Wesley Corpus

Surely not. There is an intermediate state between that of “babes in Christ,” and that of fathers. You yourself are very sensible there is, although you here speak as if there were not. You go on : “People who have long dwelt in this fervour are frighted when coldness seizes upon them;” (page 174;) that is, when they lose it, when their love grows cold. And certainly, well they may, if this fervour was to bring them to “fulness of faith, purity of love, and absolute resignation.” Well they may be affrighted, if that fervour be lost before “it has done its work.” Indeed, they might be affrighted when it is not lost, if that which follows be true : “Fervour is good, and ought to be loved; but distress and coldness are better. It brings the soul nearer to God than the fervour did.” (Pages 175, 176.) The fervour, you said, brought the soul to “its highest union with God in this life.” Can coldness do more? Can it bring us to an union higher than the highest? To explain this, you say, “The fervour made the soul delight in God. But it was too much an own delight. It was a fancied self-holiness, and occasioned rest and satisfaction in itself, in a spiritual self.” (Page 175.) Either fervour does bring us to purity of love, and absolute resignation, or not. To say it does not, contradicts what you said before: To say, it does, contra dicts what you say now. For if it does, we cannot say, “Cold ness does the work which fervour did in a higher degree.” I should not insist so long on these glaring inconsistencies, were not thedoctrine you are here labouring to support abso lutely inconsistent with that of St. Paul, and naturally pro ductive of the most fatal consequences. St. Paul asserts, the present kingdom of God in the soul is “righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” He continually teaches, that these, which God hath joined, man ought not to put asunder; that peace and joy should never be separated from righteousness, being the divine means both of preserving and increasing it; and that we may, yea, ought, to rejoice ever more, till the God of peace sanctifies us wholly.