[73] Methodist Magazine, 1848, p. 1096.
[74] Hutton’s Memoirs, p. 40.
[75] Sir John Thorold belonged to one of the oldest families in Lincolnshire. He was a great friend of the first Methodists; and, as early as 1738, used to attend the Moravian meetings, in the house of James Hutton, at The Bible and Sun, a little westward of Temple Bar; and to expound among the Brethren the Holy Scriptures, and to engage in prayer. In 1742, he became dissatisfied, and brought the following charges against them. “1. Their not praying so much to the Father and the Holy Ghost as to the Son. 2. Their speaking so contemptuously of reason, which opened a door to fancy and enthusiasm. 3. Their saying, there were no duties in the New Testament. 4. Their not giving an open conscientious confession of their faith. 5. Their disowning their tenets when driven to a pinch.”
Sir John Thorold died in 1748. (Hutton’s Memoirs, p. 82; and Life and Times of Countess of Huntingdon, vol. i., p. 77.)
[76] Hutton’s Memoirs, p. 40.
[77] Wesley’s Works, vol. i., p. 161.
[78] Whitefield’s Journals, p. 115; and C. Wesley’s Journal, vol. i., p. 139.
[79] The meaning of this phraseology may, perhaps, be gathered from a letter which Wesley wrote to his brother Samuel, on October 23, 1738, five months after Wesley’s conversion. The following is an extract:—“The πληροφορία πίστεως,—the seal of the Spirit, the love of God shed abroad in my heart, and producing joy in the Holy Ghost, joy which no man taketh away, joy unspeakable and full of glory,—this witness of the Spirit I have not; but I wait patiently for it. I know many who have already received it,” etc. (“Life and Times of Wesley,” vol. i., p. 190). The fact is, Wesley, for a season, appeared to confound the witness of the Spirit to the justification of a Christian believer with what he afterwards meant by the attainment of Christian perfection. Soon afterwards, however, he was blessed with clearer light, and gave to the Church, perhaps, the best definition of the doctrine ever penned,—“The testimony of the Spirit is an inward impression on the soul, whereby the Spirit of God directly witnesses to my spirit that I am a child of God; that Jesus Christ hath loved me, and given Himself for me; and that all my sins are blotted out, and I, even I, am reconciled to God.”
[80] Nelson’s Journal.
[81] C. Wesley’s Journal.