JOHN WESLEY: Q. 74. What is the direct antidote to Methodism, the doctrine of heart-holiness?
A. Calvinism: All the devices of Satan, for these fifty years, have done far less toward stopping this work of God, than that single doctrine. Be diligent to guard these tender minds against the predestinarian poison.
- The Works of John Wesley (Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, MI) (1996) Volume 8, p. 336, emphases added.
"In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will." - Ephesians 1:11
+ John Wesley attributed Calvinistic theology to Satan
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."
From https://cprc.co.uk/articles/johnwesley2/ (Wesley and Murray Who Followed Him, by Sean Hanley -- Slightly modified from an article first published in the British Reformed Journal)
"'When Satan could no otherwise prevent this, he threw Calvinism in our way.' (this is a quote from John Wesley - ed.) ... But his general opinion could not be mistaken; and when any of his followers fell into the error, he contended against it zealously. It was a greater hindrance, he (John Wesley - ed.) said, to the word of God, than any, or all others put together: and he sometimes complains, that most of the seed which had been sown during so many years, had been rooted up and destroyed 'by the wild boars, the fierce, unclean, brutish blasphemous Antinomians.' From this reproach, indeed, which attaches to many of his Calvinistic opponents, he was entirely clear and the great body of his society has continued so."
- Robert Southey, The life of Wesley: and the rise and progress of Methodism (vol. 1, 1820), p. 144.
"In the words of Mr Wesley who has stated the case with equal force and truth; 'the sum of all is this; one in twenty suppose of mankind, are elected; nineteen in twenty are reprobated! The elect shall be saved, do what they will; the reprobate shall be damned, do what they can.' This is the doctrine of Calvinism, for which Diabolism would be a better name; and in the worst and bloodiest idolatry that ever defiled the earth, there is nothing so horrid, so monstrous, so impious as this."
- Robert Southey, The life of Wesley: and the rise and progress of Methodism (vol. 1, 1820), p. 178.
A Jesuit: "Now we have planted the Sovereign Drug Arminianism, OUR FOUNDATION IS ARMINIANISM." - Arminianism Another Gospel (Free MP3 & PDF)
Charles Spurgeon: "What is the heresy of Rome, but the addition of something to the perfect merits of Jesus Christ--the bringing in of the works of the flesh, to assist in our justification?And what is the heresy of Arminianism but the addition of something to the work of the Redeemer? Every heresy, if brought to the touchstone, will discover itself here." - A Defense of Calvinism, emphases added (sermon below)
"All the sects which have sprung up in these latter times Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, Pentecostalists, Mormons, Christadelphians, Cooneyites, etc., have all in common, the fatal lie of free willism. It is Satan's sovereign drug, which causes the soul to sleep in delusion, and the end of such delusion is death." - Arminianism Another Gospel (Free MP3 & PDF)
