Wesley Corpus

Wesley has taught as that infirmities are no sins.” Sir, you have taught me to wonder at nothing you assert; else I should wonder at this. The words I suppose you refer to, stand in the sermon “On Salvation by Faith; ” though you do not choose to show your reader where they may be found: “He that is by faith born of God sinneth not, (1.) By any habitual sin: Nor, (2.) By any wilful sin: Nor, (3.) By any sinful desire; for he continually desireth the holy and perfect will of God: Nor, (4.) Doth he sin by infirmities, whether in act, word, or thought; for his infirmities have no concurrence of his will, and, without this, they are not properly sins.” And this, you seriously declare, “is a loop-hole to creep out of every moral and religious obligation 1’’ In the same paragraph, you say I have strongly affirmed that “all our works and tempers are evil continually; that our whole heart is altogether corrupt and abominable, and conse quently our whole life; all our works, the most specious of them, our righteousness, our prayers, needing an atonement themselves.” (Vol. I. pp. 76, 97, 161, 214.) I do strongly affirm this. But of whom? In all these places, but the last, of myself only. In every one, but this, I speak in the singular number, and of myself when confessedly an unbe liever. And of whom do I speak in that last place? Of unbe lievers, and them only. The words are, “All our tempers and works in our natural state are only evil continually.” Now, Sir, where is your loop-hole to creep out? If you have none, I fear every impartial man will pass sentence upon you, that you have no regard either to moral or religious obligations. I have now weighed every argument you have brought, to prove that the “Methodists undermine morality and good works.” A grievous charge indeed! But the more inexcusable is he who advances it, but is not able to make it good in any one single instance. Pardon my pertness, Sir, in not barely affirming, (that is your manner,) but proving, this: Nay, and in telling you, that you cannot make amends to God, to me, or to the world, without a retractation as public as your calumny. 42.