Wesley Corpus

17.) “Look to yourselves, that we lose not the things which we have wrought.” (2 John 8.) “Hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.” (Rev. iii. 11.) And, to conclude : “So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.” (Matt. xviii. 35.) So How? He will retract the pardon he had given, and deliver you to the tormentors. 80. “Why, then you make salvation conditional.” I make it neither conditional nor unconditional. But I declare just what I find in the Bible, neither more nor less; namely, that it is bought for every child of man, and actually given to every one that believeth. If you call this conditional salva tion, God made it so from the beginning of the world; and he hath declared it so to be, at sundry times and in divers manners; of old by Moses and the Prophets, and in later times by Christ and his Apostles.- “Then I never can be saved; for I can perform no condi tions; for I can do nothing.” No, nor I, nor any man under heaven,--without the grace of God. “But I can do all things through Christ strengthening me.” So can you; so can every believer. And he has strengthened, and will strengthen, you more and more, if you do not wilfully resist till you quench his Spirit. 81. “Nay, but God must work irresistibly in me, or I shall never be saved.” Hold ! Consider that word. You are again advancing a doctrine which has not one plain, clear text to support it. I allow, God may possibly, at some times, work irresistibly in some souls. I believe he does. But can you infer from hence, that he always works thus in all that are saved? Alas! my brother, what kind of conclusion is this? And by what scripture will you prove it? Where, I pray, is it written, that none are saved but by irresistible grace? By almighty grace, I grant; by that power alone, to which all things are possible. But show me any one plain scripture for this,--that “all saving grace is irresistible.” 82. But this doctrine is not only unsupported by Scripture, it is flatly contrary thereto.