Notes:
Sermon 32: Upon Our Lord’s Sermon On The Mount, Discourse XII
The unifying theme of these next thirteen ‘discourses’ on the Sermon on the Mount, with all their variations and nuancings, is the Christian life understood as the fruit of justifying faith. But given such faith, what follows? Wesley’s answer is given in this extended exposition of the Christian life based on the locus classicus of evangelical ethics, ‘The Sermon on the Mount’ (i.e., Matthew 5-7). Since Tyndale, this ‘sermon’ had been understood as ‘the epitome of God’s laws and promises’ for Christian believers; cf. Clebsch, England’s Earliest Protestants, p. 184; see also William Burkitt, Expository Notes…on the New Testament (eleven editions between 1700 and 1739), Preface to chapter 5: ‘Christ’s famous Sermon on the Mount comprehends the sum and substance of both the Old and New Testaments.’
Taken together, the following sermons are not a thirteen-part essay, tightly organized and argued. Instead, they are separate sermons, drawn from materials running back to 1725, arranged in a triadic pattern that seems to have been original with Wesley. Each is a discourse in its own right; yet the series is designed so that each appears as a part of a whole. This means that the sermons may be read singly or together, but with an eye on their shared aim: ‘to assert and prove every branch of gospel obedience as indispensably necessary to eternal salvation’; cf. Wesley’s open letter (Nov. 17, 1759) to John Downes in reply to the latter’s abusive Methodism Examined and Exposed (1759).
Many of the great and near-great commentators of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had devoted their talents to the interpretation of Matthew 5-7 as the principal summary of Christian ethics, or, in Henry Hammond’s phrase, as ‘an abstract of Christian philosophy’; cf. his Practical Catechism (1st edn., c. 1644), II.1, in the Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology (1847), p. 83. Chief among these earlier works, in the order of their influences upon Wesley’s thought, were Bishop Offspring Blackall, ‘Eighty-Seven Practical Discourses Upon Our Saviour’s Sermon on the Mount’, Works, I.1-561; II.609-939; 01:467John Norris, Practical Discourses; the American, James Blair, Our Saviour’s Divine Sermon on the Mount in IV Volumes (1722; 2nd edn., 1740, with a preface by Daniel Waterland); John Cardinal Bona, Guide to Eternity… (six editions in English between 1672 and 1712); and Henry Hammond, op. cit. Echoes of all these are scattered along the way, together with lesser borrowings from Bengel, Poole, and Henry. This makes it all the more remarkable that Wesley came up with a model of his own, both inform and substance. This series thus reminds us, yet again, of Wesley’s ready appeal to tradition—even while he maintains his own originality and independence.
Benjamin Ingham records in his Journal that ‘during the voyage [to Georgia] Wesley went over our Saviour’s Sermon on the Mount’ with the ship’s company aboard the Simmonds. There are also other records of his preaching, very early on, from one or another text in Matthew 5-7. For example, his second sermon was preached at Binsey (near Oxford), November 21, 1725, on Matt. 6:33. A first draft of the sermon which appears here as ‘Discourse VIII’ seems to have been written out in 1736. Later, it was the example of the Sermon on the Mount that encouraged Wesley to break out of his High Church prejudices in Bristol, April 1, 1739: ‘In the evening (Mr. Whitefield being gone) I begun expounding our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount (one pretty remarkable precedent of field preaching, though I suppose there were churches at that time also) to a little society which was accustomed to meet once or twice a week in Nicholas Street;’ cf. Journal entries for this whole story of the unplanned outbreak of the Wesleyan Revival.
The records show that, between 1739 and 1746, Wesley preached more than one hundred sermons from separate texts in the Sermon on the Mount. There is, however, no recorded instance of his having treated that Sermon as a whole anywhere else. Evidently, he was prepared to allow this series, once published, to stand as his sufficient comment on the subject.
In his introduction to ‘Discourse X’, §§1-3, Wesley repeats his explanation (cf. ‘Discourse I’, Proem, §10) of how he had conceived the design of Matthew 5-7, according to its three unfolding themes: (1) ‘the sum of true religion’; (2) ‘rules touching that right intention which we are to preserve in all our outward actions’; and (3) ‘the main hindrances of this religion’. He then adds a clarifying summary: ‘In the fifth chapter [of St. Matthew] our great Teacher…has laid before us those dispositions of the soul which constitute real Christianity…. In the sixth [chapter] he has shown how all our actions…may be made holy, and good, and acceptable to God, by a pure and holy intention…. In 01:468the former part of [ch. 7] he points out the most common and fatal hindrances of this holiness; in the latter [part] he exhorts us, by various motives, to break through all [such hindrances] and secure that prize of our high calling [of God in Christ Jesus]’ (cf. Phil. 3:14).
The thirteen discourses are divided almost equally over the three chapters of St. Matthew: five for chapter five, four each for six and seven. Of the first five, Discourse I is devoted to the first two Beatitudes; Discourse II to Beatitudes three through five (with a hymn to love based on 1 Cor. 13); Discourse III to the remainder of the Beatitudes; Discourse IV turns to Christianity as ‘a social religion’ in which inward holiness (our love of God) prompts outward holiness (love of neighbour); Discourse V is a balancing of law and gospel. Discourses VI-IX are based on chapter six: VI to the problems of purity and holiness of intention (to the ‘works of piety and of mercy’); VII to fasting; VIII to a denunciation of greed and surplus accumulation; IX to the mutually exclusive services of God and Mammon. Discourses X-XIII turn to various hindrances to holy living and to their avoidance: X to ‘judging’ (contrary to love), ‘intemperate zeal’, ‘neglect of prayer’, ‘neglect of charity’; XI to the noxious influences of ill-example and ill-advice with which the world deludes us; XII to false prophets and unedifying preachers (and yet also our duties to attend church nonetheless and to avail ourselves of all means of grace); XIII is an inevitable comment on the parable of the houses built on sand and rock. Discourse XII was also published separately in the same year that it appeared in SOSO, III (1750), under the title, ‘A Caution Against False Prophets. A Sermon on Matt. vii. 15-20. Particularly recommended to the People Called Methodists’. This went through seven editions during Wesley’s lifetime. For a stemma delineating the publishing history of that sermon (‘collected’ and ‘separate’) and a list of variant readings, see Appendix, ‘Wesley’s Text’, Vol. IV, see also Bibliog, Nos. 130 and 13o.i.
Obviously there is no interest, in any of these sermons, in critical textual problems or in the historical context. Everywhere it is assumed that in St. Matthew’s text we are dealing with divine ipsissima verba—i.e., with a direct address from ὁ ὤν, ‘the self-existent, the Supreme, the God who is over all, blessed for ever’ (§9 below). The Sermon on the Mount, in Wesley’s view, is the only Gospel passage where Christ designed ‘to lay down at once the whole plan of his religion, to give us a full prospect of Christianity’. What matters most in our reading, therefore, is an awareness of Wesley’s sense of the wholeness of the message he is interpreting, of his conviction of the honest integration of an evangel profoundly ethical with an ethic that is also vividly 01:469evangelical. Maybe more than anywhere else in SOSO this particular bloc displays Wesley’s distinctive concern for integration and balance—between the faith that justifies and the faith that works by love.
01:675 Upon our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount,Discourse the Twelfth
Matthew 7:15-20
Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit; neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.
Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
11. It is scarce possible to express or conceive what multitudes of souls run on to destruction because they would not be persuaded to walk in a narrow way, even though it were the way to everlasting salvation. And the same thing we may still observe daily. Such is the folly and madness of mankind that thousands of men still rush on in the way to hell only because it is a broad way. They walk in it themselves because others do: because so many perish they will add to the number. Such is the amazing influence of example over the weak, miserable children of men! It continually peoples the regions of death, and drowns numberless souls in everlasting perdition.
22. To warn mankind of this, to guard as many as possible against this spreading contagion, God has commanded his watchmen to cry aloud, and show the people the danger they are in.
See Isa. 58:1.
See Rom. 12:2.
Cf. Isa. 30:10.
Cf. Jer. 23:13, 32.
33. Is this an unheard of, is it an uncommon thing? Nay, God knoweth it is not. The instances of it are almost innumerable. We may find them in every age and nation. But how terrible is this! When the ambassadors of God turn agents for the devil! When they who are commissioned to teach men the way to heaven do in fact teach them the way to hell! These are like the locusts of Egypt ‘which eat up the residue that had escaped’, that had ‘remained after the hail’.
Cf. Exod. 10:5.
44. A caution this of the utmost importance. That it may the more effectually sink into our hearts, let us inquire, first, who these false prophets are; secondly, what appearance they put on; and, thirdly, how we may know what they really are, notwithstanding their fair appearance.
11I. 1. We are, first, to inquire who these false prophets are. And this it is needful to do the more diligently because these very men have so laboured to ‘wrest this Scripture to their own (though not only their own) destruction’.
Cf. 2 Pet. 3:16.
A rare instance of slang in Wesley; this usage is not noted in the OED. But cf. E. Partridge, A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (1937), and E. C. Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1870, et seq.).
22. By ‘prophets’ here (as in many other passages of Scripture, particularly in the New Testament) are meant, not those who foretell things to come, but those who speak in the name of God; those men who profess to be sent of God to teach others the way to heaven.
The Puritans had identified prophecy as preaching-teaching (‘forthtelling’ rather than ‘foretelling’) and Wesley reflects that tradition here. Cf. William Perkins, The Art of Prophesying. See No. 121, ‘Prophets and Priests’, §6, which corresponds to Perkins’s conception of prophecy and prophesying; cf. Wesley’s Notes on 1 Thess. 5:20.
Those are ‘false prophets’ who teach a false way to heaven, a way which does not lead thither; or (which comes in the end to the same point) who do not teach the true.
33. Every broad way is infallibly a false one. Therefore this is one plain, sure rule, ‘They who teach men to walk in a broad way, a way that many walk in, are false prophets.’
Again, the true way to heaven is a narrow way. Therefore this is another plain, sure rule, ‘They who do not teach men to walk in a narrow way, to be singular, are false prophets.’
Cf. No. 31, ‘Sermon on the Mount, XI’, III.4 and n.
44. To be more particular: the only true way to heaven is that pointed out in the preceding sermon. Therefore they are false prophets who do not teach men to walk in this way.
Now the way to heaven pointed out in the preceding sermon is the way of lowliness, mourning, meekness, and holy desire, love of God and of our neighbour, doing good, and suffering evil for Christ’s sake. They are therefore false prophets who teach as the way to heaven any other way than this.
55. It matters not what they call that other way. They may call it ‘faith’, or ‘good works’; or ‘faith and works’; or ‘repentance’; or ‘repentance, faith, and new obedience’. All these are good words. But if under these, or any other terms whatever, they teach men any way distinct from this, they are properly false prophets.
66. How much more do they fall under that condemnation who speak evil of this good way! But above all they who teach the directly opposite way—the way of pride, of levity, of passion, of worldly desires, of loving pleasure more than God, of unkindness to our neighbour, of unconcern for good works, and suffering no evil, no persecution for righteousness’ sake!
701:6787. If it be asked, ‘Why, who ever did teach this?’ Or, ‘Who does teach it as the way to heaven?’ I answer, Ten thousand wise and honourable men; even all those, of whatever denomination,
This usage, connoting an ecclesial entity, was rather new; the first instance of it in the OED, in this sense, is dated 1716. Even in 1755, Dr. Johnson would use it of ‘sects’ of philosophers without any ecclesial connotation at all. For other instances of Wesley’s use of the term, see Nos. 104, ‘On Attending the Church Service’, §4, and 107, ‘On God’s Vineyard’, II.8.
See Rev. 9:11: ‘the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon’. In Enoch 20:2 the angel presiding over ‘Tarturus’ was named Uriel. Cf. John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress (1st edn., 1678; Philadelphia, Porter and Coates, n.d.), pp. 61-65. This metaphor of ‘the bottomless pit’ was one of Wesley’s favourites; cf. e.g., III.4, below, and Nos. 25, ‘Sermon on the Mount, V’, III.5; 66, ‘The Signs of the Times’, II.7; 90, ‘An Israelite Indeed’, II.4; 96, ‘On Obedience to Parents’, II.4; 100, ‘On Pleasing All Men’, II.2; 102, ‘Of Former Times’, §16; 115, ‘Dives and Lazarus’, I.7; and 119, ‘Walking by Sight and Walking by Faith’, §18.
For ‘the first-born of Satan’, cf. ‘The Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians’, VII.1, in The Apostolic Fathers, Loeb, I:293 (quoting 1 John 4:2, 3, and 2 John 7): ‘“For everyone who does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is an antichrist;” and whosoever does not confess the testimony of the cross is of the devil; and whosoever perverts the oracles of the Lord for his own lusts, and says that there is neither resurrection nor judgment—this man is the first-born of Satan.’ A footnote here says that, according to St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, iii.3, 4, this phrase, ‘first-born of Satan’, was later applied by Polycarp specifically to Marcion. Cf. also Nos. 128, ‘The Deceitfulness of the Human Heart’, I.1; and 150, ‘Hypocrisy in Oxford’, I.3, where Wesley uses the Greek phrase, πρωτότοκοι τοῦ Σατανᾶ.
Cf. Isa. 14:9.
1II. 1. But do they come now in their own shape? By no means. If it were so they could not destroy. You would take the alarm and flee for your life. Therefore they put on a quite contrary appearance, which was the second thing to be considered: ‘they come to you in sheep’s clothing,’ although ‘inwardly they are ravening wolves.’
201:6792. ‘They come to you in sheep’s clothing;’ that is, with an appearance of harmlessness.
Wesley speaks frequently of ‘harmlessness’, often sarcastically, as here. Cf. Nos. 33, ‘Sermon on the Mount, XIII’, III.2; 52, The Reformation of Manners, III.3; 81, ‘In What Sense we are to Leave the World’, §23; 119, ‘Walking by Sight and Walking by Faith’, §18; and 127, ‘On the Wedding Garment’, §16.
33. They come, secondly, with an appearance of usefulness. Indeed to this, to do good, they are particularly called. They are set apart for this very thing. They are particularly commissioned to watch over your soul, and to train you up to eternal life. ’Tis their whole business to ‘go about doing good, and healing those that are oppressed of the devil’.
Cf. Acts 10:38.
44. They come, thirdly, with an appearance of religion. All they do is for conscience’ sake! They assure you it is out of mere zeal for God that they are making God a liar. It is out of pure concern for religion that they would destroy it root and branch. All they speak is only from a love of truth, and a fear lest it should suffer. And, it may be, from a regard for the church, and a desire to defend her from all her enemies.
55. Above all, they come with an appearance of love. They take all these pains only for your good. They should not trouble themselves about you, but that they have a kindness for you. They will make large professions of their goodwill, of their concern for the danger you are in, and of their earnest desire to preserve you from error, from being entangled in new and mischievous doctrines. They should be very sorry to see one who means so well hurried into any extreme, perplexed with strange and unintelligible notions, or deluded into enthusiasm Therefore it is that they advise you to keep still in the plain middle way;
Cf. No. 27, ‘Sermon on the Mount, VII’, §4 and n.
Eccles. 7:16. Cf. below, III.11. An oblique reference to Joseph Trapp, whose four sermons on The Nature, Folly, Sin, and Danger of Being Righteous Overmuch (1739) had ridiculed the Methodists and had, in turn, become an easy target for their scornful retorts. Wesley’s description here of the ideal ministerial character is perfectionistic enough so as to encourage his people to expect more of their Church of England priests than they could realistically expect from their own Methodist preachers or class-leaders.
101:680III. 1. But how may we know what they really are, notwithstanding their fair appearance? This was the third thing into which it was proposed to inquire.
Our blessed Lord saw how needful it was for all men to know false prophets, however disguised. He saw likewise how unable most men were to deduce a truth through a long train of consequences. He therefore gives us a short and plain rule, easy to be understood by men of the meanest capacities, and easy to be applied upon all occasions: ‘Ye shall know them by their fruits.’
22. Upon all occasions you may easily apply this rule. In order to know whether any who speak in the name of God are false or true prophets it is easy to observe, first, What are the fruits of their doctrine as to themselves? What effect has it had upon their lives? Are they holy and unblameable in all things? What effect has it had upon their hearts? Does it appear by the general tenor of their conversation that their tempers are holy, heavenly, divine? That the mind is in them which was in Christ Jesus?
Phil. 2:5.
Titus 2:14.
33. You may easily observe, secondly, what are the fruits of their doctrine as to those that hear them—in many, at least, though not in all; for the apostles themselves did not convert all that heard them. Have these the mind that was in Christ? And do they walk as he also walked? And was it by hearing these men that they began so to do? Were they inwardly and outwardly wicked till they heard them? If so, it is a manifest proof that those are true prophets, teachers sent of God. But if it is not so, if they do not effectually teach either themselves or others to love and serve God, it is a manifest proof that they are false prophets; that God hath not sent them.
44. An hard saying this! How few can bear it!
See John 6:60.
Ver. 16 [of text].
Ver. 17.
Ver. 19.
Ver. 20.
Cf. Matt. 5:20.
55. O ‘beware of’ these ‘false prophets’! For though they ‘come in sheep’s clothing, yet inwardly they are ravening wolves’. They only destroy and devour the flock: they tear them in pieces if there is none to help them. They will not, cannot lead you in the way to heaven. How should they, when they know it not themselves? O beware they do not turn you out of the way, and cause you to ‘lose what you have wrought’.
Cf. 2 John 8.
66. But perhaps you will ask, ‘If there is such danger in hearing 682them, ought I to hear them at all?’ It is a weighty question, such as deserves the deepest consideration, and ought not to be answered but upon the calmest thought, the most deliberate reflection. For many years I have been almost afraid to speak at all concerning it; being unable to determine one way or the other, or to give any judgment upon it. Many reasons there are which readily occur, and incline me to say, ‘Hear them not.’ And yet what our Lord speaks concerning the false prophets of his own times seems to imply the contrary. ‘Then spake Jesus unto the multitude, and to his disciples, saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat,’ are the ordinary, stated teachers in your church: ‘All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do. But do not ye after their works; for they say and do not.’
Matt. 23:1-3.
77. But perhaps it will be said, he only directed to hear them when they read the Scripture to the congregation. I answer, at the same time that they thus read the Scripture they generally expounded it too. And here is no kind of intimation that they were to hear the one and not the other also. Nay, the very terms, ‘All things whatsoever they bid you observe’, exclude any such limitation.
88. Again, unto them, unto false prophets, undeniably such, is frequently committed (O grief to speak! for surely these things ought not so to be) the administration of the sacraments also. To direct men, therefore, not to hear them would be in effect to cut them off from the ordinance of God. But this we dare not do, considering the validity of the ordinance doth not depend on the 01:683goodness of him that administers, but on the faithfulness of him that ordained it; who will and doth meet us in his appointed ways.
Cf. Art. XXVI, ‘Of the unworthiness of the ministers, which hinders not the effect of the sacraments.’ The background here is the bitter controversy that still centred in the Nonconformists’ contention that it was against conscience (and, therefore, sinful) to accept the ministrations of unworthy priests or to participate in rituals that still smacked of popery. Wesley’s toleration on this point was rooted in his ecclesiology. Cf. the longer explanation of his ‘Reasons Against a Separation from the Church of England’ in A Preservative Against Unsettled Notions in Religion. See also Nos. 97, ‘On Obedience to Pastors’, where Wesley argues a distinction between ‘pastors’ (ex officio) and ‘spiritual guides’; and 104, ‘On Attending the Church Service’, §27. His concerns to keep his people within the sacramental environment of the Church of England and also to warn them against ‘false prophets’ were carefully balanced.
1 Cor. 10:16.
99. All, therefore, which I can say is this: in any particular case wait upon God by humble and earnest prayer, and then act according to the best light you have. Act according to what you are persuaded upon the whole will be most for your spiritual advantage. Take great care that you do not judge rashly; that you do not lightly think any to be false prophets. And when you have full proof, see that no anger or contempt have any place in your heart. After this, in the presence and in the fear of God, determine for yourself. I can only say, if by experience you find that the hearing them hurts your soul, then hear them not; then quietly refrain, and hear those that profit you. If on the other hand you find it does not hurt your soul, you then may hear them still. Only ‘take heed how you hear.’
Luke 8:18.
Isa. 8:20.
Cf. No. 10, ‘The Witness of the Spirit, I’, II.8 and n.
1010. I cannot conclude without addressing a few plain words to those of whom we have now been speaking.
For still more ‘plain words’ to the Anglican clergy, cf. Wesley’s Address to the Clergy, I.3-II.1, 3.
Ezek. 37:4.
See Ezek. 13:6-7.
Acts 13:10.
See Isa. 5:20.
1111. ‘Woe unto you, ye blind leaders of the blind!’
Cf. Matt. 15:14; 23:16.
Matt. 23:13.
Cf. above, II.5 and n.
Jer. 25:27.
Ps. 30:9.
Cf. Ezek. 3:18; 33:8.
1212. Where are your eyes? Where is your understanding? Have ye deceived others till you have deceived yourselves also? Who hath required this at your hands, to teach a way which ye never knew? Are you ‘given up to’ so ‘strong a delusion’ that ye not only teach but ‘believe a lie’?
Cf. Ps. 81:12; 2 Thess. 2:11.
Cf. Isa. 53:10.
Cf. Ezek. 13:6.
1313. How can you possibly evade the force of our Lord’s words—so full, so strong, so express? How can ye evade ‘knowing yourselves by your fruits’? Evil fruits of evil trees! And how should it be otherwise? ‘Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?’ Take this to yourselves, ye to whom it belongs. O ye barren trees, why cumber ye the ground?
See Luke 13:7.
1414. My dear brethren, harden not your hearts.
Ps. 95:8; Heb. 3:8.
See Matt. 8:12; 22:13.
See 1 Cor. 9:7.
Titus 2:14.
Cf. 1 Pet. 4:14.
Cf. 2 Tim. 4:5.
Jer. 23:29.
See Isa. 8:18.
Cf. Dan. 12:3.
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Entry Title: Sermon 32: Upon Our Lord’s Sermon On The Mount, Discourse XII