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Sermon 147: Wiser than the Children of Light

https://wesleyworks.ecdsdev.org/sermons/Sermon147

04:360 An Introductory Comment

1Here is a sermon that may have been written by John Wesley; one can claim no more than that. It exists in Charles Wesley’s handwriting in the Colman collection of manuscript sermons and, on its last page, has the usual postscript, ‘Transcribed May 6, 1736, at Frederica’, without the added reference ‘from my brother’s copy’. There is, however, no evidence that, at this time, Charles was transcribing sermons from other sources than his brother’s copies; the following day (May 7) Charles transcribed No. 140, ‘The Promise of Understanding’.

These two texts are both listed in John Wesley’s diary sermon list; see Heitzenrater, ‘John Wesley’s Early Sermons’, pp. 120, 127.

2The annotation inside its front cover indicates that Charles preached this sermon at Frederica on May 9 and then, once more, in Savannah on Sunday, July 25. The latter date marked a noteworthy event on several counts. It was Charles’s last day in Georgia, after a dismal failure as Oglethorpe’s secretary for Indian affairs and as pastor at Frederica. Oglethorpe and John Wesley were both present in this ‘farewell’ congregation (along with fifteen others). For reasons not recorded, this sermon was not included in the 1816 edition of Charles Wesley’s Sermons.

3The sermon amounts to an unnuanced version of the gospel of moral rectitude; its most notable feature is the ironic touch in its argument that although ‘the children of this world’ are more prudent than ‘the children of light’, as a rule, that this is no argument against prudence. The crucial distinction appears to be between prudence in the service of self-centred goals and prudence in the service of ‘light’. Thus, the conclusion is an eighteenth-century commonplace: true religion need not be unrealistic on principle. For a man as unrealistic as Charles had been in his six months in Georgia it is, indeed, an unconsciously ironic ‘parting shot’.

4There are three further recorded instances of John’s having preached from Luke 16:8: twice in 1747 and once in 1749; but one must suppose that by then his interpretation of the text had taken on a more evangelical tone. In any case, here is the sermon in its first publication, since the Wesleys (including Charles’s widow), for one reason or another, had consigned it to oblivion.

04:361 Wiser than the Children of Light

Luke 16:8

In the sixteenth chapter of St. Luke’s Gospel, at the eighth verse, it is thus written:

The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.

In these words there is something implied and something directly asserted. It is implied,

First, that there are a sort of men who are children of this world, that is, who make the good of this world their end, and seek no farther for their rest and happiness. It is implied again, on the other side,

II, that there are a sort of men who are children of light, who look beyond this black vale of misery,

Ps. 84:6 (BCP).

and propose to themselves the happiness of another life as their true and last end. It is implied,

III, that the former of these are not absolutely wise, but only wiser in their generation.

IV. The thing directly asserted is this, that notwithstanding their want of true wisdom (that wisdom which is from above)

Jas. 3:17.

they are, however, wiser in their generation than the children of light. That is, that however they are befooled in the choice of their end, yet they make more prudent provisions for its attainment, and prosecute it by more apt means, and with greater cunning

I.e., ‘skill’, as in all its occurrences in the AV Old Testament and in Johnson, Dictionary, 2: ‘art, skill, knowledge’. In the manuscript a later hand has changed ‘cunning’ to ‘craft’. Note that the term, in its only instance in the AV New Testament (Eph. 4:14), means ‘deceitful’, as in Johnson’s first definition (‘artifice, deceit, slyness’). Cf. Bishop Robert Sanderson’s usage of the same phrase (‘greater cunning’) in his Twenty Sermons (1660; ‘Ad Aulem’, No. XV, on Luke 16:8), p. 300.

and diligence, than they who have chosen a better do theirs. Of these in their order.

I. And first it is implied, that there are a sort [of men who are children of this world,

MS reads ‘…there are a sort etc.’; text in brackets provided from proem above. Cf. No. 80, ‘On Friendship with the World’, §21 and n.

that is, who make the good of this world 04:362their end, and seek no farther for their rest and happiness]. ’Tis indeed strange that there should be any such, considering that the world is no proper boundary for the soul, even in its natural capacity, much less in its spiritual: it is too cheap and inconsiderable a good for an immortal spirit, much more for a divine nature. And therefore, did not the commonness of the thing take off from the wonder, it would seem no doubt as great a prodigy to see a man make the world his end as to see a stone hang in the air. For what is it else for a man, the weight of whose nature presses hard towards a stable and never failing centre, to stop short in a fluid and yielding medium, and take up with the slender stays of vanity, and lean upon the dream of a shadow?

Pindar, Pythian Odes, viii.95-96; see also No. 124, ‘Human Life a Dream’, §2 and n.

I say, why is not this to be looked upon as equally strange and preternatural as a stone’s hanging in the air?

Cf. Sanderson, Twenty Sermons, p. 304.

Is not the air as proper a boundary for a stone as the world is for a soul? And why then is not one as strange as the other? For in the first place, one would think it next to impossible that a man who thinks at all should not frequently and throughly consider the vanity and emptiness of all worldly good, the shortness and uncertainty of life, the certainty of dying, and the uncertainty of the time when; the immortality of the soul, the doubtful and important issues of eternity, the terrors of damnation, and the glorious things which are spoken and which cannot be uttered of the city of God.

See Ps. 87:3.

These are meditations so very obvious, so almost unavoidable, and that so block up a man’s way, and besides they are so very important, that the wonder is how a man can think of anything else. And if a man does consider these things, one would think it yet more impossible that he should make so vain a thing as this world his end; that he should think of building tabernacles of rest of this side the grave, and say, ‘It is good to be here.’

Cf. Matt 17:4.

But whether it is that men do not heartily believe such a thing as a future state of happiness and misery, or do not actually and seriously consider it, we are too well assured from experience that there are such men in the world: men who going through the vale of misery use it not only as a well

See Ps. 84:6 (BCP).

to refresh and allay, but fully to quench and satisfy their thirst; ‘who mind and relish earthly 04:363things’;

Cf. Phil. 3:19.

who make the good of this world their last aim, the sum total of their wishes, the upshot of their desires and expectations, their end; who love it as they are commanded to love God, with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength;

See Mark 12:30.

who rest and lean upon the world with the whole stress and full weight of their being, who outdo the curse of the serpent,

See Gen. 3:14.

and whose very soul cleaves to the dust.

See Ps. 119:25.

For (I demand) is not the interest of this animal life the great governing principle of the world?

This had been Hobbes’s point in Leviathan, and the principle had been tacitly acknowledged in the practice of the rival ‘coalitions of interest’ in Hanoverian England.

Is not everything, almost, reckoned profitable only so far as it conduces to some temporal interest, insomuch that the very name ‘interest’ is almost [always] appropriated to worldly advantage? And is not this the great bias of mankind? Do we not see men all set and intent upon the world, that lay themselves out wholly upon it, and can relish nothing but what has relation to it; men that seem to grow into the soil where they dwell, and to have their heads and hearts fastened to the ground with as many cords and fibres as the root of a tree; and that seem to be staked down and nailed fast to the earth, and that can no more be moved from it than the earth itself can from its centre? In one word, men of whom it may be said (without censure) that the world is their God, and its pleasures, honours, and profit, their Trinity.

To our experience we may add the attestation of Scripture in proof of this low-sunk, wretched, and deplorable degeneracy of soul. So Job: ‘If I have made gold my hope, or said to the fine gold, Thou art my confidence’

Job 31:24.

—implying that some there were that did so. And does not the Psalmist say, ‘Lo, this is the man that took not God for his strength, but trusted in the multitude of his riches, and strengthened himself in his wickedness.’

Ps. 52:8 [BCP].

And does not the Apostle tell us of some ‘whose God is their belly’,

Phil. 3:19.

and of others, ‘whose godliness is their gain’?

[Cf.] 1 Tim. 6:5.

And what else does he mean when he says of covetousness that it is idolatry,

Col. 3:5.

than that the covetous wretch not only delights in his possessions, but 04:364places his end and chief happiness in them, that he falls down and adores his golden calf,

See Exod. 32:8.

‘makes gold his hope, and says to the fine gold, Thou art my confidence’!

Cf. Job. 31:24.

But the minds of men (thanks be to God!) are not all under this eclipse, nor is this darkness spread over the whole face of the deep.

See Gen. 1:2.

Light and darkness divide the moral, as well as the natural world, though with the difference of unequal proportions—the darker is here the bigger

Changed in MS by a later hand to ‘larger’.

side. There are, however, though not many, yet there are,

II. Secondly, a sort of men who are children of light; whose minds are more enlightened, and their eye more clear and single; who look beyond the veil of the material world, the beauty of which can neither charm, nor its thickness detain their piercing sight, and propose to themselves the happiness of another life as their true and last end. This all Christians

MS orig. read ‘many do’; changed later by Charles.

do in profession, and some few in reality; aiming indeed at the right mark, though all of them have not a hand steady enough to strike it.

IIΙ. But to return again to the children of this world. It is implied, in the third place, that these are not absolutely wise, but only that they are wiser in their generation. Indeed they think themselves wise, and the world for the most part is of their opinion. They are generally esteemed, not only wise, but the only wise men; men of reach and design, policy, and conduct. Nay, hence, and hence only, are taken the measures of wisdom and prudence, and this is made the rule and standard of all policy and discretion: a man is counted so far wise and no farther than he knows how to get an estate, or raise a family, or give birth to a name, and make himself great and considerable in the world. He that can do this is a shrewd man, and he that cannot is either pitied or laughed at by those that can.

But whatever the opinion of men may be, we are assured by the Apostle that ‘the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.’

1 Cor. 3:19.

And the Psalmist, speaking of worldly-minded men ‘that think their houses shall continue for ever, and call their lands after their 04:365own names’, says expressly, ‘This is their foolishness.’

Ps. 49:11, 13 (BCP).

And this censure he boldly charges upon them, how singular soever it might seem, and though not only the present generation of men should vote them wise, but even their posterity, those of more improved reasonings and more enlarged experience, should ‘praise their saying’.

Ps. 49:13 (BCP).

Thus light do these men weigh in the balance of the sanctuary,

Wesley’s earliest recorded use of this metaphor; see No. 10, ‘The Witness of the Spirit, I’, II.8 and n.

nor will they be found to be less wanting in that of reason.

For another instance of the matching image of ‘the balance of reason’, see No. 84, The Important Question, III.7.

For how can they deserve the title of wise men who are out in the very first and leading part of wisdom, the choosing of a right end? This is such a mighty flaw as nothing that comes after can make up. When once a man has fixed for himself a wrong end, he has cut out a false channel for the whole course of his life, which must needs be ever after one constant blunder; and though he be never so ingenious afterward to compass this end, his wisdom comes too late, and does but serve to ensure and hasten his ruin. The ship indeed has good sails, there is nothing wanting in the executive part; but steering to a wrong point, it has this only advantage from them—to be dashed upon the rock with the greater speed and violence.

[IV.] I now proceed, in the fourth place, to the thing directly asserted in the text, which is that, notwithstanding the want of true wisdom in the children of this world, they are however wiser than the children of light. Or, in other words, that however they are befooled in the choice of their end, yet they make more prudent provisions for its attainment, and prosecute it by more agreeable means, and with more cunning and diligence, than they who have chosen a better do theirs. They come vastly short indeed of the children of light in the first part of wisdom, the choice of a right end, in which respect the child of light has as much the precedence in point of wisdom as heaven is better than earth; but then they exceed them as much in the second, the choice and application of right means.

1[1.] I shall first show the probability that it should be so, and then prove that it is so.

04:366For, first, the good things of this world are present, those of the other remote and distant. How far distant we do not know, and are therefore apt to fancy the farthest remove—like travellers that think the way always longest where they are the greatest strangers. Now we know a present good has a great advantage above a far distant and late reversion. For the good that is present opens itself all at once to the soul, and acts upon it with its full and entire force; there is not so much as a ray of its light but what strikes us. But now that which is future is seen by parts and in succession, and a great deal of it is not seen at all, like the rays of a too distant object, which are too much dispersed before they come at us, and so most of them miss the eye. This makes the least present interest outweigh a very considerable reversion, since the former strikes upon us with the strong influence and warmth of the neighbouring sun, the latter with the faint and cold glimmerings of a twinkling star.

Then, secondly, the good things of this world, as they are present, so do they strike upon the most tender part about us, our senses. They attempt

I.e., ‘to attack or tempt’; cf. Johnson, Dictionary.

us, as the devil did Adam, in our weaker part, through the Eve of our natures. A sensible

I.e., ‘perceived by the senses’; cf. OED, and Johnson, Dictionary.

representation is the strongest of all representations. A sensible representation, even of the vanity of the world, would work more with us than the discourse of an angel about it; what then shall we think of the glory of it, when so represented? How would that attest and subdue us!

And this the devil very well knew and considered when he was to tempt the Son of God in covetousness and ambition. In order to this he might have entertained him with fine discourses about the wealth and glories of the terrestrial globe. But he knew his advantage better than so, and chose rather to draw a visionary landskip

I.e., ‘landscape’; cf. Wesley’s ‘Part of the 104th Psalm Paraphrased’ (‘O’er the smiling landskip glow’) in Poet. Wks., VIII.193. See also Addison, The Spectator, No. 441, July 26, 1712 (‘Amid the verdant landskip flow’); and Quarles, Emblemes (1634), ‘The First Book’, Invocation, l. 17; and John Gambold, ‘On taking Up a Bird Shot Through the Wing’, l. 4, which Wesley published in AM (1778), I.91.

before him, knowing by old experience how much more apt the senses are to take impression than any other faculty of man.

Now this is the great advantage that the good things of this world have: they are obvious to our senses; we see them, we hear 04:367them, we smell them; we taste them, we feel and handle them, and have the most intimate and endearing conversation with them. ‘The things that are temporal are seen;’

Cf. 2 Cor. 4:18; MS originally contained the additional phrase ‘(it is their distinguishing character)’, later deleted.

but the things that are eternal are not seen, but only through a glass darkly,

1 Cor. 13:12.

and in reference to the other world, ‘we walk by faith, and not by sight.’

2 Cor. 5:7.

2[2.] I come now in the second place to prove that the children of this world are more heartily concerned for the attainment of their end than the children of light for theirs.

And here, first, we find by experience that the men of this world do prefer their secular interest above all other things whatsoever, in every instant of action, in all junctures and circumstances. Though their end be false, yet they are not so, but keep true to it, and always prefer it. They will adhere to it at any rate, they will forfeit any good, and undergo any evil, to secure this their grand stake. For this will they not rise early, and late take rest; drudge and toil, plot and contrive, cheat and defraud, lie and dissemble, be of any religion or of no religion, and submit to all the baseness imaginable? Will they not incur the curses of the widow and orphan, the contempt of wise men, the hatred of mankind, the censures of posterity, the displeasure of God, and even damnation itself, for the sake of their beloved mammon? They will. They will bustle through all this, and will gain their point, though they lose everything besides. And herein they are consistent with themselves; they act agreeably to their principles.

But will the children of light do as much for their end? Will these part with the world for heaven, as the other will part with heaven for the world? Will these do or suffer anything for the interest of their souls, as the other will for that of their bodies? Some few there are that will; and may God add to their number. But are there not many who have proposed to themselves heaven for their end, yet when they come to have any other considerable interest come into competition with it, will they not then suffer a present interruption of their former judgment, and actually undervalue what they habitually prefer? Will they not enter into a cloud of darkness and obscurity, lose the present light of their former convictions, and so act as foolishly as those that never had any better principles? Will they not prove false to their cause and 04:368to themselves, refuse to take up the crown for fear of the thorns that guard it, and choose rather to lose heaven than to be translated thither in a fiery chariot?

See 2 Kgs. 2:11.

Yes, it is to be feared that most of them will, and that of those many who have proposed heaven as their end, there are but few that would have the courage to be martyrs for it

Again, secondly, the children of this world, as they will spare no pains, so will they lose no time or opportunity for the securing a temporal interest. They greedily seize upon the next minute, and make haste to be rich, though by doing so they know they shall not be innocent. They know well that the present time is the only time they are masters of, and that they may reckon upon as their own; and therefore they will be sure to improve it and not trust to the uncertainties of futurity. Let but a question arise about their title to their estate, and they cannot sleep till it be cleared up. Let but a place of dignity or profit fall, and with what expedition do these eagles repair to the carcase!

See Matt. 24:28.

They take the wings of the morning,

Ps. 139:9.

perhaps of the night too, and fly as if running for a prize or chased by an enemy.

But now are the children of light such prizers of time, and such improvers of opportunity? ’Twere well if they were. But what is more common than to see men who have set their faces Zionward, and propose heaven as their end, to put off their repentance from day to day, to delay their preparations for eternity, and to sleep securely in a doubtful, and sometimes in a damnable and irreconciled state; and all this though they know how short and uncertain their lives are, that it is but a breath, a vapour, that soon passes away, and we are gone.

See Jas. 4:14.

Though they know that there is but this one time of probation, and that ‘there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave;’

Eccles. 9:10.

though they know that ‘Now is the accepted time, that now is the day of salvation.’

2 Cor. 6:2.

Again, thirdly, the children of this world, as they will lose no time, so neither will they let slip any other advantage of advancing their fortunes. They twist their own interest with the interest of 04:369their friends, seek out for all helps, and make early preparations for every accident. Nor do they foresee danger more suddenly than they provide against it. Thus the unjust steward: when he foresaw that he should quit his office, he made an interest with his lord’s debtors, by under-rating their accounts, that so when his master should discard him, they might receive and harbour him.

See Luke 16:1-8; and Norris, Practical Discourses, III.35.

But are the children of light so careful to make use of all helps and means that may further them in the attainment of their great end? Such as the grace of God, happiness of temper and complexion, good education, well-disposed circumstances of life, the good example of others, advice of spiritual persons, and the like? Besides, are they so frugal and forecasting for the future? Are they so careful in the day of grace to lay up in store against a spiritual famine; in the days of peace to store themselves with spiritual armour against the time of persecution? In the time of life, and health, to provide against the hour of sickness and death, and by a wise dispensation of the fading and unrighteous mammon to procure for themselves everlasting habitations?

See Luke 16:9. The MS here is altered, by a later hand, to read ‘to lay up for themselves treasures in heaven’.

Are they? Everyone’s experience may assure him that they are not.

Once more: the children of this world, as they catch at all advantages that may further their grand affair, so are they withal as careful to avoid all occasions of loss and damage; they love to tread upon firm ground, shun hazards as well as actual misfortunes, and will not so much as come within the possibility of danger.

But do the children of light take the same care to avoid all appearances of evil, all spiritual dangers, all occasions and temptations of sinning against God and their own happiness? We pray indeed that God would not lead us into temptation:

See Matt. 6:13.

but do we not often lead ourselves into as bad as the worst of those we can pray against? We venture oftentimes causelessly and rashly within reach of the devil’s chain, and are not afraid to stir up and awake that roaring lion.

See 1 Pet. 5:8.

We love to play with danger, and to hazard our virtue and innocence,

In the MS a later hand has deleted ‘innocence’ and added ‘piety’, to read ‘our piety and virtue’.

by needless and doubtful 04:370trials. So much do the children of this world exceed the children of light in wisdom.

Thus it is, and to our shame we must confess it: we are utterly distanced in the race, and see the prize of wisdom borne away before us. We have indeed in our eye a much nobler mark, but we want a steady hand. Our end is better than theirs, but our management is not so good. And what a shame is it for us that have proposed a greater and a better end, and are also more instructed in the choice of means, which are pointed out to us by God himself, to be yet so far outwitted by those of lower aims, and who are fain to study and contrive their own means, and whose wisdom after all is foolishness with God!

See 1 Cor. 3:19.

And yet thus it is: the devil’s scholars are better proficients than Christ’s disciples; the ark falls before Dagon,

See 1 Sam. 5:1-5,

and light is outshone by darkness.

What therefore remains, but that since we will not learn in Christ’s, we should be sent to the devil’s school, and imitate the politics of the dark kingdom, and of the children of this world? Not in the choice of the end, which indeed is very poor and low, but in that wisdom, diligence, and care wherewith they prosecute it, and be as wise at least unto salvation, as they are to destruction.

Let us then be as wise as these serpents;

See Matt. 10:16.

and since we have chosen the better part,

See Luke 10:42.

and are so nigh to the kingdom of God,

See Mark 12:34.

let us not, for the want of one thing, miss of being completely wise and happy. But as we have made a good choice, let us prosecute it with equal prudence; so will our wisdom be whole and entire, uniform and consistent, blameless and unreprovable; in a word, that wisdom which shall be ‘justified of all her children’.

Luke 7:35.

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