For the present we leave George Whitefield at Gloucester, and go back to Oxford. There great changes of another sort were about to happen in the lives of John and Charles Wesley. In March, 1735, they heard that their father was not likely to live long, and they heard, too, that he was very much afraid to die. This made them very sad—they went to Epworth and found him fast sinking. It was a great comfort to them that he seemed at last to be much happier, and when John said to him, “Are you not near heaven?” he answered “ Yes, I am.” Had a man who was strong and well told John that he knew he was going to heaven, poor John would have thought him proud, or perhaps mad, but those who think it wrong for people in health to be sure they are saved, are glad to hear dying people say they are going to heaven. Of course people have no more reason to think they are safe when they are dying, than when they are well and strong. Only one thing makes us safe at any time—the precious blood of Christ, and trusting in that blood we are as eternally safe when well and strong, as if we were to die in ten minutes. John, however, did not understand this and without considering that if his father really had peace and joy, it was after all just what he had blamed one of his young friends for having, he was thankful and glad that he died happily. Mr. Wesley died on the 25th of April, 1735.
Mrs. Wesley went to live with Emilia, in the town of Gainsborough. Kezzy went with her. Mary, who had married a young clergyman, had died some months before her father. Patty, too, was married, and living at a distance. John was now asked whether he would like to take his father’s place at Epworth. This, however, he refused. His father had already asked him to do it some time before his death. John, however, said he was quite unfit to take charge of 100 people, much more of 2000. Besides, he said his life at Oxford was much more likely to forward him in holiness. He had friends there to read with, he could go to chapel twice every day, he had no cares, and plenty of quiet time. He was sure he could do no good at Epworth, and he felt that his great business must be to grow holier himself. For these reasons he returned to Oxford. He had now been there fifteen years, unless we leave out the short time he spent at Epworth when he was his father’s curate. Fifteen years! It was a great part of his life—and it had been spent for one purpose—that of gaining salvation. At least we can say both of John and Charles Wesley, that they were true to this purpose. However mistaken, they were thoroughly in earnest, and thoroughly sincere. They honestly believed that the one important thing was the salvation of their souls, and being ignorant of God’s righteousness they did indeed work hard to have a righteousness of their own, in which to appear before God.
They little thought they were but heaping up filthy rags, and that the time would come when they would count all these things as dung, that they might win Christ. They could look back on years of self-denial—cold winters when they had gone without needful fire and clothing; pleasant summer days when they turned away from the green meadows along the riverside, and spent their time in the garrets and cellars of the sick and poor in the stifling streets. They could remember hard labors and long prayers, but they had no happy hours to remember when they felt and enjoyed the love of Christ, and the joy of being in God’s presence without spot or stain.
We read in old histories of a poor monk who, with the hope of gaining heaven, did a strange penance which the monk who was set over him ordered him to do. It was to go every day and water a walking-stick which was stuck into the dry sand of the desert. He was to do this till he saw the leaves and blossoms grow upon the stick. Day after day, year after year, he might have been seen performing this hopeless task. John and Charles Wesley did not know that they too were watering dry sticks, in the vain hope of seeing the blossoms and the fruit appear at last. Do you know that your old nature, all of that which you got from Adam, is the dry stick upon which, however much you may cultivate it, teach it, train it, deny it, or whatever else you like, no fruit will ever grow. “They that are in the flesh cannot please God.” And now at the end of the long fifteen years nothing was there but the dry sticks still.
I shall have more to tell you of these fruitless labors, in which John and Charles wasted their strength and time. Yet we cannot say it was entirely wasted, for God, who can bring good out of evil, was thus teaching them deep lessons of their own helplessness and sinfulness. He was using them, too, as a warning to others, and is now speaking to you by this little history to tell you that same truth, which He had to teach by yet stranger means to His servant Jonah. Do you know where and when Jonah made that blessed confession, which none truly make till taught by God—“Salvation is of the Lord?” Not our doing, but His. Not the fruit of our labors, but the fruit of Christ’s suffering and death. All the work done and finished long ago by Him alone.