Ten days before his conversion, Wesley wrote a somewhat petulant letter to William Law, telling him that he did so in obedience to what he considered the call of God. He informs him that, for two years, he had been preaching after the model of his “Serious Call,” and “Christian Perfection,” and that the result had been to convince the people that the law of God was holy, but that, when they attempted to fulfil it, they found themselves without power. Wesley declares that he himself was in this state, and might have groaned in it till he died if he had not been directed to Peter Bohler. He then proceeds:— “Now, sir, suffer me to ask, how will you answer it to our common Lord, that you never gave me this advice? Did you never read the Acts of the Apostles, or the answer of Paul to him who said, ‘What must I do to be saved?’ Or are you wiser than he? Why did I scarce ever hear you name the name of Christ? Never so as to ground anything upon faith in His blood? Who is this who is laying another foundation? If you say you advised other things as preparatory to this, what is this but laying a foundation below the foundation? If you say you advised them because you knew that I had faith already, verily you knew nothing of me. I know that I had not faith, unless the faith of a devil, the faith of Judas: that speculative, notional, airy shadow, which lives in the head not in the heart. But what is this to the living, justifying faith in the blood of Jesus? the faith that cleanseth from sin, that gives us to have free access to the Father; to rejoice in hope of the glory of God; to have the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which dwelleth in us, and the Spirit itself bearing witness with our spirits that we are the children of God? “I beseech you, sir, by the mercies of God, to consider deeply and impartially whether the true reason of your never pressing this upon me was not this—that you had it not yourself? Whether that man of God [Bohler] was not in the right, who gave this account of a late interview he had with you? ‘I began speaking to him of faith in Christ: he was silent. Then he began to speak of mystical matters. I spake to him of faith in Christ again: he was silent. Then he began to speak of mystical matters again. I saw his state at once.’” Wesley then adds that Bohler thought the state of Law to be a dangerous one; and intimates that Bohler’s opinion was of great consequence, because he had the Spirit of God; and finally, he concludes his not too courteous epistle with: “Once more, sir, let me beg you to consider whether your extreme roughness, and morose and sour behaviour, at least on many occasions, can possibly be the fruit of a living faith in Christ?”[245]