Wesley Corpus

I pity you. Take my word for it, you are in utter darkness. You know nothing yet of true faith; nothing at all about it. Friend.--Will you then be so kind as to explain it to me? Ant.--I will. I will make it as clear as the sun. I will show you the very marrow of that doctrine which “I recommend, with all my heart, to all, as the most wholesome doctrine of Jesus Christ. “Many think they know it, when they have but crude, carnal, indigested notions of it. And they imagine we rest contented with such a faith as theirs; namely, that Christ has died to ward off the wrath of God, to purchase his favour, and, as an effect of that, to obtain certain inherent qualities and dispositions, to make us meet for the kingdom of heaven. Was this our faith, it would be requisite to seek after this sort of sanctification, and not to be at rest, without we felt some thing of it. But, on the contrary, we believe that the blood shed upon the cross has put away and blotted out all our sins, and that then there was an everlasting righteousness brought in : By believing which, our hearts and consciences are made as perfectly clean as though we had never sinned. In this consists true purity of soul, and not in habitual qualities. And whoso are thus made pure and perfect are delivered from the dominion of sin. They do also bear forth the fruits of righteousness, not in order to become more holy, but because they are perfectly holy, through faith. It is true, we have still the vile, sinful body, which continually disposes the mind to evil. But the blood of Jesus makes us free from sin, and, as it were, destroys the connexion.” Friend.--Of all the accounts I have ever yet heard, this is the most “crude and indigested.” But let us go over it step by step.