Sermon 133: Death and Deliverance

04:204 An Introductory Comment

This is Wesley’s first sermon. In his diary he records that he had begun to write a sermon immediately following his ordination as a deacon (September 19, 1725). He preached it for the first time at Fleet Marston and Winchendon (villages in nearby Buckinghamshire) on October 3rd. His text was Job 3:17.

1

Cf. Heitzenrater, ‘John Wesley’s Early Sermons’, pp. 110-12.

The holograph consists of fifteen numbered pages (roughly 4″ by 6″), and he kept these in his papers for the rest of his life. After his death, they came into Adam Clarke’s possession and then, much later, into the collection of Wesleyana and Methodistica of Mrs. Mary Ann Morley. She, in turn, bequeathed her collection to Wesley College, Leeds, in 1880, whence it came over to the library of Wesley College, Bristol. Other Wesley holographs in this collection include No. 138A, ‘On Dissimulation’, a Latin essay, De Satisfactione Christi, and the Larin sermon No. 151, ‘Hypocrisy in Orford’.

This manuscript still retains its original paper cover, on which there are several inscriptions in various hands. The most important, of course, is the number ‘1’ in Wesley’s own hand (confirmation of his later listing of it in his diary as his first sermon). There are also two later notes by Wesley: ‘The first sermon I ever wrote’, and ‘4 [struck through] 3 old sermons, L[ette]rs of Orders, Mr. Whitefield’s Presentation’. This suggests that he had a small sheaf of materials filed together with it. There is an interesting reference, in an unidentified hand, to ‘Miss Molly Beaucannon, Aura digna’ (‘a worthy auditor’). The manuscript had also been in Charles Wesley’s possession, for he had seen fit to add, ‘Master Bobby Kirkham, baculo dignus’ (‘a worthy supporter’; a usage of baculus from ecclesiastical Latin; its ordinary meaning was ‘staff’ or ‘sceptre’). Finally, there is a more formal heading written in Adam Clarke’s hand: ‘1725. Job iii.17, “There the wicked cease from troubling, etc.”’

The young Wesley was not one to write a sermon for a single use. This 04:205one has a listing on its back cover, in cipher, of other places where it was preached during the subsequent sixteen months:

At	Buckland Stanton	}	at Christmass 1725 [actually January 1725/26]
	St. Thomas’ Weston	}	in January [actually February 1725/26]
At	Wroote Epworth	}	in May [1726]
	Haxey Finningley	}

Beneath this list, in John Wesley’s longhand, is a further notation:

Preached at Stanton Harcourt	}	1727, in February
	South Lye [i.e., Leigh]

This sermon is a striking instance of the young Wesley’s preoccupation with ‘the art of dying’ and with its correlative doctrines of providence and grace. Its exegesis is heavily dependent on the comments of Matthew Poole and Matthew Henry on Job 3:17 (cf. Henry’s epigram: ‘Death is the prisoner’s discharge…and the servant’s manumission’). The untowardness and miseries of life are taken for granted; here death is celebrated as a passport to a happier life than this world affords. This, then, is our first glimpse into the mind and heart of ‘a very serious young man’ and his view of life as chiefly a preparation for death and eternity. Variations on this theme will, as we have seen, continue in Wesley’s preaching throughout his whole career.

For another sermon on Job 3:17, i.e., Wesley’s first published sermon, see No. 109, The Trouble and Rest of Good Men (1735).

04:206 Death and Deliverance

Job 3:17

In the third chapter of Job, at the seventeenth verse, are these words:

There the wicked cease from troubling;
there the weary are at rest.

1[1.] The miseries of life have been so copiously described and the inconsistency of perfect happiness with this state of probation so clearly evinced by many writers that reason alone would easily induce us to give sentence on their side. This is confirmed by the testimony of daily experience, too great an assurance of so melancholy a truth. The words of Jacob, ‘Few and evil have been the days of the years of thy servant,’

[Cf.] Gen. 47:9.

may be justly applied to the whole race of mankind. Such is the inheritance which the sin of our first father has entailed on his whole posterity. We meet with a far greater multitude of objects that excite a painful than which raise in us a pleasing reflection; and the number of our faculties is in this respect a great inconvenience, since they afford us so many more capacities of suffering: every sense being an inlet to bodily pain, and every power of the mind [an inlet] to vexation of spirit.

2[2.] Nor shall we wonder that so small a part of our life can lay any claim to real happiness, if we consider how many circumstances must concur to compose it. The disorder of any one part of the body is sufficient indeed to give us pain; but till the whole is in such a particular state as rightly to perform all its offices we are not capable of any degree of pleasure. And so likewise in the mind: a single desire is able to make us effectually miserable, while happiness is not to be obtained without the concurrence of all.

3[3.] Nor can we with justice ascribe the misery of men to their 04:207folly, as if their misfortunes were chiefly owing to want of judgment. Were this the case, all men would regularly advance in happiness as they attained to a higher degree of wisdom. But on the contrary we may observe that the wise [man] is equally if not more miserable than the fool; and his greater discernment (such is the tax laid on knowledge by nature) only gives him a quicker sense of his misfortune. Thus the Preacher himself affirms on his own experience, ‘In much wisdom is much grief, and he that increases knowledge increases sorrow.’

For most temporal enjoyments are not of such a nature as to suit the capacities of a reasonable soul, which observes the pleasing cheat with too strict an attention. They may indeed give entertainment to a weak understanding; but can never afford him any solid satisfaction who sees through them and knows that all is vanity.

4[4.] Yet although we all agree in calling life a burden,

it is a burden which very few are willing to lay down. We all know the ill[ness] and yet shun the cure; and though we are assured of being some way wretched as long as we continue here, we have an earnest desire for such a continuance. The thought of present death sets all our faculties in alarm. Nay, although when we calmly contemplate it at a distance we may some of us think with the Apostle, that ‘to die is gain’, yet even many good men are terrified at its approaches. The wisest heathens were so sensible of this natural frailty that they used all means to arm themselves and their followers against it. Very different indeed were the remedies they proposed. Some advised to think as little of it as possible, and divert the mind with less melancholy considerations. They were delaying the evil they could not prevent, not attending to the consequence of such a proceeding, which only gives the enemy time to gather more force, till it breaks out again with redoubled vehemence. Little, alas! will it avail that the hour of suffering is put off, if that delay gives new strength to what we are endeavouring to weaken, and if the sharpness of the pain 04:208 increases in the same proportion as we lessen the length of its duration. More agreeable to reason was the method of those who instead of representing death as a necessary evil denied it to be any evil at all: who describe it as a safe and quiet haven, an object of desire rather than fear; where we shall be secure from all future misfortune and danger, from the gusts of passion and the storms of malice and envy which, while we are fluctuating here, will be more or less continually beating against us. Nor is this consideration taken away, but improved, by Christianity, since we learn from Holy Writ that death is not only a haven, but an entrance into a far more desirable country—a land not flowing with milk and honey like the earthly Canaan, but with joys knowing neither cessation nor end. Who would not sink under the weight of oppression and misery, who could bear up against the assaults of present evils and the fear of future [evils], against the tormenting thoughts of his own many infirmities within, and the calumnies and injurious treatment he is frequently to expect from without; were he not assured that all these things will come to an end, and that his misery with his time passeth away like a shadow; that God hath prepared an eternal mansion for him, where sorrow and pain shall never know him; where his soul shall be no more moved with the scornful reproof of the wealthy, the despiteful usage of the evil-doer; a place, as it is beautifully described in the context, where the prisoners rest together and hear not the voice of the oppressor—in a word, ‘where the wicked cease from troubling, and where the weary are at rest’.

5[5.] In these words are contained the original of most and the final cure of all our afflictions; the former part of the verse showing the usual source of our troubles, the latter that we shall in due time be delivered from them.

6[6.] That most of the evils of life are owing to wicked men may be proved both from reason and experience. A contempt of God is seldom attended with too great a regard for our neighbour, ungodliness and wrong usually going hand in hand. The disciple is not greater than his master; so that if they despise and—as much as in them lies—trouble him, how much more will they do 04:209so to those of his household!

Accordingly we find those of the most exemplary virtue and piety despitefully used and traduced by wicked men in all ages. Those were desirous of taking away the peace they could not give, even without any prospect of advantage to themselves—imitating in this the grand adversary of mankind, who goeth daily about seeking whom he may devour, though it can be no alleviation of his own misery.

7[7.] And if men of ill principles will not cease from troubling, even where there is no external temptation; if they will thus sell their immortal souls for naught, and take no price for them; if they will pursue vice, as some would have us to do virtue, for its own sake and without any hope of reward; what may we not expect when that natural appetite for evil is whetted by views of pleasure or advantage? If they drink iniquity like water,

even though insipid and tasteless, how will they swallow it with greediness when sweetened by some present satisfaction! The desire of happiness is inseparably [bound] to our nature, and is the spring which sets all our faculties a-moving. We must not therefore admire if those who place it in temporal goods refuse no means that may in any wise conduce to the acquiring them: especially if they have arrived at such a perfection in impiety as either to say in their heart, ‘There is no God,’ or to deny his providence if not his being, and think he careth not for it. Well may destruction and misery proceed from their ways who have no fear of God before their eyes. Well may rapine and fraud, oppression and injustice extend their quarters and set up their banners for tokens, when pleasure and interest assist them. When so many united enemies are advancing, ’tis high time for the poor to fly for refuge to him who professes himself the helper of the friendless!

8[8.] Next to life itself and the necessaries of it,

good men have always agreed to esteem reputation, a great tenderness for it being 04:210implanted in our nature; insomuch that some have judged it preferable to life, which they cheerfully parted with to preserve it. Now the violation of this interest is an act so peculiar to wicked men that no one who is guilty of it in any kind can have any pretence to the contrary character. Thus Solomon makes tale-bearing and detraction the proper employment of a fool, which in Scripture language is the same as a wicked man; and David no less expressly ascribes it to the workers of iniquity ‘to whet their tongue like a sword, and shoot out their arrows, even bitter words.’

Psalm 64[:2-3].

9[9.] One would think the wicked should then have obtained their end, when they had deprived a good man of all the world calls blessings; when they had robbed him not only of fortune, but even of reputation, of far greater value than much riches. But as if this were a small thing, they frequently endeavour to deprive him also of his only support and comfort in misery, his reliance on him who careth for him. To this end they leave no method untried to shake his innocence. They strive to terrify him by threats, or allure him by promises, and represent integrity as nothing but a dead weight, which only makes it the more difficult for him to rise. Nay, if his malady be so desperate as not to admit of a cure, yet may it be capable of aggravation. He will scarce want evil counsellors who, like the wife of Job, will advise him to curse God and die;

who will [assure] him, ’tis some comfort to hope for none—and from the false supposition that providence has disclaimed him [will] draw as false a conclusion: that he ought to disclaim providence.

10[10.] Nor are the temptations of ill men to be feared only in adversity, but also in the greatest affluence of honours and fortune. No eminence of station can secure us from the danger of sometimes meeting with those enthusiasts in the cause of impiety who take more pains to make converts to irreligion than many Christians, however sincere in their profession, will take to defend the holy faith delivered to them. And though we may perhaps be too well grounded in our principles to be shaken by their assaults, though we have an utter abhorrence to their 04:211opinions as well as their practice, yet are we not entirely out of danger: for that abhorrence itself proves sometimes an occasion of falling. The anger we conceive against the fault may be immoderate, so as to give rise to uneasy and discontented reflections; or we may not sufficiently distinguish between the offence and the offender, but level our displeasure at the person rather than the crime.

The advice of the Psalmist is therefore worthy of our observation: ‘Fret not thyself because of the ungodly, neither be thou envious against the evil-doers. Leave off from wrath, and let go displeasure; else shalt thou be moved to do evil.’

11[11.] The secret poison of ill examples is no less apt to infect us than those more open attempts upon our piety. Vice has always been observed to be of a contagious nature, and its progress is the more sure for being unperceived. We too often find in ourselves a great proneness to imitate, even the evil actions of those about us; whether this fantastic

compliance proceed from that innate desire of society which makes us esteem it not good to be alone, even in virtue; or whether we vainly imagine that company will alleviate our punishment, that it will take off from the weight of it, to be divided among many.

12[12.] Innumerable are the calamities derived from this fountain, with which we are here obliged to maintain a perpetual conflict, till we are made partakers of that blessed rest the weary will enjoy when the wicked shall cease from troubling.

13[13.] It is not my design (in speaking on this head, which was the second thing proposed) to enter into any particular inquiry whether the happiness of the just immediately after death be the same with that they will enjoy when united again to their bodies;

or whether, as seems most agreeable to Holy Writ, it receives a new accession at the great day. Sure we are that it is infinitely superior to any happiness it is possible to arrive at in this world. They are delivered from all those cares, afflictions, and dangers, all that anguish and anxiety, which is unavoidably their portion as 04:212long as they remain in this transitory life. They are exempted from sorrow, need, and sickness, and from a possibility of any future adversity, and enjoy a perfect quiet and rest from their labours. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them; nor any heat: the Lord God shall wipe all tears from their eyes, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

14[14.] Add to this that they are freed from the tyranny of sin, a yoke they could never hope to cast off entirely as long as they carried about them those mortal bodies in which the seeds of corruption were so deeply implanted.

The law of our members is now continually warring against the law of our mind, and even when we would do good, evil is present with us. But we lay down these infirmities with this veil of flesh, and the spirit will then be able as well as willing to perform its duty; and the more sensible we are of our present weakness, the more shall we rejoice at our deliverance from it. What a satisfaction must [it] be to a good man to perceive the good works he had begun in this life continued and perfected in himself, to find every one of those Christian virtues with which he had endeavoured to adorn his soul improved and drawn out to its utmost extent!

15[15.] And it will be no small addition to his happiness that he has a lively sense of the farther glory reserved for him. St. Peter observes that pious men, even in manifold temptations,

rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory when they contemplate the inheritance of which they will one day be made partakers. How inconceivable then must be their joy when they see it no longer through a glass darkly, but have a full and clear prospect of that crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous Judge, has appointed for them; when they are no longer tormented with 04:213fears of falling away and coming short of the reward they have in view, being already possessed of a partial happiness, as an earnest of one more complete and perfect.

16[16.] Now if the reward of the just even before the day of final retribution will [be] so inexpressibly, so inconceivably great and glorious; if their happiness be so great already, and will nevertheless be still greater, what shall we say of the state of just men made perfect?

When to the absence of all evil shall be added the presence of all the good that a Being of infinite wisdom and power is able to bestow? When God shall make them possess the fullness of joy at his own right hand for evermore, and drink of the rivers of pleasure in the new Jerusalem? Very excellent things are indeed spoken of thee, O thou city of God! But who, even with the tongue of men and angels, can worthily describe what eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive!

17[17.] Seeing, then, all these things are for our sakes; seeing we have the promise of perfect happiness annexed to our obedience, of ‘an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away’;

‘what manner of men ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness!’

[Cf.] 2 Pet. 3:11.

What diligence, even according to human prudence, should we use to make our calling and election sure! With what unconcern should we encounter all temporal afflictions, with what patience, yea, cheerfulness, shall we face death itself, so terrible to the natural man, when we are assured that all these things work together for our good, and will entitle us to an eternal weight of glory! When we are defamed, reviled, or despitefully treated by men, let us comfort ourselves with the firm persuasion that we shall soon rest where the wicked cease front troubling. If we are at any time oppressed with a sense of our infirmities, or discouraged by the mortifying reflection that this 04:214body, however now set off with outward advantages or adorned with the bloom of youth and beauty, must shortly be resolved into its principles of dust and ashes; let us reflect at the same time that God will not leave our soul in hell, but in his own good time reunite it to its ancient companion; and that then this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal be clothed with immortality; finally, that though after our skin worms destroy this body, yet even in our flesh shall we see God.

Job 19:26.

18[18.] Now to the adorable and ever-blessed Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, be ascribed, as is most due, all honour, majesty, and dominion, both now and for ever! Amen.