Wesley Corpus

Therefore (whatever we are beside) we are not false prophets. Neither are we (as has been frequently and vehemently affirmed) “deceivers of the people.” If we teach “the truth as it is in Jesus,” if “we speak as the oracles of God,” it follows, that we do not deceive those that hear, though they should believe whatever we speak. “Let God be true, and every man a liar; ” every man that contradicts his truth. But he will “be justified in his saying, and clear when he is judged.” 31. One thing more I infer, that we are not enthusiasts. This accusation has been considered at large; and the main arguments hitherto brought to support it have been weighed in the balance and found wanting: Particularly this, “that none but enthusiasts suppose either that promise of the Com forter, (John xiv. 16, 26; xvi. 13) or the witness of the Spirit, (Rom. viii. 15, 16) or that unutterable prayer, (Rom. viii. 26, 27,) or the ‘unction from the Holy One, (1 John ii. 20, 27,) to belong in common to all Christians.” O my Lord, how deeply have you condemned the generation of God’s children | Whom have you represented as rank, dreaming enthusiasts, as either deluded or designing men ? Not only Bishop Pearson, a man hitherto accounted both sound in heart, and of good understanding; but likewise Archbishop Cranmer, Bishop Ridley, Bishop Latimer, Bishop Hooper; and all the vcncrable compilers of our Liturgy and Homilies; all the members of both the Houses of Convocation, by whom they were revised and approved; yea, King Edward, and all his Lords and Commons together, by whose authority they were established; and, with these modern enthusiasts, Origen, Chrysostom, and Athanasius are comprehended in the same censure ! I grant, a Deist might rank both us and them in the number of religious madmen; nay, ought so to do, on his sup position that the Gospel is but a “cunningly-devised fable.” And on this ground some of them have done so in fact. One of them was asking me, some years since, “What! are you one of the knight-errants? How, I pray, got this Quixotism into your head? You want nothing; you have a good pro vision for life; and are in a fair way of preferment.