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Sermon 68: The Wisdom of God’s Counsels

   https://wesleyworks.ecdsdev.org/sermons/Sermon068

02:551 An Introductory Comment

The Journal for April 1784 recounts Wesley’s journeyings from London to Scotland by way of Chester, Liverpool, Manchester, Stockport, Carlisle. He was in Edinburgh on the 25th. The report also manages to reflect Wesley’s mixed feelings about the uneven progress of the Revival, his alarm over various signs of weakened discipline within the Methodist ranks; cf. JWJ, April 5: ‘We are labouring to secure the [Methodist] preaching-houses to the next generation! In the name of God, let us, if possible, secure the present generation from drawing back to perdition’ (one of his favourite clichés in such warnings). There is no record in Journal or the diary of his writing a sermon during this period but, according to his entry in the Arminian Magazine for August 1784 (VII.410), he finished one on Rom. 9:33 in Glasgow on April 28. It was a text from which he had not preached before, as far as our records go.

As already in ‘The Mystery of Iniquity’ (see No. 61), he is here concerned with the vagaries of revivals as instruments of God’s providence; this may account for this sermon’s place in Wesley’s revised order of SOSO, VI—after ‘On Divine Providence’. There is an asymmetry in its rhetorical form; its proem (§§1-7) takes a very broad view of God’s wisdom at work in creation and history. Thereafter, the sermon descends quickly into a series of comments on the uneven course of church history in general, ‘the deceitfulness of riches’ (especially in the case of the Methodists), and the waning of their religious zeal. It was first published without a title in the Arminian Magazine for July and August (VII.346-52, 402-10); its present title was added in the collection of 1788 (VI.29-52). It was not published again in Wesley’s lifetime, although he does mention preaching from Rom. 9:33 again on January 11, 1789.

 02:552 The Wisdom of God’s Counsels

Romans 11:33

O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God.

11. Some apprehend the ‘wisdom’ and the ‘knowledge’ of God to mean one and the same thing. Others believe that the wisdom of God more directly refers to his appointing the ends of all things, and his knowledge to the means which he hath prepared and made conducive to those ends. The former seems to be the most natural explication; as the wisdom of God in its most extensive meaning must include the one as well as the other, the means as well as the ends.

22. Now the wisdom, as well as the power of God, is abundantly manifested in his creation, in the formation and arrangement of all his works, in heaven above and in the earth beneath; and in adapting them all to the several ends for which they were designed; insomuch that each of them apart from the rest is good, but all together are very good;

1

Gen. 1:31.

all conspiring together in one connected system,
2

Cf. No. 56, ‘God’s Approbation of His Works’, I.14 and n.

to the glory of God in the happiness of his intelligent creatures.

33. As this wisdom appears even to short-sighted men (and much more to spirits of a higher order) in the creation and disposition of the whole universe, and every part of it, so it equally appears in their preservation, in his ‘upholding all things by the word of his power’.

3

Heb. 1:3.

And it no less eminently appears in the permanent government of all that he has created. How admirably does his wisdom direct the motions of the heavenly bodies! Of all the stars in the firmament, whether those that are fixed or those that wander, though never out of their several orbits!
4

Cf. No. 56, ‘God’s Approbation of His Works’, I.10 and n.

Of the sun in the midst of heaven! Of those amazing bodies, the comets, that shoot in every direction through the immeasurable fields of ether! How does he superintend all the parts of this lower world, this 02:553‘speck of creation’,
5

Young, The Last Day, ii.221.

the earth! So that all things are still as they were at the beginning, ‘beautiful in their seasons’;
6

Cf. Eccles. 3:11.

and summer and winter, seed-time and harvest, regularly follow each other. Yea, all things serve their Creator: ‘fire and hail, snow and vapour, wind and storm, are fulfilling his word.’
7

Cf. Ps. 148:8 (BCP).

So that we may well say, ‘O Lord, our Governor, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!’
8

Cf. Ps. 8:1, 9 (BCP).

44. Equally conspicuous is the wisdom of God in the government of nations, of states and kingdoms; yea, rather more conspicuous—if infinite can be allowed to admit of any degrees. For the whole inanimate creation, being totally passive and inert,

9

Cf. No. 15, The Great Assize, III.3 and n.

can make no opposition to his will. Therefore in the natural world all things roll on in an even, uninterrupted course. But it is far otherwise in the moral world. Here evil men and evil spirits continually oppose the divine will, and create numberless irregularities. Here therefore is full scope for the exercise of all the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, in counteracting all the wickedness and folly of men, and all the subtlety of Satan, to carry on his own glorious design, the salvation of lost mankind. Indeed were he to do this by an absolute decree, and by his own irresistible power, it would imply no wisdom at all. But his wisdom is shown by saving man in such a manner as not to destroy his nature, not to take away the liberty which he has given him.
10

See above, No. 63, ‘The General Spread of the Gospel’, §12 and n.

55. But the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God

11

See Rom. 11:33.

are most eminently displayed in his church; in planting it like a grain of mustard seed, the least of all seeds;
12

See Matt. 13:31-32.

in preserving and continually increasing it till it grew into a great tree, notwithstanding the uninterrupted opposition of all the powers of darkness. This the Apostle justly terms ‘the manifold wisdom’—πολυποίκιλος σοφία—‘of God’.
13

Eph. 3:10. Cf. below, §24.

It is an uncommonly expressive word, intimating that this wisdom in the manner of its operation is diversified a thousand ways, and exerts itself with infinite varieties. These things the highest ‘angels desire to look 02:554into’,
14

1 Pet. 1:12.

but can never fully comprehend. It seems to be with regard to these chiefly that the Apostle utters that strong exclamation, ‘How unsearchable are his judgments!’
15

Rom. 11:33.

His counsels, designs, impossible to be fathomed! ‘And his ways’ of accomplishing them ‘past finding out’
16

Ibid.

—impossible to be traced! According to the Psalmist, ‘His paths are in the deep waters, and his footsteps are not known.’
17

Cf. Ps. 77:19.

66. But a little of this he has been pleased to reveal unto us. And by keeping close to what he has revealed, meantime comparing the word and the work of God together, we may understand a part of his ways. We may in some measure trace this manifold wisdom from the beginning of the world: from Adam to Noah, from Noah to Moses, and from Moses to Christ. But I would now consider it (after just touching on the history of the church in past ages) only with regard to what he has wrought in the present age, during the last half century; yea, and in this little corner of the world, the British islands only.

18

Note how this swift passage from a universal perspective to a quite personal focus is paralleled in No. 107, ‘On God’s Vineyard’, proem; and No. 63, ‘The General Spread of the Gospel’.

77. In the fullness of time, just when it seemed best to his infinite wisdom, God brought his first-begotten into the world. He then laid the foundation of his church, though it hardly appeared till the day of Pentecost. And it was then a glorious church; all the members thereof being ‘filled with the Holy Ghost’,

19

Acts 2:4, etc.

‘being of one heart and of one mind’,
20

Cf. Acts 4:32.

‘and continuing steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine, and in fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers’.
21

Cf. Acts 2:42.

‘In fellowship’, that is, having ‘all things in common’, no man counting ‘anything he had his own’.
22

Cf. Acts 2:44; 4:32.

Meek, simple followers of the Lamb,
They lived, and thought, and spake the same;
They all were of one heart and soul,
And only love inspired the whole.
23

Charles Wesley, ‘Primitive Christianity’, Hymns and Sacred Poems (1749), II.333 (Poet. Wks., V.480); John has conflated the opening couplet of st. 2 and the closing couplet of st. 6. See No. 63, ‘The General Spread of the Gospel’, §20 and n.

02:5558. But their happy state did not continue long. See Ananias and Sapphira,

24

Acts 5:1-11.

through the love of money (‘the root of all evil’
25

Cf. 1 Tim. 6:10. See intro., No 50, ‘The Use of Money’. Note espec. that here Wesley is saying that the first fall of the church came before Constantine, but see No. 61, ‘The Mystery of Iniquity’, §27 and n., for Wesley’s more typical view that ‘the fall’ came with Constantine.

) making the first breach in the community of goods. See the partiality, the unjust respect of persons on the one side, the resentment and murmuring on the other, even while the apostles themselves presided over the church at Jerusalem! See the grievous spots and wrinkles that were found in every part of the church, recorded not only in the Acts but in the Epistles of St. Paul, James, Peter, and John. A still fuller account we have in the Revelation: and according to this, in what a condition was the Christian church even in the first century, even before St. John was removed from the earth;
26

Cf. No. 57, ‘On the Fall of Man’, II.3 and n.

if we may judge (as undoubtedly we may) of the state of the church in general from the state of those particular churches (all but that of Smyrna)
27

Jackson’s 3rd edn., possibly based on Wesley’s annotated Vol. VI of SOSO, since lost, which has ‘those of Smyrna and Philadelphia’.

to which our Lord directed his epistles! And from this time, for fourteen hundred years, it was corrupted more and more, as all history shows, till scarce any either of the power or form of religion was left.

99. Nevertheless it is certain that the gates of hell did never totally prevail against it.

28

Cf. Matt. 16:18.

God always reserved a seed for himself, a few that worshipped him in spirit and in truth.
29

Cf. John 4:24.

I have often doubted whether these were not the very persons whom the rich and honourable Christians, who will always have number as well as power on their side, did not stigmatize from time to time with the title of ‘heretics’. Perhaps it was chiefly by this artifice of the devil and his children, that the good which was in them being evil spoken of,
30

See Rom. 14:16.

they were prevented from being so extensively used as otherwise they might have been. Nay, I have doubted whether that arch-heretic, Montanus,
31

Traditionalist though he was, Wesley was also critical of traditional condemnations of those he recognized as kindred spirits in one degree or another. Montanus was a Phrygian charismatic of the second century who had professed to be called, under the direct guidance of the Holy Spirit, to restore the church to its primitive spirituality—thus, the prototype of many later enthusiasts. Cf. No. 61, ‘The Mystery of Iniquity’, §24 and n.

was not one of the holiest men in the second century. Yea, I would not affirm that the arch-heretic 02:556of the fifth century
32

I.e., Pelagius (c. 355-420), a fellow Briton who may or may not have been a ‘Pelagian’ in the sense in which he was so fiercely condemned by Augustine, Pope Zosimus, et al.; cf. Evans, Pelagius. Wesley’s plaudits here overlook the crucial distinction that, for Pelagius, prevenience is not emphasized, whereas for Wesley the Spirit’s initiative is the dynamic essence of all grace. Cf. his letter to John Fletcher, Aug. 18, 1775, as well as an earlier letter to Alexander Coates, July 7, 1761.

(as plentifully as he has been bespattered for many ages) was not one of the holiest men of that age, not excepting St. Augustine himself—a wonderful saint! as full of pride, passion, bitterness, censoriousness, and as foul-mouthed to all that contradicted him as George Fox himself.
33

Cf. Fox’s broadsheet of 1660(?), For Your Whoredoms in the City of London is the Hand of the Lord Stretched Forth Against Thee…: ‘Whores and Whoremongers, …you stink before the Lord…the noisome smell of your flesh stinks…’. See also, Fox’s The Great Mystery of the Great Whore Unfolded and Antichrist’s Kingdom Revealed Unto Destruction (1659). Cf. No. 48, ‘Self-denial’, I.1. For another reference to Fox, cf. No. 61, ‘The Mystery of Iniquity’, §30.

I verily believe the real heresy of Pelagius was neither more nor less than this, the holding that Christians may by the grace of God (not without it; that I take to be a mere slander) ‘go on to perfection’;
34

Heb. 6:1.

or, in other words, ‘fulfil the law of Christ’.
35

Gal. 6:2.

‘But St. Augustine says’—When St. Augustine’s passions were heated his word is not worth a rush. And here is the secret. St. Augustine was angry at Pelagius. Hence he slandered and abused him (as his manner was) without either fear or shame. And St. Augustine was then in the Christian world what Aristotle was afterwards. There needed no other proof of any assertion than ipse dixit—‘St. Augustine said it.’

1010. But to return. When iniquity had overspread the church as a flood, the Spirit of the Lord lifted up a standard against it. He raised up a poor monk, without wealth, without power, and at that time without friends, to declare war, as it were, against all the world; against the Bishop of Rome and all his adherents. But this little stone, being chosen of God, soon grew into a great mountain; and increased more and more till it had covered a considerable part of Europe. Yet even before Luther was called home the love of many was waxed cold.

36

See Matt. 24:12.

Many that had once run well turned back from the holy commandment delivered to them; yea, the greater part of those that once experienced the power of faith made shipwreck of faith and a good conscience.
37

1 Tim. 1:19.

The observing this was supposed to be the occasion of that illness (a 02:557>fit of the stone) whereof Luther died; after uttering these melancholy words: ‘I have spent my strength for nought. Those who are called by my name are, it is true, reformed in opinions and modes of worship; but in their hearts and lives, in their tempers and practice, they are not a jot better than the Papists.’
38

Luther suffered from ‘the stone’ (i.e., renal calculus); cf. Table Talk, Nos. 3522, 3733, 5047, etc., but he died of a heart attack, as Samuel Clarke had already reported in his Marrow of Ecclesiastical Historie (1650), p. 93. Cf. J. G. Walch, Dr. Martin Luthers Sämtliche Schriften (1740), XXI.277 ff.; and E. G. Schwiebert, Luther and His Times (St. Louis, Concordia Publishing House, 1950), pp. 747-50. Wesley had found the story of Luther’s dying lament in J. D. Herrnschmid, Life of Martin Luther (1742), X.10, extracts of which had been published in AM (1778, see espec. I.272). For Herrnschmid’s quotation (uncited), see An Earnest Exhortation… (1522) [Weimar edn, 8:685]; this had no relation to Luther’s dying words. See also No. 102, ‘Of Former Times’, §14; and for Wesley’s other references to Luther, see No. 14, The Repentance of Believers, I.9 and n.

1111. About the same time it pleased God to visit Great Britain. A few in the reign of King Henry VIII, and many more in the three following reigns, were real witnesses of true scriptural Christianity. The number of these exceedingly increased in the beginning of the following century. And in the year 1627 there was a wonderful pouring out of the Spirit in several parts of England, as well as in Scotland and the north of Ireland.

39

Cf. Gillies, Historical Collections. It is interesting that this outpouring is not mentioned in the standard church historical surveys (e.g., Mosheim, Gee and Hardy, Williston Walker, etc.). But it must have been what Wesley regarded as the flowering of the Puritan movement and the forerunner of the charismatic renewals later seen amongst the Quakers and other ‘spirituals’.

But from the time that riches and honour poured in upon them that feared and loved God, their hearts began to be estranged from him, and to cleave to the present world; no sooner was persecution ceased, and the poor, despised, persecuted Christians invested with power, and placed in ease and affluence, but a change of circumstances brought a change of spirit. Riches and honour soon produced their usual effects. Having the world, they quickly loved the world. They no longer breathed after heaven, but became more and more attached to the things of earth; so that in a few years one who knew and loved them well, and was an unexceptionable judge of men and manners, Dr. Owen,
40

Cf. The Works of John Owen (1842), VI, ‘Of Temptation’, p. 112: ‘We [Puritans] have by Providence shifted places with the men of the world, we have by sin shifted spirits with them also…we are cast into the mould of them that went before us…’.

deeply lamented over them, as having lost all the life and power of religion, and being become just of the same spirit with those whom they despised as the mire in the streets.

1202:55812. What little religion was left in the land received another deadly wound at the Restoration, by one of the worst princes that ever sat on the English throne,

41

I.e., Charles II (1660-85). Gilbert Burnet, History of His Own Times (1724), I.611, says, ‘And finding it not easy to reward [his friends] as they deserved, he forgot them all alike…. This was an equal return…. He never troubled his thoughts with the sense of any of the services that had been done him.’ Richard Steele, writing in The Spectator, No. 462 (1712), has a kinder assessment: ‘He pursued pleasure more than ambition, but was a good king, loved by his subjects.’ Cf. Sir George Clark, The Later Stuarts, 1660-1714, Vol. 10, in Oxford History of England (1955), especially the French Ambassador, Pomponne’s, comment on ‘this perpetually agitated state of England’, p. 109. See also No. 79, ‘On Dissipation’, §1.

and by the most abandoned court in Europe. And infidelity now broke in amain, and overspread the land as a flood. Of course all kind of immorality came with it, and increased to the end of the century. Some feeble attempts were made to stem the torrent during the reign of Queen Anne.
42

Such as her fund for the poorer clergy (‘Queen Anne’s Bounty’, 1704, et seq.) and her attempts to counter the Whig and Latitudinarian monopolies in the episcopacy.

But it still increased till about the year 1725,
43

Cf. Wesley’s references to 1725 as the year of his first conversion, as in his recollection in A Plain Account of Christian Perfection (1766): ‘In the year 1725 [in reading ‘several parts of’ Jeremy Taylor’s Holy Living and Holy Dying]…I was exceedingly affected—that part in particular which relates to purity of intention. Instantly I resolved to dedicate all my life to God, all my thoughts, and words, and actions: being throughly convinced, there was no medium; but that every part of my life (not some only) must either be a sacrifice to God or to myself, that is, in effect, to the devil.’

when Mr. Law published his Practical Treatise on Christian Perfection; and not long after his Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life.
44

The 1st edn. of Christian Perfection bears the date 1726; Serious Call is dated 1729. See Wesley’s remembrance of his experience of these in JWJ, May 24, 1738, §5: ‘The light flowed in so mightily upon my soul that everything appeared in a new view…. I was persuaded that I should be accepted of him and that I was even then [1729?] in a state of salvation.’

Here the seed was sown which soon grew up, and spread to Oxford, London, Bristol, Leeds, York, and within a few years to the greatest part of England, Scotland, Ireland.
45

Cf. Gillies, Historical Collections, and Joseph Milner, History of the Church of Christ…. Cf. also John Walsh, ‘Methodism at the End of the Eighteenth Century’, in A History of the Methodist Church in Great Britain, I.275-315.

1313. But what means did the wisdom of God make use of in effecting this great work? He thrust out such labourers into his harvest as the wisdom of man would never have thought on. He chose the weak things to confound the strong, and the foolish things to confound the wise.

46

See 1 Cor. 1:17.

He chose a few young, poor, ignorant men, without experience, learning, or art; but simple of 02:559heart, devoted to God, full of faith and zeal, seeking no honour, no profit, no pleasure, no ease, but merely to save souls; fearing neither want, pain, persecution; nor whatever man could do unto them; yea, not counting their lives dear unto themselves, so they might finish their course with joy.
47

See Acts 20:24. Cf. No. 66, ‘The Signs of the Times’, II.10 and n.

Of the same spirit were the people whom God by their word called out of darkness into his marvellous light,
48

1 Pet. 2:9.

many of whom soon agreed to join together in order to strengthen each others’ hands in God. These also were simple of heart, devoted to God, zealous of good works;
49

Titus 2:14.

desiring neither honour, nor riches, nor pleasure, nor ease, nor anything under the sun but to attain the whole image of God, and to dwell with him in glory.

1414. But as these young preachers grew in years they did not all grow in grace. Several of them indeed increased in other knowledge; but not proportionally in the knowledge of God. They grew less simple, less alive to God, and less devoted to him. They were less zealous for God, and consequently less active, less diligent in his service. Some of them began to desire the praise of men and not the praise of God only;

50

See John 12:43.

some to be weary of a wandering life, and so [to] seek ease and quietness. Some began again to fear the faces of men; to be ashamed of their calling; to be unwilling to deny themselves, to take up their cross daily and ‘endure hardship as good soldiers of Jesus Christ’.
51

Cf. 2 Tim. 2:3.

Wherever these preachers laboured there was not much fruit of their labours. Their word was not as formerly clothed with power: it carried with it no demonstration of the Spirit.
52

See 1 Cor. 2:4.

The same faintness of spirit was in their private conversation. They were no longer ‘instant in season, out of season’,
53

2 Tim. 4:2.

‘warning every man and exhorting every man’,
54

Cf. Col. 1:28.

‘if by any means they might save some’.
55

Cf. 1 Cor. 9:22.

1515. And as some preachers ‘declined from their first love’,

56

Cf. Rev. 2:4.

so did many of the people. They were likewise assaulted on every side, encompassed with manifold temptations. And while many of them triumphed over all, and were ‘more than conquerors 02:560through him that loved them’,
57

Cf. Rom. 8:37.

others gave place to the world, the flesh, or the devil, and so ‘entered into temptation’;
58

Cf. Mark 14:38.

some of them ‘made shipwreck of their faith’
59

1 Tim. 1:19.

at once; some by slow, insensible degrees. Not a few, being in want of the necessaries of life, were overwhelmed with the cares of the world. Many relapsed into the desires of other things, which choked the good seed, ‘and it became unfruitful’.
60

Cf. Mark 4:19.

16 16. But of all temptations none so struck at the whole work of God as ‘the deceitfulness of riches’

61

Matt. 13:22; Mark 4:19.

—a thousand melancholy proofs of which I have seen within these last fifty years. Deceitful are they indeed! For who will believe they do him the least harm? And yet I have not known threescore rich persons, perhaps not half the number, during threescore years, who, as far as I can judge, were not less holy than they would have been had they been poor. By riches I mean, not thousands of pounds; but any more than will procure the conveniences of life.
62

An increasingly insistent theme of Wesley’s last two decades; for this consistent definition of riches, see No. 30, ‘Sermon on the Mount, X’, §26 and n. Cf. also intro. to No. 50, ‘The Use of Money’.

Thus I account him a rich man who has food and raiment for himself and family without running into debt, and something over. And how few are there in these circumstances who are not hurt, if not destroyed thereby? Yet who takes warning? Who seriously regards that awful declaration of the Apostle, even ‘they that desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into divers foolish and hurtful desires, which drown men in destruction and perdition.’
63

Cf. 1 Tim. 6:9.

How many sad instances have we seen of this in London, in Bristol, in Newcastle, in all the large trading towns throughout the kingdoms where God has lately caused his power to be known! See how many of those who were once simple of heart, desiring nothing but God, are now gratifying ‘the desire of the flesh’,
64

Gal. 5:16; 1 John 2:16. Cf. No. 7, ‘The Way to the Kingdom’, II.2 and n.

studying to please their senses, particularly their taste—endeavouring to enlarge the pleasures of tasting
65

Law, Christian Perfection (Works, III.38); cf. No. 50, ‘The Use of Money’, II.2 and n.

as far as possible. Are not 02:561glutton. But do you not indulge yourself in a kind of regular sensuality? Are not eating and drinking the greatest pleasures of your life, the most considerable part of your happiness? If so I fear St. Paul would have given you a place among those ‘whose god is their belly’!
66

Phil. 3:19.

How many of them are now again indulging ‘the desire of the eye’?
67

1 John 2:16; cf. n. 64 above.

Using every means which is in their power to enlarge the pleasures of the imagination?
68

Cf. Addison, who wrote at least nine essays for The Spectator on ‘The Pleasures of the Imagination’; cf. No. 44, Original Sin, II.10 and n.

If not in grandeur, which as yet is out of their way, yet in new or beautiful things? Are not you seeking happiness in pretty or elegant apparel, or furniture? Or in new clothes, or books, or in pictures, or gardens? ‘Why, what harm is there in these things!’ There is this harm, that they gratify ‘the desire of the eye’, and thereby strengthen and increase it; making you more and more dead to God, and more alive to the world. How many are indulging ‘the pride of life’?
69

1 John 2:16.

Seeking the honour that cometh of men? Or ‘laying up treasures on earth’?
70

Cf. Matt. 6:19, 20. Cf. intro. to No. 28, ‘Sermon on the Mount, VIII’.

They gain all they can, honestly and conscientiously. They save all they can, by cutting off all needless expense, by adding frugality to diligence. And so far all is right. This is the duty of everyone that fears God. But they do not give all they can; without which they must needs grow more and more earthly-minded.
71

A reprise of Wesley’s three ‘rules’ for ‘the use of money’; see No. 50, ‘The Use of Money’, I.1 and n.

Their affections will cleave to the dust
72

See Ps. 119:25.

more and more, and they will have less and less communion with God. Is not this your case? Do not you seek the praise of men more than the praise of God?
73

John 12:43.

Do not you lay up, or at least desire and endeavour to ‘lay up, treasures on earth’? Are you not then (deal faithfully with your own soul!) more and more alive to the world? And consequently more and more dead to God? It cannot be otherwise. That must follow unless you give all you can, as well as gain and save all you can. There is no other way under heaven to prevent your money from sinking you lower than the grave; for ‘if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.’
74

1 John 2:15.

And if it was in him in ever so high a degree, yet if he slides into the love of the world, by the same degrees that this enters in, the love of God will go out of the heart.

1702:56217. And perhaps there is something more than all this contained in those words, ‘Love not the world, neither the things of the world.’

75

Ibid.

Here we are expressly warned against ‘loving the world’ as well as against loving ‘the things of the world’. ‘The world’ is the men that know not God, that neither love nor fear him. To love these with a love of delight or complacence, to set our affections upon them, is here absolutely forbidden; and by parity of reason to converse or have intercourse with them farther than necessary business requires. Friendship or intimacy with them St. James does not scruple to term adultery. ‘Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is an enemy of God.’
76

Cf. Jas. 4:4.

Do not endeavour to shuffle away, or evade the meaning of these strong words. They plainly require us to stand aloof from them, to have no needless commerce with unholy men. Otherwise we shall surely slide into conformity to the world, to their maxims, spirit, and customs. For not only their words, harmless as they seem, do eat as doth a canker, but their very breath is infectious; their spirit imperceptibly influences our spirit. It steals ‘like water into our bowels, and like oil into our bones’.
77

Cf. Ps. 109:18 (AV); cf. ver. 17 (BCP).

1818. But all rich men are under a continual temptation to acquaintance and conversation with worldly men. They are likewise under a continual temptation to pride, to think more highly of themselves than they ought to think.

78

See Rom. 12:3.

They are strongly tempted to revenge when they are ever so little affronted. And having the means in their own hands, how few are there that resist the temptation! They are continually tempted to sloth, indolence, love of ease, softness, delicacy; to hatred of self-denial and taking up the cross, even that of fasting and rising early, without which it is impossible to grow in grace. If you are increased in goods, do not you know that these things are so? Do you contract no intimacy with worldly men? Do not you converse with them more than duty requires? Are you in no danger of pride? Of thinking yourself better than your poor, dirty neighbours? Do you never resent, yea, and revenge an affront? Do you never render evil for evil?
79

1 Thess. 5:15.

02:563Do not you give way to indolence or love of ease? Do you deny yourself, and take up your cross daily?
80

See Matt. 16:24, etc.

Do you constantly rise as early as you did once? Why not? Is not your soul as precious now as it was then? How often do you fast? Is not this a duty to you as much as to a day labourer? But if you are wanting in this, or any other respect, who will tell you of it? Who dares tell you the plain truth but those who neither hope nor fear anything from you? And if any venture to deal plainly with you, how hard is it for you to bear it! Are not you far less reprovable, far less advisable, than when you were poor? It is well if you can bear reproof even from me. And in a few days you will see me no more.

Once more therefore I say, having gained and saved all you can, give all you can; else your money will eat your flesh as fire, and will sink you to the nethermost hell!

O beware of ‘laying up treasures upon earth’! Is it not treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath?

Lord! I have warned them; but if they will not be warned, what can I do more? I can only ‘give them up unto their own heart’s lusts, and let them follow their own imaginations’!

81

Cf. Ps. 81:13 (BCP); note this rare instance of the directly personal appeal of Wesley’s oral preaching carried over into his written style.

1919. By not taking this warning it is certain many of the Methodists are already fallen. Many are falling at this very time. And there is great reason to apprehend that many more will fall, most of whom will rise no more!

But what method may it be hoped the all-wise God will take to repair the decay of his work? If he does not remove the candlestick

82

See Rev. 2:5.

from this people and raise up another people who will be more faithful to his grace, it is probable he will proceed in the same manner as he has done in time past. And this has hitherto been his method. When any of the old preachers ‘left their first love’,
83

Cf. Rev. 2:4.

lost their simplicity and zeal, and departed from the work, he raised up young men, who are what they were, and sent them into the harvest in their place. The same he has done when he was pleased to remove any of his faithful labourers into Abraham’s bosom. So when Henry Millard,
84

A young preacher who had been in the thick of the Cornish anti-Methodist persecutions in 1744; in 1745 he was named as one of the ‘Assistants’ or supervising preachers, but died from smallpox not long afterwards (JWJ, Sept. 16, 1744; AM [1778], I.230-31; MS Minutes, 1745).

Edward 02:564Dunstone,
85

Edward Dunstone (or Dunstan) died Jan. 6, 1748/9, and Charles Wesley read an edifying account of his death to the London societies. In a letter to his betrothed that month he speaks of Dunstone as ‘the extraordinary youth you heard of (Charles Wesley, MS letter to Sally Gwynne [Jan. 23, 1749], MA).

John Manners,
86

John Manners (1731-63), converted 1755, served as an itinerant preacher both in Ireland and the north of England; he died in York (Charles Atmore, The Methodist Memorial; being an Impartial Sketch of the Lives and Characters of the Preachers [Bristol, Edwards, 1801], pp. 247-50; Thomas Jackson, Lives of Early Methodist Preachers, II.112, IV.24, 26, 76; C. H. Crookshank, History of Methodism in Ireland, I.152; MS Minutes, 1758).

Thomas Walsh,
87

Thomas Walsh (c. 1730-59), a converted Irish Roman Catholic who became a saintly preacher and a fine Hebrew scholar. In a letter to Dean William Digby, written in the early 1780s, Wesley would say of him that he was ‘the best Hebraean I ever knew’. Wesley wrote a foreword for James Morgan’s biography of Walsh, 1762, and included an abridgement of it in his own Works (1772), XI.129-36, XII. 3-26 (see Bibliog, No. 252).

or any others, rested from their labours, he raised up other young men from time to time, willing and able to perform the same service. It is highly probable he will take the very same method for the time to come. The place of those preachers who either die in the Lord, or lose the spiritual life which God had given them, he will supply by others that are alive to God, and desire only to spend and be spent for him.
88

See 2 Cor. 12:15.

2020. Hear ye this, all ye preachers who have not the same life, the same communion with God, the same zeal for his cause, the same burning love to souls, that you had once! ‘Take heed unto yourselves, that ye lose not the things ye have wrought, but that ye receive a full reward.’

89

Cf. 2 John 8.

Beware lest God swear in his wrath that ye shall bear his standard no more! Lest he be provoked to take the word of his grace
90

Acts 14:3; 20:32.

utterly out of your mouth! Be assured the Lord hath no need of you: his work doth not depend upon your help. As he is able ‘out of the stones to raise up children to Abraham’,
91

Cf. Matt. 3:9.

so he is able out of the same to raise up preachers after his own heart! O make haste! ‘Remember from whence you are fallen; and repent and do the first works!’
92

Cf. Rev. 2:5.

2121. Would it not provoke the Lord of the harvest to lay you altogether aside if you despised the labourers he had raised up, merely because of their youth? This was commonly done to us when we were first sent out between forty and fifty years ago. Old, wise men asked, ‘What will these young heads do?’ So the then 02:565Bishop of London in particular.

93

Edmund Gibson, Observations…; see No. 66, ‘The Signs of the Times’, II.10 and n.

But shall we adopt their language? God forbid! Shall we teach him whom he shall send? Whom he shall employ in his own work? Are we then the men, and shall ‘wisdom die with us’?
94

Cf. Job 12:2.

Does the work of God hang upon us? O humble yourselves before God, lest he pluck you away and there be none to deliver!
95

See Ps. 50:22 (BCP).

2222. Let us next consider, What method has the wisdom of God taken for these five and forty years, when thousands of the people that once ran well, one after another ‘drew back to perdition’?

96

Cf. Heb. 10:39.

Why, as fast as any of the poor were overwhelmed with worldly care, so that the seed they had received became unfruitful; and as fast as any of the rich gave way to the love of the world, to foolish and hurtful desires,
97

1 Tim. 6:9.

or to any other of those innumerable temptations which are inseparable from riches, God has constantly from time to time raised up men endued with the spirit which they had lost. Yea, and generally this change has been made with considerable advantage. For the last were not only (for the most part) more numerous than the first, but more watchful, profiting by their example; more spiritual, more heavenly-minded; more zealous, more alive to God, and more dead to all things here below.
98

See Rom. 6:11.

2323. And, blessed be God, we see he is now doing the same thing in various parts of the kingdom. In the room of those that have fallen from their steadfastness, or are falling at this day, he is continually raising up out of the stones other children to Abraham. This he does at one or another place according to his own will; pouring out his quickening Spirit on this or another people just as it pleaseth him. He is raising up those of every age and degree—young men and maidens, old men and children

99

See Ps. 148:12.

—to be ‘a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, to show forth his praise who has called them out of darkness into his marvellous light’.
100

Cf. 1 Pet. 2:9.

And we have no reason to doubt but he will continue so to do till the great promise is fulfilled, till ‘the earth is filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea’;
101

Cf. Isa. 11:9; Hab. 2:14.

‘till all Israel is saved, and the fullness of the Gentiles is come in’.
102

Cf. Rom. 11:26, 25.

2402:56624. But have all those that have sunk under manifold temptations

103

See 1 Pet. 1:6; and No. 47, ‘Heaviness through Manifold Temptations’; on this text.

so fallen that they can rise no more? ‘Hath the Lord cast them all off for ever, and will he be no more entreated? Is his promise come utterly to an end for evermore?’
104

Cf. Ps. 77:7-8 (AV and BCP conflated).

God forbid that we should affirm this! Surely he is able to heal all their backslidings;
105

See Jer. 3:22.

for with God no word is impossible. And is he not willing, too? He is ‘God, and not man’;
106

Hos. 11:9.

‘therefore his compassions fail not.’
107

Cf. Lam. 3:22.

Let no backslider despair: ‘return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon you; unto our God, and he will abundantly pardon.’
108

Cf. Isa. 55:7.

Meantime, thus saith the Lord to you that now supply their place, ‘Be not high-minded, but fear!’ If the ‘Lord spared not’ thy elder brethren, ‘take heed lest he spare not thee!’

109

Cf. Rom. 11:20-21.

Fear, though not with a servile, tormenting fear, lest thou fall by any of the same temptations, by either the cares of the world, the deceitfulness of riches, or the desire of other things.
110

See Mark 4:19.

Tempted you will be in ten thousand different ways, perhaps as long as you remain in the body; but as long as you continue to watch and pray, you will not ‘enter into temptations’.
111

Cf. Mark 14:38.

His grace has been hitherto sufficient for you,
112

See 2 Cor. 12:9.

and so it will be unto the end.

2525. You see here, brethren, a short and general sketch of the manner wherein God works upon earth in repairing his work

113

Orig., AM and SOSO, ‘this work’, corrected by Wesley in his errata and MS annotations in AM.

of grace wherever it is decayed through the subtlety of Satan, and the unfaithfulness of men, giving way to the fraud and malice of the devil. Thus he is now carrying on his own work, and thus he will do to the end of time. And how wonderfully plain and simple is his way of working, in the spiritual as well as the natural world! That is, his general plan of working, of repairing whatsoever is decayed. But as to innumerable particulars we must still cry out, ‘O the depth! How unfathomable are his counsels! And his paths past tracing out!’
114

Cf. Rom. 11:33.

Glasgow, April 28, 1784

115

Place and date of writing are omitted from the collected Sermons.

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Entry Title: Sermon 68: The Wisdom of God’s Counsels

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