-as shown in the redeeming work of Christ. It is in this sense that the doctrine of the Atonement can be said to have had great importance for Wesley. But The Doctrine of Salvation it was not any theory of Christ's work, but the conviction that that work made possible the application of God's love to man, which was central in Wesley's thinking. Man is forgiven for Christ's sake. And we love him because he first loved us. "How came you then to love him at first?" asks Wesley. "Was it not because you knew that he loved you? Did you, could you, love God at all, till you tasted and saw that he was gracious; that he was merciful to you a sinner?
... And whatever expressions any sinner who loves God uses, to denote God's love to him, you will always upon examination find, that they directly or indirectly imply forgiveness. Pardoning love is still at the root of all." ° This confidence in a pardoning God is one of the essentials of faith, and this brings the student to consider Wesley's doctrine of faith.
It is necessary at this point to make a digression, - but a digression important for establishing Wesley's theological provenance. It has been too commonly assumed that Wesley grafted on to the body of Anglican doctrine, which he had inherited from his
High Church father and mother, the Lutheran or Calvinistic dogma of justification by faith. Wesley's variations came "in part from Peter Bohler, by further study of the Greek Testament, and listening to some one reading Luther's Preface to the Romans": so a Methodist scholar, Dr. J. Agar Beet, writing in 1920, explained Wesley's doctrine of faith.*°
In 1935, another Methodist writer asserts that '"Martin Luther is known to be, along with his [Wesley's] own independent inquiries into the Word of God, the only authority other than Scripture, that Wesley ever
John Wesley and Modern Religion acknowledged for his understanding of Justification Dy Paiehitn wise ee Wesley did sometimes declare his agreement with the sixteenth-century Reformers, saying, for instance, that he believed in justification by faith as Calvin did—although, as will be shown later, Wesley added what Calvin would never have admitted. But it must be kept in mind that Wesley thought that he had found his doctrines, and they are apparently taught, — in the writings of the early Fathers which he prized so highly. The Life of Thomas Haliburton, also, which Wesley read and extolled in Georgia, teaches unequivocally the free forgiveness of God obtainable by faith. It cannot be maintained that Wesley, a welltrained scholar, heard of justification by faith for the first time from the Moravians, Peter Bohler, or anyone else. That he quoted the Homily of his Church
"On Salvation" when he finally agreed with what he thought Peter Bohler was teaching about this doctrine is evidence that he had in mind that familiar authority. But Wesley definitely stated where he had learned the doctrine. In 1751, he wrote to the Bishop of Exeter, that "I learned it from the Eleventh and Twelfth Articles and from the Homilies of our
Church." 1? In 1762, he wrote Dr. George Horne, afterwards Bishop of Norwich, that he had taught his doctrine of justification "ever since I was convinced of it myself by carefully reading the New Testament and the Homilies." *° Taken generally, faith, according to Wesley, is "the demonstrative evidence of things not seen." By faith the spiritual man discerns the things of God. It is
The Doctrine of Salvation with regard to the spiritual world what the senses are to the physical world. Here Wesley falls back upon his psychology. There are no innate ideas; all come from the senses. In order, then, to have "fixed, distinct, and determinate" ideas, ''a clear apprehension of the things of God," one must have ''a new class of senses opened" in the soul. These are man's avenues to the invisible world; these are the senses whereby one is furnished with "ideas of what the outward 'eye hath not seen, neither the ear heard.' " ™"
In this Wesley can see no difficulty, not as much as in the explanation of the natural senses. '"'For there is the utmost difficulty in conceiving how matter should influence matter at all; how that which is totally passive should act. Neither can we rationally account either for gravitation, attraction, or any natural motion whatsoever, but by supposing in all the finger of God, who alone conquers the vis inertie which is essential to every particle of matter, and worketh all in all." *° Once again Wesley is laboring with his eighteenth-century psychology (and physics) to make clear a deep conviction, this time a conviction concerning man's intuition of divine things.
The source of this definition is clear. It stems remotely, of course, from the definition of the Epistle to the Hebrews; but it comes almost word for word from Scougal's Life of God in the Soul of Man, a book which Wesley was reading as early as 1736 to one of his parishioners in America. Scougal believed that the root of religion is faith; and the chief branches, love to God, charity to man, purity, and humility. As will be seen later, Wesley changed this;
John Wesley and Modern Religion for to him the root of religion is not faith, but love.
But the definition of faith which Scougal gave was retained: "Faith hath the same place in the divine life, which sense hath in the natural; being indeed a kind of sense, or feeling persuasion of divine things." *° What, then, is justifying faith? For Wesley, justification is "present forgiveness, pardon of sins, and, consequently, acceptance with God." This comes by faith. 'Justifying faith implies, not only a divine ékeyxos that God 'was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself,' but a sure trust and confidence that Christ died for my sins, that he loved me, and gave himself for me." "And," adds Wesley, "'the moment a penitent sinner believes this, God pardons and absolves him." ** Justifying faith, then, is not simply an intuitive knowledge of a general truth but a persuasion of individual application. It is the general truth appropriated in individual experience.
But salvation by faith means more than forgiveness granted to those who trust in God, for present salvation is the state of one who is not only forgiven but saved from sin: it is, in short, holiness: "Without faith we cannot be thus saved; for we cannot rightly serve God unless we love him. And we cannot love him unless we know him; neither can we know God unless by faith. Therefore, salvation by faith is only, in other words, the love of God by the knowledge of God; or, the recovery of the image of God, by a true, spiritual acquaintance with him." *®
How faith as knowledge works out in the normal Christian life, Wesley explains more than once: "Let The Doctrine of Salvation but the eye of the soul be constantly fixed, not on the things which are temporal, but on those which are eternal, and our affections are more and more loosened from earth, and fixed on things above. So that faith, in general, is the most direct and effectual means of promoting all righteousness and true holiness.""
It is easy to see all this as so many words; but if Wesley is accorded the attention which is given to other men of another century and another universe of thought, his words have substance. Faith to him was something like the intuition of the poet, by which meanings are discovered which are hidden to others.
The man of faith lives in a new world, or, more exactly, he is a new man. True, Wesley was sure that by faith he discovered the truth of the Christian system as he understood it; but so are all man's intuitions bound up with his past as well as his present.
Beneath all his psychological explanations and all his theological carpentry is a profound conviction, that man may live in relation to the world perceived by faith instead of to a world apprehended only by the physical senses.
That Wesley meant precisely this is set forth in unmistakable language in a sermon which he wrote in his old age, "Walking by Sight and by Faith." ?? "Do you walk by faith?" he asked. 'Observe the question. I do not ask, whether you curse, or swear, or profane the Sabbath, or live in any outward sin. I do not ask, whether you do good, more or less; or attend all the ordinances of God. But, suppose you are blameless in all these respects, I ask, in the name of John Wesley and Modern Religion God, by what standard you judge of the value of things? By the visible or invisible world?" And he illustrates his meaning by asking whether his hearers would rather a son should "tbe a pious cobbler or a profane lord"; whether they would prefer a daughter "'should be a child of God, and walk on foot, or a child of the devil, and ride in a coach-and-six." '"Religion," he declared, "is no less than living in eternity, and walking in eternity; and hereby walking in the love of God and man, in lowhness, meekness, and resignation." This is the sense of Charles Wesley's verses:
The things unknown to feeble sense, Unseen by reason's glimmering ray, With strong commanding evidence Their heavenly origin display.
Faith lends its realizing light, The clouds disperse, the shadows fly, The Invisible appears in sight, And God is seen by mortal eye.
Man trusts in God to forgive his sins, and they are forgiven; but faith is not only trust, it is also the opening of man's inward eyes by the grace of God, so that he no longer walks by sight but by apprehension of a new world of values. He knows, not by logic, nor by authority, but by intuition, that God has indeed loved him and given His son for him. Man is restored, in part, to his primitive state where he knows by intuition as well as by his senses. But, knowing that God has so loved him, man himself loves: the love of God and of all mankind is shed abroad in the human heart.
The Doctrine of Salvation It is apparent that, in his discussion of faith, Wesley has had some difficulty with his intellectualistic tendencies. He would have clear and distinct ideas; and, while allowing that faith is a sure trust and confidence, he insists that faith is also intuitive knowledge. But there were certain other problems concerning the knowledge of the saved man which had to be raised. Does a man who has been forgiven know this to have been done? In other words, has he
This is a very old theological question. Augustine thought that man cannot know; the Westminster Confession says that such knowledge is possible, although one may struggle long before attaining it."'
Wesley had believed from the first that religion means happiness; and no man can be happy who doubts of his salvation. Therefore, very early in his career,
Wesley declared his belief in Assurance. At least as early as 1733, he wrote that "the Holy Spirit within us is the security of our salvation; he is likewise an earnest of it, and assures our spirits that we have a title to eternal happiness." 7?
Bohler did not teach Wesley the doctrine of justification by faith; it is doubtful if Wesley understood Bohler's advice in some important respects. But there were some new things in Bohler's teaching. These were, that the fruits of justifying faith are "dominion over sin and constant peace from a sense of forgiveness." 7? Concerning the latter, Bohler taught, more specifically, that when a man is justified, which always happens in a moment, "in that moment he has peace with God: which he cannot have without $55 John Wesley and Modern Religion knowledge that he has it." ** It has been somewhat generally assumed that Wesley held tenaciously to the doctrine that a Christian, to be a Christian, must know that his sins are forgiven, must have "peace with God." How far is this sustained by the facts?
In the Minutes of 1744, it was denied that one can be justified without knowing it, or that one who hears the gospel can go to heaven without an assurance of God's love. In 1745, however, the Conference would not declare "ta sense of God's pardoning love absolutely essential to our being in his favour." "°
There may be exempt cases. Neither would they say that such assurance is absolutely necessary for final salvation. In the same year, Wesley wrote to "John
Smith" that he did not deny God's working imperceptibly in some a gradually increasing assurance of his love."® But a man perceives the states of mind and heart, that is righteousness, peace, love, which the Spirit works in his heart. In later life, Wesley concluded that an assurance of salvation is the privilege of all Christians, but he ceased claiming that this is essential to "justifying faith." In his old age, he wrote to Melville Horne at Madeley:
"When fifty years ago my brother and I, in the simplicity of our hearts, told the good people of England that unless they know their sins forgiven, they were under the wrath and curse of God, I marvel, Melville, they did not stone us. The Methodists, I hope, know better now; we preach assurance as we always did, as a common privilege of the children of God; but we do not enforce it, under the ets7AS ee The Doctrine of Salvation pain of damnation, denounced on all who do not enjoy ee!
Wesley had some difficulties in stating his doctrine.
He did not teach, as he was often accused of teaching, that a man is justified because he believes he is justified. Vinet's statement would have pleased Wesley:
"Faith does not consist in the belief that we are saved; it consists in the belief that we are loved." ** At times Wesley recognized that, as a modern scholar has put it, "confidence is nothing but faith aware of itself." *° Writing to Richard Tompson in 1755,
Wesley spoke of assurance as "'no other than the full assurance of faith; therefore it cannot be a distinct thing from faith, but only so high a degree of faith as excludes all doubt and fear. This plerophory, or full assurance, is doubtless wrought in us by the Holy
Ghost; yet the mind of man is the subject of both.
I believe feebly; I believe without all doubt." *° But he could not get away from his predilection for clear and distinct ideas.
The testimony of the Spirit of God, the well-known v "Witness of the Spirit,"' he defined as "an inward impression on the soul, whereby the Spirit of God directly witnesses to my spirit, that I am a child of God; that Jesus Christ hath loved me, and given Himself for me; and that all my sins are blotted out, and I, even I, am reconciled to God." ** The manner in which this direct communication, immediate revelation, in short, is given to man, Wesley does not undertake to say. "But the fact we know; namely, that the Spirit of God does give a believer such a testimony of this adoption, that while it is present to the soul, he
John Wesley and Modern Religion can no more doubt the reality of his sonship, than he can doubt of the shining of the sun, while he stands in the full blaze of his beams." *?
But when one has considered Wesley's doctrines of the new birth, of justification, faith, and assurance, he may yet overlook the essential nature of religion as Wesley understood it. A religion worthy of God who gave it is no other "than love; the love of God and of all mankind; the loving God with all our heart, and soul, and strength, as having first loved us, as the fountain of all we have received, and of all we ever hope to enjoy; and the loving every soul which God hath made, every man on earth, as our own soul."
"This love," he continued, "we believe to be the medicine of life, the never-failing remedy for all the evils of a disordered world, for all the miseries and vices of mankind. Wherever this is, there are virtue and happiness going hand in hand." ** In Christianity there has always persisted the view that love is the essence of religion, love which is, in fact, the life of God in the soul of man. Sometimes
Wesley speaks of Christians living by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, sometimes of the love of God in the heart; but his meaning is plain. To him the abiding characteristic of Christian living at its best is the love which is shed abroad in the heart by the Holy
Spirit. | Professor Webb has seen as one of the characteristics of the Oxford Movement "'its return to a primitive consciousness of organic participation in the risen life of Christ, with which the concentration of Western medieval piety on the Passion has less in common
The Doctrine of Salvation than it has with evangelical devotion to the Precious Blood." In speaking of this emphasis upon love as Catholic, one must remember that it is Catholic more truly in the sense that it is primitive and that it is especially characteristic of the mysticism of the Greek
Fathers. Professor Webb agrees with Dr. Brilioth, that "the thought of sharing in the glory of the risen Lord preponderates over confidence in the atoning work of the Cross"; that "Easter overshadows Good
Friday and makes its message only a part of its own." ** It seems to the writer beyond a doubt that, however strongly Wesley emphasized the Atonement, he did not give it the place which it had in the thinking of Calvinistic evangelicals. With Wesley the central idea is the love of God in the heart, which is the indwelling of the Spirit. He would not have phrased it as did the Tractarians or their Greek forerunners, but he did center on the thing itself. The beginning is faith, as Ignatius put it; but the end is love.
But love is not merely a state of the soul at any given moment. In one sense, love is holiness. Religion is not simply an inward sense, nor is salvation merely a psychological state. The root of religion is in the soul; but "if this root be really in the heart, it cannot but put forth branches, and these are the several instances of outward obedience, which partakes of the same nature as the root; and, consequently, are not only marks or signs, but substantial parts of religion." * This statement must be carefully weighed by those who think that Wesley's doctrine was concerned only with the emotional states of the John Wesley and Modern Religion believer. And, if one will recall that Wesley had clung from his earliest college years to the conviction that "without holiness no man can see the Lord," it will seem reasonable that he should not be able to forget this in his new-found zeal for a life of faith.
In his very definition of religion as love, Wesley lays it down for true that outward obedience is not a sign of salvation or of faith but a substantial part of religion. How was this reconciled with his doctrine of salvation by faith?
In the first place, let it be stated again, Wesley's is a religion of grace. He had the religious man's conviction of the divine initiative. In 1730, he had written to his father that the main point to be gained is "to have an habitual lively sense of our being only instruments in His hands, who can do things either with or without instruments." At that time he felt that "Show to affix this sense in us is the great question." °° In his mystical conversion, if not before, he had achieved that sense of the divine action. If he had heard the words of Bajezid Bistani, Wesley would have understood and approved them: "For thirty years I searched for God, and when at the end of this time my eyes were opened, I discovered that it was he who had searched for me." *"
Man is saved by the grace of God and by the merits of Christ. He was at one with all orthodox Reformation theologians in this. But how is he saved? What on man's part is the response which appropriates this grace? He had answered, that man is forgiven the moment thathe has faith, confidence in the love of God. This Wesley saw was very close to Calvinism,
The Doctrine of Salvation "only a hair's breadth" away. But it was also very close to antinomianism, the doctrine that man's efforts are useless, that the law has no authority for the Christian. Therefore, Wesley could not be satisfied to rest with a doctrine of forgiveness and of the peace of the saved man.
As usual Wesley was brought to clearer formulation of his theology by practical problems. Suppose a good man does not believe in justification by faith, suppose that he will not depend upon faith to save him: will that man be lost? On December 1, 1767, when Wesley had already had to face the problem as to his own state before 1738, he wrote in his Journal that this much "appeared clear as day": that "a Mystic, who denies Justification by Faith (Mr. Law, for instance,) may be saved. But, if so, what becomes of articulus stantis vel cadentis ecclesie? Tf so, is it not high time for us to 'reject bombast and words half a yard long,' and to return to the plain word,
'He that feareth God, and worketh righteousness, is (accepted of Him?' " ** The importance of this statement for Wesley's mature theology must not be slurred over. From his earliest manhood, Wesley had believed that "he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted of Him." But when he came to know the power of a consciousness of God's love through faith, he accepted it as true that all who do not so realize the loving forgiveness of God are not Christians. God accepts only those who come by faith alone. But his Church of England training and his English common sense would not let him rest there. Neither would his abJohn Wesley and Modern Religion sorption in morality. So significant is his development here that it must be considered in some detail.
In 1742, Wesley declared all works done before justification to partake of the nature of sin.*® Before a man is forgiven he can do no good thing. In the Conference of 1744,*° the questions of repentance and of works meet for repentance were up for discussion. It was decided that these must go before forgiveness. In 1745, it was added: "if there be time for them" (this was to leave room for deathbed salvation).
But the difficulty was gotten around by calling repentance "'a low species of faith." In 1745, the Conference considered the case of Cornelius (Acts x). According to the theory, Cornelius' good works, which were said to have come up as a memorial before God, were only splendid sins. But the Conference could not agree to this. His works, the Conference decided, were sinful, but they were not "abomination to the Lord."
At first Wesley had scrupled even to use the word, "condition," in speaking of any requirement made of man previous to his forgiveness by faith.*+ But this, in which he went even beyond the Reformers, he soon gave over. In 1745, he wrote to "John
Smith": "I believe (1) that a rational assent to the truth of the Bible is one ingredient of Christian faith; (2) that Christian faith is a moral virtue in that sense wherein hope and charity are; (3) that men ought to yield the utmost attention and industry for the attainment of it, and yet (4) that this, as every
Christian grace, is properly supernatural, an immediate gift of God, which he commonly bestows in the The Doctrine of Salvation use of such means as He hath ordained. I believe it is generally given in an instant; but not arbitrarily, in your sense of the word; not without regard to the fitness (I should say the previous qualifications) of the recipient." *?
In 1779, Wesley made a clear-cut distinction. All the talk about "salvation by faith" and "salvation by works" tended to obscure what seemed to him the real point of division. Either salvation is the arbitrary breaking through of God upon man's passivity, or it is the reciprocal work of God and man. When he and his brother began to preach, "By grace are ye saved through faith," they had been astonished at the charge of preaching salvation by works which was leveled against them. At first Wesley had simply suspected the sincerity of those who so accused him; but later he hit upon the key to an understanding of 'their position. "This is the key," he wrote: "those that hold, Every one is absolutely predestinated either to Salvation or Damnation, see no medium between Salvation by Works and Salvation by Decrees." They are right, concludes Wesley. "'As averse as I once was to the thought, upon further consideration, I allow there is, there can be no medium. Either Salvation is by Absolute Decree, or it is (in a scriptural sense) by Works." He goes on to explain that salvation by the decree of God, in the strict Calvinistic sense, is salvation without human conditions. If conditions are insisted upon, then the absolute decree breaking through upon man's passivity must be set over against salvation on conditions, as salvation by faith against salvation by works. Faith itself is a condition; and Wesley
John Wesley and Modern Religion could not deny man's part even in present salvation:
""only he that believeth shall be saved." *° If there are conditions attached to man's forgiveness, there are certainly conditions attached to man's final salvation. In the point of conditions before justification, Wesley thought Calvin defective; in regard to the conditions of salvation at the end, he considered Luther woefully lacking. The only book of Luther which Wesley commented on at any length was the Commentary on Galatians. 'This Charles
Wesley had read in May, 1738, seeming to get no small comfort from it. John apparently did not read it until June, 1741, when he set down his opinion thereof in no uncertain language. "I was utterly ashamed," he wrote. "How have I esteemed this book, only because I heard it so commended by others; or at best, because I had heard some excellent sentences occasionally quoted from it! But what shall I say, now I judge for myself, now I see with my own eyes? Why, not only that the author makes nothing out, clears up not one considerable difficulty; that he is quite shallow in his remarks on many passages, and muddy and confused almost, on all; but that he is deeply tinctured with mysticism throughout, and hence often dangerously [in the first edition, it was "fundamentally" ] wrong. 'To instance only in one or two points: How " does he (almost in the words of Tauler) decry reason, right or wrong, as an irreconcilable enemy of Christ.
... Again, how blasphemously does he speak of good works and of the law of God—coupling the law with sin, death, hell, or the devil; and teaching that Christ delivers us from them all alike. ... Here (I appre2S=<San/rome.ndmaamie The Doctrine of Salvation hend) is the real spring of the grand error of the Moravians. They follow Luther, for better for worse." ** Luther had touched Wesley at two of the Englishman's most tender points. Nothing could make
Wesley give up his belief in the use of reason in religion nor in the primary place of holiness in the Christian life. It should be noted that Wesley's opinion of Luther did not result from the disagreements of the Methodists and the Moravians. Already in April,
1739, the day before he began to expound the Epistle to the Romans to one of the Bristol societies, Wesley spoke of "Luther in the fury of his Solifidianism." *
Luther simply did not emphasize works enough for the man who had inherited the mediating theology of Anglicanism and whose passion was first and last a - passion for holiness. It is significant that Wesley never included any writings of either Luther or Calvin in his numerous reprints for Methodists, although he had profound respect for the character and labors of both Reformers. As far as Wesley could go was to include two short biographies of the Reformers in his
With an intense conviction that "without holiness no man can see the Lord," Wesley could not exclude inward and outward holiness from the conditions of salvation, in the ordinary sense of the word. But he was equally convinced that present salvation, salvation from doubt and fear and from guilt and sin, is by faith, although a faith with conditions. Reconciliation of the two Wesley found in a distinction between salvation as a present experience and salvation as John Wesley and Modern Religion the final acceptance of man by God. In 1741 he read
Bishop Bull's Harmonica Apostolica,*® in which this distinction is made. At first, Wesley was repelled by the idea, but he was soon using it himself. In 1745, he was writing that justification at the last day is on the condition of "both inward and outward holiness."
He thought that this ought to meet the desires of all "who have hitherto opposed justification by faith alone merely upon a principle of conscience, because you was zealous for holiness and good works." **
He did not himself believe that any can be finally saved who is not holy. So far as he knew, all Christians believe this. The papists introduce a doctrine of purgatory to establish this, and others believe that holiness is attained only "in the article of death." But all agree that we must be "'fully cleansed from all sin, before we can enter into glory." He admitted that usually this happens at death, as will be seen when his doctrine of Christian Perfection is considered. But there is the hope that one may have holiness in this life.
Any way one approaches it, this doctrine requires good works as a condition of final salvation. | With Wesley's position in mind, one can understand the meaning of the famous Minutes of 1770. Until the death of Whitefield, Wesley had done everything possible to avoid conflict with the Calvinists. But he had already come to a conclusion about his own experience. He had adopted that theory of the infinite grades of faith and of assurance which he set forth to more than one correspondent, and he had decided on the division of Christian experience into two stages, the condition of a servant and the condiThe Doctrine of Salvation tion of a son, which is a part of his mature doctrine of Christian Perfection. Accordingly, in 1770, the Conference considered the question of faith and works. These Minutes have often been quoted, but no excerpts will take the place of the Minutes themselves. It is necessary to quote the relevant parts in extenso, together with the section published in the Long Minutes which gives the setting of the discussion.**
"Q. 74. What is the direct antidote to Methodism, the doctrine of heart-holiness?
"A. Calvinism: All the devices of Satan, for these fifty years, have done far less toward stopping the work of God, than that single doctrine. It strikes at the root of salvation from sin, previous to glory, putting the matter on quite another issue.
"Q. 75. But wherein lie the charms of this doctrine?
What makes men swallow it so greedily?
"A. (1) It seems to magnify Christ; although in reality.it supposes him to have died in vain. For the absolutely elect must have been saved without him; and the non-elect cannot be saved by him.
""(2) It is highly pleasing to flesh and blood, final perseverance in particular.
"QO. 77. We said in 1744, 'We have leaned too much toward Calvinism.' Wherein?
"A. (1) With regard to man's faithfulness. ...
(2) With regard to 'working for life,' which our Lord expressly commands us to do. 'Labour,' literally work, 'for the meat that endureth to everlasting life.' And in fact, every believer, till he comes to glory, works for as well as from life.
John Wesley and Modern Religion ""(3) We have received it as a maxim, that 'a man is to do nothing in order to justification.' Nothing can be more false. Whoever desires to find favour with God, should 'cease from evil, and learn to do well." So God himself teaches by the Prophet Isaiah.
Whoever repents, should 'do works meet for repentance. And if this is not in order to find favour, what does he do them for?
"Once more review the whole affair:
""(1) Who of us is now accepted of God?
"He that now believes in Christ with a loving, obedient heart.
But who among those that never heard of Christ?
""He that, according to the light he has, 'feareth God and worketh righteousness.'
Is this the same with 'he that is sincere'?
"Nearly, if not quite.
Is not this salvation by works?
"Not by the merit of works, but by works as a condition.
What have we then been disputing about for these thirty years?
"Tam afraid about words, namely, in some of the foregoing instances.
(6) As to merit itself, of which we have been so dreadfully afraid: We are rewarded according to our works, yea, because of our works. How does this differ from, 'for the sake of our works'? And how differs this from secundum meritis operum? Which is no more than, 'as our works deserve." Can you split this hair? I doubt I cannot." !
The Doctrine of Salvation The importance of these Minutes for an understanding of Wesley's theology cannot be minimized.
The Moravians had long since perceived that Wesley had interests that could not be reconciled to Lutheran theology. "Wesley," writes a Moravian historian, "'desired to give a prominent place in his system of the Christian religion to the doctrine of an active love, proceeding from the new birth and faith; and manifesting itself in striving after holiness and Christian perfection, and to the doctrine of the furtherance of this active love by the means of grace in the church.
Zinzendorf on the other hand allowed of none other than a grateful love, proceeding from the experience of the heart of a pardoned sinner; he condemned all self-made holiness, and every merely legal duty, and act of self-denial." *° Zinzendorf was true to Lutheran doctrine: man's good works are only those which proceed from thankfulness for justification; all others are self-acts. | The Minutes were understood as important by contemporaries, enemies and friends. 'The onslaught made against Wesley is well known, and Wesley did not regard his subsequent statement, that nothing in the Minutes contradicts justification by faith, as in any way a retraction of the Minutes themselves. He did believe in justification by faith, and in salvation by faith; but he could believe in present salvation only on conditions which man must meet and in final salvation only on the condition of inward and outward works. Fletcher of Madeley, who, Wesley hoped, would be his successor as ruler of the Methodists, saw in the Minutes something to be admired, that is, "the John Wesley and Modern Religion candour of an aged servant of God, who, instead of stiffly holding, and obstinately maintaining an old mistake, comes down as a little child, and freely acknowledges it before a respectable body of preachers, whose esteem it is his interest to secure."
In writing to Lady Huntingdon, Wesley 'rise that he had had regard for the honor of God for "above these forty years" (he was writing in 1771); and he thought Mr. Fletcher's letter (in the First
Check to Antinomianism) showed definitely that the Minutes "lay no other foundation than that which is laid in Scripture, and which I have been laying, and teaching others to lay, for between thirty and forty years." >! Jn the light of this, Fletcher's understanding of Wesley's meaning is important. This Fletcher stated succinctly: "For my part I entirely agree with the Authour of the Minutes, and thank him for daring to break the ice of prejudice and bigotry among us, by restoring works of righteousness to their deserved glory, without detracting from the glory of the Lord our Righteousness. 1 am as much persuaded that the Grace of Christ merits in the works of his — members, tho' it is mixed with dust and dross, which are good for nothing .... there is but one man whose works are truly meritorious; but when He works in us by his spirit, our works cannot (so far as he is concerned in them,) but be in a sense meritorious; because they are,—his works." °* In his Fourth
Check, Fletcher said that he had produced nearly twenty scriptures, "'which declare, with one consent, that we shall be judged, not according to our faith, but according to our works...." °°
The Doctrine of Salvation In the year when Wesley ordained preachers for America, he recapitulated his views. "Undoubtedly faith is the work of God; and yet it is the duty of man to believe. And every man may believe if he will, though not when he will. If he seeks faith in the appointed ways, sooner or later the power of the Lord will be present, whereby (1) God works, and by His. power (2) man believes. In order of thinking God's working goes first; but not in order of time. Believing is the act of the human mind, strengthened by the power of God." ** Wesley could no longer speak as he once did concerning good works which do not proceed from faith. When he prepared the "Articles of Religion" for the American Methodists, he omitted
Article XIII, "Of Works before Justification." He could not endorse the statement of the Article, that "Works done before the grace of Christ, and the inspiration of the Spirit, are not pleasant to God, forasmuch as they spring not of faith in Jesus Christ, neither do they make men meet to receive grace.... for that they are not done as God hath willed and commanded them to be done, we doubt not but they have the nature of sin." Nor could he believe that good works after justification come without the effort of man. Therefore, from Article XII, "Of Good
Works," he omitted one word. From the statement that good works "do spring out necessarily of a true and living Faith," Wesley took out the word "'necessarily."
In this way Wesley conceived that he united doctrines which had been separated in Catholicism and in the Reformation. 'It has been very frequently
Jour Wesley and Modern Religion observed," he wrote in a sermon dated in 1787 and printed in the Arminian Magazine in 1789, "that very few were clear in their judgment both with regard to justification and sanctification. Many who have spoken and written admirably well concerning justification, had no clear conception, nay were totally ignorant, of the doctrine of sanctification. Who has wrote more ably than Martin Luther on justification by faith alone? And who was more ignorant of the doctrine of sanctification, or more confused in his conceptions of it?.... On the other hand, how many writers of the Romish Church (as Francis Sales and Juan de Castaniza, in particular) have wrote strongly and scripturally on sanctification, who, nevertheless, were entirely unacquainted with the nature of justification! insomuch that the whole body of their
Divines at the Council of Trent, in their Catechismus ad Parochos, (Catechism which every parish Priest is to teach his people,) totally confound sanctification and justification together. But it has pleased God to give the Methodists a full and clear knowledge of each, and the wide difference between them.' In a later paragraph, Wesley added: "'It is, then, a great blessing given to this people, that as they do not think or speak of justification so as to supersede sanctification, so neither do they think or speak of sanctification so as to supersede justification. They take care to keep each in its own place, laying equal stress on one and the other. They know God has joined these together, and it is not for man to put them asunder; Therefore they maintain, with equal zeal and diligence, the doctrine of free, full, present justification, on the one
The Doctrine of Salvation hand, and of entire sanctification, both of heart and life, on the other; being as tenacious of inward holiness as any mystic, and of outward, as any Pharisee."
In 1773, Wesley quoted the words of his High Church friend, John Byrom:
Nor steel nor flint alone produces fire, Nor spark arises till they both conspire; Nor faith alone, nor works without, is right; Salvation rises when they both unite.
CHAPTER VIII CHRISTIAN PERFECTION WESLEY's most distinctive doctrine is unquestionably that of Christian Perfection.1 This he believed and taught during not only his great ministry, but throughout his ministerial life. From 1725 on, he sought nothing less than perfection; and to understand what he meant by this is to come nearest to an appreciation of Wesley's religious thought.
To the eighteenth century the doctrine of the perfectibility of man rapidly became an axiom. The optimism of both the Enlightenment and the Romantic Movement was partly rooted in a belief that man, once he has the right environment and training, may go on to perfection. This belief was rooted, it is true, in certain conceptions of man's nature which were far removed from the traditional religious conception and, therefore, from Wesley's primary assumptions. The fact that Methodism held to a doctrine of Christian Perfection may, at first sight, suggest analogies and affinities which may be deceiving. To understand Wesley and his relation to the thought movements of his time, one must consider carefully what he believed and taught concerning ~ perfection, sanctification, the 'Great Salvation." This is the more important since his doctrine, involving as it does the goal of the Christian life, brings once more
174 : et Christian Perfection into the purview of the student Wesley's entire theology.
In considering Wesley's doctrine of Christian Perfection, one must trace out again the roots of his religious life and thought. Out of what did his conceptions of the Christian way stem? From his young manhood, not to say from his childhood, he had walked in the classical way, putting high value upon the imitation of Christ and upon the Church and its ministries. But upon his return from America Wesley had experienced vividly the love of God and had learned the value of a trust in that love as manifested in the life and work of Christ. This immediate experience, immediate both in the sense of direct and instantaneous, set for him a definite and difficult problem. Just as in his thinking of the relation of man to God Wesley had to consider the old, old problem of faith and works, so in his doctrine of Christian
Perfection Wesley had to work over again in his mind the relation of immediate experience to the traditional Christian discipline and means of grace. What is Christian Perfection? How does one receive it? Is it a status or a goal? Is it gradually or instantaneously reached? Is one a Christian who is not perfect?
These and other questions had to be answered; and, as in other matters, Wesley did not at once reach his final conclusions. One must follow his development of mind and of experience. In the doctrine of Christian Perfection, as in his other doctrines, his mature convictions are those which should be called "Wesleyan."
As to the origins and development of his doctrine Ls John Wesley and Modern Religion of Christian Perfection, Wesley had much to say. If it were possible, it would be better to reprint A Plain
Account of Christian Perfection, which he wrote in 1765 and printed the next year. In this work he reviews, step by step, the progress of his beliefs about the "Great Salvation." The work is not entirely consistent; for Wesley was, in many ways, a journalist rather than a theologian or a historian. But the account is Wesley's own deliberate summing up of his doctrine. Aside from this publication, the most succinct account of Wesley's thoughts on Perfection is in a letter which he wrote to John Newton, Cowper's friend. The relevant parts of this letter, written in 1765, should be quoted.
"But how came this opinion into my mind? I will tell you with all simplicity. In 1725 I met with Bishop Taylor's Rules of Holy Living and Dying. J was struck particularly with the chapter upon Intenee'tion, and felt a fixed intention to give myself up to God. In this I was much confirmed soon after by the ' Christian Pattern [a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ], 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 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 need ful, even faith which worketh by the love of God and man, all inward and outward holiness; and I groaned
Christian Perfection to love God with all my heart and to serve Him with all my strength.
"January 1, 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 heart. Inthe 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 ove end of our life in all our words and actions.
"In January, 1738, I expressed my desire in thee words:
"O grant that nothing in my soul May dwell but Thy pure love alone!
O may Thy love possess me whole, My joy, my treasure, and my crown!
Strange flames far from my heart remove!
My every act, word, thought, be love!
"And I am still persuaded this is what the Lord Jesus hath bought for me with His own blood." "
The sources which Wesley mentioned deserve at least passing notice. They are Bishop Jeremy Taylor, the Imitation of Christ, William Law and the Bible.
Certainly, one cannot refer this aspect of Wesley's belief either to German Pietism or to Wesley's "non- — LAs John Wesley and Modern Religion conformist ancestors." 'Taylor was a royalist bishop, a protege of Archbishop Laud; the Imitation is a production of medieval monasticism;* and Law was, of course, a Nonjuror. As will be seen later, the ideal of Christian Perfection comes theologically and historically from the Catholic stream of Christian thought. The Church of England, in spite of such schisms as that in which the nonjuring High Churchmen were lost, managed to preserve much that distinguished the Catholic view of Christianity. And it was along this via media of pre-Tractarian Anglicanism that Wesley came to his final views.
What was the conception of Christian Perfection which Wesley learned from Taylor, from a Kempis, from Law, and from the Bible? In 1733, Wesley preached at Oxford, as he notes in the letter to Newton, on "The Circumcision of the Heart." * It is necessary to look again at this sermon, which—it will be remembered—was preached two years before Wesley went to America and five and a half years before the experience of Aldersgate Street.
Wesley began by assuming that one of the most essential facts of Christianity is, that "If Christ be risen, ye ought then to die unto the world, and to live wholly unto God." This, Wesley observed, was a hard doctrine if taken in the "plain and obvious meaning" of the words. Moreover, those whose circumcision is of the heart and spirit, not of the flesh, have as the "distinguishing mark" of a true follower of Christ "not either outward circumcision, or baptism, or any other outward form, but a right state of soul, a mind and spirit renewed after the image of Him
Christian Perfection that created it." To live wholly to God involves, then, "a right state of the soul." But Wesley goes on to define his meaning more carefully. 'Circumcision of the heart" is, in general, "that habitual disposition of soul which, in the sacred writings, is termed holiness; and which directly implies, the being cleansed from sin, 'from all filthiness both of flesh and spirit'; and, by consequence, the being endued with those virtues which were also in Christ Jesus; the being so 'renewed in the spirit of our mind,' as to be 'perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect.' This renewal implies the possession of the virtues of humility, faith, hope, and charity. Not that these are achieved by man; for it is He alone who works in us, "it being as impossible for us even to think a good thought, without the supernatural assistance of His Spirit, as to create ourselves, or to renew our whole souls in righteousness and true holiness." But the Holy Spirit does work in man humility, faith, hope, and love. As to faith: there is no other foundation of good works than faith, or of faith than Christ; and the Spirit of God is the ''Inspirer and Perfecter, both of our faith and works." Moreover, "none is truly 'led by the Spirit,' unless that 'Spirit bear witness with his spirit, that he isaeenild of God.'."
Love, he added, is "the essence, the spirit, the life of all virtue. It is not only the first and great command, but it is all the commandments in one. " 'Whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are amiable,' or honourable, 'if there be any virtue, if there be any praise,' they are all comprised in this one word,—love. In this is perfection, and 179 | John Wesley and Modern Religion glory, and happiness." But this love implies the love of man, as well as of God. Only, man's ultimate end is God.
Although holiness is of the heart, that is, of the inner life, it is also the outward obedience of man. A gift of God, holiness requires man's struggle. 'Vain hope!" he exclaims of any expectation to fulfil the commandments of God without effort, '"'that a child of Adam should expect to see the kingdom of God without striving, without agonizing, first, 'to enter in at the strait gate'; that one who was 'conceived and born in sin,' and whose 'inward parts are very wickedness,' should once entertain a thought of being 'purified as his Lord is pure,' unless he tread in His steps, and 'take up his cross daily,' unless he 'cut off his right hand,' and 'pluck out the right eye, and cast it from him'; that he should ever dream of shaking off his old
Opinions, passions, tempers, of being 'sanctified throughout in spirit, soul, and body,' without a constant and continued course of general self-denial!" °
This would seem to be a complete statement of Christian Perfection, and even the most cursory acquaintance with Wesley will cause the reader to recognize much that is characteristic of his later teaching. But is this truly a statement of the doctrine as Wesley held it after 1738? Dr. Sugden, in his comments on the sermon, thought that the section con- | cerning agonizing to enter in by the strait way and the necessity of self-denial to achieve sanctification, was a clear statement of holiness by works.®° But Wesley said to Newton that this sermon contained all that he later taught "'concerning salvation from all shea Christian Perfection sin, and loving God with an undivided heart." And in the light of the discussion of Wesley's doctrine of faith and works in the previous chapter, the section does not seem alien to Wesley's thought.
In one thing there was certainly need of correction in order that the statement of the sermon might be brought into line with Wesley's later belief. And in this instance, Wesley made the correction. In the original sermon, faith appeared as one of the virtues wrought in the soul by the Holy Spirit, essentially an understanding of man's calling "to glorify God, who hath bought him at so great a price, in his body and in his spirit, which now are God's by redemption, as well as by creation"; and as an unshaken assent "'to all that God hath revealed in Scripture and in particular to those important truths, 'Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners,' 'He bare our sins in His own body on the tree,' "He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.'" Now, by 1738, Wesley had come to think of faith as something more than this understanding and "'unshaken assent': faith is '"'the revelation of Christ in our hearts," by which Wesley meant a vivid conviction of God's love, ""His free unmerited love to me a sinner," a "sure confidence in His pardoning mercy, wrought in us by the Holy Ghost." 7
In other words, Wesley's early sermon did not need any emendation as to the goal of the Christian Life; but there was need to add to his former definition of faith that it is not merely a virtue of the soul but a vivid confidence and conviction which is in itself
John Wesley and Modern Religion powerful toward the creation of happiness and conquering love.
Such was the conception of Christian Perfection which Wesley held and which he had held from his Oxford days: a total devotion to God, which includes inner and outward holiness. This is the gift of God, but man's moral effort is assumed. It is assumed also that man's perfection means his happiness, and this implies perfect peace of mind. When Wesley went to Germany in 1738, after his experience of a strangely warmed heart, he met one, Arvid Gradin, who gave a definition of "'the full assurance of faith."
This was: "Repose in the blood of Christ; a firm confidence (firma fiducia) in God, and persuasion of his favour; the highest tranquility, serenity, and peace of mind, with a deliverance from every fleshly desire, and a cessation of all, even inward sins." 'This, said
Wesley, "was the first account I ever heard from any living man, of what IJ had before learned myself from the oracles of God, and had been praying for, (with the little company of my friends,) and expecting, for several years." ° The Holy Club, that is, had been praying for and expecting a full peace and assurance' which would lift them above, not only anxiety or fear, but evil desire also. This was doubtless what Wesley meant, in 1735, when he said that, after he "was fully converted," he would be able to turn others to Him.
When he realized the love of God in experience, he evidently expected too much. Apparently he thought that he was entering immediately into the longexpected state of perfection. So his early sermons,
"The Almost Christian," 'Circumcision of the Christian Perfection Heart," and 'The Witness of our own Spirit" seem to teach that the believer is "'entirely freed from sin at his conversion." Wesley's spiritual struggles were
Owing, in part, to the fact that he did not realize how long may be the pilgrim's journey. His talk about "being fully converted," and his statement that the little company had prayed for and expected such full assurance as Arvid Gradin described, would indicate that Wesley thought at first that perfection comes with the attainment of a sure trust and confidence that one is a child of God. To be converted is to be perfect.
It is frequently said that those who separate ee a fication and sanctification hold to a mechanical theory which minimizes the ethical character of justification.
This assumes that justification is a mechanical, forensic process with no moral meaning. It is not true of Wesley. He insisted upon separating the two terms because he himself had learned that the Christian life is a development, not an event. So important did a realization of the love of God in Christ seem to Wesley, after his experience of it, that he at first supposed this the status of full peace and victory which he had long associated with perfection. But when he understood that this was not the end, he adjusted his theory to the facts. In the preface to the Hymns published in 1740,° he spoke of the justified man in terms so high that he later substituted the word "sanctified." In the first edition of his Works (1771-74), he corrected his sermon on ""The Witness of our own Spirit," so it would be clear that he was talking about "adult"
Christians; and he added this note at the end: "It may John Wesley and Modern Religion easily be observed, that the preceding discourse describes the experience of those that are strong in faith." For those who might be discouraged by reading this sermon he advised the sermon on "Sin in Believers." *° Further evidence of the way in which Wesley had to modify his high expectations of the newly converted is in the other changes which he made in the preface to the 1740 hymnal.** According to the original preface, the justified Christian is freed from all darkness, having no fear, no doubt, either as to their state in general or as to any particular action. This, he decided later, is frequently the case, but only for a time: The Holy Spirit teaches them every hour what they shall do and what they shall speak. His later comment was: "For a time it may be so; but not always." Christians have no further need of reason concerning these matters.
Sometimes they have no need, was his later decision, but at other times they have. The converted Christian is not troubled by temptations. Later he added that they are sometimes troubled "and that grievously." The sum of the matter is, that Wesley was forced | by experience to the conclusion that a realization of the love of God and a sure trust and confidence that God has for Christ's sake pardoned his sins and that he is reconciled to God, does not mean that the convert has arrived at Christian perfection.
Further adjustments of Wesley's theory were made necessary by the facts of experience. In the sermon on Christian Perfection which he published in 1741,
Wesley stated that there is no such thing as "absolute _ perfection on earth." '* Man cannot control entirely Christian Perfection his wandering thoughts; and there are defects of understanding and opinions which prevent infallibility and frequently affect one's actions. Man may have defects of temper, although there can be no sin in those who are perfect in love.
To explain this gave Wesley no little trouble, for his inherited theology was hard to reconcile with the facts as he saw them. Man is corrupt. God forgives him and gives him a new heart. Theoretically, he ought not to sin thereafter; but he does. Evidently
there is sin remaining in him. Wesley believed that this remaining sin is inbred sin, the fallen nature inherited from Adam. There is, of course, more logic than anything else here. ~Wesley never got over thinking of sin as something substantial. "He would have been nearer the solution of his problem if he had remembered the words of William Law, in Christian
Perfection: "When by an inward Principle of Holiness we stand so disposed to all Degrees of Virtue, as the ambitious Man stands disposed to all Steps of Greatness, when we hate and avoid all Kinds of Sins, as the covetous Man hates and avoids all Sorts of Loss and Expense, then are we such Sons of God, as cannot commit Sin."1°_| The expulsive power of a new affection is a better psychological explanation of sinless perfection than Wesley's theological propositions concerning inbred and actual sin. There is no denying the truth of the statement which Dr. Flew quotes from Dr. Maltby: "Our [ze., the Methodist] theological coat was cut for the figure of Total Depravity, but when it was tried on, it was found not to fit any kind of human nature."
John Wesley and Modern Religion The curious may trace out the whole matter in Wesley's writings, especially in his sermons on 'Sin in Believers" and "Repentance in Believers," where
Wesley corrects a possible inference from some of his earlier sermons, that when a believer sins he must retrace the whole process of becoming a Christian. In all this, Wesley was perfecting his doctrine of growth in the Christian life.
. But, if inbred sin is left in the believer, this, too, must be rooted out before one can be finally saved, for without holiness no man can see the Lord. The root of sin must be taken out of the heart; man must be wholly conformed to the image of God, or, more exactly, the lost image of God in man must be restored by the grace of God. Wesley was too good a logician not to see that, when the root is gone, the fruit cannot again be produced. But he held to his point, attested by experience: wrong opinions, tempers, and actions may remain. His psychology helped him here. Man is a soul "in a shattered body." He lost his bodily perfection at the Fall, and "for want of better bodily organs, they must at times, think, speak, and act wrong; not indeed through a defect of love, but through a defect of knowledge." * _ If God removes the root of sin, it will be instantaneously, as justification is usually instantaneous.
This Wesley learned from those who claimed to have experienced it. Moreover, the man whose Diary shows that he was reading a work on logic when ~ he was almost tottering to the grave, had ground for his belief: "It is often difficult to perceive the instant when a man dies; yet there is an instant in which life
Christian Perfection ceases. And if ever sin ceases, there must be a last moment of its existence, and a first moment of our deliverance from it." *® On the assumption that sin is a material something the logic is impeccable.
A But Wesley was sure that sanctification is gradual as well as instantaneous. In his sermon on Christian ——Perfection, where he denied "absolute perfection" to be possible in this life, Wesley said that there is no perfection "which does not admit of a continual increase.
So that how much soever any man has attained, or in how high a degree soever he is perfect, he hath still need to 'grow in grace' and daily to advance in the knowledge and love of God his Saviour." ** In the moment one is justified, the seed of every virtue is then sown in the soul. From that time the believer
"sradually dies to sin, and grows in grace." '* This idea Wesley repeats over and over again. There is a gradual work of grace preceding and succeeding sanctification, just as a gradual work of grace precedes justification.
In this Charles differed somewhat from John, for Charles was much taken with the mystical doctrine of the "dark night of the soul." *® Only gradually does man go on to perfection, and that by way of manifold temptations, afflictions, and tribulations.
not a sudden stroke of grace Destroys at once the cursed race, When first to Christ we come But by degrees insensible The Lord shall all our sins expel, And utterly consume.
John Wesley and Modern Religion On the phrase, "by degrees insensible," John commented: "Both suddenly and gradually."
In 1767, John Wesley summed up his thoughts on Christian Perfection, saying of the matter of time:
"I believe this perfection is always wrought in the soul by a simple act of faith; consequently in an instant.
But I believe a gradual work, both preceding and following that instant. As to the time. I believe this instant generally is the instant of death, the moment before the soul leaves the body. But I believe it may be ten, twenty, or forty years before. I believe it is usually many years after justification; but that it may be within five years or five months after it, I know no conclusive argument to the contrary." "°
Some supposed that, when he began to declare, "By grace ye are saved through faith," he had retracted his former belief, that without holiness no man can see the Lord. "But it is an entire mistake:
These scriptures well consist with each other; the meaning of the former being plainly this,—By faith we are saved from sin, and made holy. The imagination that faith supersedes holiness, is the marrow of Antinomianism." 7' In even clearer language he set forth his idea in A Farther Appeal: "With regard to the condition of salvation, it may be remembered that I allow, not only faith, but likewise holiness or universal obedience, to be the ordinary condition of final salvation; and that when I say, Faith alone is the condition of present salvation, what I would assert is this:
(1) That without faith no man can be'saved from his sins; can be either inwardly or outwardly holy.
And, (2) That at what time soever faith is given, Christian Perfection holiness commences in the soul. For that instant 'the love of God' (which is the source of holiness) 'is shed abroad in the heart.'" ??_ Faith is both "the condition and the instrument" of sanctification. "When we begin to believe, then sanctification begins. And as faith increases, holiness increases, till we are created anew." *° | What Wesley is talking about is, in brief, this. Man lives by faith, for faith is necessary if one is to have that love in the heart which is the cause of holiness.
And holiness is necessary to final salvation, so necessary that, if man cannot have it otherwise, God will give it to him who has faith in the article of death.
And in order to hold to this last, that man must be sanctified before he is finally saved even if on his deathbed, Wesley must hold that faith alone, without works, may be the condition of sanctification. So he goes on torturously proving that, while works are in a sense necessary to sanctification, they are not necessary in the same degree as faith, not immediately and proximately.
Here we have the devious ways by which Wesley maintains his fundamental convictions. Holiness is essential—he will have no compromise with this. But since he admits that most do not reach the ideal in this life, then there must be provision for them to be sanctified by faith alone. Moreover—Wesley reasons by analogy, and he is sure that he is supported by Scripture and by the experience of those whose testimony he trusts—since justification is usually in a moment, by faith only, so also is sanctification.
Professor Cell has said that the "Wesleyan reconJohn Wesley and Modern Religion struction of the Christian ethic of life is an original and unique synthesis of the Protestant ethic of grace with the Catholic ethic of holiness." 7* This is a wise and a just observation. Holiness comes to man by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and man receives the Spirit by faith. Always Wesley thinks of man's growing spiritual nature as in dependence upon Christ. 'The holiest of men still need Christ, as their
Prophet, as 'the light of the world.' For he does not give them light but from moment to moment... .
They still need Christ as their Priest, to make atonement for their holy things. Even perfect holiness is acceptable only through Jesus Christ." Moreover, men need Christ as their "Priest, their Atonement, their Advocate with the Father, not only as the continuance of their every blessing depends on his death and intercession, but on account of their coming short of the law of love. Every man living does so." ®°
This is to say, in short, that man needs continuously the ever-present and ever-active love of God through Christ. It is this which energizes the Christian. He loves Christ because Christ first loved him; and from this love flows all inward and outward holiness. This simple truth lies at the heart of all Wesley's appeals to traditional theology, and more than once he reminded his readers and hearers that simple people who never . heard of the theological explanations could understand the fact.
When one comes to see what Wesley means by the faith whereby we are sanctified, it is evident how Wesley combines his general and his special definitions of faith. Faith as the evidence of things not seen, the Christian Perfection spiritual sense by which one discerns spiritual reality, is, in essence, intuitive knowledge of what one cannot prove by reason. A sure trust, on the other hand, is confidence, the belief that clings. The faith whereby we are sanctified is both, but mainly the first. It is first, according to the sermon, ""The Scripture Way of Salvation," a divine "evidence and conviction.... that God hath promised it in the holy Scripture"; secondly, 'ta divine evidence and conviction.... that what God hath promised He is able to perform"; thirdly, "ta divine evidence and conviction, that He is able and willing to do it now." To this there must be added something more, '"'a divine evidence and conviction that He doeth it." ?® This last Wesley himself never had.
In short, Wesley would have his people live in expectation of reaching their goal, and in certainty that they might come nearer and nearer to that love which expels sin and governs the heart and life. And they were to live by the grace of God, not as "given all at once, as if they had a stock laid up for many years; but from moment to moment." *" Here Wesley comes close to the heart of the matter. As he said in the conclusion of the Large Minutes, they talked too much about justified states and sanctified states; but they lived moment by moment. They were to live in the constant consciousness of the continual favor of God.
It might seem that his stress upon the necessity of the repentance of believers and upon their acknowledgment of their imperfect attainments would make for morbidness. In healthy minds it did not. As John Wesley and Modern Religion Professor Goodloe puts it: ""No one of us is ever so good but that we may not become better. Repentance is not alone an acknowledgment of one's sins, it is as truly a recognition that one has not yet achieved all that is possible for him to attain. So that in this very resolve to 'press forward' is ground sufficient for genuine joy. ... Further, repentance is necessary as a permanent attitude of mind because of the fact that no individual, with or without sin, is able at any moment in his experience to realize goodness in its fulness, but is able to increase his ability to do so. Hence as long as life exists there is opportunity for a deepening experience of grace and of the consciousness of —