To Mr. John Smith
—————
XXXVIII. — To Mr. John Smith. 12
SIR, September 28, 1745.
1. I WAS determined, from the time I received yours, to answer it as soon as I should have opportunity. But it was the longer delayed, because I could not persuade myself to write at all, till I had leisure to write fully. And this I hope to do now, though I know you not, no, not so much as your name. But I take for granted you are a person that fears God, and that speaks the real sentiments of his heart. And. On this supposition I shall speak, without any suspicion or reserve.
2. I am exceedingly obliged by the pains you have taken to point out to me what you think to be mistakes. It is a truly Christian attempt, an act of brotherly love, which I pray God to repay sevenfold into your bosom. Methinks I can scarce look upon such a person, on one who is “a contender for truth and not for victory,” whatever opinion he may entertain of me, as an adversary at all. For what is friendship, if I am to account him my enemy who endeavors to open my eyes, or to mend my heart?
I.
3. You will give me leave (writing as a friend rather than a disputant) to invert the order of your objections, and to begin with the third, because, I conceive, it may be answered in fewest words. The substance of it is this: “If in fact you can work such signs and wonders as were, wrought by the Apostles, then you are entitled (notwithstanding what I might otherwise object) to the implicit faith due to one of that order.” A few lines after you cite a case related in the Third Journal, page 88, 13 and add: “If you prove this to be the fact, to the satisfaction of wise and good men, then I believe no wise and good men will oppose you any longer. Let me therefore rest it upon your conscience, either to prove this matter of fact, or to retract it. If upon; mature examination it shall appear that designing people imposed upon you, or that hysterical women were imposed upon themselves, acknowledge your zeal outran your wisdom.”
4. Surely I would. But what, if on such examination it shall appear that there was no imposition of either kind? — to be satisfied of which, I waited three years before I told the story. What, if it appear by the only method which I can conceive, the deposition of three or four eye and ear witnesses, that the matter of fact was just as it is there related, so far as men can judge from their eyes and ears; will it follow, that I am entitled to demand the implicit faith, which was due to an Apostle? By no means. Nay, I know not that implicit faith was due to any or all of the Apostles put together. They were to prove their assertions by the written word. You and I are to do the same. Without such proof I ought no more to have believed St. Peter himself, than St. Peter’s pretended successor.
5. I conceive, therefore, this whole demand, common as it is, of proving our doctrine by miracles, proceeds from a double mistake:
(1.) A supposition, that what we preach is not provable from Scripture; — for if it be, what need we farther witnesses? “To the law and to the testimony!”
(2.) An imagination, that a doctrine not provable by Scripture might nevertheless be proved by miracles. I believe not. I receive the written word as the whole and sole rule of my faith.
II.
6. Perhaps what you object to my phraseology may be likewise answered in few words. I thoroughly agree, that it is best to “use the most common words, and that in the most obvious sense;” and have been diligently laboring after this very thing for little less than twenty years. I am not conscious of using any uncommon word, or any word in an uncommon sense; but I cannot call those uncommon words which are the constant language of holy writ. These I purposely use; desiring always to express Scripture sense in Scripture phrase. And this I apprehend myself to do, when I speak of salvation as a present thing. How often does our Lord himself do thus! how often his Apostles, St. Paul particularly! Insomuch that I doubt whether we can find six texts in the New Testament, perhaps not three, where it is otherwise taken.
7. The term “faith” I likewise use in the scriptural sense, meaning thereby “the evidence of things not seen.” And, that it is scriptural, appears to me a sufficient defense of any way of speaking whatever. For however the propriety of those expressions may vary which occur in the writings of men, I cannot but think those which are found in the book of God will be equally proper in all ages. But let us look back, as you desire, to the age of the Apostles. And if it appear that the state of religion now is, according to your own representation of it, the same, in substance, as it was then, it will follow that the same expressions are just as proper now, as they were in the apostolic age.
8. “At the time of the first preaching of the Gospel,” (as you just observe,) “both Jews and Gentiles were very negligent of internal holiness, but laid great stress on external rites, and certain actions, which if they performed according to the due forms of their respective religions, they doubted not but those works would render them acceptable to God. The Apostles therefore thought they could not express themselves too warmly against so wicked a persuasion, and often declare that we cannot be made righteous by works; (that is, not by such outward works as were intended to commute for inward holiness;) but ‘by faith in Christ;’ that is, by becoming Christians both in principle and practice.”
9. I have often thought the same thing, namely, that the Apostles used the expression, “salvation by faith,” (importing inward holiness by the knowledge of God,) in direct opposition to the then common persuasion of salvation by works; that is, going to heaven by outward works, without any inward holiness at all.
10. And is not this persuasion as common now as it was in the time of the Apostles? We must needs go out of the world, or we cannot doubt it. Does not every one of our churches (to speak a sad truth) afford us abundant instances of those who are as negligent of internal holiness, as either the Jews or ancient Gentiles were? And do not these at this day lay so great a stress on certain external rights; that, if they perform them according to the due forms of their respective communities, they doubt not but those works will render them acceptable to God? You and I therefore cannot express ourselves too warmly against so wicked a persuasion; nor can we express ourselves against it in more proper terms than those the Apostles used to that very end.
It cannot be denied that this apostolical language is also the language of our own Church. But I wave this. What is scriptural in any Church, I hold fast: For the rest, I let it go.
III.
11. But the main point remains: You think the doctrines I hold are not founded on holy writ. Before we inquire into this, I would just touch on some parts of that abstract of them which you have given. “Faith (instead of being a rational assent and moral virtue, for the attainment of which men ought to yield the utmost attention and industry) is altogether supernatural; and the immediate gift of God.” I believe,
(1.) That a rational assent to the truth of the Bible is one ingredient of Christian faith.
(2.) That Christian faith is a moral virtue in that sense wherein hope and charity are.
(3.) That men ought to yield the utmost attention and industry for the attainment of it. And yet,
(4.) That this, as every Christian grace, is properly supernatural, is an immediate gift of God, which he commonly gives in the use of such means as he hath ordained.
I believe it is generally given in an instant; but not arbitrarily, in your sense of the word; not without any regard to the fitness (I should say, the previous qualifications) of the recipient.
12. “When a man is pardoned, it is immediately notified to him by the Holy Ghost, and that (not by his imperceptibly working a godly assurance, but) by such attestation as is easily discernible from reason or fancy.”
I do not deny that God imperceptibly works in some as gradually increasing assurance of his love; but I am equally certain, he works in others a full assurance thereof in one moment. And I suppose, however this godly assurance be wrought, it is easily discernible from bare reason, or fancy.
“Upon this infallible notification he is saved, is become perfect, so that he cannot commit sin.”
I do not say, this notification is infallible in that sense that none believe they have it, who indeed have it not neither do I say that a man is perfect in love, the moment he is born of God by faith. But even then, I believe, if he keepeth himself, he doth not commit (outward) sin.
13. “This first sowing of the first seed of faith, you cannot conceive to be other than instantaneous, (ordinarily,) whether you consider experience, or the word of God, or the very nature of the thing. Whereas all these appear to me to be against you. To begin with experience: I believe myself to have as steady a faith in a pardoning God as you can have; and yet I do not remember the exact day when it was first given.”
Perhaps not. Yours may be another of those exempt cases, which were allowed before.
But “the experience,” you say, “of all the pious persons” you “are acquainted with, is the very same with” yours. You will not be displeased with my speaking freely. How many truly pious persons are you so intimately acquainted with, as to be able to interrogate them on the subject? with twenty? with ten? If so, you are far happier than I was for many years at Oxford. You will naturally ask, with how many truly pious persons am I acquainted, on the other hand. I speak the truth in Christ, I lie not: I am acquainted with more than twelve or thirteen hundred persons, whom I believe to be truly pious, and not On slight grounds, and who have severally testified to me with their own mouths that they do know the day when the love of God was first shed abroad in their hearts, and when his Spirit first witnessed with their spirits, that they were the children of God. Now, if you are determined to think all these liars or fools, this is no evidence to you; but to me it is strong evidence, who have for some years known the men and their communication.
14. As to the word of God, you well observe, “We are not to frame doctrines by the sound of particular texts, but the general tenor of Scripture, soberly studied and consistently interpreted.” Touching the instances you give, I would just remark,
(1.) To have sin, is one thing; to commit sin, is another.
(2.) In one particular text it is said, “Ye are saved by hope;” perhaps in one more, (though I remember it not,) “Ye are saved by repentance, or holiness.” But the general tenor of Scripture, consistently interpreted, declares, “We are saved by faith.”
(3.) Will either the general tenor of Scripture, or your own conscience, allow you to say that faith is the gift of God in no other or higher sense than riches are?
(4.) I entirely agree with you that the children of light walk by the joint light of reason, Scripture, and the Holy Ghost.
15. “But the word of God appears to” you “to be manifestly against such an instantaneous giving of faith; because it speaks of growth in grace and faith as owing to the slow methods of instruction.” So do I. But this is not the question. We are speaking, not of the progress, but of the first rise, of faith. “It directs the gentle instilling of faith, by long labor and pious industry.” Not the first instilling; and we speak not now of the continuance or increase of it. “It compares even God’s part of the work to the slow produce of vegetables, that, while one plants and another waters, it is God all the while who goes on giving the increase.” Very true. But the seed must first be sown, before it can increase at all. Therefore, all the texts who relate to the subsequent increase are quite wide of the present question.
Perhaps your thinking the nature of the thing to be so clearly against me may arise from your not clearly apprehending it. That you do not, I gather from your own words: “It is the nature of faith to be a full and practical assent to truth.” Surely no. This definition does in nowise express the nature of Christian faith. Christian saving faith is a divine conviction of invisible things; a supernatural conviction of the things of God, with a filial confidence in his love. Now, a man may have a full assent to the truth of the Bible, (probably attained by the slow steps you mention,) yea, an assent which has some influence on his practice, and yet not have one grain of this faith.
16. I should be glad to know to which writings in particular of the last age you would reflex me, for a thorough discussion of the Calvinistical points. I want to have those points fully settled; having seen so little yet wrote on the most important of them, with such clearness and strength as one would desire.
17. I think your following objections do not properly come under any of the preceding heads: “Your doctrine of momentaneous illapse, etc., is represented by your adversaries as singular and unscriptural; and that these singularities are your most beloved opinions and favorite tenets, more insisted upon by you than the general and uncontroverted truths of Christianity: This is their charge.” And so, I doubt, it will be to the end of the world: For, in spite of all I can say, they will represent one circumstance of my doctrine (so called) as the main substance of it. It nothing avails, that I declare again and again, “Love is the fulfillling of the law.” I believe this love is given in a moment. But about this I contend not. Have this love, and it is enough. For this I will contend till my spirit returns to God. Whether I am singular or no, in thinking his love is instantaneously given, this is not my “most beloved opinion.” You greatly wrong me when you advance that charge. Nay, I love, strictly speaking, no opinion at all. I trample upon opinion, be it right or wrong. I want, I value, I preach, the love of God and man. These are my “favorite tenets,” (if you will have the word,) “more insisted on” by me ten times over, both in preaching and writing, than any or all other subjects that ever were in the world.
18. You will observe, I do not say (and who is there that can?) that I have no singular opinion at all; but this I say, that, in my general tenor of preaching, I teach nothing, as the substance of religion, more singular than the love of God and man: And it was for preaching this very doctrine, (before I preached or knew salvation by faith,) that several of the Clergy forbade me their pulpits.
“But if it be notorious, that you are frequently insisting on controverted opinions.” If it be, even this will not prove the charge; namely, “that those are my most beloved opinions, and more insisted upon by me, than the uncontroverted truths of Christianity.”
“No singularities,” is not my answer; but that no singularities are my most beloved opinions; that no singularities are more, or near so much, insisted on by me, as the general uncontroverted truths of Christianity.
19. “Another objection,” you say, “I have to make to your manner of treating your antagonists. You seem to think you sufficiently answer your adversary; if you put together a number of naked scriptures that sound in your favor. But remember, the question between you and there is, not whether such words are Scripture, but whether they are to be so interpreted.”
You surprise me! I take your word, else I should never have imagined you have read over the latter Appeal; so great a part of which is employed in this very thing, in fighting my ground, inch by inch; in proving, not that such words are Scripture, but that they must be interpreted in the manner there set down.
20. One point more remains, which you express in these words: “When your adversaries tax you with differing from the Church, they cannot be supposed to charge you with differing from the Church as it was a little after the Reformation, but as it is at this day. And when you profess great deference and veneration for the Church of England, you cannot be supposed to profess it for the Church and its Pastors in the year 1545, and not rather in the year 1745. If, then, by ‘the Church of England’ be meant (as ought to be meant) the present Church, it will be no hard matter to show that your doctrines differ widely from the doctrines of the Church.” Well, how blind was I! I always supposed, till the very hour I read these words, that when I was charged with differing from the Church, I was charged with differing from the Articles or Homilies. And for the compilers of these, I can sincerely profess great deference and veneration. But I cannot honestly profess any veneration at all for those Pastors of the present all, who solemnly subscribe to those Articles and Homilies which they do not believe in their hearts. Nay, I think, unless I differ from these men (be they Bishops, Priests, or Deacons) just as widely as they do from those Articles and Homilies, I am no true Church of England man. Agreeably to those ancient records, by “Christian” or “justifying faith” I always meant, faith preceded by repentance, and accompanied or followed by obedience. So I always preached; so I spoke and wrote. But my warm adversaries, from the very beginning, stopped their ears, cried out, “An heretic! An heretic!” and so ran upon me at once.
21. But I let them alone: You are the person I want, and whom I have been seeking for many years. You have understanding to discern, and mildness to repeat, (what would otherwise be,) unpleasing truths Smite me friendly and reprove me: It shall be a precious balm; it shall not break my head. I am deeply convinced that I know nothing yet as I ought to know. Fourteen years ago, I said, (with Mr. Norris,) “I want heat more than light;” but now I know not which I want most. Perhaps God will enlighten me by your words. O speak and spare not! At least, you will have the thanks and prayers of
Your obliged and affectionate servant.
XXXIX. — To the Same.
SIR, December 30, 1745.
I AM obliged to you for your speedy and friendly answer; to which I will reply as clearly as I can.
1. If you have leisure to read the last Appeal, you will easily judge, how much I insist on any opinions.
2. In writing practically, I seldom argue concerning, the meaning of texts; in writing controversially, I do.
3. In saying, “I teach the doctrines of the Church of England,” I do, and always did, mean, (without concerning myself, whether others taught them or no, either this year, or before the Reformation,) I teach the doctrines which are comprised in those Articles and Homilies to which all the Clergy of the Church of England solemnly profess to assent, and that in their plain, unforced, grammatical meaning.
As to the Seventeenth Article, Mr. Whitefield really believes that it asserts absolute predestination: Therefore, I can also subscribe to it with sincerity. But the case is quite different with regard to those who subscribe to the Eleventh and following Articles; which are not ambiguously worded, as the Seventeenth (I suppose, on purpose) was.
4. When I say, “The Apostles themselves were to prove their assertions by the written word,” I mean the word written before their time, the Law and the Prophets; and so they did. I do not believe the case of Averel Spencer was natural; yet, when I kneeled down by her bedside, I had no thought at all of God’s then giving any “attestation to my ministry.” But I asked of God, to deliver an afflicted soul; and he did deliver her. Nevertheless, I desire none to receive my words, unless they are confirmed by Scripture and reason. And if they are, they ought to be received, though Averel Spencer had never been born.
5. That we ought not to relate a purely natural case in the Scripture terms that express our Lord’s miracles; that low and common things are generally improper to be told in Scripture phrase; that scriptural words which are obsolete, or which have changed their signification, are not to be used familiarly, as neither those technical terms which were peculiar to the controversies of those days; I can easily apprehend. But I cannot apprehend that “salvation” or “justification” is a term of this sort; and much less that “faith” and “works,” or “spirit” and “flesh,” are synonymous terms with “Christianity” and “Judaism.” I know this has frequently been affirmed; but I do not know that it has been proved.
6. However, you think there is no occasion now for the expressions used in ancient times; since the persuasions which were common then are now scarcely to be found. For “does any Church-of-England man,” you ask, “maintain anything like this, that men may commute external works, instead of internal holiness?” Most surely: I doubt whether every Church-of-England man in the nation, yea, every Protestant (as well as Papist) in Europe, who is not deeply sensible that he did so once, does not do so to this day.
I am one who, for twenty years, used outward works, not only as “acts of goodness;” but as commutations, (though I did not indeed profess this,) instead of inward holiness. I knew I was not holy. But I quieted my conscience by doing such and such outward works; and therefore I hoped I should go to heaven, even without inward holiness. Nor did I ever speak close to one who had the form of godliness without the power, but I found he had split on the same rock.
Abundance of people I have likewise known, and many I do know at this day, who “are so grossly superstitious as to think devotion may be put upon God instead of honesty;” as to fancy, going to church and sacrament will bring them to heaven, though they practice neither justice nor mercy. These are the men who make Christianity vile, who, above all others, “contribute to the growth of infidelity.” On the contrary, the speaking of faith working by love, of uniform, outward religion, springing from inward, has already been the means of converting several Deists, and one Atheist, (if not more,) into real Christians.
7. “Infallible testimony” was your word, not mine: I never use it; I do not like it. But I did not object to your using that phrase, because I would not fight about words. If, then, the question be repeated, “In what sense is that attestation of the Spirit infallible?” any one has my free leave to answer, In no sense at all. And yet, though I allow that some may fancy they have it, when in truth they have it not; I cannot allow that any fancy they have it not, at the time when they really have. I know no instance of this. When they have this faith, they cannot possibly doubt of their having it; although it is very possible, when they have it not, they may doubt whether ever they had it or no. This was Hannah Richardson’s case; and it is, more or less, the case with many of the children of God. That logical evidence, that we are the children of God, I do not either exclude or despise. But it is far different from the direct witness of the Spirit; of which, I believe, St. Paul speaks in his Epistle to the Romans; and which, I doubt not, is given to many thousand souls who never saw my face. But I spoke only of those I personally knew, concerning whom, indeed, I find my transcriber has made a violent mistake, writing 13,000, instead of 1,300: I might add, those whom I also have known by their writings. But I cannot lay so much stress on their evidence. I cannot have so full and certain a knowledge of a writer, as of one I talk with face to face; and therefore I think the experiences of this kind are not to be compared with those of the other.
One, indeed, of this kind I was reading yesterday, which is exceeding clear and strong. You will easily pardon my transcribing part of his words. They are in St. Austin’s Confessions: Intravi in intima mea, duce te: Et potui, quoniam; factus es adjutor meus. Intravi et vidi qualicunque oculo animae meae, supra eundem oculum animae meae, supra mentem meam, lucem Domini incommutabilem: Non hanc vulgarem, conspicuam,omni carni; nec,quasi ex eodem genere grandior erat, — non hoc illa erat, sed aliud; aliud valde ab istis omnibus. Nec ita erat supra mentem meam, sicut coelum super terram. Sed superior quia ipsa fecit me. Qui novit veritatem, novit eam. Et qui novit eam, novit aeternitatem. Charitas novit eam. O aeterna Veritas! Tu es Deus meus! Tibi suspiro die ac nocte. Et cum te primum cognovi, tu assumpsisti me, ut viderem esse quod viderem. — Et reverberâsti infirmitatem aspectus mei, radians in me vehementer; et contremui amore et, horrore: Et inveni, me longe esse a te. — Et dixi, Nunquid nihil est veritas? Et clamâsti de longinquo: Immo vero; Ego sum, qui sum. Et audivi, sicut auditur in corde, et non erat prorsus unde dubitarem. Faciliusque dubitarem vivere me, quam non esse veritatem. 14 (Lib. 7, cap. 10.)
9. From many such passages as these, which I have occasionally read, as well as from what I have myself seen and known, I am induced to believe that God’s ordinary way of converting sinners to himself is, by “suddenly inspiring them with an immediate testimony of his love, easily distinguishable from fancy.” I am assured that he hath wrought in all I have known, (except, perhaps, three or four persons,) of whom I have reasonable ground to believe that they are really turned from the power of Satan to God.
10. With regard to the definition of faith, if you allow, that it is such “an inward conviction of things invisible, as is the gift of God in the same sense wherein hope and charity are,” I have little to object; or, that it is “such an assent to all Christian truths as is productive of all Christian practice.” In terming either faith, or hope, or love supernatural, I only mean that they are not the effect of any or all of our natural faculties, but are wrought in us (be it swiftly or slowly) by the Spirit of God. But I would rather say, Faith is “productive of all Christian holiness,” than “of all Christian practice;” because men are so exceeding, apt to rest in practice, so called; I mean, in outside religion; whereas true religion is eminently seated in the heart, renewed in the image of Him that created us.
11. I have not found, in any of the writers you mention, a solution of many difficulties that occur on the head of predestination. And, to speak without reserve, when I compare the writings of their most celebrated successors, with those of Dr. Barrow and his contemporaries, I am amazed: The latter seem to be mere children compared with the former writers; and to throw out such frothy, unconnected trifles, such indigested crudities, as a man of learning, fourscore or a hundred years ago, would have been ashamed to set his name to.
12. Concerning the instantaneous and the gradual work, what I still affirm is this: That I know hundreds of persons, whose hearts were one moment filled with fear, and sorrow, and pain, and the next with peace and joy in believing, yea, joy unspeakable, full of glory; that the same moment they experienced such a love of God, and so fervent a goodwill to all mankind, (attended with power over all sin,) as till then they were wholly unacquainted with; that nevertheless the peace and love thus sown in their hearts, received afterward a gradual increase; and that to this subsequent increase the scriptures you mention do manifestly refer. Now, I cannot see that there is any quibbling at all in this. No; it is a plain, fair answer to the objection.
Neither can I apprehend that I have given an evasive answer to any adversary whatever. I am sure I do not desire to do it; for I want us to understand each other. The sooner the better: Therefore let us, as you propose, return to the main point.
“The charge is,” your words are, “that the Methodists preach sundry singular and erroneous doctrines; in particular three, — unconditional predestination, perceptible inspiration, and sinless perfection. ‘They set up,’ say their adversaries, ‘their own schemes and notions as the great standard of Christianity, so as to perplex, unhinge, terrify, and distract the minds of multitudes, by persuading them that they cannot be true Christians but by adhering to their doctrines.’ This is the charge. Now you ask, ‘What do you mean by their own schemes, their own notions, their own doctrines?’ It is plain, we mean their unconditional predestination, their perceptible inspiration, and their sinless perfection.” The charge then is, that the Methodists preach unconditional predestination, perceptible inspiration, and sinless perfection. But what a charge! Shall John Wesley be indicted for murder, because George Whitefield killed a man? Or shall George Whitefield be charged with felony, because John Wesley broke a house? How monstrous is this! How dissonant from all the rules of common sense and common honesty! Let every man bear his own burden. If George Whitefield killed a man, or taught predestination, John Wesley did not: What has this charge to do with him? And if John Wesley broke a house, or preached sinless perfection, let him answer for himself George Whitefield did neither: Why then is his name put into this indictment?
Hence appears the inexcusable injustice of what might otherwise appear a trifle. When I urge a man in this manner, he could have no plea at all, were he not to reply “Why, they are both Methodists.” So when he has linked them together by one nickname, he may hang either instead of the other. But sure this will not be allowed by reasonable men. And if not, what have I to do with predestination? Absolutely nothing: Therefore set that aside. Yea, and sinless perfection too. “How so? Do not you believe it?” Yes, I do; and in what sense, I have shown in the sermon on Christian Perfection. And if any man calls it an error, till he has answered that, I must say, “Sir, you beg the question.” But I preach, perhaps, twenty times, and say no more of this, than even a Calvinist would allow. Neither will I enter into any dispute about it, any more than about the millennium. Therefore the distinguishing doctrines on which I do insist in all my writings, and in all my preaching, will lie in a very narrow compass. You sum them all up in perceptible inspiration. For this I earnestly contend; and so do all who are called Methodist Preachers. But be pleased to observe what we mean thereby. We mean that inspiration of God’s Holy Spirit, whereby he fills us with righteousness, peace, and joy, with love to Him and to all mankind. And we believe it cannot be, in the nature of things, that a man should be filled with this peace, and joy, and love, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, without perceiving it as clearly as he does the light of the sun.
This is (so far as I understand them) the main doctrine of the Methodists. This is the substance of what we all preach. And I will still believe, none is a true Christian till he experiences it; and, consequently, “that people, at all hazards, must be convinced of this; yea, though that conviction at first unhinge them ever so much, though it should in a manner distract them for a season. For it is better that they should be perplexed and terrified now, than that they should sleep on and a wake in hell.”
I do not therefore, I will not, shift the question; though I know many who desire I should. I know the proposition I have to prove, and I will not move a hair’s breadth from it. It is this: “No man can be a true Christian without such an inspiration of the Holy Ghost as fills his heart with peace, and joy, and love; which he who perceives not, has it not.” This is the point for which alone I contend; and this I take to be the very foundation of Christianity.
14. The answer, therefore, which you think we ought to give, is that which we do give to the charge of our adversaries:” Our singularities (if you will style them so) are fundamental, and of the essence of Christianity;” therefore we must “preach them with such diligence and zeal as if the whole of Christianity depended upon them.”
15. It would doubtless be wrong to insist thus on these things if they were “not necessary to final salvation:” But we believe they are; unless in the case of invincible ignorance. In this case, undoubtedly many thousands are saved who never heard of these doctrines: And I an inclined to think, this was our own case, both at Oxford and for some time after. Yet I doubt not but had we been called hence, God would first, by this inspiration of his Spirit, have wrought; in our hearts that holy love without which none can enter into glory.
16. I was aware of the seeming contradiction you mention at the very time when I wrote the sentence. But it is only a seeming one: For it is true, that from May 24, 1738, “wherever I was desired to preach, salvation by faith was my only theme;” — that is, such a love of God and man, as produces all inward and outward holiness, and springs from a conviction, wrought in us by the Holy Ghost, of the pardoning love of God: And that when I was told, “You must preach no more in this church,” it was commonly added, “because you preach such doctrine!” And it is equally true, that “it was for preaching the love of God and man, that several of the Clergy forbade me their pulpits” before that times before May 24, before I either preached or knew salvation by faith.
17. We are at length come to the real state of the question, between the Methodists (so called) and their opponents. “Is there perceptible inspiration, or is there not? Is there such a thing (if we divide the question into its parts) as faith producing peace, and joy, and love, and inward (as well as outward) holiness? Is that faith which is productive of these fruits wrought in us by the Holy Ghost, or not? And is he in whom they are wrought necessarily conscious of them, or is he not?” These are the points on which I am ready to join issue with any serious and candid man. Such I believe you to be. If, therefore, I knew on which of those you desired my thoughts, I would give you them freely, such as they are; or (if you desire it) on any collateral question. The best light I have, I am ready to impart; and am ready to receive farther light from you. My time, indeed, is so short, that I cannot answer your letters so particularly, or so correctly, as I would. But I am persuaded you will excuse many defects where you believe the design is good. I want to know what, as yet, I know not. May God teach it me by you, or by whom he pleaseth! “Search me, O Lord, and prove me I Try out my reins and my heart! Look well if there be error or wickedness in me; and lead me in the way ever lasting!” January 3, 1745-6.
XL. — To the Same.
SIR, LONDON, June 25, 1746.
AT length I have the opportunity, which I have long desired, of answering the letter you favored me with some time since. O that God may still give us to bear with each other, and to speak what we believe is the truth in love!
1. I detest all zeal which is any other than the flame of love. Yet I find it is not easy to avoid it. It is not easy (at least to me) to be “always zealously affected in a good thing,” without being sometimes so affected in things of an indifferent nature. Nor do I find it always easy to proportion my zeal to the importance of the occasion; and to temper it duly with prudence, according to the various and complicated circumstances that occur. I sincerely thank you for endeavoring to assist me herein, to guard me from running into excess. I am always in danger of this, and yet I daily experience a far greater danger of the other extreme. To this day, I have abundantly more temptation to lukewarmness than to impetuosity; to be a saunterer inter sylvas Academicas, 15 a philosophical sluggard, than an itinerant Preacher. And, in fact, what I now do is so exceeding little, compared with what I am convinced I ought to do, that I am often ashamed before God, and know not how to lift up mine eyes to the height of heaven!
2. But may not love itself constrain us to lay before men “the terrors of the Lord?” And is it not better that sinners “should be terrified now, than that they should sleep on, and awake in hell?” I have known exceeding happy effects of this, even upon men of strong understanding; yet I agree with you, that there is little good to be done by “the profuse throwing about hell and damnation;” and the best way of deciding the points in question with us is, cool and friendly argumentation.
I agree, too, “That scheme of religion bids fairest for the true, which breathes the most extensive charity.” Touching the charity due to those who are in error, I suppose, we both likewise agree, that really invincible ignorance never did, nor ever shall, exclude any man firm heaven. And hence, I doubt not, but God will receive thousands of those who differ from me, even where I hold the truth. But still, I cannot believe He will receive any man into glory (I speak of those under the Christian dispensation) “without such an inspiration of the Holy Ghost as fills his heart with peace, and joy, and love.”
3. In this Mr. Whitefield and I agree; but in other points we widely differ. And therefore I still apprehend it is inexcusably unjust to link us together, whether we will or no. For by this means each is constrained to bear, not only his own, but another’s, burden. Accordingly, I have been accused a hundred times of holding unconditional predestination. And no wonder: For wherever this charge is advanced, — “The Methodists preach sundry erroneous doctrines; in particular three, unconditional predestination, perceptible inspiration, and sinless perfection, “the bulk of mankind will naturally suppose, that the Methodists in general hold these three doctrines. It will follow, that if any of these afterwards hears, “Mr. Wesley is a Methodist,” he will conclude, “Then he preaches unconditional predestination, perceptible inspiration, and sinless perfection.” And thus one man is made accountable (by others, if not by you) for all the errors and faults of another.
4. The case of many who subscribe to the eleventh and following Articles, I cannot yet think, is exactly the same with the case of Mr. Whitefield and me subscribing the Seventeenth. For each of us can truly say, “I subscribe this Article in that which I believe from my heart is its plain, grammatical meaning.” Twenty years ago, I subscribed the Fifteenth Article likewise, in its plain, unforced, grammatical meaning. And whatever I do not now believe in this sense, I will on no terms subscribe at all.
5. I speak variously, doubtless, on various occasions; but I hope not inconsistently. Concerning the seeming inconsistency which you mention, permit me to observe, briefly,
(1.) That I have seen many things which I believe were miraculous; yet I desire none to believe my words, any further than they are confirmed by Scripture and reason. And thus far I disclaim miracles.
(2.) That I believe, “he that marrieth doeth well; but he that doth not, (being a believer,) doeth better.” However, I have doubts concerning the tract on this head, which I have not yet leisure to weigh thoroughly.
(3.) That a newly justified person has, at once, in that hour, power over all sin; and finds from that hour the work of God in his soul slowly and gradually increasing. And, lastly, that many, who, while they have faith, cannot doubt, do afterwards doubt whether they ever had it or no. Yea, many receive from the Holy Ghost an attestation of their acceptance, as perceptible as the sun at noon day; and yet those same persons, at other times, doubt whether they ever had any such attestation; nay, perhaps more than; doubt, perhaps wholly deny, all that God has ever done for their souls; inasmuch as, in “this hour and power of darkness,” they cannot believe they ever saw light.
6. I think St. Austin’s description of his own case (whether it prove anything more or less) greatly illustrates that light, that assurance of faith, whereof we are now speaking. He does not appear in writing this confession to God, to have had any adversary in view, nor to use any rhetorical heightening at all; but to express the naked experience of his heart, and that in as plain and unmetaphorical words as the nature of the thing would bear.
7. I believe firmly, and that in the most literal sense, that “without God we can do nothing;” that we cannot think, or speak, or move a hand or an eye, without the concurrence of the divine energy; and that all our natural faculties are God’s gift, nor can the meanest be exerted without the assistance of his Spirit. What then do I mean by saying that faith, hope, and love are not the effect of any, or all, our natural faculties? I mean this: That supposing a man to be now void of faith, and hope, and love, he cannot effect my degree of them in himself by any possible exertion of his understanding, and of any or all his other natural faculties, though he should enjoy them in the utmost perfection. A distinct power from God, not implied in any of these, is indispensably necessary, before it is possible he should arrive at the very lowest degree of Christian faith, or hope, or love. In order to his having any of these, (which, on this very consideration, I suppose St. Paul terms the “fruits of the Spirit,”) he must be created anew, thoroughly and inwardly changed by the operation of the Spirit of God; by a power equivalent to that which raises the dead, and which calls the things which are not as though they were.
8. The “living soberly, righteously, and godly” in this present world, or the uniform practice of universal piety, presupposes some degree of these “fruits of the Spirit,” nor can possibly subsist without them. I never said men were too apt to rest on this practice. But I still say, I know abundance of men, who quiet their conscience without either faith or love, by the practice of a few outward works; and this keeps them as easy and contented, though they are without hope and without God in the world, as either the doctrine of irresistible decrees could do, or any theory whatsoever.
Now, what is this but using, outward works as commutations for inward holiness? For,
(1.) These men love not inward holiness; they love the world; they love money; they love pleasure or praise: Therefore, the love of God is not ill them; nor, consequently, the Christian love of their neighbor. Yet,
(2.) They are in nowise convinced that they are in the broad way which leads to destruction. They sleep on, and take their rest. They say, “Peace, peace,” to their soul, though there is no peace. But on what pretense? Why, on this very ground, because,
(3.) They do such and such outward works; they go to church, and perhaps to the Lord’s table; they use, in some sort, private prayer; they give alms; and therefore they imagine themselves to be in the high road to heaven. Though they have not “the mind that was in Christ,” yet they doubt not but all is safe, because they do thus and thus, because their lives are not as other men’s are. This is what I mean by using outward works as commutations for inward holiness. I find more and more instances everyday of this miserable self deceit. The thing is plain and clear. But if you dislike the phrase, we will drop it, and use another.
Nearly allied to this is the “gross superstition of those who think to put devotion upon God, instead of honesty.” I mean, who practice neither justice nor mercy, and yet hope to go to heaven because they go to church and sacrament. Can you find no such men in the Church of England? I find them in every street. Nine times in ten, when I have told a tradesman, “You have cheated me; sold me this for more than it is worth, which I think is a breach both of justice and mercy. Are you a Christian?” Do you hope to go to heaven?” his answer, if he deigned any answer at all, has been to this effect: “As good a Christian as yourself! ‘Go to heaven!’ Yes, sure; for I keep my church as well as any man.”
Now, what can be plainer, than that this man keeps his Church, not only as an act of goodness, but as a commutation instead of goodness; as something which he hopes will do as well, will bring him to heaven, without either justice or mercy? Perhaps, indeed, if he fell into adultery or murder, it might awaken him out of his dream, and convince him, as well as his neighbors, that this worship is not a mitigation, but an aggravation, of his wickedness: But nothing short of this will. In spite of all your reasoning and mine, he will persist in thinking himself a good Christian, and that if his “brother have aught against him,” yet all will be well, so he do but constantly “bring his gift to the altar.”
I entreat you, Sir, to make the experiment yourself; to talk freely with any that come in your way. And you will surely find it is the very thing which almost destroys the (so called) Christian world. Every nominal Christian has some bit or scrap of outward religion, either negative or positive: Either he does not do, in some respect, like other men, or he does something more than they. And by this, however freely he may condemn others, he takes care to excuse himself; and stifles whatever convictions he might otherwise have, “that the wrath of God abideth on him.” After a few impartial inquiries of this kind, I am persuaded you will not say, “As a commutation, surely no Protestant ever did [receive the sacrament] but yourself.” Is there not something wrong in these words, on another account; as well as in those, “You should not treat others as the children of the devil, for taking the same liberty which you and Mr. Whitefield take, who continue, notwithstanding, to be the children of God? “Is there not in both these expressions (and perhaps in some others which are scattered up and down in your letters) something too keen? something that borders too much upon sarcasm? upon tartness, if not bitterness? Does not anything of this sort, either make the mind sore, or harden it against conviction? Does it not make us less able to bear plainness of speech? or at least less ready to improve by it? Give me leave to add one word more, before I proceed. I cannot but be jealous over you. I fear you do not know, near so well as you suppose even what passes in your own mind. I question not but you believe, that without inward holiness no man shall see the Lord; but are you sure you never once entertained a thought that something else might be put upon him in the stead? Perhaps not grossly, not if it appeared just in that shape: No, nor have I, for these twenty years. But I find the same thought to this day, stealing in continually, under a thousand different forms. I find a continual danger of stopping short of a full renewal in the image of God; a continual propensity to rest in whatever comes between; to put some work or other that I do, even for God’s sake, or some gift that I receive, in the stead of that great work of God, “the renewal of my soul after his likeness in righteousness and true holiness.”
9. One point of doctrine remains: “Is there any such thing as; perceptible inspiration or not?” I asserted, “There is;” but at the same time subjoined, “Be pleased to observe what we mean thereby: We mean, that inspiration of God’s Holy Spirit, whereby he fills us [every true believer] with righteousness, and peace, and joy; with love to him and all mankind. And we believe it cannot be, in the nature of things, that a man should be filled with this peace, and joy, and love, by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, without perceiving it as clearly as he does the light of the sun.” You reply, “You have now entirely shifted the question.” I think not. You objected, that I holden perceptible inspiration. I answered, “I do;” but observe in what sense; Otherwise I must recall my concession: I hold, God inspires every Christian with peace, joy, and love which are all perceptible. You reply, “The question is not, whether the fruits of Inspiration are perceptible, but whether the work of inspiration itself be so.” This was not my question; nor did I till now understand that it was yours. If I had, I should have returned a different answer, as I have elsewhere done already.
When one warmly object, near two years ago, “All reasonable Christians believe that the Holy Spirit works his graces in us in an imperceptible manner;” my answer was, “You are here disproving, as you suppose, a proposition of mine. But are you sure you understand it? By the operations [inspirations or workings] of the Spirit, I do not mean the manner in which he operates but the graces which he operates [inspires or works] in a Christian.”
If you ask, But do not you hold, “that Christian faith implies a direct, perceptible testimony of the Spirit, as distinguishable from the suggestion of fancy, as light it distinguishable from darkness; whereas we suppose he imperceptibly influences our minds?” I answer, I do hold this. I suppose that every Christian believer, over and above that imperceptible influence, hath a direct perceptible testimony of the Spirit, that he is a child of God. As I have little time, I must beg you to read and consider what I have already spoken upon this subject, in the First Part of the “Farther Appeal,” at the thirty eighth and following pages; 16 and then to let me know what kind of proof it is which you expect in a question of this nature, over and above that of Scripture, as interpreted by the writers of the earliest Christian church.
I have not studied the writings of the Quakers enough, (having read few of them beside Robert Barclay,) to say precisely what they mean by perceptible inspiration, and whether their account of it be right or wrong. And I am not curious to know; since between me and them there is a great gulf fixed. The sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s supper keep us at a wide distance from each other; insomuch that, according to the view of things I have now, I should as soon commence Deist as Quaker. I would just add, that I regard even faith itself, not as an end, but a means only. The end of the commandment is love, of every command, of the whole Christian dispensation. Let this love be attained, by whatever means, and I am content; I desire no more. All is well, if we love the Lord our God with all our heart, and our neighbor as ourselves.
10. I am aware of one inconvenience, in answering what you say touching the consequences of my, preaching. It will oblige me to speak what will try your temper beyond anything I have said yet. I could, indeed, avoid this by standing on my guard, and speaking with great reserve. But had you not rather that I should deal frankly with you, and tell you just what is in my heart?
I am the more inclined to do this, because the question before us is of so deep importance; insomuch that, were I convinced you had decided it right, there would be an end at once of my preaching. And it lies in a small compass, as you say, “I am not making conjectures of what may happen, but relating mischief’s which actually have happened.” These, then, “the mischief’s which have actually happened,” let us consider as calmly as possible.
But first we may set aside the “thousands whom (it is said) we should have had pretending a mission from God, to preach against the wickedness of the great, had not the rebels been driven back.” The rebels, blessed be God, are driven back. 17 So that mischief has not actually happened. We may wave, also, “the legion of monstrous errors and wickedness, the sedition, murder, and treason of the last century;” seeing, whatever may be hereafter, it is certain these mischief’s also have not yet actually happened. Nor have I anything to do with that poor madman, (I never heard of any more than one such,) who came some time since, “preaching in London streets against Prelacy” and Methodism; and “denouncing curses against George Whitefield, John Wesley, and all Bishops, Priests, and Deacons.” I was more nearly concerned in what has actually happened at Wednesbury, Darlaston, and Walsal. And these were “shameful disorders” indeed. Publish them not in Gath or Askelon! Concerning the occasion of which I may speak; more freely to you than it was proper to do to the public.
When I preached at Wednesbury first, Mr. Egginton (the Vicar) invited me to his house, and told me, that the oftener I came, the welcomer I should be; for I had done much good there already, and he doubted not but I should; do much more. But the next year I found him another man. He had not only heard a vehement visitation charge, but had been informed that are had publicly preached against drunkards, which must have been designed for satire on him. From this time, we found more and more effects of his unwearied labors, public and private, in stirring up the people on every side, “to drive these fellows out of the country.” One of his sermons I heard with my own ears. I pray God I may never hear such another! The Minister of Darlaston, and the Curate of Walsal, trod in the same steps. And these were they who (not undesignedly) occasioned all the disorders which followed there.
You add: “In countries which you have not much frequented, there have appeared Antinomian Preachers, presenting your disciples.” These have appeared most in countries I never frequented at all, as in the West of Lancashire, in Dorsetshire, and in Ireland. When I came, they disappeared, and were seen do more there; at least, not presenting our disciples. And yet, by all I can learn, even these poor wretches have done as little harm as good. I cannot learn that they have destroyed one soul that has before truly seeking salvation.
But you think, I myself “do a great deal of harm, by breaking and setting aside order. For, order once ever so little set aside, confusion rushes in like a torrent.”
What do you mean by order? a plan of church discipline? What plan? the scriptural, the primitive, or our own? It is in the last sense of the word that I have been generally charged with breaking or setting aside order; that is, the rules of our own Church, both by preaching in the fields, and by using extemporary prayer.
I have often replied,
(l.) It were better for me to die, than not to preach the Gospel of Christ; yea, and in the fields, either where I may not preach in the church, or where the church will not contain the congregation:
(2.) That I use the Service of the Church every Lord’s day; and it has never yet appeared to me, that any rule of the Church forbids my using extemporary prayer on other occasions.
But methinks I would go deeper. I would inquire, What is the end of all ecclesiastical order? Is it not to bring souls from the power of Satan to God; and to build them up in his fear and love? Order, then, is so far valuable, as fit answers these ends; and if it answers them not, it is nothing worth. Now, I would fain know, where has order answered these ends? Not in any place where I have been; not among the tinners in Cornwall, the keelmen at New castle, the colliers in Kingswood or Staffordshire; not among the drunkards, swearers, Sabbath breakers of Moorfields, or the harlots of Drury lane. They could not be built up in the fear and love of God, while they were open, barefaced servants of the devil; and such they continued, notwithstanding the most orderly preaching both in St. Luke’s and St. Giles’s church. One reason whereof was, they never came near the church; nor had any desire or design so to do, till, by what you term “breach of order,” they were brought to fear God, to love him, and keep his commandments.
It was not, therefore, so much the want of order, as of the knowledge and love of God, which kept those poor souls for so many years in open bondage to a hard master. And, indeed, wherever the knowledge and love of God are, true border will not be wanting. But the most apostolical order, where these are not, is less than nothing and vanity.
But you say, “Strict order once set aside, confusion rushes in like a torrent.” It has been so far from rushing in where we have preached most, that the very reverse is true. Surely, never was “confusion worse confounded,” than [it] was a few years since in the forest of Kingswood. But how has it been since the word of God was preached there, even in this disorderly manner?
Confusion heard his voice; and wild uproar
Stood ruled; and order from disorder sprung.
O Sir, be not carried away with the torrent; the clamor either of the great vulgar, or the small! Re-examine your very first; notions of these things; and then review that sentence, “The devil makes use of your honest zeal, to his dishonest and diabolical purposes. He well knows, you do him more service by breach of order, than dis-service by all your laborious industry.” I hope not,
(1.) Because I bring the very order you contend for into places where it never was before: And,
(2.) Because I bring (yet not I, but the grace of God) that knowledge and love of God also, in conjunction wherewith order is of great price, but without them a worthless shadow.
I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give yon an inheritance among all them which are sanctified, by faith that is in him.
XLI. — To the Same.
SIR, NEWCASTLE, March 25, 1747.
1. IN your last, I do not find much reason to complain either of tartness or bitterness. But is it so serious as the cause requires? If it be asked, — Ridentem dicere verum
Quis vetat?
18
I think the nature of the things whereof we speak should forbid it. For surely, it is a very serious concern, whether we dwell in the eternal glory of God or in the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
2. If those who subscribe the Eleventh and following Articles do subscribe in what they believe from, their hearts to be the plain, unforced, grammatical meaning of the words, then they are clear before God. I trust you can answer for yourself herein; but you cannot for all our brethren.
3. I am glad that our dispute concerning commutations in religion proves to be “entirely verbal:” As we both agree,
(1.) That abundance of those who bear the name of Christians put a part of religion for the whole; generally some outward work or form of worship:
(2.) That whatever is thus put for the whole of religion, (in particular, where it is used to supersede or commute for the religion of the heart,) it is no longer a part of it, it is gross irreligion, it is mere mockery of God.
4. When you warned me against “excess of zeal,” I did not say, this was not my weak side; that it was not one weakness to which I am exposed. My words were: “I am always in danger of this; and yet I daily experience a far greater danger of the other extreme.” I do. I am, to this day, ashamed before God, that I do so little to what I ought to do. But this you call “overdone humility,” and suppose it to be inconsistent with what occurs in the ninety third and ninety fourth paragraphs of the “Earnest Appeal.” I believe it is not at all inconsistent there with; only one expression there is too strong, — “all his time and strength;” — for this very cause, “I am ashamed before God.” I do not spend all my time so profitably as I might, nor all my strength; at least, not all I might have, if it were not for my own lukewarmness and remissness; if I wrestled with God in constant and fervent prayer.
You mention four other instances of self contradiction. The first:
(1.) “You claim and you disclaim miracles. You claim them, as having seen many miraculous attestations to your ministry. You disclaim them, desiring none to believe your words further than they are confirmed by Scripture and reason;” that is, you claim them in one sense, and disclaim them in another. Perhaps so; but this is no contradiction.
(2.) “You are not at leisure yet, either to permit or forbids to marry.” Indeed I am. Although I commend those who are as “eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake;” yet I know “all men cannot receive this saying,” and that “it is better to marry than to burn.”
(3.) “The newly justified has at once, in that hour, power over all sin, and finds, from that hour, the work of God in the soul slowly and gradually increasing. What, until he has power over more than all sin?” No; but until he has more power over all sin; the struggle between the flesh and the Spirit gradually decreasing; and till he has more peace, more joy in the Holy Ghost, more of the knowledge and love of God.
(4.) “But surely, the tip top of all inconsistencies is what follows, even as explained in your own way: Many receive from the Holy Ghost an attestation of their acceptances as perceptible as the sun at noon day; and yet these same persons, at other times, doubt or deny that they ever had such attestation.”
The fact stands thus:
(1.) A man feels in himself the testimony of God’s Spirit, that he is a child of God; and he can then no more deny or doubt thereof, than of the shining of the sun at noon day.
(2.) After a time, this testimony is withdrawn.
(3.) He begins to reason within himself concerning it; next, to doubt whether that testimony was from God; and, perhaps, in the end, to deny that it was. And yet he may be, all this times in every other respect, “of sound memory as well as understanding.” Now, whether these propositions are true or false, they are not contradictory to each other. They cannot, unless it were affirmed, that the same person has and has not the same testimony at the same time.
5. However, you think I assert a thing impossible. What is impossible? that the Spirit of God should bear a clear, perceptible witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God? Surely no! Whether this he the fact or not, no man of reason will say it is impossible. Or that the Spirit of God should cease to bear this witness? Neither can the possibility of this be denied. The thing, then, which is supposed impossible is this, that a man who once had it should ever doubt, whether he had it or no; that is, (as you subjoin,) “if he continue sound in mind” (or understanding) “and memory.” Right! “If he continue:” But the very supposition is, that, in this respect, he does not continue so. While he did so continue, he could not doubt. But his understanding is now darkened, and the very traces of that divine work well-nigh erased out of his memory. Nor can I think, “it is vain to have recourse here to the energeia of the power of darkness.” I verily believe, as it was the God of heaven who once shone in his heart, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God; so it is the God of this world who hath now blinded his heart, so that the glorious light cannot shine upon it.
6. If the Quakers hold the same perceptible inspiration with me, I am glad; and it is neither better nor worse for their holding it: Although, if I “distinguish it away,” I do not hold it at all. But do I distinguish it away? or any point which I believe to be the truth of God? I am not conscious of this. But when men tack absurdities to the truth of God with which it hath nothing to do, I distinguish away those absurdities, and let the truth remain in its native purity.
It was several months before my correspondence with you, that I thus distinguished away perceptible inspiration; declaring to all men, “by ‘perceiving’ or ‘feeling the operations of the Spirit,’ I mean, being inwardly conscious of them.” “By ‘the operations of the Spirit,’ I do not mean the ‘manner’ in which he operates in a Christian.”
This I mentioned in my last. But it is certain, over and above those other graces which the Holy Spirit inspires into, or operates in, a Christian, and over and above his imperceptible influences; I do intend all mankind should understand me to assert, (what I therefore express in the clearest language I am master of,) every Christian believer hath a perceptible testimony of the Spirit, that he is a child of God. I use the phrase, “testimony of the Spirit,” rather than “inspiration,” because it has a more determinate meaning. And I desire men to know what I mean, and what I do not; that I may not fight as one that beateth the air.
7. Is there “not one word said of this, either in the ‘Farther Appeal,’ or in any one place in the Bible?” I think there is in the Bible; in the sixteenth verse of the eighth chapter to the Romans. And is not this very place proved to describe the ordinary privilege of every Christian believer in the “Farther Appeal,” from the forty fifth to the forty ninth, and from the fifty sixth to the fifty ninth page? 19
Give me leave to remind you of some of the words. In the forty ninth page the argument concludes thus: “It will follow, that this witness of the Spirit is the private testimony given to our own consciences, which, consequently, all sober Christians may claim, without any danger of enthusiasm.” In the fifty seventh page are these words: “Every one that is born of God, and doth not commit sin, by his very actions, saith, ‘Our Father which art in heaven;’ the Spirit itself bearing witness with their spirit, that they are the children of God. According to Origin, therefore, this testimony of the Spirit is not any public testimony by miracles, but an inward testimony belonging in common to all that are born of God” Once more: In the fifty eighth page are these words: “He brings yet another proof of the superiority of those who had this Spirit of adoption: ‘The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.’ ‘I prove this,’ says he, ‘not only from the voice itself, but also from the cause whence that voice proceeds. For the Spirit suggests the words while we thus speak, which he hath elsewhere expressed more plainly, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father! But what is, The Spirit beareth witness with our spirit?’ He means the Paraclete by the gift given unto us.” (But that this was an extraordinary gift, we hare no intimation at all neither before nor after.) “And when the Spirit beareth witness, what doubt is left? If a man or an angel spake, some might doubt; but when the Most High beareth witness to us, who can doubt any longer?”
I am mistaken if this does not come home to the point, to the question now before us; describing a perceptible testimony of the Holy Ghost, “directly felt to be worked by himself.”
8. But I will wave all authorities, that of Origin and Chrysostom, as well as of Hannah Richardson (though not a weak woman, but eminently the reverse) and Averel Spencer (though not a wicked one); only observing, that your argument proves too much. I am as fully assured today) as I am of the shining of the sun, that the Scriptures are of God. I cannot possibly deny or doubt of it now; yet I may doubt of it tomorrow; as I have done heretofore a thousand times, and that after the fullest assurance preceding. Now, if this be “a demonstration that my former assurance was a mere fancy,” then farewell all revelation at once!
But to come closer yet, and weigh the point in debate in the balance of plain reason: You must allow there is a testimony of the Spirit with our spirit, that we are the children of God. “But,” you say, “it is not a perceptible one.” How is this? Let us examine it thoroughly. It is allowed, (l.) The Spirit of God,
(2.) Bears testimony to my spirit,
(3.) That I am a child of God.
But I am not to perceive it. Not to perceive what? the first, second, or third particular? Am I not to perceive what is testified, — that I am a child of God? Then it is not testified at all. This is saying and unsaying in the same breath. Or am I not to perceive, that it is testified to my spirit? Yea, but I must perceive what passes in my own soul. Or, lastly, am I to perceive that I am a child of God, and that this is testified to my spirit; but not to perceive who it is that testifies, not to know it is the Spirit of God? O Sir, if there really be a man in the world who hath this testimony in himself, can it be supposed that he does not know who it is that testifies? who it is that speaks to his heart? that speaks in his inmost soul as never man spake? If he does not, he is ignorant of the whole affair. If you are in this state, I pray God you may say from the heart “Lord, what I know not, teach thou me.” How much better were this, than to canonize your own ignorance, as the only knowledge and wisdom; and to condemn all the generation of God’s children of “idiotism and madness!”
9. Under your last head, you do not confine yourself now within the bounds you at first proposed; when you said, “I am not making conjectures of what may happen, but relating,, mischief’s which actually have happened.” Take care you do not grow warm when I reply to this: You will have need of all your patience to bear it.
You begin: “Will you ask what I mean by ‘order?’ Was it not manifest I meant to speak against lay preaching?” It was: But not against that alone. There fore, before I entered upon the question, I defined the term in a wider sense, so as to include both this and every irregularity you had objected. You go on: “How could you give so strange an answer, ‘I bring this order you contend for into places where it never was before?’” I reply, This is not my whole answer; it is but one, and that the most inconsiderable, part of it: But it is strictly true. “Do you then bring in the ministry of regularly ordained Ministers, where, before, people were used to the preaching of lay brethren?” Yes; them who were before used to no preaching at all, or to that of those whom you would term lay brethren, I bring to attend on the ministry of those regular Preachers who have the charge of their several parishes
But very “ill consequences” of our irregular preaching, you say, have “actually happened: A number of unsent persons going about the kingdom, and preaching the worst of heresies.” “A number!” Where? Within these nine years past, I have heard of two, and no more, (besides that lunatic Clergyman,) who have gone about thus, though I doubt sent neither of God nor man. But I have heard of no heresy which they preached; only a little smooth, undigested nonsense. Nor can the ill done by these balance the thousandth part of the good already done by the preaching of other laymen; namely, the turning so many bold, barefaced servants of the devil, into humble, holy servants of God.
However, evil “will happen if any State faction shall join the irregulars.” If they shall! Yea, if they shall attempt; it, (which is far enough off,) the irregulars will not join them. We bless God that the Government is at present very fully convinced of this.
“But if unsent, well meaning laymen may preach, unsent: ill meaning laymen will, upon the first opportunity, spread sedition like wildfire.” Yea, and Clergymen as well as laymen, sent as well as unsent. Thus it ever was, and I presume ever will be.
10. That “the irregularities of Mr. Cartwright did more harm in the course of a century, than all the labors of his life did good,” is by no means plain to me: And the less so, because I cannot learn from Mr. Strype, or any other impartial writer, (whatever his mistakes in judgment were,) that he fell into any irregularities at all. I look upon him and the body of Puritans in that age, (to whom the German Anabaptists bore small resemblance,) to have been both the most learned and most pious men that were then in the English nation. Nor did they separate from the Church; but were driven out, whether they would or no. The vengeance of God which fell on the posterity of their persecutors, I think, is no imputation on Mr. Cartwright or them; but a wonderful scene of divine Providence, visiting the sins of the fathers upon their children, (when they also, had filled up the measure of their iniquities,) unto the third and fourth generation. I am not careful for what may be a hundred years hence he who governed the world before I was born, shall take care of it likewise when I am dead. My part is to improve the present moment. And, whatever may be the fruits of lay preaching, when you and I are gone to our long home, every serious man has cause to bless God for those he may now see with his eyes; for the saving so many souls from death, and hiding a multitude of sins. The instances glare in the face of the sun. Many indeed God hath taken to himself; but many more remain, both young and old, who would fear God and work righteousness.
11. Perhaps a parallel drawn from physic may hold more exactly than you was apprised of. For more than twenty years I have had numberless proofs that regular Physicians do exceeding little good. From a deep conviction of this, I have believed it my duty, within these four months last past, to prescribe such medicines to six or seven hundred of the poor as I knew were proper for their several disorders. Within six weeks, nine in ten of then who had taken these medicines were remarkably altered for the better; and many were cured of diseases under which they had labored for ten, twenty, forty years. Now, ought I to have let one of these poor wretches perish, because I was not a regular Physician? to have said, “I know what will cure you: But I am not; of the College: You must send for Dr. Mead?” Before Dr. Mead had come in his chariot, the man might have been in his coffin. And when the Doctor was come, where was his fee? What! he cannot live upon nothing So, instead of an orderly cure, the patient dies; and Gods requires his blood at my hands!
12. But you think “if one should look out of his grave in! the middle of the next century, he would find the orderly preaching at St. Luke’s and St. Giles’s church had done more good than the disorderly preaching at Kennington.” I cannot learn by all the inquiries I have made, that at present it does any good at all; that either Dr. B. or Dr. G has, in all these years, converted one sinner to God. And if a man saves no souls while he is alive, I fear he will save few after he is dead.
But “it does abundance less harm.” Perhaps not so, neither. “He that gathereth not with me scattereth;” more especially if he be a Preacher. He must scatter from Him, if he does not gather souls to God. Therefore, a lifeless, unconverting Minister is the murderer general of his parish. He enters not into the kingdom of heaven himself and those that would enter in he suffers not. He stands in the gap between them and true religion. Because he has it not, they are easy without it. Dead form contents him, and why not them? “Sure, it is enough if we go as far as our guide!” And if he is not outwardly vicious, he the wore effectually secures them from all inward, solid virtue. How choice a factor for hell is this! destroying more souls than any Deist in the kingdom! I could not have blamed St. Chrysostom, if he had only said, “Hell is paved with the skulls of such Christian Priests!”
13. I must be short on what remains. You suppose the impression made on men’s minds by this irregular way of preaching is chiefly owing to “the force of novelty.” I believe it was to obviate this very supposition, that my preaching has so rarely made any impression at all, till the novelty of it was over. When I had preached more than six score times at this town, I found scarce any effect; only that abundance of people heard, and gaped and stared, and went away much as they came. And it was one evening, while I was in doubt if I had not labored in vain, that such a blessing of God was given, as has continued ever since, and I trust will be remembered unto many generations.
You ascribe it likewise in part to “a natural knack of persuasion.” If either by a natural or an acquired power of persuasion I can prevail upon sinners to turn to God, am I to bury even that talent in the earth? “No; but try if you cannot do more good in a College or in a parish.” I have tried both, and I could not do any substantial good, either to my pupils or my parishioners. Among my parishioners in Lincolnshire, I tried for some years; but I am well assured I did far more good to them by preaching three days Son my father’s tomb, than I did by preaching three years in his pulpit.
But you “know no call I have to preach up and down; to play the part of an itinerant Evangelist.” Perhaps you do not. But I do: I know God hath required this at my hands. To me, his blessing my work is an abundant proof; although such a proof as often makes me tremble. But “is there not pride or vanity in my heart?” There is; yet this is not my motive to preaching. I know and feel that the spring of this is a deep conviction, that it is the will of God, and that were I to refrain, I should never hear that word, “Well done, good and faithful servant;” but, “Cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness, where is weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth.”
XLII. — To the Same.
SIR, ST. IVES, July 10, 1747.
l. YOU put me in mind of an eminent man, who, preaching at St. James’s, said, “If you do not repent, you will go to a place which I shall not name before this audience.” I cannot promise so much, either in preaching or writing, before any audience, or to any person whatever. Yet I am not conscious of doing this very often, — of “profusely flinging about everlasting fire;” though it is true, I mentioned it in my last letter to you, as I have done now, a second time; and perhaps I may mention it yet again. For; to say the truth, I desire to have both heaven and hell ever in my eye, while I stand on this isthmus of life, between these two, boundless oceans; and I verily think the daily consideration of both highly becomes all men of reason and religion.
2. I think likewise, (or I would not spend five words upon the head,) that these are nearly concerned in our present question. To touch only on one branch of it: If I live in willful sin, in a sinful” deviation from established order,” am I not in the way to hell? I cannot take it any otherwise. I cannot Help “blending these two inquiries together.” I must therefore speak seriously, or not at all; and yet, I trust, “without losing my temper.” Do you complain of this first, that I may not complain? It appears to me that you show more eagerness of spirit, more warmth and resentment, in your last than you ever have done from the beginning.
3. You spoke of “a number of unsent persons going about and preaching the worst of heresies.” I answered “Within these nine years I have heard of two, and no more, who have gone about thus, though I doubt neither sent of God nor man.” Their names were Jonathan Wildboar, and Thomas Smith, alias Moor, alias I know not what; for I fear he changed his name as often as his place. It is not unlikely that either of these might steal as well as lie, which they have done abundantly, particularly in claiming acquaintance with Mr. Whitefield or me, wherever they judged it would recommend them to their hearers. I should not be surprised to hear of two more such; but I have not yet, in all the counties I have gone through between London and Berwick-upon-Tweed, or between Deal and the Land’s End.
4. I would to God, all the Clergy throughout the land were “zealous for inward, solid virtue” But I dare not say one in ten of those I have known are so in any degree. The two Clergymen of this place, on a late public occasion, were led home at one or two in the morning in such a condition as I care not to describe. One of them is rector of Lelant also, (a parish east of St. Ives,) of Twidnack, to the South, and Zennor, to the West. At Zennor he keeps another assistant, and one who is just as sober as himself, and near as zealous, — not indeed for inward or outward virtue, but against these “scoundrels that pretend to preach in his parish.”
5. I never “attempted to deny” that the novelty of our manner of preaching his induced thousands and ten thousands to hear us, who would otherwise never have heard us at all, nor perhaps any other Preacher. But I utterly deny that “the effects wrought on many of them that heard were owing to novelty, and that only.” The particular effects wrought at Epworth were these: Many drunkards, many unjust and profane men, on whom both my father and I had for several years spent our strength in vain, from that time began to live, and continue so to do, a sober, righteous, and godly life. Now, I deny that this effect can be owing., to novelty, or to any principle but the power of God.
If it be asked, But were there not “the same hearers, the same Preachers, and the same God to influence, in the church, as on the tombstone?” I answer,
(1.) There were not all the same hearers in the church; not above one third of them.
(2.) There was the same Preacher in the church, but he did not then preach the same doctrine; and therefore,
(3.) Though there was the same God, there was not the same influence, or blessing from him.
6. The sum of what I offered before, concerning perceptible inspiration, was this: “Every Christian believer has a perceptible testimony of God’s Spirit, that he is a child of God.” You objected, that there was not one word said of this, either in the Bible, or in the “Appeal,” to which I referred. I replied, “I think there is in the Bible, in the sixteenth verse of the eighth chapter to the Romans. And in the ‘Farther Appeal,’ this place is proved to describe the ordinary privilege of every Christian believer.” This is there shown, both by Scripture; by reason, and by authority, particularly that of Origin and Chrysostom, whom his Lordship of Richfield had cited in his charge, as asserting just the contrary. But waving authorities, I reasoned thus. “You allow there is a testimony of the Spirit with our spirit, that we are the children of God. But you say, it is not a perceptible one. How is this? Let us examine it thoroughly. It is allowed,
(1.) The Spirit of God,
(2.) Bears testimony to my spirit,
(3.) That I am a child of God.
But I am not to perceive it. Not to perceive what? the first, second, or third particular? Am I not to perceive what is testified; that I am a child of God? Then it is not testified at all. This is saying and unsaying in the same breath. Or am I not to perceive, that it is testified to my spirit? Yea, but I must perceive what passes in my own son! Or, lastly, am I to perceive that I am a child of God, and that this is testified to my spirit, but not to perceive who it is that testifies? not to know it is the Spirit of God? O Sir, if there be really a man in the world who hath this testimony in himself, can it be supposed that he does not know who it is that testifies; who it is that speaks to his heart?”
7. Instead of giving a direct answer to this, you have recourse to the same supposition with his Lordship of Richfield and Coventry; namely, that there was once an inward, perceptible testimony of the Spirit, but that it was peculiar to the early ages of the church.
“There are three ways,” say you, “in which the Holy Spirit may be said to bear witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: (l.) By external, miraculous attestations.
(2.) By internal, plainly perceptible whispers.” (I must add, “not in words, at least not always, but by some kind of impressions equivalent thereto.”)
“(3.) By his standing testimony in the holy Scriptures.
The Apostles had all these three. Origen and Chrysostom, probably the two latter. But if St. Bernard, several hundred years after, pretended to any other than the third, his neighbors would naturally ask for proof, either that it should be so by Scripture, or that it was so by facts.” Well, then, let us suppose St. Bernard, and one of his neighbors, to be talking together on this subject. On St. Bernard’s saying, “The Spirit of God bears witness with my spirit, that I am A child of God;” his neighbor replies, “I suppose he does, but not by an inward, plainly perceptible testimony.” — “Yes, by an inward, plainly perceptible testimony. I now have this testimony ill myself; I plainly perceive that I am a child of God, and that it is his Spirit who testifies it to my spirit.” — “I fear you are somewhat enthusiastically given. I allow God’s standing testimony in the Scriptures; but I cannot allow that there is now any such thing as this inward testimony, unless you can either prove by Scripture that it should be so, or by facts that it is so.” — “Are not these words Scripture: ‘The Spirit itself beareth testimony with our spirit, that we are the children of God?’” — “Yes, but the question is how they are to be understood; for I deny that they speak of an inward testimony. They speak of the outward, standing testimony of God in the holy Scriptures.” — “You put a manifest force upon the text. You cannot prove that it speaks of any outward testimony at all. But the words immediately preceding prove to a demonstration, that it speaks of an inward testimony: ‘Ye have not received the spirit of bondage unto fear;’ (is not fear an inward thing?) ‘but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father!’ The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God, even the same Spirit which ‘God hath sent forth into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father!’” — “I do not deny that the Spirit bears witness with our spirit. But I deny your peculiar interpretation of this text. I deny that this text at all favors an inward, perceptible testimony.” — “The Spirit which God hath sent into my heart, and which now cries in my heart, ‘Abba, Father,’ now beareth testimony with my spirit, that I am a child of God. How can these words be interpreted at all but of an inward; perceptible: testimony?” — “I tell you, of God’s standing testimony in Scripture.” — “This is a palpable violence to the words. They no more speak of Scripture, than of miracles. They manifestly speak of what passes in the heart, the spirit, the inmost soul of a believer, and that only.”
8. But you would say, “Suppose this scripture to prove that it should be so, can you show by facts that it is so?” Not if you take it for granted, that every one who speaks of having this witness in himself is an enthusiast. You are then in no danger of proof from this quarter. You have a short answer to every fact which can be alleged.
But you turn the tables. You say it is I who allow that “many of God’s children do not continue in sound mind and memory.” I allowed, (l.) A man feels the testimony of God’s Spirit, and cannot then deny or doubt his being a child of God.
(2.) After a time this testimony is withdrawn: Not from every child of God; many retain the beginning of their confidence steadfast unto the end.
(3.) Then he may doubt whether that testimony was of God, and perhaps, at length, deny that it was; especially if his heart be hardened by the deceitfulness of his sin.
And yet he may be all this time, in every other respects of “sound memory as well as understanding.” In this respect I allowed he is not; that is, “his understanding is now darkened, and the very traces of that divine work well-nigh erased out of his memory.” So I expressly determined the sense wherein allowed “he does not; continue ill sound mind and memory.” But did I allow that even then he was non compos mentis — a madman, in the common sense? Nothing less: I allowed no more, than, the divine light being withdrawn, his mind was again dark as to the things of God; and that he had forgotten tou kaqarismou twn palai autou amartiwn, 20 (2 Peter 1:9,) well-nigh, as if it had never been.
9. But you say, “If variable facts be produced, today asserted, tomorrow denied” — Nay, the facts, whether asserted or denied, are still invariable. “But if they be ever doubted or denied, they never were plainly perceptible.” I cannot discern any force in that consequence: However, if they are afterward “denied, they are not from Him ‘in whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning,’” Neither is this consequence good. Though God is ever the same, man may either assert or deny his works. “The spirit of man, and his fancies or opinions, may vary; but God and his facts cannot.” Thus far they can and do: God does not now bear witness as he did before. And this variation of the fact makes way for a variation in the judgment of him who had that witness, but now hath it not. “You may be fully of opinion today, that the Scriptures are of God and doubt of this tomorrow. But what is this to the purpose?” Very much. I am as fully convinced today that the Scriptures are of God, as that the sun shines. And this conviction (as every good gift) cometh from the Father of lights. Yet I may doubt of it to morrow. I may throw away the good gift of God. “But we were speaking not of man’s opinions, but of God’s facts.” We were speaking of both; of man’s opinions, or judgment, concerning God’s facts. “But could he to whom Christ said, ‘Thy sins are forgiven thee’ ever doubt or deny that Christ said so?” I question not but in process of time he might; particularly if he drew back unto perdition. But however that be, it is no “blasphemous supposition,” but a plain, undeniable truth, that the God of this world can obliterate what the God of heaven has strongly imprinted upon the soul; yea, and that he surely will, unless we stir up the gift of God which is in us, by earnestly and continually watching unto prayer.
I presume, you do not deny that a believer, one who has the witness in himself, may make “shipwreck of the faith;” and, consequently, lose the witness (however it be explained) which he once had of his being a child of God. The darkness which then covers his soul again, I ascribe (in part) to the energy of Satan, who energei, — “worketh,” according to the Apostle, in the children of unbelief, whether they did once believe or no. And has he not much power even on the children of God? to disturb, though not to destroy? to throw fiery darts without number; especially against those who, as yet, are but weak in the faith? to inject doubts and fears? sometimes unbelieving, sometimes even blasphemous thoughts? And how frequently will they be wounded thereby, if they have not put on the whole armor of God!
10. You add: “If we reply, There are enthusiasts in the world, you can keep your temper no longer; and the only answer is, If we perceive not that witness in ourselves, we are ignorant of the whole affair, and doomed to the ‘everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.’” I said not so. I can keep my temper (blessed be God) if you call me an hundred enthusiasts; if you affirm, I am ten times more of an enthusiast than that poor Quaker probably was. The sharpest word I said, was, “If a man does not know who it is that testifies with his spirit he is a child of God, he is ignorant of the whole affair.” But I felt no anger when I said this. Nor do I now. Though I still think (because you say it yourself) that you are ignorant of this whole affair, of the inward testimony for which I contend. Yet am I far from dooming you to everlasting fire. What you know not, I trust God will reveal unto you. Least of all, was this my “only answer” to your supposition, “that this perceptible testimony is only an imagination, unless I am altogether in a dream.” I have given some other answer, and a pretty full one, to the objection; such an one, I think, as the nature of the thing admits, at least as my capacity would allow.
11. I have largely considered, both in the Third Part of the Appeal, and in the latter part of the Second Letter to Mr. Church, the unreasonableness of the common demand, to prove our doctrine by miracles. I cannot but refer you to those.: tracts, having neither time nor inclination actum agere. 21 Only I would weigh what you have now advanced, in support of that demand. “If the enthusiast is as confident of his inspiration, as one really inspired is of his, a third person has a right to call for other proof than confident assertions;” that is, for miracles. So you explain yourself in the following sentence. Let us try how this consequence will hold in a particular instance: “The Spirit said unto Paul, Go not into Macedonia.” When he related this to his companions, ought they to have replied, “We call for other proof of this than your confident assertion; seeing enthusiasts are as confident of theirs, as you are of this revelation? “If you say, “They had seen his miracles at other times;” I know not that: Perhaps they had, perhaps they had not. But to step a little forward: “If, in the days of Origin and Chrysostom, external miraculous powers were ceased, while internal inspiration still remained,” what becomes of your demand here? It is totally excluded; although there were, in those days also, pretenders to what they had not.
And yet there might have been other sufficient reasons for believing the assertion of Origin, Chrysostom, and St. Bernard too, that they had this internal testimony. Such was, besides the holiness of their lives, that great and standing miracle, — their saving so many souls from death, and hiding a multitude of sins.
12. There are at least as many pretenders to the love of God, as there are to the witness of his Spirit. But does this give me a right, if a man asserts, he loves God, to demand his proving that assertion by miracles? Not so; but by their fruits I shall know a real and a pretended love of God. And in the same manner may I know him that has the witness of God’s love, from an enthusiastic pretender to it. But if all man disclaims it, he sets himself out of the question. It is beyond dispute that he has it not. Neither do I want miracles in order to determine my judgment with regard to scriptures variously interpreted. I would not say, in this case, “Show me a sign;” but, “Bring forth your strong reasons;” and according to these, weighed in an even, impartial scale, would I incline to one side or the other.
13. From the beginning of our correspondence, I did not expect you to alter your judgment touching those points wherein we differed. But I was willing (and am so still) to hear and consider whatever you should advance concerning them; and so much the rather, because in the greatest points we do agree already; and in the smaller we can bear with each other, and speak what we apprehend to be the truth in love. Let us bless God for this, and press on to the mark. It cannot be long before we shall be quite of one mind; before the veil of flesh shall drop of, and we shall both see pure light, in the unclouded face of God.
XLIII. To the Same.
SIR, DUBLIN, March 22, 1747-8.
I REJOICE to find that in some points we come nearer each other, and that we can bear with each other where we do not. I entirely agree that hell was designed only for stubborn, impenitent sinners, and, consequently, that it would be absurd to “threaten damnation to any, merely for differing from me in speculations.” But it is an absurdity which I have nothing to do with; for it never yet entered into my thoughts.
2. I rejoice likewise in your allowing that my “speculations, though false, yea, and leading to a deviation from order, may yet possibly be neither willful nor sinful;” and much more in that which follows: “I question not but God’s mercy may both forgive and reward,” even that zeal which is not according to knowledge.
3. Yet “such deviation,” you think, “may open a door to much disorder and error.” I grant it may; but I still insist,
(1.) That accidental ill consequences may flow from a good thing.
(2.) That the good consequences, in the present case, overbalance the evil beyond all possible degrees of comparison.
The same I believe of Mr. Whitefield’s public preaching, (which was not the consequence, but the cause, of mine,) whose doctrine in general (though he is mistaken in some points) I believe to be the truth of the Gospel.
4. I never did censure the whole body of Clergy; and God forbid that I ever should. I do not willingly censure any, even the grossly immoral. But you advise to “complain of these to the Bishop of the diocese.” In what way? “Be so public spirited as to present them.” Much may be said on that question. I should ask,
(1.) Have I a right to present them? I apprehend not. The Church wardens of each parish are to do this; which they will hardly do, at my instance.
(2.) If I could do it myself, the presenting them to the Court is not presenting them to the Bishop: The Bishop, you cannot but know, has no more authority in what is called the Bishop’s Court, than the Pope of Rome.
(3.) I cannot present, suppose, thirty persons in as many counties, to the Lay Chancellors or Officials, (men whom I apprehend to have just as much authority from Scripture to administer the sacraments, as to try ecclesiastical causes,) without such an expense both of labor, and money, and time, as I am by no means able to sustain. And what would be the fruit, it I could sustain it? if I was the informer general against the immoral Clergy of England? O Sir, can you imagine, or dare you say, that I should “have the thanks of the Bishops, and of all good men, both Clergy and laity?” If you allow only those to be good men who would thank me for this, I fear you would not find seven thousand good men in all our Israel.
5. But you have been “assured there are proofs about to be produced of very shocking things among us also.” It is very possible you may. And, to say the truth, I expected such things long ago. In such a body of people, must there not be some hypocrites, and some who did for a time serve God in sincerity, and yet afterwards turn back from the holy commandment once delivered to them? I am amazed there have been so few instances of this, and look for more everyday. The melancholy case of that unhappy man, Mr. Hall, I do not rank among these; for he had renounced us long ago, and that over and over, both by word and writing. And though he called upon me once or twice a year, and lately made some little overtures of friendship, yet I have it under his own hand, he could have no fellowship with us, because we would not leave the Church. But quia intellen minus, protrusit foras. 22 To make it quite plain and clear how close a connection there was between him and me, when I lately called on his poor wife at Salisbury, he fairly turned me out of doors, and my sister after me.
6. My father did not die unacquainted with the faith of the Gospel, of the primitive Christians, or of our first performers; the same which, by the grace of God, I preach, and which is just as new as Christianity. What he experienced before, I know not; but I know that during his last illness, which continued eight months, he enjoyed a clear sense: of his acceptance with God. I heard him express it more than once, although at that time I understood him not. “The inward witness, son, the inward witness,” said he to me, “that is the proof, the strongest proof, of Christianity.” And when I asked him, (the time of his change drawing nigh,) “Sir, are you in much pain?” he answered aloud with a smile, “God does chasten me with pain, yea, all my bones with strong pain; but I thank Him for all, I bless Him for all, I love Him for all!” I think the last words he spoke, when I had just commended his soul to God, were, “Now you have done all.” And with the same serene, cheerful countenance he fell asleep, without one struggle, or sigh, or groan. I cannot therefore doubt but the Spirit of God bore an inward witness with his spirit, that he was a child of God.
7. That “God blesses a doctrine preached (new or old) to the saving of souls from death, does not prove that every circumstance of it is true; for a Predestination Preacher may save souls.” But it undoubtedly proves, that the main of what is preached is the truth as it is in Jesus; for it is only the Gospel of Jesus Christ which is the power of God unto salvation. Human wisdom, as human laws, may restrain from outward sin; but they cannot avail to the saving of the soul. If God gives this blessing to what is preached, it is a sufficient “proof of His approbation.” But I will not contend about words, or, when his blessing is allowed dispute whether it has His approbation or not.
8. But to argue on your own supposition: You say, “It only shows, that novelty, which has a natural tendency to awakening, may, when God pleases, have an efficacious tendency to amending.” Well, then, if the novelty of an indifferent circumstance, such as place, has a natural tendency to awakening, surely we may use it according to its natural tendency, in order to awaken those that sleep in sin! And if God has, in fact, been pleased to use it beyond its natural tendency, to make it efficacious for amending as well as awakening, ought we not to acquiesce, yea, and rejoice therein?
9. But are sinners amended? Are they saved from their sins? Are they truly converted to God? Here is, what always must be, the main question. That many are in some sort converted, is owned. But to what are they converted “to the belief of such proofless, incredible stuff as transubstantiation? or to the Popish severities of flesh fasting, celibacies, and other monkeries?” Not so. If they are converted at all, they are converted from all manner of wickedness, “to a sober, righteous, and godly life.” Such an uniform practice is true outward holiness. And wherever this is undeniably found, we ought to believe there is holiness of heart; seeing the tree is known by its fruits.
10. That “the conversion of sinners to this holiness is no miracle at all,” is new doctrine indeed! So new to me, that I never heard it before, either among Protestants or Papists. I think a miracle is a work of omnipotence, wrought by the supernatural power of God. Now, if the conversion of sinners to holiness is not such a work, I cannot tell what is. I apprehend our Lord accounts it a greater work than giving sight to the blind, yea, or raising the dead; for it was after he had raised Lazarus from the dead, that he told his Apostles, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also. And greater works than these shall he do, because I go unto my Father.” Greater outward works they could not do. It remains, therefore, that we understand those solemn words, of converting souls to God; which is indeed a greater work than any that can be wrought on the body.
11. I am glad you do “not demand miracles in proof of doctrines.” Thus far, then, we are agreed. But you demand them,
(1.) “As things to which I lay claim;” and in order to show that claim cannot be supported.
(2.) As necessary to give me “a right to be implicitly believed.” And,
(3.) To justify my “assuming the Apostolate of England.”
If this be all, your demand must soon fall to the ground, since the whole foundation sinks beneath it. For,
(1.) I lay no claim (in your sense) to miracles; for the clearing of which, suffer me to refer you once more (that I may not be surfeited with crambe decies repetita 23) to the Second Letter to Mr. Church.
(2.) I claim no implicit faith: I neither pay it to, nor expect it from, any man living.
(3.) I no otherwise assume the Apostolate of England, (if you choose to use the phrase,) than I assume the Apostolate of all Europe, or, rather, of all the world; that is, in plain terms, wherever I see one or a thousand men running into hell, be it in England, Ireland, or France, yea, in Europe, Asia, Africa, or America, I will stop them if I can: As a Minister of Christ, I will beseech them, in His name, to turn back, and be reconciled to God. Were I to do otherwise, were I to let any soul drop into the pit, whom I might have saved from everlasting burnings, I am not satisfied God would accept my plea, “Lord, he was not of my parish.”
12. If a single parish takes up your whole time and care, and you spend and are spent upon it, well. And yet I will be bold to say, that no blessing from God will accompany your ministry, but the drunkard will be a drunkard still, (and so the covetous, the brawler, the adulterer,) unless you both believe and teach, what you love to call, my “new notions of inspiration:” I mean as to the substance, not the particular manner of explication. You will all the day long stretch out your hands in vain, unless you teach them to pray, that the Spirit of God may inwardly witness with their spirits, that they are the children of God. I apprehend you are the person that “wriggle on this head,” because the argument pinches: You appear to me to twist and wind to and fro, because I “distinguish away,” not my doctrines, but your objections; — unraveling the fallacies, showing what part is false, and what part true, but nothing to the purpose. Since you move it again, I will resume the point once more. You will pardon me if I speak home, that it may be seen which of us two it is, that has hitherto given the “evasive answers.”
13. You say, “Notwithstanding all your pains to distort that text, for anything which has yet been said to the contrary, it may be understood of the Spirit’s witness by miracles, by prophecy, or by the imperceptibly brought assurances of the Holy Ghost.”’ This (unless it gives up the whole cause, as indeed it must, if it does not imply a contradiction; seeing imperceptible assurance is no assurance at all) is neither an evasive nor an unevasive answer. It is just no answer at all. Instead of refuting my arguments, you reply, “You distort the text. Ipse dixi.”
“The Quakers maintain divine illapses, and sensible communications always; you only sometimes.” If you speak to the purpose, if you mean the inward witness of God’s Spirit, I maintain it always as well as they. “The Methodist writings abound with intimations of divine communications, prophetic whispers, and special guidances.” Perhaps so; but that is another question. We are now speaking of the inward witness of the Spirit.
14. “They teach the notification of justification to be as perceptible as the sun at noon-day.” Now you come to the point, and I allow the charge. From the beginning of our correspondence to this day, I have, without any shifting or evasion at all, maintained flatly and plainly:
(1.) A man feels the testimony of God’s Spirit, and cannot then deny or doubt his being a child of God.
(2.) After a time this testimony is withdrawn. (Not from every child of God: Many retain the beginning of their confidence steadfast unto the end.)
(3.) Then he may doubt whether this testimony was of God; and perhaps at length deny that it was.
There is no shadow of contradiction between this and the case of H. R. For,
(1.) She felt the testimony of God’s Spirit, and could not then deny or doubt her being a child of God.
(2.) After a time this testimony was withdrawn.
(3.) Then she doubted whether it was of God. Observe: She never forgot or denied that she had such a testimony; but she then doubted whether it was of God.
But you have still more to remark upon this head: So I attend you step by step.
15. “The instances produced” (it should be “instance,” for you cite but one) “in support of these high claims, instead of supporting, utterly subvert them. Thus H. R. had her justification notified; and yet she denied that her sins were forgiven.” You should say, She doubted of it, after a time, when the testimony of God’s Spirit was withdrawn. “Now, either this notification was not so distinct as is pretended, or, if distinct, was notified by one of suspected credit, whom she could not believe. Or if it was both distinct and credible, she was not of sound understanding if she disbelieved it, nor of sound memory if she” (afterwards, it should be) “doubted or denied that she had ever received such a message.” You say,
(1.) “Either that notification was not so distinct.” It was so distinct that she could not then doubt. “Or,
(2.) Was notified to her by one of suspected credit, whom she could not believe.” Yes, she then believed, and knew it was the voice of God. “Or,
(3.) She was not of sound understanding, if she disbelieved it.” When she disbelieved it, she was not. For as the serpent deceived Eve, so he then deceived her, fqeirwn to nohma authv 24
“But could she possibly deny a plain matter of fact?” You add, as if I have said; so, “Yes, in process of time she might, particularly if she drew back to perdition;” and then subjoin, “But what is this evasive answer to the case of H. R.?” I think, nothing at all. I never applied it to her case. She never denied her having had such a testimony. But after a time she doubted (as I said before) whether that testimony was true.
16. I presume, Eve in paradise was at least equal in understanding with any of her posterity. Now, unto her God said, “In the day that thou eatest of the tree of knowledge thou shalt surely die.” And doubtless “this notification was as distinct and perceptible to her as the sun at noonday.” Yet after a time (perhaps only a few days) she utterly disbelieved it. You exclaim, “Absurd! Impossible! There could be no such thing; as I shall prove immediately.”
“Either this notification was not so distinct as is pretended, or, if distinct, was notified by one of suspected credit, whom she could not believe. Or else, if it was both distinct and credible, she was not of sound understanding if she disbelieved it, nor of sound memory if she doubted of it.” Therefore the whole story is absurd, and a self-inconsistent (not a cunningly devised) fable.
Is not the plain answer this? This notification was as distinct as [is] pretended; and it was not notified by one of suspected credit, whom she did then firmly believe. But afterwards Satan deceived her by his subtlety, fqeirwn to nohma anthv, — “corrupting, spoiling, destroying, the soundness of her understanding,” and of her memory too; and then she disbelieved God, and believed him who said, “Ye shall not surely die.” How much more is he able, by the same subtlety, to deceive any of the fallen children of men!
17. What follows you did not design for argument, but wit. “I cannot help thinking that Paul, with all his infirmities, might more reasonably be looked upon as an inspired Prophet than Mr. Wesley, though arrived, in his own
adversaries, from the very beginning, stopped their ears, cried out, “An heretic! An heretic!” and so ran upon me at once.
21. But I let them alone: You are the person I want, and whom I have been seeking for many years. You have understanding to discern, and mildness to repeat, (what would otherwise be,) unpleasing truths Smite me friendly and reprove me: It shall be a precious balm; it shall not break my head. I am deeply convinced that I know nothing yet as I ought to know. Fourteen years ago, I said, (with Mr. Norris,) “I want heat more than light;” but now I know not which I want most. Perhaps God will enlighten me by your words. O speak and spare not! At least, you will have the thanks and prayers of
Your obliged and affectionate servant.
XXXIX. — To the Same.
SIR, December 30, 1745.
I AM obliged to you for your speedy and friendly answer; to which I will reply as clearly as I can.
1. If you have leisure to read the last Appeal, you will easily judge, how much I insist on any opinions.
2. In writing practically, I seldom argue concerning, the meaning of texts; in writing controversially, I do.
3. In saying, “I teach the doctrines of the Church of England,” I do, and always did, mean, (without concerning myself, whether others taught them or no, either this year, or before the Reformation,) I teach the doctrines which are comprised in those Articles and Homilies to which all the Clergy of the Church of England solemnly profess to assent, and that in their plain, unforced, grammatical meaning.
As to the Seventeenth Article, Mr. Whitefield really believes that it asserts absolute predestination: Therefore, I can also subscribe to it with sincerity. But the case is quite different with regard to those who subscribe to the Eleventh and following Articles; which are not ambiguously worded, as the Seventeenth (I suppose, on purpose) was.
4. When I say, “The Apostles themselves were to prove their assertions by the written word,” I mean the word written before their time, the Law and the Prophets; and so they did. I do not believe the case of Averel Spencer was natural; yet, when I kneeled down by her bedside, I had no thought at all of God’s then giving any “attestation to my ministry.” But I asked of God, to deliver an afflicted soul; and he did deliver her. Nevertheless, I desire none to receive my words, unless they are confirmed by Scripture and reason. And if they are, they ought to be received, though Averel Spencer had never been born.
5. That we ought not to relate a purely natural case in the Scripture terms that express our Lord’s miracles; that low and common things are generally improper to be told in Scripture phrase; that scriptural words which are obsolete, or which have changed their signification, are not to be used familiarly, as neither those technical terms which were peculiar to the controversies of those days; I can easily apprehend. But I cannot apprehend that “salvation” or “justification” is a term of this sort; and much less that “faith” and “works,” or “spirit” and “flesh,” are synonymous terms with “Christianity” and “Judaism.” I know this has frequently been affirmed; but I do not know that it has been proved.
6. However, you think there is no occasion now for the expressions used in ancient times; since the persuasions which were common then are now scarcely to be found. For “does any Church-of-England man,” you ask, “maintain anything like this, that men may commute external works, instead of internal holiness?” Most surely: I doubt whether every Church-of-England man in the nation, yea, every Protestant (as well as Papist) in Europe, who is not deeply sensible that he did so once, does not do so to this day.
I am one who, for twenty years, used outward works, not only as “acts of goodness;” but as commutations, (though I did not indeed profess this,) instead of inward holiness. I knew I was not holy. But I quieted my conscience by doing such and such outward works; and therefore I hoped I should go to heaven, even without inward holiness. Nor did I ever speak close to one who had the form of godliness without the power, but I found he had split on the same rock.
Abundance of people I have likewise known, and many I do know at this day, who “are so grossly superstitious as to think devotion may be put upon God instead of honesty;” as to fancy, going to church and sacrament will bring them to heaven, though they practice neither justice nor mercy. These are the men who make Christianity vile, who, above all others, “contribute to the growth of infidelity.” On the contrary, the speaking of faith working by love, of uniform, outward religion, springing from inward, has already been the means of converting several Deists, and one Atheist, (if not more,) into real Christians.
7. “Infallible testimony” was your word, not mine: I never use it; I do not like it. But I did not object to your using that phrase, because I would not fight about words. If, then, the question be repeated, “In what sense is that attestation of the Spirit infallible?” any one has my free leave to answer, In no sense at all. And yet, though I allow that some may fancy they have it, when in truth they have it not; I cannot allow that any fancy they have it not, at the time when they really have. I know no instance of this. When they have this faith, they cannot possibly doubt of their having it; although it is very possible, when they have it not, they may doubt whether ever they had it or no. This was Hannah Richardson’s case; and it is, more or less, the case with many of the children of God. That logical evidence, that we are the children of God, I do not either exclude or despise. But it is far different from the direct witness of the Spirit; of which, I believe, St. Paul speaks in his Epistle to the Romans; and which, I doubt not, is given to many thousand souls who never saw my face. But I spoke only of those I personally knew, concerning whom, indeed, I find my transcriber has made a violent mistake, writing 13,000, instead of 1,300: I might add, those whom I also have known by their writings. But I cannot lay so much stress on their evidence. I cannot have so full and certain a knowledge of a writer, as of one I talk with face to face; and therefore I think the experiences of this kind are not to be compared with those of the other.
One, indeed, of this kind I was reading yesterday, which is exceeding clear and strong. You will easily pardon my transcribing part of his words. They are in St. Austin’s Confessions: Intravi in intima mea, duce te: Et potui, quoniam; factus es adjutor meus. Intravi et vidi qualicunque oculo animae meae, supra eundem oculum animae meae, supra mentem meam, lucem Domini incommutabilem: Non hanc vulgarem, conspicuam,omni carni; nec,quasi ex eodem genere grandior erat, — non hoc illa erat, sed aliud; aliud valde ab istis omnibus. Nec ita erat supra mentem meam, sicut coelum super terram. Sed superior quia ipsa fecit me. Qui novit veritatem, novit eam. Et qui novit eam, novit aeternitatem. Charitas novit eam. O aeterna Veritas! Tu es Deus meus! Tibi suspiro die ac nocte. Et cum te primum cognovi, tu assumpsisti me, ut viderem esse quod viderem. — Et reverberâsti infirmitatem aspectus mei, radians in me vehementer; et contremui amore et, horrore: Et inveni, me longe esse a te. — Et dixi, Nunquid nihil est veritas? Et clamâsti de longinquo: Immo vero; Ego sum, qui sum. Et audivi, sicut auditur in corde, et non erat prorsus unde dubitarem. Faciliusque dubitarem vivere me, quam non esse veritatem. 14 (Lib. 7, cap. 10.)
9. From many such passages as these, which I have occasionally read, as well as from what I have myself seen and known, I am induced to believe that God’s ordinary way of converting sinners to himself is, by “suddenly inspiring them with an immediate testimony of his love, easily distinguishable from fancy.” I am assured that he hath wrought in all I have known, (except, perhaps, three or four persons,) of whom I have reasonable ground to believe that they are really turned from the power of Satan to God.
10. With regard to the definition of faith, if you allow, that it is such “an inward conviction of things invisible, as is the gift of God in the same sense wherein hope and charity are,” I have little to object; or, that it is “such an assent to all Christian truths as is productive of all Christian practice.” In terming either faith, or hope, or love supernatural, I only mean that they are not the effect of any or all of our natural faculties, but are wrought in us (be it swiftly or slowly) by the Spirit of God. But I would rather say, Faith is “productive of all Christian holiness,” than “of all Christian practice;” because men are so exceeding, apt to rest in practice, so called; I mean, in outside religion; whereas true religion is eminently seated in the heart, renewed in the image of Him that created us.
11. I have not found, in any of the writers you mention, a solution of many difficulties that occur on the head of predestination. And, to speak without reserve, when I compare the writings of their most celebrated successors, with those of Dr. Barrow and his contemporaries, I am amazed: The latter seem to be mere children compared with the former writers; and to throw out such frothy, unconnected trifles, such indigested crudities, as a man of learning, fourscore or a hundred years ago, would have been ashamed to set his name to.
12. Concerning the instantaneous and the gradual work, what I still affirm is this: That I know hundreds of persons, whose hearts were one moment filled with fear, and sorrow, and pain, and the next with peace and joy in believing, yea, joy unspeakable, full of glory; that the same moment they experienced such a love of God, and so fervent a goodwill to all mankind, (attended with power over all sin,) as till then they were wholly unacquainted with; that nevertheless the peace and love thus sown in their hearts, received afterward a gradual increase; and that to this subsequent increase the scriptures you mention do manifestly refer. Now, I cannot see that there is any quibbling at all in this. No; it is a plain, fair answer to the objection.
Neither can I apprehend that I have given an evasive answer to any adversary whatever. I am sure I do not desire to do it; for I want us to understand each other. The sooner the better: Therefore let us, as you propose, return to the main point.
“The charge is,” your words are, “that the Methodists preach sundry singular and erroneous doctrines; in particular three, — unconditional predestination, perceptible inspiration, and sinless perfection. ‘They set up,’ say their adversaries, ‘their own schemes and notions as the great standard of Christianity, so as to perplex, unhinge, terrify, and distract the minds of multitudes, by persuading them that they cannot be true Christians but by adhering to their doctrines.’ This is the charge. Now you ask, ‘What do you mean by their own schemes, their own notions, their own doctrines?’ It is plain, we mean their unconditional predestination, their perceptible inspiration, and their sinless perfection.” The charge then is, that the Methodists preach unconditional predestination, perceptible inspiration, and sinless perfection. But what a charge! Shall John Wesley be indicted for murder, because George Whitefield killed a man? Or shall George Whitefield be charged with felony, because John Wesley broke a house? How monstrous is this! How dissonant from all the rules of common sense and common honesty! Let every man bear his own burden. If George Whitefield killed a man, or taught predestination, John Wesley did not: What has this charge to do with him? And if John Wesley broke a house, or preached sinless perfection, let him answer for himself George Whitefield did neither: Why then is his name put into this indictment?
Hence appears the inexcusable injustice of what might otherwise appear a trifle. When I urge a man in this manner, he could have no plea at all, were he not to reply “Why, they are both Methodists.” So when he has linked them together by one nickname, he may hang either instead of the other. But sure this will not be allowed by reasonable men. And if not, what have I to do with predestination? Absolutely nothing: Therefore set that aside. Yea, and sinless perfection too. “How so? Do not you believe it?” Yes, I do; and in what sense, I have shown in the sermon on Christian Perfection. And if any man calls it an error, till he has answered that, I must say, “Sir, you beg the question.” But I preach, perhaps, twenty times, and say no more of this, than even a Calvinist would allow. Neither will I enter into any dispute about it, any more than about the millennium. Therefore the distinguishing doctrines on which I do insist in all my writings, and in all my preaching, will lie in a very narrow compass. You sum them all up in perceptible inspiration. For this I earnestly contend; and so do all who are called Methodist Preachers. But be pleased to observe what we mean thereby. We mean that inspiration of God’s Holy Spirit, whereby he fills us with righteousness, peace, and joy, with love to Him and to all mankind. And we believe it cannot be, in the nature of things, that a man should be filled with this peace, and joy, and love, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, without perceiving it as clearly as he does the light of the sun.
This is (so far as I understand them) the main doctrine of the Methodists. This is the substance of what we all preach. And I will still believe, none is a true Christian till he experiences it; and, consequently, “that people, at all hazards, must be convinced of this; yea, though that conviction at first unhinge them ever so much, though it should in a manner distract them for a season. For it is better that they should be perplexed and terrified now, than that they should sleep on and a wake in hell.”
I do not therefore, I will not, shift the question; though I know many who desire I should. I know the proposition I have to prove, and I will not move a hair’s breadth from it. It is this: “No man can be a true Christian without such an inspiration of the Holy Ghost as fills his heart with peace, and joy, and love; which he who perceives not, has it not.” This is the point for which alone I contend; and this I take to be the very foundation of Christianity.
14. The answer, therefore, which you think we ought to give, is that which we do give to the charge of our adversaries:” Our singularities (if you will style them so) are fundamental, and of the essence of Christianity;” therefore we must “preach them with such diligence and zeal as if the whole of Christianity depended upon them.”
15. It would doubtless be wrong to insist thus on these things if they were “not necessary to final salvation:” But we believe they are; unless in the case of invincible ignorance. In this case, undoubtedly many thousands are saved who never heard of these doctrines: And I an inclined to think, this was our own case, both at Oxford and for some time after. Yet I doubt not but had we been called hence, God would first, by this inspiration of his Spirit, have wrought; in our hearts that holy love without which none can enter into glory.
16. I was aware of the seeming contradiction you mention at the very time when I wrote the sentence. But it is only a seeming one: For it is true, that from May 24, 1738, “wherever I was desired to preach, salvation by faith
was my only theme;” — that is, such a love of God and man, as produces all inward and outward holiness, and springs from a conviction, wrought in us by the Holy Ghost, of the pardoning love of God: And that when I was told, “You must preach no more in this church,” it was commonly added, “because you preach such doctrine!” And it is equally true, that “it was for preaching the love of God and man, that several of the Clergy forbade me their pulpits” before that times before May 24, before I either preached or knew salvation by faith.
17. We are at length come to the real state of the question, between the Methodists (so called) and their opponents. “Is there perceptible inspiration, or is there not? Is there such a thing (if we divide the question into its parts) as faith producing peace, and joy, and love, and inward (as well as outward) holiness? Is that faith which is productive of these fruits wrought in us by the Holy Ghost, or not? And is he in whom they are wrought necessarily conscious of them, or is he not?” These are the points on which I am ready to join issue with any serious and candid man. Such I believe you to be. If, therefore, I knew on which of those you desired my thoughts, I would give you them freely, such as they are; or (if you desire it) on any collateral question. The best light I have, I am ready to impart; and am ready to receive farther light from you. My time, indeed, is so short, that I cannot answer your letters so particularly, or so correctly, as I would. But I am persuaded you will excuse many defects where you believe the design is good. I want to know what, as yet, I know not. May God teach it me by you, or by whom he pleaseth! “Search me, O Lord, and prove me I Try out my reins and my heart! Look well if there be error or wickedness in me; and lead me in the way ever lasting!” January 3, 1745-6.
XL. — To the Same.
SIR, LONDON, June 25, 1746.
AT length I have the opportunity, which I have long desired, of answering the letter you favored me with some time since. O that God may still give us to bear with each other, and to speak what we believe is the truth in love!
1. I detest all zeal which is any other than the flame of love. Yet I find it is not easy to avoid it. It is not easy (at least to me) to be “always zealously affected in a good thing,” without being sometimes so affected in things of an indifferent nature. Nor do I find it always easy to proportion my zeal to the importance of the occasion; and to temper it duly with prudence, according to the various and complicated circumstances that occur. I sincerely thank you for endeavoring to assist me herein, to guard me from running into excess. I am always in danger of this, and yet I daily experience a far greater danger of the other extreme. To this day, I have abundantly more temptation to lukewarmness than to impetuosity; to be a saunterer inter sylvas Academicas, 15 a philosophical sluggard, than an itinerant Preacher. And, in fact, what I now do is so exceeding little, compared with what I am convinced I ought to do, that I am often ashamed before God, and know not how to lift up mine eyes to the height of heaven!
2. But may not love itself constrain us to lay before men “the terrors of the Lord?” And is it not better that sinners “should be terrified now, than that they should sleep on, and awake in hell?” I have known exceeding happy effects of this, even upon men of strong understanding; yet I agree with you, that there is little good to be done by “the profuse throwing about hell and damnation;” and the best way of deciding the points in question with us is, cool and friendly argumentation.
I agree, too, “That scheme of religion bids fairest for the true, which breathes the most extensive charity.” Touching the charity due to those who are in error, I suppose, we both likewise agree, that really invincible ignorance never did, nor ever shall, exclude any man firm heaven. And hence, I doubt not, but God will receive thousands of those who differ from me, even where I hold the truth. But still, I cannot believe He will receive any man into glory (I speak of those under the Christian dispensation) “without such an inspiration of the Holy Ghost as fills his heart with peace, and joy, and love.”
3. In this Mr. Whitefield and I agree; but in other points we widely differ. And therefore I still apprehend it is inexcusably unjust to link us together, whether we will or no. For by this means each is constrained to bear, not only his own, but another’s, burden. Accordingly, I have been accused a hundred times of holding unconditional predestination. And no wonder: For wherever this charge is advanced, — “The Methodists preach sundry erroneous doctrines; in particular three, unconditional predestination, perceptible inspiration, and sinless perfection, “the bulk of mankind will naturally suppose, that the Methodists in general hold these three doctrines. It will follow, that if any of these afterwards hears, “Mr. Wesley is a Methodist,” he will conclude, “Then he preaches unconditional predestination, perceptible inspiration, and sinless perfection.” And thus one man is made accountable (by others, if not by you) for all the errors and faults of another.
4. The case of many who subscribe to the eleventh and following Articles, I cannot yet think, is exactly the same with the case of Mr. Whitefield and me subscribing the Seventeenth. For each of us can truly say, “I subscribe this Article in that which I believe from my heart is its plain, grammatical meaning.” Twenty years ago, I subscribed the Fifteenth Article likewise, in its plain, unforced, grammatical meaning. And whatever I do not now believe in this sense, I will on no terms subscribe at all.
5. I speak variously, doubtless, on various occasions; but I hope not inconsistently. Concerning the seeming inconsistency which you mention, permit me to observe, briefly,
(1.) That I have seen many things which I believe were miraculous; yet I desire none to believe my words, any further than they are confirmed by Scripture and reason. And thus far I disclaim miracles.
(2.) That I believe, “he that marrieth doeth well; but he that doth not, (being a believer,) doeth better.” However, I have doubts concerning the tract on this head, which I have not yet leisure to weigh thoroughly.
(3.) That a newly justified person has, at once, in that hour, power over all sin; and finds from that hour the work of God in his soul slowly and gradually increasing. And, lastly, that many, who, while they have faith, cannot doubt, do afterwards doubt whether they ever had it or no. Yea, many receive from the Holy Ghost an attestation of their acceptance, as perceptible as the sun at noon day; and yet those same persons, at other times, doubt whether they ever had any such attestation; nay, perhaps more than; doubt, perhaps wholly deny, all that God has ever done for their souls; inasmuch as, in “this hour and power of darkness,” they cannot believe they ever saw light.
6. I think St. Austin’s description of his own case (whether it prove anything more or less) greatly illustrates that light, that assurance of faith, whereof we are now speaking. He does not appear in writing this confession to God, to have had any adversary in view, nor to use any rhetorical heightening at all; but to express the naked experience of his heart, and that in as plain and unmetaphorical words as the nature of the thing would bear.
7. I believe firmly, and that in the most literal sense, that “without God we can do nothing;” that we cannot think, or speak, or move a hand or an eye, without the concurrence of the divine energy; and that all our natural faculties are God’s gift, nor can the meanest be exerted without the assistance of his Spirit. What then do I mean by saying that faith, hope, and love are not the effect of any, or all, our natural faculties? I mean this: That supposing a man to be now void of faith, and hope, and love, he cannot effect my degree of them in himself by any possible exertion of his understanding, and of any or all his other natural faculties, though he should enjoy them in the utmost perfection. A distinct power from God, not implied in any of these, is indispensably necessary, before it is possible he should arrive at the very lowest degree of Christian faith, or hope, or love. In order to his having any of these, (which, on this very consideration, I suppose St. Paul terms the “fruits of the Spirit,”) he must be created anew, thoroughly and inwardly changed by the operation of the Spirit of God; by a power equivalent to that which raises the dead, and which calls the things which are not as though they were.
8. The “living soberly, righteously, and godly” in this present world, or the uniform practice of universal piety, presupposes some degree of these “fruits of the Spirit,” nor can possibly subsist without them. I never said men were too apt to rest on this practice. But I still say, I know abundance of men, who quiet their conscience without either faith or love, by the practice of a few outward works; and this keeps them as easy and contented, though they are without hope and without God in the world, as either the doctrine of irresistible decrees could do, or any theory whatsoever.
Now, what is this but using, outward works as commutations for inward holiness? For,
(1.) These men love not inward holiness; they love the world; they love money; they love pleasure or praise: Therefore, the love of God is not ill them; nor, consequently, the Christian love of their neighbor. Yet,
(2.) They are in nowise convinced that they are in the broad way which leads to destruction. They sleep on, and take their rest. They say, “Peace, peace,” to their soul, though there is no peace. But on what pretense? Why, on this very ground, because,
(3.) They do such and such outward works; they go to church, and perhaps to the Lord’s table; they use, in some sort, private prayer; they give alms; and therefore they imagine themselves to be in the high road to heaven. Though they have not “the mind that was in Christ,” yet they doubt not but all is safe, because they do thus and thus, because their lives are not as other men’s are. This is what I mean by using outward works as commutations for inward holiness. I find more and more instances everyday of this miserable self deceit. The thing is plain and clear. But if you dislike the phrase, we will drop it, and use another.
Nearly allied to this is the “gross superstition of those who think to put devotion upon God, instead of honesty.” I mean, who practice neither justice nor mercy, and yet hope to go to heaven because they go to church and sacrament. Can you find no such men in the Church of England? I find them in every street. Nine times in ten, when I have told a tradesman, “You have cheated me; sold me this for more than it is worth, which I think is a breach both of justice and mercy. Are you a Christian?” Do you hope to go to heaven?” his answer, if he deigned any answer at all, has been to this effect: “As good a Christian as yourself! ‘Go to heaven!’ Yes, sure; for I keep my church as well as any man.”
Now, what can be plainer, than that this man keeps his Church, not only as an act of goodness, but as a commutation instead of goodness; as something which he hopes will do as well, will bring him to heaven, without either justice or mercy? Perhaps, indeed, if he fell into adultery or murder, it might awaken him out of his dream, and convince him, as well as his neighbors, that this worship is not a mitigation, but an aggravation, of his wickedness: But nothing short of this will. In spite of all your reasoning and mine, he will persist in thinking himself a good Christian, and that if his “brother have aught against him,” yet all will be well, so he do but constantly “bring his gift to the altar.”
I entreat you, Sir, to make the experiment yourself; to talk freely with any that come in your way. And you will surely find it is the very thing which almost destroys the (so called) Christian world. Every nominal Christian has some bit or scrap of outward religion, either negative or positive: Either he does not do, in some respect, like other men, or he does something more than they. And by this, however freely he may condemn others, he takes care to excuse himself; and stifles whatever convictions he might otherwise have, “that the wrath of God abideth on him.” After a few impartial inquiries of this kind, I am persuaded you will not say, “As a commutation, surely no Protestant ever did [receive the sacrament] but yourself.” Is there not something wrong in these words, on another account; as well as in those, “You should not treat others as the children of the devil, for taking the same liberty which you and Mr. Whitefield take, who continue, notwithstanding, to be the children of God? “Is there not in both these expressions (and perhaps in some others which are scattered up and down in your letters) something too keen? something that borders too much upon sarcasm? upon tartness, if not bitterness? Does not anything of this sort, either make the mind sore, or harden it against conviction? Does it not make us less able to bear plainness of speech? or at least less ready to improve by it? Give me leave to add one word more, before I proceed. I cannot but be jealous over you. I fear you do not know, near so well as you suppose even what passes in your own mind. I question not but you believe, that without inward holiness no man shall see the Lord; but are you sure you never once entertained a thought that something else might be put upon him in the stead? Perhaps not grossly, not if it appeared just in that shape: No, nor have I, for these twenty years. But I find the same thought to this day, stealing in continually, under a thousand different forms. I find a continual danger of stopping short of a full renewal in the image of God; a continual propensity to rest in whatever comes between; to put some work or other that I do, even for God’s sake, or some gift that I receive, in the stead of that great work of God, “the renewal of my soul after his likeness in righteousness and true holiness.”
9. One point of doctrine remains: “Is there any such thing as; perceptible inspiration or not?” I asserted, “There is;” but at the same time subjoined, “Be pleased to observe what we mean thereby: We mean, that inspiration of God’s Holy Spirit, whereby he fills us [every true believer] with righteousness, and peace, and joy; with love to him and all mankind. And we believe it cannot be, in the nature of things, that a man should be filled with this peace, and joy, and love, by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, without perceiving it as clearly as he does the light of the sun.” You reply, “You have now entirely shifted the question.” I think not. You objected, that I holden perceptible inspiration. I answered, “I do;” but observe in what sense; Otherwise I must recall my concession: I hold, God inspires every Christian with peace, joy, and love which are all perceptible. You reply, “The question is not, whether the fruits of Inspiration are perceptible, but whether the work of inspiration itself be so.” This was not my question; nor did I till now understand that it was yours. If I had, I should have returned a different answer, as I have elsewhere done already.
When one warmly object, near two years ago, “All reasonable Christians believe that the Holy Spirit works his graces in us in an imperceptible manner;” my answer was, “You are here disproving, as you suppose, a proposition of mine. But are you sure you understand it? By the operations [inspirations or workings] of the Spirit, I do not mean the manner in which he operates but the graces which he operates [inspires or works] in a Christian.”
If you ask, But do not you hold, “that Christian faith implies a direct, perceptible testimony of the Spirit, as distinguishable from the suggestion of fancy, as light it distinguishable from darkness; whereas we suppose he imperceptibly influences our minds?” I answer, I do hold this. I suppose that every Christian believer, over and above that imperceptible influence, hath a direct perceptible testimony of the Spirit, that he is a child of God. As I have little time, I must beg you to read and consider what I have already spoken upon this subject, in the First Part of the “Farther Appeal,” at the thirty eighth and following pages; 16 and then to let me know what kind of proof it is which you expect in a question of this nature, over and above that of Scripture, as interpreted by the writers of the earliest Christian church.
I have not studied the writings of the Quakers enough, (having read few of them beside Robert Barclay,) to say precisely what they mean by perceptible inspiration, and whether their account of it be right or wrong. And I am not curious to know; since between me and them there is a great gulf fixed. The sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s supper keep us at a wide distance from each other; insomuch that, according to the view of things I have now, I should as soon commence Deist as Quaker. I would just add, that I regard even faith itself, not as an end, but a means only. The end of the commandment is love, of every command, of the whole Christian dispensation. Let this love be attained, by whatever means, and I am content; I desire no more. All is well, if we love the Lord our God with all our heart, and our neighbor as ourselves.
10. I am aware of one inconvenience, in answering what you say touching the consequences of my, preaching. It will oblige me to speak what will try your temper beyond anything I have said yet. I could, indeed, avoid this by standing on my guard, and speaking with great reserve. But had you not rather that I should deal frankly with you, and tell you just what is in my heart?
I am the more inclined to do this, because the question before us is of so deep importance; insomuch that, were I convinced you had decided it right, there would be an end at once of my preaching. And it lies in a small compass, as you say, “I am not making conjectures of what may happen, but relating mischief’s which actually have happened.” These, then, “the mischief’s which have actually happened,” let us consider as calmly as possible.
But first we may set aside the “thousands whom (it is said) we should have had pretending a mission from God, to preach against the wickedness of the great, had not the rebels been driven back.” The rebels, blessed be God, are driven back. 17 So that mischief has not actually happened. We may wave, also, “the legion of monstrous errors and wickedness, the sedition, murder, and treason of the last century;” seeing, whatever may be hereafter, it is certain these mischief’s also have not yet actually happened. Nor have I anything to do with that poor madman, (I never heard of any more than one such,) who came some time since, “preaching in London streets against Prelacy” and Methodism; and “denouncing curses against George Whitefield, John Wesley, and all Bishops, Priests, and Deacons.” I was more nearly concerned in what has actually happened at Wednesbury, Darlaston, and Walsal. And these were “shameful disorders” indeed. Publish them not in Gath or Askelon! Concerning the occasion of which I may speak; more freely to you than it was proper to do to the public.
When I preached at Wednesbury first, Mr. Egginton (the Vicar) invited me to his house, and told me, that the oftener I came, the welcomer I should be; for I had done much good there already, and he doubted not but I should; do much more. But the next year I found him another man. He had not only heard a vehement visitation charge, but had been informed that are had publicly preached against drunkards, which must have been designed for satire on him. From this time, we found more and more effects of his unwearied labors, public and private, in stirring up the people on every side, “to drive these fellows out of the country.” One of his sermons I heard with my own ears. I pray God I may never hear such another! The Minister of Darlaston, and the Curate of Walsal, trod in the same steps. And these were they who (not undesignedly) occasioned all the disorders which followed there.
You add: “In countries which you have not much frequented, there have appeared Antinomian Preachers, presenting your disciples.” These have appeared most in countries I never frequented at all, as in the West of Lancashire, in Dorsetshire, and in Ireland. When I came, they disappeared, and were seen do more there; at least, not presenting our disciples. And yet, by all I can learn, even these poor wretches have done as little harm as good. I cannot learn that they have destroyed one soul that has before truly seeking salvation.
But you think, I myself “do a great deal of harm, by breaking and setting aside order. For, order once ever so little set aside, confusion rushes in like a torrent.”
What do you mean by order? a plan of church discipline? What plan? the scriptural, the primitive, or our own? It is in the last sense of the word that I have been generally charged with breaking or setting aside order; that is, the rules of our own Church, both by preaching in the fields, and by using extemporary prayer.
I have often replied,
(l.) It were better for me to die, than not to preach the Gospel of Christ; yea, and in the fields, either where I may not preach in the church, or where the church will not contain the congregation:
(2.) That I use the Service of the Church every Lord’s day; and it has never yet appeared to me, that any rule of the Church forbids my using extemporary prayer on other occasions.
But methinks I would go deeper. I would inquire, What is the end of all ecclesiastical order? Is it not to bring souls from the power of Satan to God; and to build them up in his fear and love? Order, then, is so far valuable, as fit answers these ends; and if it answers them not, it is nothing worth. Now, I would fain know, where has order answered these ends? Not in any place where I have been; not among the tinners in Cornwall, the keelmen at New castle, the colliers in Kingswood or Staffordshire; not among the drunkards, swearers, Sabbath breakers of Moorfields, or the harlots of Drury lane. They could not be built up in the fear and love of God, while they were open, barefaced servants of the devil; and such they continued, notwithstanding the most orderly preaching both in St. Luke’s and St. Giles’s church. One reason whereof was, they never came near the church; nor had any desire or design so to do, till, by what you term “breach of order,” they were brought to fear God, to love him, and keep his commandments.
It was not, therefore, so much the want of order, as of the knowledge and love of God, which kept those poor souls for so many years in open bondage to a hard master. And, indeed, wherever the knowledge and love of God are, true border will not be wanting. But the most apostolical order, where these are not, is less than nothing and vanity.
But you say, “Strict order once set aside, confusion rushes in like a torrent.” It has been so far from rushing in where we have preached most, that the very reverse is true. Surely, never was “confusion worse confounded,” than [it] was a few years since in the forest of Kingswood. But how has it been since the word of God was preached there, even in this disorderly manner?
Confusion heard his voice; and wild uproar
Stood ruled; and order from disorder sprung.
O Sir, be not carried away with the torrent; the clamor either of the great vulgar, or the small! Re-examine your very first; notions of these things; and then review that sentence, “The devil makes use of your honest zeal, to his dishonest and diabolical purposes. He well knows, you do him more service by breach of order, than dis-service by all your laborious industry.” I hope not,
(1.) Because I bring the very order you contend for into places where it never was before: And,
(2.) Because I bring (yet not I, but the grace of God) that knowledge and love of God also, in conjunction wherewith order is of great price, but without them a worthless shadow.
I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give yon an inheritance among all them which are sanctified, by faith that is in him.
XLI. — To the Same.
SIR, NEWCASTLE, March 25, 1747.
1. IN your last, I do not find much reason to complain either of tartness or bitterness. But is it so serious as the cause requires? If it be asked, — Ridentem dicere verum
Quis vetat?
18
I think the nature of the things whereof we speak should forbid it. For surely, it is a very serious concern, whether we dwell in the eternal glory of God or in the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
2. If those who subscribe the Eleventh and following Articles do subscribe in what they believe from, their hearts to be the plain, unforced, grammatical meaning of the words, then they are clear before God. I trust you can answer for yourself herein; but you cannot for all our brethren.
3. I am glad that our dispute concerning commutations in religion proves to be “entirely verbal:” As we both agree,
(1.) That abundance of those who bear the name of Christians put a part of religion for the whole; generally some outward work or form of worship:
(2.) That whatever is thus put for the whole of religion, (in particular, where it is used to supersede or commute for the religion of the heart,) it is no longer a part of it, it is gross irreligion, it is mere mockery of God.
4. When you warned me against “excess of zeal,” I did not say, this was not my weak side; that it was not one weakness to which I am exposed. My words were: “I am always in danger of this; and yet I daily experience a far greater danger of the other extreme.” I do. I am, to this day, ashamed before God, that I do so little to what I ought to do. But this you call “overdone humility,” and suppose it to be inconsistent with what occurs in the ninety third and ninety fourth paragraphs of the “Earnest Appeal.” I believe it is not at all inconsistent there with; only one expression there is too strong, — “all his time and strength;” — for this very cause, “I am ashamed before God.” I do not spend all my time so profitably as I might, nor all my strength; at least, not all I might have, if it were not for my own lukewarmness and remissness; if I wrestled with God in constant and fervent prayer.
You mention four other instances of self contradiction. The first:
(1.) “You claim and you disclaim miracles. You claim them, as having seen many miraculous attestations to your ministry. You disclaim them, desiring none to believe your words further than they are confirmed by Scripture and reason;” that is, you claim them in one sense, and disclaim them in another. Perhaps so; but this is no contradiction.
(2.) “You are not at leisure yet, either to permit or forbids to marry.” Indeed I am. Although I commend those who are as “eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake;” yet I know “all men cannot receive this saying,” and that “it is better to marry than to burn.”
(3.) “The newly justified has at once, in that hour, power over all sin, and finds, from that hour, the work of God in the soul slowly and gradually increasing. What, until he has power over more than all sin?” No; but until he has more power over all sin; the struggle between the flesh and the Spirit gradually decreasing; and till he has more peace, more joy in the Holy Ghost, more of the knowledge and love of God.
(4.) “But surely, the tip top of all inconsistencies is what follows, even as explained in your own way: Many receive from the Holy Ghost an attestation of their acceptances as perceptible as the sun at noon day; and yet these same persons, at other times, doubt or deny that they ever had such attestation.”
The fact stands thus:
(1.) A man feels in himself the testimony of God’s Spirit, that he is a child of God; and he can then no more deny or doubt thereof, than of the shining of the sun at noon day.
(2.) After a time, this testimony is withdrawn.
(3.) He begins to reason within himself concerning it; next, to doubt whether that testimony was from God; and, perhaps, in the end, to deny that it was. And yet he may be, all this times in every other respect, “of sound memory as well as understanding.” Now, whether these propositions are true or false, they are not contradictory to each other. They cannot, unless it were affirmed, that the same person has and has not the same testimony at the same time.
5. However, you think I assert a thing impossible. What is impossible? that the Spirit of God should bear a clear, perceptible witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God? Surely no! Whether this he the fact or not, no man of reason will say it is impossible. Or that the Spirit of God should cease to bear this witness? Neither can the possibility of this be denied. The thing, then, which is supposed impossible is this, that a man who once had it should ever doubt, whether he had it or no; that is, (as you subjoin,) “if he continue sound in mind” (or understanding) “and memory.” Right! “If he continue:” But the very supposition is, that, in this respect, he does not continue so. While he did so continue, he could not doubt. But his understanding is now darkened, and the very traces of that divine work well-nigh erased out of his memory. Nor can I think, “it is vain to have recourse here to the energeia of the power of darkness.” I verily believe, as it was the God of heaven who once shone in his heart, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God; so it is the God of this world who hath now blinded his heart, so that the glorious light cannot shine upon it.
6. If the Quakers hold the same perceptible inspiration with me, I am glad; and it is neither better nor worse for their holding it: Although, if I “distinguish it away,” I do not hold it at all. But do I distinguish it away? or any point which I believe to be the truth of God? I am not conscious of this. But when men tack absurdities to the truth of God with which it hath nothing to do, I distinguish away those absurdities, and let the truth remain in its native purity.
It was several months before my correspondence with you, that I thus distinguished away perceptible inspiration; declaring to all men, “by ‘perceiving’ or ‘feeling the operations of the Spirit,’ I mean, being inwardly conscious of them.” “By ‘the operations of the Spirit,’ I do not mean the ‘manner’ in which he operates in a Christian.”
This I mentioned in my last. But it is certain, over and above those other graces which the Holy Spirit inspires into, or operates in, a Christian, and over and above his imperceptible influences; I do intend all mankind should understand me to assert, (what I therefore express in the clearest language I am master of,) every Christian believer hath a perceptible testimony of the Spirit, that he is a child of God. I use the phrase, “testimony of the Spirit,” rather than “inspiration,” because it has a more determinate meaning. And I desire men to know what I mean, and what I do not; that I may not fight as one that beateth the air.
7. Is there “not one word said of this, either in the ‘Farther Appeal,’ or in any one place in the Bible?” I think there is in the Bible; in the sixteenth verse of the eighth chapter to the Romans. And is not this very place proved to describe the ordinary privilege of every Christian believer in the “Farther Appeal,” from the forty fifth to the forty ninth, and from the fifty sixth to the fifty ninth page? 19
Give me leave to remind you of some of the words. In the forty ninth page the argument concludes thus: “It will follow, that this witness of the Spirit is the private testimony given to our own consciences, which, consequently, all sober Christians may claim, without any danger of enthusiasm.” In the fifty seventh page are these words: “Every one that is born of God, and doth not commit sin, by his very actions, saith, ‘Our Father which art in heaven;’ the Spirit itself bearing witness with their spirit, that they are the children of God. According to Origin, therefore, this testimony of the Spirit is not any public testimony by miracles, but an inward testimony belonging in common to all that are born of God” Once more: In the fifty eighth page are these words: “He brings yet another proof of the superiority of those who had this Spirit of adoption: ‘The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.’ ‘I prove this,’ says he, ‘not only from the voice itself, but also from the cause whence that voice proceeds. For the Spirit suggests the words while we thus speak, which he hath elsewhere expressed more plainly, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father! But what is, The Spirit beareth witness with our spirit?’ He means the Paraclete by the gift given unto us.” (But that this was an extraordinary gift, we hare no intimation at all neither before nor after.) “And when the Spirit beareth witness, what doubt is left? If a man or an angel spake, some might doubt; but when the Most High beareth witness to us, who can doubt any longer?”
I am mistaken if this does not come home to the point, to the question now before us; describing a perceptible testimony of the Holy Ghost, “directly felt to be worked by himself.”
8. But I will wave all authorities, that of Origin and Chrysostom, as well as of Hannah Richardson (though not a weak woman, but eminently the reverse) and Averel Spencer (though not a wicked one); only observing, that your argument proves too much. I am as fully assured today) as I am of the shining of the sun, that the Scriptures are of God. I cannot possibly deny or doubt of it now; yet I may doubt of it tomorrow; as I have done heretofore a thousand times, and that after the fullest assurance preceding. Now, if this be “a demonstration that my former assurance was a mere fancy,” then farewell all revelation at once!
But to come closer yet, and weigh the point in debate in the balance of plain reason: You must allow there is a testimony of the Spirit with our spirit, that we are the children of God. “But,” you say, “it is not a perceptible one.” How is this? Let us examine it thoroughly. It is allowed, (l.) The Spirit of God,
(2.) Bears testimony to my spirit,
(3.) That I am a child of God.
But I am not to perceive it. Not to perceive what? the first, second, or third particular? Am I not to perceive what is testified, — that I am a child of God? Then it is not testified at all. This is saying and unsaying in the same breath. Or am I not to perceive, that it is testified to my spirit? Yea, but I must perceive what passes in my own soul. Or, lastly, am I to perceive that I am a child of God, and that this is testified to my spirit; but not to perceive who it is that testifies, not to know it is the Spirit of God? O Sir, if there really be a man in the world who hath this testimony in himself, can it be supposed that he does not know who it is that testifies? who it is that speaks to his heart? that speaks in his inmost soul as never man spake? If he does not, he is ignorant of the whole affair. If you are in this state, I pray God you may say from the heart “Lord, what I know not, teach thou me.” How much better were this, than to canonize your own ignorance, as the only knowledge and wisdom; and to condemn all the generation of God’s children of “idiotism and madness!”
9. Under your last head, you do not confine yourself now within the bounds you at first proposed; when you said, “I am not making conjectures of what may happen, but relating,, mischief’s which actually have happened.” Take care you do not grow warm when I reply to this: You will have need of all your patience to bear it.
You begin: “Will you ask what I mean by ‘order?’ Was it not manifest I meant to speak against lay preaching?” It was: But not against that alone. There fore, before I entered upon the question, I defined the term in a wider sense, so as to include both this and every irregularity you had objected. You go on: “How could you give so strange an answer, ‘I bring this order you contend for into places where it never was before?’” I reply, This is not my whole answer; it is but one, and that the most inconsiderable, part of it: But it is strictly true. “Do you then bring in the ministry of regularly ordained Ministers, where, before, people were used to the preaching of lay brethren?” Yes; them who were before used to no preaching at all, or to that of those whom you would term lay brethren, I bring to attend on the ministry of those regular Preachers who have the charge of their several parishes
But very “ill consequences” of our irregular preaching, you say, have “actually happened: A number of unsent persons going about the kingdom, and preaching the worst of heresies.” “A number!” Where? Within these nine years past, I have heard of two, and no more, (besides that lunatic Clergyman,) who have gone about thus, though I doubt sent neither of God nor man. But I have heard of no heresy which they preached; only a little smooth, undigested nonsense. Nor can the ill done by these balance the thousandth part of the good already done by the preaching of other laymen; namely, the turning so many bold, barefaced servants of the devil, into humble, holy servants of God.
However, evil “will happen if any State faction shall join the irregulars.” If they shall! Yea, if they shall attempt; it, (which is far enough off,) the irregulars will not join them. We bless God that the Government is at present very fully convinced of this.
“But if unsent, well meaning laymen may preach, unsent: ill meaning laymen will, upon the first opportunity, spread sedition like wildfire.” Yea, and Clergymen as well as laymen, sent as well as unsent. Thus it ever was, and I presume ever will be.
10. That “the irregularities of Mr. Cartwright did more harm in the course of a century, than all the labors of his life did good,” is by no means plain to me: And the less so, because I cannot learn from Mr. Strype, or any other impartial writer, (whatever his mistakes in judgment were,) that he fell into any irregularities at all. I look upon him and the body of Puritans in that age, (to whom the German Anabaptists bore small resemblance,) to have been both the most learned and most pious men that were then in the English nation. Nor did they separate from the Church; but were driven out, whether they would or no. The vengeance of God which fell on the posterity of their persecutors, I think, is no imputation on Mr. Cartwright or them; but a wonderful scene of divine Providence, visiting the sins of the fathers upon their children, (when they also, had filled up the measure of their iniquities,) unto the third and fourth generation. I am not careful for what may be a hundred years hence he who governed the world before I was born, shall take care of it likewise when I am dead. My part is to improve the present moment. And, whatever may be the fruits of lay preaching, when you and I are gone to our long home, every serious man has cause to bless God for those he may now see with his eyes; for the saving so many souls from death, and hiding a multitude of sins. The instances glare in the face of the sun. Many indeed God hath taken to himself; but many more remain, both young and old, who would fear God and work righteousness.
11. Perhaps a parallel drawn from physic may hold more exactly than you was apprised of. For more than twenty years I have had numberless proofs that regular Physicians do exceeding little good. From a deep conviction of this, I have believed it my duty, within these four months last past, to prescribe such medicines to six or seven hundred of the poor as I knew were proper for their several disorders. Within six weeks, nine in ten of then who had taken these medicines were remarkably altered for the better; and many were cured of diseases under which they had labored for ten, twenty, forty years. Now, ought I to have let one of these poor wretches perish, because I was not a regular Physician? to have said, “I know what will cure you: But I am not; of the College: You must send for Dr. Mead?” Before Dr. Mead had come in his chariot, the man might have been in his coffin. And when the Doctor was come, where was his fee? What! he cannot live upon nothing So, instead of an orderly cure, the patient dies; and Gods requires his blood at my hands!
12. But you think “if one should look out of his grave in! the middle of the next century, he would find the orderly preaching at St. Luke’s and St. Giles’s church had done more good than the disorderly preaching at Kennington.” I cannot learn by all the inquiries I have made, that at present it does any good at all; that either Dr. B. or Dr. G has, in all these years, converted one sinner to God. And if a man saves no souls while he is alive, I fear he will save few after he is dead.
But “it does abundance less harm.” Perhaps not so, neither. “He that gathereth not with me scattereth;” more especially if he be a Preacher. He must scatter from Him, if he does not gather souls to God. Therefore, a lifeless, unconverting Minister is the murderer general of his parish. He enters not into the kingdom of heaven himself and those that would enter in he suffers not. He stands in the gap between them and true religion. Because he has it not, they are easy without it. Dead form contents him, and why not them? “Sure, it is enough if we go as far as our guide!” And if he is not outwardly vicious, he the wore effectually secures them from all inward, solid virtue. How choice a factor for hell is this! destroying more souls than any Deist in the kingdom! I could not have blamed St. Chrysostom, if he had only said, “Hell is paved with the skulls of such Christian Priests!”
13. I must be short on what remains. You suppose the impression made on men’s minds by this irregular way of preaching is chiefly owing to “the force of novelty.” I believe it was to obviate this very supposition, that my preaching has so rarely made any impression at all, till the novelty of it was over. When I had preached more than six score times at this town, I found scarce any effect; only that abundance of people heard, and gaped and stared, and went away much as they came. And it was one evening, while I was in doubt if I had not labored in vain, that such a blessing of God was given, as has continued ever since, and I trust will be remembered unto many generations.
You ascribe it likewise in part to “a natural knack of persuasion.” If either by a natural or an acquired power of persuasion I can prevail upon sinners to turn to God, am I to bury even that talent in the earth? “No; but try if you cannot do more good in a College or in a parish.” I have tried both, and I could not do any substantial good, either to my pupils or my parishioners. Among my parishioners in Lincolnshire, I tried for some years; but I am well assured I did far more good to them by preaching three days Son my father’s tomb, than I did by preaching three years in his pulpit.
But you “know no call I have to preach up and down; to play the part of an itinerant Evangelist.” Perhaps you do not. But I do: I know God hath required this at my hands. To me, his blessing my work is an abundant proof; although such a proof as often makes me tremble. But “is there not pride or vanity in my heart?” There is; yet this is not my motive to preaching. I know and feel that the spring of this is a deep conviction, that it is the will of God, and that were I to refrain, I should never hear that word, “Well done, good and faithful servant;” but, “Cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness, where is weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth.”
XLII. — To the Same.
SIR, ST. IVES, July 10, 1747.
l. YOU put me in mind of an eminent man, who, preaching at St. James’s, said, “If you do not repent, you will go to a place which I shall not name before this audience.” I cannot promise so much, either in preaching or writing, before any audience, or to any person whatever. Yet I am not conscious of doing this very often, — of “profusely flinging about everlasting fire;” though it is true, I mentioned it in my last letter to you, as I have done now, a second time; and perhaps I may mention it yet again. For; to say the truth, I desire to have both heaven and hell ever in my eye, while I stand on this isthmus of life, between these two, boundless oceans; and I verily think the daily consideration of both highly becomes all men of reason and religion.
2. I think likewise, (or I would not spend five words upon the head,) that these are nearly concerned in our present question. To touch only on one branch of it: If I live in willful sin, in a sinful” deviation from established order,” am I not in the way to hell? I cannot take it any otherwise. I cannot Help “blending these two inquiries together.” I must therefore speak seriously, or not at all; and yet, I trust, “without losing my temper.” Do you complain of this first, that I may not complain? It appears to me that you show more eagerness of spirit, more warmth and resentment, in your last than you ever have done from the beginning.
3. You spoke of “a number of unsent persons going about and preaching the worst of heresies.” I answered “Within these nine years I have heard of two, and no more, who have gone about thus, though I doubt neither sent of God nor man.” Their names were Jonathan Wildboar, and Thomas Smith, alias Moor, alias I know not what; for I fear he changed his name as often as his place. It is not unlikely that either of these might steal as well as lie, which they have done abundantly, particularly in claiming acquaintance with Mr. Whitefield or me, wherever they judged it would recommend them to their hearers. I should not be surprised to hear of two more such; but I have not yet, in all the counties I have gone through between London and Berwick-upon-Tweed, or between Deal and the Land’s End.
4. I would to God, all the Clergy throughout the land were “zealous for inward, solid virtue” But I dare not say one in ten of those I have known are so in any degree. The two Clergymen of this place, on a late public occasion, were led home at one or two in the morning in such a condition as I care not to describe. One of them is rector of Lelant also, (a parish east of St. Ives,) of Twidnack, to the South, and Zennor, to the West. At Zennor he keeps another assistant, and one who is just as sober as himself, and near as zealous, — not indeed for inward or outward virtue, but against these “scoundrels that pretend to preach in his parish.”
5. I never “attempted to deny” that the novelty of our manner of preaching his induced thousands and ten thousands to hear us, who would otherwise never have heard us at all, nor perhaps any other Preacher. But I utterly deny that “the effects wrought on many of them that heard were owing to novelty, and that only.” The particular effects wrought at Epworth were these: Many drunkards, many unjust and profane men, on whom both my father and I had for several years spent our strength in vain, from that time began to live, and continue so to do, a sober, righteous, and godly life. Now, I deny that this effect can be owing., to novelty, or to any principle but the power of God.
If it be asked, But were there not “the same hearers, the same Preachers, and the same God to influence, in the church, as on the tombstone?” I answer,
(1.) There were not all the same hearers in the church; not above one third of them.
(2.) There was the same Preacher in the church, but he did not then preach the same doctrine; and therefore,
(3.) Though there was the same God, there was not the same influence, or blessing from him.
6. The sum of what I offered before, concerning perceptible inspiration, was this: “Every Christian believer has a perceptible testimony of God’s Spirit, that he is a child of God.” You objected, that there was not one word said of this, either in the Bible, or in the “Appeal,” to which I referred. I replied, “I think there is in the Bible, in the sixteenth verse of the eighth chapter to the Romans. And in the ‘Farther Appeal,’ this place is proved to describe the ordinary privilege of every Christian believer.” This is there shown, both by Scripture; by reason, and by authority, particularly that of Origin and Chrysostom, whom his Lordship of Richfield had cited in his charge, as asserting just the contrary. But waving authorities, I reasoned thus. “You allow there is a testimony of the Spirit with our spirit, that we are the children of God. But you say, it is not a perceptible one. How is this? Let us examine it thoroughly. It is allowed,
(1.) The Spirit of God,
(2.) Bears testimony to my spirit,
(3.) That I am a child of God.
But I am not to perceive it. Not to perceive what? the first, second, or third particular? Am I not to perceive what is testified; that I am a child of God? Then it is not testified at all. This is saying and unsaying in the same breath. Or am I not to perceive, that it is testified to my spirit? Yea, but I must perceive what passes in my own son! Or, lastly, am I to perceive that I am a child of God, and that this is testified to my spirit, but not to perceive who it is that testifies? not to know it is the Spirit of God? O Sir, if there be really a man in the world who hath this testimony in himself, can it be supposed that he does not know who it is that testifies; who it is that speaks to his heart?”
7. Instead of giving a direct answer to this, you have recourse to the same supposition with his Lordship of Richfield and Coventry; namely, that there was once an inward, perceptible testimony of the Spirit, but that it was peculiar to the early ages of the church.
“There are three ways,” say you, “in which the Holy Spirit may be said to bear witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: (l.) By external, miraculous attestations.
(2.) By internal, plainly perceptible whispers.” (I must add, “not in words, at least not always, but by some kind of impressions equivalent thereto.”)
“(3.) By his standing testimony in the holy Scriptures.
The Apostles had all these three. Origen and Chrysostom, probably the two latter. But if St. Bernard, several hundred years after, pretended to any other than the third, his neighbors would naturally ask for proof, either that it should be so by Scripture, or that it was so by facts.” Well, then, let us suppose St. Bernard, and one of his neighbors, to be talking together on this subject. On St. Bernard’s saying, “The Spirit of God bears witness with my spirit, that I am A child of God;” his neighbor replies, “I suppose he does, but not by an inward, plainly perceptible testimony.” — “Yes, by an inward, plainly perceptible testimony. I now have this testimony ill myself; I plainly perceive that I am a child of God, and that it is his Spirit who testifies it to my spirit.” — “I fear you are somewhat enthusiastically given. I allow God’s standing testimony in the Scriptures; but I cannot allow that there is now any such thing as this inward testimony, unless you can either prove by Scripture that it should be so, or by facts that it is so.” — “Are not these words Scripture: ‘The Spirit itself beareth testimony with our spirit, that we are the children of God?’” — “Yes, but the question is how they are to be understood; for I deny that they speak of an inward testimony. They speak of the outward, standing testimony of God in the holy Scriptures.” — “You put a manifest force upon the text. You cannot prove that it speaks of any outward testimony at all. But the words immediately preceding prove to a demonstration, that it speaks of an inward testimony: ‘Ye have not received the spirit of bondage unto fear;’ (is not fear an inward thing?) ‘but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father!’ The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God, even the same Spirit which ‘God hath sent forth into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father!’” — “I do not deny that the Spirit bears witness with our spirit. But I deny your peculiar interpretation of this text. I deny that this text at all favors an inward, perceptible testimony.” — “The Spirit which God hath sent into my heart, and which now cries in my heart, ‘Abba, Father,’ now beareth testimony with my spirit, that I am a child of God. How can these words be interpreted at all but of an inward; perceptible: testimony?” — “I tell you, of God’s standing testimony in Scripture.” — “This is a palpable violence to the words. They no more speak of Scripture, than of miracles. They manifestly speak of what passes in the heart, the spirit, the inmost soul of a believer, and that only.”
8. But you would say, “Suppose this scripture to prove that it should be so, can you show by facts that it is so?” Not if you take it for granted, that every one who speaks of having this witness in himself is an enthusiast. You are then in no danger of proof from this quarter. You have a short answer to every fact which can be alleged.
But you turn the tables. You say it is I who allow that “many of God’s children do not continue in sound mind and memory.” I allowed, (l.) A man feels the testimony of God’s Spirit, and cannot then deny or doubt his being a child of God.
(2.) After a time this testimony is withdrawn: Not from every child of God; many retain the beginning of their confidence steadfast unto the end.
(3.) Then he may doubt whether that testimony was of God, and perhaps, at length, deny that it was; especially if his heart be hardened by the deceitfulness of his sin.
And yet he may be all this time, in every other respects of “sound memory as well as understanding.” In this respect I allowed he is not; that is, “his understanding is now darkened, and the very traces of that divine work well-nigh erased out of his memory.” So I expressly determined the sense wherein allowed “he does not; continue ill sound mind and memory.” But did I allow that even then he was non compos mentis — a madman, in the common sense? Nothing less: I allowed no more, than, the divine light being withdrawn, his mind was again dark as to the things of God; and that he had forgotten tou kaqarismou twn palai autou amartiwn, 20 (2 Peter 1:9,) well-nigh, as if it had never been.
9. But you say, “If variable facts be produced, today asserted, tomorrow denied” — Nay, the facts, whether asserted or denied, are still invariable. “But if they be ever doubted or denied, they never were plainly perceptible.” I cannot discern any force in that consequence: However, if they are afterward “denied, they are not from Him ‘in whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning,’” Neither is this consequence good. Though God is ever the same, man may either assert or deny his works. “The spirit of man, and his fancies or opinions, may vary; but God and his facts cannot.” Thus far they can and do: God does not now bear witness as he did before. And this variation of the fact makes way for a variation in the judgment of him who had that witness, but now hath it not. “You may be fully of opinion today, that the Scriptures are of God and doubt of this tomorrow. But what is this to the purpose?” Very much. I am as fully convinced today that the Scriptures are of God, as that the sun shines. And this conviction (as every good gift) cometh from the Father of lights. Yet I may doubt of it to morrow. I may throw away the good gift of God. “But we were speaking not of man’s opinions, but of God’s facts.” We were speaking of both; of man’s opinions, or judgment, concerning God’s facts. “But could he to whom Christ said, ‘Thy sins are forgiven thee’ ever doubt or deny that Christ said so?” I question not but in process of time he might; particularly if he drew back unto perdition. But however that be, it is no “blasphemous supposition,” but a plain, undeniable truth, that the God of this world can obliterate what the God of heaven has strongly imprinted upon the soul; yea, and that he surely will, unless we stir up the gift of God which is in us, by earnestly and continually watching unto prayer.
I presume, you do not deny that a believer, one who has the witness in himself, may make “shipwreck of the faith;” and, consequently, lose the witness (however it be explained) which he once had of his being a child of God. The darkness which then covers his soul again, I ascribe (in part) to the energy of Satan, who energei, — “worketh,” according to the Apostle, in the children of unbelief, whether they did once believe or no. And has he not much power even on the children of God? to disturb, though not to destroy? to throw fiery darts without number; especially against those who, as yet, are but weak in the faith? to inject doubts and fears? sometimes unbelieving, sometimes even blasphemous thoughts? And how frequently will they be wounded thereby, if they have not put on the whole armor of God!
10. You add: “If we reply, There are enthusiasts in the world, you can keep your temper no longer; and the only answer is, If we perceive not that witness in ourselves, we are ignorant of the whole affair, and doomed to the ‘everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.’” I said not so. I can keep my temper (blessed be God) if you call me an hundred enthusiasts; if you affirm, I am ten times more of an enthusiast than that poor Quaker probably was. The sharpest word I said, was, “If a man does not know who it is that testifies with his spirit he is a child of God, he is ignorant of the whole affair.” But I felt no anger when I said this. Nor do I now. Though I still think (because you say it yourself) that you are ignorant of this whole affair, of the inward testimony for which I contend. Yet am I far from dooming you to everlasting fire. What you know not, I trust God will reveal unto you. Least of all, was this my “only answer” to your supposition, “that this perceptible testimony is only an imagination, unless I am altogether in a dream.” I have given some other answer, and a pretty full one, to the objection; such an one, I think, as the nature of the thing admits, at least as my capacity would allow.
11. I have largely considered, both in the Third Part of the Appeal, and in the latter part of the Second Letter to Mr. Church, the unreasonableness of the common demand, to prove our doctrine by miracles. I cannot but refer you to those.: tracts, having neither time nor inclination actum agere. 21 Only I would weigh what you have now advanced, in support of that demand. “If the enthusiast is as confident of his inspiration, as one really inspired is of his, a third person has a right to call for other proof than confident assertions;” that is, for miracles. So you explain yourself in the following sentence. Let us try how this consequence will hold in a particular instance: “The Spirit said unto Paul, Go not into Macedonia.” When he related this to his companions, ought they to have replied, “We call for other proof of this than your confident assertion; seeing enthusiasts are as confident of theirs, as you are of this revelation? “If you say, “They had seen his miracles at other times;” I know not that: Perhaps they had, perhaps they had not. But to step a little forward: “If, in the days of Origin and Chrysostom, external miraculous powers were ceased, while internal inspiration still remained,” what becomes of your demand here? It is totally excluded; although there were, in those days also, pretenders to what they had not.
And yet there might have been other sufficient reasons for believing the assertion of Origin, Chrysostom, and St. Bernard too, that they had this internal testimony. Such was, besides the holiness of their lives, that great and standing miracle, — their saving so many souls from death, and hiding a multitude of sins.
12. There are at least as many pretenders to the love of God, as there are to the witness of his Spirit. But does this give me a right, if a man asserts, he loves God, to demand his proving that assertion by miracles? Not so; but by their fruits I shall know a real and a pretended love of God. And in the same manner may I know him that has the witness of God’s love, from an enthusiastic pretender to it. But if all man disclaims it, he sets himself out of the question. It is beyond dispute that he has it not. Neither do I want miracles in order to determine my judgment with regard to scriptures variously interpreted. I would not say, in this case, “Show me a sign;” but, “Bring forth your strong reasons;” and according to these, weighed in an even, impartial scale, would I incline to one side or the other.
13. From the beginning of our correspondence, I did not expect you to alter your judgment touching those points wherein we differed. But I was willing (and am so still) to hear and consider whatever you should advance concerning them; and so much the rather, because in the greatest points we do agree already; and in the smaller we can bear with each other, and speak what we apprehend to be the truth in love. Let us bless God for this, and press on to the mark. It cannot be long before we shall be quite of one mind; before the veil of flesh shall drop of, and we shall both see pure light, in the unclouded face of God.
XLIII. To the Same.
SIR, DUBLIN, March 22, 1747-8.
I REJOICE to find that in some points we come nearer each other, and that we can bear with each other where we do not. I entirely agree that hell was designed only for stubborn, impenitent sinners, and, consequently, that it would be absurd to “threaten damnation to any, merely for differing from me in speculations.” But it is an absurdity which I have nothing to do with; for it never yet entered into my thoughts.
2. I rejoice likewise in your allowing that my “speculations, though false, yea, and leading to a deviation from order, may yet possibly be neither willful nor sinful;” and much more in that which follows: “I question not but God’s mercy may both forgive and reward,” even that zeal which is not according to knowledge.
3. Yet “such deviation,” you think, “may open a door to much disorder and error.” I grant it may; but I still insist,
(1.) That accidental ill consequences may flow from a good thing.
(2.) That the good consequences, in the present case, overbalance the evil beyond all possible degrees of comparison.
The same I believe of Mr. Whitefield’s public preaching, (which was not the consequence, but the cause, of mine,) whose doctrine in general (though he is mistaken in some points) I believe to be the truth of the Gospel.
4. I never did censure the whole body of Clergy; and God forbid that I ever should. I do not willingly censure any, even the grossly immoral. But you advise to “complain of these to the Bishop of the diocese.” In what way? “Be so public spirited as to present them.” Much may be said on that question. I should ask,
(1.) Have I a right to present them? I apprehend not. The Church wardens of each parish are to do this; which they will hardly do, at my instance.
(2.) If I could do it myself, the presenting them to the Court is not presenting them to the Bishop: The Bishop, you cannot but know, has no more authority in what is called the Bishop’s Court, than the Pope of Rome.
(3.) I cannot present, suppose, thirty persons in as many counties, to the Lay Chancellors or Officials, (men whom I apprehend to have just as much authority from Scripture to administer the sacraments, as to try ecclesiastical causes,) without such an expense both of labor, and money, and time, as I am by no means able to sustain. And what would be the fruit, it I could sustain it? if I was the informer general against the immoral Clergy of England? O Sir, can you imagine, or dare you say, that I should “have the thanks of the Bishops, and of all good men, both Clergy and laity?” If you allow only those to be good men who would thank me for this, I fear you would not find seven thousand good men in all our Israel.
5. But you have been “assured there are proofs about to be produced of very shocking things among us also.” It is very possible you may. And, to say the truth, I expected such things long ago. In such a body of people, must there not be some hypocrites, and some who did for a time serve God in sincerity, and yet afterwards turn back from the holy commandment once delivered to them? I am amazed there have been so few instances of this, and look for more everyday. The melancholy case of that unhappy man, Mr. Hall, I do not rank among these; for he had renounced us long ago, and that over and over, both by word and writing. And though he called upon me once or twice a year, and lately made some little overtures of friendship, yet I have it under his own hand, he could have no fellowship with us, because we would not leave the Church. But quia intellen minus, protrusit foras. 22 To make it quite plain and clear how close a connection there was between him and me, when I lately called on his poor wife at Salisbury, he fairly turned me out of doors, and my sister after me.
6. My father did not die unacquainted with the faith of the Gospel, of the primitive Christians, or of our first performers; the same which, by the grace of God, I preach, and which is just as new as Christianity. What he experienced before, I know not; but I know that during his last illness, which continued eight months, he enjoyed a clear sense: of his acceptance with God. I heard him express it more than once, although at that time I understood him not. “The inward witness, son, the inward witness,” said he to me, “that is the proof, the strongest proof, of Christianity.” And when I asked him, (the time of his change drawing nigh,) “Sir, are you in much pain?” he answered aloud with a smile, “God does chasten me with pain, yea, all my bones with strong pain; but I thank Him for all, I bless Him for all, I love Him for all!” I think the last words he spoke, when I had just commended his soul to God, were, “Now you have done all.” And with the same serene, cheerful countenance he fell asleep, without one struggle, or sigh, or groan. I cannot therefore doubt but the Spirit of God bore an inward witness with his spirit, that he was a child of God.
7. That “God blesses a doctrine preached (new or old) to the saving of souls from death, does not prove that every circumstance of it is true; for a Predestination Preacher may save souls.” But it undoubtedly proves, that the main of what is preached is the truth as it is in Jesus; for it is only the Gospel of Jesus Christ which is the power of God unto salvation. Human wisdom, as human laws, may restrain from outward sin; but they cannot avail to the saving of the soul. If God gives this blessing to what is preached, it is a sufficient “proof of His approbation.” But I will not contend about words, or, when his blessing is allowed dispute whether it has His approbation or not.
8. But to argue on your own supposition: You say, “It only shows, that novelty, which has a natural tendency to awakening, may, when God pleases, have an efficacious tendency to amending.” Well, then, if the novelty of an indifferent circumstance, such as place, has a natural tendency to awakening, surely we may use it according to its natural tendency, in order to awaken those that sleep in sin! And if God has, in fact, been pleased to use it beyond its natural tendency, to make it efficacious for amending as well as awakening, ought we not to acquiesce, yea, and rejoice therein?
9. But are sinners amended? Are they saved from their sins? Are they truly converted to God? Here is, what always must be, the main question. That many are in some sort converted, is owned. But to what are they converted “to the belief of such proofless, incredible stuff as transubstantiation? or to the Popish severities of flesh fasting, celibacies, and other monkeries?” Not so. If they are converted at all, they are converted from all manner of wickedness, “to a sober, righteous, and godly life.” Such an uniform practice is true outward holiness. And wherever this is undeniably found, we ought to believe there is holiness of heart; seeing the tree is known by its fruits.
10. That “the conversion of sinners to this holiness is no miracle at all,” is new doctrine indeed! So new to me, that I never heard it before, either among Protestants or Papists. I think a miracle is a work of omnipotence, wrought by the supernatural power of God. Now, if the conversion of sinners to holiness is not such a work, I cannot tell what is. I apprehend our Lord accounts it a greater work than giving sight to the blind, yea, or raising the dead; for it was after he had raised Lazarus from the dead, that he told his Apostles, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also. And greater works than these shall he do, because I go unto my Father.” Greater outward works they could not do. It remains, therefore, that we understand those solemn words, of converting souls to God; which is indeed a greater work than any that can be wrought on the body.
11. I am glad you do “not demand miracles in proof of doctrines.” Thus far, then, we are agreed. But you demand them,
(1.) “As things to which I lay claim;” and in order to show that claim cannot be supported.
(2.) As necessary to give me “a right to be implicitly believed.” And,
(3.) To justify my “assuming the Apostolate of England.” If this be all, your demand must soon fall to the ground, since the whole foundation sinks beneath it. For,
(1.) I lay no claim (in your sense) to miracles; for the clearing of which, suffer me to refer you once more (that I may not be surfeited with crambe decies repetita 23) to the Second Letter to Mr. Church.
(2.) I claim no implicit faith: I neither pay it to, nor expect it from, any man living.
(3.) I no otherwise assume the Apostolate of England, (if you choose to use the phrase,) than I assume the Apostolate of all Europe, or, rather, of all the world; that is, in plain terms, wherever I see one or a thousand men running into hell, be it in England, Ireland, or France, yea, in Europe, Asia, Africa, or America, I will stop them if I can: As a Minister of Christ, I will beseech them, in His name, to turn back, and be reconciled to God. Were I to do otherwise, were I to let any soul drop into the pit, whom I might have saved from everlasting burnings, I am not satisfied God would accept my plea, “Lord, he was not of my parish.”
12. If a single parish takes up your whole time and care, and you spend and are spent upon it, well. And yet I will be bold to say, that no blessing from God will accompany your ministry, but the drunkard will be a drunkard still, (and so the covetous, the brawler, the adulterer,) unless you both believe and teach, what you love to call, my “new notions of inspiration:” I mean as to the substance, not the particular manner of explication. You will all the day long stretch out your hands in vain, unless you teach them to pray, that the Spirit of God may inwardly witness with their spirits, that they are the children of God. I apprehend you are the person that “wriggle on this head,” because the argument pinches: You appear to me to twist and wind to and fro, because I “distinguish away,” not my doctrines, but your objections; — unraveling the fallacies, showing what part is false, and what part true, but nothing to the purpose. Since you move it again, I will resume the point once more. You will pardon me if I speak home, that it may be seen which of us two it is, that has hitherto given the “evasive answers.”
13. You say, “Notwithstanding all your pains to distort that text, for anything which has yet been said to the contrary, it may be understood of the Spirit’s witness by miracles, by prophecy, or by the imperceptibly brought assurances of the Holy Ghost.”’ This (unless it gives up the whole cause, as indeed it must, if it does not imply a contradiction; seeing imperceptible assurance is no assurance at all) is neither an evasive nor an unevasive answer. It is just no answer at all. Instead of refuting my arguments, you reply, “You distort the text. Ipse dixi.” “The Quakers maintain divine illapses, and sensible communications always; you only sometimes.” If you speak to the purpose, if you mean the inward witness of God’s Spirit, I maintain it always as well as they. “The Methodist writings abound with intimations of divine communications, prophetic whispers, and special guidances.” Perhaps so; but that is another question. We are now speaking of the inward witness of the Spirit.
14. “They teach the notification of justification to be as perceptible as the sun at noon-day.” Now you come to the point, and I allow the charge. From the beginning of our correspondence to this day, I have, without any shifting or evasion at all, maintained flatly and plainly:
(1.) A man feels the testimony of God’s Spirit, and cannot then deny or doubt his being a child of God.
(2.) After a time this testimony is withdrawn. (Not from every child of God: Many retain the beginning of their confidence steadfast unto the end.)
(3.) Then he may doubt whether this testimony was of God; and perhaps at length deny that it was.
There is no shadow of contradiction between this and the case of H. R. For,
(1.) She felt the testimony of God’s Spirit, and could not then deny or doubt her being a child of God.
(2.) After a time this testimony was withdrawn.
(3.) Then she doubted whether it was of God. Observe: She never forgot or denied that she had such a testimony; but she then doubted whether it was of God.
But you have still more to remark upon this head: So I attend you step by step.
15. “The instances produced” (it should be “instance,” for you cite but one) “in support of these high claims, instead of supporting, utterly subvert them. Thus H. R. had her justification notified; and yet she denied that her sins were forgiven.” You should say, She doubted of it, after a time, when the testimony of God’s Spirit was withdrawn. “Now, either this notification was not so distinct as is pretended, or, if distinct, was notified by one of suspected credit, whom she could not believe. Or if it was both distinct and credible, she was not of sound understanding if she disbelieved it, nor of sound memory if she” (afterwards, it should be) “doubted or denied that she had ever received such a message.” You say,
(1.) “Either that notification was not so distinct.” It was so distinct that she could not then doubt. “Or,
(2.) Was notified to her by one of suspected credit, whom she could not believe.” Yes, she then believed, and knew it was the voice of God. “Or,
(3.) She was not of sound understanding, if she disbelieved it.” When she disbelieved it, she was not. For as the serpent deceived Eve, so he then deceived her, fqeirwn to nohma authv 24
“But could she possibly deny a plain matter of fact?” You add, as if I have said; so, “Yes, in process of time she might, particularly if she drew back to perdition;” and then subjoin, “But what is this evasive answer to the case of H. R.?” I think, nothing at all. I never applied it to her case. She never denied her having had such a testimony. But after a time she doubted (as I said before) whether that testimony was true.
16. I presume, Eve in paradise was at least equal in understanding with any of her posterity. Now, unto her God said, “In the day that thou eatest of the tree of knowledge thou shalt surely die.” And doubtless “this notification was as distinct and perceptible to her as the sun at noonday.” Yet after a time (perhaps only a few days) she utterly disbelieved it. You exclaim, “Absurd! Impossible! There could be no such thing; as I shall prove immediately.”
“Either this notification was not so distinct as is pretended, or, if distinct, was notified by one of suspected credit, whom she could not believe. Or else, if it was both distinct and credible, she was not of sound understanding if she disbelieved it, nor of sound memory if she doubted of it.” Therefore the whole story is absurd, and a self-inconsistent (not a cunningly devised) fable.
Is not the plain answer this? This notification was as distinct as [is] pretended; and it was not notified by one of suspected credit, whom she did then firmly believe. But afterwards Satan deceived her by his subtlety, fqeirwn to nohma anthv, — “corrupting, spoiling, destroying, the soundness of her understanding,” and of her memory too; and then she disbelieved God, and believed him who said, “Ye shall not surely die.” How much more is he able, by the same subtlety, to deceive any of the fallen children of men!
17. What follows you did not design for argument, but wit. “I cannot help thinking that Paul, with all his infirmities, might more reasonably be looked upon as an inspired Prophet than Mr. Wesley, though arrived, in his own