THE PROGRESS OF MR. WESLEY'S VIEW

From the Scriptures he early formed an exalted standard of the Christian character. His sermon on "Circumcision of the Heart," in 1733, expressed all that he afterward taught under the name of Christian perfection, although he would have then "started at the word." But he knew not the way to attain it. He says: "I was utterly ignorant of the nature and condition of justification. Sometimes I confounded it with sanctification; at other times I had some confused notion about the forgiveness of sins; but then I took it for granted the time of this must be either the hour of death or the day of judgment. I was equally ignorant of the nature of saving faith; apprehending it to mean no more than 'a firm assent to all the propositions contained in the Old and New Testaments.' " -- Vol. 5, p. 80. In April, 1738, he saw from Scripture, and living witnesses, that conversion is an instantaneous work obtained by simple faith; and May 24, he proved it in his own experience. "Till then," he says, "sin had dominion over me."

His opinion as to what constitutes Christian perfection underwent no change, although he had occasion to modify a few expressions in which he stated the doctrine. He saw clearly from this time that all grace, even in its highest degrees, is received by faith; and in this he never wavered. But he was "weak in the faith" and a "babe in Christ," as all young converts are. Doubts and fears crowded upon him. He found it necessary to sit at the feet of those who had more perfect knowledge of the way of faith.

Precisely when he saw that entire sanctification, as a distinct work, is offered by simple faith, we do not know. He says: "By viewing it in every point of light, and comparing it again and again with the Word of God on the one hand, and the experience of the children of God on the other, we saw farther into the nature and properties of Christian perfection." -- Vol. 6, p.495. His mind grasped the details by slow degrees. He could not, by his clear general knowledge of the doctrine, see what a careful experience in himself and others -alone could teach. So, at a time when he "had no distinct view of what the apostle meant by exhorting us to go on to perfection," two or three persons in London gave him a very strange account of their experience, and "different from any" he had ever heard. It was, however, "exactly similar" to what he represents as entire sanctification. The next year five or six more related to him the same experience. A few years after, he and Thomas Walsh met all in London who had the same experience, and "asked them the most searching questions (they) could devise." In 1759-1762, the witnesses of full salvation "multiplied exceedingly"; and "most of these" (in London alone were six hundred and fifty-two) he examined in the same manner (Vol. 2, p. 223). The clear, uniform testimony of these, from first to last, gave him the necessary light by which to form opinions on many points, and to rectify those which were wrong.

It will not, therefore, appear so strange that he should, in 1742, describe a very clear experience, and add: "Whether she was sanctified throughout, I had not light to determine." -- Vol. 3, p. 258. In 1744 he records another clear case, and says: "Why do I not rejoice and praise God on his behalf? Perhaps because I have an exceeding complex idea of sanctification, or a sanctified man." -- Vol. 3, p. 323. The early "conversations" exhibit the doctrine with clearness, but the details with a confusion and hesitancy very different from the explicit utterances of later years. As light was received, it was used. "Those in whom the foundation is already laid we exhort to go on to perfection; which we did not see so clearly at first, although we occasionally spoke of it from the beginning." So he says in 1745 (Vol. 5, p. 200). Time, in like manner, disclosed clearly the successive steps of seeking this blessing, its true evidences, and the mode of retaining it. It was not till 1758 that he was convinced one could lose it; and he even then thought that when once lost, it could not be regained till near death.

The great revival of holiness about 1760 furnished him abundant facilities for obtaining light. After this time his language is always clear and explicit. He says many things which he did not say before, for he did not know them; but he does not contradict his former teachings in any material point. There is no reason to believe that his views changed at all after 1765. He died in 1791.