Wesley Corpus

Friend.--You went on: “On the contrary, we believe that the blood shed upon the cross has put away and blotted out all our sins.” Why, who believes otherwise? If you mean only, that Christ then put away the punishment of all our sins, who believe in him; what a marvellous discovery is this ! I pray, whom doth this arguing reprove? Ant.--It reproves you, who deny that “an everlasting righteousness was then brought in.” Friend.--I do not deny it: No more than you understand it. But I ask, in what sense was it “brought in ?” What was it brought into? Was it then first brought into the world? You cannot say this, without saying that all who went out of the world before that hour were lost. Or was it brought into the souls of believers? Then believers have an inward or inherent righteousness. You had better, therefore, let this text alone. It will do no service at all to your cause. Ant.--I see plain you are as blind as a beetle still. I am afraid your head-knowledge will destroy you. Did not I tell you, “Our hearts and consciences are made perfectly clean by our believing; and that in this consists true purity of soul, and not in habitual qualities? Thus we are made per fectly holy.” And though “the vile, sinful body continually disposes the mind to evil,” yet “the blood of Christ makes us free from sin, and, as it were, destroys the connexion.” Friend.--Destroys the connexion of what? I doubt you have stumbled upon another word which you do not under stand. But whether you understand yourself or no, it is sure I do not understand you. How can my mind at the same time it is “continually disposed to evil,” be “free from sin, perfectly clean, perfectly holy?” Ant.--O the dulness of some men ' I do not mean really holy, but holy by imputation. I told you plainly, the holi ness of which we speak is not in us, but in Christ. “The fruits of the Spirit, (commonly called sanctification,) such as love, gentleness, longsuffering, goodness, meekness, temper ance, neither make us holy before God, nor in our own consciences.” Friend.--I know these cannot atone for one sin. This is done by the blood of Christ alone: For the sake of which, God forgives, and works these in us by faith.