Wesley Corpus

So much for the comet-enthusiasm. We return now to the point of unconditional election: “One would imagine,” says Mr. Hill, “by Mr. W.’s quoting the Thirty-first Article, in contradiction to the Seventeenth, that he thought the Reformers as inconsistent as himself.” (Farrago, p. 54.) I did not quote the Thirty-first in contradiction to the Seven teenth, but in explication of it. The latter, the Thirty-first, can bear but one meaning; therefore it fixes the sense of the former. “Nay, this Article speaks nothing of the extent of Christ’s death, but of its all-sufficiency.” (Pages 54, 55.) Nothing of the extent / Why, it speaks of nothing else; its all-sufficiency is out of the question. The words are: “The offering of Christ once made, is that perfect redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction, for all the sins of the whole world, both original and actual.” It is here affirmed, the death of Christ is a perfect satisfaction for all the sins of the whole world. It would be sufficient for a thousand worlds. But of this the Article says nothing. But “even Bishop Burnet allows our Reformers to have been zealous Calvinists.” He does not allow them all to be such; he knew and you know the contrary. You cannot but know, that Bishop Ridley, Hooper, and Latimer, to name no more, were firm Universalists. 22. But the contradictions ! Where are the contradic tions? “Why, sometimes you deny election; yet another time you say, - 426 REMARKs on MR. HILL’s “From all eternity with love Unchangeable thou hast me view’d.’” + I answered, “I believe this is true, on the supposition of faith foreseen, not otherwise.” Here is therefore no contradiction, unless on that supposition, which I do uot allow. But sometimes “you deny the perseverance of the saints. Yet in one place you say, ‘I do not deny that those eminently styled the elect shall persevere.’” R mean those that are perfected in love. So I was inclined to think for many years: But for ten or twelve years I have been fully convinced, that even these may make “shipwreck of the faith.” 23. But “several of Mr. Hill’s quotations are from Mr. Charles Wesley's Hymns, for which Mr. John says he will not be answerable.” I will now explain myself on this head.