Notes:
Sermon 138: Death and Deliverance
1In retrospect, John Whitehead could conclude that John Wesley had been, if anything, candid past the point of prudence.
Life of Wesley, I.148.
2There had been, of course, an abundant controversy on the question of ‘dissimulation’, what with the violence of seventeenth-century English life and the tenuous fortunes of public life in the eighteenth century. Both Gilbert Burnet and Jonathan Swift had seen dissimulation as a prevalent way of life.
See Burnet’s History of His Own Times, I.660, and Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (Heritage Press ed. [1940], Pt. III, pp. 265-69, 271); see also Lecky, History of England in the Eighteenth Century, I.147-48, 164-65, 298.
Cf. Francis Bacon, in The Idea of a Patriot King (Works, III.80-81): ‘Dissimulation and secrecy are like the alloys mingled with pure ore; a little is necessary and will not debase the coin below its proper standard…’.
‘Loving and Beloved’, in Fragmenta Aurea (1646).
JWJ, April 14, 1756.
304:253But Wesley stood unmoved in a contrary tradition, that cherished sincerity and repudiated all its opposites as hypocrisy. He had the backing of Robert South, who blasted away at dissimulation in sermon after sermon.
Cf., e.g., Sermons (1844), I.139, 187-203.
Cf. Sermons (1657), p. 199.
4The following sermon and its two related fragments express the young Wesley’s views. Later, he will repeat them and his condemnations of lying even with an alleged good intention, in Nos. 24, ‘Sermon on the Mount, IV’, IV.3; 52, The Reformation of Manners, IV.4-5; and 90, ‘An Israelite Indeed’, a second sermon on John 1:47.
5The holograph of the full sermon here survives in the Morley Collection in Wesley College, Bristol. It is on thirteen numbered pages in the abbreviated longhand already mentioned. The paper cover has the number ‘17’ inscribed on it in Wesley’s hand (indicating its place in the early sermons). Beneath this is a note, in Adam Clarke’s hand: ‘Mr. J. Wesley’s Sermon on John 1:47, Behold an Israelite Indeed, etc. Jan. 17, 1728.’ Near the foot of p. 13 is a further note in Wesley’s hand: ‘Jan. 17, 1728, tr[anscribed], 22 m[inutes]’and ‘2½ aftern[oon]’ (i.e., 2:30 p.m., the time he had finished transcribing his fair copy). On the back cover there is a final notation of Wesley’s, ‘At Epworth’.
6The first fragment on Rom. 12:9 would appear to have been a first draft of the proem of still another sermon ‘against dissimulation’, with no indication of date or provenance, but probably from the same general period. It may be seen, as a single page, in the Elmer T. Clark Collection of Wesleyana in Lake Junaluska, North Carolina.
7The second fragment looks more like the remains of an uncompleted draft of what had been designed as a whole sermon. It has survived as part of the Colman Miscellany in the Methodist Archives in Manchester, in a form that poses many puzzles. There are twelve pages; the first two are blank, the third is numbered ‘3’, the fourth has revisions 04:254for insertion on the facing (fifth) page, the sixth with revisions of the text on its facing page (numbered ‘4’). The eighth page is blank, the ninth has some text but is unnumbered, the tenth is blank, the eleventh is numbered ‘5’ and contains only two lines of text, ending with an unfinished sentence, the twelfth page is blank. There are numerous erasures, revisions, and additions. Its text, as presented here, is an attempted reconstruction of what may have been Wesley’s intentions as they can be gathered from the document as it stands.
8The connection between the two fragments is obscure. What is clear is that, whether we are dealing with two sermons (the first one on John 1:47, the other on Rom. 12:9) or with three, the arguments in all of them are commonplace enough to see in all of this material an expression of a single idea with different facets: that dissimulation has no successful defenders—only practitioners—that it is actually a form of folly (as well as a vice) because it is finally self-defeating; dissemblers are often hard-pressed to maintain their disguises. The conclusion is also a Christian commonplace, viz., that, therefore, honesty is not only the best polity but also the easier one in the long run. Nothing here, either in the sermon or the two fragments, goes beyond Sheppard or South or Tillotson. Thus, whatever the complications of these texts, the resulting impression is plain enough: here is the gospel of moral rectitude as understood by a young Anglican who was both a fledgling don and, at the time, an apprentice country cleric.
04:255 Sermon 138A: On DissimulationJohn 1:47
Ἴδε ἀληθῶς Ἰσραηλίτης, ἐν ᾧ δόλος οὐκ ἔστι.
Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!
1[1.] ’Tis too common an artifice with our enemy to persuade us into one sin to hide another. And an artifice it is, too commonly successful. When he has once led men into that strong delusion
See 2 Thess. 2:11.
See OED for eighteenth-century usages of ‘character’ as connoting ‘good repute’ or ‘status’.
2[2.] Particular sins on particular occasions he recommends to them for this purpose. But a general one there is that answers all, a habit [of] dissimulation, the practice directly opposite to that which God recommends to Christians. This his favourites are seldom without, and they find it indeed of eminent service. A man may cover some vices by other methods, but this is equally a cover for all. The whole person, unless when he has a mind to appear, is by this made quite invisible; and when he has a mind to appear, ’tis usually in a shape quite different from his own.
3[3.] G.D.
I.e., ‘General Divisions’; cf. Nos. 141, ‘The Image of God’, §4 and n.; and 145, ‘In Earth as in Heaven’ on Matt. 6:10. John Donne (William Mueller, John Donne: Preacher, pp. 98-99), Jonathan Swift (‘Letter to a Young Clergyman’), and Benjamin Kennicott (undated letter printed in WMM, 1866, p. 47) use the term ‘divisions’ with reference to sermons.
For commendations of ‘sincerity’ see Nos. 137, ‘On Corrupting the Word of God’, Preface; and 2, The Almost Christian, I.9 and n. Wesley’s comment here probably refers to the first of a trilogy of sermons on John 147 (No. 16 in Professor Heitzenrater’s enumeration) which has not survived.
1I. [1.] If an estimate can be made of the baseness of any practice from the baseness of its original, where is it possible to find one that had a meaner than artifice and dissembling? It sprung first from the basest being in nature: the devil was the father both of this and [of] lies.
See John 8:44.
Such Satan was before the world began, and such has he been ever since. His fellows indeed he can deceive no more, so that he has been forced to employ his skill on new objects; and what objects could he find so proper for his purpose, after his fellows, as the children of men? They had neither too much understanding, nor too little: not so much as to put him out of hopes of success, without which he would not have dared to attempt them; nor so little as to prevent their being accountable for his success, without which it would not have gratified his malice, and so he would not have cared for it. On these he has practised ever since; and practised so long till he has taught them his art; till he has taught them, with other of his dispositions, this disposition to deceive so perfectly that perhaps ’tis only the want of equal natural powers that hinders some of them from equalling their master.
22. Little more honour, we may suppose, can dissembling gain from these its practisers than from its author. If he who gave them their parts, the master of the house, be Beelzebub,
Matt. 10:25.
See Gen. 3:7.
33. By this means his work multiplies on his hands: he must lay veil upon veil, must take as much care to cover his dissimulation as he did by that dissimulation to cover anything else. For so very despicable is a known dissembler in the eyes of all men that scarce any man thinks it worth while to dissemble the low opinion he entertains of him. So very generally is dissimulation despised that it never yet has found a defender.
See Nos. 100,‘On Pleasing All Men’, I.4 and n.; and 111, National Sins and Miseries, II.2
0II. Yet well it were for the crafty, if this were [all]; if they were only despised by those that knew them. But ’tis seldom so well with them. Few men stop here; ’tis an easy step from contempt to hatred. An open, generous enemy we make allowances to, and often wish to make a friend of. But one that smiles in our face while he prepares to wound us is as odious as dishonourable.
Cf. Shakespeare, Hamlet, I.v.108: ‘…one may smile, and smile, and be a villain!’
Cf. Dryden, Conquest of Granada, Pt. 2, Act IV, sc. 3: ‘give a loose to love’; Nathaniel Lee, Theodosius, Or the Force of Love, Act III, sc. 2: ‘Now give a loose, let go the slacken’d reins’; Watts, ‘A Hymn for Sermon VIII’, st. 3 (Works, I.94):
But if you quit the paths of truth,
To follow foolish fires,
And give a loose to giddy youth,
With all its wild desires.
See also ibid., ‘A Hymn for Sermon XXIV’ (Works, I.267): ‘give our tongues a loose’; Wesley in No. 23, ‘Sermon on the Mount, III’, I.5, speaks of ‘giving a loose to our desires’.
04:258Where indeed could sincerity of hatred be better placed, were we not restrained by our religion? As the more benevolent any being is the more it deserves the love of others, so the less benevolent, the more malicious and revengeful a being is, the properer object it is of hate. But ’tis a question whether they be capable of love, who are given over to dissembling—that they are fully capable of hatred, malice, and revenge, we have frequent and melancholy proofs. The nature of love is sincere, plain, and open; and so is the nature of discretion. This therefore is well consistent with it—whether cunning be may be doubted. For where one [is], there is no need of the other. Why should a man dissemble when he loves? If his goodwill appeared, would he be ever the worse? Is it not rather likely to procure him a return of goodwill? And that no one, surely, will be afraid of! No, it is not love, but hate, that men use to dissemble. He therefore that dissembles with all men gives a strong presumption that he loves none; none, at least, so well as his [own] interest
And how detestable a character is this! How nearly resembling that of the devil, his teacher!
For Wesley’s satanocratic views, see No. 12, ‘The Witness of Our Own Spirit’, §10 and n.
0III. The folly of this base, hateful practice, comes in the third place to be considered. And this we may easily do by observing, first, the ends the dissembler aims at, ends unsatisfactory while they last, and yet incapable of lasting long; and then the means he uses to attain them, which, to say no more of their odiousness and baseness, are difficult, dangerous, and sinful.
11. First, the end the dissembler proposes to himself must be 04:259some temporal advantage. They whose chief end in acting is eternal happiness neither need nor dare conceal it. But this [temporal] end, whether wealth, honour, power, or sensual pleasure, if ever he should attain it, when attained, will not satisfy his desires, will not make him happy, even while it lasts. All things under the sun—believe him who tried them
I.e., the author of Ecclesiastes; the phrase ‘under the sun’ occurs twenty-nine times in Eccles., and nowhere else in the AV.
22. That what he seeks is perishable, as well as unsatisfactory, is
another proof of the folly of a dissembler. Though the objects he pursues
are but empty and trifling, yet would their value be greater than it is if
they would continue with him that acquired them. But he has not only chosen
the worse part, but that which soon will be taken away. When he hath spent
his life, and consumed his strength in the acquirement, ‘what hath he of all
his labour, and of the vexation of his heart, wherewith he hath laboured
under the sun?’
Eccles. 2:22.
Cf. Eccles. 2:21.
Cf. Eccles. 9:10.
33. Let us, secondly, consider the means the crafty make use of in pursuit of their wretched purpose. How difficult they are is easy to conceive: the dissembler has so many parts to play that without the utmost pains and vigilance he can scarce avoid being out in some. He must seem of all parties, opinions, and tempers, as those vary with whom he converses. But how hard is it to shift the scene so often and never be suspected of shifting it at all! The very number of his parts carries difficulty with it, were each of them ever so easy. But each of them singly is less easy than the part of an honest man; he follows nature, whom the other directly 04:260opposes, and may therefore depend on her assistance. And wh[ere] nature falls, grace supplies h[is] want—with which the dissembler can have little acquaintance.
44. This makes his [the honest man’s] business as safe as ’tis easy: whereas the dissembler, by the nature of his employ, is exposed to continual danger. He has undertaken to defend so numerous posts that ’tis great odds if [he] can always defend them, if he is not, in spite of all his care, surprised sometime at one or other. Besides, many of them are scarcely tenable long against a prudent, observing man. The least oversight gives the one so irrecoverable an advantage, that all the shifts of the other will not be enough to secure him from the misfortune he dreads above all things: the being divested of his borrowed plumes and shown to the world in his native colours. Nor does he dread it without cause; for whenever this happens all his measures are disconcerted, all his schemes are destroyed; and if he prosecute them still he has farther to go than when he first set out.
55. The sinfulness of this difficult, dangerous practice is the last and greatest instance of its folly. And this no one can long doubt of: for if sincerity be a virtue, then dissembling must be a vice, they being opposite habits; wherefore
MS, ‘wh of’ (i.e., ‘whereof’), surely an error for ‘wh f’.
Ps. 5:6 (BCP).
Ps. 55:21 [AV].
‘Deliver me, O Lord,’ said David, who knew them, ‘from lying 04:261 lips, and from a deceitful tongue.’
Ps. 120:2.
Eccles. 7:26.
Eccles. 7:26.
Romans 12:9
Let love be without dissimulation.
From that most agreeable, as [also that] most indispensable duty, of loving our neighbour as ourselves, no Christian possibly can, and none ever desired to be, released. So express and frequently repeated are the precepts that enjoin it, that while their authority is allowed to be divine, their force can never be eluded. So great and numerous are the advantages resulting from it, as to all men, so in particular to him who himself observed it, that he would be far from desiring it if it could [be eluded].
The preceding sentence contains several revisions, including the erasure of ‘not desire to be less obliged to it’ between ‘would’ and ‘be’. It appears that Wesley either lost the thread of his sentence or (less likely) that there was a facing page with some alterations which have been lost.
Yet from this, as from most other strong principles of acting, at least from the appearances of them, much evil as well as much good may result; to prevent which St. Paul lays down, in the words of the text, a very necessary caution concerning it: let love be without dissimulation; let our affection to our neighbour be true, genuine, and sincere; let no part of it, much less the whole, be put on to serve a turn….
…We shall more evidently see the absolute necessity of this loving without dissimulation if we consider, first, the General Reasons there are….
This passage appears on the verso of the opening page and clearly was intended as an insertion on the missing p. ‘2’, occurring about halfway down that page, which may well have begun sect. I. of the sermon, on general reasons for avoiding dissimulation. Thus the extant page would form the beginning of Wesley’s ‘introduction’.
0[I.] …that sort of deceit which of all others has most to plead [by way of] excuse. ‘Will you speak wickedly’, saith he, ‘for God? And talk deceitfully for him?’
Job 13:7.
[Job 13,] ver. 11.
Prov. 26:18-19.
II. But of all dissimulation the most inexcusable is that which is now, in the second place, to be considered: that which counterfeits affection where there is none; or where there is, couples it with dissembling. For beside the reasons above repeated against dissimulation in general, there are several others over and above, which particularly require that our love should be without dissembling. Though were there none of these latter our obligation would nevertheless very plainly appear: for if all dissimulation be unlawful,
The MS contains the following, which is struck through: ‘then must every species of it be so, and if so…’.
But setting this aside, to dissemble love implies either that we really have none, or that we strive to make the love we have appear greater than it is. But whether it be taken in one sense or the other it is a [practice] as despicable as it is foolish, and [odious] to God and man.
See Rom. 12:9; and below, n. 29.
See 2 Cor. 12:9.
Were it only on this account, were only his folly to be considered, a dissembler of love would be a very despicable character. And that it is so mankind is generally agreed; most men concurring in a sincere contempt of him who is insincere in his professions of love to others. Indeed, whether they did or no, there is something so extremely base, so particularly mean and servile in this sort of dissimulation, that a generous spirit could never descend to it. To act in perpetual contradiction to one’s own desires and sentiments, to commend him for whom one has no real esteem, to watch over his interests for whom one has no real love, are instances of the most low and abject slavery. And yet these and numberless others is he we speak of under a necessity of submitting to.
The following is here erased: ‘or he can’t even appear to love,’ after which a large cross (X) in the centre of the page strikes out the following passage: ‘since everyone knows ’tis the property of that passion to make us ready to give up ourselves in whatever is of small consequence, desirous of finding and publishing the good qualities, [‘of the beloved object’, struck through] and particularly studious of the welfare of the beloved object.’
Such ungenerous, servile baseness of temper as this must needs raise contempt in all that are witnesses of it, unless themselves have reason to be afraid of the same condemnation. And hatred as well as contempt it can scarce fail of raising, seeing it is mischievous as well as servile. From professed enemies prudence and caution may secure us; but what will secure us from professing friends?
Wesley’s variation of a common English proverb; cf. Frank S. Mead, ed., The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations (Westwood, N.J., Fleming H. Revell Co., n.d), p. 155: ‘God save me from my friends; I can take care of my enemies’; and W. C. Hazlitt, English Proverbs (1860), p. 328: ‘Save a man from his friends and leave him struggle with his enemies.’
Here, Wesley first wrote, and then deleted: ‘and where we know on what side we will be attacked’.
It cannot be but that the occasion of so much ill to mankind must be odious as well to God as man;
Cf. above, n. 24; another oblique reference to Rom. 12:9.
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Entry Title: Sermon 138: Death and Deliverance