Tuesday, February 1, 2011

The repentance of John Wesley

John Wesley's Journal, 1739, August, Fri . 31. — I left Bristol, and reached London about eight on Sunday morning. In the afternoon I heard a sermon wherein it was asserted, that our repentance was not sincere, but feigned and hypocritical;

1. If we relapsed into sin soon after repenting: Especially, if,
2. We did not avoid all the occasions of sin; or if,
3. We relapsed frequently; and most of all, if,
4. Our hearts were hardened thereby.

O what a hypocrite was I, (if this be so,) for near twice ten years! But I know it is not so. I know every one under the Law is even as I was. Every one when he begins to see his fallen state, and to feel the wrath of God abiding on him, relapses into the sin that most easily besets him, soon after repenting of it. Sometimes he avoids, and at many other times cannot persuade himself to avoid, the occasions of it. Hence his relapses are frequent, and of consequence his heart is hardened more and more.

And yet all this time he is sincerely striving against sin. He can say unfeignedly, without hypocrisy, “The thing which I do, I approve not; the evil which I would not, that I do.” “To will is” even then “present with” him; “but how to perform that which is good” he “finds not.” Nor can he, with all his sincerity, avoid any one of these four marks of hypocrisy, till, “being justified by faith,” he hath “peace with God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

This helpless state I took occasion to describe at Kennington, to eight or ten thousand people, from those words of the Psalmist, “Innumerable troubles are come about me; my sins have taken such hold upon me, that I am not able to look up: Yea, they are more in number than the hairs of my head, and my heart hath failed me.” ~ John Wesley

Sunday, January 30, 2011

I am not a Christian

I wonder how our modern day altar workers would have counselled John Wesley in the years preceding his new birth. In 1735, John Wesley, the son of a Christian minister and a ministerial graduate of Oxford, possessed more than a decade of ministry experience. On-board a ship en route to America, Wesley encountered some Christians who challenged his conception of scriptural spirituality. These German Moravians left a deep impression of spiritual honesty and spiritual reality upon Mr. Wesley. The full story of John Wesley's interaction with the Moravian Christians and the development of his own spiritual life is diametrically opposed to the psychological techniques exerted upon many modern day seekers.

By their lives and theology, the Moravians convinced John Wesley that he did not have the type of faith promised to New Testament Christians. From the quote below, it appears that John Wesley was astoundingly honest and open about his spiritual shortcomings from the time he first encountered the Moravian Christians on the ship. While he continued to pursue God, it would be greater than two years time before his well-known new birth experience at Aldersgate:

"I told all in our ship, all at Savannah, all at Frederica, and that over and over, in express terms, ‘I am not a Christian; I only follow after, if haply I may attain it.’ When they urged my works and self denial, I answered short, ‘Though I give all my goods to feed the poor, and my body to be burned, I am nothing: For I have not charity; I do not love God with all my heart.’ If they added, ‘Nay, but you could not preach as you do, if you was not a Christian;’ I again confronted them with St. Paul: ‘Though I speak with the tongue of men and angels, and have not charity, I am nothing.’ Most earnestly, therefore, both in public and private, did I inculcate this: ‘Be not ye shaken, however I may fall, for the foundation standeth sure.’

If you ask on what principle, then, I acted; it was this: ‘A desire to be a Christian; and a conviction that whatever I judge conducive thereto, that I am bound to do; wherever I judge I can best answer this end, thither it is my duty to go.’ On this principle I set out for America; on this, I visited the Moravian Church; and on the same am I ready now (God being my helper) to go to Abyssinia or China, or whithersoever it shall please God, by this conviction, to call me." ~ John Wesley

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Barren, notional faith

On January 16, 1751, John Wesley received a letter from a friend that addressed a subject of concern to them both:

~ VERY DEAR SIR, All our preaching at first was pointed at the heart, and almost all our private conversation. "Do you feel the love of God in your heart? Does his Spirit reign there? Do you walk in the Spirit? Is that mind in you which was in Christ?" were frequent questions among us.

But while these Preachers to the heart were going on gloriously in the work of Christ, the false Apostles stepped in, laughed at all heart work, and laughed many of us out of our spiritual senses: For, according to them, we were neither to see, hear, feel, nor taste the powers of the world to come; but to rest contented with what was done for us seventeen hundred years ago.

"The dear Lamb," said they, "has done all for us: We have nothing to do, but to believe." Here was a stroke at the whole work of God in the heart! And ever since this German spirit has . . . caused many to rest in a barren, notional faith, void of that inward power of God unto salvation. ~

Sunday, November 14, 2010

The loss of wresting scripture

“The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God,” Romans 8:16.

~ How many vain men, not understanding what they spake, neither whereof they affirmed, have wrested this Scripture to the great loss, if not the destruction, of their souls! How many have mistaken the voice of their own imagination for this witness of the Spirit of God, and thence idly presumed they were the children of God . . . with what difficulty are they convinced thereof, especially if they have drank deep into that spirit of error! All endeavors to bring them to the knowledge of themselves, they will then account fighting against God; and that vehemence and impetuosity of spirit, which they call "contending earnestly for the faith" sets them so far above all the usual methods of conviction, that we may well say, "With men it is impossible." ~ John Wesley

Saturday, October 2, 2010

From servant to saint

"We are all agreed we may be saved from all sin before death - that is, from all sinful tempers and desires. The substance, then is settled. But as to the circumstances, is the change gradual or instantaneous? It is both the one and the other. 'But should we in preaching insist both on one and the other?' Certainly we should insist on the gradual change, and that earnestly
and continually.

And are there not reasons why we should insist on the instantaneous change? If there be such a blessed change before death, should we not encourage all believers to expect it? And the rather, because constant experience shows the more earnestly they expect this, the more swiftly and steadily does the gradual work of God go on in their souls, the more careful are they to grow in grace, the more zealous of good works and the more punctual in their attendance on all the ordinances of God.

Whereas, just the contrary effects are observed whenever this expectation ceases. They are saved by hope, by this hope of a total change, with a gradually increasing salvation. Destroy this hope, and that salvation stands still, or rather decreases daily. Therefore, whoever would advance the gradual change in believers should strongly insist on the instantaneous." ~ John Wesley

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Greater than John the Baptist

"It may be granted, (1.) That David, in the general course of his life, was one of the holiest men among the Jews. And, (2.) That the holiest men among the Jews did sometimes commit sin. But if you would hence infer that all Christians do, and must commit sin, as long as they live; this consequence we utterly deny. It will never follow from those premises. Those who argue thus seem never to have considered that declaration of our Lord, Matt. xi, 11, 'Verily I say unto you, among them that are born of women, there hath not arisen a greater than John the Baptist. Notwithstanding, he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.'

In these words then our Lord declares two things: (1.) That before his coming in the flesh, among all the children of men, there had not been one greater than John the Baptist: whence it evidently follows that neither Abraham, David, nor any Jew, was greater than John. (2.) That he who is least in the kingdom of God (in that kingdom which he came to set up on earth, and which the violent now began to take by force) is greater than he. Not a greater prophet (as some have interpreted the word) for this is palpably false in fact: but greater in the grace of God, and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore we cannot measure the privileges of real Christians by those formerly given to the Jews. 'Their ministration,' or dispensation, we allow 'was glorious;' but ours 'exceeds in glory.' So that whosoever would bring down the Christian dispensation to the Jewish standard, doth 'greatly err, neither knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God.'" ~ John Wesley

Saturday, September 18, 2010

From faith to faith of assurance

"Are there not many pious and judicious ministers in the Churches of England and Scotland, as well as among the dissenters, who dare not countenance the present revival of the power of godliness, chiefly because they hear us sometimes unguardedly assert that none have any faith but such as have the faith of assurance; and that the wrath of God actually abides on all those who have not that faith? If we warily allowed the faith of the inferior dispensations, which such divines clearly see in the Scriptures, and feel in themselves; would not their prejudices be softened, and their minds prepared to receive what we advance in defence of the faith of assurance?

. . . You are afraid that the doctrine of this Essay will make 'seekers rest in Laodicean lukewarmness;' but permit me to observe that the seekers you speak of are either forward hypocrites, or sincere penitents. If they are forward hypocrites, preaching to them the faith of assurance will never make them either humble or sincere. On the contrary, they will probably catch . . . at an assurance of their own making; and so they will profess to have the faith for which you contend, when in fact they have only the name and notion of it. The religious world swarms with instances of this kind.

If, on the other hand, the seekers for whom you seem concerned are sincere penitents; far from being hurt, they will be greatly benefited by our doctrine: for it will at once keep them from chilling, despairing fears, and from false, Crispian [Antinomian] comforts; the two opposite extremes into which upright, unwary mourners are most apt to run. Thus our doctrine, instead of being dangerous to sincere seekers, will prove a Scriptural clue, in following which they will happily avoid the gloomy haunts of Pharisaic despair, and the enchanted ground of Antinomian presumption." ~ John Fletcher of Madeley