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Sermon 14: The Repentance of Believers

https://wesleyworks.ecdsdev.org/sermons/Sermon014

314 An Introductory Comment [on Sermons 13-14]

In the first edition of SOSO, I (1746), ‘The Witness of the Spirit’ (Discourse I), was followed by a sermon on ‘The Means of Grace’ to round out the volume. Two years later, Wesley placed his third university sermon, ‘The Circumcision of the Heart’ (from 1733), as the first sermon in his second volume, following it with a new sermon on ‘The Great Privilege of those that are Born of God’. The shared theme in this sequence (stressed in three of the sermons and implied in ‘The Means of Grace’) concerned the power bestowed on justified and regenerate believers not to commit sin—a crucial idea in the holy-living tradition, which then was given its climactic statement, up to that date, in Christian Perfection (1750); see No. 40.

This idea of the Christian’s grace-bestowed power not to commit sin was, however, bound to generate controversy and confusion among both critics and some disciples. With their doctrines of the ineradicable ‘remains of sin’ (fomes peccati), the Lutherans had taught that the justified believer was simul justus et peccator but also that his repented sins were covered by the imputed righteousness of Christ and thus inculpable; cf. The Apology of the Augsburg Confession (1531), Article II, ‘Original Sin’, especially §§35-45. With similar premises with respect to the fomes peccati (the Christian is ‘a sinner saved by grace’), the Calvinists stressed rigorous examination of consciences, repentance, the final perseverance of the elect, and the perfect and immutable freedom ‘in the state of glory only’; cf. The Westminster Confession VI.v, IX.v; see also XIII-XVIII. On the other side, the Moravians and some of Wesley’s own disciples (e.g., Thomas Maxfield, William Cudworth, James Relly) had taken the claim that ‘those born of God do not commit sin’ to its antinomian extreme of sinless—even guiltless—perfection, as if the power not to sin meant the extirpation of all ‘remains of sin’. For an exposition of this view, see the Supplement to The Christian Magazine for the Year 1762: ‘for all who are united to Christ by the Holy Spirit’s dwelling in them are delivered from the guilt, the power, or, in one word the being of 315sin’ (p. 579; see also below, pp. 328-32). Moreover, they had appealed to Wesley’s basic soteriology as the logical ground for their interpretation.

Wesley, caught in the controversy generated by these two polarities, reacted typically and came up with what he regarded as a valid third alternative. Its root notion was a distinction between ‘sin properly so called’ (i.e., ‘the [deliberate] violation of a known law of God’—mortal if unrepented) and all ‘involuntary transgressions’ (culpable only if unrepented and not discarded when discerned or entertained). This distinction already had a history in Catholic moral theory (‘mortal’ versus ‘venial’); cf. Claude Fleury, Les Moeurs des Israélites (1683; cf. The Manners of the Ancient Israelites…, ed. Adam Clarke [1852], p. 306). But it had also had a special development among Anglican moralists as well. Richard Lucas had analyzed it in his Enquiry After Happiness (1717), III.299-301 (e.g., ‘Mortal sin is a deliberate transgression of a known law of God tending to the dishonour of God and injury of our neighbour or the deprivation of our own nature’). John Kettlewell, in The Measures of Christian Obedience (1681), had spoken of ‘voluntary’ and ‘involuntary’ sins (see Bk. IV, chs. 3-4, pp. 330 ff., 335 ff.). Much more to the same effect had been found in Samuel Bradford’s Boyle Lectures for 1699, The Credibility of the Christian Revelation, from its intrinsic evidence; in eight sermons (1700), Sermon II, p. 445; Hugh Binning, Fellowship With God (1671), pp. 216-18, and John Weemse [Weemes], The Portraiture of God in Man… (1627), p. 326 (cf. Weemes’s formulation of the distinction as between ‘sins forgiven ’ and ‘sins passed by…’).

Thus, there was an unstable tension between the claims that a Christian may be delivered from sin’s bondage, and that ‘sin remains but no longer reigns’ (see below, I.6 and n.); this continued to plague Wesley in many ways, as one can see from his frequent references to it; see below, II.3, III.1-9 and n.; and cf. Nos. 1, Salvation by Faith, II.6; 8, ‘The First-fruits of the Spirit’, II.6, 9, III.4-5; 14, The Repentance of Believers, I.2-3; 18, ‘The Marks of the New Birth’, I.5-6; 19, ‘The Great Privilege of those that are Born of God’, II.8; 40, Christian Perfection, II.4-5; 41, Wandering Thoughts, III.6; 43, The Scripture Way of Salvation, III.6-8; 46, ‘The Wilderness State’, II.6, III.14; 58, On Predestination, §7; 62, ‘The End of Christ’s Coming’, III.3; 65, ‘The Duty of Reproving our Neighbour’, III.14; 74, ‘Of the Church’, §21; 76, ‘On Perfection’, II.9; 82, ‘On Temptation’, I.5; 104, ‘On Attending the Church Service’, §18; 128, 316‘The Deceitfulness of the Human Heart’, II.5. Cf. also Wesley’s letters to John Hosmer, June 7, 1761, to Mary Bishop, May 27, 1771, and to Mrs. Bennis, June 16, 1772.

What matters most is that Wesley insisted on holding to both traditions—sola fide and holy living—without forfeiting the good essence of either. Moreover, he saw no inconsistency in his shifting from one emphasis to the other as circumstances seemed to require. He was more concerned to face the dreadful realities of sin while never yielding to any defeatist notion that God’s grace is intrinsically impotent to save souls ‘to the utmost’, in this life. That enough of his comments on this twin concern could have been misconstrued as a doctrine of ‘sinless perfection’ is apparent both in its exaggerations in Cudworth and others, and also in nineteenth-century developments—especially in American Methodism—in which ‘entire sanctification’ was interpreted as ‘a second and separate work of grace’ and normative for the Christian life; cf. Peters, Christian Perfection and American Methodism.

In 1763, in a needed effort to counter the distortions and bring the controversy more nearly back to balance, Wesley wrote and published a sermon entitled A Discourse on Sin in Believers, ‘in order to remove a mistake which some were labouring to propagate: that there is no sin in any that are justified’ (see JWJ, Mar. 28, and Bibliog, No. 257). In 1767 he wrote out its sequel, The Repentance of Believers, and published it the following year (cf. JWJ, Apr. 17-24, and Bibliog, No. 305).

Here, we find an interesting version of Wesley’s doctrine of ‘entire sanctification’; cf. Pt. II. Shortly after this, when he began to re-arrange the sequence of Vol. I of SOSO for the edition of his Works, he quite deliberately inserted these two sermons as Nos. 13 and 14, between ‘The Witness of Our Own Spirit’ and ‘The Means of Grace’. They are designed, as he says, for the encouragement of ‘the weaker brethren’ whose Christian assurance had been all too easily shaken by their awareness of sin’s residues in their hearts, even in their uncertain pilgrimage of grace toward ‘perfect love’.

The present text of On Sin in Believers is based on the first edition of 1763, and the text of The Repentance of Believers is from its first edition of 1767. For stemmata illustrating text transmissions through the editions published in Wesley’s lifetime and the list of substantive variant readings found in these successive editions, see Appendix, ‘Wesley’s Text’, in Vol. IV.

The Repentance of Believers

Mark 1:15

Repent and believe the gospel.

11. It is generally supposed that repentance and faith are only the gate of religion;

Cf. Wesley’s letter to Thomas Church, June 17, 1746; also William Tilly, Sermon XII, Sermons, p. 360: ‘…as one that was yet under the low dispensation, and detained in the porch of repentance’; and Edward Young (the elder), A Sermon Preached Before His Majesty at White-Hall, December 29, 1678, p. 24: ‘Repentance was heretofore the porch of the Christian life but modern ages have made it the postern; it is the last thing men set themselves about.’

Wesley uses the metaphor of a porch in relating paradise to heaven (‘paradise is the porch of heaven’) in two sermons: 73, ‘Of Hell’, I.4; and 115, ‘Dives and Lazarus’, I.3. In No. 84, The Important Question, II.4, he calls paradise the ‘antechamber’ of heaven. Elsewhere, Fleury reports that the Mohammedan divines had called fasting ‘the gate of religion’; cf. The Manners of the Ancient Israelites, pp. 176-77.

that they are necessary only at the beginning of our Christian course, when we are setting out in the way of the kingdom. And this may seem to be confirmed by the great Apostle, where exhorting the Hebrew Christians to ‘go on to perfection’ he teaches them to ‘leave’ these first ‘principles of the doctrine of Christ: not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and faith toward God’;

Cf. Heb. 6:1.

which must at least mean that they should comparatively leave these, that at first took up all their thoughts, in order to ‘press forward toward the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus’.

Cf. Phil. 3:14.

22. And this is undoubtedly true, that there is a repentance and a faith which are more especially necessary at the beginning: a repentance which is a conviction of our utter sinfulness and guiltiness

This notion of repentance as realistic self-understanding is crucial in Wesley’s evangelical soteriology. Cf. No. 7, ‘The Way to the Kingdom’, II.1 and n. What is most distinctive about it is Wesley’s insistence that such repentance precedes justification as, in some sense, a precondition of it. Here again, we have a subtle qualification of the ‘faith alone’ theme; see below, II.6 and n.

and helplessness, and which precedes our receiving that kingdom of God which our Lord observes ‘is within us’;

Cf. Luke 17:21.

and 336a faith whereby we receive that kingdom, even ‘righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost’.

Rom. 14:17.

33. But notwithstanding this, there is also a repentance and a faith (taking the words in another sense, a sense not quite the same, nor yet entirely different) which are requisite after we have ‘believed the gospel’;

Cf. Mark 1:15.

yea, and in every subsequent stage of our Christian course, or we cannot ‘run the race which is set before us’.

Cf. Heb. 12:1.

And this repentance and faith are full as necessary, in order to our continuance and growth in grace, as the former faith and repentance were in order to our entering into the kingdom of God.

An extension of the argument in the preceding sermon; cf. No. 13, On Sin in Believers, intro., III.1-9 and n.

But in what sense are we to repent and believe, after we are justified? This is an important question, and worthy of being considered with the utmost attention.

I. And first, in what sense are we to repent?

11. Repentance frequently means an inward change, a change of mind from sin to holiness. But we now speak of it in a quite different sense, as it is one kind of self-knowledge—the knowing ourselves sinners, yea, guilty, helpless sinners, even though we know we are children of God.

22. Indeed when we first know this, when we first find redemption in the blood of Jesus, when the love of God is first shed abroad in our hearts

Rom. 5:5.

and his kingdom set up therein, it is natural to suppose that we are no longer sinners, that all our sins are not only covered

See Pss. 32:1; 85:2; Rom. 4:7.

but destroyed. As we do not then feel any evil in our hearts, we readily imagine none is there. Nay, some well-meaning men have imagined this, not only at that time, but ever after; having persuaded themselves that when they were justified they were entirely sanctified. Yea, they have laid it down as a general rule, in spite of Scripture, reason, and experience. These sincerely believe and earnestly maintain that all sin is destroyed when we are justified, and that there is no sin in the heart of a believer, but that it is altogether clean from that moment. But though we readily acknowledge, ‘he that believeth is born of God,’

Cf. 1 John 5:1.

and ‘he that is born of God doth not commit sin,’

Cf. 1 John 3:9.

337yet we cannot allow that he does not feel it within: it does not reign, but it does remain.

Cf. No. 13, On Sin in Believers, I.6 and n.

And a conviction of the sin which remains in our heart is one great branch of the repentance we are now speaking of.

33. For it is seldom long before he who imagined all sin was gone feels there is still pride

For Wesley, as for St. Augustine, pride is the primal sin—as also in Ecclus. 10:13 (‘Pride is the beginning of all sin’). See also Nos. 15, The Great Assize, III.1; 21, ‘Sermon on the Mount, I’, I.4-5; 22, ‘Sermon on the Mount, II’, II.1; 62, ‘The End of Christ’s Coming’, I.8, III.2; 88, ‘On Dress’, §§9-10; 92, ‘On Zeal’, III.2-4; 100, ‘On Pleasing All Men’, I.2, II.2; 111, National Sins and Miseries, §2; 113, The Late Work of God in North America, II.8; 128, ‘The Deceitfulness of the Human Heart’, I.1; 129, ‘Heavenly Treasure in Earthen Vessels’, II.5; cf. also Wesley’s letter to Mrs. Pendarves, Sept. 28, 1731, and to Mr. —, Sept. 3, 1756. For Wesley’s references to ‘bosom sin’, cf. No. 48, ‘Self-denial’, II.2 and n.

in his heart. He is convinced, both that in many respects he has thought of himself more highly than he ought to think, and that he has taken to himself the praise of something he had received, and gloried in it as though he had not received it. And yet he knows he is in the favour of God. He cannot and ought not to ‘cast away his confidence’.

Cf. Heb. 10:35.

‘The Spirit still witnesses with his spirit, that he is a child of God.’

Cf. Rom. 8:16.

44. Nor is it long before he feels self-will in his heart, even a will contrary to the will of God. A will every man must inevitably have, as long as he has an understanding. This is an essential part of human nature, indeed of the nature of every intelligent being.

Cf. No. 60, ‘The General Deliverance’, I.4 and n.

Our blessed Lord himself had a will as a man; otherwise he had not been a man.

An echo of the Monothelite controversy and its resolution at the ‘Sixth Ecumenical Council’, in Constantinople, 680-81; cf. Henry R. Percival, The Seven Ecumenical Councils, ... Canons and Dogmatic Decrees, in NPNF, II, XIV.325-54. See also Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition, pp. 68-75.

But his human will was invariably subject to the will of his Father. At all times, and on all occasions, even in the deepest affliction, he could say, ‘Not as I will, but as thou wilt.’

Matt. 26:39.

But this is not the case at all times, even with a true believer in Christ. He frequently finds his will more or less exalting itself against the will of God. He wills something, because it is pleasing to nature, which is not pleasing to God. And he nills

Cf. Dr. Johnson’s definition of ‘to nill’ (‘to refuse; to reject’) and his citation of its usage in Ben Jonson. That it was already an archaic negative in Wesley’s time may be seen in the 1788 edn. of SOSO; the printer has it ‘wills’, without a care for its sense or meaning.

(is averse 338from) something because it is painful to nature, which is the will of God concerning him. Indeed (suppose he continues in the faith) he fights against it with all his might. But this very thing implies that it really exists, and that he is conscious of it.

55. Now self-will, as well as pride, is a species of idolatry; and both are directly contrary to the love of God. The same observation may be made concerning the love of the world. But this likewise even true believers are liable to feel in themselves; and every one of them does feel it, more or less, sooner or later, in one branch or another. It is true, when he first passes from death unto life he desires nothing more but God. He can truly say, ‘All my desire is unto thee,’

Cf. Ps. 38:9.

‘and unto the remembrance of thy name.’

Cf. Isa. 26:8.

‘Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee?’

Ps. 73:25.

But it is not so always. In process of time he will feel again (though perhaps only for a few moments) either ‘the desire of the flesh, or the desire of the eye, or the pride of life’.

Cf. 1 John 2:16 (Notes), and No. 7, ‘The Way to the Kingdom’, II.2 and n.

Nay, if he does not continually watch and pray he may find lust reviving, yea, and thrusting sore at him that he may fall,

Ps. 118:13.

till he has scarce any strength left in him. He may feel the assaults of inordinate affection,

Col. 3:5. Cf. also Kempis, I.vi, II.iv.

yea, a strong propensity to ‘love the creature more than the Creator’

Cf. Rom. 1:25.

—whether it be a child, a parent, an husband or wife, or ‘the friend that is as his own soul’.

Cf. Deut. 13:6.

He may feel in a thousand various ways a desire of earthly things or pleasures. In the same proportion he will forget God, not seeking his happiness in him, and consequently being a ‘lover of pleasure more than a lover of God’.

Cf. 2 Tim. 3:4.

66. If he does not keep himself every moment he will again feel ‘the desire of the eye’, the desire of gratifying his imagination with something great, or beautiful, or uncommon. In how many ways does this desire assault the soul! Perhaps with regard to the poorest trifles, such as dress, or furniture—things never designed to satisfy the appetite of an immortal spirit. Yet how natural it is for us, even after we ‘have tasted of the powers of the world to come’,

Cf. Heb. 6:5.

to sink again into these foolish, low desires of things that perish in the using! How hard is it, even for those who know in 339whom they have believed,

See 2 Tim. 1:12.

to conquer but one branch of the desire of the eye, curiosity; constantly to trample it under their feet, to desire nothing merely because it is new!

77. And how hard is it even for the children of God wholly to conquer ‘the pride of life’! St. John seems to mean by this nearly the same with what the world terms ‘the sense of honour’. This is no other than a desire of and delight in ‘the honour that cometh of men’

Cf. John 5:41, 44.

—a desire and love of praise,

Wesley makes frequent references to a ‘desire’, ‘love’, or ‘thirst’ of ‘praise’ or ‘glory’. Cf. Nos. 21, ‘Sermon on the Mount, I’, I.4; 26, ‘Sermon on the Mount, VI’, I.2; 62, ‘The End of Christ’s Coming’, §2; 84, The Important Question, I.4; 100, ‘On Pleasing All Men’, I.5.

and (which is always joined with it) a proportionable fear of dispraise.

This was the main theme of A. H. Francke’s then famous Nicodemus: Or A Treatise Against the Fear of Man (1706), which Wesley had read in Nov. 1733. Cf. Nos. 65, ‘The Duty of Reproving our Neighbour’, III.1; and 87, ‘The Danger of Riches’, §3. The idea is closely related to Wesley’s emphasis on singularity as a mark of the Christian who is free from anxiety as to the world’s approval or disapproval. For Wesley’s frequent admonitions to be singular, cf. Nos. 31, ‘Sermon on the Mount, XI’, III.4 and n.; and 4, Scriptural Christianity, I.6 and n. For Wesley, the praise of men is equivalent to flattery, as in Nos. 65, ‘The Duty of Reproving our Neighbour’, III.6 (‘that grand fashionable engine—flattery’); 100, ‘On Pleasing All Men’, I.5; and 107, ‘On God’s Vineyard’, V.3. He knew that Cicero had spoken of flattery as ‘the handmaid of vice’ (De Amicitia, XXIV.89); see also Nos. 35, ‘The Law Established through Faith, I’, II.6; 84, The Important Question, III.9; 87, ‘The Danger of Riches’, §16.

Nearly allied to this is evil shame, the being ashamed of that wherein we ought to glory. And this is seldom divided from ‘the fear of man’,

Prov. 29:25.

which brings a thousand snares upon the soul. Now where is he, even among those that seem strong in faith, who does not find in himself a degree of all these evil tempers? So that even these are but in part ‘crucified to the world’;

Cf. Gal. 6:14.

for the evil root remains in their heart.

88. And do we not feel other tempers, which are as contrary to the love of our neighbour as these are to the love of God? The love of our neighbour ‘thinketh no evil’.

1 Cor. 13:5.

Do not we find anything of the kind? Do we never find any jealousies, any evil surmisings,

1 Tim. 6:4.

any groundless or unreasonable suspicions? He that is clear in these respects, let him cast the first stone at his neighbour.

See John 8:7.

Who does not sometimes feel other tempers or inward motions which he knows are contrary to brotherly love? If nothing of malice, 340hatred, or bitterness, is there no touch of envy?

See Titus 3:3.

Particularly toward those who enjoy some (real or supposed) good which we desire but cannot attain? Do we never find any degree of resentment when we are injured or affronted? Especially by those whom we peculiarly loved, and whom we had most laboured to help or oblige. Does injustice or ingratitude never excite in us any desire of revenge; any desire of returning evil for evil, instead of ‘overcoming evil with good’?

Cf. Rom 12:21.

This also shows how much is still in our heart which is contrary to the love of our neighbour.

99. Covetousness in every kind and degree is certainly as contrary to this as to the love of God. Whether φιλαργυρία, ‘the love of money’ which is too frequently ‘the root of all evils’,

Cf. 1 Tim. 6:10. Wesley will become very much more emphatic in his denunciations of the love of money and of the sin of surplus accumulation as the years wear on, and as many Methodists become more and more affluent See below, No. 50, ‘The Use of Money’, on Wesley’s increasing alarm and despair over Methodist prosperity unaccompanied by equivalent philanthropy. Cf. also the intro, to No. 28, ‘Sermon on the Mount, VIII’.

or πλεονεξία,

I.e., covetousness; cf. Col. 3:5, etc., and Wesley’s Notes thereon.

literally, a desire of having more, or increasing in substance. And how few even of the real children of God are entirely free from both! Indeed one great man, Martin Luther, used to say he ‘never had any covetousness in him (not only in his converted state, but) ever since he was born’.

Cf. Samuel Clarke, Marrow of Ecclesiastical Historie, pp. 98-99: ‘Wellerus, also a disciple of Luther’s, recordeth that he oft heard Luther say that he had been frequently assaulted and vexed with all kinds of temptations, except to the sin of covetousness….’ Cf. also John Gillies, Historical Collections Relating to Remarkable Periods of the Success of the Gospel (1754), Bk. II, ch. 1. A supporting witness here was Thomas Hayne, Life and Death of Martin Luther (1641), p. 115: ‘Even the Papists agree that Luther was not covetous.’ For other references to Luther, more often disparaging than not, cf. Nos. 1, Salvation by Faith, III.9; 13, On Sin in Believers, I.4; 18, ‘The Marks of the New Birth’, IV.3; 38, ‘A Caution against Bigotry’, II.4; 63, ‘The General Spread of the Gospel’, §16; 68, ‘The Wisdom of God’s Counsels’, §10; 94, ‘On Family Religion’, §3; 102, ‘Of Former Times’, §14; 104, ‘On Attending the Church Service’, §25; 107, ‘On God’s Vineyard’, I.5; 122, ‘Causes of the Inefficacy of Christianity’, §17. See also Wesley’s letters to Mrs. Hutton, Aug. 22, 1744; to Richard Tompson, Feb. 5, 1756; to John Fletcher, Aug. 18, 1775; to Elizabeth Ritchie, Feb. 12, 1779; JWJ, June 15-16, 1741; also his Preface to Notes, §12; Farther Appeal, Pt. III, IV.6 (11:318 of this edn.); and Thoughts Upon a Late Phenomenon, AM (1789), §4 (Vol. 9 of this edn.).

But if so, I would not scruple to say he was the only man born of a woman (except him that was God as well as man) who had not, who was born without it. Nay, I believe, never was anyone born of God, that lived any considerable time after, who did not feel more or less of 341it many times, especially in the latter sense. We may therefore set it down as an undoubted truth that covetousness, together with pride, and self-will, and anger, remain in the hearts even of them that are justified.

1010. It is their experiencing this which has inclined so many serious persons to understand the latter part of the seventh chapter to the Romans, not of them that ‘are under the law’—that are convinced of sin, which is undoubtedly the meaning of the Apostle—but of them that ‘are under grace’,

Rom. 6:14, 15.

that are ‘justified freely, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ’.

Cf. Rom. 3:24.

And it is most certain they are thus far right; there does still remain, even in them that are justified, a ‘mind’ which is in some measure ‘carnal’

Rom. 8:7.

(so the Apostle tells even the believers at Corinth, ‘Ye are carnal’);

1 Cor. 3:3.

an heart ‘bent to backsliding’,

Hos. 11:7.

still ever ready to ‘depart from the living God’;

Cf. Heb. 3:12.

a propensity to pride, self-will, anger, revenge, love of the world, yea, and all evil: a root of bitterness

Heb. 12:15.

which, if the restraint were taken off for a moment, would instantly spring up; yea, such a depth of corruption as without clear light from God we cannot possibly conceive. And a conviction of all this sin remaining in their hearts is the repentance which belongs to them that are justified.

1111. But we should likewise be convinced that as sin remains in our hearts, so it cleaves to our words and actions. Indeed it is to be feared that many of our words are more than mixed with sin, that they are sinful altogether. For such undoubtedly is all uncharitable conversation,

An echo of Wesley’s General Rules, §4, in which ‘uncharitable or unprofitable conversation’ is interdicted.

all which does not spring from brotherly love, all which does not agree with that golden rule, ‘What ye would that others should do to you, even so do unto them.’

Cf. Matt 7:12; Luke 6:31.

Of this kind is all backbiting, all talebearing, all whispering, all evil-speaking; that is, repeating the faults of absent persons—for none would have others repeat his faults when he is absent. Now how few are there, even among believers, who are in no degree guilty of this? Who steadily observe the good old rule, ‘Of the dead and the absent—nothing but good.’

This ‘rule’ was, in fact, an immemorial old aphorism. A version of it appears in Diogenes Laertius, ‘Life of Chilon’ in Lives of Eminent Philosophers, I.68-70 (Loeb, 184:69-73); another was attributed to Solon by Plutarch; a variant may be found in Propertius, Elegies, II. xix. 32: absenti nemo non nocuissevelit (‘let no one be willing to speak evil of the absent’). Wesley recalls it with typical variations in Nos. 33, ‘Sermon on the Mount, XIII’, III.10; and 49, ‘The Cure of Evil-speaking’, §1.

And suppose they do, do they 342likewise abstain from unprofitable conversation? Yet all this is unquestionably sinful, and ‘grieves the Holy Spirit of God’.

Cf. Eph. 4:30.

Yea, and for ‘every idle word that men shall speak they shall give an account in the day of judgment’.

Matt. 12:36.

1212. But let it be supposed that they continually ‘watch and pray’, and so do ‘not enter into this temptation’;

Cf. Matt 26:41; Mark 14:38.

that they constantly set a watch before their mouth, and keep the door of their lips:

See Ps. 141:3.

suppose they exercise themselves herein, that all their ‘conversation may be in grace seasoned with salt’,

Cf. Col. 4:6.

and meet ‘to minister grace to the hearers’;

Cf. Eph. 4:29.

yet do they not daily slide into useless discourse, notwithstanding all their caution? And even when they endeavour to speak for God, are their words pure, free from unholy mixtures? Do they find nothing wrong in their very intention? Do they speak merely to please God, and not partly to please themselves? Is it wholly to do the will of God, and not their own will also? Or, if they begin with a single eye, do they go on ‘looking unto Jesus’,

Heb. 12:2.

and talking with him all the time they are with their neighbour? When they are reproving sin do they feel no anger or unkind temper to the sinner? When they are instructing the ignorant do they not find any pride, any self-preference? When they are comforting the afflicted, or provoking one another to love and to good works,

See Heb. 10:24.

do they never perceive any inward self-commendation—‘Now you have spoken well’? Or any vanity, a desire that others should think so, and esteem them on the account? In some or all of these respects how much sin cleaves to the best conversation even of believers! The conviction of which is another branch of the repentance which belongs to them that are justified.

1313. And how much sin, if their conscience is throughly awake, may they find cleaving to their actions also? Nay, are there not many of these which, though they are such as the world would not condemn, yet cannot be commended, no, nor excused, if we judge by the Word of God? Are there not many of their actions which they themselves know are not ‘to the glory of God’?

1 Cor. 10:31, etc.

Many wherein they did not even aim at this, which were not undertaken with an eye to God? And of those that were, are there not many 343wherein their eye is not singly fixed on God? Wherein they are doing their own will at least as much as his, and seeking to please themselves as much if not more than to please God? And while they are endeavouring to do good to their neighbour, do they not feel wrong tempers of various kinds? Hence their good actions, so called, are far from being strictly such, being polluted with such a mixture of evil! Such are their works of mercy! And is there not the same mixture in their works of piety?

The distinction between ‘works of piety’ and of ‘mercy’ was an Anglican commonplace, to be seen, e.g., in ‘Of Good Works’ in Homilies, p. 42, and in Joseph Mede’s Discourse XXVI (on Mark 1:15), in Works, pp. 81, 113, or in Law’s Serious Call, (pp. 18-19). ‘Works of charity’ is a phrase from Kempis, I. xv. ‘Works of piety’ is recorded as a proverb attributed to ‘Pulcheria’ by Edward Gibbon in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ch. 32; Gibbon cites Sozomen, ix. c. 1, 2, 3, and de Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. xv. 171. For ‘works of mercy’, cf. St. Thomas, Summa Theologica, II-i; Q. 32, art. 2.

For Wesley’s frequent usage of this pairing of Christian devotion and Christian social action, cf. Nos. 22, ‘Sermon on the Mount, II’, I.10; 24, ‘Sermon on the Mount, IV’, II.7, IV.4; 26, ‘Sermon on the Mount, VI’, I.1, II.1; 43, The Scripture Way of Salvation, III.10; 48, ‘Self-denial’, II.6; 87, ‘The Danger of Riches’, II.18; 91, ‘On Charity’, II.4; 92, ‘On Zeal’, II.4, III.7, 12; 98, ‘On Visiting the Sick’, §§1, 2; 106, ‘On Faith, Heb. 11:6’, II.4; 126, ‘On Worldly Folly’, II.3. See also A Plain Account of the People called Methodists, I.2. It is worth noting that he never set either over against the other.

While they are hearing the word which is able to save their souls, do they not frequently find such thoughts as make them afraid lest it should turn to their condemnation rather than their salvation? Is it not often the same case while they are endeavouring to offer up their prayers to God, whether in public, or private? Nay, while they are engaged in the most solemn service. Even while they are at the table of the Lord, what manner of thoughts arise in them? Are not their hearts sometimes wandering to the ends of the earth, sometimes filled with such imaginations as make them fear lest all their sacrifice should be an abomination to the Lord?

See Prov. 15:8.

So that they are more ashamed of their best duties than they were once of their worst sins.

1414. Again: how many sins of omission are they chargeable with? We know the words of the Apostle, ‘To him that knoweth to do good, and doth it not, to him it is sin.’

Jas. 4:17.

But do they not know a thousand instances wherein they might have done good, to enemies, to strangers, to their brethren, either with regard to their bodies or their souls, and they did it not? How many omissions have they been guilty of in their duty toward God? How many opportunities of communicating, of hearing his word, of public or private prayer have they neglected? So great reason had even that holy man Archbishop Ussher, after all his labours for God, to cry 344out, almost with his dying breath, ‘Lord, forgive me my sins of omission.’

Cf. Richard Parr, The Life of…James Usher, Late Lord Archbishop of Armagh (1686), p. 77. Parr was Ussher’s domestic chaplain and present at his deathbed. The saying had already appeared in Nicholas Bernard’s Life and Death of Archbishop Ussher, in a Sermon Preached at his Funeral at Westminster (1656), which Wesley abridged and published in the AM (1779), II.588 (Wesley preferred the simplified spelling of his name, ‘Usher’). See also No. 98, ‘On Visiting the Sick’, III.9; A Plain Account of Christian Perfection, §14 (6); and JWJ, Mar. 9, 1746. For Wesley’s other references to ‘sins of omission’, cf. Nos. 19, ‘The Great Privilege of those that are Born of God’, III.1; 35, ‘The Law Established through Faith, I’, III.8; and 46, ‘The Wilderness State’, II.3.

1515. But besides these outward omissions, may they not find in themselves inward defects without number? Defects of every kind: they have not the love, the fear, the confidence they ought to have toward God. They have not the love which is due to their neighbour, to every child of man;

Cf. No. 7, ‘The Way to the Kingdom’, I.8 and n.

no, nor even that which is due to their brethren, to every child of God, whether those that are at a distance from them, or those with whom they are immediately connected. They have no holy temper in the degree they ought; they are defective in everything: in a deep consciousness of which they are ready to cry out with Mr. de Renty, ‘I am a ground all overrun with thorns;’

Cf. Jean-Baptiste de Saint-Jure, The Holy Life of Monsr. de Renty, A Late Nobleman of France, and Sometimes Councellor to King Lewis the 13th (Eng. tr. 1658, by E[dward] S[heldon,] Gent.), p. 274: ‘In sum, I am a straggler from God, and a ground overrun with thorns.’

Wesley found de Renty’s special combination of mysticism, asceticism, and civic involvement in philanthropy and practical affairs very congenial. Cf. the admiring references in Nos. 55, On the Trinity, §17; 72, ‘Of Evil Angels’, II.15; 82, ‘On Temptation’, III.5; 114, On the Death of John Fletcher (penultimate §); 117, ‘On the Discoveries of Faith’, §17. See also the letter to Ann Granville, Oct. 3, 1741; to Lady Maxwell, Mar. 3, 1769; to Philothea Briggs, Aug. 31, 1772; to Ann Bolton, Jan. 14, 1780; to Hannah Ball, Feb. 17, 1780; to Adam Clarke, Jan. 3, 1791.

or with Job, ‘I am vile;’ ‘I abhor myself, and repent as in dust and ashes.’

Cf. Job 40:4; 42:6.

1616. A conviction of their guiltiness is another branch of that repentance which belongs to the children of God. But this is cautiously to be understood, and in a peculiar sense. For it is certain, ‘there is no condemnation for them that are in Christ Jesus’, that believe in him, and in the power of that faith ‘walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit’.

Cf. Rom. 8:1.

Yet can they no more bear the strict justice of God now than before they believed. This pronounces them to be still worthy of death on all the preceding accounts. And it would absolutely condemn them thereto, were it not for the atoning blood. Therefore, they are throughly 345convinced that they still deserve punishment, although it is hereby turned aside from them. But here there are extremes on one hand and on the other, and few steer clear of them. Most men strike on one or the other, either thinking themselves condemned when they are not, or thinking they deserve to be acquitted. Nay, the truth lies between: they still deserve, strictly speaking, only the damnation of hell. But what they deserve does not come upon them because they ‘have an advocate with the Father’.

1 John 2:1.

His life and death and intercession still interpose between them and condemnation.

1717. A conviction of their utter helplessness is yet another branch of this repentance. I mean hereby two things: (1). That they are no more able now of themselves to think one good thought, to form one good desire, to speak one good word, or do one good work, than before they were justified; that they have still no kind or degree of strength of their own, no power either to do good or resist evil; no ability to conquer or even withstand the world, the devil, or their own evil nature. They ‘can’, it is certain, ‘do all these things’;

Cf. Phil 4:13.

but it is not by their own strength. They have power to overcome all these enemies; ‘for sin hath no dominion over’

Cf. Rom. 6:14.

them. But it is not from nature, either in whole or in part; ‘it is the mere gift of God.’

Cf. Rom. 6:23. Cf. also No. 85, ‘On Working Out Our Own Salvation’, III.4: ‘For, allowing that all the souls of men are dead in sin by “nature”, this excuses none, seeing there is no man that is in a state of mere nature; there is no man, unless he has quenched the Spirit, that is wholly void of the grace of God.’

Nor is it given all at once, as if they had a stock laid up for many years, but from moment to moment.

1818. By this helplessness I mean, secondly, an absolute inability to deliver ourselves from that guiltiness or desert of punishment whereof we are still conscious; yea, and an inability to remove by all the grace we have (to say nothing of our natural powers) either the pride, self-will, love of the world, anger, and general proneness to depart from God which we experimentally know to remain in the heart, even of them that are regenerate; or the evil which, in spite of all our endeavours, cleaves to all our words and actions. Add to this an utter inability wholly to avoid uncharitable and, much more, unprofitable conversation. Add an inability to avoid sins of omission, or to supply the numberless defects we are convinced of, especially the want of love and other right tempers both to God and man.

19 34619. If any man is not satisfied of this, if any believes that whoever is justified is able to remove these sins out of his heart and life, let him make the experiment. Let him try whether, by the grace he has already received, he can expel pride, self-will, or inbred sin in general. Let him try whether he can cleanse his words and actions from all mixture of evil; whether he can avoid all uncharitable and unprofitable conversation, with all sins of omission; and lastly, whether he can supply the numberless defects which he still finds in himself. Let him not be discouraged by one or two experiments, but repeat the trial again and again. And the longer he tries the more deeply will he be convinced of his utter helplessness in all these respects.

2020. Indeed this is so evident a truth that wellnigh all the children of God scattered abroad,

See John 11:52.

however they differ in other points, yet generally agree in this, that although we may ‘by the Spirit mortify the deeds of the body’,

Cf. Rom. 8:13.

resist and conquer both outward and inward sin, although we may weaken our enemies day by day, yet we cannot drive them out. By all the grace which is given at justification we cannot extirpate them. Though we watch and pray ever so much, we cannot wholly cleanse either our hearts or hands. Most sure we cannot, till it shall please our Lord to speak to our hearts again, to ‘speak the second time, “Be clean”’.

Charles Wesley, Hymns and Sacred Poems (1749), II.164; cf. Collection of Hymns (1780, Vol. 7 of this edn., No. 386:5).

And then only ‘the leprosy is cleansed.’

Cf. Matt. 8:3.

Then only the evil root, the carnal mind, is destroyed, and inbred sin subsists no more.

Here, then is Wesley’s resolution of the dilemma posed by his conflicting views on the remains of sin, even in the justified, and the Christian hope of their extirpation. ‘We cannot extirpate them,’ but there is the possibility that God may do so as a special and instantaneous deliverance. Thus, Wesley clings to the simul justus et peccator as the general state of believers and yet also to the possibility of the extirpation of the root of sin in some by a special dispensation of grace. This may have been the ground for an implied doctrine of ‘sinless perfection’ which Wesley generally repudiates, and thus could be understood as the warrant for a post-Wesleyan doctrine of ‘entire sanctification as a second and separate work of grace’.

But if there be no such second change, if there be no instantaneous deliverance after justification, if there be none but a gradual work of God (that there is a gradual work none denies) then we must be content, as well as we can, to remain full of sin till death. And if so, we must remain guilty till death, continually deserving punishment. For it is impossible the guilt or desert of punishment should be 347removed from us as long as all this sin remains in our heart, and cleaves to our words and actions. Nay, in rigorous justice, all we think, and speak, and act, continually increases it.

1II. 1. In this sense we are to repent after we are justified. And till we do so we can go no farther. For till we are sensible of our disease it admits of no cure. But supposing we do thus repent, then are we called to ‘believe the gospel’.

Mark 1:15.

22. And this also is to be understood in a peculiar sense, different from that wherein we believed in order to justification. Believe the ‘glad tidings of great salvation’

Cf. Isa. 52:7; Rom. 10:15.

which God hath prepared for all people. Believe that he who is ‘the brightness of his Father’s glory, the express image of his person’,

Cf. Heb. 1:3.

‘is able to save unto the uttermost all that come unto God through him’.

Cf. Heb. 7:25.

He is able to save you from all the sin that still remains in your heart. He is able to save you from all the sin that cleaves to all your words and actions. He is able to save you from sins of omission, and to supply whatever is wanting in you. It is true, ‘This is impossible with man; but with [the] God-man all things are possible.’

Cf. Matt. 19:26.

For what can be too hard for him who hath ‘all power in heaven and in earth’?

Matt. 28:18.

Indeed his bare power to do this is not a sufficient foundation for our faith that he will do it, that he will thus exert his power, unless he hath promised it. But this he has done: he has promised it over and over, in the strongest terms. He has given us these ‘exceeding great and precious promises’,

2 Pet. 1:4.

both in the Old and the New Testament. So we read in the law, in the most ancient part of the oracles of God, ‘The Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy soul.’

Deut. 30:6.

So in the Psalms: ‘He shall redeem Israel (the Israel of God) from all his sins.’

Ps. 130:8 (BCP).

So in the Prophet: ‘Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean; from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you…. And I will put my Spirit within you, […] and ye shall keep my judgments and do them. […] I will also save you from all your uncleannesses.’

Ezek. 36:25, 27, 29.

So likewise in the New Testament: ‘Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath 348visited and redeemed his people, and hath raised up an horn of salvation for us…. To perform […] the oath which he swore to our father Abraham, that he would grant unto us that we, being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, should serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life.’

Luke 1:68-69, 72-75 [also BCP, Morning Prayer, Benedictus].

33. You have therefore good reason to believe he is not only able but willing to do this—to ‘cleanse you from all your filthiness of flesh and spirit’,

Cf. 2 Cor. 7:1.

to ‘save you from all your uncleannesses’.

Ezek. 36:29.

This is the thing which you now long for: this is the faith which you now particularly need, namely, that the great physician, the lover of my soul, is willing to ‘make me clean’.

Matt. 8:2, etc.

But is he willing to do this tomorrow or today? Let him answer for himself: ‘Today, if ye will hear my voice, harden not your hearts.’

Cf. Ps. 95:7-8 (AV); Heb. 3:15; 4:7.

If you put it off till tomorrow, you ‘harden your hearts’; you refuse to ‘hear his voice’. Believe therefore that he is willing to save you today. He is willing to save you now. ‘Behold, now is the accepted time.’

2 Cor. 6:2.

He now saith, ‘Be thou clean!’

Matt. 8:3, etc.

Only believe; and you also will immediately find, ‘All things are possible to him that believeth.’

Mark 9:23.

44. Continue to believe in him ‘that loved thee, and gave himself for thee’,

Cf. Gal. 2:20.

that ‘bore all thy sins in his own body on the tree’;

Cf. 1 Pet. 2:24.

and he saveth thee from all condemnation, by his blood continually applied. Thus it is that we continue in a justified state. And when we go ‘from faith to faith’,

Rom. 1:17.

when we have a faith to be cleansed from indwelling sin, to be saved from all our uncleannesses,

100

Ezek. 36:29.

we are likewise saved from all that guilt, that desert of punishment, which we felt before. So that then we may say, not only,

Every moment, Lord, I want

The merit of thy death:

but likewise, in the full assurance of faith,

Every moment, Lord, I have

The merit of thy death.

101

Hymn on Isaiah 32:2, ‘And a Man shall be as an Hiding-Place…’, st. 5, ll. 7-8, in Hymns and Sacred Poems (1742), p. 146 (Poet. Wks., II.207). The second version is John Wesley’s deliberate revision. See also No. 76, ‘On Perfection’, I.3; and cf. Wesley’s letters to James Hervey, Oct. 15, 1756; to Samuel Furly, May 21, 1762; to Miss March, Apr. 7, 1763; and to Edward Lewly, Jan. 12, 1791.

349For by that faith in his life, death, and intercession for us, renewed from moment to moment, we are every whit clean, and there is not only now no condemnation for us, but no such desert of punishment as was before, the Lord cleansing both our hearts and lives.

55. By the same faith we feel the power of Christ every moment resting upon us,

102

See 2 Cor. 12:9.

whereby alone we are what we are, whereby we are enabled to continue in spiritual life, and without which, notwithstanding all our present holiness, we should be devils the next moment. But as long as we retain our faith in him we ‘draw water out of the wells of salvation’.

103

Isa. 12:3.

Leaning on our Beloved, even Christ in us the hope of glory,

104

See Col. 1:27.

who dwelleth in our hearts by faith,

105

See Eph. 3:17.

who likewise is ever interceding for us at the right hand of God,

106

See Rom. 8:34.

we receive help from him to think and speak and act what is acceptable in his sight.

107

See Ps. 19:14.

Thus does he ‘prevent them that believe in all their doings, and further them with his continual help’, so that all their designs, conversations, and actions are ‘begun, continued, and ended in him’.

108

BCP, Communion, Fourth Collect after Offertory (371).

Thus doth he ‘cleanse the thoughts of their hearts, by the inspiration of his Holy Spirit, that they may perfectly love him, and worthily magnify his holy name’.

109

Ibid., Collect for Purity (337).

66. Thus it is that in the children of God repentance and faith exactly answer each other.

110

Wesley’s most explicit and definitive summary of repentance as prerequisite to justifying faith, and as the groundtone of the continuing Christian life. Cf. above, Nos. 5, ‘Justification by Faith’, IV.6 and n.; and 7, ‘The Way to the Kingdom’, II.1 and n.; see also 43, The Scripture Way of Salvation, III.2; Wesley’s letter to Thomas Church, June 17, 1746, and to Dr. Horne, Mar. 10, 1762, as well as his Notes on Luke 16:31.

By repentance we feel the sin remaining in our hearts, and cleaving to our words and actions. By faith we receive the power of God in Christ, purifying our hearts and cleansing our hands. By repentance we are still sensible that we deserve punishment for all our tempers and words and actions. By faith we are conscious that our advocate with the Father

111

Cf. 1 John 2:1.

is continually pleading for us, and thereby continually turning aside all condemnation and punishment from us. By repentance we have an abiding conviction that there is no 350help in us. By faith we receive not only mercy, but ‘grace to help in every time of need’.

112

Cf. Heb. 4:16.

Repentance disclaims the very possibility of any other help. Faith accepts all the help we stand in need of from him that hath all power in heaven and earth.

113

See Matt 28:18.

Repentance says, ‘Without him I can do nothing:’ faith says, ‘I can do all things through Christ strengthening me.’

114

Phil. 4:13; cf. Notes.

Through him I cannot only overcome, but expel all the enemies of my soul. Through him I can ‘love the Lord my God with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength’;

115

Cf. Mark 12:30; Luke 10:27.

yea, and walk in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of my life.

116

Cf. Luke 1:75.

1III. 1. From what has been said we may easily learn the mischievousness of that opinion that we are wholly sanctified when we are justified; that our hearts are then cleansed from all sin. It is true we are then delivered (as was observed before) from the dominion of outward sin: and at the same time the power of inward sin is so broken that we need no longer follow or be led by it. But it is by no means true that inward sin is then totally destroyed, that the root of pride, self-will, anger, love of the world, is then taken out of the heart, or that the carnal mind

117

Rom. 8:7.

and the heart bent to backsliding

118

Hosea 11:7.

are entirely extirpated. And to suppose the contrary is not, as some may think, an innocent, harmless mistake. No: it does immense harm; it entirely blocks up the way to any farther change. For it is manifest, ‘They that are whole do not need a physician, but they that are sick.’

119

Cf. Luke 5:31.

If therefore we think we are quite made whole already, there is no room to seek any farther healing. On this supposition it is absurd to expect a farther deliverance from sin, whether gradual or instantaneous.

22. On the contrary, a deep conviction that we are not yet whole, that our hearts are not fully purified, that there is yet in us ‘a carnal mind’ which is still in its nature ‘enmity against God’;

120

Rom. 8:7.

that a whole body of sin remains in our heart, weakened indeed, but not destroyed, shows beyond all possibility of doubt the absolute necessity of a farther change. We allow that at the very moment of justification we are ‘born again’:

121

John 3:3, 7; 1 Pet 1:23. Cf. Nos. 1, Salvation by Faith, II.7; 19, ‘The Great Privilege of those that are Born of God’, §§1-2; 45, ‘The New Birth’ (entire sermon); 57, ‘On the Fall of Man’, II.9-10; 83, ‘On Patience’, §9. Cf. also Wesley’s letter to the Editor of Lloyd’s Evening Post, Feb. 26, 1771.

in that instant we 351experience that inward change from ‘darkness into marvellous light’;

122

1 Pet. 2:9.

from the image of the brute and the devil into the image of God,

123

See No. 1, Salvation by Faith, §1 and n.

from the earthly, sensual, devilish mind, to the mind which was in Christ Jesus.

124

See Phil. 2:5.

But are we then entirely changed? Are we wholly transformed into the image of him that created us? Far from it: we still retain a depth of sin; and it is the consciousness of this which constrains us to groan for a full deliverance to him that is mighty to save.

125

Isa. 63:1.

Hence it is that those believers who are not convinced of the deep corruption of their hearts, or but slightly and as it were notionally convinced, have little concern about entire sanctification. They may possibly hold the opinion that such a thing is to be, either at death, or some time (they know not when) before it. But they have no great uneasiness for the want of it, and no great hunger or thirst after it. They cannot, until they know themselves better, until they repent in the sense above described, until God unveils the inbred monster’s face, and shows them the real state of their souls.

126

Cf. No. 7, ‘The Way to the Kingdom’, II.1 and n.

Then only, when they feel the burden, will they groan for deliverance from it. Then and not till then will they cry out, in the agony of their soul,

Break off the yoke of inbred sin,

And fully set my spirit free!

I cannot rest till pure within,

Till I am wholly lost in thee!

127

‘Come unto me…Matt. xi. 28’, st. 5, Hymns and Sacred Poems (1742), p. 91 (Poet. Wks., II.145; No. 377 in Collection). Here is an aspiration to sinless perfection that implies its possibility and, as we know from other passages, in this life. Cf. above, I.20, and No. 13, On Sin in Believers, V.2 and n.

33. We may learn from hence, secondly, that a deep conviction of our demerit after we are accepted (which in one sense may be termed guilt) is absolutely necessary in order to our seeing the true value of the atoning blood; in order to our feeling that we need this as much after we are justified as ever we did before. Without this conviction we cannot but account the blood of the covenant

128

Exod. 24:8; Heb. 10:29.

as a common thing, something of which we have not now any great need, seeing all our past sins are blotted out.

129

See Acts 3:19.

Yea, but if both our hearts and lives are thus unclean, there is a kind of guilt which we are contracting every moment, and which of 352consequence would every moment expose us to fresh condemnation, but that

He ever lives above,

For us to intercede,

His all-atoning love,

His precious blood to plead.

130

‘Behold the Man!’ (beginning ‘Arise my soul, arise’), ver. 2, ll. 1-4, in Hymns and Sacred Poems (1742), p. 264 (Poet. Wks., II.323; No. 194 in Collection). Orig., ‘For me to intercede’, and ‘all-redeeming love’.

It is this repentance, and the faith intimately connected with it, which are expressed in those strong lines:

I sin in every breath I draw,

Nor do thy will, nor keep thy law

On earth as angels do above:

But still the Fountain open stands,

Washes my feet, my heart, my hands,

Till I am perfected in love.

131

‘A Thanksgiving’, st. 16 in Hymns and Sacred Poems (1742), p. 171 (Poet. Wks., II.234, No. 355 in Collection). Orig., ‘Washes my feet, and head, and hands’.

44. We may observe, thirdly, a deep conviction of our utter helplessness—of our total inability to retain anything we have received, much more to deliver ourselves from the world of iniquity

132

Jas. 3:6.

remaining both in our hearts and lives—teaches us truly to live upon Christ by faith, not only as our Priest, but as our King. Hereby we are brought to ‘magnify him’, indeed, to ‘give him all the glory of his grace’,

133

Eph. 1:6.

to ‘make him a whole Christ, an entire Saviour’, and truly to ‘set the crown upon his head’. These excellent words, as they have frequently been used,

134

Presumably, by the antinomians (e.g., Maxfield, Bell, Cudworth) and, quite possibly, by the English Moravians; but Sugden could not locate their literary sources and neither have I, thus far.

have little or no meaning. But they are fulfilled in a strong and a deep sense when we thus, as it were, go out of ourselves, in order to be swallowed up in him; when we sink into nothing that he may be all in all.

135

See 1 Cor. 15:28.

Then, his almighty grace having abolished ‘every high thing which exalted itself against’ him, every temper, and thought, and word, and work is ‘brought to the obedience of Christ’.

136

2 Cor. 10:5.

Londonderry, April 24, 1767

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