10. This is what I believe (and have believed for some years) concerning _justification by faith alone_. I have chose to express it in the words of a little treatise, published several years ago; as being the most authentic proof, both of my past and present sentiments. If I err herein, let those who are better informed calmly point out my error to me: and I trust, I shall not shut my eyes against the light, from whatsoever side it comes.
11. The second thing laid to my charge is, that _I believe sinless perfection_. I will simply declare what I do believe, concerning this also, and leave unprejudiced men to judge.
12. My last and most deliberate thoughts on this head were published but a few months since, in these words.
1. “Perhaps the general prejudice against _Christian perfection_ may chiefly arise from a misapprehension of the _nature_ of it. We willingly allow, and continually declare, there is no _such_ perfection, in this life, as implies either a dispensation from doing good and attending all the ordinances of God; or a freedom from ignorance, mistake, temptation, and a thousand infirmities necessarily connected with flesh and blood.”♦
♦ _Five paragraphs are left out, which stand in the 24th Volume_, page 32 _to_ 35 per Errata.
13. If there be any thing unscriptural in these words, any thing wild or extravagant, any thing contrary to the analogy of faith, or the experience of adult Christians, let them _smite me friendly and reprove me_; let them impart to me of the clearer light God has given them. How knowest thou, O man, _but thou mayest gain thy brother_? But he may at length come to the knowledge of the truth? And thy labour of love, shewn forth with meekness of wisdom, may not be in vain!
14. There remains yet another charge against me, that I believe _inconsistencies_: that my tenets, particularly concerning justification, are _contradictory to themselves_: that Mr. _Wesley_ “since his return from _Germany_, has _improved_ in the Spirit of _inconsistency_. ‘For then he published two treatises, Dr. _Barnes_’s, the calvinist, or dominican rather, who suffered 1541;’ [Let us spare the ashes of the dead. Were I _such_ a _dominican_ as he was, I should rejoice too to die in the flames] ‘the first on _justification by faith only_, the other on _the sinfulness of man’s natural will, and his utter inability to do works acceptable to God, until he be justified_. Which principles if added to his former tenets’ (nay they need not be _added to_ them, for they are the very same) ‘will give the whole a _new vein_ of _inconsistency_, and make the contradictions more gross and glaring than before.’”
15. It will be necessary to speak more largely on this head, than on either of the preceding. And in order to speak as distinctly as I can, I propose taking the paragraphs one by one, as they lie before me.
16. (1) It is “_asserted_ that Mr. _Law_’s system was the _Creed_ of the Methodists.” But it is not _proved_. I had been eight years at _Oxford_, before I read any of Mr. _Law_’s writings: and when I did, I was so far from making them my _creed_, I had objections to almost every page. But all this time my manner was, to spend several hours a day, in reading the scripture in the original tongues. And hence my system (so termed) was wholly drawn, according to the light I then had.
17. It was in my passage to _Georgia_, I met with those _teachers_, who _would_ have taught me the way of God more perfectly. But I understood them not. Neither _on my arrival there_, did they _infuse_ any _particularities into me_, either _about justification_ or any thing else. For I came back with the same notions I went. And this I have explicitly acknowledged in my second journal, where some of my words are these.¹ “When _Peter Bohler_, as soon as I came to _London_, affirmed of true faith in Christ, (which is but one) that it had these two fruits inseparably attending it, ‘Dominion over sin, and constant peace from a sense of forgiveness,’ I was quite amazed, and looked upon it as a _new gospel_. If this was so, it was clear, I had no faith. But I was not willing to be convinced of this. Therefore I disputed with all my might, and laboured to prove, that faith might be where these were not: especially, where that sense of forgiveness was not: for all the scriptures relating to this, I had been long since taught to construe away, and to call all _presbyterians_ who spoke otherwise. Besides, I well saw, no one could, (in the nature of things) have such a sense of forgiveness, and not _feel_ it. But I felt it not. If then there was no faith without this, all my pretensions to faith dropt at once.”
¹ Page 32.