Wesley Corpus

Then, as well as ever since, I have told the societies, “they were not to judge by their own inward feelings. I warned them, all these were in themselves of a doubtful, disputable nature. They might be from God, or they might not, and were therefore to be tried by a further rule, to be brought to the only certain test, the law and the testimony.” (Vol. I. p. 206.) This is what I have taught from first to last. And now, Sir, what becomes of your heavy charge? On which side lies the “pertinacious confidence” now? How clearly have you made out my inconsistency and self-contradiction and that I “occasionally either defend or give up my favourite notions and principal points ” 22. “Inspiration, and the extraordinary calls and guidances of the Holy Ghost, are ” what you next affirm to be “given up.” (Section xiii. p. 106, &c.) Not by me. I do not “give up” one tittle on this head, which I ever maintained. But observe: Before you attempt to prove my “giving them up,” you are to prove that I laid claim to them; that I laid claim to some extraordinary inspiration, call, or guidance of the Holy Ghost. You say, my “concessions on this head” (to Mr. Church) “are ambiguous and evasive.” Sir, you mistake the fact. I make no concessions at all, either to him or you. I give up nothing that ever I advanced on this head; but when Mr. Church charged me with what I did not advance, I replied, “I claim no other direction of God’s, but what is common to all believers. I pretend to be no otherwise inspired than you are, if you love God.” Where is the ambiguity or evasion in this? I meant it for a flat denial of the charge. 23. Your next section spirat tragicum satis,* charges the Methodists “with scepticism and infidelity, with doubts and denials of the truth of Revelation, and Atheism itself.” (Sec tion xiv. p. 110, &c.) The passages brought from my Jour mals to prove this charge, which you have prudently transposed, I beg leave to consider in the same order as they stand there. The First you preface thus: “Upon the people's ill usage (or supposed ill usage) of Mr.