Wesley Corpus

5. And yet we firmly believe, that a man is justified by faith, without the works of the law; that to him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith, without any good work preceding, is counted to him for righte ousness. We believe (to express it a little more largely) that we are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of Christ, by faith, and not for our own works or deservings. Good works follow after justification, springing out of true, . living faith; so that by them living faith may be as evidently known as a tree discerned by the fruit. And hence it follows, that as the body without the soul is dead, so that faith which is without works is dead also. This, therefore, properly speak ing, is not faith; as a dead man is not properly a man. You add, “The original Methodists affect to call themselves Methodists of the Church of England; by which they plainly inform us, there are others of their body who do not profess to telong to it. Whence we may infer, that the Methodists who take our name, do yet, by acknowledging them as namesakes and brethren, give themselves the lie when they say they are of our communion.” Our name ! Our communion 1 Apage cum distá tuá magnificentid 1 * How came it, I pray, to be your name any more than Mr. Venn's? But waving this: Here is another train of mistakes. For, (1.) We do not call ourselves Methodists at all. (2.) That we call ourselves members of the Church of England is certain. Such we ever were, and such we are at this day. (3.) Yet we do not by this plainly inform you, that there are others of our body who do not belong to it. By what rule of logic do you infer this conclusion from those premises? (4) You have another inference full as good: “Hence one may infer, that, by acknowledging them as namesakes and brethren, * Mr. Wesley seems in this instance, as in several others, to have been pur posely inaccurate in his quotation, to avoid the malediction couched in the ori ginal words of Terence : I in malam rem hinc cum istác magnificentiá, Fugitive / (Phormio. Act. v. sc. 6, v. 37.) which Dr.