Page:The works of the Rev. John Wesley, M.A., late fellow of Lincoln-College, Oxford (IA worksofrevjohnwe3wesl).pdf/267

 for those fruits are only necessary conditionally; if there be time and opportunity for them. Otherwise a man may be justified without them, as was the thief upon the cross: (if we may call him so; for a late writer has discovered, that he was no thief, but a very honest and respectable person!) But he cannot be justified without faith: this is impossible. Likewise let a man have ever so much repentance, or ever so many of the fruits meet for repentance, yet all this does not at all avail: he is not justified 'till he believes. But the moment he believes, with or without those fruits, yea, with more or less repentance, he is justified. Not in the same sense; for repentance and its fruits are only remotely necessary, necessary in order to faith: whereas faith is immediately and directly necessary to justification. It remains, that faith is the only condition, which is immediately and proximately necessary to justification.

3. "But do you believe, we are sanctified by faith? We know you believe, that we are justified by faith: but do not you believe, and accordingly teach, that we are sanctified by our works?"

So it has been roundly and vehemently affirmed, for these five and twenty years. But I have constantly declared just the contrary: and that in all manner of ways. I have continually testified in private and in public, that we are sanctified, as well as justified, by faith. And indeed the