"This question reappears from time to time, as though of great
importance. We know of no record of his explicitly professing or saying
in so many words, 'I am entirely sanctified;' no record of uttering
words to that effect. But we have no more doubt that he habitually
professed it than that he professed conversion. The relation John Wesley
sustained to his followers, and to this doctrine, makes it certain that
he professed it, and almost certain that there would be no special
record of it.
"1. All Wesley's followers assumed him to be what he urged them to be.
Before they were in a situation to make records his position was so
fixed that to record his descriptions of this state would have been
unthought of.
"2. He preached entire sanctification, and urged it upon his followers.
"3. He defended its attainability in many public controversies.
"4. He urged and defended the profession of it, under certain conditions
and safeguards; made lists of professors; told men they had lost it
because they did not profess; and said and did so many things, only to
be explained upon the assumption that he professed to enjoy the
blessing, that no other opinion can support it."[D]
Soon after this experience at Aldersgate Chapel Mr. Wesley made a
journey to Herrnhut, Germany, to visit the Moravian brethren, but soon
withdrew from them because of their errors in doctrine. He antagonized
the dogma of Zinzendorf, that men are entirely sanctified at the moment
when they are converted. His opinion of the count differed materially
from his estimation of Böhler.
CHAPTER VIII.
WESLEY'S MULTIPLIED LABORS.
NO sooner had Mr. Wesley experienced the transforming power of grace
than he hastened to declare it to all, taking "the world" for his
"parish."
After confessing to those immediately about him what God had done for
his soul he flew with all possible speed to declare it to the miners in
their darkness, to the Newgate felons in their loathsome cells, to the
wealthy and refined worshipers at St. John's and St. Ives', offering in
burning words a common salvation alike to the Newgate felon and to the
St. John's and St. Ives' aristocracy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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