Wesley Corpus

Again: Did I “give this character,” even then, of the people called Methodists, in general? No, but of the people of a particular town in Ireland, where nine in ten of the in habitants are Romanists. “Nor is the observation confined to the people. He had made a proselyte of Mr. D., Vicar of B. And, to show he was no discredit to his master, he gives him this character: ‘He seemed to stagger at nothing, though as yet his under standing is not opened.’” (Page 162.) Mr. D. was never a proselyte of mine; nor did I ever see him before or since. I endeavoured to show him that we are justified by faith. And he did not object; though nei ther did he understand. “But in the first propagation of religion, God began with the understanding, and rational conviction won the heart.” (Page 163.) Frequently, but not always. The jailor's heart was touched first, then he understood what he must do to be saved. In this respect then there is nothing new in the present work of God. So the lively story from Moliere is just nothing to the purpose. In drawing the parallel between the work God has wrought in England and in America, I do not so much as “insinuate that the understanding has nothing to do in the work.” (Page 165.) Whoever is engaged therein will find full em ployment for all the understanding which God has given him. “On the whole, therefore, we conclude, that wisdom which divests the Christian faith of its truth, and the test of it, reason, and resolves all religion into spiritual mysticism and ecstatic raptures, cannot be the wisdom from above, whose character istic is purity.” (Page 166.) Perhaps so, but I do not “divest faith either of truth or rea son:” much less do I resolve all into “spiritual mysticism and ecstatic raptures.” Therefore suppose purity here meant sound doctrine, (which it no more means than it does a sound consti tution,) still it touches not me, who, for anything that has yet been said, may teach the soundest doctrine in the world. (2.) “Our next business is to apply the other marks to these pretending sectaries. The First of these, purity, respects the nature of the “wisdom from above,” or, in other words, the doc trine taught.” (Page 167.) Not in the least.