Notes:
Sermon 86: A Call to Backsliders
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 BackslidersPsalm 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?
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,’
Cf. Heb. 12:14.
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.’
Cf. Prov. 14:10.
Cf. 1 Cor. 2:11.
Prov. 18:14.
Cf. 1 Cor. 9:25.
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’,
2 Cor. 4:6.
1 Tim. 1:19.
See Jer. 8:6.
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.
See John 12:40.
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,
2 Tim. 2:26.
Ps. 77:9 (BCP).
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’;
Ibid.
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.
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).
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.
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.
(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),
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.
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.
Another version of the hermeneutic rule that literal interpretations are to be preferred; cf. No. 21, ‘Sermon on the Mount, I’, §6 and n.
(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. 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”,
Cf. 1 Tim. 1:19.
Cf. Heb. 6:6.
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.
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?’
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).
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?’
Cf. Isa. 40:18, 25.
Cf. Ps. 86:8.
Ps. 82:6.
Cf. No. 36, ‘The Law Established through Faith, II’, III.5 and n.
Hos. 11:9.
Lam. 3:22.
Cf. ibid.
See Matt. 18:22.
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”?
1 John 5:16; cf. I.2(1), above.
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’.
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?’
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.
Cf. Jas. 5:14-15.
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.
Cf. Rev. 20:6.
Cf. Jas. 2:13. For other references to Wesley’s body-soul dualism, cf. No. 41, Wandering Thoughts, III.5 and n.
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.
See Hos. 14:4.
Cf. Job 19:25.
See Rev. 1:5.
I.e., ‘caved in’; cf. OED for eighteenth-century usages of ‘calved’ for ‘caved’.
(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.
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.
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
Heb. 13:20.
(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.
BCP, Communion, ‘The Prayer of Consecration’.
Heb. 4:16.
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,
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.
Cf. Pope, Dunciad, IV.251-52:
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.
(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.
Cf. Luke 11:15.
33. (1). Ye have then no reason from Scripture for imagining that ‘the Lord hath forgotten to be gracious.’
Cf. Ps. 77.9.
See I.3, above.
(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”,
Cf. 1 Tim. 1:19.
Isa. 53:1; John 12:38.
Cf. 2 Pet. 2:21.
Cf. Zech. 12:10.
See Ps. 4:6 (AV).
See Isa. 35:3.
Luke 1:46-47.
(3)(3). ‘But have any that had fallen from sanctifying grace
See Gal 5:4.
(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’,
Cf. 1 Thess. 5:23 (Notes).
2 Cor. 7:1 (Notes).
Cf. Mark 12:30.
Rom. 12:1.
Cf. 1 Thess. 5:16-18.
(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’.
Cf. Rev. 3:12.
(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’.
Cf. 1 Pet. 5:10.
(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.
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.
(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.’
Cf. BCP, Communion, Confession.
See Ps. 118:19.
Ps. 145:8 (BCP).
Cf. Ps. 103:11 (BCP).
Ps. 103:9 (BCP).
Ps. 118:28 (BCP).
Cf. Ps. 48:14 (AV).
Sligo, May 20, 1778
Place and date as in AM.
How to Cite This Entry
Bibliography:
, “.” In , edited by . , 2024. Entry published February 25, 2024. https://wesleyworks.ecdsdev.org/sermons/Sermon086.About this Entry
Entry Title: Sermon 86: A Call to Backsliders