Wesley Corpus

“It will make us compassionate.” Would not an entire renewal in the image of God make us much more so? “It will teach us to admire the riches of grace.” Yea, but a fuller experience of it, by a thorough sanctification of spirit, soul, and body, will make us admire it more. “It will reconcile us to death.” Indeed it will not; nor will anything do this like perfect love. “It will endear the blood and intercession of Christ.” (Page 49.) Nay, these can never be so dear to any as to those who experience their full virtue, who are “filled with the fulness” of God. Nor can any “feel their continual need” of Christ, or “rely on him,” in the manner which these do. “The claims of the law are all answered.” (Dialogue 14, page 57.) If so, Count Zinzendorf is absolutely in the right: Neither God nor man can claim my obedience to it. Is not this Antinomianism without a mask? “Your sins are expiated through the death of Christ, and a righteousness given you by which you have free access to God.” (Page 59.) This is not scriptural language. I would simply say, “By him we have access to the Father.” There are many other expressions in this Dialogue to which I have the same objection; namely, 1. That they are unscrip tural; 2. That they directly lead to Antinomianism. The First Letter contains some very useful heads of self examination. In the Second, I read, “There is a righteous ness which supplies all that the creature needs. To prove this momentous point is the design of the following sheets.” (Page 91.) I have seen such terrible effects of this unscriptural way of speaking, even on those “who had once clean escaped from the pollutions of the world,” that I cannot but earnestly wish you would speak no otherwise than do the oracles of God. Certainly this mode of expression is not momentous. It is always dangerous, often fatal. “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound; that as sin had reigned unto death, so might grace,” the free love of God, “reign through righteousness,” through our justifi cation and sanctification, “unto eternal life.” (Rom. v. 20, 21.) This is the plain, natural meaning of the words.