Wesley Corpus

3. Do not men who imagine they have attained this despise others, as only going on in what they account the low and imper fect way, that is, as growing in grace and goodness by degrees? A. (1.) Men who only imagine they have attained this may probably despise those that are going on in any way. (2.) But the growing in grace and goodness by degrees is no mark of a low and imperfect way. Those who are fathers in Christ grow in grace by degrees, as well as the new-born babes. Q. 4. Do they not despise those who are working out their salvation with an humble reliance upon the merits of Christ for the pardon of their sins, and the acceptance of their sincere though imperfect services? A. (1.) They who really love God despise no man. But, (2.) They grieve to hear many talk of thus relying on Christ, who, though perhaps they are grave, honest, moral men, yet by their own words appear not to love God at all; whose souls cleave to the dust; who love the world; who have no part of the mind that was in Christ. 6. Query the Sixth --“Whether the same exalted strains and notions do not tend toweaken the natural and civil relations among men, by leading the inferiors, into whose heads those notions are infused, to a disesteem of their superiors; while they consider them as in a much lower dispensation than themselves; though those superiors are otherwise sober and good men, and regular attendants on the ordinances of religion.” I havementioned beforewhat those exalted notions are. These do not tend to weaken either thenatural or civil relations among men; or to lead inferiors to a disesteem of their superiors, even where those superiors are neither good nor sober men.