Wesley Corpus

35. Should you not rather say, that unbelief is the damning sin? and that those who are condemned in that day will be therefore condemned, “because they believed not on the name of the only-begotten Son of God?” But could they believe? Was not this faith both the gift and the work of God in the soul? And was it not a gift which he had eternally decreed never to give them ? Was it not a work which he was of old unchangeably determined never to work in their souls P Shall these men be condemned, because God would not work; because they did not receive what God would not give? Could they “ungrasp the hold of his right hand, or force omnipotence?” 36. There is, over and above, a peculiar difficulty here. You say, Christ did not die for these men. But if so, there was an impossibility, in the very nature of the thing, that they should ever savingly believe. For what is saving faith, but “a confidence in God through Christ, that loved me, and gave himself for me?” Loved thee, thou reprobate gave himself for thee! Away ! thou hast neither part nor lot herein. Thou believe in Christ, thou accursed spirit ! damned or ever thou wert born 1 There never was any object for thy faith; there never was any thing for thee to believe. God himself, (thus must you speak, to be consistent with yourself) with all his omnipotence, could not make thee believe Christ atoned for thy sins, unless he had made thee believe a lie. 37. If then God be just, there cannot, on your scheme, be any judgment to come. We may add, nor any future state, either of reward or punishment. If there be such a state, God will therein “render to every man according to his works. To them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life; but to them that do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil.” But how is this reconcilable with your scheme? You say, The reprobates cannot but do evil; and that the elect, from the day of God's power, cannot but continue in well-doing.