Page:The works of the Rev. John Wesley, M.A., late fellow of Lincoln-College, Oxford (IA worksofrevjohnwe3wesl).pdf/359

 V. 1. I am to conclude with some inferences. And, first, How wide is the difference between darkness of soul and heaviness? Which nevertheless are so generally confounded with each other, even by experienced Christians! Darkness, or the wilderness-state implies a total loss of joy in the Holy Ghost: heaviness does not; in the midst of this we may rejoice with joy unspeakable. They that are in darkness have lost the peace of God; they that are in heaviness have not: so far from it, that at the very time peace as well as grace may be multiplied unto them. In the former, the love of God is waxed cold, if it be not utterly extinguished: in the latter it retains its full force, or rather increases daily. In these, faith itself, if not totally lost, is however grievously decayed. Their evidence and conviction of things not seen, particularly of the pardoning love of God, is not so clear or strong as in time past: and their trust in him is proportionally weakened. Those, tho' they see him not, yet have a clear, unshaken confidence in God, and an abiding evidence of that love, whereby all their sins are blotted out. So that as long as we can distinguish faith from unbelief, hope from despair, peace from war, the love of God from the love of the world, we may infallibly distinguish heaviness from darkness.

2. We may learn from hence, secondly, That there may be need of heaviness, but there can be no need of darkness. There may be need of