Wesley Corpus

(4.) Here is not the least intimation of their being ever grafted in again. To this you object, (1) “This olive-tree is not the invisible Church, but only the outward gospel Church state.” You affirm this; and I prove the contrary; namely, that it is the invisible Church; for it “consists of holy believers,” which none but the invisible Church does. You object, (2) “The Jews who were broken off were never true believers in Christ.” I am not speaking of the Jews, but of those Gentiles who are mentioned in the twenty-second verse; whom St. Paul exhorts to “continue in his goodness;” otherwise, saith he, “thou shalt be cut off.” Now, I presume these were true believers in Christ. Yet they were still liable to be cut off. You assert, (3) “This is only a cutting off from the outward Church state.” But how is this proved? So forced and unnatural a construction requires some argument to support it. You say, (4) “There is a strong intimation that they shall be grafted in again.” No; not that those Gentiles who did not continue in his goodness should be grafted in after they were once cut off. I cannot find the least intimation of this. “But all Israel shall be saved.” I believe they will; but this does not imply the re-ingrafting of these Gentiles. It remains, then, that those who are grafted into the spiritual, invisible Church, may nevertheless finally fall. 72. Fourthly. Those who are branches of Christ, the true vine, may yet finally fall from grace. For thus saith, our blessed Lord himself: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away. I am the vine, ye are the branches. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.” (John xv. 1, &c.) Here we may observe, (1.) The persons spoken of were in Christ, branches of the true vine. (2.) Some of these branches abide not in Christ, but “the Father taketh them away.” (3) The branches which “abide not” are “cast forth,” cast out from Christ and his Church. (4) They are not only “cast forth,” but “withered;” consequently, never grafted in again.