Wesley Corpus

Ant.--God forbid. It is “a liberty to walk in the Spirit, and not fulfil the lust (or desire) of the flesh.” (Ibid., page 8.) Friend.--Why, this is the thing I am contending for. The very thing I daily assert is this, that Christian liberty is a liberty to obey God, and not to commit sin. Ant.--But how do you understand those words of St. Paul, that Christ “blotted out the hand-writing of ordi. nances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way?” (Col. ii. 14.) Friend.--I understand them of the Jewish ordinances; as it is plain St. Paul himself did, by the inference he immediately draws: “Let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink,” (the ordinances touching these being now “taken out of the way,”) “ or in respect of an holy-day,” (once observed,) “ or of the new moon, or of the’’ (Jewish) “Sabbaths.” (Verse 16.) Ant.--But how could the “hand-writing” of these “ordi nances” be said to be “against us,” or to be “contrary to us?” Friend.--I will not insist on the criticism of those who render the words, “over against us,” as alluding to that “hand-writing on the wall” which appeared “over against King Belshazzar.” The words of St. Peter suffice, which will bear no dispute, who, speaking of these same ordinances, calls them “a yoke which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear.” (Acts xv. 5, 10.) Ant.--You must then understand those words of our Lord, of the moral law alone: “Think not that I am come to destroy the Law or the Prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in nowise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” (Matt. v. 17, 18.) But I say, our Lord has fulfilled every jot and tittle of this law too. Friend.--I grant he has. But do you infer from thence, “therefore he has destroyed the law?” Our Lord’s arguing is the very reverse of yours.