Wesley Corpus

I need not say anything to your last anecdote, since you (for once 1) put a candid construction upon my words. If I did speak them, which I can neither affirm nor deny, undoubtedly my meaning was, (as yourself observe,) “Though I have been holding forth the imputed righteousness of Christ to a mixed congregation, yet I think it right to caution you of the society how you abuse that doctrine, which to some, who turn it into licentiousness, is a smooth doctrine, of which you ought to beware.” (Page 61.) But your friend, it seems, who gave you this account, did not put so candid a construction on my words. You say, “He was so struck, as hardly to refrain from speaking to you in the chapel. And from that hour he gave up all connexions with you.” That is, he sought a pretence; and he found one ! And now, what does all this amount to? Several persons, who professed high things, degenerated into pride and enthusiasm, and then talked like lunatics, about the time that they renounced connexion with me for mildly reproving them. And is this any objection against the existence of that love which they professed, nay, and I verily believe, once enjoyed? though they were afterward “moved from their steadfastness.” Surely no more than a justified person’s running mad, is an objection against justification. Every doctrine must stand or fall by the Bible. If the perfection I teach agree with this, it will stand, in spite of all the enthusiasts in the world; if not, it cannot stand. 31. I now look back on a train of incidents that have occurred for many months last past, and adore a wise and gracious Providence, ordering all things well ! When the Circular Letter was first dispersed throughout Great Britain and Ireland, I did not conceive the immense good which God was about to bring out of that evil. But no sooner did Mr. F.’s first Letters appear, than the scene began to open. And the design of Providence opened more and more, when Mr. S.’s Narrative, and Mr. H.’s Letters, constrained him to write and publish his Second and Third Check to Antino mianism. It was then indisputably clear, that neither my brother nor I had borne a sufficient testimony to the truth.