Wesley Corpus

Wesley Collected Works Vol 10

AuthorJohn Wesley
Typetreatise
YearNone
Passage IDjw-wesley-collected-works-vol-10-477
Words387
Universal Redemption Catholic Spirit Scriptural Authority
There was an ever- “There never was such a lasting covenant between the covenant.” Father and Son, concerning man’s redemption.” The former proposition is taken from the “Christian Library;” on which Mr. H. says again, “Mr. W. affirms that the Christian Library is “all true, all agreeable to the word of God.’” I answered before, “I do not. My words are: ‘I have endeavoured to extract such a collection of English divinity, as I believe is all true, all agreeable to the oracles of God.” (Christian Library, preface, p. 4.) I did believe, and do believe, every tract therein to be true and agreeable to the oracles of God. But I do not roundly affirm this of every sentence contained in the fifty volumes. I could not possibly affirm it, for two reasons: (1.) I was obliged to prepare most of those tracts for the press, just as I could snatch time in travelling; not transcribing them, (none expected it of me,) but only marking the lines with my pen, and altering a few words here and there, as I had mentioned in the preface. (2.) As it was not in my power to attend to the press, that care necessarily devolved on others; through whose inattention an hundred passages were left in, which I had scratched out. It is probable too, that I myself might overlook some sentences which were not suitable to my own principles. It is certain the correctors of the press did this in not a few instances. The plain inference is, if there are an hundred passages in the ‘Christian Library’ which contradict any or all of my doctrines, these are no proofs that I contradict myself. Be it observed once for all, therefore, citations from the ‘Christian Library’ prove nothing but the carelessness of the correctors.” (Remarks, page 381.) 12. Yet Mr. Hill, as if he had never seen a word of this, or had solidly refuted it, gravely tells us again, “If Mr. W. may be credited, the ‘Farrago’ is all true; part of it being taken out of his own ‘Christian Library, in the preface of which he tells us that the contents are ‘all true, all agreeable to the oracles of God.” Therefore, every single word of it is his own, either by birth or adoption.” (Farrago, p.