wesley has declared to be constant symptoms of the new birth.' (Pages 123, 126, 180, 170, 225, 222.) So the new birth is throughout the whole tract the standing topic of ridicule.