Wesley Corpus

The terms of acceptance for fallen man are, repentance and faith. “Repent ye, and believe the gospel.” “There are but two methods whereby any can be justified, either by a perfect obedience to the law, or because Christ hath kept the law in our stead.” (Ibid.) You should say, “Or by faith, in Christ.” I then answer, This is true; and fallen man is justified, not by perfect obedience, but by faith. What Christ has done is the foundation of our justification, not the term or condition of it. In the Eighth Dialogue likewise there are many great truths, and yet some things liable to exception. David “God himself dignifies with the most exalted of all characters.” (Page 253.) Far, very far from it. We have more exalted characters than David’s, both in the Old Testa ment and the New. Such are those of Samuel, Daniel, yea, and Job, in the former; of St. Paul and St. John, in the latter. “But God styles him “a man after his own heart.’” This is the text which has caused many to mistake, for want of considering, First, that this is said of David in a particular respect, not with regard to his whole character: Secondly, the time at which it was spoken. When was David “a man after God’s own heart?” When God found him “following the ewes great with young,” when he “took him from the sheep-folds.” (Psalm lxxviii. 70, 71.) It was in the second or third year of Saul’s reign, that Samuel said to him, “The Lord hath sought him a man after his own heart, and hath commanded him to be captain over his people.” (1 Sam. xiii. 14.) But was he “a man after God’s own heart” all his life? or in all particulars? So far from it, that we have few more exceptionable characters among all the men of God recorded in Scripture. “There is not a just man upon earth that sinneth not.” Solomon might truly say so, before Christ came. And St. John might, after he came, say as truly, “Whosoever is born of God sinneth not.” (Page 261.) But “in many things we offend all.” That St. James does not speak this of himself, or of real Christians, will clearly appear to all who impartially consider the context. The Ninth Dialogue proves excellently well, that we cannot be justified by our works.