Wesley Corpus

Therefore I disputed with all my might, and laboured to prove that faith might be where these were not; especially, where that sense of forgiveness was not; for, all the scriptures relating to this I had been long since taught to construe away, and to call all Pres byterians who spoke otherwise. Besides, I well saw, no one could (in the nature of things) have such a sense of forgive ness, and not feel it. But I felt it not. If then there was no faith without this, all my pretensions to faith dropped at once.” (Vol. I. p. 101.) 18. (2.) Yet it was not Peter Böhler who convinced me that conversion (I mean justification) was an instantaneous work. On the contrary, when I was convinced of the nature and fruits of justifying faith, still “I could not comprehend what he spoke of an instantaneous work. I could not understand how this faith should be given in a moment; how a man could at once be thus turned from darkness to light, from sin and misery to righteousness and joy in the Holy Ghost. I searched the Scriptures again, touching this very thing, particularly the Acts of the Apostles. But to my utter astonishment, I found scarce any instances there of other than instantaneous conversions; scarce any others so slow as that of St. Paul, who was three days in the pangs of the new birth. I had but one retreat left, viz., ‘Thus, I grant, God wrought in the first ages of Chris tianity; but the times are changed. What reason have I to believe he works in the same manner now?’ “But on Sunday, 23, I was beat out of this retreat too, by the concurring evidence of several living witnesses, who testi fied God had thus wrought in themselves; giving them, in a moment, such a faith in the blood of his Son, as translated them out of darkness into light, out of sin and fear into holiness and happiness. Here ended my disputing. I could now only cry out, ‘Lord, help thou my unbelief!’” (Vol. I. p. 91.) The remaining part of this section, with the third and fourth, contain my own words, to which I still subscribe. And if there is a mistake in the fifth, it is not material. 20.