Wesley Corpus

DEAR ALLECK,--You are very ingenious in finding out arguments against yourself; and if you set your wit to it, they will never be wanting. Besides, there is an old sophister, who has been puzzling causes for these six thousand years, that will always be ready to supply you with reasons for every kind of unbelief. But 'God will not give faith to the double-minded, to him who asks what he does not desire to receive. 'No, not while he is double-minded; but He will first take away your double-mindedness (perhaps while you are reading this!) and then give you the faith to which all things are possible. 'Yes, to-morrow, or at some other time.' No time like the time present! ' To-day, if you will hear His voice,' He says, 'I am thy salvation.' Why not today Is not one day with Him as a thousand years And whatever He could do in a thousand years can He not do in one day That this cannot be done without a miracle is absolutely certain. But why should not you expect that miracle This is no presumption: it is an expectation that the God of truth will not be worse than His word. He will not, Alleck! He will not! Do not imagine He will. He knows your simpleness. All your faults are before Him; and it may be the word is just now gone forth, ' I will heal him, for My own name's sake.' Do not reason, but look up! Let your heart (dull and cold as it is) cry out, ' Be it unto me according to Thy word! '--I am Ever yours. To John Valton LONDON, December 31, 1780, MY DEAR BROTHER,--The third preacher was added for that very purpose, to give you the liberty of spending a little time wherever the work of God should call for it [The appointment in the Minutes is, ‘John Valton, George Snowden’; in 1781 Alexander M’Nab is third preacher.] You have wholly omitted one article in the plan (See letter of Feb. 16,)--the new members: of these, I suppose, you will give me an account by-and-by I doubt not but you will be able to give me a good account of all but--the rich members: perhaps of some of these too; for it is on this occasion particularly that our Lord says, ' With God all things are possible.'--I am