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Sermon 86: A Call to Backsliders

   https://wesleyworks.ecdsdev.org/sermons/Sermon086

03:210 An Introductory Comment

With this sermon we move seven years back in time, over to Ireland and to a quite different issue: the problems of religious despair and the valid grounds of Christian assurance and reassurance. We know its place and date only from its separate editions: ‘Sligo, May 20, 1778’. A decade later it was included in SOSO, VII.111-37; it also appeared in three other editions in Wesley’s lifetime. For further details of its publishing history and a list of variant readings, see Vol. 4, Appendix A, and Bibliog, No. 388. For an account of Wesley’s trip to Sligo, see Journal for March 17-21, 1778.

It was Wesley’s way to emphasize the continuities in his thought even as he was quietly nuancing his earlier statements of complex questions. We have seen how, in the earliest stages of the Revival, he insisted on clear-cut experiences of conscious assurance, and was not particularly sensitive to the tendency of such an insistence toward religious despair in some cases (see No. 3, ‘Awake, Thou That Sleepest’, III.6 and n.). We have also noticed his quiet de-emphasis upon such a stark disjunction. Here, we have a careful analysis of religious despair and a comforting statement of a doctrine of degrees of assurance on the one hand and an encouraging ‘call to backsliders’ on the other. It is interesting to note that the only other record of Wesley’s use of Ps. 77:7-8 is from the Journal, August 23, 1768 (at Cullompton): ‘In the evening I preached to the poor backsliders at Cullompton on “Will the Lord be no more entreated?”’ Thus we can see a maturer Wesley amending his earlier views even as he disavows any rejection of his positive intentions in them: viz., of emphasizing in full seriousness his doctrine of conscious Christian experiences of pardon and assurance.

03:211 A Call to Backsliders

Psalm 77:7-8

Will the Lord absent himself for ever? And will he be no more entreated? Is his mercy clean gone for ever? And is his promise come utterly to an end for evermore?

1

Usually, Wesley quotes his sermon texts from the AV; here he has reverted to his lifelong preference for the BCP Psalter.

11. Presumption is one grand snare of the devil, in which many of the children of men are taken. They so presume upon the mercy of God as utterly to forget his justice. Although he has expressly declared, ‘Without holiness no man shall see the Lord,’

2

Cf. Heb. 12:14.

yet they flatter themselves that in the end God will be better than his word. They imagine they may live and die in their sins, and nevertheless ‘escape the damnation of hell’.
3

Matt. 23:33.

22. But although there are many that are destroyed by presumption, there are still more that perish by despair. I mean by want of hope; by thinking it impossible that they should escape destruction. Having many times fought against their spiritual enemies, and always been overcome, they lay down their arms; they no more contend, as they have no hope of victory. Knowing by melancholy experience that they have no power of themselves to help themselves, and having no expectation that God will help them, they lie down under their burden. They no longer strive; for they suppose it is impossible they should attain.

33. In this case, as in a thousand others, ‘the heart knoweth its own bitterness, but a stranger intermeddleth not with its grief.’

4

Cf. Prov. 14:10.

It is not easy for those to know it who never felt it. For ‘who knoweth the things of a man, but the spirit of a man that is in him?’
5

Cf. 1 Cor. 2:11.

Who knoweth, unless by his own experience, what this sort of ‘wounded spirit’
6

Prov. 18:14.

means! Of consequence there are few that know how to sympathize with them that are under this sore temptation. There are few that have duly considered the case, few that are not 03:212deceived by appearances. They see men go on in a course of sin, and take it for granted, it is out of mere presumption; whereas in reality it is from the quite contrary principle—it is out of mere despair. Either they have no hope at all, and while that is the case they do not strive at all; or they have some intervals of hope, and while that lasts, ‘strive for the mastery’.
7

Cf. 1 Cor. 9:25.

But that hope soon fails. They then cease to strive, and are ‘taken captive’ of Satan ‘at his will’.
8

2 Tim. 2:26.

44. This is frequently the case with those that began to run well, but soon tired in the heavenly road; with those in particular who once saw ‘the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’,

9

2 Cor. 4:6.

but afterwards grieved his Holy Spirit, and made shipwreck of the faith.
10

1 Tim. 1:19.

Indeed many of these rush into sin as an horse into battle.
11

See Jer. 8:6.

They sin with so high an hand as utterly to quench the Holy Spirit of God; so that he gives them up to their own heart’s lusts, and lets them follow their own imaginations.
12

Ps. 81:13, as in the BCP Psalter. Cf. Rom. 1:21, 26, 28; and also 1 John 2:16, and No. 7, ‘The Way to the Kingdom’, II.2 and n.

And those who are thus given up may be quite stupid, without either fear, or sorrow, or care; utterly easy and unconcerned about God, or heaven, or hell—to which the god of this world contributes not a little by blinding and hardening their hearts.
13

See John 12:40.

But still even these would not be so careless were it not for despair. The great reason why they have no sorrow or care is because they have no hope. They verily believe they have so provoked God that ‘he will be no more entreated’.

55. And yet we need not utterly give up even these. We have known some, even of the careless ones, whom God has visited again, and restored to their first love. But we may have much more hope for those backsliders who are not careless, who are still uneasy, those who fain would escape out of the snare of the devil,

14

2 Tim. 2:26.

but think it is impossible. They are fully convinced they cannot save themselves, and believe God will not save them. They believe he has irrevocably ‘shut up his loving-kindness in displeasure’.
15

Ps. 77:9 (BCP).

They fortify themselves in believing this by abundance of reasons. And unless those reasons are clearly removed they cannot hope for any deliverance.

03:213It is in order to relieve these hopeless, helpless souls that I propose, with God’s assistance:

First, to inquire what the chief of those reasons are, some or other of which induce so many backsliders to cast away hope, to suppose that God hath ‘forgotten to be gracious’;

16

Ibid.

and, secondly, to give a clear and full answer to each of those reasons.

1

I. I am, first, to inquire what the chief of those reasons are which induce so many backsliders to think that God ‘hath forgotten to be gracious’. I do not say all the reasons—for innumerable are those which either their own evil hearts or that old serpent will suggest—but the chief of them; those that are most plausible, and therefore most common.

11.

17

There is a difficult problem here with respect to this sermon’s proper divisions. The heads are clear enough: I, a list of reasons why backsliders lose hope; II, answers to these reasons. But the order of the subdivisions was not clear and was still further obscured in the second edition of SOSO. Different schemes of enumeration were adopted in the 2nd and 3rd edns. of Wesley’s Works by Joseph Benson (1809-13) and Thomas Jackson (1829-31). The format adopted here represents a return to the order of the first edition with revisions designed to clarify the complex relationship of the divisions, subdivisions, and sub-subdivisions under each of the two main heads, thus: I.1; 2(1)-(6); 3. II.1; 2(1)i-v; 2(2); 2(3)i-iii; 2(4); 2(5) i-ii; 2(6); 3(1)-(8).

The first argument which induces many backsliders to believe that ‘the Lord will be no more entreated’ is drawn from the very reason of the thing. ‘If ’, say they, ‘a man rebel against an earthly prince, many times he dies for the first offence, he pays his life for the first transgression. Yet possibly if the crime be extenuated by some favourable circumstance, or if strong intercession be made for him, his life may be given him. But if after a full and free pardon he were guilty of rebelling a second time, who would dare to intercede for him? He must expect no farther mercy. Now if one rebelling against an earthly king, after he has been freely pardoned once, cannot with any colour of reason hope to be forgiven a second time,
18

A problem that had troubled the second- and third-century theologians and ethicists; cf. Reinhold Seeberg, History of Doctrines, I.61, 175, 196. See espec. The Shepherd of Hermas, ‘Mandates’, 4:3:1; 4:1:8; and Tertullian, On a Second Repentance. In its first form the question of a ‘second repentance and forgiveness’ had been correlated with baptism; in radical Protestantism and the Evangelical Revival, it was correlated with conversion.

what must be the case of him that after having been freely pardoned for rebelling against the great King of heaven and earth, rebels against him again? 03:214What can be expected but that “vengeance will come upon him to the uttermost”?’
19

Cf. 1 Thess. 2:16.

2 2. (1). This argument drawn from reason they enforce by several passages of Scripture. One of the strongest of these is that which occurs in the First Epistle of St. John: ‘If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and God shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death. I do not say that he shall pray for it.’

[1 John] 5:16 [cf. Notes, 5:16-18, and also for Matt. 12:31].

Hence they argue: ‘Certainly “I do not say that he shall pray for it” is equivalent with “I say he shall not pray for it.” So the Apostle supposes him that has committed this sin to be in a desperate state indeed! So desperate that we may not even pray for his forgiveness; we may not ask life for him! And what may we more reasonably suppose to be a sin unto death than wilful rebellion after a full and free pardon?’

(2)(2). ‘Consider, secondly’, say they, ‘those terrible passages in the Epistle to the Hebrews, one of which occurs in the sixth chapter, the other in the tenth. To begin with the latter: “If we sin wilfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no other sacrifice for sin, but a certain looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy: of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, [and] counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and done despite to the Spirit of grace? For we know him that hath said, Vengeance is mine; I will recompense, saith the Lord. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God!”

[Heb. 10:] Ver. 26-31.

Now is it not here expressly declared by the Holy Ghost that our case is desperate? Is it not declared that “if after we have received the knowledge of the truth”, after we have experimentally known it, “we sin wilfully”, which we have undoubtedly done, and that over and over, “there remaineth no other sacrifice for sin, but a certain looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries”?’

(3)(3). ‘And is not that passage in the sixth chapter exactly parallel with this? “It is impossible for those that were once enlightened, 03:215and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, …if they fall away (literally—and have fallen away),

20

For this peculiar translation of παραπεσόντας, see No. 1, Salvation by Faith, II.4 and n.; Wesley is at least consistent in his minority opinion on this point.

to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.”’

Ver. 4, 6.

(4)(4). ‘It is true, some are of opinion that those words, “it is impossible”, are not to be taken literally as denoting an absolute impossibility, but only a very great difficulty. But it does not appear that we have any sufficient reason to depart from the literal meaning, as it neither implies any absurdity, nor contradicts any other Scriptures.

21

Another version of the hermeneutic rule that literal interpretations are to be preferred; cf. No. 21, ‘Sermon on the Mount, I’, §6 and n.

Does not this then’, they say, ‘cut off all hope, seeing we have undoubtedly “tasted of the heavenly gift, and been made partakers of the Holy Ghost”? How is it possible to “renew us again to repentance”, to an entire change both of heart and life? Seeing we “have crucified” to ourselves “the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame”?’

(5)(5). ‘A yet more dreadful passage, if possible, than this, is that in the twelfth chapter of St. Matthew: “All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him. But whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in the world to come.”

Ver. 31-32.

Exactly parallel to these are those words of our Lord which are recited by St. Mark: “Verily I say unto you, all sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they blaspheme. But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost shall never be forgiven, but is in danger of eternal damnation.”’

Chap. 3, ver. 28-29.

(6)(6). It has been the judgment of some that all these passages point at one and the same sin; that not only the words of our Lord, but those of St. John, concerning the ‘sin unto death’, and those of St. Paul concerning ‘crucifying to themselves the Son of God afresh’, ‘treading underfoot the Son of God, and doing despite to 03:216the Spirit of grace’, all refer to the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost—the only sin that shall never be forgiven. Whether they do or no, it must be allowed that this blasphemy is absolutely unpardonable; and that consequently, for those who have been guilty of this, God ‘will be no more entreated’.

33. To confirm those arguments drawn from reason and Scripture they appeal to matter of fact. They ask, ‘Is it not a fact that those who fall away from justifying grace, “who make shipwreck of the faith”,

22

Cf. 1 Tim. 1:19.

that faith whereof cometh present salvation, perish without mercy? How much less can any of those escape who fall away from sanctifying grace? Who make shipwreck of that faith whereby they were cleansed from all pollution of flesh and spirit? Has there ever been an instance of one or the other of these being “renewed again to repentance”?
23

Cf. Heb. 6:6.

If there be any instances of that, one would be inclined to believe that thought of our poet not to be extravagant:

E’en Judas struggles his despair to quell,
Hope almost blossoms in the shades of hell.’
24

Young, The Last Day (1713), II.38; however, these lines and the preceding eight were dropped from later editions of Young’s Works. Wesley had published an extract in A Collection of Moral and Sacred Poems, II.71-99, and later in No. 115, ‘Dives and Lazarus’, I.7, will borrow a phrase from this same couplet and use it without quotation marks.

2

II. These are the principal arguments, drawn from reason, from Scripture, and from fact, whereby backsliders are wont to justify themselves in casting away hope; in supposing that God hath utterly ‘shut up his loving-kindness in displeasure’. I have proposed them in their full strength, that we may form the better judgment concerning them, and try whether each of them may not receive a clear, full, satisfactory answer.

11. I begin with that argument which is taken from the nature of the thing. ‘If a man rebel against an earthly prince, he may possibly be forgiven the first time. But if after a full and free pardon he should rebel again, there is no hope of obtaining a second pardon: he must expect to die without mercy. Now if he that rebels again against an earthly king can look for no second pardon, how can he look for mercy who rebels a second time against the great King of heaven and earth?’

25

An echo of the ancient rigorism summarized by Tertullian in De Pudicitia (Of Purity)—the distinction between peccata remissibilia and irremissibilia—and illustrated by Constantine’s decision to postpone his own baptism lest he should lapse before death into an unpardonable sin. The teaching of other fathers was generally more lenient, as in Anthony’s letter to the archimandrite Theodore (c. A.D. 340), and in Origen (In Lev. hom. 2, 4; De orat. 28; and Contra Celsum 3, 50). See also Chrysostom (Hom. in Hebr. 9 and De sacerdotio 3, 6) and Cyprian (Ep. to Antonianus, No. 55).

03:217

I answer: this argument, drawn from the analogy between earthly and heavenly things, is plausible, but it is not solid; and that for this plain reason: analogy has no place here. There can be no analogy or proportion between the mercy of any of the children of men and that of the most high God. ‘Unto whom will ye liken me, saith the Lord?’

26

Cf. Isa. 40:18, 25.

Unto whom either in heaven or earth? Who, ‘what is he among the gods, that shall be compared unto the Lord?’
27

Cf. Ps. 86:8.

‘I have said, Ye are gods,’
28

Ps. 82:6.

saith the Psalmist, speaking to supreme magistrates. Such is your dignity and power, compared to that of common men. But what are they to the God of heaven? As a bubble upon the wave.
29

Cf. No. 36, ‘The Law Established through Faith, II’, III.5 and n.

What is their power in comparison of his power? What is their mercy compared to his mercy? Hence that comfortable word: ‘I am God, and not man;
30

Hos. 11:9.

therefore the house of Israel is not consumed.’
31

Lam. 3:22.

Because he is God and not man, ‘therefore his compassions fail not’.
32

Cf. ibid.

None then can infer that because an earthly king will not pardon one that rebels against him a second time, therefore the King of heaven will not. Yea, he will: not until seven times only, or seventy times seven.
33

See Matt. 18:22.

Nay, were your rebellions multiplied as the stars of heaven, were they more in number than the hairs of your head; yet ‘return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon you, and to our God, and he will abundantly pardon.’
34

Cf. Isa. 55:7.

22. (1). i. ‘But does not St. John cut us off from this hope by what he says of the “sin unto death”?

35

1 John 5:16; cf. I.2(1), above.

Is not, “I do not say that he shall pray for it” equivalent with “I say he shall not pray for it”? And does not this imply that God has determined not to hear that prayer? That he will not give life to such a sinner, no, not through the prayer of a righteous man?’

iiii. I answer: ‘I do not say that he shall pray for it’ certainly means ‘He shall not pray for it.’ And it doubtless implies that God will not give life unto them that have sinned this sin; that their sentence is passed, and God has determined it shall not be 03:218revoked. It cannot be altered even by that ‘effectual fervent prayer’ which in other cases ‘availeth much’.

36

Jas. 5:16.

iiiiii. But I ask, first, what is ‘the sin unto death’? And secondly, what is the ‘death’ which is annexed to it?

And first, what is the ‘sin unto death’? It is now many years since, being among a people the most experienced in the things of God of any I had ever seen, I asked some of them ‘What do you understand by the “sin unto death” mentioned in the First Epistle of St. John?’

37

Is this a memory of his experiences at Herrnhut and Marienborn in July and Aug. 1738? No explicit reference to it appears in Wesley’s account of his conversations with Michael Linner, Christian David, et al., in JWJ, but it does echo a familiar Moravian perspective.

They answered, ‘“If anyone is sick among” us, he “sends for the elders of the church”; and they pray over him, and the “prayer of faith saves the sick, and the Lord raises him up. And if he hath committed sins”, which God was punishing by that sickness, “they are forgiven him.”
38

Cf. Jas. 5:14-15.

But sometimes none of us can pray that God would “raise him up”. And we are constrained to tell him, “We are afraid that you have sinned ‘a sin unto death’, a sin that God has determined to punish with death—we cannot pray for your recovery.” And we have never yet known an instance of such a person recovering.’
39

Cf. JWJ, June 25, 1776:‘I visited a poor backslider…. I fear he has sinned a sin unto death; a sin which God has determined to punish by death.’

iviv. I see no absurdity at all in this interpretation of the word. It seems to be one meaning (at least) of the expression, ‘a sin unto death’—a sin which God has determined to punish by the death of the sinner. If therefore you have sinned a sin of this kind, and your sin has overtaken you; if God is chastising you by some severe disease, it will not avail to pray for your life; you are irrevocably sentenced to die. But observe! This has no reference to eternal death. It does by no means imply that you are condemned to die the second death.

40

Cf. Rev. 20:6.

No; it rather implies the contrary—the body is destroyed that the soul may escape destruction. I have myself, during the course of many years, seen numerous instances of this. I have known many sinners (chiefly notorious backsliders from high degrees of holiness, and such as had given great occasion to the enemies of religion to blaspheme) whom God has cut short in the midst of their journey, yea, before 03:219they had lived out half their days. These, I apprehend, had sinned ‘a sin unto death’; in consequence of which they were cut off, sometimes more swiftly, sometimes more slowly, by an unexpected stroke. But in most of these cases it has been observed that ‘mercy rejoiced over judgment’.
41

Cf. Jas. 2:13. For other references to Wesley’s body-soul dualism, cf. No. 41, Wandering Thoughts, III.5 and n.

And the persons themselves were fully convinced of the goodness as well as justice of God. They acknowledged that he destroyed the body in order to save the soul. Before they went hence he healed their backsliding. So they died that they might live for ever.

vv. A very remarkable instance of this occurred many years ago. A young collier in Kingswood, near Bristol, was an eminent sinner, and afterwards an eminent saint. But by little and little he renewed his acquaintance with his old companions, who by degrees wrought upon him till he dropped all his religion, and was twofold more a child of hell than before. One day he was working in the pit with a serious young man, who suddenly stopped and cried out: ‘O Tommy, what a man was you once! How did your words and example provoke many to love and to good works! And what are you now? What would become of you if you were to die as you are?’ ‘Nay, God forbid,’ said Thomas, ‘for then I should fall into hell headlong! O let us cry to God!’ They did so for a considerable time, first the one, and then the other. They called upon God with strong cries and tears, wrestling with him in mighty prayer. After some time Thomas broke out: ‘Now I know God hath healed my backsliding.

42

See Hos. 14:4.

I know again that my Redeemer liveth,
43

Cf. Job 19:25.

and that he hath washed me from my sins in his own blood.
44

See Rev. 1:5.

I am willing to go to him.’ Instantly part of the pit calved
45

I.e., ‘caved in’; cf. OED for eighteenth-century usages of ‘calved’ for ‘caved’.

in, and crushed him to death in a moment. Whosoever thou art that hast sinned ‘a sin unto death’, lay this to heart! It may be, God will require thy soul of thee in an hour when thou lookest not for it! But if he doth, there is mercy in the midst of judgment; thou shalt not die eternally.

(2)(2). ‘But what say you to that other Scripture, namely, the tenth of the Hebrews? Does that leave any hope to notorious backsliders that they shall not die eternally? That they can ever 03:220recover the favour of God, or escape the damnation of hell? “If we sin wilfully, after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no other sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy: of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and done despite unto the Spirit of grace?”’

(3)(3). i. ‘And is not the same thing, namely, the desperate, irrecoverable state of wilful backsliders, fully confirmed by that parallel passage in the sixth chapter? “It is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, …and have fallen away (so it is in the original), to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.’”

iiii. These passages do seem to me parallel to each other, and deserve our deepest consideration. And in order to understand them it will be necessary to know, (i), who are the persons here spoken of; and (ii), what is the sin they had committed which made their case nearly, if not quite desperate.

As to the first, it will be clear to all who impartially consider and compare both these passages that the persons spoken of herein are those and those only that have been justified. It was when they were justified that the eyes of their understanding were opened and ‘enlightened’, to see the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. These only ‘have tasted of the heavenly gift’, remission of sins, eminently so called. These ‘were made partakers of the Holy Ghost’, both of the witness and the fruit of the Spirit. This character cannot with any propriety be applied to any but those that have been justified.

And they had been sanctified, too; at least in the first degree, as far as all are who receive remission of sins.

46

Note a new twist here, with ‘remission of sins’ considered as a degree in the process of sanctification. Since 1738, certainly, Wesley had not linked justification and pardon so directly to sanctification as he does here.

So the second passage expressly: ‘Who hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing.’

iiiiii. Hence it follows that this Scripture concerns those alone who have been justified, and, at least in part, sanctified. Therefore 03:221all of you, who never were thus ‘enlightened’ with the light of the glory of God; all who never did ‘taste of the heavenly gift’, who never received remission of sins; all who never ‘were made partakers of the Holy Ghost’, of the witness and fruit of the Spirit—in a word, all you who never were sanctified by the blood of the everlasting covenant

47

Heb. 13:20.

—you are not concerned here. Whatever other passages of Scripture may condemn you, it is certain you are not condemned either by the sixth or the tenth of the Hebrews. For both those passages speak wholly and solely of apostates from the faith which you never had. Therefore it was not possible that you should lose it, for you could not lose what you had not. Therefore whatever judgments are denounced in these Scriptures, they are not denounced against you. You are not the persons here described, against whom only they are denounced.

(4)(4). Inquire we next, What was the sin which the persons here described were guilty of? In order to understand this, we should remember that whenever the Jews prevailed on a Christian to apostatize, they required him to declare in express terms, and that in the public assembly, that Jesus of Nazareth was an impostor; that he was a deceiver of the people; and that he had suffered no more punishment than his crimes justly deserved. This is the sin which St. Paul in the first passage terms emphatically ‘falling away; crucifying the Son of God afresh, and putting him to an open shame’. This is that which he terms in the second, ‘counting the blood of the covenant an unholy thing, treading under foot the Son of God, and doing despite to the Spirit of grace’. Now which of you has thus ‘fallen away’? Which of you has thus ‘crucified the Son of God afresh’? Not one; nor has one of you thus ‘put him to an open shame’. If you had thus formally renounced that only ‘sacrifice for sin’, there had ‘no other sacrifice remained’; so that you must have perished without mercy. But this is not your case. Not one of you has thus renounced that sacrifice by which the Son of God made a full and perfect satisfaction for the sins of the whole world.

48

BCP, Communion, ‘The Prayer of Consecration’.

Bad as you are, you shudder at the thought; therefore that sacrifice still remains for you. Come then, cast away your needless fears! ‘Come boldly to the throne of grace.’
49

Heb. 4:16.

The 03:222way is still open. You shall again ‘find mercy and grace to help in time of need’.
50

Ibid.

(5)(5). i. ‘But do not the well-known words of our Lord himself cut us off from all hope of mercy? Does he not say: “All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him. But whosoever speaketh a word against the Holy Ghost, it shall never be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in the world to come.” Therefore it is plain, if we have been guilty of this sin, there is no room for mercy. And is not the same thing repeated by St. Mark, almost in the same words? “Verily I say unto you” (a solemn preface, always denoting the great importance of that which follows), “all sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme: but he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is under the sentence of eternal damnation.”’

iiii. How immense is the number in every nation throughout the Christian world of those who have been more or less distressed on account of this Scripture! What multitudes in this kingdom have been perplexed above measure upon this very account! Nay, there are few that are truly convinced of sin, and seriously endeavour to save their souls, who have not felt some uneasiness, for fear they had committed or should commit this unpardonable sin. What has frequently increased their uneasiness was that they could hardly find any to comfort them. For their acquaintances, even the most religious of them, understood no more of the matter than themselves. And they could not find any writer who had published anything satisfactory upon the subject. Indeed in the Seven Sermons of Mr. Russell,

51

This was Robert Russell, a seventeenth-century Baptist preacher at Wadhurst in Sussex. His sermon, Of the Unpardonable Sin Against the Holy Ghost, or the Sin Unto Death (on 1 John 5:16), had first been published, separately, in 1692. It had then been included as ‘Sermon I’ in Seven Sermons (the earliest edition which I have seen is the thirteenth, dated 1705); Wesley records having read it on Sept. 18, 1725. That these Seven Sermons were indeed still ‘common among us’ (in 1778) is suggested by the fact that their fiftieth edition is dated 1774. Wesley’s disparaging remarks about such a familiar and popular sermon are puzzling; as a matter of fact, Russell’s arguments and conclusions are reasonably close to Wesley’s own, and there must have been some of Wesley’s readers who would have known this.

which are common among us, there is one expressly written upon it. But it will give little 03:223satisfaction to a troubled spirit. He talks ‘about it and about it’,
52

Cf. Pope, Dunciad, IV.251-52:

For thee explain a thing till all men doubt it,
And write about it, goddess, and about it.

See also John Byrom, ‘Verses Contributed to the Chester Courant’, No. XII, in The Poems of John Byrom (1894), I.310: ‘He writes about it, and about it writes.’ Cf. also JWJ, Mar. 13, 1747.

but makes nothing out. He takes much pains, but misses the mark at last.

(6)(6). But was there ever in the world a more deplorable proof of the littleness of human understanding, even in those that have honest hearts, and are desirous of knowing the truth? How is it possible that anyone who reads his Bible can one hour remain in doubt concerning it, when our Lord himself, in the very passage cited above, has so clearly told us what that blasphemy is? ‘He that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost, hath never forgiveness; because they said, He hath an unclean spirit.’

[Mark 3:] ver. 29-30.

This then, and this alone (if we allow our Lord to understand his own meaning), is the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost: ‘the saying he had an unclean spirit’; the affirming that Christ wrought his miracles by the power of an evil spirit, or, more particularly, that ‘he cast out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils.’
53

Cf. Luke 11:15.

Now have you been guilty of this? Have you affirmed that he cast out devils by the prince of devils? No more than you have cut your neighbour’s throat, and set his house on fire. How marvellously then have you been afraid, where no fear is? Dismiss that vain terror; let your fear be more rational for the time to come. Be afraid of giving way to pride, be afraid of yielding to anger, be afraid of loving the world or the things of the world, be afraid of foolish and hurtful desires. But never more be afraid of committing the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost! You are in no more danger of doing this than of pulling the sun out of the firmament.

33. (1). Ye have then no reason from Scripture for imagining that ‘the Lord hath forgotten to be gracious.’

54

Cf. Ps. 77.9.

The arguments drawn from thence, you see, are of no weight, are utterly inconclusive. Is there any more weight in that which has been drawn from experience or matter of fact?
55

See I.3, above.

03:224

(2)(2). This is a point which may exactly be determined; and that with the utmost certainty. If it be asked, ‘Do any real apostates find mercy from God? Do any that “have made shipwreck of faith and a good conscience”,

56

Cf. 1 Tim. 1:19.

recover what they have lost? Do you know, have you seen any instance, of persons who found redemption in the blood of Jesus, and afterwards fell away, and yet were restored? “Renewed again to repentance”?’ Yea, verily. And not one, or an hundred only; but, I am persuaded, several thousands. In every place where the arm of the Lord has been revealed,
57

Isa. 53:1; John 12:38.

and many sinners converted to God, there are several found who ‘turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them’. For a great part of these ‘it had been better never to have known the way of righteousness.’
58

Cf. 2 Pet. 2:21.

It only increases their damnation, seeing they die in their sins. But others there are who ‘look unto him whom they have pierced, and mourn’,
59

Cf. Zech. 12:10.

refusing to be comforted. And sooner or later he surely lifts up the light of his countenance upon them.
60

See Ps. 4:6 (AV).

He strengthens the hands that hung down, and confirms the feeble knees.
61

See Isa. 35:3.

He teaches them again to say, ‘My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit rejoiceth in God my Saviour.’
62

Luke 1:46-47.

Innumerable are the instances of this kind, of those who had fallen but now stand upright. Indeed it is so far from being an uncommon thing for a believer to fall and be restored, that it is rather uncommon to find any believers who are not conscious of having been backsliders from God, in an higher or lower degree, and perhaps more than once, before they were established in faith.

(3)(3). ‘But have any that had fallen from sanctifying grace

63

See Gal 5:4.

been restored to the blessing they had lost?’ This also is a point of experience; and we have had the opportunity of repeating our observations during a considerable course of years, and from the one end of the kingdom to the other.

(4)(4). And, first, we have known a large number of persons, of every age and sex, from early childhood to extreme old age, who have given all the proofs which the nature of the thing admits that they were ‘sanctified throughout’,

64

Cf. 1 Thess. 5:23 (Notes).

‘cleansed from all pollution 03:225both of flesh and spirit’;
65

2 Cor. 7:1 (Notes).

that they ‘loved the Lord their God with all their heart, and mind, and soul, and strength’;
66

Cf. Mark 12:30.

that they continually presented their souls and bodies ‘a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God’:
67

Rom. 12:1.

in consequence of which they ‘rejoiced evermore, prayed without ceasing, and in everything gave thanks’.
68

Cf. 1 Thess. 5:16-18.

And this, and no other, is what we believe to be true, scriptural sanctification.

(5)(5). Secondly, it is a common thing for those who are thus sanctified to believe they cannot fall; to suppose themselves ‘pillars in the temple of God, that shall go out no more’.

69

Cf. Rev. 3:12.

Nevertheless we have seen some of the strongest of them after a time moved from their steadfastness. Sometimes suddenly, but oftener by slow degrees, they have yielded to temptation; and pride, or anger, or foolish desires have again sprung up in their hearts. Nay, sometimes they have utterly lost the life of God, and sin hath regained dominion over them.

(6)(6). Yet, thirdly, several of these, after being thoroughly sensible of their fall, and deeply ashamed before God, have been again filled with his love, and not only ‘perfected’ therein, but ‘stablished, strengthened, and settled’.

70

Cf. 1 Pet. 5:10.

They have received the blessing they had before, with abundant increase. Nay, it is remarkable that many who had fallen either from justifying or from sanctifying grace, and so deeply fallen that they could hardly be ranked among the servants of God, have been restored (but seldom till they had been shaken, as it were, over the mouth of hell), and that very frequently in an instant, to all that they had lost. They have at once recovered both a consciousness of his favour and the experience of the pure love of God. In one moment they received anew both remission of sins and a lot among them that were sanctified.

(7)(7). But let not any man infer from this long-suffering of God that he hath given anyone a licence to sin. Neither let any dare to continue in sin because of these extraordinary instances of divine mercy. This is the most desperate, the most irrational presumption, and leads to utter, irrecoverable destruction. In all my experience I have not known one who fortified himself in sin by a presumption that God would save him at the last, that was not 03:226miserably disappointed, and suffered to die in his sins.

71

Another echo of Benjamin Calamy’s warning (itself an Anglican commonplace) against deathbed repentance; cf. No. 29, ‘Sermon on the Mount, IX’, §25 and n.

To turn the grace of God into an encouragement to sin is the sure way to the nethermost hell.

(8)(8). It is not for these desperate children of perdition that the preceding considerations are designed, but for those who feel ‘the remembrance of our sins is grievous unto us, the burden of them is intolerable.’

72

Cf. BCP, Communion, Confession.

We set before these an open door of hope: let them go in, and give thanks unto the Lord.
73

See Ps. 118:19.

Let them know that ‘the Lord is gracious and merciful, long-suffering and of great goodness.’
74

Ps. 145:8 (BCP).

‘Look how high the heavens are from the earth! So far will he set their sins from them.’
75

Cf. Ps. 103:11 (BCP).

‘He will not always be chiding; neither keepeth he his anger for ever.’
76

Ps. 103:9 (BCP).

Only settle it in your heart, ‘I will give all for all,’ and the offering shall be accepted. Give him all your heart! Let all that is within you continually cry out, ‘Thou art my God, and I will thank thee: thou art my God, and I will praise thee.’
77

Ps. 118:28 (BCP).

‘This God is my God for ever and ever. He shall be my guide even unto death.’
78

Cf. Ps. 48:14 (AV).

Sligo, May 20, 1778

79

Place and date as in AM.


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Entry Title: Sermon 86: A Call to Backsliders

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