Wesley Corpus

May God supply this and all my wants! “He is very difficult to be convinced by reason and argument, as he acts upon a supposed principle superior to it, the direction of God's Spirit.” I am very difficult to be convinced by dry blows or hard names, (both of which I have not wanted,) but not by reason and argument. At least that difficulty cannot spring from the cause you mention; for I claim no other direction of God’s Spirit, than is common to all believers. “Whoever opposes him is charged with resisting or rejecting the Spirit.” What! whoever opposes me, John Wesley? Do I charge every such person with rejecting the Spirit? No more than I charge him with robbing on the highway. I cite you yourself, to confute your own words. For, do I charge you with rejecting the Spirit? “His own dreams must be regarded as oracles.” Whose? I desire neither my dreams nor my waking thoughts may be regarded at all, unless just so far as they agree with the oracles of God. “Whatever he does, is to be accounted the work of God.” You strike quite wide of me still. I never said so of what I do. I never thought so. Yet I trust what I do is pleasing to God. “Hence he talks in the style of inspired persons.” No otherwise inspired than you are, if you love God. “And applies Scripture phrases to himself, without attending to their original meaning, or once considering the difference of times and circumstances.” I am not conscious of anything like this. I apply no Scripture phrase either to myself or any other, without carefully considering both the original meaning, and the secondary sense, wherein (allowing for different times and circumstances) it may be applied to ordinary Christians. 6. So much for the bulk of your charge. But it concerns me, likewise, to gather up the fragments of it. You say, “We desire no more than to try your sentiments and proceedings by the written word.” (Page 63.) Agreed. Begin when and where you please. “We find there good works as strongly insisted on as faith.” I do as strongly insist on them as on faith. But each in its own order. “We find all railing, &c., condemned therein.” Truc; and so you may in all I write or preach.