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Sermon 129: Heavenly Treasure in Earthen Vessels

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04:161 An Introductory Comment

1This brief essay is, in effect, a sequel to the last. The topic is the same: the illusion of human self-sufficiency and the dangers of pride. The argument, however, is rather different. It begins by defining ‘the heavenly treasure’ which is God’s unmerited gift to man, not as natural religion or as prevenient grace (I.1-2), but rather as full salvation, itself further defined as ‘a renewal in the whole image of God’ (I.3). Given such a treasure in ‘earthen vessels’ (i.e., our mortal bodies), it is inevitable that life in the flesh is flawed and imperfect. And it follows from this that all our pretended self-knowledge and impressions of autonomy are shot through with flaws and, above all, illusion. There is, however, a providential design in this tragic paradox: it is ‘to hide pride from man’. In this way, Wesley invokes his body-soul dualism as an interpretive key to the mysteries of evil on the one hand, and of salvation on the other.

2Wesley thus summarizes a long-held view. The essay is dated ‘Potta [for Potto], June 17, 1790’. Since its predecessor, Wesley had continued his preaching tour from Yorkshire up through the North, into Scotland, and back again now, to Yarm and Potto. The impulse to write down his reflections in so brief a compass would scarcely have arisen from any of his immediate circumstances; it is more plausible to see here a further clearing up of an old man’s agenda of unfinished business.

3It was published in the Arminian Magazine

1

XV.117-20, 173-76.

in March and April 1792, as if in sequence: ‘Sermon LXVI. (By the late Rev. J. Wesley)’. Joseph Benson supplied it with a title, ‘The Heavenly Treasure in Earthen Vessels’, for his edition of 1812. However, he then refocused Wesley’s argument somewhat by changing its running title to ‘The Christian’s Treasure’. Thomas Jackson, as usual, followed Benson’s lead. In this edition, it has seemed better to use the single title throughout.

 04:162 Heavenly Treasure in Earthen Vessels

2 Corinthians 4:7

We have this treasure in earthen vessels.

11. How long was man a mere riddle to himself? For how many ages were the wisest of men utterly unable to reveal the mystery, to reconcile the strange inconsistencies in him, the wonderful mixture of good and evil, of greatness and littleness, of nobleness and barrenness? The more deeply they considered these things, the more they were entangled. The more pains they took in order to clear up the subject, the more they were bewildered in vain, uncertain conjectures.

2

An echo of No. 128, ‘The Deceitfulness of the Human Heart’; see also No. 57, ‘On the Fall of Man’, §2 and n.

2But what all the wisdom of man was unable to do was in due time done by the wisdom of God. When it pleased God to give an account of the origin of things, and of man in particular, all the darkness vanished away, and the clear light shone. ‘God said, Let us make man in our own image.’

3

Gen. 1:26; see also I.1, below; and No. 1, Salvation by Faith, §1 and n.

It was done. In the image of God man was made. Hence we are enabled to give a clear, satisfactory account of the greatness, the excellency, the dignity of man. But ‘man being in honour’
4

Ps. 49:12.

did not continue therein, but rebelled against his sovereign Lord. Hereby he totally lost, not only the favour, but likewise the image of God. And ‘in Adam all died.’
5

Cf. 1 Cor. 15:22.

For fallen Adam begat a son ‘in his own likeness’.
6

Gen. 5:3.

And hence we are taught to give a clear, intelligible account of the littleness and baseness of man. He is sunk even below the beasts that perish. Human nature now is not only ‘sensual’ but ‘devilish’.
7

Jas. 3:15.

There is in every man born into the world (what is not in any part of the brute creation; no beast is fallen so low!) a ‘carnal mind’, which ‘is enmity’, direct enmity, ‘against God’.
8

Rom. 8:7; see No. 45, ‘The New Birth’, I.4 and n.

304:1633. By considering therefore these things in one view, the creation and the fall of man, all the inconsistencies of his nature are easily and fully understood. The greatness and littleness, the dignity and baseness, the happiness and misery of his present state, are no longer a mystery, but clear consequences of his original state, and his rebellion against God. This is the key that opens the whole mystery, that removes all the difficulty, by showing what God made man at first, and what man has made himself. It is true, he may regain a considerable measure of ‘the image of God wherein he was created’.

9

Cf. Gen. 1:27; see No. 44, Original Sin, III.5 and n.

But still, whatever we regain, we shall ‘have this treasure in earthen vessels’.

In order to have a clear conception of this we may inquire, first, what is ‘the treasure’ which we now ‘have’; and in the second place consider how we have this treasure ‘in earthen vessels’.

 1

1I. 1. And first let us inquire, what is ‘this treasure’ which Christian believers have? I say, believers; for it is of these directly that the Apostle is here speaking. Part of this they have in common with other men, in the remains of the image of God.

10

See §2 above; and No. 1, Salvation by Faith, §1 and n.

May we not include herein, first, an immaterial principle, a spiritual nature, endued with understanding, and affections, and a degree of liberty, of a self-moving, yea, and self-governing power (otherwise we were mere machines, stocks and stones)? And secondly, all that is vulgarly called ‘natural conscience’, implying some discernment of the difference between moral good and evil, with an approbation of one and disapprobation of the other, by an inward monitor excusing or accusing?
11

See Nos. 105, ‘On Conscience’; and 85, On Working Out Our Own Salvation’, III.4.

Certainly, whether this is natural or superadded by the grace of God, it is found, at least in some small degree, in every child of man. Something of this is found in every human heart, passing sentence concerning good and evil not only in all Christians, but in all Mahometans, all pagans, yea the vilest of savages.

22. May we not believe that all Christians, though but nominally such, have sometimes at least some desire to please God? As well as some light concerning what does really please him, and some convictions when they are sensible of displeasing him? Such 04:164treasure have all the children of men, more or less, even when they do not yet know God.

12

Cf. the passages on ‘conscience’ and ‘preventing grace’ in No. 85, ‘On Working Out Our Own Salvation’, II.1, III.4 and n.

33. But it is not these of whom the Apostle is here speaking, neither is this the treasure which is the subject of his discourse. The persons concerning whom he is here speaking are those that are born of God, those that, ‘being justified by faith’,

13

Rom. 5:1.

have now ‘redemption in the blood of Jesus, even the forgiveness of sins’;
14

Cf. Col. 1:14.

those who enjoy that peace of God which passeth all understanding;
15

Phil. 4:7.

whose soul doth magnify the Lord,
16

See Luke 1:46 (Magnificat).

and rejoice in him with joy unspeakable;
17

1 Pet. 1:8.

and who feel ‘the love of God shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto them’.
18

Cf. Rom. 5:5.

This then is the treasure which they have received, a faith of the operation of God,
19

Col. 2:12.

a peace which sets them above the fear of death, and enables them in everything to be content;
20

See Phil. 4:11.

an hope full of immortality,
21

Wisd. 3:4; see No. 72, ‘Of Evil Angels’, II.4 and n.

whereby they already ‘taste of the powers of the world to come’;
22

Heb. 6:5.

the love of God shed abroad in their hearts, with love to every child of man, and a renewal in the whole image of God, in all righteousness and true holiness. This is properly and directly the treasure concerning which the Apostle is here speaking.

 2

1II. 1. But this, invaluable as it is, ‘we have in earthen vessels’.

23

See No. 41, Wandering Thoughts, III.5 and n.

The word is exquisitely proper, denoting both the brittleness of the vessels, and the meanness of the matter they are made of. It directly means what we term ‘earthen ware’—china, porcelain, and the like. How weak, how easily broke in pieces! Just such is the case with a holy Christian. We have the heavenly treasure in earthly, mortal, corruptible bodies.
24

From the beginning (as in No. 40, Christian Perfection), Wesley had insisted on the radical limitations of human existence; see also No. 51, The Good Steward, II.3.

‘Dust thou art’, said the righteous Judge to his rebellious creature, till then incorruptible and immortal, ‘and to dust thou shalt return.’
25

Gen. 3:19.

How finely (but 04:165with what a mixture of light and darkness) does the heathen poet touch upon this change!

Post ignem aetheria domo
Subduxerat—

‘after man had stolen fire from heaven’ (what an emblem of forbidden knowledge!) magna et nova febrium, etc.

26

Cf. Horace, Odes, I.iii.29-31; magna must have been a misprint for the original macies: ‘After fire was stolen from its home in heaven, …a new throng (macies) of fevers fell upon the earth.’ See No. 56, ‘God’s Approbation of His Works’, II.1.

—that unknown army of consumptions, fevers, sickness, pain of every kind, fixed their camp upon earth, which till then they could no more have entered than they could scale heaven; and all tended to introduce and pave the way for the last enemy, death.
27

See 1 Cor. 15:26.

From the moment that awful sentence was pronounced the body received the sentence of death in itself; if not from the moment our first parents completed their rebellion by eating of the forbidden fruit. May we not probably conjecture that there was some quality naturally in this which sowed the seeds of death in the human body, till then incorruptible and immortal! Be this as it may, it is certain that from this time, ‘the corruptible body has pressed down the soul.’
28

Wisd. 9:15; see below, II.3; and No. 41, Wandering Thoughts, II.3 and n.

And no marvel; seeing the soul, during its vital union with the body, cannot exert any of its operations any other wise than in union with the body, with its bodily organs. But all of these are more debased and improved
29

Cf. OED (4b) for an older meaning of ‘improve’: to ‘augment (what is evil)’, to ‘make worse’; or is this a printer’s misreading for, say, ‘impaired’?

by the fall of man than we can possibly conceive; and the brain, on which the soul more directly depends, not less than the rest of the body. Consequently, if these instruments by which the soul works are disordered, the soul itself must be hindered in its operations. Let a musician be ever so skilful, he will make but poor music if his instrument be out of tune. From a disordered brain (such as is, more or less, that of every child of man) there will necessarily arise confound[ed]ness of apprehension, showing itself in a thousand instances: false judgment, the natural result thereof, and wrong inferences; and from these innumerable mistakes will follow, in spite of all the caution we can use. But mistakes in the judgment will frequently give occasion to mistakes in practice: they will naturally cause our speaking wrong in some instances, 04:166and acting wrong in others; nay, they may occasion not only wrong words or actions, but wrong tempers also. If I judge a man to be better than he really is, in consequence I really love him more than he deserves. If I judge another to be worse than he really is, I shall in consequence love him less
30

AM here reads ‘more’; all subsequent editors have printed its more logical alternative.

than he deserves. Now both these are wrong tempers. Yet possibly it may not be in my power to avoid either the one or the other.

22. Such are the unavoidable consequences of ‘having these treasures in earthen vessels’. Not only death and its forerunners, sickness, weakness, and pain, and a thousand infirmities, but likewise error in ten thousand shapes will be always ready to attack us. Such is the present condition of humanity! Such the state of the wisest men! Lord, ‘What is man, that thou art still mindful of him, or the Son of man, that thou regardest him!’

31

Cf. Ps. 8:4.

33. Something of this great truth, that the ‘corruptible body presses down the soul’,

32

Wisd. 9:15; cf. II.1, above; and No. 41, Wandering Thoughts, II.3 and n.

is strongly expressed in those celebrated lines of the ancient poet. Speaking of the souls of men he says:

Igneus est ollis vigor et coelestis origo
Seminibus, quantum non noxia corpora tardant
Terrenique hebetant artus moribundaque membra.
33

An exact quotation of Virgil, Aeneid, vi.730-32. The translation is neither Dryden’s nor Pitt’s; it may be Wesley’s own.

These seeds of heavenly fire
With strength innate would to their source aspire,
But that their earthly limbs obstruct their flight,
And check their soaring to the plains of light.

44. But suppose it pleased the all-wise Creator, for the sin of man, to suffer the souls of men in general to be weighed down in this miserable manner by their corruptible body, why does he permit the excellent treasure which he has entrusted to his own children to be still lodged in these poor earthen vessels? Would not this question naturally occur to any reflecting mind? Perhaps it would; and therefore the Apostle immediately furnishes us with a full answer: God has done this that ‘the excellency of the power might be of God, and not of us’;

34

2 Cor. 4:7.

that it might be undeniably plain to whom that excellent power belonged; that no flesh might glory 04:167in his sight, but that all who have received this treasure might continually cry, ‘Not unto us, but unto thee, O Lord, be the praise, for thy name and for thy truth’s sake.’
35

Cf. Ps. 115:1 (BCP).

5Undoubtedly this was the main design of God in this wonderful dispensation, to humble man, to make and keep him little and poor, and base and vile in his own eyes. And whatever we suffer hereby, we are well repaid if it be a means of ‘hiding pride from man’;

36

Cf. Job 33:17: see No. 21, ‘Sermon on the Mount, I’, I.8; for Wesley’s other references to pride, see No. 14, The Repentance of Believers, I.3 and n.

of laying us low in the dust, even then when we are most in danger of being lifted up by the excellent gifts of God.

66. Nay, if we suffer hereby from the mean habitation of the immortal spirit; if pain, sickness, and numberless other afflictions beside, to which we should not otherwise have been liable, assault us on every side, and at length bear us down into the dust of death

37

Ps. 22:15.

—what are we losers by this? Losers! No, ‘In all these things we are more than conquerors, through him that loved us.’
38

Rom. 8:37.

Come on then, disease, weakness, pain, afflictions (in the language of men). Shall we not be infinite gainers by them? Gainers for ever and ever! Seeing ‘these light afflictions, which are but for a moment, work out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory!’
39

Cf. 2 Cor. 4:17.

77. And are we not by the consciousness of our present weakness effectually taught wherein our strength lies? How loud does it proclaim, ‘Trust in the Lord Jehovah, for in him is everlasting strength!’

40

Cf. Isa. 26:4.

Trust in him who suffered a thousand times more than ever you can suffer! Hath he not all power in heaven and in earth? Then what though

The heavenly treasure now we have
In a vile house of clay!
Yet he shall to the utmost save,
And keep it to that day.
41

Cf. John and Charles Wesley, Hymns for those that seek…Redemption (1747), p. 69 (Poet. Wks., IV.281).

Potto,

42

Orig., ‘Potta’.

June 17, 1790

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