Wesley Corpus

Now, the Bible can have no other office or power, than to direct you to Christ. How then can you more magnify the Bible than by going from its teaching, to be taught by Christ?” So you set Christ and the Bible in flat opposition to each other l And is this the way we are to learn of him? Nay, but we are taught of him, not by going from the Bible, but by keeping close to it. Both by the Bible and by experience we know, that his word and his Spirit act in connexion with each other. And thus it is, that by Christ continually teaching and strengthening him through the Scripture, “the man of God is made perfect, and throughly furnished for every good word and work.” According to your veneration for the Bible, is your regard for public worship and for the Lord’s supper. “Christ,” you say, “is the Church or temple of God within thee. There the supper of the Lamb is kept. When thou art well grounded in this inward worship, thou wilt have learned to live unto God above time and place. For every day will be Sunday to thee; and wherever thou goest, thou wilt have a Priest, a church, and an altar along with thee.” (Spirit of Prayer, Part I., p. 73.) The plain inference is, Thou wilt not need to make any difference between Sunday and other days. Thou wilt need no other church than that which thou hast always along with thee; no other supper, worship, Priest, or altar. Be well grounded in this inward worship, and it supersedes all the rest. This is right pleasing to flesh and blood; and I could most easily believe it, if I did not believe the Bible. But that teaches me inwardly to worship God, as at all times and in all places, so particularly on his own day, in the congregation of his people, at his altar, and by the ministry of those his servants whom he hath given for this very thing, “for the perfecting of the saints,” and with whom he will be to the end of the world. Extremely dangerous therefore is this other gospel, which leads quite wide of the gospel of Christ.