Wesley Corpus

But the main attack is on the sermon itself, wherein I am charged with asserting a gross falsehood in the face of God and the congregation, and that knowing it to be such--namely, 'That the grand fundamental doctrines which Mr. Whitefield everywhere preached were those of the New Birth and Justification by Faith.' 'No,' says Mr. Romaine; 'not at all: the grand fundamental doctrines he everywhere preached were the Everlasting Covenant between the Father and the Son and Absolute Predestination flowing therefrom.' I join issue on this head. Whether the doctrines of the Eternal Covenant and Absolute Predestination are the grand fundamental doctrines of Christianity or not, I affirm again (1) that Mr. Whitefield did not everywhere preach these; (2) that he did everywhere preach the New Birth and Justification by Faith. 1. He did not everywhere preach the Eternal Covenant and Absolute Predestination. I never heard him utter a sentence on one or the other. Yea, all the times he preached in West Street Chapel and in our other chapels throughout England he did not preach those doctrines at all--no, not in a single paragraph; which, by-the-by, is a demonstration that he did not think them the fundamental doctrines of Christianity. 2. Both in West Street Chapel and all our other chapels throughout England he did preach the necessity of the new birth and justification by faith as clearly as he has done in his two volumes of printed sermons; therefore all I have asserted is true, and provable by ten thousand witnesses. Nay, says Mr. Romaine, 'Mr. Whitefield everywhere insisted on other fundamental doctrines, from the foundation of which the new birth and justification take their rise, with which they are inseparably connected: these are the everlasting covenant which was entered into by the Holy Trinity, and God the Father's everlasting, unchangeable election of sinners' (in virtue of which a fiftieth part of mankind shall be saved, do what they will; and the other forty-nine parts shall be damned, do what they can); - 'these doctrines are not of a less essential nature than either Regeneration or Justification. No, by no means; they are to the full equally essential to the glory of God. Yea, there is an inseparable connexion between them. This is a most essential, a most fundamental point.' (Gospel Magazine, p. 41.)