Notes:
Sermon 46: The Wilderness State
An Introductory Comment [to Sermons 46-47]
Like that of true love, the course of true faith never did run smooth (cf. Thomas Goodwin, A Child of Light Walking in Darkness (1636); abridged by Wesley in the Christian Library (1751), Vol. XI; and Hugh Binning, Fellowship With God, especially Sermon XIV). There is, therefore, a natural progress in following a sermon on conversion with two further comments on the peaks and valleys in a Christian pilgrim’s progress. That is the point to this particular pair of sermons, Nos. 46, ‘The Wilderness State’, and 47, ‘Heaviness through Manifold Temptations’. By 1760 Wesley knew, from long experience, how regularly any stress on the necessity of assurance would raise the levels of religious anxiety amongst his hearers and disciples. Even earlier, he had pondered Thomas à Kempis’s generalization (Imitation, II. ix. 7): ‘I never found anyone so religious and devout that he had not sometimes a withdrawing of grace or felt not some decrease of zeal.’ He also remembered how quickly the euphoria of his own Aldersgate experience had passed (cf. JWJ, May 26, 1738, ‘My soul continued in peace, but yet in heaviness because of manifold temptations,’ and May 28, ‘I waked in peace, but not in joy’).
Thus, wary though he was of allegorizing, he found himself turning to the Old Testament story of the sojourn of the Children of Israel in the wilderness of Sinai as a metaphor for the anxieties and depressions that follow upon ‘the new birth’. This allegory was already a familiar one among the Puritans. There was, e.g., Samuel Mather’s Figures or Types of the Old Testament (Dublin, 1683); Mather had understood ‘wilderness’ to mean ‘the wilderness of this world’ through which ‘Christ directs and conducts his people in their travels…to the true Canaan’ (p. 170; cf. p. 192). Thus it was clear to him that just ‘as the Ark of God had led [the Israelites] through the Wilderness, so we are to follow the guidance of Christ through the world’ (p. 510). Mather had also cited (pp. 200-201) a quite different interpretation in Jeremiah Burroughs (whom Wesley also knew) in The Excellency of 02:203Holy Courage in Evil Times (1661), where ‘the wilderness state’ is understood as ‘an unregenerate condition’ before conversion (cf. chs. 25-26 and Burroughs’s comments on Heb. 11:27). In Robert Gell’s Remaines, I.16, the reference had been transferred from the wilderness of Sinai to Jesus’ experience of ‘forty days and nights’ in the wilderness of Judea. Wesley had followed Gell in this, at least once, in Bristol (cf. JWJ, March 28, 1740): ‘From these words, “Then was Jesus led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil,” I took occasion to describe that wilderness state, that state of doubts and fears and strong temptations which so many go through, though in different degrees, after they have received remission of sins.’
From none of these sources, however, could one have anticipated Wesley’s uncommonly sharp distinction, now in 1760, between ‘the wilderness state’ as ‘darkness’ (i.e., an actual ‘loss of faith’ and ‘a total loss of joy’; in effect, a relapse from faith into unfaith that simply reverses the positive processes of salvation) and ‘heaviness’ (religious depression) which is more or less normal, and thus not a valid ground for prolonged anxiety or despair. But this is the distinction which is expounded, along with its psychological implications, in the two sermons here (and also, presumably, in his thirty-five oral sermons on John 16:22). It had been summarized in the manuscript Minutes of 1744 (Q. and A. 10) and then commented on in Wesley’s Notes: ‘This [John 16:22] gives us no manner of authority to assert that all believers must come into a state of darkness. They never need lose either their peace or their love, or the witness that they are the children of God. They can never lose these, but either through sin, or ignorance, or vehement temptation, or bodily disorders.’ This same idea will be repeated in letters to Mrs. Marston, August 11, 1770, and to Rebecca Yeoman, February 5, 1772 (who is urged to read ‘The Wilderness State’ in ‘the fourth volume, and examine yourself thereby’). Charles Wesley, however, had understood ‘the wilderness state’ rather as Gell had done: ‘that [condition] into which the believer is generally led by the Spirit to be tempted as soon as he is baptized by the Holy Ghost’ (CWJ, August 26, 1739).
It would be interesting to know how John Wesley understood his own episodes of acute religious anxiety. By 1780 he could ‘not remember to have felt lowness of spirits for one quarter of an hour since I was born’ (see No. 77, ‘Spiritual Worship’, III.2). Actually, though, he has been through many such episodes both early and late (as in his letter to ‘Varanese’, February 6, 1736; or, in JWJ, January 4, 1739; or, again, in a letter to Elizabeth Hardy, May 1758: ‘I felt the wrath of God abiding on me. I was afraid of dropping into hell;’ and another to Mrs. 02:204Ryan, November 4, 1758). The most remarkable of these is mirrored in an outburst to his brother Charles, June 26, 1766: ‘In one of [[my]] last [letters] [[I]] was saying, [[I]] do not feel the wrath of God abiding on [[me]]…. [[I do not love God. I never did]]…. [[I have no]] direct witness… [[I]] have no more fear than love. Or if [[I have any fear, it is not that of falling]] into hell, but of falling into nothing.’ (The words within double brackets are transcribed from shorthand.) Was this a case of ‘heaviness’ or ‘darkness’, or what?
‘Heaviness through Manifold Temptations’ is the linked sequel to ‘The Wilderness State’, designed to help believers avoid any further slide from depression into ‘darkness’ or sinful despair. Thus, it seeks to lay out ‘the wide and essential difference between “darkness” and “heaviness”’. He had already done this in sixteen oral sermons on 1 Pet. 1:6 between 1754 and 1757, which suggests that the problem of religious anxiety had become more widespread and urgent in and after the upswing in ‘professors of perfection’ in 1755. At any rate, this particular pair of sermons seems to have been written expressly for SOSO, IV (1760). They were reprinted in Works (1771), IV, and again in SOSO, IV (1787), but were not otherwise printed separately.
02:205 The Wilderness StateJohn 16:22
Ye now have sorrow; but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.
11. After God had wrought a great deliverance for Israel by bringing them out of the house of bondage,
Exod. 13:3.
Cf. Ps. 107:40 (BCP).
Rom. 3:24.
Cf. Heb. 4:9.
Cf. Deut. 32:1
22. Certain it is that the condition wherein these are has a right to the tenderest compassion. They labour under an evil and sore disease, though one that is not commonly understood. And for this very reason it is the more difficult for them to find a remedy. Being in darkness themselves, they cannot be supposed to understand the nature of their own disorder; and few of their brethren—nay, perhaps of their teachers—know either what their sickness is, or how to heal it. So much the more need there is to inquire, first, what is the nature of this disease; secondly, what is the cause; and thirdly, what is the cure of it.
11I. 1. And, first, what is the nature of this disease into which so many fall after they have believed? Wherein does it properly 02:206consist? And what are the genuine symptoms of it? It properly consists in the loss of that faith which God once wrought in their heart. They that are ‘in the wilderness’ have not now that divine ‘evidence’, that satisfactory ‘conviction of things not seen’,
Cf. Heb. 11:1. See No. 3, ‘Awake, Thou That Sleepest’, I.11 and n.
Cf. Gal. 2:20.
Cf. 2 Cor. 4:6.
Cf. Heb. 11:27.
Cf. Rom. 8:16.
Cf. Gal. 4:6.
Job 13:15.
Cf. the story of Samson in Judg. 16:7, 11, 19.
22. Hence, secondly, proceeds the loss of love, which cannot but rise or fall at the same time, and in the same proportion, with true, living faith. Accordingly they that are deprived of their faith are deprived of the love of God also. They cannot now say, ‘Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee.’
John 21:17.
Cf. John 12:3.
Cf. Isa. 26:8.
Cf. Matt. 24:12.
Col. 3:12.
Cf. Heb. 5:2.
2 Tim. 2:24-25.
Cf. Gal. 6:1.
Ps. 118:13.
Cf. 1 Pet. 3:9.
33. In consequence of the loss of faith and love follows, thirdly, loss of joy in the Holy Ghost. For if the loving consciousness of pardon be no more, the joy resulting therefrom cannot remain. If the Spirit does not witness with our spirit that we are the children of God, the joy that flowed from that inward witness must also be at an end. And in like manner they who once ‘rejoiced with joy unspeakable in hope of the glory’
Cf. 1 Pet. 1:8.
Wisd. 3:4.
Cf. Rom. 5:5.
44. With loss of faith and love and joy there is also joined, fourthly, the loss of that peace which once passed all understanding. That sweet tranquillity of mind, that composure of spirit, is gone. Painful doubt returns: doubt whether we ever did, and perhaps whether we ever shall, believe. We begin to doubt whether we ever did find in our hearts the real testimony of the Spirit. Whether we did not rather deceive our own souls, and mistake the voice of nature for the voice of God. Nay, and perhaps whether we shall ever hear his voice and find favour in his sight. And these doubts are again joined with servile fear, with that ‘fear’ which ‘hath torment’.
1 John 4:18.
55. But even this is not all. For loss of peace is accompanied with loss of power. We know everyone who has peace with God through Jesus Christ has power over all sin. But whenever he 02:208loses the peace of God he loses also the power over sin. While that peace remained, power also remained, even over the besetting sin, whether it were the sin of his nature, his constitution, the sin of his education, or that of his profession; yea, and over those evil tempers and desires which till then he could not conquer. ‘Sin’ had then ‘no more dominion over him’;
Cf. Rom. 6:14.
See Ezek. 10:18.
See Rom. 14:17.
1II. 1. Such is the nature of what many have termed, and not improperly, ‘the wilderness state’. But the nature of it may be more fully understood by inquiring, secondly, What are the causes of it? These indeed are various. But I dare not rank among these the bare, arbitrary, sovereign will of God. He rejoiceth ‘in the prosperity of his servants’.
Cf. Ps. 35:27.
Cf. Lam. 3:33.
Cf. 1 Thess. 4:3.
Rom. 14:17.
Rom. 11:29.
The reference here is twofold: to the mystical theories (as in St. John of the Cross) of God’s withdrawal from the believer in ‘the dark night of the soul’, and to Lutheran explanations of religious depressions (Anfechtungen) in terms of the concept of the Deus absconditus (God’s withdrawals of himself).
22. [(I).] The most usual cause of inward darkness is sin of one kind or another. This it is which generally occasions what is often a complication of sin and misery. And, first, sin of commission. This may frequently be observed to darken the soul in a moment; especially if it be a known, a wilful, or presumptuous sin. If, for instance, a person who is now walking in the clear light of God’s countenance should be any way prevailed on to commit a single act of drunkenness or uncleanness, it would be no wonder if in 02:209that very hour he fell into utter darkness. It is true, there have been some very rare cases wherein God has prevented this by an extraordinary display of his pardoning mercy, almost in the very instant. But in general such an abuse of the goodness of God, so gross an insult on his love, occasions an immediate estrangement from God, and a ‘darkness that may be felt’.
Cf. Exod. 10:21.
33. But it may be hoped this case is not very frequent; that there are not many who so despise the riches of his goodness as, while they walk in his light, so grossly and presumptuously to rebel against him. That light is much more frequently lost by giving way to sins of omission.
Cf. No. 14, The Repentance of Believers, I.14 and n.
See 1 Thess. 5:19.
44. Perhaps no sin of omission more frequently occasions this than the neglect of private prayer; the want whereof cannot be supplied by any other ordinance whatever. Nothing can be more plain than that the life of God in the soul does not continue, much less increase, unless we use all opportunities of communing with God, and pouring out our hearts before him. If therefore we are negligent of this, if we suffer business, company, or any avocation whatever, to prevent these secret exercises of the soul (or which comes to the same thing, to make us hurry them over in a slight and careless manner) that life will surely decay. And if we long or frequently intermit them, it will gradually die away.
55. Another sin of omission which frequently brings the soul of a believer into darkness is the neglect of what was so strongly enjoined even under the Jewish dispensation: ‘Thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him:’
Lev. 19:17.
Ibid.
Cf. Rev. 18:4.
Cf. Josh. 22:20.
Cf. 2 Sam. 4:11; Ezek. 3:18; 33:8.
Cf. No. 65, ‘The Duty of Reproving our Neighbour’.
66. A third cause of our losing this is the giving way to some kind of inward sin.
Cf. No. 13, On Sin in Believers, intro., III.1-9, and n.
Prov. 16:5.
Cf. Rom. 12:3.
See 1 Cor. 4:7.
1 Pet. 5:5.
77. The same effect may be produced by giving place to anger, whatever the provocation or occasion be; yea, though it were coloured over with the name of zeal for the truth, or for the glory of God. Indeed all zeal which is any other than the flame of love is ‘earthly, animal, devilish’.
Jas. 3:15 (Notes). See No. 92, ‘On Zeal’, for this point enlarged.
88. But suppose we are aware of this snare of the devil, we may be attacked from another quarter. When fierceness and anger are asleep, and love alone is waking, we may be no less endangered by 02:211desire, which equally tends to darken the soul. This is the sure effect of any ‘foolish desire’,
Cf. 1 Tim. 6:9 (Notes).
Cf. Col. 3:2.
Cf. Ps. 95:7; Heb. 3:7, 15.
Cf. 2 Cor. 4:4.
99. But this he frequently does, even when we do not give way to any positive sin. It is enough, it gives him sufficient advantage, if we do not ‘stir up the gift of God which is in us’;
Cf. 2 Tim. 1:6.
Luke 13:24 (Notes).
Cf. 2 Tim. 2:5.
Cf. Matt. 11:12 (Notes).
Cf. Heb. 12:3.
1010. But it is well to be observed that the cause of our darkness (whatsoever it be, whether omission or commission, whether inward or outward sin) is not always nigh at hand. Sometimes the sin which occasioned the present distress may lie at a considerable distance. It might be committed days or weeks or months before. And that God now withdraws his light and peace on account of what was done so long ago is not (as one might at first imagine) an instance of his severity, but rather a proof of his long-suffering and tender mercy. He waited all this time if haply we would see, acknowledge, and correct what was amiss. And in default of this he at length shows his displeasure, if thus, at last,
Orig., ‘least’, altered in 1771 and 1787.
102:212(II). 1. Another general cause of this darkness is ignorance; which is likewise of various kinds. If men know not the Scriptures, if they imagine there are passages either in the Old or New Testament which assert that all believers without exception must sometimes be in darkness, this ignorance will naturally bring upon them the darkness which they expect. And how common a case has this been among us! How few are there that do not expect it! And no wonder, seeing they are taught to expect it; seeing their guides lead them into this way. Not only the mystic writers of the Romish Church, but many of the most spiritual and experimental in our own (very few of the last century excepted), lay it down with all assurance as a plain, unquestionable Scripture doctrine, and cite many texts to prove it.
22. Ignorance also of the work of God in the soul frequently occasions this darkness. Men imagine (because so they have been taught, particularly by writers of the Romish communion, whose plausible assertions too many Protestants have received without due examination) that they are not always to walk in ‘luminous faith’; that this is only a ‘lower dispensation’; that as they rise higher they are to leave those ‘sensible comforts’, and to live by ‘naked faith’ (naked indeed, if it be stripped both of love and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost!); that a state of light and joy is good, but a state of ‘darkness’ and ‘dryness’ is better, that it is by these alone we can be ‘purified’ from pride, love of the world, and inordinate self-love; and that therefore we ought neither to expect nor desire to ‘walk in the light’ always.
Cf. St. John of the Cross, Ascent of Mount Carmel, II.ii, in Complete Works (1933), I.68 ff.; see also The Dark Night of the Soul, I.ix-x, ibid., I.373-80.
Cf. Jean Orcibal, ‘The Theological Originality of John Wesley and Continental Spirituality’ (see above, Vol. 1, pp. 36, 75). Besides his conventional, lifelong anti-Roman prejudices, Wesley was predisposed to take the gloom of the Jansenists and even of M. de Renty as normative. Thus he ignored the lilting ‘folk-spirituality’ of the Ursulines, the Oratorians, the Salesians (and eighteenth-century Catholicism generally), so lovingly recounted by Henri Bremond in a classic study, A Literary History of Religious Thought in France (French text, 1916; Eng. tr., London, SPCK, 1928, 1930), 2 vols.
1(III). 1. A third general cause of this darkness is temptation. When the candle of the Lord first shines on our head, temptation frequently flees away, and totally disappears. All is calm within: 02:213perhaps without, too, while God makes our enemies to be at peace with us. It is then very natural to suppose that we shall not see war any more. And there are instances wherein this calm has continued, not only for weeks, but for months or years. But commonly it is otherwise: in a short time ‘the winds blow, the rains descend, and the floods arise’
Cf. Matt. 7:25, 27.
Cf. John 8:19.
Gal. 4:29.
Cf. Heb. 12:15.
See Eph. 6:16.
Cf. Eph. 6:12.
Cf. Letters, 26:389 (line 8) in this edn., where these exact words occur in a somewhat despairing letter of Oct. 7, 1749, though without quotation marks. This letter, however, is known only through copies of 1828 and 1831, when the elusive quotation was apparently not recognized as such.
22. The force of those temptations which arise from within will be exceedingly heightened if we before thought too highly of ourselves, as if we had been cleansed from all sin. And how naturally do we imagine this during the warmth of our first love! How ready are we to believe that God has ‘fulfilled’ in us the whole ‘work of faith with power’!
Cf. 2 Thess. 1:11.
Cf. 2 Pet. 2:9.
III. These are the usual causes of this second darkness. Inquire we, thirdly, what is the cure of it?
11. To suppose that this is one and the same in all cases is a great and fatal mistake; and yet extremely common even among many who pass for experienced Christians; yea, perhaps take upon them to be ‘teachers in Israel’,
Cf. John 3:10 (Notes).
Cf. Matt. 10:28. Cf. Samuel Johnson’s understanding of ‘quackery’ in the particular sense of medical malpractice.
Cf. Ezek. 13:10, 11, 14, 15; 22:28.
An ironic reference to Bishop George Lavington’s application of this label to the Methodists, in The Enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists Compared, Pt. II, p. 147: ‘Their mountebank’s infallible prescription must be swallowed…—though they die for it.’ See also No. 35, ‘The Law Established through Faith, I’, I.12 and n.
Heb. 10:29.
22. For instance: is it sin which occasions darkness? What sin? Is it outward sin of any kind? Does your conscience accuse you of committing any sin whereby you grieve the Holy Spirit of God?
Cf. Eph. 4:30.
See Josh. 7:13.
Isa. 55:7.
Jas. 4:8.
Isa. 1:16.
Cf. Isa. 58:10.
Cf. Isa. 55:7.
33. If upon the closest search you can find no sin of commission which causes the cloud upon your soul, inquire next if there be not some sin of omission which separates between God and you. Do you ‘not suffer sin upon your brother’?
Cf. Lev. 19:17.
Rev. 3:2.
Ps. 95:7; Heb. 3:7, 15; 4:7.
Cf. Isa. 30:21.
Cf. Ps. 95:8; Heb. 3:8, 15; 4:7.
Cf. Acts 26:19.
Matt. 3:8.
44. But perhaps you are not conscious of even any sin of omission which impairs your peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.
Rom. 14:17.
Cf. Heb. 12:15. The following paragraph closely resembles both the forms and substance of the Puritan schemes of self-examination; cf. Robert Bolton, Works (3rd edn., 1614), II.27: ‘a fruitless and dangerous speculation of a man’s own worthiness—rather fasten it upon your corruptions and infirmities, upon your many deficiencies in religious duties and executions of your calling, wants and weaknesses in prayer and inward devotion, dullness and uncheerfulness in religious exercises.’ See also Joseph Alleine, ‘Letter IX’ in Christian Letters, published by Wesley in 1767 (see Bibliog, No. 301; and Vol. 16 of this edn.); see also ‘Letter XVI’ and ‘Letter XXI’.
Heb. 3:12.
Cf. Ps. 36:11.
Cf. Rom. 12:3.
Cf. Hab. 1:16.
See 1 Cor. 4:7.
Cf. Gal. 6:14.
Cf. 1 Pet. 5:6.
Cf. Ps. 37:1 (BCP).
Cf. Eph. 4:32.
Gal. 6:7.
See Matt. 5:29.
Matt. 7:13.
See Matt. 11:12.
See Lev. 9:6.
55. Perhaps it is this very thing, the want of striving, spiritual sloth, which keeps your soul in darkness. You dwell at ease in the land: there is no war in your coasts, and so you are quiet and 02:217unconcerned. You go on in the same even track of outward duties, and are content there to abide. And do you wonder meantime that your soul is dead? O stir yourself up before the Lord! Arise, and shake yourself from the dust: wrestle with God for the mighty blessing.
See Gen. 32:25-26.
See Eph. 6:18.
66. If upon the fullest and most impartial examination of yourself you cannot discern that you at present give way either to spiritual sloth or any other inward or outward sin,
See No. 8, ‘The First-fruits of the Spirit’, III.4 and n.
Cf. Ps. 4:4 (BCP).
Isa. 3:8.
Cf. Heb. 6:6. Another instance of ‘a second repentance’; see intro. to Nos. 13 and 14 (On Sin in Believers and The Repentance of Believers).
Zech. 13:1.
77. Entirely different will be the manner of the cure if the cause of the disease be not sin, but ignorance. It may be ignorance of the meaning of Scripture; perhaps occasioned by ignorant commentators—ignorant at least in this respect, however knowing or learned they may be in other particulars. And in this case that ignorance must be removed before we can remove the darkness arising from it. We must show the true meaning of those texts which have been misunderstood. My design does not permit me to consider all the passages of Scripture which have been pressed into this service. I shall just mention two or three which are frequently brought to prove that all believers must, sooner or later, ‘walk in darkness’.
Isa. 59:9; John 8:12.
88. One of these is Isaiah 50:10: ‘Who is among you that feareth the Lord, and obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in 02:218darkness and hath no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God.’ But how does it appear either from the text or context that the person here spoken of ever had light? One who is ‘convinced of sin’
Cf. John 8:46.
The intent of ‘nothing less than’ is to negate the predicate of the sentence and is common eighteenth-century usage; in modern ears it can be taken in the opposite sense. Wesley is here going against the interpretations of both Henry, Exposition, and Poole, Annotations, who understand Isa. 50:10 in terms of what Wesley will call ‘heaviness’ in the following sermon rather than ‘darkness’. Poole makes a distinction between sin and misery and supposes the prophet to be referring to misery that may pass. Similarly, Henry comments that ‘they walk in darkness when…their joy in God is interrupted, the testimony of the Spirit is interrupted, and the light of God’s countenance eclipsed.’
99. Another text which has been supposed to speak the same doctrine is Hosea 2:14: ‘I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her.’ Hence it has been inferred that God will bring every believer ‘into the wilderness’, into a state of deadness and darkness. But it is certain the text speaks no such thing. For it does not appear that it speaks of particular believers at all. It manifestly refers to the Jewish nation; and perhaps to that only. But if it be applicable to particular persons, the plain meaning of it is this: I will draw him by love; I will next convince him of sin, and then comfort him by my pardoning mercy.
1010. A third Scripture from whence the same inference has been drawn is that above-recited: ‘Ye now have sorrow; but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.’ This has been supposed to imply that God would after a time withdraw himself from all believers; and that they could not, till after they had thus sorrowed, have the joy which no man could take from them. But the whole context shows that our Lord is here speaking personally to the apostles, and no others; and that he is speaking concerning those particular events—his own death and resurrection. ‘A little while’, says he, ‘and ye shall not see me;’ namely, while I am in the grave. ‘And again a little while, and ye shall see me,’
John 16:16-17.
John 16:20, 22.
1111. A fourth text (to mention no more) which has been frequently cited in proof of the same doctrine is 1 Peter 4:12: ‘Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you.’ But this is full as foreign to the point as the preceding. The text, literally rendered, runs thus: ‘Beloved, wonder not at the burning which is among you, which is for your trial.’ Now however this may be accommodated to inward trials, in a secondary sense, yet primarily it doubtless refers to martyrdom and the sufferings connected with it.
An echo of Henry’s Exposition, to this same effect; also an indirect refutation of Moravian interpretations of 1 Pet. 4:12.
1212. ‘But is not darkness much more profitable for the soul than light? Is not the work of God in the heart most swiftly and effectually carried on during a state of inward suffering? Is not a believer more swiftly and throughly purified by sorrow than by joy? By anguish and pain and distress and spiritual martyrdoms than by continual peace?’ So the mystics teach; so it is written in their books—but not in the oracles of God.
See No. 5, ‘Justification by Faith’, §2 and n. Cf. Law’s highest mystical flight in The Spirit of Prayer, Pt. II (1750) (Works, VII.129-30): ‘This “coldness” [i.e., darkness] is the divine offspring…. It brings a divine effect, or more fruitful progress in the divine life…. Fervour is good and ought to be loved; but tribulation, distress, and coldness in their season are better, because they give means and power of exercising a higher faith, a purer love, and more perfect resignation to God—which are the best state of the soul…. Light and darkness equally assist the pious soul; …in the darkness he lays hold on God, and so [both light and darkness] do him the same good.’
Cf. Eph. 2:8.
1313. So long as men dream thus they may well ‘walk in darkness’. Nor can the effect cease till the cause is removed. But yet we must not imagine it will immediately cease, even when the cause is no more. When either ignorance or sin has caused darkness, one or the other may be removed, and yet the light which was obstructed thereby may not immediately return. As it is the free gift of God, he may restore it sooner or later, as it pleases him. In the case of sin we cannot reasonably expect that it should immediately return. The sin began before the punishment, which may therefore justly remain after the sin is at an end. And even in the natural course of things, though a wound cannot be healed while the dart is sticking in the flesh, yet neither is it healed as soon as that is drawn out, but soreness and pain may remain long after.
1414. Lastly, if darkness be occasioned by manifold, heavy, and unexpected temptations, the best way for removing and preventing this is—teach believers always to expect temptation; seeing they dwell in an evil world, among wicked, subtle, malicious spirits, and have an heart capable of all evil.
An unusually explicit avowal of the ‘remains of sin’; see intro. to No. 13, On Sin in Believers, III. 1-9 and n. But notice the distinctions here between ‘involuntary sins’ (as in On Sin in Believers) and ‘heaviness’ (as in the following sermon).
1 Pet. 2:2.
Ps. 119:140 (BCP).
Cf. 1 John 1:7.
Isa. 60:1.
Cf. Prov. 4:18.
How to Cite This Entry
Bibliography:
, “.” In , edited by . , 2024. Entry published February 28, 2024. https://wesleyworks.ecdsdev.org/sermons/Sermon046.About this Entry
Entry Title: Sermon 46: The Wilderness State