We must now return to John Wesley. The preaching of Rowland Hill did not gladden his heart as it did that of Lady Huntingdon. No doubt he sincerely rejoiced in the salvation of so many souls, but he still resisted the truth which was held and preached, alike by Whitefield, and by Hill. He still believed that the Christian could entirely get rid of the sin that dwells in him. He still did not believe that those whom the Lord had chosen and saved shall “never perish,” but are “kept by the power of God, through faith unto salvation.” He did not deny that these are the words of God, but he affixed his own meaning to them so as to explain them away. Whilst deeply thankful to God for the grace given to him we must not make excuses for that in him which was contrary to the mind of God.
It is grievous to find that John Wesley opposed and spoke against the truths preached by Rowland Hill, and was in his turn spoken of with bitterness by that young preacher. It is sad to find God’s true servants thus hindering one another. The blame no doubt lay chiefly with Wesley, as, on the points upon which they differed, it was he who was in the wrong. Old Mr. Berridge used to say, “It is a part of my litany, ‘Lord, deliver me from myself!’” And true it was in the case of Wesley, that neither brutal mobs, ignorant clergy, nor angry magistrates, ever did half so much to hinder the work God was doing by him, as his own opinions did, when he put them in the place of God’s word. Let us make no excuses for him, at the same time remembering that God has had but One Servant on this earth who turned neither to the right hand nor to the left, but “did always such things as pleased Him.”
The gospel as far as it was faithfully preached was still powerful in the mouth of John Wesley, and God so preserved his bodily strength, that he writes on his 63rd birthday, “I am still a wonder to myself. My voice and strength are the same as at nine-and-twenty. This also hath God wrought.” It would have been well had Wesley been willing to own that all spiritual life is from God, and in no degree from ourselves. He could see it as regards bodily life; but, alas! in the year 1770 we find him speaking of the life of the soul in a way which shows how much darkness still clouded his mind. He says—“With regard to working for life. This also our Lord has expressly commanded us. ‘Labor,’ literally, ‘work for the meat that endureth to everlasting life;’ and in fact every believer till he comes to glory works for as well as from life.” But, alas! Wesley does not add what the Lord added to these words. Those to whom they were spoken (John 6) asked the Lord, we are told, “What shall we do that we might work the works of God?” Then “Jesus answered and said unto them, ‘This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent.’” How terrible a contrast to these simple words of Christ are the words that follow in Wesley’s declaration. “We have received it as a maxim that a man is to do nothing in order to justification. Nothing can be more false. Whoever desires to find favor with God should cease from evil, and learn to do well. Whoever repents should ‘do works meet for repentance.’ And if this is not in order to find favor, what does he do them for?”
In vain did good Mr. Berridge and others remind Wesley of the words of God: “To him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” In vain did they say to him that, though God assuredly works repentance in those whom He saves, and though He gives them that new nature from which good works come, yet these things do not help in any way to justify them. Had Wesley remembered and believed Christian David’s sermon at Herrnhuth he would have done well. But in vain do we hear and read, unless we are willing to give up our own thoughts and our own wisdom, and look to God alone to make His word plain to us. Having thus put works in their wrong place, we can scarcely be surprised at his further mistakes as to what good works are, for when the eye is in any degree turned away from Christ we see all things mistily and falsely.
It is sad to read in his journal, “Five persons desired to return thanks to God for a clear sense of His pardoning love, and two gave a plain, simple account of the manner wherein God had cleansed their hearts, so that they now felt no anger, pride, or self-will, but continual love, and prayer, and praise.”
It seems wonderful that Wesley could rejoice in the humility of people who believed themselves free from pride, but it is thus that even natural good sense breaks down in the things of God, when we are not willing to be taught simply and only by God’s Word and Spirit. He frequently tells us of people who were “perfected in love,” in whom “the very remains of sin were destroyed,” and who were “emptied of all sin.” Some told him “that they feel no inward sin, and, to the best of their knowledge, commit no outward sin; that they see and love God every moment, that they have constantly as clear a witness from God of sanctification as they have of justification,” meaning that as completely as the guilt of their sin is put away by the blood, so completely has the sin itself disappeared from their hearts. Wesley did not say to these people “You deceive yourselves, and the truth is not in you.” The Apostle John would have said this, because God said it. Wesley, on the contrary, said, “Now in this I do rejoice, and will rejoice, call it what you please.”
In vain did he have sad lessons from experience, as well as sad warnings from his friends. One girl told him she never had a murmuring thought, felt no pride, no fretfulness or peevishness, no self-will, and had no desire but that the will of God should be done. He has to relate of her afterward, “I fear now she has no religion at all!” at which people who read the Bible under the teaching of the Spirit will not be surprised.
It is sorrowful but needful to tell these sins and follies into which so devoted a servant of God was permitted to fall. It is true that many of those who blamed him had fallen into opposite errors, and errors no less terrible. Those who say that the believer has no power over sin, that he is still in bondage to his evil nature, that he is still unable, even by the mighty power of the Holy Ghost, to do that which is pleasing to God, and that the good he would he cannot do, are contradicting the plain word of God just as much as John Wesley. God has left us no excuse for sinning, for which reason we should humble ourselves before Him ten thousand times the more, knowing how often that glorious power with which He strengthens us is left unused, because of our unbelief. “I can do all things through Christ, who strengtheneth me,” is as true now as it was 1800 years ago; but it is equally true that “if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.” Thus, whilst Wesley believed in Christ he had not cast away his own thoughts and reasonings. It is only as far as we do so, that we make Christ known.