Wesley Corpus

“St. Peter also,” you say, “affirms that ‘baptism doth save us, or justify us.” Again you beg the question; you take for granted what I utterly deny, viz., that save and justify are here synonymous terms. Till this is proved, you can draw no inference at all; for you have no foundation whereon to build. I conceive these and all the scriptures which can be quoted to prove sanctification antecedent to justification, (if they do not relate to our final justification,) prove only, (what I have never denied,) that repentance, or conviction of sin, and fruits meet for repentance, precede that faith whereby we are justified: But by no means, that the love of God, or any branch of true holiness, must or can precede faith. 3. It is objected, Secondly, that justification by faith alone is not the doctrine of the Church of England. “You believe,” says the writer above-mentioned, “that no good work can be previous to justification, nor, consequently, a condition of it. But, God be praised, our Church has nowhere delivered such abominable doctrine.” (Page 14.) “The Clergy contend for inward holiness, as previous to the first justification;--this is the doctrine they universally inculcate, and which you cannot oppose without contradict ing the doctrine of our Church.” (Page 26.) “All your strongest persuasives to the love of God will not blanch over the deformity of that doctrine, that men may be justified by faith alone;--unless you publicly recant this horrid doctrine, your faith is vain.” (Page 27.) “If you will vouchsafe to purge out this venomous part of your principles, in which the wide, essential, fundamental, irreconcilable difference, as you very justly term it, mainly consists, then there will be found, so far, no disagreement be tween you and the Clergy of the Church of England.” (Ibid.) 4.