Notes:
Sermon 11: The Witness of the Spirit, Discourse II
The following two essays were written and published more than twenty years apart (1746, 1767), but that they belong together was recognized by Wesley in the collection of his Works, I, where they appear as Sermons 10 and 11. While there is no record that either of them was ever preached, the evidence is abundant that their shared and central concern—the ground and character of Christian assurance—was paramount in Wesley’s mind. It was also a bone of contention with his critics. Already, in A Farther Appeal (1745), Pt. I, III-V, Wesley had entered the lists against men like Edmund Gibson, Bishop of London, Thomas Herring, Archbishop of York, and Richard Smalbroke, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry—all of whom had understood Wesley’s doctrines of assurance and of religious intuition as ‘enthusiasm’ (11:117-76 of this edn.). Presently, he would be denounced by George Lovington, Bishop of Exeter, in The Enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists Compared (1749). It was, therefore, important in 1746 for him to summarize the issues and to clarify his own position as simply and directly as possible.
It was clear enough that Wesley’s theory of religious knowledge was frankly intuitionist, but this had been all too easily misconstrued as a one-sided subjectivism. Thus, he had to clarify his distinction between the ways in which assurance might be felt (‘the witness of our own spirit’) and the objective ground of any such experience (viz., the prior and direct ‘witness of the Holy Spirit’). The question at issue between ‘enthusiasts ’ and ‘rationalists ’ was whether a believer’s consciousness of justification and reconciliation was an inference from his religious and moral feeling or whether those feelings, if valid, were first prompted by a free and direct testimony of the Spirit to one’s divine sonship, prompting to which faith had, responded and in which hope and love could participate. Characteristically, Wesley opts for a both/and solution, stressing the believer’s own consciousness of God’s favour but even more strongly the priority of the Spirit’s prevenient and direct witness as the 268necessary precondition of any feelings of assurance. That this is the crucial point for Wesley would appear from the fact that he repeats the same basic argument for it in Discourse II.
The controversy was as old as second-century Montanism at least, and Wesley’s balanced stress on an objective witness and a subjective one was not new. He had already found a survey of it in an essay on Romans 8 by Alexander Hamilton, A Cordial for Christians Travelling Heaven-Ward (1696). Hamilton’s conclusion foreshadows Wesley’s: ‘The witness of the Spirit is a twofold testimony for our sonship: by the Spirit himself and from our conscience’ (p. 105). Moreover, according to Hamilton, the Spirit’s testimony is conveyed conjointly, through Scripture by divine illumination, and also by the Spirit’s gracious, sanctifying presence. Wesley seeks to safeguard this notion from subjectivity by insisting that the gifts of the Spirit, including the gift of assurance, are always to be judged by reference to the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23).
But why two discourses of this sort, on the same text, with most of the same arguments? An answer to this must be circumstantial; it will illustrate Wesley’s understanding of the sermon genre as a way of repeating himself with fresh and refined nuances. Discourse I is the basic statement; it seeks a middle course between ‘enthusiasm’ and ‘rationalism’ by recourse to the idea of testimonium internum Spiritus Sancti (the inner witness of the Holy Spirit), in Lutheran and Reformed traditions, linked as they had been to the notion of the inspiration of the Scriptures. But what Wesley had intended as a moderating formulation had drawn a storm of criticism, repeating the charge of ‘enthusiasm’ and ignoring Wesley’s stress on objectivity (cf. Green, Anti-Methodist Publications, where more than twenty attacks are listed on this point alone, including major essays by John Parkhurst, Theophilus Evans, and William Warburton; see also Umphrey Lee, Early Methodist Enthusiasm, and R. A. Knox, Enthusiasm). Moreover, as the Revival was moving on into its second generation, there were cases of real enthusiasm that lent credence to these other criticisms (e.g., William Cudworth and James Relly). By the mid-sixties, then, the time was ripe for a restatement of the doctrine of the ‘twofold testimony’ and also for a rehearsal and refutation of the main objections that had been raised against it over the controversy’s course. Discourse II is, therefore, more than a mere sequel; it is a significant revision of Discourse I. Thus, the two essays are designed to be read together with one eye on the arguments themselves and the other on their theological context in the ongoing Revival.
269The edited text of Discourse II is based on that of the first edition of 1767. For a stemma illustrating the transmission of that text through its six extant editions issued during Wesley’s lifetime, together with the substantive variant readings from those editions, see the Appendix, Vol. IV. For further details see Bibliog, No. 303.
285 The Witness of the Spirit, IIRomans 8:16
The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.
11I. 1. None who believes the Scriptures to be the Word of God can doubt the importance of such a truth as this: a truth revealed therein not once only, not obscurely, not incidentally, but frequently, and that in express terms; but solemnly and of set purpose, as denoting one of the peculiar privileges of the children of God.
22. And it is the more necessary to explain and defend this truth, because there is a danger on the right hand and on the left. If we deny it, there is a danger lest our religion degenerate into mere formality; lest, ‘having a form of godliness’, we neglect if not ‘deny, the power of it’.
2 Tim. 3:5.
Cf. No. 37, ‘The Nature of Enthusiasm’.
33. It may seem something of this kind is the more needful because so little has been wrote on the subject with any clearness, unless some discourses on the wrong side of the question, which explain it quite away. And it cannot be doubted but these were occasioned, at least in great measure, by the crude, unscriptural, irrational explications of others, who ‘knew not what they spake, nor whereof they affirmed’.
Cf. 1 Tim. 1:7.
44. It more clearly concerns the Methodists, so called, clearly to understand, explain, and defend this doctrine, because it is one grand part of the testimony which God has given them to bear to all mankind. It is by his peculiar blessing upon them in searching the Scriptures, confirmed by the experience of his children, that 286this great evangelical truth has been recovered, which had been for many years wellnigh lost and forgotten.
For the Lutheran scholastics the testimonium internum Spiritus Sancti was chiefly related to the validation of the truth of Scripture: ‘the supernatural act of the Holy Spirit through the Word of God…illuminating the heart of man and inciting it to obedience unto the faith; so that man, thus illuminated by internal spiritual influences, clearly perceives that the word proposed to him has indeed proceeded from God and thus gives it unyielding assent’ (David Hollar, Examen Theologicum [1707], p. 116). The notion of assurance was derived from this, but only by implication; cf. ibid., pp. 117-18.
In the Reformed tradition, the inner witness was correlated more specifically with ‘the perseverance and assurance of the saints’. Cf. Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, pp. 581-87, and espec. Heidegger, Corpus Theologiae, XXIV.72: ‘[The elect, assured by the Spirit’s witness] trust that they are in a state of grace, not because of a deliberate intuition of their own dignity but of the divine conferring of it…not just for the present, but certain that they will also persevere in the same, though not without a struggle, …right to life’s end—and so are infallibly salvable to the praise of the glory of God’s grace and their own consolation amid the perpetual misery of life.’
In the Radical Reformation, the witness of the Spirit had been interiorized and turned toward what Wesley (and other Anglicans) had spoken of as ‘all the wildness of enthusiasm’. Cf. Hugh Barbour and Arthur O. Roberts, eds., Early Quaker Writings, 1650-1700 (Grand Rapids, Mich., William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1973), pp. 261-62, and G. H. Williams, The Radical Reformation (Philadelphia, The Westminster Press, 1962), chs. 18-19. In reaction, Anglicans tended to interpret assurance in terms of their hope of salvation rather than an inner certainty; e.g., cf. Wesley’s reactions to Spangenberg’s questions as to his sense of assurance in JWJ, Feb. 8,1736; and his letter to Thomas Whitehead(?), Feb. 10, 1748; see also Isaac Barrow’s ‘Whitsunday Sermon’, No. 77, in Works, III.475-78.
1II. 1. But what is ‘the witness of the Spirit’? The original word,
μαρτυρία, may be rendered either (as it is in several places) ‘the witness’, or
less ambiguously ‘the testimony’ or ‘the record’: so it is rendered in our
translation, ‘This is the record’ (the testimony, the sum of what God testifies
in all the inspired writings), ‘that God hath given unto us eternal life, and
this life is in his Son.’
1 John 5:11.
Cf. Gal. 5:22. Cf. No. 10, ‘The Witness of the Spirit, I’, II.12 and n.
22. I observed many years ago:
“ 287It is hard to find words in the language of men to explain the deep things of God. Indeed there are none that will adequately express what the Spirit of God works in his children. But perhaps one might say (desiring any who are taught of God to correct, soften, or strengthen the expression), by ‘the testimony of the Spirit’ I mean an inward impression of the soul, whereby the Spirit of God immediately and directly witnesses to my spirit that I am a child of God, that ‘Jesus Christ hath loved me, and given himself for me;’Cf. Gal. 2:20. See also No. 5, ‘Justification by Faith’, IV.2 and n.
Sermons, Vol. 1 [No.10, The Witness of the Spirit, I’, I.7. Note Wesley’s revisions of his earlier text; another example of his habitual indifference to exact quotations].
33. After twenty years’ farther consideration I see no cause to retract any part of this. Neither do I conceive how any of these expressions maybe altered so as to make them more intelligible. I can only add, that if any of the children of God will point out any other expressions which are more clear, and more agreeable to the Word of God, I will readily lay these aside.
44. Meantime let it be observed, I do not mean hereby that the Spirit of God testifies this by any outward voice; no, nor always by an inward voice, although he may do this sometimes. Neither do I suppose that he always applies to the heart (though he often may) one or more texts of Scripture. But he so works upon the soul by his immediate influence, and by a strong though inexplicable operation, that the stormy wind and troubled waves subside, and there is a sweet calm; the heart resting as in the arms of Jesus, and the sinner being clearly satisfied that God is reconciled, that all his ‘iniquities are forgiven, and his sins covered’.
Rom. 4:7; cf. Ps. 32:1.
55. Now what is the matter of dispute concerning this? Not whether there be a witness or testimony of the Spirit? Not whether the Spirit does testify with our spirit that we are the children of God? None can deny this without flatly contradicting the Scripture, and charging a lie upon the God of truth. Therefore that there is a testimony of the Spirit is acknowledged by all parties.
66. Neither is it questioned whether there is an indirect witness or testimony that we are the children of God. This is nearly, if not exactly, the same with ‘the testimony of a good conscience toward God’,
Cf. 1 Pet. 3:21.
Cf. No. 10, ‘The Witness of the Spirit, I’, II.12 and n.
77. Nor do we assert that there can be any real testimony of the Spirit without the fruit of the Spirit.
Ibid.
88. But the point in question is whether there be any direct testimony of the Spirit at all; whether there be any other testimony of the Spirit than that which arises from a consciousness of the fruit.
31III. 1. I believe there is, because that is the plain, natural meaning of the text, ‘The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.’ It is manifest, here are two witnesses mentioned, who together testify the same thing—the Spirit of God, and our own spirit. The late Bishop of London, in his sermon on this text, seems astonished that anyone can doubt of this, which appears upon the very face of the words. Now ‘the testimony of our own spirit’, says the bishop, is one which is ‘the consciousness of our own sincerity’;
This was Thomas Sherlock (cf. DNB) who was Bishop of London, 1748-61. Wesley’s references here are to Sherlock’s earlier sermon on Rom. 8:16, ‘Discourse VIII’, in Several Discourses Preached at the Temple Church (2nd edn., 1754), pp. 227-49. On p. 235, Sherlock concludes: ‘So then the faithful Christian has two witnesses of his being the son of God: the Holy Spirit of God and his own mind and conscience.’ On pp. 244-45, Sherlock insists that true Christians have ‘the utmost assurance of being the children of God’. But his conclusion (pp. 246-47) differs significantly: ‘So then you have two ways of judging yourselves which must both concur: you have the inward and outward signs of grace. The inward signs are a pure conscience, a sincere love of God…. The outward signs are acts of obedience conformable to the inward purity and love of your mind.’ See also Sherlock, Works (1830), I.157, 163. Cf. also ibid., p. 155: ‘…there are therefore two witnesses; St. Paul, who witnessed his affection to his countrymen; and his conscience, which witnessed for his sincerity.’
22. It is true, that great man supposes the other witness to be ‘the consciousness of our own good works’. This, he affirms, is ‘the testimony of God’s Spirit’. But this is included in the testimony of our own spirit; yea, and in sincerity, even according to the common sense of the word. So the Apostle: Our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity […] we have had our conversation in the world:’
2 Cor. 1:12.
33. What then is the other witness? This might easily be learned, if the text itself were not sufficiently clear, from the verse immediately preceding: ‘Ye have received, not the spirit of bondage, but the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.’ It follows, ‘The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.’
Rom. 8:15-16.
44. This is farther explained by the parallel text, ‘Because ye are sons,
God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying Abba,
Father.’
Gal. 4:6.
55. That ‘the testimony of the Spirit of God’ must, in the very nature of things, be antecedent to ‘the testimony of our own 290spirit’, may appear from this single consideration: we must be holy in heart and life before we can be conscious that we are so. But we must love God before we can be holy at all, this being the root of all holiness. Now we cannot love God till we know he loves us: ‘We love him, because he first loved us.’
1 John 4:19.
Cf. Gal. 2:20.
‘Spirit of Faith, Come Down’, st. 2, ll. 5-8, in Hymns of Petition and Thanksgiving for the Promise of the Father (1746), 30 (Poet. Wks., IV.197).
Since therefore the testimony of his Spirit must precede the love of God and all holiness, of consequence it must precede our consciousness thereof.
Cf. this para. with Discourse I, I.8, and note the slight shift in nuance in this later sermon.
66. And here properly comes in, to confirm this scriptural doctrine, the experience of the children of God—the experience not of two or three, not of a few, but of a great multitude which no man can number.
See Rev. 7:9.
Heb. 12:1.
Charles Wesley, ‘After Preaching to the Newcastle Colliers’, st. 9, ll. 3-4, beginning ‘Ye neighbours and friends of Jesus, draw near’, in Hymns and Sacred Poems (1749), I.311 (Poet. Wks., V.116). Orig., ‘They listen, and heaven springs up in their heart.’
7 2917. But this is confirmed, not only by the experience of the children of God—thousands of whom can declare that they never did know themselves to be in the favour of God till it was directly witnessed to them by his Spirit—but by all those who are convinced of sin, who feel the wrath of God abiding on them.
See John 3:36.
Cf. Heb. 8:12.
Rom. 8:7.
Rom. 14:17.
Matt 26:38.
Is there an autobiographical reference here? Cf. JWJ, May 28, 1738, and Jan. 4, 1739. See also John’s letter to his brother Charles, June 27, 1766 (where the double-bracketed words are in shorthand, meant for Charles’s eyes only):
‘[[I]] do not feel the wrath of God abiding on me. Nor can I believe it does. And yet (this is the mystery) [[I do not love God. I never did.]] Therefore [[I never]] believed in the Christian sense of the word. Therefore [[I am only an]] honest heathen, a proselyte of the Temple, one of the φοβούμενοι τὸν Θεόν [‘God-fearers’]. And yet, to be so employed of God! And so hedged in that I can neither get forward or backward! Surely there never was such an instance before, from the beginning of the world!
‘If [[I ever had had]] that faith, it would not be so strange. But [[I never had any]] other ἔλεγχος of the eternal or the invisible world than [[I have]] now—and that is [[none at all]], unless such as faintly shines from reason’s glimmering ray. [[I have no]] direct witness (I do not say, that [[I am a child of God]]), but of anything invisible or eternal.
‘And yet I dare not preach otherwise than I do, either concerning faith, or love, or justification, or perfection. And yet I find rather an increase than a decrease of zeal, for the whole work of God, and every part of it. I am φερόμενος [‘borne along’], I know not how, [so] that I can’t stand still. I want all the world to come to ὃν οὐκ οἶδα [‘what I do not know’]. Neither am I impelled to this by fear of any kind. [[I have]] no more fear than love. Or if [[I have any fear, it is not that of falling]] into hell, but of falling into nothing!’
Cf. Rom. 4:5.
Ibid.
Cf. Titus 3:5.
Rom. 3:28 (cf. Notes).
Cf. Luke 7:42.
Cf. Rom. 7:18.
Cf. Rom 3:24.
‘Galatians iii.22’, st. 12, ll. 3-4, in Hymns and Sacred Poems (1739), p. 94 (Poet. Wks., I.85). A favourite hymn of Wesley’s, quoted frequently. E.g., Nos. 34, ‘The Original, Nature, Properties, and Use of the Law’, IV.2; and 122, ‘Causes of the Inefficacy of Christianity’, §19. See also the letter to Lady Maxwell, Sept. 22, 1764, and JWJ, Apr. 1, 1778.
88. Everyone therefore who denies the existence of such a testimony does, in effect, deny justification by faith.
A clue to Wesley’s purposes in this Discourse II: viz., the reassertion of ‘faith alone’, but now as a proper precondition of ‘holy living’.
Cf. 2 Pet. 1:9. The omission of αὐτοῦ seems an inadvertence; the translation is Wesley’s own (cf. Notes) and is more literal than the AV’s ‘purged from his old sins’.
99. And the experience even of the children of the world here confirms that of the children of God. Many of these have a desire to please God: some of them take much pains to please him. But do they not, one and all, count it the highest absurdity for any to talk of knowing his sins are forgiven? Which of them even pretends to any such thing? And yet many of them are conscious of their own sincerity. Many of them undoubtedly have, in a degree, the testimony of their own spirit, a consciousness of their own uprightness. But this brings them no consciousness that they are forgiven, no knowledge that they are the children of God. Yea, 293the more sincere they are, the more uneasy they generally are for want of knowing it: plainly showing that this cannot be known in a satisfactory manner by the bare testimony of our own spirit, without God’s directly testifying that we are his children.
4IV. But abundance of objections have been made to this, the chief of which it may be well to consider.
11. It is objected, first, ‘Experience is not sufficient to prove a doctrine which is not founded on Scripture.’ This is undoubtedly true, and it is an important truth. But it does not affect the present question, for it has been shown that this doctrine is founded on Scripture. Therefore experience is properly alleged to confirm it.
22. ‘But madmen, French prophets,
A popular English nickname for the Camisards who had suffered brutal persecution in southeastern France (the Cevennes and Dauphiné) in the first decade of the eighteenth century. The label ‘Camisard’ referred to their habit of wearing white shirts (camisae) as ritual symbols of their zeal for purity. But they were also visionaries and fanatics, strongly influenced by the apocalyptic emphasis of Pierre Jurieu (1637-1713), and laid claim to direct revelation and Spirit-possession; cf. André Ducasse, La Guerre des Camisards (Paris, 1946), and Charles Almeras, La Révolte des Camisards (Paris, 1960). Wesley shared the general feeling among Englishmen of his time that these ‘French prophets’ were ‘enthusiasts’ in the literal, pejorative sense of that term. His first meeting with them is recorded in JWJ, Jan. 28, 1739; see also June 6 and 22, 1739. Later (Apr. 3, 1786), he will compare them with ‘the Jumpers in Wales’ and some mountain folk near Chapel-en-le-Frith. See also his letter to Conyers Middleton, Jan. 4, 1749, and to The London Magazine, Dec. 12, 1750.
For accounts of their extravagances in England see Southey, ch. 8; and Knox, Enthusiasm, pp. 362, 376 ff.
‘Nay, many who pleaded strongly for this have utterly decried the Bible.’ Perhaps so, but this was no necessary consequence: thousands plead for it who have the highest esteem for the Bible.
‘Yea, but many have fatally deceived themselves hereby, and got above all conviction.’
Cf. Wesley’s own criticism of the enthusiastic opinions cf. Thomas Maxfield and George Bell in JWJ, Nov. 1, 1762 (and Nov. 24). Many of Wesley’s erstwhile followers (John Cennick, Thomas Bissicks, et al.) had ‘got above all conviction’ without disconcerting his own more modest views of assurance and the Holy Spirit’s witness in the human spirit. Cf. No. 37, The Nature of Enthusiasm’.
And yet a scriptural doctrine is no worse, though men abuse it to their own destruction.
3 2943. ‘But I lay it down as an undoubted truth, the fruit of the Spirit is the witness of the Spirit.’ Not undoubted; thousands doubt of, yea flatly deny it: but to let that pass, ‘If this witness be sufficient there is no need of any other. But it is sufficient, unless in one of these cases: (1). The total absence of the fruit of the Spirit.’ And this is the case when the direct witness is first given. ‘(2). The not perceiving it. But to contend for it in this case is to contend for being in the favour of God and not knowing it.’ True, not knowing it at that time any otherwise than by the testimony which is given for that end. And this we do contend for: we contend that the direct witness may shine clear, even while the indirect one is under a cloud.
44. It is objected, secondly: ‘the design of the witness contended for is to prove that the profession we make is genuine. But it does not prove this.’ I answer, the proving this is not the design of it. It is antecedent to our making any profession at all, but that of being lost, undone, guilty, helpless sinners. It is designed to assure those to whom it is given that they are the children of God; that they are ‘justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ’.
Cf. Rom. 3:24.
Cf. Rom. 4:5.
Note this appeal to the Puritan insistence on the imputation of Christ’s righteousness as the crucial act in man’s justification and Wesley’s correlation of the witness of the Spirit with this imputation. It amounts to yet another linkage between the Protestant stress on ‘faith alone’ and a ‘catholic’ doctrine of prevenience (implied in the notion of direct witness).
Rom. 4:6.
55. It is objected, thirdly: ‘One evangelist says, “Your heavenly Father will give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him.”
Luke 11:13.
Matt. 7:11.
66. It is objected, fourthly: ‘The Scripture says, “The tree is known by its fruit;”
Matt. 12:33.
1 Thess. 5:21.
1 John 4:1.
2 Cor. 13:5.
Ibid.
77. ‘But the testimony arising from the internal and external change is constantly referred to in the Bible.’ It is so. And we constantly refer thereto to confirm the testimony of the Spirit.
‘Nay, all the marks you have given whereby to distinguish the operations of God’s Spirit from delusion refer to the change wrought in us and upon us.’ This likewise is undoubtedly true.
88. It is objected, fifthly, that ‘the direct witness of the Spirit does not secure us from the greatest delusions. And is that a witness fit to be trusted whose testimony cannot be depended on, that is forced to fly to something else to prove what it asserts?’ I answer: to secure us from all delusion, God gives us two witnesses that we are his children. And this they testify conjointly. Therefore ‘what God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.’
Matt 19:6; Mark 10:9.
‘Nay, the direct witness only asserts, but does not prove anything.’ By two witnesses shall every word be established.
See Matt. 18:16.
99. It is objected, sixthly: ‘You own the change wrought is a sufficient testimony, unless in the case of severe trials, such as that of our Saviour upon the cross. But none of us can be tried in that manner.’ But you or I may be tried in such a manner, and so may any other child of God, that it will be impossible for us to keep our filial confidence in God without the direct witness of his Spirit.
1010. It is objected, lastly, ‘The greatest contenders for it are some of the proudest and most uncharitable of men.’ Perhaps some of the hottest contenders for it are both proud and uncharitable. But many of the firmest contenders for it are eminently meek and lowly in heart,
Matt. 11:29.
Hymn 146, st. 1, l. 4, in Hymns on the Lord’s Supper (1745), p. 139, beginning, ‘Happy the saints of former days’. For another quotation from this hymn see No. 61, ‘The Mystery of Iniquity’, §29.
The preceding objections are the most considerable that I have heard, and I believe contain the strength of the cause. Yet I apprehend whoever calmly and impartially considers those objections and the answers together, will easily see that they do not destroy, no, nor weaken the evidence of that great truth, that the Spirit of God does directly as well as indirectly testify that we are children of God.
51V. 1. The sum of all is this: the testimony of the Spirit is an inward impression on the souls of believers, whereby the Spirit of God directly testifies to their spirit that they are children of God. And it is not questioned whether there is a testimony of the Spirit, but whether there is any direct testimony, whether there is any other than that which arises from a consciousness of the fruit of the Spirit We believe there is: because this is the plain, natural meaning of the text, illustrated both by the preceding words and by the parallel passage in the Epistle to the Galatians; because, in the nature of the thing, the testimony must precede the fruit which springs from it, and because this plain meaning of the 297Word of God is confirmed by the experience of innumerable children of God; yea, and by the experience of all who are convinced of sin, who can never rest till they have a direct witness; and even of the children of the world who, not having the witness in themselves, one and all declare none can know his sins forgiven.
22. And whereas it is objected that experience is not sufficient to prove a doctrine unsupported by Scripture; that madmen and enthusiasts of every kind have imagined such a witness; that the design of that witness is to prove our profession genuine, which design it does not answer; that the Scripture says, ‘The tree is known by its fruit,’
Matt 12:33.
2 Cor. 13:5.
Ibid.
33. Two inferences may be drawn from the whole. The first: let none ever presume to rest in any supposed testimony of the Spirit which is separate from the fruit of it. If the Spirit of God does really testify that we are children of God, the immediate consequence will be the fruit of the Spirit, even ‘love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, fidelity, meekness, temperance’.
Gal. 5:22-23 (Notes).
Cf. Luke 22:31.
Rom. 14:17.
Matt 26:22, 38.
Cf. Luke 22:53.
1 Pet. 1:8.
44. The second inference is: let none rest in any supposed fruit of the Spirit without the witness. There may be foretastes of joy, of peace, of love—and those not delusive, but really from God—long before we have the witness in ourselves, before the Spirit of God witnesses with our spirits that we have ‘redemption in the blood of Jesus, even the forgiveness of sins’.
Cf. Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:14.
Cf. Nos. 43, The Scripture Way of Salvation, I.2; and 85, ‘On Working Out Our Own Salvation’, II.1, III.3-4.
Eph. 1:6.
Cf. Gal. 4:6.
Rom. 8:15.
Cf. Phil. 4:7.
Eph. 4:24.
Newry, April 4, 1767
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Entry Title: Sermon 11: The Witness of the Spirit, Discourse II