Notes:
Sermon 99: The Reward of Righteousness
This is one of the later Wesley’s rare sermons ad aulam, preached in Lewisham on November 23, 1777, and published as a pamphlet before the year was out. There is a reference to it in the Journal: ‘Sun. 23. I preached in Lewisham church for the benefit of the Humane Society, instituted for the sake of those who seem to be drowned, strangled, or killed by any sudden stroke. It is a glorious design, in consequence of which many have been recovered that must otherwise have inevitably perished.’
We know from the Society’s official history that it ‘was founded on the 18th April, 1774, at the Chapter Coffee House in St. Paul’s Churchyard, London, by Dr. William Hawes (1736-1808) and Dr. Thomas Cogan (1736-1818) and their friends, …the Lord Mayor of London being the Society’s first President. Very quickly the Society and its work [‘in the life saving and restoring field’] caught the imagination of the general public, …and in 1783 King George III became its patron. Four years later the Society was granted the prefix “Royal”…’ (Annual Report, 1970, p. 9). The Royal Humane Society still continues as an active voluntary lifesaving agency, with headquarters in Watergate House, York Buildings, Adelphi, London, W.C. 2. Its motto, from the beginning, has been ‘Lateat Scintilla Forsan’ (‘Perhaps a scintilla [of life] remains’), and its medals for heroic service are still inscribed Societas Londinii in Resuscitationem Intermortuorum (‘The London Society for the Recovery of Persons Still Hanging between Life and Death’). It is noteworthy that Wesley should have been invited to preach the Society’s annual ‘Benefit Sermon’ so early in its history (or that he should have accepted such an invitation) in view of the fact that one of its founders, Dr. William Hawes, had recently published (in 1776) An Examination of Mr. John Wesley’s Primitive Physick, showing that a great number of the prescriptions therein contained are founded on ignorance of the medical art; and that it is a publication calculated to do essential injury to the health of those persons who may place confidence in it....
03:400It is unsurprising, therefore, that on such an occasion Wesley should have elevated his rhetoric and that he should have extended his range of classical and literary allusions. It is equally natural that he should have focused on the question of ‘good works’. Even as he carefully avoids any attribution of saving merit, he still firmly rejects the classical Protestant notion that heroic services of the sort here extolled may be nothing more than ‘splendid sins’.
The sermon had no further editions until Wesley decided to include it in SOSO, VIII.89-111, with only a barebones title, ‘Preached Before the Humane Society’. In his edition of Wesley’s Works in 1809 Joseph Benson gave it a more descriptive title, ‘The Reward of Righteousness’ (VII.155-63), and was followed in this by Thomas Jackson in 1825 and again in 1829 (Works, VII.127-38). On this point we have thought it suitable to follow in their train.
The Reward of RighteousnessPreached before the Humane Society
Matthew 25:34
Come, ye blessed of my Father! Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
11. Reason alone will convince every fair inquirer that God ‘is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him’.
Heb. 11:6.
Cf. Ps. 58:10 (BCP).
See 1 Cor. 2:9.
This would have been Plato. Wesley’s most probable source was Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelii, IX.6, X.2-8, VII.8, 27, with its echoes of the familiar patristic theme that Plato and other Greek philosophers had borrowed their best ideas from Moses and the Hebrew prophets; cf. Johannes Quasten, Patrology, III.329.
See Matt. 25:31.
Cf. Matt. 24:30, etc.
Cf. Matt. 25:31.
Cf. Matt. 25:31-32.
See Matt. 25:33.
22. ‘Prepared for you from the foundation of the world’. But does this agree with the common supposition that God created man merely to supply the vacant thrones of the rebel angels?
Cf. Augustine, Enchiridion, ix.28-29. Here, as in the question of whether Christ would have come if man had not sinned, Wesley supposes that in the history of salvation, the Fall and its effects had not been prevented by God’s sovereign grace but rather anticipated and transcended; see above, No. 59, ‘God’s Love to Fallen Man’, I.1 and n.
33. ‘Inherit the kingdom’—as being ‘heirs of God, and joint-heirs’
Rom. 8:17.
Cf. Heb. 5:9; 9:12.
Cf. John 14:1.
See Gal. 5:6.
See Jas. 2:18.
Matt. 25:35.
44. But in what sense are we to understand the words that follow? ‘Lord, when saw we thee hungry, and gave thee meat? Or thirsty, and gave thee drink?’
Matt. 25:37 (Notes).
A rare instance of allegory in Wesley (cf. also No. 48, ‘Self-denial’, I.7); it is, however, consistent with his hermeneutical rule to prefer a literal interpretation unless it involves an absurdity; see No. 21, ‘Sermon on the Mount, I’, §6 and n.
55. But ‘the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it to one of the least of these my brethren, ye did it unto me.’
Matt. 25:40.
See Ps. 112:6.
I would take occasion from hence, first, to make a few reflections on good works in general; secondly, to consider in particular that institution for the promotion of which we are now assembled; and, in the third place, to make a short application.
11I. 1. And, first, I would make a few reflections upon good works in general.
I am not insensible that many, even serious people, are jealous of all that is spoken upon this subject; nay, and whenever the necessity of good works is strongly insisted on, take it for granted that he who speaks in this manner is but one remove from popery.
A remembrance of the charges against him of being a ‘crypto-Catholic’, ‘papist’, etc., by the Calvinists and antinomians; cf. JWJ, Aug. 27, 1739, and Dec. 20, 1768; and An Earnest Appeal, §68(11:74 in this edn.). See also, e.g., Francis Blackburne, Considerations on the Present State of Controversy Between the Protestants and Papists of Great Britain and Ireland (London, 1768), p.199: ‘The Popish party boast much of the increase of the Methodists and talk of that sect with rapture. How far the Methodists and Papists stand connected in principles I know not; but I believe it is beyond a doubt that they are in constant correspondence with each other.’
Cf. Eph. 4:21.
Cf. Acts 20:27.
Cf. Num. 22:18.
22. Is it not to be lamented that any who fear God should desire us to do otherwise? And that by speaking otherwise themselves they should occasion the way of truth to be evil spoken of?
See 2 Pet. 2:2.
Cf. Eph. 2:8.
Cf. Rom. 3:31. Wesley’s time reference here points to 1738 as the beginning of the Revival.
33. Some of these, in order to exalt the value of faith, have utterly depreciated good works. They speak of them as not only not necessary to salvation, but as greatly obstructive of it. They represent them as abundantly more dangerous than evil ones to those who are seeking to save their souls. One cries aloud, ‘More people go to hell by praying than by thieving.’ Another screams out: ‘Away with your works! Have done with your works, or you cannot come to Christ!’ And this unscriptural, irrational, heathenish declamation is called, ‘preaching the gospel’!
Cf. No. 35, ‘The Law Established through Faith, I’, I.12 and n.
44. But ‘shall not the Judge of all the earth’ speak as well as ‘do right?’
Gen. 18:25.
Cf. Ps. 51:4.
The original of this phrase, splendida peccata, has long been attributed to Augustine, and something of the idea does appear in De Civ. Dei, xix.25; see Pierre Jaccard, ‘De S. Augustin à Pascal: histoire d’une maxime sur les vertus des philosophes’, Revue de Théologie et de Philosophic, N. S., XXVIII (1940), 41-55. But the phrase itself is not there. Its first instance, as far as I know, is in Peter Martyr Vermigli, Loci Communes… (1st edn., 1576, but see Landon edn. Of 1583), ‘Classis Tertiae’, ch. XII, ‘De Cruce et Affectionibus perferendis, ubi etiam de Fortitudine, Fuga et Exilio’, §7, p. 649: ‘…Fateor equidem…splendida peccata’. This had been translated into English as, ‘And their works, although they were excellent (if we consider them after a civil manner), yet before God they were nothing else but glorious and glistering sinnes’ (The Commonplaces of the Most Famous and Renowned Divine Doctor Peter Martyr…, 1583, p. 177). An English source for Wesley would have been Richard Fiddes, Practical Discourses, II.15. Cf. also Matthew Mead, The Almost Christian Discovered (1662), p. 97 of 1797 edn.; ‘A man may obey much and yet be in his old nature; and so then all his obedience in that estate is but splendidum peccatum, a painted sin;’ John Norris, Considerations upon the Nature of Sin; Accommodated to the Ends of Speculation and Practice, sect. 7, in A Collection of Miscellanies (1723), p. 288: ‘…the great question concerning the good actions done by heathens [is] whether they were properly virtues or only a kind of well-favoured sins, splendida peccata, as some have thought fit to call them;’ Patrick Middleton, A Short View of the Evidences upon which the Christian Religion and the Divine Authority of the Holy Scriptures is Established (1734), Appendix, 1:7: ‘Some of the [Calvinists’] learned authors do frankly drop all thoughts of any regard in God to the salvation of those famous men [‘the virtuous pagans’], accounting their brightest virtues as only glittering iniquity (splendida peccata) because they did not proceed from a principle of faith and had not the glory of God for their only end….’ See also the Homily on Good Works, First Part, Homilies, p. 43, quoting Chrysostom: ‘they which glister and shine in good works without faith in God be like dead men;’ this is from a work wrongly attributed to Chrysostom (Sermone de Fide, Lege et Spiritu Sancto; cf. Migne, PG, XLVIII.1081).
See also the Minutes, Aug. 2, 1745, Q. 8: ‘Were those works of [Cornelius] splendid sins?’ A. ‘No; nor were they done without the grace of Christ;’ and Predestination Calmly Considered, §32. Cf. Nos. 5, ‘Justification by Faith’, III.5 and n.; and 130, On Living without God’, §14.
Cf. Heb. 13:16.
55. Not that our Lord intended we should confine our beneficence to the bodies of men. He undoubtedly designed that we should be equally abundant in works of spiritual mercy. He died to ‘purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of’ all ‘good works’;
Titus 2:14.
Cf. Jas. 5:20.
Cf. Gal. 6:10; cf. also No. 24, ‘Sermon on the Mount, IV’, IV.1 and n.
66. But may I not add one thing more (only he that heareth, let him understand):
See Mark 13:14.
See No. 91, ‘On Charity’, I.2 and n.
Cf. John 15:8.
II. From these general reflections I proceed to consider that institution in particular for the promotion of which we are now assembled. And in doing this I shall first observe the rise of this institution; secondly, the success; and thirdly, the excellency of it; after which you will give me leave to make a short application.
(I).
The original numbering of these subdivisions is confusing; the attempted reconstruction here is indicated by adding parentheses. The second series, which begins here, and deals with the Humane Society, has been renumbered ‘(I)’-‘(III)’ instead of ‘I’-‘III’. The third series consists of a listing of the Society’s principles as a subdivision of II(Ι).4, and has been left untouched. The final section has been renumbered ‘III’ instead of the original ‘IV’, because Wesley apparently intended it to continue the general considerations begun in ‘I’ and ‘II’ rather than particular aspects of the Humane Society itself dealt with in ‘(I)’-‘(III)’.
11. One would wonder (as an ingenious writer observes) that such an institution as this, of so deep importance to mankind, should appear so late in the world. Have we anything wrote upon the subject earlier than the tract published at Rome in the year 1637?
Details of the tract and the name of the ‘ingenious writer’ are not known.
22. I cannot give you a clearer view of this than by presenting you with a short extract from the introduction to the ‘Plan and Reports of the Society’, published two years ago.
Wesley’s abridged and emended précis of ‘The Introduction’ from The Plan and Reports of the Society for the Recovery of Persons Apparently Drowned. Instituted at London. MDCCLXXIV (With an Appendix), 1775, pp. 3-19; Wesley has altered the original’s phrasing here and there but not its factual statements.
Many and indubitable are the instances of the possibility of restoring to life persons apparently struck with sudden death, whether by an apoplexy, convulsive fits, noxious vapours, strangling, or drowning. Cases of this nature have occurred in every country. But they were considered and neglected as extraordinary phenomena, from which no salutary consequence could be drawn.
3. At length a few benevolent gentlemen in Holland conjectured that some at least might have been saved had proper means been used in time; and formed themselves into a Society in order to make a trial. Their attempts succeeded far beyond their expectations. Many were restored who must otherwise have perished. And they were at length enabled to extend their plan over the seven provinces.
Their success instigated other countries to follow their example. In the year 1768 the Magistrates of Health at Milan and Venice issued orders for the treatment of drowned persons. The city of Hamburg appointed a similar ordinance to be read in all the churches. In the year 1769 the Empress of Germany published an edict, extending its directions and encouragements to every case that afforded a possibility of relief. In the year 1771 the magistrates of Paris founded an institution in favour of the drowned.
4. In the year 1773 Dr. Cogan
Thomas Cogan had begun as a Nonconformist minister who served congregations in Rotterdam, Southampton, and The Hague. He then took a medical degree at Leyden in 1767 and practiced medicine, chiefly in London, until 1780, when he retired to Holland to pursue his studies in moral philosophy. In 1767, he had joined a society in Amsterdam, ‘In Favour of Drowned Persons’, and translated their Memoirs into English in 1773. As co-founder of the Humane Society, he prepared the Society’s first six ‘Annual Reports’.
A London physician who had already been giving personal rewards for heroic rescues of apparent drowning victims before he joined with Cogan and others to found the Humane Society. He long served it as Registrar; cf. his Address on Premature Death and Premature Interment, 1777.
I. The Society will publish, in the most extensive manner possible, the proper methods of treating persons in such circumstances.
II. They will distribute a premium of two guineas among the first persons who attempt to recover anyone taken out of the water as dead. And this reward will be given even if the attempt is unsuccessful, provided it has been pursued two hours, according to the method laid down by the Society.
III. They will distribute a premium of four guineas where the person is restored to life.
IV. They will give one guinea to any that admits the body into his house without delay, and furnishes the necessary accommodations.
V. A number of medical gentlemen, living near the places where these disasters commonly happen, will give their assistance gratis.
”(II). Such was the rise of this admirable institution. With what success it has been attended is the point which I purpose in the next place very briefly to consider.
And it must be allowed to be not only far greater than those who despised it had imagined, but greater than the most sanguine expectations of the gentlemen who were immediately engaged in it.
In the short space from its first establishment in May 1774, to the end of December, eight persons seemingly dead were restored to life.
In the year 1775 forty-seven were restored to life; thirty-two of them by the direct encouragement and assistance of the gentlemen of this Society, and the rest by medical gentlemen and others in consequence of their method of treatment being generally known.
In the year 1776 forty-one persons were restored to life by the assistance of this Society. And eleven cases of those who had been restored elsewhere were communicated to them.
So the number of lives preserved and restored in two years and an half since their first institution amounts to one hundred and seven! Add to these those that have been since restored, and out of two hundred and eighty-four persons who were dead to all appearance no less than an hundred and fifty-seven have been restored to life! Such is the success which has attended them in so short a time! Such a blessing has the gracious providence of God given to this infant undertaking!
Cf. Report of the Society (1776), p. vii.
1(III). 1. It remains only to show the excellency of it. And this may appear from one single consideration. This institution unites together in one all the various acts of mercy. The several works of charity mentioned above are all contained in this. It comprises all corporal (if I may so speak) and all spiritual benefits—all the instances of kindness which can be shown either to the bodies or souls of men. To show this beyond all contradiction there needs no studied eloquence, no rhetorical colouring, but simply and nakedly to relate the thing as it is.
22. The thing attempted, and not only attempted but actually performed (so has the goodness of God prospered the labours of these lovers of mankind!), is no less, in a qualified sense, than restoring life to the dead! Is it any wonder then that the generality of men should at first ridicule such an undertaking? That they should imagine the persons who aimed at any such thing must be utterly out of their senses? Indeed one of old said, ‘Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise the dead?’
Acts 26:8. Cf. No. 116, ‘What is Man? Ps. 8:4’, §12, on the point of body-soul dualism; see also No. 41, Wandering Thoughts, III.5 and n.
Matt. 9:24.
Ibid.
33. However, it is certain she was really dead, and so beyond all power but that of the Almighty. But see what power God has now given to man!
See Matt. 9:8.
Ezek. 37:3.
44. Consider, I entreat you, how many miracles of mercy (so to speak) are contained in one! That poor man, who was lately numbered with the dead, by the care and pains of these messengers of God again breathes the vital air, opens his eyes, and stands upon his feet. He is restored to his rejoicing family, to his wife, to his (late) helpless children, that he may again by his honest labour provide them with all the necessaries of life. See now what ye have done, ye ministers of mercy! Behold the fruit of your labour of love! Ye have been an husband to the widow, a father to the fatherless. And hereby ye have given meat to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, clothes to the naked. For hungry, thirsty, and naked these little ones must have been had not you restored him that prevents it. You have more than relieved; you have prevented that sickness which might naturally have arisen from their want of sufficient food to eat, or raiment to put on. You have hindered those orphans from wandering up and down, not having a place where to lay their head. Nay, and very possibly you have prevented some of them from being lodged in a dreary, comfortless prison.
55. So great, so comprehensive is the mercy which you have shown to the bodies of your fellow-creatures! But why should their souls be left out of the account? How great are the benefits you have conferred on these also! The husband has now again an opportunity of assisting his wife in things of the greatest moment. He may now again strengthen her hands in God, and help her to run with patience the race that is set before her.
See Heb. 12:1.
See Prov. 22:6.
66. Nay, it may be you have snatched the poor man himself, not only from the jaws of death, but from sinking lower than the waters, from the jaws of everlasting destruction. It cannot be 03:410doubted but some of those whose lives you have restored, although they had been before without God in the world, will remember themselves, and not only with their lips, but in their lives, show forth his praise.
See BCP, Thanksgivings, A General Thanksgiving: ‘And, we beseech thee, give us that due sense of all thy mercies, that our hearts may be unfeignedly thankful, and that we show forth thy praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives….’
Cf. Luke 17:15, 16.
77. It is remarkable that several of those whom you have brought back from the margin of the grave were intoxicated at the very time when they dropped into the water. And at that very instant (which is frequently the case) they totally lost their senses. Here therefore was no place for, no possibility of, repentance. They had not time, they had not sense, so much as to cry out, ‘Lord, have mercy!’ So they were sinking through the mighty waters into the pit of destruction!
See Ps. 5523 (AV).
88. Nay, one poor sinner (let it never be forgotten!) was just coming down from the ship when (overtaken by the justice and mercy of God) her foot slipped and she fell into the river. Instantly her senses were lost, so that she could not call upon God. Yet he had not forgotten her. He sent those who delivered her from death; at least, from the death of the body. And who knows but she may lay it to heart, and turn from the error of her ways? Who knows but she may be saved from the second death,
See Rev. 2:11.
Matt. 25:34, etc.
99. One point more deserves to be particularly remarked. Many of those who have been restored to life (no less than eleven out of the fourteen that were saved in a few months) were in the number of those that are a reproach to our nation—wilful self-murderers. As many of the desperate men who attempt this horrid crime are men who have had a liberal education, ’tis pity but they would consider those fine words, not of a poor narrow-souled Christian, but of a generous heathen, nay a Roman! Let them calmly consider that beautiful passage:
03:411Virgil has ‘tristisque’, ‘inamabilis’ (‘revolting’) and ‘noviens’. Wesley’s ‘innabilis unda’ (‘the waters that cannot be swum in’) is an interjection from Ovid, Metamorphoses, i.16.
[Virgil, Aeneid, vi.435-40. The translation of the Aeneid by Christopher Pitt (1699-1748) was published in 1740. For the last two lines, cf. also Georgics, iv.479-80: ‘Tardaque palus inamabilis unda alligat et noviens Styx interjusa coercet.’]
Fata obstant!
‘The Fates oppose.’ See Virgil, Aeneid, vi.439, quoted above, and cf. iv.440.
I.e., the Styx.
1III. 1. Permit me now to make a short application. But to whom should I direct this? Are there any here who are unhappily prejudiced against that revelation which breathes nothing but benevolence? Which contains the richest display of God’s love to man that ever was made from the foundation of the world? Yet even to you I would address a few words; for if you are not Christians, you are men. You too are susceptible of kind impressions; you have the feelings of humanity. Has not your heart too glowed at that noble sentiment (worthy the heart and the lips of the highest Christian)
“ Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto!Terence, The Self-Tormentor, 77 (I.i.25): ‘I am a man: nothing that partakes of humanity is a matter of indifference to me.’ Wesley used this quotation as a motto for A Letter to a Friend Concerning Tea (1748), and for the 8th (1759) and subsequent edns. of Primitive Physick. Steele, The Spectator, No. 502, Oct. 6, 1712, wrote that Terence’s play ‘is from beginning to the end a perfect picture of humane life.’
Have not you also sympathized with the afflicted? How many times have you been pained at human misery? When you have 04:412beheld a scene of deep distress, has not your soul melted within you?
Cf. Dryden, ‘Alexander’s Feast’, 87-88:
But is it easy for anyone to conceive a scene of deeper distress than this? Suppose you are standing by just when the messenger comes in, and the message is delivered: ‘I am sorry to tell you—but you must know it—your husband is no more. He was making haste out of the vessel, and his foot slipped…. It is true, after a time his body was found. But there it lies, without any signs of life.’ In what a condition are now both the mother and the children? Perhaps for a while stupid, overwhelmed, silent; staring at each other; then bursting out into loud and bitter lamentation! Now is the time to help them; by assisting those who make it their business so to do. Now let nothing hinder you from improving the glorious opportunity. Restore the husband to his disconsolate wife, the father to his weeping children! It is true you cannot do this in person; you cannot be upon the spot. But you may do it in an effectual manner by assisting those that are. You may now by your generous contribution send them the help which you cannot personally give. O shut not up your bowels of compassion towards them.
See 1 John 3:17.
22. To you who believe the Christian revelation I may speak in a still stronger manner. You believe your blessed Master ‘left you an example, that you might tread in his steps’.
Cf. 1 Pet. 2:21.
Acts 10:38.
John 5:17.
Charles Wesley, Scripture Hymns (1762), II.380, on Jas. 1:27 (Poet. Wks., XIII.167); cf. No. 59, ‘God’s Love to Fallen Man’, I.9 and n.
Occasions of doing this can never be wanting; for ‘the poor ye have always with you.’
Cf. Mark 14:7.
Luke 7:13.
Cf. Luke 7:15.
Luke 8:53.
Cf. Samuel Wesley, Jun., ‘On the Death of Mr. Morgan of Christ Church, Oxford’, Poems (1736), p. 109: ‘For human may he liken’d to divine; ’ cf. also ‘The prisons Open’d’, ibid., p. 191: ‘If human joys we liken to divine.’
have been done, and continue to be done daily by these lovers of mankind. Let everyone then be ambitious of having a share in this glorious work! Let everyone (in a stronger sense than Mr. Herbert meant)
“Join hands with God, to make a poor man live.Cf. George Herbert, The Temple, ‘The Church Porch’, ver. 63, l. 4:
“Join hands with God to make a man to live.”See also A Plain Account of the People called Methodists (1749), XV.2.
By your generous assistance be ye partakers of their work, and partakers of their joy!
33. To you I need add but one word more. Remember (what was spoken at first) the solemn declaration of him whose ye are, and whom ye serve, coming in the clouds of heaven!
Matt. 24:30, etc.
Matt. 25:40.
Nov. 21, 1777
Date in 1777 edn. only.
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Entry Title: Sermon 99: The Reward of Righteousness