Wesley Corpus

Thomas’s confession there is not implied an assurance of pardon.” You cannot agree with yourself in this; but immediately subjoin, “If it did imply such an assurance, he might well have it, since he had an immediate revelation of it from God himself.” Yet a little before you endeavoured to prove that one who was not a whit behind the very chief Apostles had not such an assurance; where, in order to show that faith does not imply this, you said, “St. Paul methinks has fully determined this point, ‘I know nothing by myself,’ says he; ‘yet am I not hereby justified.’” (1 Cor. iv. 4.) “And if an Apostle, so illuminated, does not think himself justified,” then I grant, he has fully determined the point. But before you absolutely fix upon that conclusion, be pleased to remember your own comment that follows, on those other words of St. Paul : “The life I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Your words are, “And, no question, a person endowed with such extraordinary gifts might arrive at a very eminent degree of assurance.” So he did arrive at a very eminent degree of assurance, though he did not think himself justified ! I can scarce think you have read over that chapter to the Colossians; else, surely, you would not assert that those words on which the stress lies (viz., “Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: In whom we have redemption through his blood, eventheforgiveness of sins,”)“do not relate to Pauland Timothy who wrote the Epistle, but to the Colossians, to whom they wrote.” I need be at no pains to answer this; for presently after your own words are, “He hath made us,” meaning the Colossians, as well as himself, “meet to be inheritors.” 3. You may easily observe that I quoted the Council of Trent by memory, not having the book then by me. I own, and thank you for correcting, my mistake: But in correct ing one you make another; for the decrees of the Sixth Session were not published on the thirteenth of January; but the Session itself began on that day.