Wesley Corpus

Their situation in the national Church would be very uncomfortable, as well as extremely ridiculous. For many enemies would soon be awakened against them, to distress and misrepresent them in various respects.” (Page 465.) Thus much as a specimen of your veracity. I object, Secondly, that you know not what faith is. You talk about it, and about it, and labour and sweat, and at last come to a most lame and impotent conclusion. You say, “That Christ died for me, is a point not easily settled, a point which the Scripture nowhere ascertains:” (The very thought, and nearly the words, of Cardinal Bellar mine, in his dispute with our forefathers:) “So far from it, that it affirms the final perdition of many who have great confidence of their interest in Christ;” (this only proves, that many fancy they have what they have not; which I suppose nobody will deny;) “yea, and declares, that “wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction.” (Page 14.) It is so; but this is nothing to the point,-the nature of true faith. *But Palaemon ought to possess a good memory.-EDIT. “Nature, these men say, begins the work;” (I know none of them who say so;) “and then grace helps out the efforts of nature, and persuades a man, though he be not mentioned in Scripture, either by name or surname, that Christ died for him.” (Page 33.) “So the Spirit whispers something to the heart of a sinner, beside what he publicly speaks in the Scriptures. But will any lover of the Scriptures allow the possibility of this,--that the Spirit should ever speak a syllable to any man, beside what he publicly speaks there?” (Page 35.) You will presently allow something wonderfully like it. And you suppose yourself to be a “lover of the Scriptures.” “Some of the Martyrs were assured of being the friends of Christ.” (Page 398.) How? Which way? Neither their name nor surname was mentioned in Scripture ! Why, “the Holy Ghost assured their hearts and the hearts of the first Christians, that their joy was not the joy of the hypocrite, but the beginning of eternal life. Thus their joy was made full, and their love perfected by the highest enjoyments it was here capable of Every believer finds a refreshment to his mind, far superior to all the comforts of this life.