Mrs. Susanna Wesley
Miss Susanna Annesley, afterwards Susanna Wesley, was the youngest daughter of Dr. Samuel Annesley, already mentioned. She was born on the 20th of January in the year 1669 or 1670. She was endowed with a fine natural understanding, which was advanced to a very high pitch of perfection by an education at once religious and literary. A mind such as hers, nurtured under the roof and parental cares of Dr. Annesley, had the highest advantages, and must have greatly profited by them. Though her father was a conscientious Nonconformist, he had too much dignity of mind, leaving his religion out of the question, to be a bigot. Under the parental roof, and before she was thirteen years of age, she examined without restraint the whole controversy between the Established Church and the Dissenters. The issue of which was, she renounced her religious fellowship with the latter, and adopted the Creed and Forms of the Church of England; to which she faithfully and zealously adhered as long as she lived. It does not appear that her father threw any obstacles in her way; or that he afterwards disapproved of her marrying a rigid orthodox churchman; who, from a similar process, became a convert from the peculiar tenets of his Nonconformist ancestors, to the Ecclesiastical Establishment of the kingdom. Nor have I learnt after the most extensive search, and the closest inquiry, that the slightest difference ever existed between him, his son-in-law, and daughter, upon the subject. “I do not find,” says Miss Wesley, in a letter before me, “that Dr. Annesley, or any of his family, were prejudiced against my grandfather for leaving the Dissenters: but his mind was too enlarged to be prejudiced, whatever preference he had to his own community.”
It was about the year 1690 that she became the wife of Mr. Samuel Wesley, when she was in the twentieth or twenty-first year of her age. As Mr. Wesley was born in 1662, he was then in his twenty-eighth year; and she six or seven years younger than he. It is something remarkable, that she survived him about the same number of years; so that their pilgrimage through life was nearly of the same duration. Her youth, and having children in quick succession, and at different times two at a birth, will account for the numerous family with which they were blest.
As their circumstances were narrow and confined, the education of their progeny fell particularly upon themselves; and especially on Mrs. Wesley, who seems to have possessed every qualification requisite for either a public or private teacher. Her manner was peculiar to herself, and deserves a distinct mention. She has detailed it i«i a Letter to her son John, (July 24, 1732,) where speaking of the children, she says,” None of them were taught to read till Jive years old, except Kezzy, in whose case I was over-ruled, and she was more years in learning than any of the rest had been months. The way of teaching was this. The day before a child began to learn, the house was set in order, every one’s work appointed them, and a charge given that none should come into the room from nine to twelve, or from two till five, which were our school hours.
“One day was allowed the child wherein to learn its letters; and each of them did in that time know all its letters, great and small, except Molly and Nancy, who were a day and a half before they knew them perfectly, for which I then thought them very dull; but op mr. wesley’s ancestors.
the reason why I thought so was, because the rest learned them so readily; and your brother Samuel, who was the first child I ever taught, learnt the alphabet in a few hours. He was Jive years old on the tenth of February; the next day he began to learn; and as soon as he knew the letters, began at the first chapter of Genesis. He was taught to spell the first verse, then to read it over and over, till he could read it oft’ hand without any hesitation, and so on to the second, &c. till he took ten verses for a lesson, which he quickly did. Easter fell low that year, and by Whitsuntide he could read a chapter very well; for he read continually, and had Such a prodigious memory, that I cannot remember ever to have told him the same word twice. What was yet stranger, any word he had learnt in his lesson, he knew whenever he saw it, either in his Bible or any other book, by which means he learnt very soon to read an English author well.
“The same method was observed by them all. As soon as they knew the letters, they were first put to spell, and read one line, and then a verse; never leaving till perfect in their lesson, were it shorter or longer. So one or other continued reading at school time without any intermission; and before we left school, each child read what be had learnt that morning; and ere we parted in the afternoon, what phey had learnt that day,”
I consider the above as positive facts, and have no doubt concerning any of them: and take it for granted that almost any children may be taught in the same way, and with similar success. But should it be copied, and generally recommended? I think not. A child should be taught what is necessary for it to know, as soon as that necessity exists, and the child is capable of learning. Among children there is a great disparity of intellect, and in the power of apprehension and comprehension. Many children have such a precocity of intellect, as to be more capable of learning to read at two than others are at Jive years of age: and it would be high injustice indeed to prevent them from acquiring much useful knowledge, and some hundreds, if not thousands of ideas, by waiting for a prescribed term of Jive years. When a child is capable of learning any thing, give that teaching; but let the teaching be regularly graduated; let it go on from step to step, never obliging it to learn what it cannot yet comprehend. We begin very properly with letters, or the elementary signs of language; teach the child to distinguish them from each other, and give them in their names some notion of their power. We then teach them to combine them into simple syllables; syllables into words: words into sentences; sentences into speeches, or regular discourse. This process is as philosophic as it is natural:- but who follows it through the successive steps of education? Scarcely any. Because a child can understand a little, and shews aptness in learning, parental fondness, or the teacher’s ignorance, come into powerful operation; and the child is pushed unnaturally forward to departments of learning to which it has not been gradually inducted The mind is puzzled and bewildered; a great gulf is left behind which cuts off all connection with what has been already learnt, and what is now proposed to the understanding; and the issue is, the child is confounded and discouraged; and falls either under the power of hebitude, or learns superficially, and never becomes a correct scholar. A child must understand what it is doing, before it can do what it ought.
Few are taught to spell their mother tongue correctly. They are hurried on from reading to reading and prating, and never learn to spell a sentence with propriety. Thus mothers, in general, teach their children their mothers tongue.
I have before me original Letters of lords and ladies who were correspondents of the Wesley family, where the writing is elegant, and the spelling execrable. The learned languages cannot be acquired in this way; and hence they are more correctly learned in England than English itself. Dr. Edmund Castel, (author of the Heptaglott Lexicon that usually goes with Walton’s Polyglott Bible,) was in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Samaritan, Chaldee, Syriac, jEthiopic, Arabic, and Persian, the most learned man of his day in Great Britain: yet this same eminent scholar could not write one sentence in English, correct in its Orthography.
Mrs. Wesley says nothing of teaching the children to spell: but her plan in this must have been excellent, as all the family wrote in this respect with the greatest accuracy.
“But why did Mrs. Wesley postpone the teaching her children their letters till they were five years of age? If this were not the best plan, so very sensible a woman would never have adopted it.” There is perhaps a little mystery here, that may easily be explained. Samuel was the eldest of Mrs. W.’s children: he was the Jirst on which she tried this method of instruction. “But why did she not begin with him sooner?”
For this plain reason; he could not speak! Mr. Wesley himself told me the following anecdote.
66 My Brother Samuel did not attempt to speak till he was between four and five years old; nor did the family know whether he would ever be able to speak. To their surprise he began at once. There was a cat in the house which was a great favourite with him; he would frequently carry it about, and retire with it into private places-One day he disappeared; the family sought up and down for him to no purpose; my mother got alarmed for his safety, and went through the house loudly calling him by his name. At last she heard a voice from under a table saying, Here am I, mother! Looking down, she to her surprise saw Sammy and his cat. From this time he spoke regularly, and without any kind of hesitation.”
Had this story come to me by ‘tradition, I should have found it difficult of credit.
It was probably this circumstance that induced Mrs. Wesley to adopt the five year’s plan. With Sam she could not begin sooner. Mary and Anne she found it difficult to forward in the same way. Kezzy she was persuaded to try before the time, and was unsuccessful. She appears therefore to have fixed the term of five years partly from necessity, and partly from experience. I have no doubt she might have begun much sooner with most of them, with equal advantage to herself, and much more to them. I do not hesitate therefore to transcribe my own maxim: — A child should be taught what is necessary for it to know, as soon as that necessity exists, and the child is capable of learning.
Such was Mrs. Wesley’s method of teaching her children to read; and she was equally assiduous in teaching them their duty to God, and to their Parents. She had nineteen children, most of whom lived to be educated; and ten came to man and woman’s estate. Her son John mentions “the calm serenity with which his mother transacted business, wrote letters, and conversed, surrounded by her thirteen children.” All these were educated by herself. And as she was a woman that lived by rule, she methodized and arranged every thing so exactly, that to each operation she had a time; and time sufficient to transact all the business of the family. It appears also from several of the private papers, that she had no small share in managing the secular concerns of the Rectory. The Tithes and Glebe were much under her inspection. As to the children, their times of going to rest, rising in the morning, dressing, eating, learning, and exercise, she managed by rule; which was never suffered to be broken, unless in case of sickness. From her Mr. John AVesley derived all that knowledge in the education of children, which he has detailed so amply, and so successfully enforced. It has been wondered at that a man who had no children of his own could have known so well how they should be managed and educated: but that wonder will at once cease, when it is recollected by whom he was himself educated; and who was his instructress in all things, during his infancy and youth Mrs. Wesley taught her children from their earliest age their duty to their Parents. She had little difficulty in breaking their wills, or reducing them to absolute subjection. They were early brought by rational means under a mild yoke: they were perfectly obsequious to their parents; and were taught to wait their decision in every thing they were to have, and in every thing they were to perform.
They were taught also to ask a blessing upon their food, to behave quietly at family prayers, and to reverence the Sabbath. They were never permitted to command the servants, or to use any words of authority in their addresses to them. Mrs. Wesley charged the servants to do nothing for any of the children unless they asked it with humility and respect; and the children were duly informed that the servants had such orders. This is the foundation, and indeed the essence, of good breeding. Insolent, impudent, and disagreeable children are to be met with every where; because this simple, but important, mode of bringing up is neglected. “Molly, Robert, be pleased to do so and so,” was the usual method of request both from the sons and the daughters; and because the children behaved thus decently, the domestics reverenced and loved them; were strictly attentive to, and felt it a privilege to serve them.
They were never permitted to contend with each other; whatever differences arose, the Parents were the umpires, and their decision was never disputed. The consequence was, there were few misunderstandings among them, and no unbrotherly or vindictive passions: and they had the common fame of being the most loving family in the County of Lincoln! How much evil may be prevented, and how much good may be done, by judicious management in the education of children?
But Mrs. Wesley’s whole method in bringing up and managing her family is so amply detailed in the Letter from which I have made the Extract relative to the mode of teaching them to read, that it would be as great an injustice to her to omit it, as it will be profitable to every Reader to see it.
Ep worth, July 24, 1732,
“Dear Son,
“According to your desire I have collected the principal rules I observed in educating my family.
“The children were always put into a regular method of living, in such things as they were capable of, from their birth; as in dressing and undressing, changing their linen, &c. The first quarter commonly passes in sleep. After that they were, if possible, laid of mr. wesley’s ancestors,
into their cradle awake, and rocked to sleep; and so they were kept rocking till it was time for them to awake. This was done to bring them to a regular course of sleeping, which at first was three hours in the morning, and three in the afternoon; afterwards two hours, till they needed none at all. When turned a year old, (and some before) they were taught to fear the rod, and to cry softly, by which means they escaped abundance of correction which they might otherwise have had; and that most odious noise of the crying of children was rarely heard in the house: but the family usually lived in as much quietness as if there had not been a child among them.
“As soon as they were grown pretty strong, they were confined to three meals a day. At dinner their little table and chairs were set by ours, where they could be overlooked; and they were suffered to eat and drink (small beer) as much as they would, but not to call for any thing. If they wanted ought, they used to whisper to the maid that attended them, who came and spake to me; and as soon as they could handle a knife and fork, they were set to our table. — They were never suffered to choose their meat: but always made to eat such things as were provided for the family. Mornings they always had spoonmeat; sometimes at nights. But whatever they had, they were never permitted at those meals to eat of more than one thing, and of that sparingly enough. Drinking or eating between meals was never allowed unless in case of sickness, which seldom happened. Nor were they suffered to go into the kitchen to ask anything of the servants, when they were at meat: if it was known they did so, they were certainly beat, and the servants severely reprimanded.
u At six. as soon as family prayer was over, they had their supper; at seven the maid washed them, and beginning at the youngest, she undressed and got them all to bed by eight; at which time she left them in their several rooms awake, for there was no such thing allowed of, in our house, as sitting by a child till it fell asleep.
“They were so contantly used to eat and drink what was given them, that when any of them was ill, there was no difficulty in making them take the most unpleasant medicine, for they durst not refuse it, though some of them would presently throw it up. This I mention to shew that a person may be taught to take any thing, though it be never so much against his stomach.
“In order to form the minds of the children, the first thing to be done is to conquer their will, and bring them to an obedient temper. To inform the understanding is a work of time; and must with children proceed by slow degrees, as they are able to bear it: but the subjecting the will is a thing which must be done at once, and the sooner the better; for by neglecting timely correction, they will contract a stubbornness and obstinacy which are hardly ever after conquered, and never without using such severity as would be as painful to me as to the child. In the esteem of the world, they pass for kind and indulgent, whom I cali cruel, parents; who permit their children to get habits which they know must be afterwards broken. Nay, some are so stupidly fond, as in sport to teach their children to do things, which in a while after they have severely beaten them for doing. When a child is corrected it must be conquered, and this will be no hard matter to do, if it be not grown headstrong by too much indulgence. And when the will of a child is totally subdued and it is brought to revere and stanfl in awe of the parents, then a great many childish follies and inadvertencies may be passed by. — Some should be overlooked and taken no notice of, and others mildly reproved; but no wilful transgressions ought ever to be forgiven children, without chastisement less or more, as the nature and circumstances of the offence may require. I insist upon conquering the will of children betimes, because this is the only strong and rational foundation of a religious education, without which both precept and example will be ineffectual. But when this is thoroughly done, then a child is capable of being governed by the reason and piety of its parents, till its own understanding comes to maturity, and the principles of religion have taken root in the mind.
“I cannot yet dismiss this subject. As self will is the root of all sin and misery, so whatever cherishes this in children insures their after wretchedness and irreligion: whatever checks and mortifies it, promotes their future happiness and piety. This is still more evident if we farther consider that religion is nothing else than the doing the will of God, and not our own; that the one grand impediment to our temporal and eternal happiness being this self-willy no indulgences of it can be trivial, no denial unprofitable. Heaven or Hell depends on this alone. So that the parent who studies to subdue it in his child, works together with God in the renewing and saving a soul. The parent who indulges it does the devil’s work; makes religion impracticable, salvation unattainable, and does all that in him lies to damn his child soul and body for ever.
“Our children were taught, as soon as they could speak, the Lord’s Prayer, which they were made to say at rising and bed-time constantly; to which, as they grew bigger, were added a short prayer for their parents, and some collects, a short catechism, and some portion of Scripture, as their memories could bear. They were very early made to distinguish the Sabbath from other days before they could well speak or go. They were as soon taught to be si;: at family prayers, and to ask a blessing immediately after, which they used to do by signs, before they could kneel or speak.
“They were quickly made to understand they might have nothing they cried for, and instructed to speak handsomely for what they wanted. They were not suffered to ask even the lowest servant for ought, without saying, Pray, give me such a thing; and the servant was chid if she ever let them omit that word.
“Taking God’s name in vain, cursing and swearing, profaneness. obscenity, rude ill-bred names, were never heard among them; nor were they ever permitted to call each other by their proper names without the addition of brother or sister.
“There was no such thing as loud talking or playing allowed of: but every one was kept close to business for the six hours of school. And it is almost incredible what a child may be taught in a quarter of a year by a vigorous application, if it have but a tolerable capacity and good health. Kezzy excepted, all could read better in that time, than the most of women can do as long as they live. Rising out oi their places, or going out of the room, was not permitted except for good cause; and running into the yard, garden, or street, without leave was always esteemed a capital offence.
“For some years we went on very well. Never were children in better order. Never were children better disposed to piety, or in more subjection to their parents, till that fatal dispersion of them after the fire, into several families. In those they were left at full liberty to converse with servants, which before they had always been restrained from; and to run abroad to play with any children good or bad. They soon learned to neglect a strict observance of the Sabbath; and got knowledge of several songs and bad things, which before they had no notion of. That civil behaviour, which made them admired, when they were at home, by all who saw them, was in a great measure lost; and a clownish accent and many rude ways were learnt, which were not reformed without some difficulty.
“When the house was -rebuilt, and the children all brought home, we entered on a strict reform; and then was begun the custom oi singing Psalms at beginning and leaving school morning and evening. Then also that a of general retirement at five o’clock was entered upon. When the oldest took the youngest that could speak, and the second the next, to whom they read the Psalms for the day, and a chapter in the New Testament: as in the morning they were directed to read the Psalms, and a chapter in the Old; after which they went to their private prayers, before they got their breakfast, or came into the family. u There were several by-laws observed among us. I mention them here because I think them useful.
“1. It had been observed that cowardice and fear of punishment often lead children into lying; till they get a custom of it which they cannot leave. To prevent this, a law was made that whoever was charged with a fault, of which they were guilty, if they would ingenuously confess it, and promise to amend, should not be beaten* This rule prevented a great deal of lying; and would have done more, if one in the family would haveobserved it. But he could not be prevailed on, and therefore was often imposed upon by false colours and equivocations, which none would have used but one had they been kindly dealt with; and some in spite of all would always speak truth plainly.
“2. That no sinful action, as lying, pilfering at Church or on the Lord’s day, disobedience, quarrelling, &c. should ever pass unpunished.
“3. That no child should ever be chid, or beat twice for the same fault; and that if they amended, they should never be upbraided with it afterwards.
a 4. That every signal act of obedience, especially when it crossed upon their own inclinations, should be always commended, and frequently rewarded, according to the merits of the case.
6i 5. That if ever any child performed an act of obedience, or did any thing with an intention to please, though the performance was not well, yet the obedience and intention should be kindly accepted, and the child with sweetness directed how to do better for the future,
“6. That propriety be inviolably preserved; and none suffered to invade the property of another in the smallest matter, though it were but of the value of a farthing, or a pin; which they might not take from the owner without, much less against, his consent. This rule can never be too much inculcated on the minds of children; and from the want of parents or governers doing it as they ought, proceeds that shameful neglect of justice which we may observe in the world.
“7. That promises be strictly observed; and a gift once bestowed, and so the right passed away from the donor, be not resumed, but left to the disposal of him to whom it was given; unless it were conditional, and the condition of the obligation not performed.
u 8. That no girl be taught to work till she can read very well; and then that she be kept to her work with the same application, and for the same time, that she was held to in reading. This Rule also is much to be observed; for the putting children to learn sewing before they can read perfectly is the very reason why so few women can read fit to be heard, and never to be well understood.”
After such management, who need wonder at the rare excellence of the Wesley family!
Mrs. Wesley never considered herself discharged from the care of her children. Into all situations she followed them with her prayers and counsels: and her sons, even when at the University, found the utility of her wise and parental instructions. They proposed to her all their doubts, and consulted her in all difficulties. The following Letter to her son John, in answer to queries proposed concerning some authors, and their opinions, will show how able she was to instruct, and what her opinion was relative to the doctrine of Predestination especially.
“Wroote, Jan. 8, 1?25.
“Dear Son,
u I cannot recollect the passages you mention: but believing you do the Author, I positively aver that he is extremely in the wrong in that impious, not to say blasphemous, assertion, That God by an irresistible Decree hath determined any man to be miserable, even in this life. His intentions, as Himself, are holy, and just, and good; and all the miseries incident to men here or hereafter spring from themselves. The case stands thus: — This life is a state of probation, wherein eternal happiness or misery is proposed to our choice; the one as the reward of a virtuous, the other as a consequence of a vicious, life. Man is a compound being, a strange mixture of spirit and matter; or rather a Creature, wherein those opposite principles are united without mixture, yet each principle, after an incomprehensible manner, subject to the influence of the other. — The true happiness of man, under this consideration, consists in a due subordination of the inferior to the superior powers; of the animal to the rational nature; and of both to God.
“This was his original righteousness and happiness that was lost in Adam: and to restore man to this happiness, by the recovery of his original righteousness, was certainly God’s design in admitting him to the state of trial on the world, and of our Redemption by Jesus Christ. And surely this was a design truly worthy of God I and the greatest instance of mercy that even Omnipotent Goodness could exhibit to us.
u As the happiness of man consists in a due subordination of the inferior to the superior powers, &c. so the inversion of this order is the true source of human misery. There is in us all a natural propension towards the body and the world. The beauty, pleasures, and ease, of the body strangely charm us; the wealth and honours of the world allure us: and all, under the manage of a subtle malicfcms adversary, give a prodigious force to present things; and if the animal life once get the ascendant of our reason, it utterly deprives us of our moral liberty, and by consequence makes us wretched. Therefore for any man to endeavour after happiness, in gratifying all his bodily appetites in opposition to his reason, is the greatest folly imaginable: because he seeks it where God has not designed he shall ever find it. But this is the case of the generality of men: they live as mere animals, wholly given up to the interests and pleasures of the body; and all the use of their understanding is, to make provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof, without the least regard to future happiness or misery.
“It is true, our eternal state lies under a vast disadvantage to us in this life, in that, that it is future and invisible: and it requires great attention and application of mind, frequent retirement, and intense thinking, to excite our affections, and beget such an habitual sense of it as is requisite to enable us to walk steadily in the paths of virtue, in opposition to our corrupt nature, and all the vicious customs and maxims of the world. Our blessed Lord who came from Heaven to save us from our sins, as well as the punishment of them, as knowing that it was impossible for us to be happy in either world, unless we were holy, did not intend by commanding us to take up the Cross, that we should bid adieu to all joy and satisfaction indefinitely: but He opens and extends our views beyond Time to Eternity. He directs us where to place our joys; how to seek satisfaction durable as our being; which is not to be found in gratifying, but in retrenching our sensual appetites; not in obeying the dictates of our irregular passions, but in correcting their exorbitancy, bringing every appetite of the body and power of the soul under subjection to His laws, if we would follow Him to heaven. And because He knew we could not do this without great contradiction to our corrupt animality, therefore He enjoins us to take up this Cross, and to fight under His banner against the Flesh, the World, and the Devil. And when, by the grace of God’s Holy Spirit, we are so far conquerors, as that we never willingly offend, but still press after greater degrees of Christian perfection, sincerely endeavouring to plant each virtue in our minds, that may through Christ render us pleasing to God; we shall then experience the truth of Solomon’s assertion, 4 The ways of virtue are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.’
“I take Kempis to have been an honest weak man, who had more zeal than knowledge, by his condemning all mirth or pleasure as sinful or useless, in opposition to so many direct and plain texts of Scripture. Would you judge of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of pleasure; of the innocence or malignity of actions; Take this rule, — Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off the relish of spiritual things: in short, whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind, that thing is sin to you. however innocent it may be in itself. And so on the contrary. “5Tis stupid to say nothing is an affliction to a good man. That is an affliction that makes an affliction either to good or bad. Nor do I understand how any man can thank God for present misery; yet do I very well know what it is to rejoice in the midst of deep afflictions; not in the affliction itself, for then it would necessarily cease to be one: but in this we may rejoice, that we are in the hand of a God who never did, and never can, exert His power in any act of injustice, oppression, or cruelty; in the power of that Superior Wisdom which disposes all events, and has promised that all things shall work together for good (for the spiritual and eternal good) of those that love him. We may rejoice in hope that Almighty Goodness will not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able; but will with the temptation make a way to escape, that we may be able to bear it. In a word, we may and ought to rejoice that God has assured us He will never leave or forsake us: but if we continue faithful to Him, He will take care to conduct us safely, through all the changes and chances of this mortal life, to those blessed regions of joy and immortality, where sin and sorrow can never enter.”
There are many excellent sentiments and observations in the preceding Letter; and the whole proves a capacious and well-disciplined mind, that tried itself to the bottom, and saw how little it could depend on its own exertions without the especial help of the grace and Spirit of Christ.
In the following month she wrote a more direct answer to the question concerning Election and Predestination; and especially the Seventeenth Article of the Church, on which her son appears to have been not a little puzzled.
To many these points will appear to be clearly stated, and satisfactorily discussed, in this Letter.
“Wroote, July 18, 1725.
“I have often wondered that men should be so vain to
amuse themselves by searching into the decrees of God, which no human wit can fathom; and do not rather employ their time and powers in working out their salvation, and making their own calling and election sure. Such studies tend more to confound than inform
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die understanding; and young people had best let them alone. But since I find you have some scruples concerning our article of Predestination, I will tell you my thoughts of the matter; and if they satisfy not, you may desire your father’s direction, who is surely better qualified for a casuist than me.
ct The doctrine of Predestination, as maintained by rigid Calvinists, is very shocking; and ought utterly to be abhorred, because it charges the most Holy God with being the Author of sin. And I think you reason very well and justly against it; for it is certainly inconsistent with the justice and goodness of God to lay any man under either a physical or moral necessity of committing sin, and then punish him for doing it. — Far be this from the Lord! — Shall not the Judge of all the Earth do right?
“I do firmly believe that God from all eternity, hath elected some - to everlasting life: but then I humbly conceive, that this election is founded in his foreknowledge, according to that in the eighth of Romans, ver. 29, 30. Whom he did foreknow >, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son: — Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
<( Whom, in His eternal prescience, God saw would make a right use of their powers, and accept of offered mercy, he did predestinate, — adopt for His children, His peculiar treasure. And that they might be conformed to the image of his only Son, He called them to Himself by His eternal Word, through the preaching of the Gospel; and internally by His Holy Spirit: which call they obeying, repenting of their sins, and believing in the Lord Jesus, He justifies them, — absolves them from the guilt of all their sins, and acknowledges them as just and righteous persons, through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ. And having thus justified, he receives them to glory, to heavert.
“This is the sum of what I believe concerning Predestination, which I think is agreeable to the analogy of faith; since it does in no wise derogate from the glory of God’s free grace, nor impair (he liberty of man. Nor can it with more reason be supposed that the prescience of God is the cause that so many finally perish, than that our knowing the sun will rise to-morrow is the cause of its rising.”
Mr. Wesley found it difficult to reconcile the seventeenth article of the Church, concerning predestination, to the general doctrines of the Church, and to the Holy Scriptures. He knew, and has often demonstrated, that the Calvinistic doctrines of Reprobation and Election are false: but still there appeared to be something to supof mr. wesley’s ancestor.
port them in the above Article, and it was in reference to this that he wished to have his mother’s views of the subject.
The following Letter, written to him nearly two years after, will shew what care this excellent mother took of her son’s spiritual progress, and of his regular deportment through life.
Jan. 31, 1727.
“— I am heartily persuaded, that the reason why so many
seek to enter into the kingdom of Heaven, but are not able, is, there is some Delilah, some one beloved vice they will not part with; hoping that by a strict observance of their duty in other things, that particular fault will be dispensed with. But, alas! they miserably deceive themselves. The way which leads to Heaven is so narrow, the gate we must enter in so strait, that it will not permit a man to pass with one known unmortified sin about hira. Therefore let every one in the beginning of their Christian course seriously weigh what our Lord says in St. Luke xiv. 27 — 34. — ‘For whosoever having put his hand to the plough, looketh back, is not fit for the kingdom of God.’
“I am nothing pleased we advised you to have your plaid; though I am that you think it too dear; because I take it to be an indication that you are disposed to thrift, which is a rare qualification in a young man, who has his fortune to make. Indeed such an one can hardly be too wary, or too careful. I would not recommend taking thought for the morrow any further than is needful for our improvement of present opportunities, in a prudent manage of those talents God has committed to our trust. And so far I think it is the duty of all to take thought for the morrow. And T heartily wish you may be well apprized of this while life is young. For,
Believe me, youth; (for I am read in cares,
And bend beneath the weight of more than fifty years.)
Believe me, dear son, old age is the worst time we can choose to mend either our lives or our fortunes. If the foundations of solid piety are not laid betimes in sound principles and virtuous dispositions; and if we neglect, while strength and vigour lasts, to lay up something ere the infirmities of age overtake us, it is a hundred to one odds that we shall die both poor and wicked.
“Ah! my dear son, did you with me stand on the verge of life, and saw before your eyes a vast expanse, an unlimited duration of being, which you might shortly enter upon, you cairt conceive how all the inadvertencies, mistakes, and sins, of youth would rise to your view! and how different the sentiments of sensitive pleasures, the desire of sexes, and pernicious friendships of the world, would be then, from what they are now, while health is entire, and seems to promise many years of life.”
The following Letter on the nature and properties of Love would be a gem even in the best written Treatise on the powers and passions of the human mind. The concluding advice relative to the mode of treating such matters in public preaching must interest all those who minister at the altar of the Lord.
Wroote, May 14, 1727.
“Dear Son,
“The difficulty there is in separating the ideas of things that nearly resemble each other, and whose properties and effects are much the same, has, I believe, induced some to think that the human soul has no passion but love; and that all those passions or affections which we distinguish by the names of hope, fear, joy, &c. are no more than various modes of love. This notion carries some show of reason, though I can’t acquiesce in it. I must confess I never yet met with such an accurate definition of the passion of love, as fully satisfied me. It is indeed commonly defined a desire of union with a hiou’n or apprehended good. But this directly makes love and desire the same thing; which on a close inspection I eonceive they are not, for this reason, — desire is strongest, and acts most vigorously, when the beloved object is distant, absent, or apprehended unkind or displeased; whereas when the union is attained, and fruition perfect, complacency, delight, and joy, fill the soul of the lover, while desire lies quiescent; which plainly shews (at least to me) that desire of union is an effect of love, and not love itself.
66 What then is love? or how shall we describe its strange mysterious essence? It is — I do not know what! A powerful something’] source of our joy and grief! Felt and experienced by every one, and yet unknown to all! Nor shall we ever comprehend what it is, till we are united to our first principle, and there read its wondrous nature in the clear mirror of uncreated Love! till which time it is best to rest satisfied with such apprehensions of its essence as we can collect from our observations of its effects and properties; for other knowledge of it in our present state is too high and too wonderful for us; neither can we attain unto it.
“Suffer now a word of advice. However curious you may be in searching into the nature, or in distinguishing the properties, of the passions or virtues of human kind, for your osvn private satisfaction; be vefy cautious in giving nice distinctions in public assemblies, for it does not answer the true end of preaching, which is to mend men’s lives, and not fill their heads with unprofitable speculations. And after all that can be said, every affection of the soul is better known by experience than by any description that can be given of it. An honest man will more easily apprehend what is meant by being zeal’ ous for God, and against sin, when he hears what are the properties and effects of true zeal, than the most accurate definition of its essence, “Dear Son, the conclusion of your Letter is very kind. That you were ever dutiful, I very well know. But I know myself enough to rest satisfied with a moderate degree of your affection. Indeed it would be unjust in me to desire the love of any one. Your prayers I want and wish; nor shall I cease while I live to beseech Almighty God to bless you. Adieu.”
It appears that about this time Mr. J. Wesley Jhad written to his mother concerning afflictions, and what was the best method of profiting by them; also expressing a wish that he might not survive so kind and good a parent; and stating his conviction how happy she, who had lived so much devoted to God, must be in her last hours. To all of which she answers with her usual good sense, strong judgment, and deep piety.
“Wroote, July 26, 1~27.
“It is certainly true that I have had large experience of what the world calls adverse fortune. But I have not made those improvements in piety and virtue, under the discipline of Providence, that I ought to have done; therefore I humbly conceive myself to be unfit for an assistant to another in affliction, since I have so ill performed my own duty. But, blessed be God! you are at present in pretty easy circumstances; which I thankfully acknowledge is a great mercy to me as well as you. Yet if hereafter you should meet with troubles of various sorts, as it is probable you will in the course of your life, be it of short or long continuance; the best preparation I know of for sufferings is a regular and exact performance of present duty; for this will surely render a man pleasing to God, and put him directly under the protection of His good providence, so that no evil shall beial him, but what he will certainly be the better for it.
“It is incident to all men to regard the past and the future while the present moments pass unheeded; whereas, in truth, neither the one nor the other is of use to us any farther -than they put us upon Improving the present timeu You did well to correct that fond desire of dying before me; since you do not know what work God may have for you to do ere you leave the world. And besides, I ought surely to have the pre-eminence in point of time, and go to rest before you. Whether you could see me die without any emotions of grief I know not; perhaps you could: it is what I have often desired of the children, that they would not weep at our parting, and so make death more uncomfortable than it would otherwise be to me. If you or any other of my children were like to reap any spiritual advantage by being with me at my exit, I should be glad to have you with me. But as I have been an unprofitable servant, during the course of a long life, I have no reason to hope for so great an honour, so high a favour, as to be employed in doing our Lord any service in the article of death. It were well if you spake prophetically, and that joy and hope might have the ascendant over the other passions of my soul in that important hour. Yet I dare not presume, nor do I despair, but rather leave it to our Almighty Saviour, to do with me both in life and death just what He pleases, for I have no choice I”
The following Letter, on the absolute necessity of a Redeemer to save fallen man, and of faith in him in order to salvation, will doubtless meet with the full approbation of every pious Reader.
“Epworth, Feb. 14, 1735.
“Dear Son,
u Since God is altogether inaccessible to us but by Jesus Christ, and since none ever was or ever will be saved but by Him, — is it not absolutely necessary for all people, young and old, to be well grounded in the knowledge and faith of Jesus Christ? By faith% I do not mean an assent only to the truths of the Gospel concerning Him; but such an assent as influences our practice, as makes us heartily and thankfully accept Him for our God and Saviour upon. His own conditions. No faith below this can be saving. And since this faith is necessary to salvation, — can it be too frequently, or too explicitly, discoursed on to young people? I think not.
“But since the natural pride of man is wont to suggest to him that he is self-sufficient, and has no need of a Saviour; — may it not be proper to shew (the young especially) that without the great Atonement, there could be no remission of sin? And that in the present state of human nature no man can qualify himself for heaven, without the Holy Spirit, which is given by God Incarnate? To convince them of this truth, might it not be needful to inform them, hat since God is infinitely just, or rather that He is Justice itself, it necessarily follows that vindictive justice is an essential property in the Divine nature; and if so, one of these two things seems to have been absolutely necessary; either, that there must be an adequate satisfaction made to the Divine Justice for the violation of God’s law by mankind, or else that the whole human species should have perished in Adam, (which would have afforded too great matter of triumph to the apostate angels); otherwise how could God have been just to Himself? Would not some mention of the necessity of revealed religion be proper here? since, without it, all the wit of man could never have found out how human nature was corrupted in its fountain; neither had it been possible for us to have discovered any way or means whereby it might have been restored to its primitive purity. Nay, had it been possible for the brightest angels in heaven to have found out such a way to redeem and restore mankind as God hath appointed; yet, durst any of them have proposed it to the uncreated Godhead? No; surely the Offended must appoint the way to save the offender, or man must be lost for ever. 0 the depth of the riches of the wisdom, and knowledge, and goodness, of God! how unsearchable are His Judgments, and His Ways past finding out! As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are His thoughts higher than our thoughts, and His ways than our ways /
“Here, surely, you may give free scope to your spirits. Here you may freely use your Christian liberty; and discourse without reserve of the excellency of the knowledge and love of Christ, as His Spirit gives you utterance.
“What, my son, did the pure and Holy Person of the Son of God pass by the fallen angels, who were far superior, of greater dignity, and of a higher order in the scale of existence, and choose to unite himself to the human nature! And shall we soften, as you call it, these glorious truths? Rather let us speak boldly, without fear. These truths ought to be frequently inculcated, and pressed home upon the consciences of men; and when once men are affected with a sense of redeeming love, that sense will powerfully convince them of the vanity of the world; and make them esteem the honour, wealth, and pleasures of it as dross or dung so that they may win Christ.
“As for moral subjects, they are necesssary to be discoursed on: but then I humbly conceive we are to speak of moral virtues as Christians, and not like Heathens. And if we would indeed do honour to our Saviour, we should take all fitting occasions to make men observe the essence and perfection of the moral virtues taught by Christ and His Apostles, far surpassing all that was pretended to by the very best of the Heathen philosophers. All their morality was defective in principle and direction; was intended only to regulate the outward actions, but never reached the heart; or, at the highest, it looked no farther than the temporal happiness of mankind. 1 But moral virtues, evangelized or improved into Christian duties, have partly a view to promote the good of human society here, but chiefly to qualify the observers of them for a much more blessed and more enduring society hereafter.’ I cannot stay to enlarge orp this vast subject; nor indeed (considering whom I write to) is it needful: yet one thing I cannot forbear adding, which may carry some weight with his admirers; and that is, the very wise and just reply which Mr. Locke made to one that desired him to draw up a system of morals. 6 Did the world, said he, ( want a rule, I confess there could be no work so necessary, nor so commendable: but the gospel contains so perfect a body of Ethics, that Reason may be excused from the inquiry, since she may find man’s duty ciearer and easier in Revelation than in herself.’
“That you may continue stedfast in the faith, and increase more and more in the knowledge and love of God, and of His Son Jesus Christ! that holiness, simplicity, and purity, (which are different words signifying the same thing) may recommend you to the favour of God incarnate! that His Spirit may dwell in you, and keep you still (as now,) under a sense of God’s blissful presence! is the hearty prayer of
“Dear Son,
Your affectionate Mother
and most faithful Friend,
S. W.”
With respect to the angelic nature my creed is different from that of Mrs. Wesley. I believe man, as he came from the hands of God, was much higher in the excellence and perfection of his nature than angels. Man was created in the image and Wetness of God. This is not said of angels nor archangels; and it appears to me that it was the superior excellence of this nature that caused Jesus Christ to take upon Him the nature of man, and not the nature of angels.
The last of her Letters I shall give the Header in this place. It is one written to her son John near the close of this year, on the happiness resulting from a close and constant communion with God. She had a few months before buried the husband of her youth; and was now, as I collect, on a visit to her daughter Emily, who had taken up a school at Gainsborovgh, about twelve miles from Epworth.
“Gainsborough, Nov. 27, 1735.
God is Being itself! the I Am! and therefore must
necessarily be the Sapreme Good! He is so infinitely blessed, that every perception of His blissful presence imparts a vital gladness to the heart. Every degree of approach towards Him is, in the same proportion, a degree of happiness. And I often think that were He always present to our mind, as we are present to Him, there would be no pain, nor sense of misery. I have long since chose Him for my only Good! my All! my Pleasure, my Happiness in this world, as well as in the world to come! And although I have not been so faithful to His grace as I ought to have been; yet I feel my spirit adheres to its choice, and aims daily at cleaving stedfast unto God. Yet one thing often troubles me, that notwithstanding I know that while we are present with the body we are absent from the Lord; notwithstanding I have no taste, no relish, left for any thing the world calls pleasure, yet I do not long to go home as in reason I ought to do. This often shocks me: and as I constantly pray (almost without ceasing) for thee, my son; so I beg you likewise to pray for me, that God would make me better, and take me at the best!
H Your loving Mother,
Susanna Wesley.”
We have now seen, — 1. The Plan this extraordinary woman adopted in the nursing and bringing up of her children; and, 2. The pains she took with her son John, when at the University, to instil into him those heavenly truths which he afterwards with such clearness, strength, and effect, declared to the world. 3. We shall find from what follows, that she endeavoured to embody all her knowledge and experience, and form them into a regular system for the future edification of her family.
Mrs. Wesley not only examined the grounds of the controversy between the Church and the Dissenters with conscientious carefulness, but she examined in a similar way the evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion; and under every article set down the reasons which determined her to receive the Bible as a Revelation from God. On these subjects I have several things in her own hand-writing, which shall be introduced in their proper place: but her master-pieces entirely lost. A Letter of her’s to her son Samuel, dated Oct. 11, 1709, will illustrate the above particulars: —
u - There is nothing 1 now desire to live for but to do
some small service to my children; that as I have brought them into the world, I may, if it please God, be an instrument of doing good to their souls. I had been for several years collecting from my little reading, but chiefly from my own observation and experience, some things which I hoped might be useful to you all. I had begun to correct and form all into a little Manual, wherein I designed you should have seen what were the particular reasons which prevailed on me to believe the Being of a God, and the grounds of natural Religion; together with the motives that induced me to embrace the Faith of Jesus Christy under which was comprehended my own private reasons for the truth of Revealed Religion. And because 1 was educated among the Dissenters, and there was something remarkable in my leaving them at so early an age, not being full thirteen, I had drawn up an account of the whole transaction, under which I had included the main of the Controversy between them and the Established Church, as far as it had come to my knowledge; and then followed the reasons which had determined my judgment to the preference of the Church of England. I had fairly transcribed a great part of it, when you, writing to me for some directions about receiving the Sacrament, I began a short discourse on that subject, intending to send them all together: but before I could finish my design, the flames consumed both this and all my other writings. I would have you at your leisure to do something like this for yourself, and write down what are the principles on which you build your faith: and though I cannot possibly recover all I formerly wrote, yet I will gladly assist you what I can in explaining any difficulty that may occur.”
“We have already seen that the Parsonage House at Epworth was three parts consumed July 31, 1702. But a more severe conflagration took place on the 9th Feb. 1709, by which the whole house and the property were totally destroyed, the family escaping with their lives, almost by miracle; the particulars of which calamity shall be detailed in the Life of Mr. J. Wesley.
But the severest loss, at least to posterity, then sustained, was the destruction of all the family papers. All Mr. Wesley’s Writings and Correspondence, and the still more important Writings of Mrs. Wesley, such as those mentioned above, besides many papers and other matters relative to the Annesley family, and particularly Dr. Annesley himself; for as Mrs. Susanna Wesley was his most beloved child, he had entrusted to her many invaluable documents. This information I have received from a particular and learned friend, who received it from Mr. John Wesley himself.
After the last fire the family were scattered to different parts; the children were divided among neighbours, relatives, and friend?, ti! the house could be rebuilt. Mr. Matthew Wesley, the Surgeon, took two, Susan and Mehetabel, with whom their Mother corresponded, in order to instruct them in Divine matters, and to confirm tkem in the truths they had already received. Having lost the fruits of her former labour on the Evidences of Revealed Religion, &c. she began her work de novo; and in a long letter to her daughter Susan went over the most important parts of the same ground, and produced a Treatise on the chief Articles of the Christian Faith, taking for her groundwork the Apostles’ Creed.
This invaluable Paper I rejoice to be able to lay before the Reader, as one of the most precious relics of this extraordinary woman. And it will be considered the more important, as itself was saved from a fire, not less ruinous than that in which its predecessor was consumed. It was written but a few months after that to Samuel, already mentioned.
“Epworth, Jan. 13, 1709-10.
“Dear Sukey,
w Since our misfortunes have separated us from each other, and we can no longer enjoy the opportunities we once had of conversing together, I can no other way discharge the duty of a parent, or comply with my inclination of doing you all the good I can, but by writing.
“You know very well how I love you. I love your body; and do earnestly beseech Almighty God to bless it with health, and all things necessary for its comfort and support in this world. But my tenderest regard is for your immortal soul, and for its spiritual happiness; which regard I cannot better express, than by endeavouring to instil into your mind those principles of knowledge and virtue that are absolutely necessary in order to your leading a good life here, which is the only thing that can infallibly secure your happiness hereafter.
“The main thing which is now to be done is, to lay a good foundation, that you may act upon principles, and be always able to satisfy yourself, and give a reason to others of the Faith that is in you: for any one who makes a profession of religion, only because it is the custom of the country in which they live, or because their parents do so, or their worldly interest is thereby secured or advanced, will never be able to stand in the day of temptation; nor shall they ever enter into the kingdom of heaven. And though perhaps you cannot at present fully comprehend all I shall say; yet keep this Letter by you, and as you grow in years, your reason and judgment will improve, and you will obtain a more clear understanding in all things,” You have already been instructed in some of the first principles of religion: that there is one, and but one God; that in the Unity of the Godhead there are Three distinct Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; that this God ought to be worshipped. You have learned some Prayers, your Creed and Catechism, in which is briefly comprehended your duty to God, yourself, and your neighbour. But, Sukey, it is not learning these things by heart, nor your saying a few prayers morning and night, that will bring you to Heaven; you must understand what you say, and you must practise what you know; and since knowledge is requisite in order to practice, I shall endeavour (after as plain a manner as I can) to instruct you in some of those fundamental points, which are most necessary to be known, and most easy to be understood. And I earnestly beseech the Great Father of Spirits to guide your mind into the way of Truth.
“Though it has been generally acknowledged, that the Being and Perfections of God, and a great part of man’s duty towards Him, as that we should love Him, and pray to Him for what we want, and praise him for what we enjoy; as likewise much of our duty towards ourselves and neighbour are discoverable by the light of nature; that is, by that understanding and reason which are natural to man: yet considering the present state of mankind; it was absolutely necessary that we should have some revelation from God to make known to us those truths upon the knowledge of which our Salvation depends, and which unassisted Reason could never have discovered. For all the duties of natural religion, and all the hopes of happiness which result from the performance of them, are all concluded within the present life: nor could we have had any certainty of the future state, of the being of Spirits, of the Immortality of the Soul, or of a Judgment to come.
“And though we may perceive that all these have by nature a strong bent or bias towards evil, and a great averseness from good and goodness; that our Understandings, Wills, and Affections, &c. are extremely corrupted and depraved; yet how could we have known by what means we became so, or how Sin and Death entered into the world? Since we are assured that whatever as absolutely perfect as God is could never be the Author of evil; and we are as sure that whatever is corrupt or impure must necessarily be offensive and displeasing to the Most Holy God, there being nothing more opposite than good and evil. Nay, further, sin is not only displeasing to God, as it is contrary to the purity of His Divine nature; but it is the highest affront and indignity to His Sacred Majesty imaginable.
“By it His most wise and holy Laws are contemned and violated, and His Honour most impiously treated: and therefore he is in of mr. wesley’s ancestors.
justice obliged to punish such contempt, and to vindicate the honot of His own Laws: nor can He, without derogating from His Infinite perfections, pardon such offenders, or remit the punishment they deserve, without full satisfaction made to His justice.
“Now I would fain know which way His Justice could be satisfied, since it is impossible for a finite being like man to do it; or how the nature of man should be renewed, or he again be admitted into the favour of God; or how Reason cculd suggest that our weak endeavours and petitions should be acceptable instead of perfect obedience, unless some others were substituted in our stead, that would undergo the punishment we have deserved, and thereby satisfy Divine Justice, and purchase pardon and favour with God, the merit of whose perfect obedience should atone for the imperfection of ours, and so obtain for us a title to those glorious rewards, to that eternal happiness to which we must acknowledge ourselves utterly unworthy, and of which we must have despaired without such a Saviour.
u Or how should we have had any certainty of our salvation unless God had revealed these things unto us. The soul is immortal, and must survive all time, even to eternity; and consequently it must have been miserable to the utmost extent of its duration, had we not had that sacred treasure of knowledge which is contained in the Books of the Old and New Testament; a treasure infinitely more valuable than the whole world, because therein we find all things necessary for our salvation. There also we find many truths, which though we cannot say it is absolutely necessary that we should know them (since it is possible to be saved without that knowledge,) yet it is highly convenient that we should; because they give us great light into those things which are necessary to be known, and solve many doubts which could not otherwise be cleared.
“Thus we collect from many passages of Scripture, that before God created the visible icorld, or ever He made man, He created a higher rank of intellectual beings, which we call angels or spirits; and these were those bright morning stars mentioned in Job, which sang together; those Sons of God which shouted for joy when the foundations of the earth were laid. To these He gave a law or rule of action, as He did afterwards to the rest of His creation; and they being free agents, having a principle of liberty, of choosing or refusing, and of acting accordingly, as they must have, or they could not properly be called either good or evil; for upon this principle of freedom or liberty the principle of election or choice is founded; and upon the choosing good or evil depends the being virtuous or vicious, since liberty is the formal essence of moral virtue, that is, it is the free choice of a rational being that makes them either good or bad: nor could any one that acts by necessity be ever capable of rewards or punishments.
“The angels, I say, being free agents, must, I think, necessarily be put on some trial of their obedience; and so consequently were at first only placed in a state of probation or trial. Those who made a good use of their liberty, and chose to obey the law of their Creator, and acquiesced in the order of the Divine Wisdom, which had disposed them in several ranks and orders subservient to each other, were by the Almighty fat confirmed in their state of blessedness; nor are they now capable of any defection.
66 But those accursed spirits that rebelled against their Maker, and aspired above the rank in which His providence had placed them, were for their presumption justly excluded the celestial paradise; and condemned to perpetual torments, which were the necessary consequences of their apostasy.
“After the fall of the angels, and perhaps to supply their defects, it pleased the Eternal Goodness to create Adam, who was the first general head of mankind; and in him was virtually included the whole species of human nature. He was somewhat inferior to the angels, being composed of two different natures, body and soul. The former was material, or matter made of the earth; the latter immaterial, or a spiritual substance, created after the image of God. And as man was also a rational free agent like the angels, so it was agreeable to the Eternal Wisdom to place him likewise in a state of probation; and the trial of his obedience was, not eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and the penalty of his disobedience was death.
“This trial was suited to the double or mixed nature of man; the beauty, scent, and taste, of the fruit was the trial of their semes or appetites; and the virtue of it being not only good for food, but also to be desired to make one wise, was the trial of their 7ninds; and by this God made proof of our first parents, to see whether they would deny their sensual appetites, and keep the body in due subjection to the mind; or whether they would prefer the pleasures of sense, and thereby dethrone their reason, break the covenant of their obedience, and forfeit the favour of God and eternal happiness; and whether they would humbly be content with that measure of knowledge and understanding which God thought best for them, or boldly pry into those things which he had forbidden them to search after,
“Now the Devil envying the happiness of our first parents, being grieved that any less perfect beings should possess the place he had lost, took occasion from the reasonable trial God had proposed to op mr. wesley’s ancestors.
Adam, to attack the woman by a subtle question, Yea, hath Godr said, that ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? Hath he created this beauteous world, this great variety of creatures, for your use and enjoyments, and made these delicious fruits which He Himself hath pronounced good, and yet forbidden you to taste of them? To which she replied, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: but of the fruit of the tree in the midst of the garden, God hath said, ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. Upon which the malicious tempter boldly presumed to give the lie to his Maker. Ye shall not surely die, for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as Gods Icnoioing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave also to her husband with her, and he did eat, &c.
“Thus pride and sensuality ruined our first parents, and brought them and their posterity into a state of mortality. Thus Sin entered into the world, and Death by Sin, thus was human nature corrupted at its fountain; and as a corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit, so of consequence the children of guilty Adam must be corrupt and depraved. Any one who will make the least reflection on his own mind, may soon be convinced of this great truth, that not only the body is weak and infirm, subject to divers diseases, liable to many ill accidents, and even to Death itself, but also the superior powers of the soul are weakened; as the Apostle expresses it, — at enmity with God.
“The understanding, which was designed chiefly to be exercised in the knowledge and contemplation of the Superior Being, is darkened; nor can it, without the Divine assistance, discern the radiant glories of the Deity. And though it should naturally press after truth, as being its proper object; yet it seldom, and not without great difficulty, attains to the knowledge of it; but is subject to ignorance, which is the sin of the understanding, because it generally proceeds from our natural indisposition to search after truth. Error is the sin or defect of the judgment, mistaking one thing for another, not having clear and distinct apprehensions of things; for which reason it is frequently guilty of making wrong determinations. Not choosing, or not inclining to good; or adhering to and preferring evil before it, is the sin of the will. A readiness in receiving vain, impure, corrupt ideas or images, and a backwardness in receiving good and useful ideas, is the sin of the imagination or fancy: and a facility in retaining evil and vain ideas, and a neglect of, or a readiness to let slip those which are good, is the sin or defect of the memory.
Loving, hating, desiring, fearing, &c. what we should not love, hate, desire, fear, &c. at all in the least degree; or when the object of such passions are lawful, to love, hate, desire, &c. more than reason requires; or else not loving, hating, desiring, &c. when we ought to love, hate, desire, &c.; in short, any error either in defect or excess, either too much or too little, is the vice or sin of the passions or affections of the soul.
“Now if we consider the infinite, boundless, incomprehensible Perfections of the ever-blessed God, we may easily conceive that evil, that sin, is the greatest contradiction imaginable to His most holy Nature; and that no evil, no disease, pain, or natural uncleanness whatever, is so hateful, so loathsome to us, as the corruptions and imperfections of the soul are to Him. He is Infinite Purity absolutely separated from all mortal imperfection. The Divine Intellect is all brightness, all perfect; was never, and can never be capable of the least ignorance. He is Truth, nor can He be weary or indisposed in contemplating that great attribute of His most perfect Nature: but has a constant steady view of truth.
“And as he fully comprehends at once all things past, present, and to come; so all objects appear to Him simple, naked, undisguised in their natures, properties, relations, and ends, truly as they are; nor is it possible that He should be guilty of error, or mistake, of making any false judgment or wrong determination.
“He is Goodness, and His most holy will cannot swerve or decline from what is so. He always wills what is absolutely best; nor can He possibly be deceived or deceive any one.
“The Ideas of the Divine mind are amiable, clear, holy, just, good, useful; and He is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. His love, desire, &c, though boundless, immense, and infinite, are yet regular, immutable, always under the direction of His unerring Wisdom, His unlimited Goodness, and His impartial Justice.
“But who can by searching find out God? who can find out the Almighty to perfection? What Angel is worthy to speak His praise, who dwelleth in the inaccessible Light, which no man can approach unto? And though He is always surrounded by thousands, and tens of thousands of those pure and happy Spirits; yet are they represented to us as veiling their faces, as if conscious of too much imperfection and weakness to behold His Glory. And if He charged His Angels with folly, and those stars are not pure in His sight; — how much less man that is a worm, and the son of a man that is a worm?
“And as we are thus corrupt and impure by nature; so are we likewise the children of wrath, and in a state of damnation; for it of mr. wesley’s ancestors.
was not only a temporal death, with which God threatened our first parents if they were disobedient; but it was also a spiritual death; an eternal separation from Him who is our Life; the consequence of which separation is our eternal misery.
“But the infinite Goodness of God, who delighteth :hat His Mercy should triumph over his Justice, though he provided no remedy for the fallen angels; yet man being a more simple kind of creature, who perhaps did not sin so maliciously against so much knowledge as those apostate spirits did; He would not suffer the whole race of mankind to be ruined and destroyed by the fraud and subtilty of Satan: but He laid help upon One that is Mighty, that is able and willing to save to the uttermost all such as shall come unto God through Him. And this Saviour was that Seed of the woman, that was promised should bruise the head of the Serpent, break the power of the Devil, and bring mankind again into a salvable condition. And upon a view of that satisfaction which Christ would make for the sins of the whole world was the penalty of Adam’s disobedience suspended, and he admitted to a second trial; and God renewed His covenant with man, not on the former condition of perfect obedience, but on condition of faith in Christ Jesus, and a sincere though imperfect obedience of the laws of God. I will speak something of these two branches of our duty distinctly.
“By faith in Christ is to be understood an assent to whatever is recorded of Him in Holy Scripture; or is said to be delivered by Him, either immediately by Himself, or mediately by His Prophets and Apostles; or whatever may by just inferences, or natural consequences, be collected from their Writings. But because the greater part of mankind either want leisure or capacity to collect the several Articles of Faith, which lie scattered up and down throughout the Sacred Writ, the wisdom of the Church hath thought fit to sum them up in a short form of words, commonly called The Apostles’ Creed, which, because it comprehends the main of what a Christian ought to believe, I shall briefly explain unto you: and though I have not time at present to bring all the arguments I could to prove the Being of God, His Divine attributes, and the truth of revealed religion; yet this short paraphrase may inform you what you should intend when you make the solemn confession of our most Holy Faith; and may withal teach you that it is not to be said after a formal customary manner, but seriously, as in the presence of the Almighty God, who observes whether the heart join with the tongue, and whether your mind do truly assent to what you profess when you sayj I BELIEVE IN GOD.
I do truly and heartily assent to the Being of a God, one supreme independent Power, who is a Spirit infinitely wise, holy, good, just true, unchangeable.
“I do believe that this God is a necessary self-existent Being; ne cessary, in that He could not but be, because He derives His existence from no other than Himself, but He always is
THE FATHER.
And having all life, all being in Himself, all creatures must derive their existence from Him; whence He is properly styled The Father of all things, more especially of all spiritual natures, angels and souls of men; and since He is the great Parent of the Universe, it naturally follows that He is
ALMIGHTY.
And this glorious attribute of His omnipotence is conspicuous in that He hath a right of making any thing which he willeth, after that manner which best pleaseth Him, according to the absolute freedom of His own will; and a right of possessing all things so made by Him as He pleaseth: nor can His almighty infinite Power admit of any weakness, dependence or limitation; but it extendeth to all things; is boundless, incomprehensible, and eternal. And though we cannot comprehend, or have any adequate conceptions of what so far surpasseth the reach of human understanding, yet it is plainly demonstrable that He is omnipotent from His being the
MAKER OF HEAVEN AND EARTH,
Of all things visible: nor could any thing less than Almighty Power produce the smallest, most inconsiderable thing out of nothing. Not the least spire of grass, or most despicable insect, but bears the Divine signature, and carries in its existence a clear demonstration of the Deity. For could we admit of such a wild supposition as that any thing could make itself, it must necessarily follow that a thing had being before it had a being, that it could act before it was, which is a palpable contradiction: from whence among other reasons we conclude, that this beautiful world, that celestial arch over our heads, and all those glorious heavenly bodies5 sun, moon, and stars, &c. in fine, the whole system of the Universe, were in the beginning made, or created out of nothing, by the eternal power, wisdom, and goodness of the ever-blessed God, according to the counsel of His own will; or, as St. Paul better expresses it, Colos. i. 16. 1 By Hini were all things created that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him.’
AND IN JESUS.
Jesus signifies a Saviour; and by that name He was called by the angel Gabriel before His birth, for to shew us that He came into the world to save us from our sins, and the punishment they justly deserve; and to repair the damage human nature had sustained by the fall of Adam; that as in Adam all died, so in Christ all should be made alive; and so He became the second general Head of all mankind. And as He was promised to our parents in Paradise; so was His coming signified by the various types and sacrifices under the Law, and foretold by the Prophets long before He appeared in the world.
“And this Saviour, this Jesus, was the promised Messiah, who was so long the hope and expectation of the Jews, the
CHRIST,
which in the original signifies Anointed. Now among the Jews it was a custom to anoint three sorts of persons, Prophets, Priests, and Kings; which anointing did not only shew their designation to those offices, but was also usually attended with a special influence, or inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to prepare and qualify them for such offices. Our blessed Lord, who was by His Almighty Father sanctified, and sent into the world, was also anointed, not with material oil, but by the descent of the Holy Ghost upon Him, to signify to us that He was our Prophet, Priest and King; and that He should first, as our Prophet, fully, clearly, reveal the will of God for our Salvation, which accordingly He did. And though the Jews had long before received the Law by Moses; yet a great part of that Law was purely typical and ceremonial; and all of it that was so was necessarily vacated by the coming of our Saviour: and that part which was moral, and consequently of perpetual obligation, they had so corrupted by their misrepresentations and various traditions, that it was not pure and undefiled, as God delivered it on Mount Sinai, which occasioned the words of our Lord, £ Think not that I am come to destroy the Law and the Prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.’ To accomplish the Predictions of the Prophets concerning Himself; and to rescue the moral law from those false glosses they had put on it. Though the rest of the world were not altogether without some precepts of morality; yet they lay scattered up and down, in the writings of a few wiser and better than the rest: but morality was never collected into a complete system, till the coming of our Saviour; nor was life and immortality brought fully to light till the preaching of the Gospel.
“He was also our Priest in that He offered up Himself a sacrifice to Divine Justice in our stead; and by the perfect satisfaction He made, He did atone the displeasure of God, and purchase eternal life for us, which was forfeited by the first man’s disobedience.
“And as He is our Prophet and Priest, so likewise He is our King and hath an undoubted right to govern those He hath redeemed by His blood; and as such He will conquer for us all our spiritual enemies, Sin and Death, and all the powers of the kingdom of darkness; and when He hath perfectly subdued them, He will actually confer upon us eternal happiness. This satisfaction and purchase that Christ hath made for us is a clear proof of his Divinity, since no mere man is capable of meriting any thing good from God; and therefore we are obliged to consider Him in a state of equality with the Father, being
his only son.
“Though we are all children of the Almighty Father, yet hath He one only Son, by an eternal and incomprehensible generation, which only Son is Jesus the Saviour; being equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead; but inferior to the Father as touching His manhood. God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God; begotten, not made*. And this only Son of God we acknowledge to be
OUR LORD;
In that He is co-equal and co-essential with the Father, and by Him were all things made. Therefore since we are His creatures, we must, with the Apostle St. Thomas, confess Him to be our Lord and our God. But besides this right to our allegiance, which He hath by creation, He hath redeemed us from death and hell, and He hath purchased us with His own Blood: so that upon a double account, we justly call him Lord, namely, that of creation and purchase. And as the infinite condescension of the Eternal Son of God in assuming our nature was mysterious, and incomprehensible, surpassing the wisest of men or angels to conceive how such a thing might be; so it was requisite and agreeable to the Majesty of God, that the conception of His Sacred Person should be after a manner altogether differing from ordinary generations; accordingly it was He
’ 1 31
of mr. wesley’s ancestors
WHICH WAS CONCEIVED BY THE HOLY GHOST;
Whose miraculous conception was foretold by the Angel, when Hir blessed Mother questioned how she who was a virgin could conceive. The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also thai Holy Thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And as all the Sacrifices which represented our Saviour under the Law, were to be without spot or blemish; so likewise Christ, the great Christian Sacrifice, was not only infinitely pure and holy, not only in His Divine, but also in His human nature, He was perfectly immaculate, having none but God for His Father, being
BORN OF THE VIRGIN MARY,
Whose spotless purity no age of the Catholic Church hath presumed to question. That the promised Messiah should be born of a Virgin is plain from Jer. xxxi. 22. * The Lord hath created a new thing upon the earth; a woman shall compass a man.7 And from Isaiah vii. 14. ‘Behold a Virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call His name Emmanuel.’ And this Seed of the woman must necessarily have assumed our nature, or He could never have been our Jesus, the Saviour of the World; for the Divine nature of the Son of God is infinitely happy, utterly incapable of any grief, pain, or sense of misery. Nor could its union with humanity any way defile or pollute it, or derogate the least from its infinite perfection: so it was only as man that He
SUFFERED
those infirmities and calamities incident to human nature.
“What transactions passed between the Almighty Father and His Eternal Son concerning the redemption of the world we know not: but we are sure that by an express agreement between Them He was from eternity decreed to suffer for mankind. And ki several places of the Old Testament it was written of the Son of Man, that He must suffer many things. And the Spirit of Christ that was in the Prophets testified before hand the sufferings of Christ; particularly in Isa. liii. we have a sad, but clear, description of the sufferings of the Messiah. Indeed His whole life was one continual scene of misery. No sooner was He born, than He was persecuted by Herod, and forced to flee into Egypt, in the arms of a weak virgin, under the protection of a foster-father. And when He returned into His country He for thirty years lived in a low condition, probably employed in the mean trade of a carpenter, which made Him in the eyes of the world despicable, of no reputation. And when after so long an obscurity He appeared unto men, He entered upon His Ministry with the severity of forty days abstinence.
“Behold the Eternal Lord of Nature transported into a wild and desolate wilderness, exposed to the inclemency of the air, and tempted by the apostate Spirits!
“The Almighty Being, who justly claims a right to the whole creation, was Himself hungry, and athirst; often wearied with pain* ful travelling from place to place. And though he went about doing good; and never sent any one away from Him, who wanted relief, without healing their diseases, and casting out those evil spirits which afflicted them; yet was He despised, and rejected of men! The Possessor of Heaven and Earth, the Sovereign Disposer of all things, from whose bounty all creatures receive what they enjoy of the necessary accommodations of life; was reduced to such a mean estate, that the foxes had holes, and the birds of the air had nests, yet the Son of Man had not where to lay His head! All His life He was a man of sorrow, and acquainted with grief; yet His greatest sufferings were
UNDER PONTIUS PILATE,
Who was at that time the Roman Governor of Judea under Tiberiusf the Emperor of Rome. His office was that of a Procurator, whose business it was not only to take an account of the tribute due to the Emperor, and to order and dispose of the same to his advantage; but by means of the seditious and rebellious temper of the Jews, they were farther trusted with some of the supreme power amongst them; a power of life and death, which was a signal instance of Divine Providence, and a clear proof of the predictions of the Prophets, which had long before foretold that the Messiah should suffer after a manner that was not prescribed by the Law of Moses: and this circumstance of time is mentioned, to confirm the truth of our Saviour’s history.
“And now behold a mysterious scene of wonders indeed! The Immaculate Lamb of God, who came to save the world, from misery, under the greatest, most amazing apprehensions of His approaching passion, ( He began to be sorrowful,’ saith St. Matthew; ‘To be sore amazed, and very heavy,’ saith St. Mark. His soul was pressed with fear, horror, and dejection of mind; tormented with anxiety, and disquietude of spirit, which He expressed to His disciples in Shese sad words? ‘My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto deatlil’
See Him retire to a solitary garden at a still melancholy hour of the night. Behold Him prostrate on the ground, conflicting with the wrath of His Almighty Father. He perfectly knew what God is, the severe purity of the Deity; and was absolutely conformed to His will.
u He knew the evil of sin in its nature and consequences; the perfect justice, wisdom, and goodness, of the Divine Laws. He understood the inexpressible misery man had brought upon himself, by the violation of them; and how intolerable it would be for man to sustain the vengeance of an angry God. And perhaps He was moved with extreme concern and pity, when He foresaw that notwithstanding all He had already done, and was then about to sutler for his salvation, there would be so many that would obstinately perish! He had a full prospect of all He had yet to undergo; that the conflict was not yet over, but that the dregs of that bitter cup still remained; that He must be forsaken of His Father in the midst of His torments, which made Him thrice so earnestly repeat His petition, that if it were possible that Cup might pass from Him. But the full complement of His sufferings we may suppose to be, He did at that time actually sustain the whole weight of that grief and sorrow, which was due to the Justice of God for the sins of the whole world. And this we may believe caused that inconceivable Agony, when His sweat was as great drops of blood falling to the ground.
v And though His torments were so inexpressibly great, yet the Son of Man must sutler many things. He must be betrayed by one disciple, denied by another, and forsaheii by all. That as He had suffered in His soul by the most intense grief and anguish, so He had to suffer in His body the greatest bitterness of corporeal pains, which the malice and rage of His enemies could inflict upon it. And now the Sovereign Lord and Judge of all men is haled before the tribunal of His sinful creatures. The pure and unspotted Son of God who could do no wrong, neither could guile be found in His mouth, accused by His presumptuous slaves of no less a crime than blasphemy. And* though the witnesses could by no means agree together, and He was so often declared innocent by Pilate, an infidel judge; yet still the rude and barbarous rabble, being instigated by the envy and malice of the Chief Priests and Elders, persist in demanding that He should be condemned.
“And when, in compliance with their usual custom of having a malefactor released at their Feast, Pilate in order to save Him proposed His release instead of Barabbas, who was a seditious murderer, yet they persisted in their fury, and preferred the murderer before the Prince of Life and Glory; nor would they be satisfied till he WAS CRUCIFIED,
To which ignominious death the Romans commonly condemned their greatest malefactors; and it was accounted so vile and so shameful among them, that it was deemed a very high crime to put any freeman to death after such a dishonourable manner: and as the shame was great, so it was usually accompanied with many previous pains. They were first cruelly scourged; and then compelled to bear their cross on their bleeding wounds, to the place of crucifixion; all which the meek and patient Jesus underwent cheerfully for His love towards mankind. f The ploughers ploughed on His back, and made long their furrows.’ But there were other painful circumstances which attended and increased the sufferings of our Saviour. They had not only accused him of blasphemy, but of treason and sedition: i We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that He Himself was Christ, a King;’ which, as it moved Pilate to contemn Him, so it moved the rude soldiers to insult Him by their mock ensigns of royalty. ‘They arrayed Him in a purple robe, and put a reed in His hand and they bowed the knee before Him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews.’ And that crown of thorns, which they platted and put on His head, not only expressed the scorn of His tormentors, but did, by the piercing of His sacred temples, cause exquisite pain. That blessed face, which angels rejoice to behold, they buffeted and spat upon; nor was any circumstance of cruelty, which their witty malice could suggest to torment Him, omitted by those inhuman rebels, till, wearied with their own barbarity, and impatient of His living any longer, they put His own clothes on Him again, and led Him away to crucifixion.
“And now let us, by faith, attend our Lord to His last scene of misery. Let us ascend with Him to the top of Mount Calvary, and see with what cruel pleasure they nail His hands and feet to the infamous wood; which, having done they raise Him from the earth, the whole weight of His body being sustained by those four wounds.
“But though the corporeal pains occasioned by the thorns, the scourging, by the piercing those nervous and most sensible parts of His most sacred Body, were wrought up to an inexpressible decree of torture; yet were they infinitely surpassed by the anguish of His Soul when there was (but after what manner we cannot conceive, but it is certain that there was,) a sensible withdrawing of the comfortable Presence of the Deity, which caused that loud and impassioned exclamation, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me! And now it is finished: the measure of His sufferings is completed;
and He, who could not die but by His own voluntary act of resigning life, gave up His pure and spotless Soul into the hands of His Almighty Father. And though stupid man could look insensibly on the mysterious Passion of his blessed Redeemer, yet Nature could not so behold her dying Lord, but by strong commotions expressed her sympathy. t
“The sun, as if ashamed and astonished at the barbarous inhumanity and ingratitude of man, withdrew his influence; nor would he display the brightness of his beams when the great Son of God lay under the eclipse of death. The foundations of the solid earth were shaken, the rocks rent, and the graves were opened; and the vail of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; signifying that all, both Jews and Gentiles, have free admission into the Holy of holies, into the haven of presence, through the blood of Jesus; which extorted a confession of His Divinity even from His enemies; for when the Centurion and they that were with him watching Jesus saw the earthquake and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly, this was the Son of God.
“Now, though crucifixion does not involve necessarily in it certain death, but that if a person be taken from the cross he may live; yet, since it is evident that the Messiah was to die, and that for that cause He was born and came into the world that He might, by the grace of God, suffer death for every man, so we are bound to believe that He was truly
dead;
That there was an actual, real separation of His Soul and Body. — And for a confirmation of this article it is added, —
AND BURIED;
And as His death was foretold, so likewise His burial was typified by the Prophet Jonah; for as he was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so was the Son of Man three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. And though by the Roman law those who were crucified were not allowed the favour of a grave, but were to remain on the cross, exposed to the fowls of the air and the leasts of the field; yet it was in the power of the magistrate to permit a burial; and the providence of God had so ordered it, that those very persons who had caused Him to be crucified, should petition for his being taken down from the cross: for the Law of Moses required — that ( if a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and Ihou hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that night.’ And therefore they begged of Pilate that the body should be taken down from the cross; and this was the first step towards our Saviour’s burial. ‘And when the even was come, because it was the prepa* ration, that is, the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, an honourable counsellor, which also waited for the kingdom of God, came and went in boldly to Pilate, and craved the body of Jesus. And he gave the Body unto Joseph; and he brought fine linen, and wrapped Him in the linen, and laid him in the sepulchre which was hewn out of a rock, wherein never man before was laid; and rolled a stone at the door of the supulchre, and departed.’
HE DESCENDED INTO HELL.
That our blessed Lord did actually descend into hell seems very plain from St. Peter’s exposition of that text in the Psalms, — Thou shalt not leave my soul in hell, neither shalt thou suffer thy Holy One to see corruption; when, having mentioned this passage, he thus explains it: — ? He, (that is, David,) seeing this before, (namely the incarnation of the Son of God,) spake of his resurrection; that His soul was not left in hell, neither did His flesh see corruption which is a clear proof that His soul did really descend into hell, after it was separated from His body. But though He underwent the condition of a sinner in this world, and suffered and died as a sinner; yet being perfectly holy, and having, by virtue of the union of the Deity to His human nature, fully satisfied the strictest demands of Divine justice, we are not to suppose that He either did or could suffer the torments of the damned; therefore we may reasonably conclude, that His descent into hell was not to suffer, but to triumph over principalities and powers; over the rulers of the kingdom of darkness, in their own sad regions of horror and despair: and for this reason, and in this sense, are we to understand His descent into hell. And as His soul was not left in hell, neither did His flesh see corruption; but having by His own almighty power loosed the pain of death, because it was impossible that He should be holden of it, —
THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE AGAIN FROM THE DEAD.
Friday, on which He suffered, and the first day of the week, on which He rose, being included in the number of the three days. And this first day of the week the Apostles and primitive Christians have ever since observed as the Sabbath.
“That as the Jews, who will not believe in any greater deliverance than that out of Egypt, still keep the seventh day, and the Turks op mr. wesley’s ancestors.
Friday, in memory of Mohammed’s flight from Mecca, whom they esteem a greater prophet than Christ or Moses; so all Christians are distinguished from all the rest of the world by their observance of the first day, in commemoration of our Saviour’s rising from the dead, and His finishing the great work of man’s redemption on that day.
“Thus, we believe that as Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose again the third day according to the Scriptures; so —
HE ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN.
“He had for forty days after His resurrection remained upon earth, during which time He appeared frequently to His disciples, ate and drank with them, shewed them His hands and His feet, which visibly retained the marks of His crucifixion, to convince them that it was the same body which was nailed to the cross; that it was the same Jesus which suffered for our offences, that was raised for our justification; and that by His so doing we might have a sure and certain hope of our own resurrection from the dead. And when He had spoken to His diciples and blessed them, He parted from them and ascended into the highest heaven, where He still remains,
AND SITTETH ON THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD, THE FATHER ALMIGHTY
“God is a Spirit; nor hath He any body, so cannot properly be said to have any parts, such as eyes, ears, hands, &c. as we see bodies have; therefore we may suppose that the right hand of God signifies His exceeding great and infinite power and glory.
“And Christ is said to sit down on the right hand of God in regard of that absolute power and dominion which He hath obtained in Heaven, according as He told the Jews, — 6 Hereafter ye shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power.’ After all the labour and sorrow, the shame, and contempt, and torments, He suffered in this world, He resteth above in a permanent state of endless glory and unspeakable felicity; — and
FROM THENCE HE SHALL COME TO JUDGE THE QUICK AND THE
DEAD.
“All that shall be found alive at His coming, as well as those that have died since Adam, shall appear before the judgment seat of of Christ, to be by Him judged according to what they have done on earth, to be by Him determined and sentenced, and finally disposed to their eternal condition. Those that have done well He shall receive into everlasting habitations, to remain for ever with Him in eternal blessedness; and those that have done evil He shall condemn to the kingdom of darkness, there to remain in insupportable misery for ever, with the Devil and his angels.
“And as we must thus profess to believe in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, so we must every one truly and heartily
I BELIEVE IN THE HOLY GHOST J
“That He is a Person of a real and true subsistence, neither created nor begotten, but proceeding from the Father and the Son: — true and eternal God, who is essentially holy Himself, and the Author of all holiness in us, by sanctifying our natures, illuminating our minds, rectifying our wills and affections: who co-operateth with the Word and Sacraments, and whatever else is a mean of conveying grace into the soul. He it was that spoke by the Prophets and Apostles, and it is He who leadeth us into all truth. He helpeth our mfi unities, assures us of our adoption, and will be with
THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH
to the end of the world. The Catholic Church is composed of ali congregations of men whatever, who hold the faith of Jesus Christ and are obedient to His Laws, wherein the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments duly delivered by such Ministers as are regularly consecrated and set apart for such ordinances, according to Christ’s institution. And as this Church is called holy in
respect of its Author, Jesus, End, Glory of God, and
Salvation of souls, Institution of the Ministry, administration of the Sacraments, preaching of the pure Word of God; and of the members of this Church, who are renewed and sanctified by the HoK Spirit, and united to Christ, the Supreme Head and Governor of the Church.
“It is styled Catholic, because it is not, like that of the Jews; confined to one place and people; but is disseminated through all nations, extendeth throughout all ages,- even to the end of the world. And as there is but one Head; so the members, though many, are one body, united together by the same spirit, principally by the three great Christian virtues, faith, hope, and charity. For as we hold the same principles of faith, do all assent to the same truths once delivered to the saints; so have we the same hopes and expectations of eternal life which are promised to all. And as our Lord gave
the same mark of distinction to all His disciples, — 1 By this shall ail men know that ye are my disciples if ye love one another so this universal love which is diffused throughout the whole body of Christ is the union of charity; and the same ministry and the same orders in the Church make the unity of discipline. But since Christ hath appointed only one way to Heaven; so we are not to expect salvation out of the Church which is called Catholic, in opposition to Heretics and Schismatics. And if an angel from Heaven should preach any other doctrine than Christ and His Apostles have taught, or appoint any other Sacraments than Christ hath already instituted, let him be accursed.
“And as the mystical union between Christ and the Church, and the spiritual conjunction of the members with the Head, is the fountain of that union and communion which the saints have with each other, as being all under the influence of the same Head; so death, which only separates bodies for a time, cannot dissolve the union of minds; and therefore it is not only in relation to the saints on earth, but including also those in heaven, we profess to hold
THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS.
Accordingly we believe that all saints, as well those on earth as those in heaven, have communion with God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; with the blessed Angels, who not only join in devotion with the Church triumphant above, but are likewise sent forth to minister to those who are the heirs of salvation while they remain in this world. And perhaps we do not consider as we ought to do, how much good we receive by the ministration of the holy Angels; nor are we sufficiently grateful to those guardian spirits that so often put by ill accidents, watch over us when we sleep, defending us from the assaults of evil men and evil angels. And if they are so mindful of our preservation in this world, we may suppose them much more concerned for our eternal happiness: ‘There is joy among the Angels in Heaven over one shiner that repenteth:’ — they are present in our public assemblies, where we in a more especial manner hold communion with them; and it is there we join with all the company of the Heavenly Host in praising and admiring the Supreme Being whom we jointly adore. What knowledge the saints in Heaven have of things or persons in this world we cannot determine, nor after what manner we hold communion with them it is not at present easy to conceive.
“That we are all members of the same mystical body of Christ we are very sure: and do all partake of the same vita! influence from the same Head, and so we are united together; and though we are not actually possessed of the same happiness which they enjoy, yet we have the s.ime Holy Spirit given unto us as an earnest of our eternal felicity with them hereafter. And though their faith is consummated by vision, and their hope by present possession, yet the bond of Christian charity still remains; and as we have great joy and complacency in their felicity, so no doubt they desire and pray for us.
“With the saints on earth we hold communion by the Word and Sacraments, by praying with and for each other; and in all acts of public or private worship we act upon the same principles and the same motives, having the same promises and hopes of
THE FORGIVENESS OP SINS,
Through Jesus Christ, the Mediator of the New Covenant, who gave His life a sacrifice by way of compensation and satisfaction to Divine Justice, by which God became reconciled to man, and cancelled the obligation which every sinner lay under to suffer eternal punishment; and He hath appointed in His Church Baptism for the first remission, and Repentance for the constant forgiveness of all following trespasses. And now have we confidence towards God, that not only our souls shall be freed from the guilt and punishment of sin by faith in Jesus: but also our bodies may rest in hopes of
THE RESURRECTION OP THE BODY,
That the same Almighty power which raised again our Blessed Lords after He had lien three days in the grave, shall again quicken our mortal bodies; shall reproduce the same individual body that slept in the dust, and vitally unite it to the same soul which informed it while on earth. The hour is coming in which all that are in the grave shall hear His voice, and come forth; c they that have done good to the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil to the resurrection of damnation,’ John v. 28, 29. ‘And the Sea gave up the dead that were in it, and Death and Hell, (that is, the Grave) delivered up the dead that were in them,’ Rev. xx. 13. There shall be a general rendezvous of every particular atom which composed the several bodies of men that ever lived in the world; and each shall be restored to its proper owner, so as to make the same numerical body, the same flesh and blood, &c. which was dissolved at death. And though the bodies of saints shall be glorified heavenly bodies; yet they shall be of the same consistence and figure, but only altered and changed in some properties. And though at the first view it may seem hard to conceive hew those bodies which have of mr. wesley’s ancestors.
suffered so many various transmutations, have either been buried in the earth, devoured by beasts, consumed by fire, or swallowed up in the sea, have been dissolved into the smallest atoms, and those atoms perhaps scattered throughout the world, have fructified the earth, fed the fishes, and by that means become the food of animals and other men, and a part of their nourishment, till at last the same particles of matter belong to several bodies: how, I say, the same numerical atoms should at last rally and meet again, and be restored to the Jirsf owner, make up again the same first body, which so long since was consumed, may seem difficult, if not altogether impossible, to determine.
But since God hath declared that He will raise the dead, we have no manner of reason to question whether He can do it, since Omnipotence knows no difficulty: and that Almighty Power which first made us of nothing, out of no pre-existing matter, can easily distinguish, and perceive, and unmix from other bodies, our scattered atoms, and can re-collect and unite them again, how far soever they may be dispersed asunder. He can observe the various changes they undergo in their passages through other bodies; and can so order it, that they shall never become any part of their nourishment; or if they should be adopted into other men, He can cause them to yield them up again before they die, that they may be restored to their right owners; and having collected these
particles, He can readily dispose them into the same order — rebuild the same beauteous fabric, consisting of the same flesh and bones, nerves, veins, blood, &c, and all the several parts it had before its dissolution; and by reuniting it to the same soul, make the same living man.
“But though the body shall be in substance the same after its resurrection as it was before its death; yet it shall greatly differ in its qualities. 1 It was sown in corruption, it shall be raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.’ They shall not retain the same principles of corruption and mortality which they had before; they shall never die. The bodies of the damned shall eternally remain in the most inconceivable torments; while those of the blessed shall meet the Lord in the air when He comes to judgment, and afterwards ascend with Him into Heaven, there to enjoy
THE LIFE EVERLASTING.
By everlasting life is not only meant that we shall die no more; for in this sense the damned shall have everlasting life as well as the saints: they shall always have a being, though in intolerable torments; which is infinitely worse than none at all.
“But we are to understand by the life everlasting a full and perfect enjoyment of solid inexpressible joy and felicity, — Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, what God hath prepared for those that love him.
a The soul shall be perfectly sanctified, nor shall it be possible to sin any more. All its faculties shall be purified and exalted: the understanding shall be filled with the beatific vision of the adorable Trinity; shall be illuminated, enlarged, and eternally employed and satisfied in the contemplation of the sublimest truths. Here we see as in a glass, — have dark and imperfect perceptions of God: but there we shall behold Him as He is, shall know as we are known. Not that we shall fully comprehend the Divine Nature, as he doth ours; that is impossible; for He is infinite and incomprehensible, and we though in Heaven shall be finite still; but our apprehension of His being and perfections shall be clear, just, and true. We shall see Him as He is: shall never be troubled with misapprehensions or false, conceptions of Him more: those dark and mysterious methods of Providence which here puzzle and confound the wisest heads to reconcile them with his Justice and Goodness shall be there unriddled in a moment; and we shall clearly perceive that all the evils which befal good men in this life were the corrections of a merciful Father; that the furnace of affliction, which now seems so hot and terrible to nature, had nothing more than a lambent flame, which was not designed to consume us; but only to purge away our dross, to purify and prepare the mind for its abode among those blessed ones that passed through the same trials before us into the celestial Paradise. And we shall for ever adore and praise that infinite Power and Goodness which safely conducted the soul through the rough waves of this tempestuous ocean to the calm haven of peace and everlasting tranquility. Nor shall we have the same sentiments there which we had here: but shall clearly discern that our afflictions here were our choicest mercies. Our wills shall m longer be averse from God’s, but shall be for ever lost in that of our blessed Creator’s. No conflicts with unruly passions; no pain or misery shall ever find admittance into that Heavenly Kingdom.
“God shall wipe away all tears from our eyes; and there shall be no more Death, neither sorrow, nor crying; neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away; when we shall hunger no more? neither thirst any more; neither shall the s rr light upon us, nor any heat; for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne shall feed us, and shall lead us unto living fountains of water. Far be from us to think that the Grace of God can be purchased with any thing less precious than the Blood of Jesus: but if it could, who that has the lowest degree of faith would not part with all things in this world to obtain that love for our dear Redeemer which we so long for, and sigh after. Here we cannot watch one hour with Jesus, without weariness, failure of spirits, dejection of mind, worldly regards which damp our devotions, and pollute the purity of our sacrifices.
“What Christian here does not often feel and bewail the weight of corrupt nature; the many infirmities which molest us in our way to glory? And how difficult is it to practise as we ought that great duty of self-denial; to take up our cross, and follow the Captain of our salvation, without ever repining or murmuring? If shame or confusion could enter those blessed mansions, — how would our souls be ashamed and confounded at the review of our imperfect services, when we see them crowned with such an unproportionable reward? How shall we blush to behold that exceeding and eternal weight of glory, that is conferred upon us for that little, or rather nothing, which we have done or suffered for our Lord? That God who gave us being, that preserved us, that fed and clothed us in our passage through thr world; and, what is infinitely more, that gave His only Son to die for us; and has by His grace purified and conducted us safe to His glory!
“Oh, blessed Grace! mysterious Love! how shall we then adore and praise what we cannot here apprehend aright! How will love and joy work in the soul! But I cannot express it, I cannot conceive it.
“I have purposely omitted many arguments for the being of God, the Divine authority of Scripture, the truth of revealed religion, or future judgment. The last article I have left very imperfect, uecause I intend to write on all these subjects for the use of my children when I have more leisure. I shall only add a few words to prepare your mind for the second part of my Discourse, Obedience to the Laws of God, which I shall quickly send you.
u. As the defilement of our natures is the source and original of all our actual iniquities and transgressions of the laws of God; so the first regular step we can take towards amendment is to be deeply sensible of. grieved and humbled for, our original sin. An. though (I believe) the damning guilt of that sin is washed away by; ptisna, by those who die before they are capable of known and actual transgressions; yet experience shows us that the power of it does still survive in such as attain to riper years; and this is what the Apostle complains of in Romans vii.
“This is the carnal nature; that law in our members, which wars against the law of the mind, and brings into captivity to the law of Sin.
“And when the work of conversion or regeneration is begun by the Holy Spirit, yet still corrupt nature maintains a conflict with Divine Grace: nor shall this enemy be entirely conquered, till Death shall be swallowed up of victory; till this mortal shall have put on immortality.
“I cannot tell whether you have ever seriously considered the lost and miserable condition you are in by nature: if you have not, it is high time to begin to do it; and I shall earnestly beseech the Almighty to enlighten your mind, to renew and sanctify you by His Holy Spirit, that you may be His child by adoption here, and an heir of His blessed kingdom hereafter!
S. W.”
Epworth, Jan. 13, 1709-10.
I believe this exposition of the Creed to be entirely original; and that it contains many fine passages and just definitions, every careful Reader will at once discern. The introduction is excellent; as is also what she says on Almighty — Christ — Suffered under Pontius Pilate — Crucified — Catholic Church — Communion of Saints — Resurrection — and the Life everlasting. Of our Lord’s descent into hell she speaks as Commentators in general do. On the doctrine of forgiveness of sins she wilt be found less satisfactory than on most other points: she was much better acquainted with this doctrine afterwards.
Under the article Holy Ghost she not only shews that it is by Hit influence that the soul is enlightened, and the heart purified, and that His continual co-operation with the Word and Sacraments is necessary in order to make them effectual; but she also hints at that Doctrine which her sons preached with such great unction and success, and which is a standard Article in the Creed of every Methodist, ‘viz. The doctrine of the witness of the Spirit in the souls of genuine believers. Her words are strong and pointed.” It is He that leadeth us into all truth. He helpeth our infirmities, assures its of our adoption, and will be with the Holy Catholic Church to the end of the world.’
Where she touches upon them, she does not make the necessary distinction between Justification and Sanctification; but in effect of me. wesley’s Ancestors.
confounds them, as did most of the writers in that and the preceding age. Nor have I met with the proper definition of each, and its description as a separate independent work, but in the writings oi Mr. John Wesley and the Methodists. Justification, as implying an act of God’s infinite mercy, blotting, out the guilt of sin on account of the sacrificial offering of Jesus Christ; — and Sanctif cation, as implying the purification of the heart by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit; — must necessarily be distinct: and in no case does the pardon of guilt necessarily imply the total, nor indeed partial, destruction of the nature and in-being of sin.
From the conclusion of this Exposition we find Mrs. Wesley adopting an article not in the Creed itself, but which is in most people’s Creeds at present, viz. “that inward sin will not be destroyed till death.” A more popular and a more uncomfortable article never entered into the composition of any Creed. The Methodists believe and teach, that by the power of God sin may be destroyed in a moment: and that there is no need of death to save from sin, when the Blood of Jesus Christ our Lord cleanseth from all unrighteousness. Since the whole salvation of man comes through the Blood of the Cross, there can be no necessity to wait till death separates soul and body, to have sin separated from the soul. It is the duty of every man at all times “perfectly to love God, and worthily to magnify His name:” but this can never be done till the very thoughts of the heart are cleansed by the inspiration of God’s Holy Spirit. God, therefore, who has made it our duty thus to love and magnify Him, is every moment willing to confer on the justified soul that grace by which alone it can thus love and magnify Him. There is not one text in the Bible, fairly and honestly understood, that says we cannot be cleansed from all sin till we come to die; and there is not one promise in the Bible that we shall be made holy in the article of death. But this is not the place to discuss Doctrines; yet I thought it necessary to make a few remarks on the preceding articles, lest any should suppose that all the sentiments in this (in the main) excellent Exposition of the Creed were those of the Methodists’ Body. In this respect also Mrs. Wesley saw clearer before she died.
In the conclusion, she promises her daughter a second part, or Obedience to the Laws of God; that a right faith might be accompanied with a suitable holy practice. This part I have not seen: but as it was to contain farther proof of the being of God, and the authenticity of Divine Revelation, I suppose her meditations and refections contained the heads of it. Dr. Whitehead has preserved some of these in his Life of Mr. Wesley. I have several others m her own handwriting, in my own Collection, which I shall insert as the only substitute for the second part above promised.
Though Mrs. Wesley had always lived a strictly religious life; fearing God, and, according to her age and light, working righteousness; yet as she found family cares accumulating, she found also the necessity of more grace to enable her to act her part well in those new and trying relations of Wife and Mother. When she was thirty years of age, or about the year 1700, she formed the resolution to spend an hour morning and evening in private retirement and devotion. In this she acted from a deep sense both of its propriety and necessity; and was ever after faithful to her engagement; suffering nothing to break in on those consecrated hours, but what arose from absolute necessity, and was therefore unavoidable.
Those who imagine they can encounter the cares of life with just the same measure of grace which was sufficient for them in a single state, will find themselves greatly mistaken. For to every situation in life peculiar and suitable grace is requisite. Most new married people, even among those who are religious, think nothing of this. Hence it is often found that the new married pair soon decline in the Divine life; and instead of getting forward, either go halting in the heavenly road, or turn back to the world. Mrs. Wesley was fully aware of this, and provided timely against the evil.
Perhaps the Reader, if personally concerned, will also lay the subject to heart.
From Mrs. Wesley’s private papers I find that not only morning and evening, but noonday, had its time of private devotion. In her retirement, when the world and worldly cares were shut out, and her mind was at full liberty to converse with itself and with its Maker, she thought deeply on many subjects connected with her spiritual profiting, and often wrote down her thoughts. These, in several cases, she digested into Discourses and Letters for the benefit of her family. I shall make no apology for laying before the Reader several examples taken from her own Manual. In the original there are no dates.
MORNING.
“Such a time devoted. Whenever company or business inclines you to quit your retirement, and either to omit or cursorily perform accustomed exercises; and you, instead of resisting, comply with such inclinations, you may observe that you are always guilty of some sin or error, that upon reflection gives you more pain than the projit or pleasure gave you satisfaction. Therefore, make it your care to conquer your inclination to any company at such times: nor let any of mr. wesley’s ancestors,
trivial business divert you; for no business, unless it cannot be laid aside or suspended, without sin, can be of equal, much less of greater, importance, than caring for the soul.”
EVENING.
“That man who will readily believe an ill report of you never was, or at least is not now, your friend. Seneca, a Heathen, could say, ‘In some cases I will not believe a man against himself. I will give him, however, time to recollect himself: nay, sometimes, I will allow him counsel too.’ But Christians, bad Christians, are rarely so candid. He is a friend indeed, who is proof against calumny: but he is a rare Christian that will not believe a man against himself.
“This is eternal life to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. But what is it to know God? Or, what is that knowledge of God on which eternal life depends?”
NOON.
“What can human reason do, or how far can the light of reason direct us to find out the knowledge of the Most High? From the primordials of the universe we collect that there is one Supremeeternal, consequently self-existent, Being, who gave being to all things: since to act presuppose! existence; for nothing can act before it be. That this Being must possess, by way of eminence, all the perfections we discern in the creatures, reason tells us: lb nothing can impart that to another, which it has not to impart.”
EVENING.
“And as creation demonstrates Omnipotence; so that infers wisdom, justice, truth, purity, goodness, &c. For all these perfections are intellectual powers; and were God deficient in one, He could not be omnipotent. That He is a Spirit unbodied, undetermined, immense, filling heaven and earth, all the imaginary spaces beyond them; — most simple, (pure,) uncompounded, and absolutely separated and free from whatever pollution a spirit is capable of being defiled with; — immutable, incapable of change or alteration for the better or worse; — perfectly free, knowing no superior, no equal, that may impel, allure, or persuade Him, but acting always spontaneously according to the counsel of His own will, — we may discover by the light of nature.”
MORNING.
u This is to know God, as a man, as a reasonable creature: but this is not that knowledge that leadeth us to eternal life. That is a knowledge of another hind: the one we attain in a scientifical method, by a long train of arguments, for which the bulk of mankind want either capacity or leisure; the other, by frequent and fervent application to God in prayer. The one is an effect of reason assisted by human learning, peculiar to a few of the more noble and refined sense : — God perceived, known to the understanding as the Creator, Preserver, and Governor of the universe. The other is Reason acting by the influence and direction of the Holy Spirit: — God known to the heart, the will, and its affection, not merely as the Author of our being, but as He is exhibited to us under the character of the Healer and Repairer of the lapse and misery of human nature; & Saviour, Him whom our soul loveth.”
NOON.
“To know God only as a philosopher: to have the most sublime and curious speculations concerning His essence, His attributes, His providence; to be able to demonstrate His Being from all or any of the works of nature; and to discourse with the greatest elegancy and propriety of words, of His existence or operations; will avail us nothing, unless at the same time we know Him experimentally; unless the heart perceive and know Him to be its Supreme Good, its only happiness: unless the soul feel and acknowledge that she can find no repose, no peace, no joy, but in loving, and being beloved by Him; and does accordingly rest in Him as the Centre of her being, the Fountain of her pleasure; the Origin of all virtue and goodness; her Light, her Life, her Strength, her All; every thing she wants or wishes in this world, and for ever! — In a word, her Lord, her God!
“Thus, let me ever know Thee, O God! I do not despise nor neglect the light of reason, nor that knowledge of Thee which by her conduct may be collected from this goodly system of created beings: but this speculative knowledge is not the knowledge I want and wish for.”
MORNING.
“It is very likely that your humour last night was rather the effect of fancy and passion than of a clear sound judgment. If otherwise, — why did you feel uneasiness at another person being out of huof mr. wesley’s ancestors.
mour? Was it not pride made you resent contradiction? or from what other principle could that reluctance flow, which you felt in obeying a trivial command, which perhaps might proceed from peevishness; yet the matter being indifferent, obedience was unquestionably your duty. A wise person ought seldom, or indeed never, when authority is not disputed or contemned, do acts of power; because they are shocking to human nature; which, if not fortified and strengthened by religion, is apt in such cases to throw off all subjection, and rebel against even lawful government. But though you should meet with high instances, which the pride of man will throw in your way; yet take care not to swerve from your duty. Look upon every such act as a call of Divine providence to exercise r.he virtues of meekness and humility.
“When you can bear severe reflections, unjust censures, contemptuous words, and unreasonable actions, without perturbation, without rendering evil for evil; but with an equal temper can clearly discern, and cheerfully do your duty; you may hope that God hath given you some degree of humility and resignation.”
evening.
“The philosophy of the whole world hath not sufficient force to conquer the propensions of corrupt nature. Appetites and passions will bear sway maugre all our fine speculations; till our minds are enlightened by some higher principle, by virtue of which light it discerns the moral turpitude of those things in which before it placed its supreme happiness, and the beauty of that virtue and holiness that it wag accustomed to despise.”
MORNING.
“You commit your soul morning and evening to Jesus Christ, as He is the Saviour of the world: then, observe what he saith unto you, resolutely obey His precepts, and endeavour to follow His example in those things wherein He is exhibited to us as a Pattern for our imitation. No circumstances or time of life can occur, but you may find something either spoken by our Lord Himself, or by His Spirit in the Prophets or Apostles, that will direct your conduct, it you are but faithful to God and your own soul.”
EVENING.
“Two great obstacles in the way of Christian perfection: the first - — —. What says our Lord by his apostle St. John? — Love not the world, nor the things that are in the world; if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.. That man will as certainly be damned whose affections are fixed on sensual pleasures, riches, or honours, though he never enjoy any, or a very inconsiderable proportion of them, as he that having them all in his power, indulges himself the satisfaction of his most criminal desires. For ’tis the heart God requires; and he that suffers his heart (his affection) to centre on any thing but God, be the object of his passion innocent or otherwise, does actually make that thing his God, and in so doing forfeits his title and pretentions to eternal happiness.”
MORNING.
* Another great impediment is deep adversity, which often affects the mind too much, and disposes to anxious, doubtful, and unbelieving thoughts. Though there be no direct murmurings, no repinings at the prosperity of others; no harsh reflections on Providence, but a constant acknowledgement of the Justice and Goodness of God — that He punishes less than our iniquities deserve — and does always in the midst of judgment remember mercy; yet if you think severely or unjustly of men; if you are too much dejected, or disposed to peevishness, covetousness, or negligence in affairs; if you work too much or too little; are presumptuous or desponding, wholly omit to implore the Divine blessing and assistance on honest prospects and endeavours; or are too solicitous and earnest in prayer for external blessings; if the thoughts of your circumstances invade your privacies, or disturb your rest; if any little access of trouble have power to ruffle your temper, and indispose or distract your mind in your addresses to Heaven, in reading, meditation, or any other spiritual exercise; you are certainly in the power of the world, guilty of immoderate anxious care.
“Then observe what your Lord saith by His apostle, — Be careful (anxiously) for nothing. And what He saith Himself, — Therefore I say unto you, take no thought, fyc. and remember that He ranks cares of this life with surfeitings and drunkenness, which are mortal damning sins.”
MORNING.
“The great difficulty we find in restraining our appetites and passions from excess often arises from the liberties we take in indulging them in all those instances wherein there does not at first sight appear some moral evil. Occasions of sin frequently take their rise from lawful enjoyments; and he that will always venture to go to the of mr. wesley’s ancestors. utmost bounds of what he may, will not fail to step beyond them sometimes; and then he uses his liberty for a cloak of his licentiousness. He that habitually knows and abhors the sins of intemperance, will not stay too long in the company of such as are intemperate; and because God is pleased to indulge us a glass for refreshment, will therefore take it when he really needs none, it is odds but this man will transgress; and though he should keep on his feet, and in his senses, yet he will perhaps raise more spirits than his reason can command; will injure his health, his reputation or estate; discompose his temper, violate his own peace, or that of his family; all which are evils which ought carefully to be avoided.
“It holds the same in all other irregular appetites or passions; and there may be the same temptations in other instances from whence occasions of sin may arise; therefore be sure to keep a strict guard, and observe well lest you use lawful pleasures unlawfully, 1 Fly from occasions of evilP”
NOON.
“The Christian religion is of so complicated a nature, that unless we give up ourselves entirely to its discipline, we cannot stedfastly adhere to any of its precepts. All virtues are closely bound together; and break but one link of the golden chain, you spoil the whole contexture. As vices are often made necessary supports to each other; so virtues do mutually strengthen and assist virtues. Thus temperance and chastity, fortitude and truth, humility and patience, Divine charity and charity towards man; all virtues of what denomination soever reciprocally cherish and invigorate one another.”
MORNING.
“Philosophy and morality are not sufficient to restrain ms from those sins that our constitution of body, circumstances of life, or evil custom, strongly dispose us to. Nature and appetite will be too hard for their precepts, unless a man be determined by a law within himself They may teach him caution, and give check to his vicious inclinations in public: but will never carry him to an inward and universal purity. This is only to be effected by the power of religion which will direct us to a serious application to God in fervent prayer. Upon which we shall feel a disengagement from the impressions sensual objects were wont to make on our minds, and an inward strength of disposition to resist them.
“Good men who felt, upon their frequent applications to God in prayer, a freedom from those ill impressions that formerly subdued them, an inward love to virtue and true goodness; an easiness and delight in all the parts of holiness, which was fed and cherished in them by a seriousness in prayer, and did languish as that went off; had as real a perception of an inward strength in their minds, that did rise and fall with true devotion, as they perceived the strength of their bodies increased or abated according as they had or wanted good nourishment.
“This replied to Lord R ?s objections against answers of
prayer, which he supposes a fancy, and an effect of a heat in nature; — that it had effect only by diverting the thoughts.”
EVENING.
“The mind of man is naturally so corrupted, and all the powers thereof so weakened, that we cannot possibly aspire vigorously towards God, or have any clear perception of spiritual things without His assistance. Nothing less than the same Almighty power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead can raise our souls from the death of sin to a life of holiness. To know God experiment ally, is altogether supernatural, and what we can never attain to but by the merits and intercession of Jesus Christ. By virtue of what He has done and suffered, and is now doing in heaven for us, we obtain the Holy Spirit, who is the best Instructor, the most powerful Teacher, we can possibly have; without whose agency all other means of grace would be ineffectual. How evidently does the Holy Spirit concur with the means of grace! And how certainly does He assist and strengthen the soul, if it be but sincere and hearty in its endeavours to avoid any evil or perform any good! To have a good desire, a fervent aspiration towards God, shall not pass unregarded.
“I have found by long experience that it is of great use to accustom oneself to enter into solemn engagements with God against any particular sin: but then I would have them never made for a longer time than from morning till night, and from night till morning; that so the impression- they make on the mind may be always fresh and lively. This was many years tried with good success in the rase of Glory be to Thee, O Lord!’*
EVENING.
“Give God the praise for any well spent day. But I am yet unsatisfied, because I do not enjoy enough of God: I apprehend myself at too great a distance from Him; I would have my soul more closely united to Him by faith end love. I can appeal to Hie of mr. wesley’s ancestors.
omniscience, that I would love Him above all things. He that made me knows my desires, my expectations. My joys all centre in Him, and that it is He himself that I desire; it is His favour, it is His acceptance, the communications of His grace, that I earnestly wish for more than any thing in the world; and that I have no relish or delight in any thing when under apprehensions of His displeasure. I rejoice in His essential glory and blessedness: I rejoice in my relation to Him, that He is my Father, my Lord, and my God. I rejoice that He has power over me, and desire to live in subjection to Him: that He condescends to punish me when I transgress His laws, as a father chasteneth the son whom he loveth. I thank Him that He has brought me so far; and will beware of despairing of His mercy for the time which is yet to come, but will give God the glory of His free grace.”
MORNING.
Ce It is too common with me upon receiving any light, or new supply of grace, to think, Now I have gained my point, and may say, Soul, take thine ease. By which means I think not of going any farther: or else fall into dejection of spirit upon a groundless fear that I shall soon lose what I have gained, and in a little time be never the better for it. Both these are sins. The first proceeds from immoderate love of present ease and spiritual sloth: die other from want of faith in the all-sufficiency of my Saviour.
“We must never take up our rest on this side of heaven, nor think we have enough of God, till we are perfectly renewed and sanctified in body, soul, and spirit; till we are admitted into that blessed region of pure and happy spirits, where we shall enjoy the beatific vision according to the measure of our capacities! Nor must we out of a pretended humility, because we are unworthy of the least mercy, dare to dispute or question the sufficiency of the merits of Jesus Christ. It was impossible for God incarnate to undertake more than He was able to perform.”
MORNING.
“Though man is born to trouble, yet I believe there is scarce a man to be found upon earth, but, take the whole course of his life, hath more mercies than afflictions, and much more pleasure than pain. I am sure it has been so in my case. I have many years suffered much pain, and great bodily infirmities: but I have likewise enjoyed great intervals of rest and ease. And those very sufferings have, by the blessing of God, been of excellent use, and proved the most proper means of reclaiming me from a vain and sinful conversation; insomuch that I cannot say, I had better have been without this affliction, this disease, this loss, want, contempt, or reproach. All my sufferings, by the admirable management of omnipotent Goodness, have concurred to promote my spiritual and eternal good. And if I have not reaped that advantage by them which I might have done, it is merely owing to the perverseness of my own will, and frequent lapses into presentthings, and unfaithfulness to the good Spirit of God; who, notwithstanding all my prevarications, all the stupid opposition I have made, has never totally abandoned me. Glory be to Thee, O Lord!”
EVENING.
ff If to esteem and have the highest reverence for Thee; if constantly and sincerely to acknowledge Thee the Supreme, the only desirable Good, be to love Thee, — I do love Thee!
“If comparatively to despise and undervalue all the world contains, which is esteemed great, fair, or good; if earnestly and constantly to desire Thee, Thy favour, Thy acceptance, Thyself, rather than any or all things Thou hast created, be to love Thee, — I do love Thee f
“If to rejoice in thy essential Majesty and Glory! if to feel a vital joy overspread and cheer the heart at each perception of Thy Blessedness, at every thought that Thou art God, and that all things are in Thy power, that there is none superior or equal to Thee, be to love Thee, — I do love Thee.”
In these Reflections and Meditations the Reader will see something of the mind, the spirit, the heart, and the piety, of Mrs. Susanna Wesley.
In another of her meditations she mentions the following among the many mercies which God had bestowed upon her.
“Born in a Christian country; early initiated and instructed in the first principles of the Christian Religion; good example in parents, and in several of the family; good books, and ingenious conversation; preserved from ill accidents, once from violent death; married to a religious orthodox man; by him first drawn off from the Socinian heresy, and afterwards confirmed and strengthened by B. B -;” Probably Bishop Bull.
When Mr. Wesley was from home, Mrs. Wesley felt it her duty to keep up the worship of God in her own house. She not only prayed for, but with, her family, At such times she took the spiritual direction and care of the children and servants on herself; and sometimes even the neighbours shared the benefit of her instructions. This in one case led to consequences little expected, which form a remarkable trait in the character of this extraordinary and excellent woman. The account was first published by Mr. John Wesley, who remarks that “his mother, as well as her father and grandfather, her husband, and her three sons, had been in her measure a preacher of righteousness.” The whole account, as transcribed by Dr. Whitehead from the original Letters, I shall give below.
Her husband sometimes attended the sittings of Convocation: and on these occasions was obliged to reside in London for a length of time that was often injurious to his parish, and at an expense that was inconvenient to his family. From his own account we find that three years’ attendance cost him 150/.; and as a curate cost him from 30/. to 40/., and the Rectory was worth but about fourscore, the family in such years must have been greatly distressed, as the whole proceeds of the Rectory must have been thus unnecessarily and unprofitably consumed. They had the living of Wroote at this time; but that seldom paid more than its own expenses. As there was no absolute necessity that Mr. W. should attend those Convocations, his doing it in such circumstances was far from, being prudent, as it was the cause of much family embarrassment. About the end of 1711, or the beginning of 1712, Mr. W. appears to have spent a considerable time in London on this business; and the care of the parish devolved on a person of the name of In man, the curate, who appears to have been but indifferently qualified for his charge.
During her husband’s absence, Mrs. Wesley felt it her duty to pay more particular attention to her children, especially on the Lord’s day in the evening, as there was then no service in the afternoon at the Church. She read prayers to them, and also a sermon, and conversed with them on religious and devotional subjects. Some neighbours happening to come in during these exercises, being permitted to stay, were so pleased and profited as to desire permission to come again. This was granted: a good report of the meeting became general; many requested leave to attend; and the house was soon filled, more than two hundred at last attending; and many were obliged to go away for want of room. As she wished to do nothing without her husband’s knowledge and approbation, she acquainted him with their meeting, and the circumstances out of which it arose. While he approved of her zeal and good sense, he stated several objections to the continuance of the meeting which will be best seen in her answer, dated Epworth, Feb. 6, 1712, in which she says: —” I heartily thank you for dealing so plainly and faithfully with me in a matter of no common concern. The main of your objections against our Sunday evening meetings a.re,Jirst, that it will look particular; secondly, my sex; and, lastly, your being at present in a public station and character. To all which I shall answer briefly.
“As to its looking particular, I grant it does: and so does almost every thing that is serious, or that may any way advance the glory of God, or the salvation of souls, if it be performed out of a pulpit, or in the way of common conversation; because in our corrupt age the utmost care and diligence have been used to banish all discourse of God or spiritual concerns out of society, as if religion were never to appear out of the closet, and we were to be ashamed of nothing so much as of professing ourselves to be Christians.
u To your second, I reply, that as I am a woman, so I am also ?nistress of a large family. And though the superior charge of the souls contained in it lies upon you as head of the family, and as their minister; yet in your absence I cannot but look upon every soul you leave under my care, as a talent committed to me under a trust by the great Lord of all the families of heaven and earth. And if I am unfaithful to Him, or to you, in neglecting to improve these talents, how shall I answer unto Him, when He shall command me to render an account of my stewardship?
“As these and other such like thoughts made me at first take a more than ordinary care of the souls of my children and servants; so knowing that our most holy religion requires a strict observation of the Lord’s day, and not thinking that we fully answered the end of the institution by only going to Church, but that likewise we are obliged to fill up the intermediate spaces of that sacred time by other acts of piety and devotion; I thought it my duty to spend some part of the day in reading to and instructing my family, especially in your absence, when having no afternoon’s service, we have so much leisure for such exercises; and such time I esteemed spent in a way more acceptable to God, than if I had retired to my own private devotions.
“This was the beginning of my present practice: other people coming in and joining with us was purely accidental Our lad told his parents — they first desired to be admitted; then others who heard of it, begged leave also; so our company increased to about thirty, and seldom exceeded forty last winter; and why it increased since, I leave you to judge after you have read what follows.
“Soon after you went to London, Emily found in your study the account of the Danish Missionaries, which having never seen, I ordered her to read it to me. I was never, I think, more affected gp mr. wesley’s ancestors.
with any thing than with the relation of their travels; and was exceeding pleased with the noble design they were engaged in. Their labours refreshed my soul beyond measure; and I could not forbear spending good part of that evening in praising and adoring the Divine goodness for inspiring those good men with such an ardent zeal for His glory; that they were willing to hazard their lives, and all that is esteemed dear to men in this world, to advance the honour of their Master Jesus. For several days I could think or speak of little else. At last it came into my mind; though I am not a man nor a minister of the Gospel, and so cannot be employed in such a worthy employment as they were; yet if my heart were sincerely devoted to God, and if I were inspired with a true zeal for His glory, and did really desire the salvation of Souls, I might do somewhat more than I do. I thought I might live in a more exemplary manner in some things; I might pray more for the people, and speak with more warmth to those with whom I have an opportunity of conversing. However, I resolved to begin with my own children; and accordingly I proposed and observed the following method. I take such a proportion of time as I can best spare every night to discourse with each child by itself, on something that relates to its principal concerns. On Monday I talk with Molly; on Tuesday with Hetty; Wednesday with Nancy; Thursday with J achy; Friday with Patty; Saturday with Charles; and with Emily and Sukey together, on Sunday.
“With those few neighbours who then came to me I discoursed more freely and affectionately than before. I chose the best and most awakening sermons we had, and I spent more time with them in such exercises. Since this our company has increased every night; for I dare deny none that asks admittance. Last Sunday, I believe we had above two hundred, and yet many went away for want of room.
“But I never durst positively presume to hope that God would make use of me as an instrument in doing good; the farthest I ever durst go was, It may be; who can tell? With God all things are possible. I will resign myself to Him: or, as Herbert better expresses it, —
Only since God doth often make
Of lowly matter for high uses meet,
I throw me at His feet;
There will I lie until my Maker seek
For some mean stuff, whereon to shew His skill,
Then is my time.
“And thus I rested, without passing any reflection on myself, or forming any judgment about the success or event of this undertaking
2G9
“Your third objection I leave to be answered by your own judgment. We meet not on any worldly design. We banish all temporal concerns from our Society: none is suffered to mingle any discourse about them with our reading or singing: we keep close to the business of the day; and as soon as it is over, they all go home. And where is the harm of this? If I and my children went a visiting on Sunday nights, or if we admitted of impertinent visits, as too many do who think themselves good Christians, perhaps it would be thought no scandalous practice, though in truth it would be so. — Therefore why any should reflect upon you, let your station be what It will, because your wife endeavours to draw people to the Church, and to restrain them by reading, and other persuasions, from their profanation of God’s most holy day, I cannot conceive. But if any should be so mad as to do it, I wish you would not regard it. For my part, I value no censure on this account. I have long since shook hands with the world, and I heartily wish I had never given them more reason to speak against me.
“As for your proposal of letting some other person read. Alas! you do not consider what a people these are. I do not think one man among them could read a sermon, without spelling a good part of it ; — -and how would that edify the rest? Nor has any of our family a voice strong enough to be heard by such a number of people.
“But there is one thing about which I am much dissatisfied; that is, their being present at family prayers. I do not speak of any concern I am under, barely because so many are present: for those who have the honour of speaking to the Great and Holy God, need not be ashamed to speak before the whole world, but because of my sex. I doubt if it be proper for me to present the prayers of the people to God.
“Last Sunday, I fain would have dismissed them before Prayers; but they begged so earnestly to stay, that I durst not deny them.”
How forcible are right words! Who could overthrow or withstand this reasoning? The people were perishing for lack of knowledge; and it is most evident from the circumstances that a dispensation of the Gospel was given to this eminent woman, to teach and instruct them in the absence of their legal Pastor. She was faithful; and the consequence was, a number of people were edified, and perhaps not a few reclaimed, that long ere this have welcomed her into everlasting habitations, and will be her crown of rejoicing in kthe day of the Lord Jesus.
Mr. Wesley felt the power of the wisdom by which she spoke; and cordially gave his approbation to her conduct: she went on her of mr. wesley’s ancestors,
way rejoicing, and great good was done. But a worthless man, In man, who was Curate of the Parish, and a few like himself, filled with envy, and perhaps even a worse principle, wrote to Mr. Wesley, highly complaining of these transactions, and stating that Mrs. Wesley had turned the Parsonage House into a Conventicle, &c.; that the Church was likely to receive great scandal by these irregular proceedings; and that they ought not to be tolerated any longer. Mr. Wesley was alarmed; his high Church Principles rose up against his better judgment, and he wrote to his wife desiring her to discontinue the Meetings. She received this high testimony of disapprobation with that firmness which belongs alone to conscious rectitude; and returned an answer to her husband, which bears all the marks of her energetic mind, deep piety, ardent zeal, and submissive respect to the authority of her spouse.
“Epworth, Feb. 25th, 1712.
“Some days since I received a Letter from you, I suppose dated the l6th instant, which I made no great haste to answer, because I judged it necessary for both of us to take some time to consider before you determine in a matter of such great importance.
“I shall not inquire how it was possible that you should be prevailed on by the senseless clamours of two or three of the icorst of your Parish to condemn what you so lately approved. But ] shall tell you my thoughts in as few words as possible. I do not hear of more than three or four persons who are against our Meeting, of whom In man is the chief. He and Whitely, I believe, may call it a Conventicle: but we hear no outcry here, nor has any one said a word against it to me. And what does their calling it a Conventicle signify? Does it alter the nature of the thing? or do you think that what they say is a sufficient reason to forbear a thing that has already done much good, and by the blessing of God may do much more? If its being called a Conventicle, by those who know in their conscience they misrepresent it, did really make it one, what you say would be somewhat to the purpose: but it is plain in fact that this one thing has brought more people to Church, than ever any thing did, in so short a time. We used not to have above twenty or twenty-five at evening service, whereas we have now between two and three hundred: which are more than ever came before to hear In man in the morning.
“Besides the constant attendance on the public worship of God, our Meeting has wonderfully conciliated the minds of this people towards us, so that we now live in the greatest amity imaginable; and what is still better, they are very much reformed in their behaviour on the Lord’s day; and those who used to be playing in the streets now come to hear a good sermon read, which is surely more acceptable to Almighty God.
“Another reason for what I do is, that I have no other way of conversing with this people, and therefore have no other way of doing them good: but by this I have an opportunity of exercising the greatest and noblest charity, that is, charity to their souls.
“Some Families who seldom went to Church, now go constantly; and one person who had not been there for seven years, is now prevailed upon to go with the rest.
“There are many other good consequences of this Meeting which I have not time to mention. Now I beseech you weigh all these things in an impartial balance: on the one side, the honour of Almighty God, the doing much good to many souls, and the friendship of the best among whom we live; on the other, (if folly, impiety, and vanity, may abide in the scale against so ponderous a weight) the senseless objections of a few scandalous persons laughing at us, and censuring us as precise and hypocritical; and when you have duly considered all things, let me have your positive determination,
“I need not tell you the consequences, if you determine to put an end to our Meeting. You may easily perceive what prejudice it may raise in the minds of these people against In man especially, who has had so little wit as to speak publicly against it. I can now keep them to the Church: but if it be laid aside, I doubt they will never go to hear him more, at least those who come from the lower end of the Town. But if this be continued till you return, which now will not be long, it may please God that their hearts may be so changed by that time that they may love and delight in his public worship, so as never to neglect it more.
“If you do, after all, think fit to dissolve this assembly, do not tell me that you desire me to do it, for that will not satisfy my conscience. But send me your positive command, in such full and express terms, as may absolve me from all guilt and punishment, for neglecting this opportunity of doing good, when you and I shall appear before the great and awful tribunal of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Though I find no farther record of these transactions yet I take it for granted that this Letter was decisive, and Mrs. Wesley’s Meetings continued till her husband returned to Epworth. They would then be given up in course; and when discontinued it could be little cause of rejoicing to any serious mind; as it is most evident that God had done more in a few months by this irregular ministry than He had done by that of the Rector and his Curates for eighteen years before!
It is worthy of remark that Mrs. Wesley terms the people that composed these Meetings our Society; and the Meetings were conducted much after the manner of the Methodists’ Society Meetings at this day; especially those of the Sabbath evenings; when, after the preaching, the Society, and often any other serious person, is permitted to stay to a second Meeting, in which such exhortations are given relative to personal and family religion, as could not with propriety be brought before a mixed congregation, where perhaps the bulk of the people are unawakened, and consequently incapable of profiting by instructions relative to the life and power of godliness.
This is not the Jirst instance in which the seeds of that great work, since called Methodism, were sown in and by the original members of this remarkable Family.
For my own part I should ever feel myself disposed to bow with profound respect to that rare dispensation of Providence and grace which should, in similar circumstances, with as clear and distinct a call, raise up a woman of such talents and piety to labour in the Gospel, where the people were perishing for lack of knowledge, and so snatch the brands from eternal burning.
Who so prejudiced as not to see that God put no honour on In man the curate; but chose Susanna Wesley to do the work of the Evangelist? The abundance of gracious fruit which sprang from this seed proved that the Master sower was Jesus, the Lord of the Harvest. Lord, Thou wilt send by whomsoever Thou pleasest; and wilt hide pride from man, in order to prove that the excellency of the power is of Thee!
By these very means all those persons who had been soured against Mr. Wesley for the part that he had taken in an unpopular election, now became the friends of his family; so that, to use Mrs. Wesley’s words, they lived together in the greatest amity imaginalie.
The good sense, piety, observation, and experience, of Mrs. Wesley, qualified her to be a wise counsellor in almost every affair in life, and a sound spiritual director in most things that concerned the salvation of the soul. Her sons, while at Oxford, continued to profit by her advices and directions, as they had done while more immediately under her care. They sought and had, not only her advice and counsel, but also her approbation in the little Society they had formed at the University, and that moral strictness of life which they had adopted. While she excited them to proceed and persevere, she taught them prudence and caution. The following Letter to her son John, at Oxford, some time after he had paid them a visit at Ep worth, cannot be read by any person without profit: —
“Epworth, Oct. 25, 1732.
“Dear Jacky,
u I was glad to hear you got safe to Oxford 5 and would have told you so sooner had I been at liberty, from pain of body and other severer trials not convenient to mention. Let every one enjoy the present hour: age and successive troubles are sufficient to convince any reasonable man that it is a much wiser and safer way to deprecate great afflictions, than to pray for them; and that our Lord well knew what was in man when He directed us to pray, Lead us not into temptation. I think Heretic Clark, in an exposition on the Lord’s Prayer, is more in the right than Castaniza, concerning temptations. His words are as follow: — ‘We are encouraged to glory in tribulation, and to count it all joy when we fall into divers temptations, &c.’ Nevertheless, it is to be carefully observed, that when the Scripture speaks on this manner concerning rejoicing in temptations, it always considers them under this view, as being experienced, and already in great measure overcome. For otherwise, as to temptations in general, temptations unexperienced, of which we know the danger but not the success, our Saviour teaches us to pray, Lead us not into temptation: and again, Watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. Our nature is frail; our passions strong; our wills biassed; and our security, generally speaking, consists much more certainly in avoiding great temptations, than in conquering them. Wherefore we ought continually to pray that God would be pleased to order and direct things in this probation state, as not to suffer us to be tempted above what ice are able; but that He would with the temptation also make a way to escape, that we may be able to bear it. Our Lord directed His Disciples when they were persecuted in one city to flee into another; and they who refuse to do it when it is in their power, lead themselves into temptation, and tempt God.”
At this time both the brothers, John and Charles, were in a bad state of health, owing to excessive study, and extraordinary abstinence. They had consulted Dr. Huntington on the subject, and transmitted his opinion to their mother. To this she refers in the following part of the above Letter: —
“I don’t know how you may have represented your case to Dr
“*35
of mr. wesley’s ancestors
Huntington; I have had occasion to make some observation hp consumptions, and am pretty certain that several symptoms of that distemper are .beginning upon you; and that unless you take more care than you do, you will put the matter past dispute in a little time. But take your own way; I have already given you up, as I have some before which once were very dear to me. Charles, tho’ I believe not in a consumption, is in a fine state of health for a man of two or three-and-twenty, that can’t eat a full meal, but he mupt presently throw it up again! It is a great pity that folks should be no wiser, and that they can’t fit the mean in a case where it is so obvious to view that none can mistake it that do not do it on purpose.”
They had also given their mother an account of their religious Meetings, and of the Society known afterwards by the name of Methodists; and that it had from the beginning her cordial approbation will appear by the following extract from the same Letter: —
“I heartily join with your small Society in all their pious and charitable actions, which are intended for God’s glory; and am glad to hear that Mr. Clayton and Mr. Hall have met with desired success. May you still in such good works go on and prosper. Tho’ absent in body, I am present with you in spirit; and daily recommend and commit you all to Divine Providence. You do well to wait on the Bishop, because it is a point of prudence and civility; tho’ (if he be a good man) I cannot think it in the power of any one to prejudice him against you.
“Your arguments against horse-races, do certainly conclude against masquerades, balls, plays, operas and all such light and vain diversions, which, whether the gay people of the world will own it or no, do strongly confirm and strengthen the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life; all which we must renounce, or renounce our God and hope of eternal salvation. 1 will not say it is impossible for a person to have any sense of religion, who frequents those vile assemblies: but I never, throughout the course of my long life, knew so much as one serious Christian that did; nor can I see how a lover of God can have any relish for such vain amusements.
“{ The life of God in the soul of man,’ is an excellent good book, and was an acquaintance of mine many years ago: but 1 have unfortunately lost it. There are many good things in Castaniza. more in Baxter; yet are neither without faults, which I overlook for the sake of their virtues. Nor can I say of all the books of Divinity I have read, ichieh is the best; one is best at one time, one at another, according to the temper and disposition of the mind. a Your father is in a very bad state of health; he sleeps little, and eats less. He seems not to have any apprehension of his approaching exit: but I fear he has but a short time to live. It is with much pain and difficulty that he performs Divine Service on the Lord’s-day, which sometimes he is obliged to contract very much. Every body observes his decay but himself; and people really seem much concerned for him and his family.
“The two girls being uneasy in the present situations, do not apprehend the sad consequences which in all appearance must attend his death, so much as I think they ought to do; for, as bad as they think their condition now, I doubt it will be far worse when his head is laid. Your sisters send their love to you and Charles, and my love and blessing to you both. Adieu.”
Letters from Mrs. Wesley to others of her children will be noticed in their proper places.
Mr. Wesley, though he had lately sunk much, was not so near death, as Mrs. Wesley dreaded. He lived about three years after this.
It will be necessary to introduce some other Letters of Mrs. Wesley on the subject of the doctrines and conduct of her sons John and Charles, because the late Rev. Samuel Badcock, in a letter to Mr. John Nichols, dated South Moulton, Dec. 5, 1782* and published by Mr. N. first in No. XX. of the Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica, and afterwards in his Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, Vol. V. p. 217, &c., and since copied by others, speaking of Mrs. W esley, says, “she lived long enough to deplore the extravagances of her two sons John and Charles. She considered them as under strong delusions to believe a lie; and states her objections to their enthusiastic principles (particularly in the matter of assurance), with great strength of argument, in a correspondence with their brother Samuel.” This calummy, for it is one, may be easily rebutted. Mr. John Wesley answers it thus, — quoting the first paragraph about deploring their extravagances, &c. “By vile misrepresentations she was deceived for a time, but she no sooner heard them speak for themselves, than she was thoroughly convinced they were in no delusion, but spoke the words of truth and soberness. She afterwards lived with me several years, and died rejoicing and praising God.”
That what Mr. Wesley states here of his mother is true, 1 can prove by the most unexceptionable testimonies from under her own hand. Dr. Whitehead has treated the subject well. I shall give some extracts in his own words.
“When her two sons Mr. John and Charles Wesley began to preach the Doctrine of Justification by Faith, in 1738, and many professed to be so justified, and to know the time when this change in their state took place; she mentions their notions as new, in a Letter she wrote to her son Samuel, in March this year (1738); though it must be acknowledged that she had not then conversed with them on the subject, and therefore did not know what doctrines they taught, but by report. It lias indeed been said that ’ she lived long enough to deplore the extravagances of her sons;’ and this assertion was founded on the Letter above-mentioned. But what she says on this subject has only a reference to dreams, visions, or some extraordinary revelation, which some persons pretended to have had; and in which they had received the knowledge of their justification; at least this was reported of several: but she no where charges her so?is with teaching this as the way of justification.
“But as this Letter has been both misrepresented and misunderstood, and it might be thought Mr. Wesley’s friends wished to conceal it, because it speaks so pointedly against the conduct of her sons, I shall give the whole of it, and subjoin a few remarks.
Thursday, March 8, 1738-9.
* Dear Son,
i Your two double Letters came safe to me last Friday. I thank you for them, and have received much satisfaction in reading them. They are written with good spirit and judgment, sufficient I should think to satisfy any unprejudiced mind, that the reviving these pretensions to dreams, visions, cSjc is not only vain and frivolous as to the matter of them, but also of dangerous consequence to the weaker sort of Christians. You have well observed, ’ that it is not the method of Providence to use extraordinary means to bring about that for which ordinary ones are sufiicient.’ Therefore the very end for which they pretend that these new revelations are sent seems to me one of the best arguments against the truth of them. As far as I can see, they plead that these visions, &c. are given to assure some particular persons of their adoption and salvation. But this end is abundantly provided for in the Holy Scriptures; wherein all may find the rules by which we must live here and be judged hereafter so plainly laid down, 4 that he who runs may read;’ and it is by these laws we should examine ourselves, which is a way ef God’s appointment, and therefore we may hope for his direction and assistance in such examination. And if, upon a serious review of our state, we find that in the tenor of our lives we have or do now sincerely desire and endeavour to perform the conditions of the Gospel Covenant required on our parts, then we may discern that the Holy Spirit hath laid in our minds a good foundation of a strong reasonable and lively hope of God’s mercy through Christ.
* This is the assurance we ought to aim at, which the Apostle calls, the full assurance of hope, which he admonishes us to hold fast unto the end. And the consequence of encouraging fanciful people in this new way of seeking assurance, (as all do that hear them tell their silly stories, without rebuke,) I think must be turning them out of God’s way into one of their own devising. You have plainly proved that the Scripture examples, and that text in Joel, which they urge in their defence, will not answer their purpose, so that they are unsupported by any authority human or Divine (which you have well observed); and the credit of their relations must therefore depend on their own single affirmation which surely will not weigh much with the sober judicious part of mankind.
‘I began to write to Charles before I last wrote to you, but could not proceed; for my chimney smoked so exceedingly, that I almost lost my sight, and remained well nigh blind a considerable time. God’s blessing on eye-water I make cured me of the soreness: but the weakness long remained. Since, I have been informed that Mr. Hall intends to remove his family to London, hath taken a house; and I must (if it please God I live) go with them, where I hope to see Charles: and then I can fully speak my sentiments of their new notions, more than I can do by writing; therefore I shall not finish my Letter to him.
f- You have heard, I suppose, that Mr. Whitfield is taking a progress thro’ these parts to make a collection for a house in Georgia for Orphans, and such of the Natives’ children as they will part with to learn our language and religion. He came hither to see me, and we talked about your brothers. I told him I did not like their way of living, wished them in some place of their own, wherein they might regularly preach, &c. He replied, I could not conceive the good they did in London; that the greatest part of our clergy were asleep, and that there never was a greater need of itinerant preacher’s than now. Upon which a gentleman that came with him said, that my son Charles had converted him, and that my sons spent all their time in doing good. I then asked Mr. Whitfield if my sons were not for making some innovations in the Church; which I much feared. He assured me they were so far from it, that they endeavoured all they could to reconcile Dissenters to our communion; that my son John had baptized five adult Presbyterians in our own way on St. Paul’s day, and he believed would bring over many to our communion. His stay was short, so I could not talk with him so much of mr. wesley’s ancestors.
as I desired. He seems to be a very good man, and one who truly desires the salvation of mankind. God grant that the wisdom of the serpent may be joined to the innocence of the dove!
1 My paper and sight are almost at an end; therefore I shall only add, that I send you and yours my hearty love and blessing.
‘Service to Mrs. Berry. I had not an opportunity to send this rill Saturday the 17th ult. Love and blessing to Jacky Ellison.
‘Pray let me hear from you soon. We go in April.’
From Mrs. Wesley, Epworth.
‘For the Revd. Mr. Wesley,
Tiverton, Devon.’
“1. I have now laid before the Reader every word of this so :elebrated Letter; and beg him carefully to observe, that it is not against her sons, properly speaking, but against the persons who in dreams and visions professed to have received an assurance of God’s love to their souls. Such are the persons whom she means when she says, they pretend — they plead — fanciful people — icho tell their silly stories — and ichose relations ?nust depend on their own single affirmation, &c. &c. In none of these does she refer to her sons at all: but she refers to them, when she blames those for not rebuking them, who hear them tell such stories.
“2. When Mrs. Wesley wrote this Letters he had h’ad no interview with her sons, and had only heard of what were called extravagances which were produced under their preaching; and this she had from her prejudiced son Samuel, who had his information from the Letter of a Mrs. Hutton, at whose house they had lodged at Westminster: and this Letter is so perfectly weak and nonsensical, that it would be an insult to the Reader to lay it seriously before him.
“On this most stupid and foolish Letter Mr. Samuel founded all the philippics on the conduct of his brothers, which he detailed in his Letter to his mother; and I am sorry to say, after looking over the whole of the evidence, that so bigoted was Mr. Samuel, that he readily caught at any thing that appeared to vilify that part of the conduct of his brothers, because they preached extempore, and because when excluded from the churches in London, they would dare to preach in any part of that diocese; which he roundly asserts was downright schism; and he might with as much reason have called it downright burglary. His prejudiced representations and misrepresentations should weigh nothing on the question. Besides his expositions of the texts he quotes as the Scriptures adduced by his brothers to vindicate their ministry, and account for their effects, are far from being legitimate.
“3. At this time Mrs. Wesley’s knowledge of the plan of Salvation was by no means clear and distinct; of this one passage in her Letter is a sufficient proof. In the place where she shews the mode people should adopt in order to find a rational assurance of their salvation, she says, ‘If upon a serious review of our state we find in the tenor of our lives, we have, or do now sincerely desire and endeavour to perform the conditions of the Gospel covenant required on our parts, then we may discern that the Holy Spirit hath laid in our minds a good foundation of a strong, reasonable, and lively hope of God’s mercy through Christ.5”
Now, who that knows properly the way in which a sinner is to come to God through Christ for the remission of his sins, can suppose that Mrs. W. was acquainted with that way when she wrote this? It simply amounts to Salvation by zoorJcs, through the merits of Christ. But suppose any man examining the tenor of his life by Mrs. Wesley’s rule in order to infer Salvation from it, finds that he has not fulfilled the conditions of the gospel covenant, (and every man that makes the inquiry with an honest mind in the fear of God will find this;) — what is he then to do? His condition on this ground is hopeless. He has fulfilled no conditions; for he is and has been a sinner, and is under the curse of God’s Law. Where shall his trembling soul fly for mercy? To the blood of the covenant — to Him who justifies the ungodly; and he is to seek for mercy through that blood alone. And what peace can his conscience feel, or what assurance can he have that his sins are blotted out — that he is passed from death unto life — till God adopts him into the heavenly family; and because he is then a son, God sends forth the Spirit of His Son into his heart, crying, Abba, Father! No salvation by induction or inference can satisfy a guilty conscience, which feels the wrath of God abiding on it; nothing but the witness from God’s Spirit in our own spirit, that we are the children of God, can appease the terrors of an awakened sinner, give rest to a troubled heart, or be a foundation on which the soul can build a rational and scriptural hope of eternal life. Mrs. Wesley herself was obliged to come at last simply to the blood of Jesus Christ which was shed for her; and then she received without any reference to her past righteousness, the full witness of God’s Spirit that she was born from above. And though I conceive her to have been long before this in a state of favour with God, on the broad ground that he who feareth God and worketh righteousness, according to His light, is accepted of Him; vet she had not the satisfying evidence of her own salvation, till she came, as above stated, to that sacrificial death by which pardon was purchased op mr. wesley’s ancestors,
for a guilty world. As soon as she conversed with her sons, ami heard them speak for themselves, she was convinced that their doctrine was both rational and scriptural, and saw the wickedness of the charges that were brought against them. At this very time in which she wrote the Letter she heard Mr. George Whitfield speak for kirn* self; and though he was much less argumentative than her son Johny and could not give that clear description of the hope that was in him as her son could have done, yet she was fully convinced that he was right — that he was a very good man — one who tridy desired the Salvation of mankind; and satisfied of his dove-like innocence, prayed that he might have wisdom sufficient to guard it.
She had doubted and feared concerning her sons, because she was misled by her son Samuel, who was misled by Mrs. Hutton, who was misled by her total want of capacity to judge of such matters; and who was horribly offended with Mr. John Wesley, because she said he had converted two of her children. That is, he had become the instrument in the hand of God of awakening their conscience, and leading them to “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of world.”
In reference to Mrs. Hutton who wrote so virulently against his conduct, to Mr. Samuel, representing him as little less than a maniac, —
“The very head and front of his offending,
Had this extent, no more. —”
We shall probably see more on this subject when we come to the Life of Mr. John Wesley.
“The following extracts from three of her Letters to Mr. Charles Wesley will shew us her opinion of the doctrine and conduct of her sons more clearly than any thing which has yet appeared in print.
‘Oct. 19, 1738.
‘It is with much pleasure I find your mind is somewhat easier than formerly, and I heartily thank God for it. The spirit of man may sustain his infirmity: — but a wounded spirit who can bear? If this hath been your case, it has been sad indeed. But blessed be God who gave you convictions of the evil of sin, as contrary to the purity of the Divine nature, and the perfect goodness of His law. Blessed be God, who shewed you the necessity you were in of a Saviour to deliver you from the power of sin and Satan, (for Christ will be no Saviour to such as see not their need of one,) and directed von by faith to lay hold of that stupendous mercy offered us by redeeming love. Jesus is the only Physician of souls: His blood the only salve that can heal a wounded conscience.
6 It is not in wealth, or honour, or sensual pleasure, to relieve a spirit heavy laden and weary of the burthen of sin. These things have power to increase our guilt, by alienating our hearts from God: but none to make our peace with Him; to reconcile God to man, and man to God; and to renew the union between the Divine and human nature.
i No, there is none but Christ, none but Christ, who is sufficient for these things. But, blessed be God, He is an all-sufficient Saviour! and blessed be His Holy Name, that thou hast found Him a Saviour to thee, my son! O let us love Him much, for we have much to be forgiven.
6 1 would gladly know what your notion is of justifying faith, because you speak of it as a thing you have but lately received.’
“The second Letter is dated Dec. 6th, 1738. In it she says
4 1 think you are fallen into an odd way of thinking. You say that till within a few months you had no spiritual life, nor any justifying faith.
c Now this is as if a man should affirm he was not alive in his infancy, because, when an infant, he did not know he was alive. All then that I can gather from your Letter is, that till a little while ago, you were not so well satisfied of your being a Christian as you are now. I heartily rejoice that you have now attained to a strong and lively hope in God’s mercy through Christ. Not that I can think that you were totally without saving faith before: but it is one thing to have faith, and another thing to be sensible we have it. Faith is the fruit of the Spirit, and the gift of God: but to feel or be inwardly sensible that we have true faith, requires a farther operation of God’s Holy Spirit. You say you have peace, but not joy in believing: Blessed be God for Peace! May this Peace rest with you! Joy will follow, perhaps not’ very closely: but it will follow faith and love. God’s promises are sealed to us, but not dated: therefore patiently attend His pleasure; He will give you joy in believing. Amen.’
“From these Letters we see that Mrs. Wesley was so far from deploring the extravagance of her sons, that she rejoiced in their Christian experience, and praised God for it. She thought them mistaken in judging of their former state, but not in their notions of justifying faith itself: for she says in the Letter last mentioned, — of mr. wesley’s ancestors,
1 My notion of justifying faith is the same with yours; for that trusting in Jesus Christ, or the promises made in Him, is that special act of faith to which our justification or acceptance is so frequently ascribed in the Gospel. This failh is certainly the gift of God, wrought in the mind of man by the Holy Spirit.’
“The two Mr. WesteyS professed to know the time when they received justifying faith; and they taught that others might know the time of their justification. On this head she observes: —
(l do not judge it necessary to know the exact time of our conversion.’
“From which it appears that she did not think this part of their doctrine erroneous or extravagant: she was only afraid lest this circumstance should be made a necessary criterion of conversion, which she thought might hurt the minds of weaker Christians.
“These Letters, therefore, are a full confutation of Mr. Badcoek’s assertion.
“The third Letter is dated Dec. 27, 1739, after she had come to reside chiefly in Loudon. Here she enjoyed the conversation of her sons alternately; the one bein? always in town, while the other was in the country. She now attended on their ministry, conversed with the people of the Society, and became more perfectly acquainted with their whole doctrine, and seems heartily to have embraced it. Charles was in Bristol when she wrote this Letter to him. She observes: —
1 You cannot more desire to see me, than I do to see you. Your brother, whom I shall henceforth call Son Wesley, since my dear Sam is gone home, has j u t been with me, and much revived my spirits. Indeed I have often I’ouad that he never speaks in rehearing without my receiving some spiritual benefit. But his visits are seldom and short; for which 1 never blame him, because I know he is well employed; ami, blessed be God! hath great success in His ministry. But, my dear Charles, still I want either him or you. For indeed, in the most literal sense, I am become a little child, and want continual succour. As iron sliarpeneth iron, so doth the countenance of a man his friend.’ I feel much comfort and support from religious conversation when I can obtain it. Formerly I rejoiced in the absence of company; and found the less I had of creature comforts, the more I had from God. But, alas! I am fallen from that spiritual converse I once enjoyed. And why is it so? Because I want faith. God is an omnipresent unchangeable Good. in whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning: the fault is in myself; and 1 attribute all mistakes in judgment, and all errors in practice, to want of faith in the blessed Jesus. O, my dear, when I consider the dignity of His Person, the perfection of His purity, the greatness of His sufferings, but above all His boundless Love, I am astonished and utterly confounded; I am lost in thought. I fall into nothing before Him 1 O how inexcusable is that person who has knowledge of these things, and yet remains poor and low in faith and love! I speak as one guilty in this matter.
M have been prevented from finishing my Letter. I complained J had none to converse with me on spiritual things; but for these several days I have had the conversation of many good Christians, who have refreshed in some measure my fainting spirits; and though they hindered my writing, yet it was a pleasing, and I hope not an unprofitable interruption they gave me. I hope we shall shortly speak face to face; and I shall then, if God permit, impart my thoughts more fully. But then, alas! when you come, your brother leaves me! yet that is the will of God, in whose blessed service you are engaged; who has hitherto blessed your labours, and preserved your persons. That he may continue so to prosper your work, and protect you both from evil, and give you strength and courage to preach the true gospel in opposition to the united powers of evil men and evil angels, is the hearty prayer of, Dear Charles,” Your loving Mother,
Susanna Wesley.
“This Letter gives full evidence that Mrs. Wesley cordially approved of the conduct other sons; and was animated with zeal for the success of their labours. She continued in the most perfect harmony with them till her death: attending on their ministry, and walking in the light of God’s countenance, she rejoiced in the happy experience of the truths she heard them preach.”’
Dr. Whitehead’s Life. Vol. I. pp. 49 — 54.
It appears from all we have seen of Mrs. Wesley that she was a woman of real experience in the things of God. But it does not appear that she had a clear notion of JustificatioJi as distinct from Sanctitication; on the contrary she seems to have confounded them together. The consequence was, that her knowledge of the doctrine of Justification by faith alone, without the deeds of the Law, was not so clear as it might have been; and this hindered her from enjoying that full assurance of her state, and the peace and joy consequent upon it, which otherwise she would have had.
To have denied the witness of GocVs Spirit, or the assurance of our adoption, Mrs. Wesley must have strangely forgotten herself; for it was one part of her Creed, and one point in the Apostles’ Creed, according to her own Exposition, that believing in the Holy Ghost implies believing that he assures us of our adoption. See her Letter to her daughter Susan, already inserted.
As to the doctrine of assurance, (or the knowledge of our salvation by the remission of sins; or, in other words, that a man who is justified by faith in Christ Jesus knows that he is so, the Spirit bearing witness with his spirit that he is a child of God,) against which such a terrible outcry has been made, I would beg leave to ask, what is Christianity without it? A mere system of ethics; an authentic history; a dead Letter. It is by the operations of the Holy Spirit in the souls of believers that the connexion is kept up between heaven and earth. The grand principle of the Christian religion is, to reconcile men to God by Christ Jesus; to bring them from a state of wrath to reconciliation and favour with God; to break the power, cancel the guilt, and destroy the very being of sin; — for Christ was manifested that He might destroy the work of the Devil. And can this be done in any human soul, and it know nothing about it, except by inference and conjecture? Miserable state of Christianity indeed, where no man knows that he is born of God. This assurance of God’s love is the birthright and common privilege of all His children. It is a general experience among truly religious people: they take rest, rise up, work, and live under its influence. By it they are carried comfortably through all the ills of life, bring forth the fruits of the Spirit, triumph in redeeming grace, and die exulting in Him whom they- know and feel to be the God of their salvation.
Nor is this confined to superannuated women, as Mr. Southey, (Vol. I. p. 291,) charitably hopes Mrs. Wesley was, when she professed to receive the knowledge of salvation by the remission of sins. Men also as learned as Mr. Barlcock, as philosophical as Mr. Southey, as deeply read in men and things as Bishop Lavington, and as sound Divines at least as the Rector of Manaccan, have exulted in the same testimony, walked in all good conscience before God, illustrated the doctrine by a suitable deportment, and died full of joyful anticipation of an eternal glory! Alas, what a dismal tale do those men tell, who not only strive to argue against the doctrine, but endeavour to turn it into ridicule. They tell us, that they are not reconciled to God!
Mr. Badcock’s sneers at the matter of assurance as he calls it, and the extravagances of Mr. John and Charles Wesley, were little in character. He was a learned man, an able critic, and generally allowed to be mild and liberal. But who can reconcile this general, and probably well deserved character, with the concluding part of the paragraph above referred to? “Their brother Samuel exerted his best powers to reclaim them from their wanderings, but in vain! The extravagant and erring spirit could not be reduced to its own confine. It had burst its bonds asunder, and ran violently down the steep.”
This was still less in character, when we consider Mr. Badcock a Dissenting Minister, for such he was in 1782, when he wrote the above Letter, and for many years before; though he afterwards conformed, and entered the Church, in the year 1786; and his Creed with respect to the doctrine of assurance, as existing in the Assembly’s Catechism, must have been the same, in words at least, with that of Mr. Wesley.
For the Reader’s amusement I shall note the place.
“Quest. 31. What are the benefits which in this life do either accompany or flow from Justification, Adoption, and Sanctification?
Answer. Assurance of God’s love, peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Ghost, increase of grace, and perseverance therein unto the end,”
And the following Scriptures are quoted to establish these assertions: — Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. By whom also we have access by faith into this grace, wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And hope maketh not ashamed, because the love op God is shed aeroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us — Rom. xiv. 1, 2, 5. For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. — Rom. xiv. 17- These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know ye have eternal life. — 1 John v. 13.
Here then is the “matter of Assurance,” which the Methodists have preached, do preach, and I hope mil preach, as long as they have a name to live upon the earth. And these Scriptures are full to the point; and fully prove that every sinner who by hearty repentance and true faith returns unto the Lord, through Christ Jesus, receives remission of sins, and has the witness in himself.
Perhaps the most irregular part of Mr. Wesley’s conduct was his employing Lay Preachers, persons without any ordination by the imposition of hands; and the fullest proof that we can have of Mrs. Wesley’s approving most heartily every thing in Doctrine and Discipline of her sons, was her approval of Lay Preaching, or, to of Ma. wesley’s ancestors.
use the words of her father-in-law, John Wesley of Whitchurch, “The preaching of gifted men, without Episcopal Ordination.” This began in her time; and she repeatedly sat under the ministry of the first man, Mr. Thomas Maxfield, who attempted to officiate among the Methodists in this hitherto unprecedented way.
It was in Mr. Wesley’s absence, that Mr. Maxfield began to preach. Being informed of this new and extraordinary thing, he hastened back to London to put a stop to it. Before he took any decisive step, he spoke to his mother on the subject, and informed her of his intention. She said, (I have had the account from Mr. Wesley himself) “My son, I charge you before God, beware what you do; for Thomas Maxfield is as much called to preach the Gospel as ever you were!” The unction of God that attended the preaching convinced her that the Preacher’s call was from Heaven. This was one of the last things that a person of such High Church principles might be expected to accede to. And this fact, with what is related above, will for ever obliterate the calumny cast upon this blessed woman, that she lived long enough to deplore the extravagances of her sons.
Nor will the great body of the Methodist Preachers forget that Mrs. Wesley, the mother of their Founder, was the patroness and first encourager of the Lay Preachers!
Mr. Thomas Maxfield was the first Lay Preacher; Mr. Thomas Richards, the second; and Mr. Thomas JTestall the third. The former and latter I knew: — but who will be the last, who without any ordination by the imposition of hands, shall officiate as an itinerant Preacher in the Methodist connection? That they will soon have recourse to this Scriptural Rite may be safely conjectured; and that they should never have been without it may be successfully argued. Their mode of admission into the Ministry, it must be granted, is sufficiently solemn and efficient: but they have no authority to dispense with a Scriptural and Apostolic rite.
After the death of Mr. Samuel Wesley, in 1735, the family were all scattered, and the household goods and property sold, as the premises must be cleared for a new incumbent; a heavy and distressing inconvenience in the discipline of the Church of England, which extends from the lowest Vicar to the Metropolitan of the whole empire.
Previously to this, some of the sisters had been married; two were with their uncle Matthew; others were settled as governesses and teachers of youth, for which they appear to have been well qualified; and one (Emily) had taken up a school at Gainsborough. With her Mrs. Wesley appears to have sojourned awhile, before she went to live with her sons John and Charles; where free from cares and worldly anxieties, with which she had long been unavoidably encumbered, she spent the evening of her life in comparative ease and comfort.
Of her last moments her son John gives the following account: —
“I left Bristol on the evening of Sunday, July 18, (1742,) and on Tuesday came to London. I found my mother on the borders of Eternity: but she had no doubts nor fear; nor any desire, but as soon as God should call, to depart and be with Christ.
“Friday, 23d. — About three in the afternoon I went to see my mother, and found her change was near. I sat down” on the bedside: she was in her last conflict, unable to speak, but I believe quite sensible. Her look was calm and serene, and her eyes fixed upward, while we commended her soul to God. From three to four the silver cord was loosing, and the wheel breaking at the cistern; and then, without any struggle, or sigh, or groan* the soul was set at liberty. We stood round the bed, and fulfilled her last request uttered a little before she lost her speech, 4 Children, as soon as I am released, sing a psalm of praise to God.’
“Sunday, August 1. — Almost an innumerable company of people being gathered together, about five in the afternoon, I committed to the earth the body of my mother, to sleep with her fathers. The portion of Scripture from which I afterwards spoke was, I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fed away, and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead small and great stand before God, and the books were opened. And the deaa were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works. It was one of the most solemn assemblies I ever saw, or expect to see, on this side Eternity.
“We set up a plain stone at the head of her grave, inscribed with the follow ing words: —
Here lies* the body of Mrs. Susanna Wesley, the youngest and last surviving daughter of Dr. Samuel Annesley.
In sure and stedfast hope lo rise,
And claim her mansion in the skies i
A Christian here her flesh laid down,
The Cross exchanging for a Crown,
True daughter of affliction she,
Inured to pain and misery,
Mourn’d a long night of griefs and fears
A legal night of seventy le-,w<
of mr. wesley’s ancestors.
The Father then Reveal’d His Son,
Him in the broken bread made known.
She knew and felt her sins forgiven,
And found the earnest of her Heaven.
Meet for the fellowship above,
She heard the call, ‘Arise, my Love.’
‘I come!’ her dying looks replied,
And lamblike, as her Lord, she died.”
The Reader, who has carefully considered the preceding Memoirs, is most certainly prepared for a widely different Epitaph from the preceding. It is trite, bald, and inexpressive. Her passive character may be said to be given: she was a daughter of affliction; and suffered with the highest resignation to the will of God, and the dispensation of His providence. But, as she says herself, if she had much affliction and pain, she had still more intervals of ease and health; and she even adduces her own case, where afflictions and trials abounded, as a proof that the blessings of life are more numerous than its ills and disadvantages; and calculates that on a fair estimate this will be found to be the case with every individual.
The second and third stanzas are incautiously expressed: they seem to intimate that she was not received into the Divine favour till she was seventy years of age! For my own part, after having traced her through all the known periods of her life, and taking her spiritual state from her own nervous and honest pen, I can scarcely doubt that she was in the Divine favour long before that time; according to that text, He that feareth God and worketh righteotisness is accepted of Him. And though she lived in a time when the spiritual privileges of the people of God were not so clearly defined, nor so well understood as they are at present; yet she was not without large communications of the Divine Spirit, heavenly light, and heavenly ardours, which often caused her to sit “like cherub bright, some moments on a throne of love.” She had the faith of God’s elect; she acknowledged the truth which is according to godliness. Her spirit and life were conformed to this truth; and she was not, as she could not be, without the favour and approbation of God.
But there is a fact that seems to stand against this, which is alluded to in the second and third stanzas, viz. that “in receiving the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, when her son-in-law, Mr. Hall, presented her the cup with these words, — The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for thee, she felt them strike through her heart; and she then knew that God, for Christ’s sake, had forgiven her all her sins.” Thai Mrs. Wesley did then receive a powerful influence from the Holy Spirit I can readily believe, by which she was mightily confirmed and strengthened, and had from it the clearest evidence of her reconciliation to God’, but that she had been in a legal state, or, as some have understood that expression, was seeking justification by the works of the Law until then, I have the most positive facts to disprove.
Mr. Samuel Wesley’s ministry was strong and faithful: but it was not clear on the point of justification by faith, and the witness of the Spirit. 1 can say this from the most direct evidence, — several of his own MS. Sermons now before me. To know that we are of God, by the Spirit which He has given us, he, and most in his time, believed to be the privilege of a few, and but of a few: hence the people were not exhorted to follow on to know the Lord; and although several, and among them most undoubtedly Mrs. W esley, had a measure of the thing, felt its effects, and brought forth the fruits of it, yet they knew not its name. Mrs. Wesley had long before laid her burthen at the foot of the cross; she had received Christ crucified as her only Saviour; she herself shews she had trusted in nothing but the infinite merit of His sacrificial death and intercession; she teas justified by faith, for she had peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, gloried even in tribulation, and rejoiced in hope of the glory of God; for the love, of God was shed abroad in her heart by the Holy Ghost that was given to her: but having little or no acquaintance with deeply religious people, and her husband not holding out this blessing as the privilege of all true believers, she knew not precisely her own state; and because she did not know how to hold fast the consolations which she had received, she often like many others, fell into doubts and fears which brought her into temporary bondage. But, in general, her mountain stood strong.
After her husband’s death, when she came to sit under the clear ministry of her sons John and Charles, and to converse with many pious and sensible members of the Society, her mind became more enlightened in spiritual things; she saw the privileges of the people of God, expected much in the means of grace, and received a fresh, full, and clear evidence of her acceptance at the time mentioned above.
She had then what the Methodists rightly call the abiding witness of the Spirit, and very probably an application of that blood which cleanses from all unrighteousness. That she had long served God as a Master under the spirit of fear, without that love which springs from a consciousness of His love, ( we love Him because He first loved us,) I am ready enough to grant. This is, less or more,, the lot and experience of all: but that legal night did not last to her of mr. wesley’s ancestors.
seventieth year. She was long before that in the Divine favour, and felt her blessedness, though she could not give it its appropriate name; nor did she feel its fulness because she had not the advantage of a clear ministry on the subject of salvation by faith.
I do not argue that a person may be justified and not know it. ox feel the alteration in his state. I think this is* a dangerous doctrine; because I am satisfied that it is the privilege of every believer to. know he is in the Divine favour. But I contend, a person may be justified, have peace and joy in believing, and feel the burthen of guilt taken away from the conscience, and for a time not know the precise name of that state of grace in which he stands. I have known a very striking case of this kind, where the person, having little acquaintance with religious people, after a long night of grief, darkness, and distress, felt and was astonished at the moral change which had taken place in his mind, but knew not by what name to call it. His burthen of guilt, and he had felt it verjt heavy, was taken away: he felt no condemnation, he rejoiced in Christ Jesus, and had no confidence in the flesh, and brought forth all the fruits of faith; and it was a considerable time after this change had taken place before he knew what God had done for his soul; though he felt and exulted in the blessedness he had reaved.
But to return. What is an Epitaph? or what should an Epitaph be? A strongly condensed abridgment of the life of the deceased; and if a pious person be the subject, the Epitaph should be a pointed exhibition of the grace that was in him, and his faithfulness to that grace; and all this so recommended that the living might lay it to heart, and be excited to a practical emulation. But howlittle of this is found in the above Epitaph! We are not even told that she was the wife of Samuel Wesley, Rector of Epworth! Perhaps modesty in the Sons prevented them from speaking in her praise: if so, it was very ill-judged. Had I a muse of the strongest pinion, I should not fear to indulge it in its highest flights in sketching out the character of this super-excellent woman. Mr. Southey has very properly criticised this Epitaph: but he mistakes when he says that u her sons represent her as if she had lived in ignorance of real Christianity during the life of her excellent husband.” They do not, they could not, do it. They well knew she had a profound knowledge of Christianity, nor was she indebted to her husband’;: teaching for this: but the Epitaph represents her as being to thai time destitute of the knowledge of salvation by the remission or sins. A man may have a full knowledge of real Christianity without this: but he cannot without it have an experimental knowledge of its saving power. However, she had both, long before that tim*3 And so fully acquainted was she with the Christian system, and the evidences of its Divine origin, that she even taught wisdom among those that were perfect, those that were deeply instructed in all human learning. How Mr. John Wesley could consent to permit such an Epitaph to be inscribed on her headstone, (for he certainly never composed it) I cannot comprehend. In the late edition of Mr. Wesley’s Works the whole account is very reprehensibly omitted in the Journal, and only referred to as being entered in Vol. I. p. 41, and in this place only the first, verse of the Epitaph is given. Probably the Editor was as much displeased with it as either Mr. Southey or myself.
Mrs. Wesley’s character will be best seen in the preceding Memoirs. She appears to have had the advantage of a liberal education, as far as Latin, Greek, and French, enter into such an education. She had read much, and thought much; and thus her mind was cultivated. Both Logic and Metaphysics had formed a part of her studies; and these acquisitions without appearing, for she studiously endeavours to conceal them, are felt to great advantage in all her writings.
She had a strong and vigorous mind, and an undaunted courage. She feared no difficulty; and in search of truth, at once looked the most formidable objections full in the face and never hesitated to give any enemy- all the vantage ground he could gain, when she rose up to defend either the doctrines or precepts of the Religion of the Bible. She was not only graceful, but beautiful, in her person. Her sister Judith, painted by Sir Peter Lely, is represented as a very beautiful woman. One who well knew both said, “Beautiful as Miss Annesley appears, she was far from being so beautiful as Mrs. Wesley.”
As a wife she was affectionate and obedient, having a sacred respect for authority wherever lodged. As the mistress of a large family, her management was exquisite in all its parts; and its success beyond comparison or former example. As a Christian she was modest, humble, and pious. Her religion was as rational as it was scriptural and profound. In forming her creed she dug deep, and laid her foundation upon a rock; and the storms and adversities of life never shook it. Her faith carried her through life, and it was unimpaired in death. She was a tender mother, a wise and invaluable friend. Several of her children were eminent; and he, who excelled all the rest, owed, under God, at least one half of his excellencies to the instructions of his mother. If it were not unusual to apply such an epithet to a womanf I would not hesitate to say she was an able divine!
I have traced her life with much pleasure, and received from it much instruction; and when I have seen her repeatedly grappling with gigantic adversities, I have adored the grace of God that was in her, and have not been able to repress my tears. I have been acquainted with many pious females, I have read the lives of several others, and composed memoirs of a few: but such a woman take her for all in all, I have not heard of, I have not read of, nor with her equal have I been acquainted. Such an one Solomon has described in the last Chapter of his Proverbs; and to her I can apply the summedup character of his accomplished housewife, Many daughters have done virtuously: but Susanna Wesley has excelled them all.