By Mark K. Olson. Introduction: in this two-part study we are looking at Wesley’s spiritual counsel to seekers of heart holiness. In Part One we examine Wesley’s understanding of two works of grace, the first wilderness state, attaining perfect love and its fruits. Part Two addresses the nature of doubts that follow the experience of perfect love, how to retain the blessing, the nature of continued growth, and the conclusion. Many insights into Wesley’s doctrine of Christian perfection can be gleaned from his correspondence.
“You are the elder brother of the American Methodists; I am, under God, the father of the whole family.” (John Wesley to Francis Asbury)
Second Wilderness State
We have seen that believers usually pass through a season of testing and struggle following the first work of grace; but what about the second blessing? From the exalted language Wesley employed to describe the experience, one could reason that to be sanctified entirely would end all inner struggles. Wesley, however, saw it differently, “There is very frequently a kind of wilderness state, not only after justification, but even after deliverance from sin.”93 What were these struggles? How did Wesley counsel these believers?
To begin with, fully sanctified believers appear to wrestle with what Wesley calls “evil reasoning.” He refers to this as a “second darkness”—a wilderness state that compares to the one following justification and new birth. Again, we turn to his correspondence with Miss March to probe his thoughts. So serious was evil reasoning that at the height of the perfection revival in the early sixties, Wesley believed it alone was the cause for seventy-five percent of professors losing the blessing.94 This malady appears primarily to be the tendency to see perfection as something more than what the believer experienced, causing needless doubts to cloud the mind.95 Such reasoning distorts the “simplicity” of perfection as a “free gift” received by “simple faith.”96 This “bad disease” undermines the “first principles” that “according to the plain Bible account” perfection is nothing more than “pure love reigning in the heart and life.”97 What is the remedy? Obvious to Wesley is the need to rightly divide the testimony of the Bible. But no less important is that “there cannot be a lasting, steady, enjoyment of pure love, without the direct testimony of the Spirit.”98
Other struggles surface in Wesley’s letters. Some professors of perfect love ran into problems undervaluing God’s grace while overvaluing the approval of friends and loved ones.99 Others suffered from bouts of “heaviness” (discouragement) whereby one did not feel God was very near, or that one’s love for God was that “warm.”100 Wesley acknowledges that many “wanderings” and “deficiencies” are consistent with full salvation. Believers wrestle with what to call the experience and often struggle with feelings of unworthiness.101 This shows the tendency for many early Methodists to focus inwardly too much.
In response, Wesley encouraged his followers to keep their eyes set on Christ and to maintain a simple faith in him. This requires guarding oneself against the temptation to reason too much over feelings that will only darken the soul.102 Again, one of Wesley’s methods is to ask a series of probing questions:
“Do you hold fast what God has given you? Do you give Him all your heart? And do you find the witness of this abiding with you? One who is now in the house with me has not lost that witness one moment for these ten years. Why should you lose it any more? Are not the gifts of God without repentance? Is He not willing to give always what he gives once? Lay hold, lay hold on all the promises.”103
Wesley was persistent to remind everyone that sinful tempers can take root again, so the Christian must remain alert to the tactics of the enemy.104 Moreover, he believed the sanctified believer must continue to deal with involuntary sin. This admission meant practically that no believer could always practice right tempers.105 As long as we are in this body, we are prone to mistakes, human weakness, and “ten thousand wandering thoughts, and forgetful intervals, without any breach of love, though not without transgressing the Adamic law.”106 Of course, this means that even the most perfect are dependent on Christ for inward holiness. Quoting from his Plain Account Wesley clarifies to Joseph Benson:
“None feel their need of Christ like these; none so entirely depend upon him. For Christ does not give light to the soul separate from, but in and with, himself. Hence his words are equally true of all men, in whatever state of grace they are: ‘As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me: Without’ (or separate from) ‘me, ye can do nothing.’ For our perfection is not like that of a tree, which flourishes by the sap derived from its own root; but like that of a branch, which, united to the vine, bears fruit; but severed from it, is ‘dried up and withered.’”107
In addition to reminding professors of the continuing reality of involuntary sin and their need for Christ, Wesley pressed home there are “innumerable degrees” of perfection, so the believer should not expect too much of oneself. Bottom line, full salvation entails having “one desire” and “one design” governing the heart and life.108 Wesley felt the need to keep before seekers, and those who believe they had attained, a clear idea what perfection is and is not. “Always remember,” Miss March was told, “the essence of Christian holiness is simplicity and purity; one design, one desire; entire devotion to God.”109 Once again, the single intention serves as the bottom line for the second work of grace.
Retaining the Experience
What might surprise many who are less familiar with Wesley’s ministry was his admission that most who attain the blessing usually lose it at a later point. In the aftermath of the perfection revival Wesley spoke of over four hundred in London who professed the experience, only to surmise that nearly half lost it later.110 Five years later he acknowledged “although many taste of that heavenly gift, deliverance from inbred sin, yet so few, so exceeding few, retain it one year later; hardly one in ten; nay one in thirty.”111 He then reminisced how hundreds in London had been partakers of the blessing over a period of sixteen to eighteen months, only now to confess doubt whether twenty still retained it. This had led many to question whether perfection could be enjoyed for longer periods of time.
Two things became certain for Wesley. First, there is no state from which anyone cannot fall.112 Second, such a consequence is avoidable.113 Professors who believed they had lost the gift were encouraged to seek the blessing again.114 Therefore, attaining and losing the blessing is what many Methodists faced as they sought after the blessing.
Of uppermost importance, according to Wesley, is the witness of the Holy Spirit. For only the witness can confirm one’s attainment of full salvation. He cautions believers to not look to the experiences of other seekers; nor to rely solely on the feeling that all sin is gone.115 Instead, believers are exhorted to seek the direct and immediate witness of the Holy Spirit. Only an “abiding witness” of the Spirit can secure the gift from being lost little by little.116 An especially strong testimony is when the direct witness is combined with the fruit (indirect witness) of the Spirit, “for there can be no stronger proof that we are of God.”117 Since the witness can be intermittent, believers must ask their heavenly Father to give them an abiding witness that the work is complete.118 For one of the great truths is that there “cannot be a lasting steady, enjoyment of pure love, without the direct testimony of the Spirit.”119
Wesley was careful to distinguish between an assurance of sanctification and an assurance of final perseverance. The former is essential for perfect love, but not the latter.120 In fact, a “plerophory (or full assurance) of hope” is at times given to one not yet perfected in love, as in the case of William Grimshaw.121 But the elderly Wesley conceded that the assurance of hope generally attends only those who enjoy the gift of pure love.122
A corollary of the Spirit’s testimony is the due diligence required of those believing they have tasted the heavenly gift. The sanctified Christian needs to learn to discern between pride and a temptation to pride.123 Implied here is the acknowledgment that it can be very difficult to read the state of one’s own heart. The root cause is spiritual conflict. Satan uses human weakness due to humanity’s fallen condition to cloud the mind in its judgments and emotions.124 The result is evil reasoning—those rationalizations and emotional impressions that confuse many concerning the nature of perfect love. The perfect Christian needs to keep growing in wisdom and attain greater heights of inward holiness.125
Continued Growth
We have already noted that innumerable degrees comprise the sanctified state. The idea of degrees becomes obvious in light of the wilderness state that often follows moment of perfecting grace and from the sober reality that so many fail to retain the experience for any length of time. When we add Wesley’s doctrine of sin, which openly affirms the continuing reality of involuntary sin, it becomes evident there must be degrees within the perfection state. This is in keeping with Wesley’s two-works gospel.
As we saw in chapter three, in 1740 this gospel viewed the faith journey as a lifelong process punctuated by two divine moments—new birth and full salvation. By the mid-forties Wesley’s soteriology began to imply a third moment: full assurance.126 Over time, as his gospel system continued to evolve, a fourth God-moment began to emerge: the faith of a servant (justification). As a result Wesley’s ordo salutis began to look more like a progressive journey punctuated by two greater God-moments (new birth127 and perfection), along with two somewhat lesser moments, experientially speaking (justification and full assurance). Wesley labeled each moment with its own title: servant, child, adolescent, and father.128 In this way, he came to understand and articulate his own version of the faith journey. More important, what this inherent structure implies is that growth continues following the threshold of perfect love.
Wesley repeatedly confirmed that one design and desire is the lowest level of spiritual adulthood.129 This is what he called the “essence of Christian holiness…entire devotion to God.”130 From this foundation he built his understanding of degrees in the life of the sanctified, which, for the most part, remained vague and undefined, especially in his published sermons and writings. But in his letters we can identify several aspects of this maturational process.
In early 1781 Wesley began corresponding with Ann Loxdale, the later wife of Thomas Coke. Ann was suffering from an illness which Wesley felt was providentially granted for her spiritual development. As she shares her experience with Wesley, he reminds her of the possibility to have her heart and mind “continually stayed upon God.”131 Wesley believed Ann had tasted such devotion in the past, but due to a variety of reasons she had lost the blessing and needed to receive it again. A month later he praises her progress in recovering a “measure” of what she once enjoyed. He was now confident she would attain all she had lost.
Still suffering from her “sickness,” Wesley advised humble resignation patterned after Christ. By August he was counseling her to “hold fast,” since he believed she once again “tasted of the pure love of God.132” In the months ahead he admonishes her to rely not upon the judgments of others in evaluating her spiritual state; but, instead, to trust in the light which the Spirit gives. She also faced continuing trials, which Wesley felt were God’s means of calling her to deeper levels of resignation and surrender. “You know,” Wesley wrote, “our blessed Lord himself, as man, ‘learned obedience by the things that he suffered.’”133 It appears from the meager correspondence that remains, Ann passed through her own wilderness state through the first half of 1782. Wesley’s loving support and counsel kept pointing her to Christ’s prayer in the garden— “Not as I will, but as thou wilt” —and he advised her to meditate on 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter. He then encourages her to read his Plain Account, which, he assures her, describes the highest religion possible this side of heaven.134 Most important, Ann needed to grow in resignation, and in that love which is humble, gentle and patient.135
While Ann would once again lapse from the mountaintop of pure love,136 her correspondence with Wesley reveals just how difficult it was to retain the gift; and further, to continue growing in the experience. When she did regain a profession in the summer of 1781 Wesley refers to her as a “babe” in the state.137 This offers another insight into how Wesley understood the faith journey following perfect love. Just as newborn believers in Christ need to become established through the witness of the Spirit, Christians just entered the sanctified state need the same confirming work. Only the abiding witness of the Spirit can finally remove all the doubts that plague the newly sanctified.138 Part of this process is for professors to learn to accept the limitations of their fallen humanity and not become overly critical of themselves due to such weaknesses. As full salvation from sin was understood to be primarily a deeper transformation of the dispositional nature, Wesley saw further growth entailing the cultivation of right tempers: “There is so close a connexion between right judgment and right tempers, as well as right practice that the latter cannot easily subsist without the former.”139
This meant the believer must discern between sin and temptation. As Wesley once told one believer, “What you feel is certainly a degree of anger, but not of sinful anger.”140 The fully sanctified Christian needs to discern not just between temptation and sin, which is difficult enough, but between voluntary and involuntary sin.141 Such theological hair-splitting was a lot to expect from the average Methodist who had no formal theological training. For while Wesley could tell Elizabeth Hardy that he knew many who loved God with all their heart, he also acknowledged these same believers do not always think, speak or act right.142 This created a gap between profession and experience that for many was impossible to bridge. But for those under Wesley’s fatherly care this meant pressing forward toward greater spiritual maturity in how one thinks, speaks and acts as sanctified believers.143
Wesley saw that believers need to grow in other areas, like communion with God and the nurturing of their faith.144 Fully sanctified believers still need to rely on Christ’s heavenly intercession for their involuntary sin, and for God to breathe perpetual holiness within the heart.145 While “lower degrees” of perfection include the power to always cleave to God,146 higher degrees involve the gradual ripening of love, in which communion with the triune God never ceases. In the end, what Wesley desired most for his people was nothing less than complete union with God, where the “plenitude of the presence of the ever-blessed Trinity” is enjoyed in ceaseless praise.147
Conclusion
We round off this chapter by returning to the axioms that grounded Wesley’s two-works gospel. In 1771 he rehearsed how he developed his core convictions with the Countess of Huntingdon. In the 1720’s, Wesley “saw that ‘without holiness no man shall see the Lord.’”148 He thereafter began “following after it.” A decade later he saw by divine grace “how to attain” this holiness; namely, by “faith in the Son of God.” This then became his message: “We are saved from sin, we are made holy, by faith.”149 As we chronicled in earlier chapters, the belief that salvation demands inward holiness and is attained by faith alone became more than a message, these convictions formed the DNA of his character and spiritual temperament.
These maxims could be stated in other ways. To the young Philothea Briggs, Wesley retorts, “None are or can be saved but those who are by faith made inwardly and outwardly holy.”150 So important were faith and holiness to Wesley that along with original sin, these three truths serve as the grand doctrines of Holy Scripture.151
Wesley’s correspondence reveals just how deep he believed in these maxims. In the early seventies, when the Calvinists were enraged over the 1770 Conference Minutes, Wesley remained adamant that we are justified by faith, not works; but that our works do serve as a condition for our second justification at the final judgment. Yet even here it is only by faith in the “righteousness and blood of Christ that we are enabled to do all good works.”152 So while the Calvinists celebrated salvation by faith alone, Wesley could not embrace their particular message. Holiness ran too deep in his psyche to agree with Calvinism on this point, “It is far better for our people not to hear Mr. Hawksworth. Calvinism will do them no good.”153 So strong did John feel about these matters that he told his brother Charles:
“If we duly join faith and works in all our preaching, we shall not fail of a blessing. But of all preaching, what is usually called Gospel preaching is the most useless, if not the most mischievous: A dull, yea, or lively, harangue on the sufferings of Christ, or salvation by faith, without strongly inculcating holiness. I see, more and more, that this naturally tends to drive holiness out of the world.”154
As Wesley battled the Calvinists throughout the 1770’s over the relationship between faith and works regarding salvation, the maxim of holiness continued to grow in strength within his own thought. As he entered into the last decade of his life these changes began to appear more in his sermons than in his letters. The motif of universal salvation rooted in his servant theology, along with the theme of universal holiness, moved Wesley’s Gospel of Two Works into new contours. How this evolution took shape is the subject of the next chapter. But before we move on we would be amiss to ignore one of the most significant letters in the entire Wesley corpus on the subject of Christian perfection.
In the aftermath of the perfection revival in the early sixties, we saw that John and Charles drifted apart over the nature of perfection, along with how and when full salvation is realized. John’s letters to his brother during this period reflect just how deep holiness was stamped on his character. One can feel the anguish as he asks his brother whether the Methodists should give up full salvation in their preaching.155 Yet, only six months earlier Wesley penned one of his most precise statements on Christian perfection. When the letter was written also appears to have played a role in settling his mind on the subject following the perfection revival and schism.156 The letter remains in two forms with only minor differences.157 That this letter proved significant is confirmed by the fact Wesley later published it in the Arminian magazine with only slight variations (which makes a third edition). Here is the latter version:
“Some thoughts occurred to my mind this morning concerning Christian perfection, and the manner and time of receiving it, which I believe may be useful to set down.
1. By perfection I mean the humble, gentle, patient love of God, and our neighbour, ruling our tempers, words, and actions.
I do not include an impossibility of falling from it, either in part or in whole. Therefore, I retract several expressions in our Hymns, which partly express, partly imply, such an impossibility. And I do not contend for the term sinless, though I do not object against it.
2. As to the manner. I believe this perfection is always wrought in the soul by a simple act of faith; consequently, in an instant.
But I believe a gradual work, both preceding and following that instant.
3. As to the time. I believe this instant generally is the instant of death, the moment before the soul leaves the body. But I believe it may be ten, twenty, or forty years before.
I believe it is usually many years after justification; but that it may be within five years or five months after it, I known no conclusive argument to the contrary.
If it must be many years after justification, I would be glad to know how many. Pretium quotus arroget annus? (from Horace, “How many years give sanction to our lines?”).158
And how many days or months, or even years, can any one allow to be between perfection and death? How far from justification must it be; and how near to death?”159
93 JWL 10/13/64.
94 JWL 10/13/64; 7/24/69.
95 JWL 6/24/64; 6/3/74.
96 JWL 6/13/70.
97 JWL 6/27/70.
98 JWL 6/3/74.
99 JWL 3/14/68.
100 JWL 8/23/63.
101 JWL 7/25/67; 5/30/69.
102 JWL 7/27/70.
103 JWL 4/12/70.
104 “They are all love; yet they cannot walk as they desire. ‘But are they all love while they grieve the Holy Spirit?’ No, surely; they are then fallen from their steadfastness; and this they may do even after they are sealed. So that, even to such, strong cautions are needful. After the heart is cleansed from pride, anger, and desire, it may suffer them to re-enter: Therefore I have long thought some expressions in the Hymns are abundantly too strong; as I cannot perceive any state mentioned in Scripture from which we may not (in a measure, at least) fall.” (JWL 12/26/61).
105 JWL 7/6/70.
106 JWL 6/16/72; also 6/7/61; 7/25/67.
107 JWL 10/5/70; Works J 12:413.
108 JWL 3/14/68.
109 JWL 4/14/71.
110 JWL 10/13/65.
111 JWL 3/15/70.
112 JWL 9/29/64.
113 JWL 5/8/70.
114 JWL 6/25/68; 5/30/69; 6/10/81; 4/29/89.
115 JWL 10/12/64.
116 JWL 8/23/63.
117 JWL 3/31/87.
118 JWL 1/30/62; JWL J #733 (no date).
119 JWL 6/3/74.
120 JWL 10/6/78.
121 Ibid.
122 JWL 4/10/81; cf. 1/19/73.
123 JWL 11/7/71.
124 JWL 9/27/77.
125 Though the perfect Christian was pure in their devotion and love, JW’s doctrine of involuntary sin meant they still committed culpable mistakes due to human ignorance and weakness. Hence, growth in wisdom was essential so as to not commit these mistakes as before. This became the primary need in the life of the sanctified.
126 I say “implied” because JW never formally made receiving full assurance into a third divine moment in the faith journey process. Yet, his doctrine of the Spirit’s witness meant it was received in an instant, just as the new birth and perfection, thus implying a third divine moment in his ordo salutis.
127 By the late sixties the servant state was identified with justification and the new birth with the witness of the Spirit.
128 In the next chapter this pattern will develop even more as JW develops further stages in his ordo salutis. See JW’s homilies on the Sermon on the Mount for his delineation of the faith journey in the 1740’s.
129 JWL 9/15/62; 3/14/68.
130 JWL 4/14/71.
131 JWL 6/10/81.
132 JWL 8/15/81.
133 12/15/81; Hebrews 5:8.
134 JWL 6/10/81; 4/12/82.
135 JWL 4/12/82.
136 JWL 10/8/85.
137 “I do not see any reason to doubt, but that you have tasted of the pure love of God. But you seem to be only a babe in that state, and have, therefore, need to go forward continually” (JWL 8/15/81). This shows how fluid JW’s language could be, since he almost always used the term “babe” to describe the new birth.
138 JWL 8/23/63.
139 JWL 7/6/70.
140 JWL 5/31/71.
141 JWL 12/26/61.
142 Ibid.
143 JWL 9/15/62.
144 JWL 6/25/71; 7/1/72.
145 JWL 10/5/70; 9/1/74.
146 JWL 9/15/62.
147 The full quote is, “Tell me, my dear Hetty, do you experience something similar to what Mr. De Renty expresses in those strong words: ‘I bear about with me an experimental verity, and a plenitude of the presence of the ever-blessed Trinity?’ Do you commune with God in the night season? Does He bid you even in sleep, Go on? And does He “make your very dreams devout?” (JWL 6/2/76; cf. JWL 6/16/77; 12/17/87).
148 Hebrews 12:14.
149 JWL 6/19/71.
150 JWL 8/31/72.
151 JWL 4/6/61.
152 JWL 3/1/74.
153 Ibid.
154 JWL 11/4/72.
155 JWL 6/14/68.
156 See the introduction to volume one of this series, John Wesley’s ‘A Plain Account of Christian Perfection’ – The Annotated Edition.
157 Telford placed one letter in 1762 and the other in 1767. Through personal correspondence with Randy Maddox, he ponders that possibly one is a copy of the other, since the Wesleys often made copies of their letters for themselves. They also would copy letters to send them on to other people. After a careful side by side comparison of both letters this author is convinced that the one placed by Telford in 1762 was a draft (first?) and the second (?) was the one sent to Charles. The general reason for this conclusion stems from the fact that the majority of differences deal with punctuation and sentence structure. In this author’s opinion this rules out the idea of one letter being a copy of the other.
158 Thomas Jackson, Works J 11:446)
159 Works J 11:446.
