Wesley Corpus

Then I would submit to them “for the Lord’s sake.” So that in all your parade, either with regard to King George or Queen Anne, there may be wit, but no wisdom; no force, no argument, till you can support this distinction from plain testimony of Scripture. Till this is done, it can never be proved that “a dissent from the Church of England” (whether it can be justified from other topics or no) “is the genuine and just consequence of the allegiance which is due to Christ, as the only Law giver in the Church.” As you proposed to “bring the controversy to this short and plain issue, to let it turn on this single point,” I have done so; I have spoken to this alone; although I could have said something on many other points which you have advanced as points of the utmost certainty, although they are far more easily affirmed than proved. But I wave them for the present; hoping this may suffice to show any fair and candid inquirer, that it is very possible to be united to Christ and to the Church of England at the same time; that we need not separate from the Church, in order to preserve our allegiance to Christ; but may be firm members thereof, and yet “have a conscience void of offence toward God and toward man.” I am, Sir, Your very humble servant, January 10, 1758. 1. IN the ancient Church, when baptism was administered, there were usually two or more sponsors (so Tertullian calls them, an hundred years after the death of St. John) for every person to be baptized. As these were witnesses, before God and the Church, of the solemn engagement those persons then entered into, so they undertook (as the very word implies) to watch over those souls in a peculiar manner, to instruct, admonish, exhort, and build them up in the faith once delivered to the saints. These were considered as a kind of spiritual parents to the baptized, whether they were infants or at man’s estate; and were expected to supply whatever spiritual helps were wanting either through the death or neglect of the natural parents. 2. These have been retained in the Christian Church from the earliest times, as the reason for them was the same in all ages.