"If what stands in the Bible is true," he said, "then I am saved"; but that was as far as he could go. "He knew," said Boehler in a letter to Zinzendorf, "that he did not properly believe in the Saviour." At last Boehler made a fine practical suggestion {March 5th.}. He urged Wesley to preach the Gospel to others. John Wesley was thunderstruck. He thought it rather his duty to leave off preaching. What right had he to preach to others a faith he did not yet possess himself? Should he leave off preaching or not? "By no means," replied Boehler. "But what can I preach?" asked Wesley. "Preach faith till you have it," was the classic answer, "and then, because you have it, you will preach faith." Again he consulted Boehler on the point; and again Boehler, broad-minded man, gave the same wholesome advice. "No," he insisted, "do not hide in the earth the talent God has given you." The advice was sound. If John Wesley had left off preaching now, he might never have preached again; and if Boehler had been a narrow-minded bigot, he would certainly have informed his pupil that unless he possessed full assurance of faith he was unfit to remain in holy orders. But Boehler was a scholar and a gentleman, and acted throughout with tact. For some weeks John Wesley continued to be puzzled by Boehler's doctrine of the holiness and happiness which spring from living faith; but at last he came to the firm conclusion that what Boehler said on the subject was precisely what was taught in the Church of England. He had read already in his own Church homilies that faith "is a sure trust and confidence which a man hath in God that through the merits of Christ his sins are forgiven, and he reconciled to the favour of God"; and yet, clergyman though he was, he had not yet that trust and confidence himself. Instead, therefore, of teaching Wesley new doctrine, Peter Boehler simply informed him that some men, though of course not all, were suddenly converted, that faith might be given in a moment, and that thus a man might pass at once from darkness to light and from sin and misery to righteousness and joy in the Holy Ghost. He had had that very experience himself at Jena; he had known it as a solid fact in the case of others; and, therefore, speaking from his own personal knowledge, he informed Wesley that when a man obtained true faith he acquired forthwith "dominion over sin and constant peace from a sense of forgiveness." At this Wesley was staggered. He called it a new Gospel. He would not believe that the sense of forgiveness could be given in a moment.