Wesley Corpus

After all the noise that has been made about mysteries, and the trouble we have given ourselves upon that head, nothing is more certain than that no child of man is required to believe any mystery at all. With regard to the Trinity, for instance, what am I required to believe Not the manner wherein the mystery lies. This is not the object of my faith; but the plain matter of fact, ' These Three are One.' This I believe, and this only. Faith is given according to our present need. You have now such faith as is necessary for your living unto God. As yet you are not called to die. When you are, you shall have faith for this also. To-day improve the faith which you now have, and trust God with to-morrow. Some writers make a distinction which seems not improper. They speak of the essential part of heaven and the accessory parts. A man without any learning is naturally led into the same distinction. So the poor dying peasant in Frederica: ' To be sure heaven is a fine place, a very fine place; but I do not care for that: I want to see God and to be with Him.' I do not know whether the usual question be well stated, ' Is heaven a state or a place ' There is no opposition between these two; it is both the one and the other. It is the place wherein God more immediately dwells with those saints who are in a glorified state. Homer could only conceive of the place that it was paved with brass. Milton in one place makes heaven' s pavement beaten gold; in another he defines it more sublimely ' the house of God, star-paved.' As full an account of this house of God as it can yet enter into our hearts to conceive is given us in various parts of the Revelation. There we have a fair prospect into the holiest, where are, first, He that sitteth upon the throne; then the four living creatures; next, the twenty-four elders; afterwards the great multitude which no man can number; and, surrounding them all, the various myriads of angels, whom God hath constituted in a wonderful order.