+ JOHN WESLEY WROTE: "I do not love God. I never did. Therefore I never believed, in the Christian sense of the word." PURITAN HARD DRIVE SUPER SALE
In a letter to his brother Charles in June 1766, the Arminian evangelist John Wesley, now in his sixties, confesses that he does not and never did love God, believe or have the direct witness of divine sonship or even of things invisible or eternal. Read for yourself.
"In one of my last [letters] I was saying that I do not feel the wrath of God abiding on me; nor can I believe it does. And yet (this is the mystery), I do not love God. I never did. Therefore I never believed, in the Christian sense of the word. Therefore I am only an honest heathen…
And yet, to be so employed of God! And so hedged in that I can neither get forward nor backward! Surely there was never such an instance before, from the beginning of the world! If I ever have had that faith, it would not be so strange. But I never had any other evidence of the eternal or invisible world than I have now; and that is none at all, unless such as faintly shines from reason’s glimmering ray. I have no direct witness (I do not say, that I am a child of God, but) of anything invisible or eternal."
"And yet I dare not preach otherwise than I do, either concerning faith, or love, or justification, or perfection. And yet I find rather an increase than a decrease of zeal for the whole work of God and every part of it. I am borne along, I know not how, that I can’t stand still. I want all the world to come to what I do not know."
+ Wesley taugh that unconverted Muslims and other heathen will be accepted by God on the basis of their good works
Wesley’s belief (was) that there will be unconverted Moslems and other heathen who will be accepted on the basis of their good works.
The words of our Lord in John 3:7, "Ye must be born again," contrast sharply with Wesley’s own view that "the merciful God" sees Moslems and "regards the lives and tempers of men more than their ideas."
+ John Wesley’s ecumenical approach toward Romanism
"Wesley’s ecumenical approach toward Romanism is also overlooked and can best be appreciated by Wesley’s own correspondence to a Roman Catholic, 'Let the points wherein we differ stand aside; here are enough wherein we agree, enough to be the ground of every Christian temper, and of every Christian action. O brethren, let us not still fall out by the way.'"
+ Wesley’s favourable disposition toward women preachers
"In addition, while Murray hints at Wesley’s favourable disposition toward women preachers, he does not provide us with the clarity that we find in Wesley’s own writings. Wesley wrote the Manchester Conference in 1787 that we should 'give the right hand of fellowship to Sarah Mallet, and have no objection of her being a Preacher in our connexion…'"
In the chapter entitled "The Collision with Calvinism," Murray provides a revisionist escape route by suggesting that Wesley, the great apostle of Arminianism who was intimately acquainted with Calvin and the Puritans, misunderstood what Calvinism really is (p. 74). Yet Wesley himself expresses his own understanding of Calvinism as teaching that "the salvation of every man" is dependent "wholly and solely upon an absolute, irresistible, unchangeable decree of God, without any regard to faith or works foreseen."
Wesley clearly understood Calvinistic theology and yet he continued to attribute it to Satan and refer to it as "deadly poison" (p. 74). He also warned his Methodist society members to stay away from Reformed churches that taught a particular atonement. Even Murray is forced to admit that over time, Wesley’s "opposition to Calvinism stiffened rather than weakened" (p. 68). How else could one honestly explain the vindictive barrage of attacks on the sovereignty of God in Wesley’s The Arminian Magazine?
...Wesley calls predestination "a doctrine full of blasphemy" and the God of predestination "as worse than the devil; more false, more cruel, more unjust."
"Wesley held to a theory of justification that is virtually indistinguishable to that of sanctification. He openly taught that justification is not only forensic (a legal declaration), but that it depends on the "moment to moment" obedience of the believer. "
Wesley himself noted that his own position on the subject was "a hair’s breadth" from "salvation by works."
This concept of "deserving it" is a major theme within Wesley’s sermons and one could hardly be blamed for mistaking them as a byproduct of Rome’s Council of Trent. Wesley clearly affiliated himself with a conditional gospel of works when he insisted that election is based on the future works and faith of men.
Wesley comments:
This decree, whereby whom God did foreknow, he did predestinate, was indeed from everlasting; this, whereby all who suffer (allow) Christ to make them alive are elect according to the foreknowledge of God.
Wesley plagiarised an anti-slavery work written by a Quaker and a book by Samuel Johnson in support of the British taxing of the American colonies (pp. 177-178). Augustus Toplady “publicly decried his disgraceful fraud” and “trumpeted Wesley’s intellectual bankruptcy in The Old Fox Tarr’d and Feather’d” (p. 179).
Tomkins writes,
Wesley was a serial plagiarist and simply saw nothing wrong with regurgitating other people’s work. As a writer, he inserted other people’s writings into his own as happily and as unannounced as he inserted his own into other people’s as an editor (p. 178).
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