Wesley Corpus

30. The first inference easily deduced from what has been said, is, that we are not false prophets. In one sense of the word, we are no prophets at all; for we do not foretel things to come. But in another, (wherein every Minister is a prophet,) we are; for we do speak in the name of God. Now, a false pro phet (in this sense of the word) is one who declares as the will of God what is not so. But we declare (as has been shown at large) nothing else as the will of God, but what is evidently con tained in his written word, as explained by our own Church. Therefore, unless you can prove the Bible to be a false book, you cannot possibly prove us to be false prophets. The text which is generally cited on this occasion is Matthew vii. 15. But how unhappily chosen In the preceding chap ters, our Lord had been describing that “righteousness which exceeds the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees,” and without which we cannot “enter into the kingdom of heaven.” Even the life of God in the soul; holiness of heart, producing all holiness of conversation. In this, he closes that rule which sums up the whole, with those solemn words, “Enter ye in at the strait gate; ” (such indeed is that of universal holiness;) “for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction.” The gate of hell is wide as the whole earth; the way of unholiness is broad as the great deep. “And many there be which go in thereat; ” yea, and excuse themselves in so doing, “because strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” It follows, “Beware of false prophets;” of those who speak as from God what God hath not spoken; those who show you any other way to life, than that which I have now shown. So that the false prophets here spoken of are those who point out any other way to heaven than this; who teach men to find a wider gate, a broader way, than that described in the foregoing chapters. But it has been abundantly shown that we do not. Therefore (whatever we are beside) we are not false prophets.