Wesley Corpus

What then will your reason do here? How will it pass from things natural to spiritual; from the things that are seen to those that are not seen; from the visible to the invisible world? What a gulf is here ! By what art will reason get over the immense chasm ? This cannot be till the Almighty come in to your succour, and give you that faith you have hitherto despised. Then upborne, as it were, on eagles’ wings, you shall soar away into the regions of eternity; and your enlightened reason shall explore even “the deep things of God; ” God himself “revealing them to you by his Spirit.” 36. I expected to have received much light on this head, from a treatise lately published, and earnestly recommended to me; I mean, “Christianity not founded on Argument.” But on a careful perusal of that piece, notwithstanding my prejudice in its favour, I could not but perceive, that the great design uni formly pursued throughout the work was, to render the whole of the Christian Institution both odious and contemptible. In order to this, the author gleans up, with great care and diligence, the most plausible of those many objections that have been raised against it by late writers, and proposes them with the utmost strength of which he was capable. To do this with the more effect, he personates a Christian: He makes a show of defend ing an avoweddoctrine of Christianity, namely, the supernatural influence of the Spirit of God; and often, for several sentences together, (indeed, in the beginning of almost every paragraph,) speaks so like a Christian, that not a few have received him according to his wish. Meanwhile, with all possible art and show of reason, and in the most laboured language, he pursues his point throughout, which is to prove, that “Christianity is con trary to reason;” or, that “no man acting according to the principles of reason can possibly be a Christian.” 37.