Notes:
Sermon 76: On Perfection
The single most consistent theme in Wesley’s thought over the entire span of his ministry was ‘holy living’ and its cognate goal: perfection. His Plain Account of Christian Perfection specifies 1725 as the beginning point of his formal interest in the doctrine of the experienced reality of perfection. In 1733 he had put the idea into a university sermon for Oxford (see No. 17, ‘The Circumcision of the Heart’). In 1741 he had published his sermon on Christian Perfection (see No. 40), and yet another summary in the Preface to Hymns and Sacred Poems, 1740. Later he would say of this preface: ‘(1)…this is the strongest account we ever gave of Christian perfection; indeed too strong in more than one particular… (2)…there is nothing which we have since advanced upon the subject, either in verse or prose, which is not either directly or indirectly contained in this preface. So that whether our present doctrine [i.e., 1766] be right or wrong, it is, however, the same which we had taught from the beginning.’
Plain Account, §13; see also the Preface to Hymns and Sacred Poems, 1740, Vol. 12 of this edn.
Meanwhile, he had been preaching the doctrine in season and out: eighteen times from Matt. 5:48 between 1740 and 1785, and fifty times from Heb. 6:1 between 1739 and 1785. There are important developments in nuance and emphasis (especially on the question of ‘instantaneous sanctification’ and ‘entire sanctification’; cf. his letters to his brother, February 12, 1767, and to Lloyd’s Evening Post, March 5, 1767), but the main outlines of the doctrine remain constant. In 1766 (and then in five subsequent editions) he had published a full-length treatise, A Plain Account of Christian Perfection... in which he collected extracts from almost all he had ever written or said on the subject, and wove them into a sort of cumulative exposition, stressing the continuity and cruciality of the doctrine.
What had grown clearer over the years, despite the endless confusions generated by this protracted discussion, was the doctrine’s proper focus. Gradually it had dawned on Wesley that the whole question boiled 03:071down to two issues: (1) the definition of ‘perfection’ in terms of a Christian’s love of God and neighbour—no less but also no more; and (2) the definition of sin as deliberate. Thus, toward the end of the climactic year of 1784, he decided to write out yet one more summary of the idea as simply as possible and also as irenically. It was no laboured effort; he seems to have written out the final draft of the whole sermon in one afternoon, in Tunbridge Wells, in a brief interlude between other activities on December 6.
Cf. JWJ and diary entries for that day.
This manuscript was published in the Arminian Magazine the following March and April (1785, VIII.125-35, 179-86), without a title but numbered as ‘Sermon XXVI’. It was then reprinted in SOSO, VI.211-37, with its title. It seems not to have had other editions in Wesley’s lifetime. Was there some logical subtlety in its placement here between ‘On Schism’ and ‘Spiritual Worship’?
On PerfectionHebrews 6:1
Let us go on to perfection.
The whole sentence runs thus: ‘Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God’; which he had just before termed, ‘the first principles of the oracles of God’,
Heb. 5:12; cf. No. 5, ‘Justification by Faith’, §2 and n.
Heb. 5:13-14.
See 1 Pet. 2:3.
That the doing of this is a point of the utmost importance the Apostle intimates in the next words: ‘This will we do, if God permit. For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, and have fallen away, to renew them again unto 03:072repentance.’
Cf. Heb. 6:3-6 .
Cf. No. 1, Salvation by Faith, II.4 and n.
SOSO, VI.214 reads: ‘…if we do not fall away…’, but AM text reads: ‘…if we do fall away…’ (so does Jackson—and the clear sense of the context).
In order to make this very important Scripture as easy to be understood as possible I shall endeavour,
First, to show what perfection is;
Secondly, to answer some objections to it; and,
Thirdly, to expostulate a little with the opposers of it.
First, I will endeavour to show what perfection is.
11[I.] 1. And first, I do not conceive the perfection here spoken of to be the perfection of angels. As those glorious beings never ‘left their first estate’,
Cf. Jude 6.
Cf. Nos. 71, ‘Of Good Angels’, I.2-3; and 141, ‘The Image of God’, I.1-2.
See Rom. 12:2.
Cf. No. 45, ‘The New Birth’, I.4 and n.
22. Neither can any man while he is in a corruptible body attain 03:073to Adamic perfection.
Cf. No. 5, ‘Justification by Faith’, I.4 and n.
33. The highest perfection which man can attain while the soul dwells in the body does not exclude ignorance and error, and a thousand other infirmities.
See Nos. 40, Christian Perfection, I.1-9; 41, Wandering Thoughts, I.2; 13, On Sin in Believers (intro., et passim); 8, ‘The First-fruits of the Spirit’ (intro.); and 9, ‘The Spirit of Bondage and of Adoption’, I.2. Note at the end of the paragraph, Wesley relates these to our continual liability ‘to transgress’ ‘the Adamic law’. This, then, is his concession to the simul justus et peccator.
A normal eighteenth-century usage; cf. OED, ‘liability’.
See Eccles. 12:7.
Charles Wesley, ‘And a Man shall be as an Hiding-place… Isaiah xxxii.2’, Hymns and Sacred Poems (1742), p. 146 (Poet. Wks., II.207); cf. No. 14, The Repentance of Believers, II.4 and n.
for innumerable violations of the Adamic as well as the angelic law. It is well therefore for us that we are not now under these, but 03:074under the law of love. ‘Love is now the fulfilling of the law’,
Cf. Rom. 13:10.
44. What is then the perfection of which man is capable while he dwells in a corruptible body? It is the complying with that kind command, ‘My son, give me thy heart.’
Cf. Prov. 23:26.
Cf. Matt. 22:37, etc.
A consistent restatement of frequent summaries of perfection (or holiness, or sanctification, or indeed true religion), beginning with No. 17, ‘The Circumcision of the Heart’, I.2 (cf. n.), and going across his entire career. As samplings from more than half a hundred such summations, cf. his letters to Bishop Gibson, June 11, 1747; to Thomas Olivers, Mar. 24, 1757; to Elizabeth Hardy, Apr. 5, 1758; to John Newton, May 14, 1765; and to Mrs. Woodhouse, Nov. 18, 1770. Or, see his ‘Brief Thoughts on Christian Perfection’, dated Jan. 27, 1767 (originally a letter to his brother Charles, printed in AM, 1783, VI.156-67). Or yet, again, cf. Nos. 43, The Scripture Way of Salvation, I.9; 83, ‘On Patience’, §14; and 114, On the Death of John Fletcher, I.14. Also his summaries in the succeeding edns. of A Plain Account of Christian Perfection.
See 1 John 4:21.
Lev. 19:18; Matt. 19:19, etc.
Matt. 22:40.
55. Another view of this is given us in those words of the great Apostle, ‘Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.’
Phil. 2:5.
Cf. Phil. 4:8.
603:0756. St. Paul, when writing to the Galatians, places perfection in yet another view. It is the one undivided ‘fruit of the Spirit’, which he describes as thus: ‘The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace; long-suffering, gentleness, goodness; fidelity (so the word should be translated here), ‘meekness, temperance’.
Gal. 5:22-23 (Notes). Cf. below, III.3; and No. 10, ‘The Witness of the Spirit, I’, II.12 and n.
77. Again. He writes to the Christians at Ephesus of ‘putting on the new man, which is created after God in righteousness and true holiness’.
Cf. Eph. 4:24 (Notes).
Col. 3: 10.
Gen. 1:27.
Cf. Eph. 2:10.
88. St. Peter expresses it in a still different manner, though to the same
effect: ‘As he that hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of
conversation.’
1 Pet. 1:15.
Cf. Notes on 1 Thess. 4:3: ‘Sanctification—entire holiness of heart and life’. See also, ‘Thoughts Upon Methodism’, §8, in AM (1787), X.155-56: ‘The essence of [Methodism] is holiness of heart and life.’ In his letter to Henry Venn, June 22, 1763, Wesley wrote, ‘What I want is holiness of heart and life.’
99. If any expressions can be stronger than these they are those of St. Paul
to the Thessalonians: ‘The God of peace himself sanctify you wholly; and may the
whole of you, the spirit, the soul, and the body’ (this is the literal
translation) ‘be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ.’
1 Thess. 5:23.
1010. We cannot show this sanctification in a more excellent way than by complying with that exhortation of the Apostle, ‘I beseech 03:076you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies’ (yourselves, your souls and bodies)—a part put for the whole, by a common figure of speech—‘a living sacrifice unto God;’
Cf. Rom. 12:1, and also its paraphrase in ‘The Invocation’, BCP, Communion.
1111. To the same effect St. Peter says, ‘Ye are a holy priesthood, to offer
up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.’
1 Pet.
2:5.
1212. Thus you experience that he whose name is called Jesus does not bear that name in vain; that he does in fact ‘save his people from their sins’,
Matt. 1:21.
II. I proposed, in the second place, to answer some objections to this scriptural account of perfection.
11. One common objection to it is that there is no promise of it in the Word
of God. If this were so we must give it up: we should have no foundation to
build upon. For the promises of God are the only sure foundation of our hope.
But surely there is a very clear and full promise that we shall all love the
Lord our God with all our hearts. So we read, ‘Then will I circumcise thy heart,
and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with
all thy soul.’
Deut. 30:6.
For this crucial rule for biblical interpretation (viz., that commands are covered promises), see below, II.11; and No. 25, ‘Sermon on the Mount, V’, II.2 and n. on Thomas Drayton.
Matt. 22:37.
Matt. 19:19, etc.
22. And indeed that general and unlimited promise which runs through the whole gospel dispensation, ‘I will put my laws in their minds, and write them in their hearts,’
Cf. Heb. 8:10.
33. With regard to the fruit of the Spirit, the Apostle, in affirming, ‘The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace; long-suffering, gentleness, goodness; fidelity, meekness, temperance,’ does in effect affirm that the Holy Spirit actually works love and these other tempers in those that are led by him. So that here also we have firm ground to tread upon, this Scripture likewise being equivalent to a promise, and assuring us that all these shall be wrought in us, provided we are led by the Spirit.
44. And when the Apostle says to the Ephesians: ‘Ye have been taught, as the
truth is in Jesus, to be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and to put on the
new man, which is created after God’ (that is, after the image of God) ‘in
righteousness and true holiness;’
Eph. 4:21, [23-24].
Cf. Col. 3:10.
55. The command of God given by St. Peter, ‘Be ye holy, as he that hath called you is holy in all manner of conversation,’ implies a promise that we shall be thus holy if we are not wanting to ourselves. Nothing can be wanting on God’s part. As he has called us to holiness he is undoubtedly willing, as well as able, to work this holiness in us. For he cannot mock his helpless creatures, calling us to receive what he never intends to give. That he does call us thereto is undeniable; therefore he will give it, if we are not disobedient to the heavenly calling.
See Acts 26:19.
66. The prayer of St. Paul for the Thessalonians, that God would ‘sanctify them throughout’, and ‘that the whole of them, the spirit, the soul, and the body might be preserved blameless’, 03:078will undoubtedly be heard in behalf of all the children of God, as well as of those at Thessalonica. Hereby therefore all Christians are encouraged to expect the same blessing from ‘the God of peace’; namely, that they also shall be ‘sanctified throughout, in spirit, soul, and body’; and that ‘the whole of them shall be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ’.
77. But the great question is whether there is any promise in Scripture that we shall be ‘saved from sin’. Undoubtedly there is. Such is that promise, ‘He shall redeem Israel from all his sins;’
Ps. 130:8.
Matt. 1:21.
Cf. Heb. 7:25.
[Ezek. 36:] Ver. 25-27.
Luke 1:73-75.
There has been a general assumption in Latin Christianity that perfection is to be sought and expected only in heaven, in statu gloriae. Cf. e.g., Thomas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, Q. 67 (‘Of the Duration of Virtues after this Life’), Art. 3-6 (6, espec.); or The Westminster Confession (1647), IX.iv, v (non nisi in statu gloriae). Wesley’s contrary view had been drawn largely from patristic Greek sources but had also been anticipated, in part, by the Quakers (cf. the Theses Theologicae of 1675 [drafted by Robert Barclay], Propositions Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth) and by such men as Thomas Drayton, The Proviso or Condition of the Promises (1657), and Robert Gell, An Essay Toward the Amendment of the Last English Translation of the Bible (1659): Appendix, No. 20, ‘Some Saints not without Sin for a Season’, pp. 785 ff.
803:0798. ‘But’, say some, ‘this cannot be the meaning of the words; for the thing is impossible.’ It is impossible to men; but the things impossible with men are possible with God.
See Matt. 19:26, etc.
There is a great deal of force in this objection. And perhaps we allow most of what you contend for. We have already allowed that while we are in the body we cannot be wholly free from mistake. Notwithstanding all our care we shall still be liable to judge wrong in many instances. And a mistake in judgment will very frequently occasion a mistake in practice. Nay, a wrong judgment may occasion something in the temper or passions which is not strictly right. It may occasion needless fear, or illgrounded hope; unreasonable love, or unreasonable aversion. But all this is no way inconsistent with the perfection above described.
99. You say, ‘Yes, it is inconsistent with the last article:
I.e., with I.12, above.
Cf. No. 13, On Sin in Believers, intro., III.1-9, and n.
Cf. 1 John 3:4.
That this distinction between sin as voluntary transgression and sin as pervasive is the crux of a tangled problem may be seen in C. F. Allison, The Rise of Moralism (1966). After a broad synopsis of seventeenth-century Anglican theology, he identifies this view of deliberate sin as a ‘grotesque distinction which inevitably puts premiums on ignorance and suppression’, and denounces Jeremy Taylor and other partisans of holy living for ‘the development of their destructive doctrine’ (p. xi).
To say the truth, this is a mere strife of words. You say none is saved from sin in your sense of the word; but I do not admit of that sense, because the word is never so taken in Scripture. And you cannot deny the possibility of being saved from sin in my sense of the word. And this is the sense wherein the word ‘sin’ is over and over taken in Scripture.
‘But surely we cannot be saved from sin while we dwell in a sinful body.’ A ‘sinful body’? I pray, observe how deeply 03:080ambiguous, how equivocal, this expression is! But there is no authority for it in Scripture: the word ‘sinful body’ is never found there. And as it is totally unscriptural, so it is palpably absurd. For no body, or matter of any kind, can be sinful: spirits alone are capable of sin. Pray in what part of the body should sin lodge? It cannot lodge in the skin, nor in the muscles, or nerves, or veins, or arteries; it cannot be in the bones any more than in the hair or nails. Only the soul can be the seat of sin.
See No. 8, ‘The First-fruits of the Spirit’, II.6 and n. (‘spirits alone are capable of sin…’). But cf. also No. 83, ‘On Patience’, §2, where Wesley is advocating a very different view.
1010. ‘But does not St. Paul himself say, “They that are in the flesh cannot please God”?’
Rom. 8:8.
Heb. 12:1.
Eph. 2:12.
1111. But let us attend to the reason of the thing. Why cannot the Almighty sanctify the soul while it is in the body? Cannot he sanctify you while you are in this house, as well as in the open air? Can the walls of brick or stone hinder him? No more can these walls of flesh and blood hinder him a moment from sanctifying you throughout. He can just as easily save you from all sin in the body as out of the body.
‘But has he promised thus to save us from sin while we are in the body?’ Undoubtedly he has; for a promise is implied in every commandment of God;
See above, II.1, 2; also No. 25, ‘Sermon on the Mount, V’, II.2 and n.
Luke 1:75.
03:081I have dwelt the longer on this because it is the grand argument of those that oppose salvation from sin; and also because it has not been so frequently and so fully answered; whereas the arguments taken from Scripture have been answered a hundred times over.
1212. But a still more plausible objection remains, taken from experience; which is, that there are no living witnesses of this salvation from sin. In answer to this I allow,
(1), that there are not many; even in this sense there are ‘not many fathers’.
1 Cor. 4:15.
See Luke 24:25.
I allow, (2), that there are false witnesses, who either deceive their own souls, and speak of the things they know not, or ‘speak lies in hypocrisy’.
1 Tim. 4:2.
I allow, (3), that some who once enjoyed full salvation have now totally lost it. They once walked in glorious liberty, giving God their whole heart, ‘rejoicing evermore, praying without ceasing, and in everything giving thanks’.
Cf. 1 Thess. 5:16-18.
See Judg. 16:17.
1313. ‘Nay, this’ (say some pious and sensible men) ‘is the very thing which we contend for. We grant it may please God to make some of his children for a time unspeakably holy and happy. We will not deny that they may enjoy all the holiness and happiness which you speak of. But it is only for a time: God never designed that it should continue to their lives’ end. Consequently sin is only suspended: it is not destroyed.’
03:082This you affirm. But it is a thing of so deep importance that it cannot be allowed without clear and cogent proof. And where is the proof? We know that in general ‘the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.’
Rom. 11:29.
1 Thess. 5:18.
Cf. 1 Thess. 5:23-24.
1414. Agreeable to this is the plain matter of fact. Several persons have enjoyed this blessing without any interruption for many years. Several enjoy it at this day. And not a few have enjoyed it unto their death, as they have declared with their latest breath; calmly witnessing that God had saved them from all sin till their spirit returned to God.
1515. As to the whole head of objections taken from experience I desire it may be observed farther: either the persons objected to have attained Christian perfection, or they have not. If they have not, whatever objections are brought against them strike wide of the mark. For they are not the persons we are talking of: therefore whatever they are or do is beside the question. But if they have attained it, if they answer the description given under the nine 03:083preceding articles, no reasonable objection can lie against them. They are superior to all censure. And ‘every tongue that riseth up against’ them ‘will they utterly condemn.’
Cf. Isa. 54:17.
1616. ‘But I never saw one’ (continues the objector) ‘that answered my idea of perfection.’ It may be so. And it is probable (as I observed elsewhere) you never will. For your idea includes abundantly too much—even freedom from those infirmities which are not separable from a spirit that is connected with flesh and blood. But if you keep to the account that is given above, and allow for the weakness of human understanding, you may see at this day undeniable instances of genuine, scriptural perfection.
31III. 1. It only remains, in the third place, to expostulate a little with the opposers of this perfection.
Now permit me to ask, Why are you so angry with those who profess to have attained this? And so mad (I cannot give it any softer title) against Christian perfection? Against the most glorious gift which God ever gave to the children of men upon earth? View it in every one of the preceding points of light, and see what it contains that is either odious or terrible; that is calculated to excite either hatred or fear in any reasonable creature.
What rational objection can you have to the loving the Lord your God with all your heart? Why should you have any aversion to it?
This sentence was deleted (inadvertently?) from SOSO, VI.232.
Eph. 5:2.
22. Why are you so averse to having in you the whole ‘mind which was in Christ Jesus’? All the affections, all the tempers and dispositions which were in him while he dwelt among men? Why should you be afraid of this? Would it be any worse for you were God to work in you this very hour all the mind that was in him? If not, why should you hinder others from seeking this blessing? Or be displeased at those who think they have attained it? Is anything 03:084more lovely? Anything more to be desired by every child of man?
33. Why are you averse to having the whole ‘fruit of the spirit—love, joy, peace; long-suffering, meekness, gentleness; fidelity, goodness, temperance’? Why should you be afraid of having all these planted in your inmost soul? As ‘against these there is no law’,
Cf. Gal. 5:23.
44. What reason have you to be afraid of, or to entertain any aversion to the being ‘renewed in the whole image of him that created you’?
Cf. Col. 3:10.
2 Cor. 3:18.
55. Why should you be averse to universal holiness—the same thing under another name? Why should you entertain any prejudice against this, or look upon it with apprehension?—whether you understand by that term the being inwardly conformed to the whole image and will of God, or an outward behaviour in every point suitable to that conformity. Can you conceive anything more amiable than this? Anything more desirable? Set prejudice aside, and surely you will desire to see it diffused over all the earth.
66. Is perfection (to vary the expression) the being ‘sanctified throughout in spirit, soul, and body’?
Cf. 1 Thess. 5:23.
Cf. Charles Wesley, Short Hymns on…the Holy Scriptures (Bristol, 1762), II.49: ‘All praise, all meekness, and all love.’ Cf. also JWJ, June 9, 1777, where Wesley quotes the line correctly.
1 Thess. 5:23.
703:0857. For what cause should you that are children of God be averse to or afraid of presenting yourselves, your souls and bodies, as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God?
See Rom. 12:1.
88. And why should you be afraid of or averse to what is naturally implied in this? Namely, the offering up all our thoughts, and words, and actions, as a spiritual sacrifice to God, acceptable to him through the blood and intercession of his well-beloved Son. Surely you cannot deny that this is good and profitable to men, as well as pleasing to God. Should you not then devoutly pray that both you and all mankind may thus worship him in spirit and in truth?
John 4:24.
99. Suffer me to ask one question more. Why should any man of reason and religion be either afraid of, or averse to, salvation from all sin? Is not sin the greatest evil on this side hell? And if so, does it not naturally follow that an entire deliverance from it is one of the greatest blessings on this side heaven? How earnestly then should it be prayed for by all the children of God! By sin I mean ‘a voluntary transgression of a known law’.
As in II.9 above.
1010. I have frequently observed, and not without surprise, that the opposers of perfection are more vehement against it when it is placed in this view than in any other whatsoever. They will allow all you say of the love of God and man, of the mind which was in Christ, of the fruit of the spirit, of the image of God, of universal holiness, of entire self-dedication, of sanctification in spirit, soul, and body; yea, and of the offering up all our thoughts, words, and actions, as a sacrifice to God. All this they will allow, so we will allow sin, a little sin, to remain in us till death.
An echo of Wesley’s unresolved perplexities in his quandary over the ‘remains of sin’ and ‘sinless perfection’.
1103:08611. Pray compare this with that remarkable passage in John Bunyan’s Holy War. ‘When Immanuel’, says he, ‘had driven Diabolus and all his forces out of the city of Mansoul, Diabolus preferred a petition to Immanuel, that he might have only a small part of the city. When this was rejected, he begged to have only a little room within the walls. But Immanuel answered, “He should have no place at all, no, not to rest the sole of his foot.”’
A quotation from memory of an incident in The Holy War Made by Shaddai Upon Diabolus (1682). Wesley had abridged it for the Christian Lib. (1753), XXXII.3-137. Mr. Loth-to-Stoop, on behalf of Diabolus and fearing victory by Immanuel (Shaddai’s great captain) over Mansoul, makes a series of requests for Diabolus to retain a diminished relationship to Mansoul. The answers are emphatically negative: ‘No: for if Mansoul come to be mine I shall not admit of, nor consent, that there should be the least scrap, shred, or dust of Diabolus left behind…’; cf. Christian Lib. XXXII.45-48. Wesley’s irony here turns on the fact that Bunyan in Grace Abounding had denounced Richard Baxter and all others who allowed for any possibility of ‘perfection in love’ in this life.
Had not the good old man forgot himself? Did not the force of truth so prevail over him here as utterly to overturn his own system? To assert perfection in the clearest manner? For if this is not salvation from sin I cannot tell what is.
1212. ‘No’, says a great man, ‘this is the error of errors: I hate it from my heart. I pursue it through all the world with fire and sword.’
Count von Zinzendorf, in JWJ, Sept. 3, 1741: ‘Nullam inhaerentem perfectionem in hac vita agnosco. Est hic error errorum. Eum per totum orbem igne et gladio persequor’ (‘I acknowledge no inherent perfection whatsoever in this life. It is the error of errors; it should be harried over the whole globe with fire and sword.’)
A sarcastic use of a patriotic slogan (originally part of the oath administered to Roman soldiers), ‘for our altars and our hearths’; cf. Cicero, De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods), III.xl.(94), and Sallust, The War with Catiline, lix.5. Thomas Godwyn, in his Romane Antiquities Expounded in English (1648), after explaining the lexical background, had concluded: ‘Whence arises that adage, Pro aris et focis centare, sounding as much as to fight for the defence of religion and one’s estate, or (as our English proverb is) for God and our country’ (I.i.20:24). Wesley had used this proverb without sarcasm in describing the motives of American revolutionaries in his letter to the Earl of Dartmouth, June 14, 1775.
Rom. 8:24.
Felices errore suo
Lucan, Civil
War, i.459.
happy in their mistake. Else, be their opinion right or wrong, your temper is undeniably sinful. Bear then with us, as we do with you; and see whether the Lord will not deliver us;
Cf. Wesley’s Preface (1746), §9.
Heb. 7:25.
Tunbridge Wells,
Dec. 6, 1784
Place and date as in AM.
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Entry Title: Sermon 76: On Perfection