Wesley Corpus

4. This is farther explained by the parallel text, (Gal. 4:6,) "Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying Abba, Father." Is not this something immediate and direct, not the result of reflection or argumentation Does not his Spirit cry, "Abba, Father," in our hearts the moment it is given, antecedently to any reflection upon our sincerity; yea, to any reasoning whatsoever And is not this the plain natural sense of the words, which strikes any one as soon as he hears them All these texts then, in their most obvious meaning, describe a direct testimony of the Spirit. 5. That the testimony of the Spirit of God must, in the very nature of things, be antecedent to the testimony of our own spirit, may appear from this single consideration: We must be holy in heart and life before we can be conscious that we are so. But we must love God before we can be holy at all, this being the root of holiness. Now we cannot love God, till we know he loves us: We love him, because he first loved us: And we cannot know his love to us, till his Spirit witnesses it to our spirit. Till then we cannot believe it; we cannot say, "The life which I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." Then, only then we feel Our interest in his blood, And cry, with joy unspeakable, Thou art my Lord, my God! Since, therefore, the testimony of his Spirit must precede the love of God, and all holiness, of consequence it must precede our consciousness thereof.