Sunday, February 18, 2024

Turning from the truth

“See that sculler upon yonder river. The unwearied diligence and watchful skill with which he plies his two oars point out to us the work and wisdom of an experienced divine. What an even, gentle spring does the mutual effort of his oars give to his boat! Observe him: his right hand never rests but when the stream carries him too much to the left; he slacks not his left hand unless he is gone too much to the right; nor has he sooner recovered a just medium than he uses both oars again with mutual harmony. Suppose that for a constancy he employed but one, no matter which, what would be the consequence? He would only move in a circle; and if neither wind nor tide carried him along, after a hard day’s work he would find himself in the very spot where he began his idle toil.”

“This illustration needs very little explaining: I shall just observe that the Antinomian is like a sculler, who uses only his right hand oar; and the Pharisee, like him who plies only the oar in his left hand. One makes an endless bustle about grace and faith, the other about charity and works; but both, after all, find themselves exactly in the same case, with this single difference, that one has turned from truth to the right, and the other to the left.“

 ~ John Fletcher

Faith of assurance defined

“8. In August following, I had a long conversation with Arvin Gradin, in Germany. After he had given me an account of his experience, I desired him to give me, in writing, a definition of the full assurance of faith, which he did in the following words:


“Repose in the blood of Christ; a firm confidence in God and persuasion of his favor; the highest tranquillity, serenity, and peace of mind; with a deliverance from every fleshly desire, and a cessation of all, even inward, sins.”


This was the first account I ever heard from any living man, of what I had before learned myself from the oracles of God, and had been praying for (with the little company of my friends) and expecting for several years.”


John Wesley, A PLAIN ACCOUNT of CHRISTIAN PERFECTION