To John Newton

SELF-IMAGES IN THE LETTERS

To John Newtonl Londonderry, May 14, 1765 Dear Sir:

Your manner of writing needs no excuse. I hope you will always write in the same manner. Love is the plainest thing in the world. I know this dictates what you write; and then what need of ceremony?

You have admirably well expressed what I mean by an opinion contradistinguished from an essential doctrine. Whatever is "compatible with a love to Christ and a work of grace," I term an opinion.2 And certainly the holding "particular election" and "final perseverance" is compatible with these. "Yet what fundamental error (you ask) have you opposed with half that frequency and vehemence as you have these opinions?" So doubtless you have heard. But it is not true. I have printed near fifty sermons, and only one of these opposes them at all. I preach about eight hundred sermons in a year. And taking one year with another, for twenty years past, I have not preached eight sermons in a year upon the subject.

But, "how many of your best preachers have been thrust out because they dissented from you in these particulars?" Not one, best or worst, good or bad, was ever "thrust out" on this account. There has been not a single instance of the kind. Two or three (but far from "the best" of our preachers) voluntarily left us after they had embraced those opinions.

1. Copied here from the holograph in the Leete Collection, Southern Methodist University; cf. Letters, IV, 297-300. John Newton (1725-1807) was a converted slave trader who was, at the time of this letter, rector of Olney, where he collaborated with William Cowper in what came to be the Olney Hymns (1779); cf.

John Newton, Journal of a Slave Trader, 1750-1754, Bernard Martin and Mark Spurrell, eds. (1962). Under the influence of Whitefield and others, he had adopted a vigorous Calvinism, and although he was a friend of Wesley's and a supporter of the Revival, he was mildly dubious of Wesley's use of lay preachers and strongly opposed to his doctrine of "perfection."

This letter is noteworthy for its autobiographical history of the development of the doctrine in Wesley's thought, for its summary presentation of his prime distinction between "an opinion contradistinguished from an essential doctrine," and for his blunt assertion that "on justification" he does not differ from "Mr. Calvin" by "an hair's breadth." Cf. The Arminian Magazine (1780), 441-44, for a further incident in the relations between Newton and Wesley.

2. Cf. Journal, HI, 320; VII, 389; Letters, II, no; IV, 297; Works, VI, 199;

VIII, 244-46, 249, 340-41; IX, 56-57; X, 347-48.

Wesley, John. John Wesley, edited by A. C. Outler, Oxford University Press USA - OSO, 1980. ProQuest

Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nottingham/detail.action?docID=684619.

Created from nottingham on 2021-10-22 14:50:48.

THE THEOLOGIAN SELF-INTERPRETED

But it was of their own mere motion. And two I should have expelled for immoral behaviour, but they withdrew and pretended "they did not hold our doctrine." Set a mark therefore on him who told you that tale and let his word for the future go for nothing.

"Is a man a believer in Jesus Christ, and is his life suitable to his profession?" are not only the main but the sole inquiries I make in order to his admission into our Society. If he is a Dissenter, he may be a Dissenter still. But if he is a churchman, I advise him to continue so, and that for many reasons, some of which are mentioned in the tract upon that subject.3

When you have read what I have wrote on occasion of the letters lately published, I may say something more on that head.4 And it will then be time enough to show you why some fart of those letters could not be wrote by Mr. Hervey.

I think on justification just as I have done any time these seven and twenty years, and just as Mr. Calvin does. In this respect I do not differ from him an hair's breadth.

But the main point between you and me is perfection. "This," you say, "has no prevalence in these parts. Otherwise I should think it my duty to oppose it with my whole strength, not as an 'opinion,' but as a dangerous mistake which appears to be subversive of the very foundations of Christian experience and which has, in fact, given occasion to the most grievous offences."

Just so my brother and I reasoned thirty years ago: "We think it our duty to oppose predestination with our whole strength, not as an opinion, but as a dangerous mistake which appears to be subversive of the very foundations of Christian experience and which has, in fact, given occasion to the most grievous offences."

That it has given occasion to such offences, I know. I can name time, place and persons. But still another fact stares me in the face: Mr. Haweis and Mr. Newton hold this: and yet I believe these have real Christian experience. But if so, this [doctrine of predestination] is only an "opin3. Reasons Against a Separation from the Church of England (1760), first published as Sec. 13 of A Preservative Against Unsettled Notions in Religion (Bristol,

1758).

4. A reference to a controversy that had arisen over Eleven Letters from the late Rev. Mr. Hervey to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley, published posthumously in 1764; cf. Tyerman, Life, II, 526-30. Wesley believed that William Cudworth, erstwhile friend now turned foe, had altered Hervey's text in order to widen the distance between the two former fellow-members of the Oxford Holy Club.

Wesley, John. John Wesley, edited by A. C. Outler, Oxford University Press USA - OSO, 1980. ProQuest

Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nottingham/detail.action?docID=684619.

Created from nottingham on 2021-10-22 14:50:48.

SELF-IMAGES IN THE LETTERS

ion." It is not subversive (here is clear proof to the contrary) "of the very foundations of Christian experience." It is "compatible with a love to Christ and a genuine work of grace." Yea, many hold it at whose feet

I desire to be found in the day of the Lord Jesus. If, then, I "oppose this with my whole strength," I am a mere bigot still. I leave you in your calm and retired moments to make the application.

But how came this opinion [i.e. perfection] into my mind? I will tell you with all simplicity. In 1725 I met with Bishop Taylor's Rules of Holy

Living and Dying. I was struck particularly with the chapter upon intention, and felt a fixed intention to "give myself up to God." 5 In this I was much confirmed soon after by the Christian Pattern, and longed to "give God all my heart." This is just what I mean by "perfection" now.

I sought after it from that hour.

In 1727 I read Mr. Law's Christian Perfection and Serious Call, and more explicitly resolved to be "all devoted to God in body, soul and spirit."

In 1730 8 I began to be homo unius libri? to study (comparatively) no book but the Bible. I then saw in a stronger light than ever before that only "one thing is needful" [cf. Lk. 10:42], even "faith that worketh by that love" [Gal. 5:6] of God and man, all inward and outward holiness.

And I groaned to love God with "all my heart," and to serve him with "all my strength."

January i, 1733, I preached the sermon on "The Circumcision of the Heart," which contains all that I now teach concerning salvation from all sin and loving God with an undivided hearth In the same year I printed (the first time I ventured to print anything), for the use of my pupils, A Collection of Forms of Prayer. And in this I spoke explicitly of giving "the whole heart and the whole life to God." This was then, as it is now, my idea of perfection, though I should have started at the word.

In 1735 I preached my farewell sermon at Epworth, in Lincolnshire.

In this likewise I spoke with the utmost clearness of having "one design, one desire, one love," and of pursuing the "one end" of our life in all our words and actions.

In January 17381 expressed my desire in those words: '

5. See above, p. 7.

6. Manuscript defective here.

7. "A man of only one book"; see below, p. 89.

8. Cf. Sermons (Sugden), I, 263-79.

9. Johann Gerhardt, trans, by John Wesley, published in Hymns and Sacred Poems (1739).

Wesley, John. John Wesley, edited by A. C. Outler, Oxford University Press USA - OSO, 1980. ProQuest

Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nottingham/detail.action?docID=684619.

Created from nottingham on 2021-10-22 14:50:48.

↑ Back to top