[FROM JOHN WESLEY'S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS.]
BETWEEN AN ANTINOMIAN AND HIS FRIEND.
Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law. Rom. 3: 31. Friend.—Well met! You have had time to consider. What think you of our last conference? Antinomian.—I think, “the giving of scandalous names has no warrant from Scripture.” (Mr. Cudworth's Dialogue, p. 2.) Ant.—Yes; you called me Antinomian. But “our Saviour bids me not return railing for railing.” (Ib.) F.—St. Peter does and that is all one. But how is that a scandalous name? I think it is properly your own; for it means “one that speaks against the law.” And this you did at that time very largely. But pray what would you have me call you? Ant.—“A preacher of God's righteousness.” (Ib. p. 1.) F.—What do you call me then? Ant.—“A preacher of inherent righteousness.” (Ib.) F.—That is, in opposition to God's righteousness. So you mean a preacher of such righteousness as is inconsistent with that righteousness of God which is by faith. Ant.—True; for “I plainly perceive you know but one sort of righteousness, that is, the righteousness of inherent qualities, dispositions, and works. And this is the reason why the language of the Holy Ghost seems foolishness unto you; even because the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God.” (Ib. pp. 11, 12.) F.—Are you absolutely sure that this is the reason why I do not think or speak as you do? Ant.—The thing itself speaks: “Thou hast forgotten the Lord, and hast trusted in falsehood. Therefore, saith the Lord, I will discover thy skirts upon thy face, that thy shame may appear.” (Ib. p. 1.) F.—Peremptory enough! But you will “not return railing for railing!” So out of mere tenderness and respect, you pronounce me a “natural man,” and one who “hath forgotten the Lord, and hath trusted in falsehood!” Ant.—And so you are if you do not believe in Christ. Pray let me ask you one question: Do you believe that “Christ hath appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself”? F.—I believe he made, by that one oblation of himself, once offered, a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world. And yet he hath not “done all which was necessary for the” absolute, infallible, inevitable, “salvation of the whole world.” If he had, the whole world would be saved; whereas, he that believeth shall not be damned. Ant.—But is it not said,” “He was wounded for our transgressions, and with his stripes we are healed”? And is he not ‘the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world’”? (p. 4.) F.—Yes; but this does not prove that he “put an end to our sins before they had a beginning!” (Ib.) Ant.—O, ignorance! Did not our sins begin in Adam? F.—Original sin did. But Christ will not put an end to this before the end of the world. And, as to actual, if I now feel anger at you in my heart, and it breaks out in reproachful words; to say Christ put an end to this sin before it began, is a glaring absurdity. Ant.—But I say, “God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them. He hath made him sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” And St. Peter says, “Who his own self bare our sins in his body on the tree.” F.—To what purpose do you heap these texts together? to prove that Christ “put an end to our sins” before they had a beginning? If not, spare your labor; for they are quite foreign to the present question. Ant.—However, that is not foreign to the present question, which you said the other day, viz., that “Christ has only redeemed us from the punishment due to our past transgressions.” (Ib.) F.—I neither said so nor thought so. You either carelessly or willfully misrepresent my words. On your quoting that text, “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law,” I replied in these terms: “What is this to the purpose? This tells me that Christ hath redeemed us (all that believe) from the curse or punishment justly due to our past transgression of God’s law. But it speaks not a word of redeeming us from the law, any more than from love or Heaven.” (First Dialogue. p. 71.) Ant.—Past transgressions! “Then who must redeem us from those which are to come, since there remains no more sacrifice for sin?” (Cudworth’s Dialogue.) F.—The same Jesus Christ, by the same merit of that one sacrifice then applied to the conscience when we believe, as you yourself have often asserted. But whatever punishment he redeems us from, that punishment supposes sin to precede; which must exist first, before there is any possibility of its being either punished or pardoned. Ant.—You have a strange way of talking. You say, “We are forgiven for the sake of the blood of Christ.” (Id. p. 5.) Ant.—No; I say, “We have forgiveness through his blood, and not merely for the sake of it.” F.—You are perfectly welcome so to say. Ant.—Well, enough of this. Let me ask you another question. Do you affirm that salvation is “conditional”? (Ib.) F.—I affirm, “He that believeth shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned.” And can you or any other deny this? If not, why do you fight about a word? especially after I have told you, “Find me a better, and I will lay this aside.” Ant.—“Then this faith leaves you just in the same state it found you; that is, still having the condition to perform.” (Ib. p. 5.) F.—Not so; for faith itself is that condition. Ant.—Nay, “faith is only necessary in order to receive forgiveness or salvation; not to procure it by way of condition.” (Ib.) F.—Enough, enough. You grant all that I desire. If you allow that “faith is necessary in order to receive forgiveness or salvation,” this is the whole of what I mean by terming it a condition. A procuring or meritorious cause is quite another thing. Ant.—“But you say that “faith is not true faith, unless it be furnished with love.” (Ib. p. 6.) F.—Furnished with love! Where did you pick up that awkward phrase? I never used it in my life. But I say, you have not true faith, unless your faith “worketh by love;” and that though “I have all faith, so that I could even remove mountains, yet if I have no love I am nothing.” Ant.—Will you answer me one question more? Is not a believer free from the law? F.—He is free from the Jewish ceremonial law; that is, he does not, and need not, observe it. And he is free from the curse of the moral law; but he is not free from observing it. He still walks according to its rule, and so much the more, because God has written it in his heart. Ant.—But St. Paul says, “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” (Id. p. 8.) F.—He is so. He put an end to the Mosaic dispensation, and established a better covenant, in virtue whereof ‘faith is counted for righteousness to every one that believeth.’” Ant.—But still, “as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse,” (Gal. 3: 10,) are they not? F.—They are; as many as still “seek to be justified by the works of the law;” that is, by any works antecedent to, or independent on, faith in Christ. Ant.—But does not the apostle say farther, “Ye are become dead to the law?” Rom. 7: 4. (Ib.) F.—You are so, as to its condemning power, if you truly believe in Christ. For “there is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” But not as to its directing power; for you “walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” You “love him and keep his commandments.” Ant.—That is not all. I maintain, “a believer is entirely free from the law.” (Ib.) F.—By what Scripture do you prove that? Ant.—By Gal. 4: 4, 5: “God sent forth his Son, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law.” F.—The plain meaning of this, I mentioned before: “ ‘God sent forth his Son, made under the law,’ (the Jewish dispensation,) to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons;” might serve God without fear, in righteousness and holiness,’ with a free, loving, childlike spirit.” (First Dialogue, p. 70.)