THE "MUCH-CONTROVERTED POINT OF JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH" AND THE SHAPING OF WESLEY'S EVANGELISTIC MESSAGE

by
David Lowes Watson

By Wesley's own account, the watershed of his involvement in the Eighteenth Century Revival was his decision to go to Bristol at the invitation of George Whitefield. As Whitefield put it, a "glorious door" had opened among the colliers, and what God had enabled him to plant now required watering.1 Wesley's experience with the nurturing ministry of societies and bands was badly needed. Yet his decision to go was not a spontaneous response; so much so, that the final outcome, as we have it recorded in the published Journal, was decided by lot.2

Immediately following this account, Wesley includes in the Journal a letter which he had sent to his father in 1734.3 The letter had been written, painstakingly and with much heart searching, to explain to Samuel Wesley why his son did not feel it his calling to accept the living at Epworth. The arguments fall into two categories: those which "conduce to [his] own self-improvement"; and those which concern the application of his God-given talents to the "social life, to which academic studies are only preparatory."4

While the arguments on both counts read well enough, and evince an objectivity, which, in a late twentieth century context, might provide a quite passable self evaluation of skills, goals and objectives, this is not Wesley's purpose in reproducing such a letter. He makes clear that, with his response to Whitefield's request, he was entering into a "new period" in his life, and that the reasons which led him to decline a parish living five years earlier remained no less compelling. He found the academic life stimulating and fulfilling in every way, and he wanted to make the point forcefully that his venture into field preaching, with all that followed from it, was nothing less than an irresistible call from God to take the gospel "into the highway and hedges, which none else will do;" to "go out in God's name into the most public places, and call on all to repent and believe the gospel."5

The evangelistic question which immediately follows from this confession is, What made him do it? And following close on this is the corollary, Why did he continue to do it? The answer does not lie in the Aldersgate Street experience. Not only do we have instances before May 24th, 1738, of his preaching the gospel in such a way as to be banned from pulpits for so doing.6 We also have, in the weeks and months following Aldersgate Street, a clear demonstration that he was not sufficiently sure of what had happened that evening to make it the center of a message which he could take to the keel men of Newcastle, the harlots of Drury Lane, to say nothing of the mobs which were soon to threaten him and his assistants.7 However much the assurance he received that evening might have empowered him as a leader of the eighteenth century Revival, it does not explain his particular strength as an evangelist, nor that of the early Methodist societies.

If we are to learn from Wesley the evangelist, we must take the word evangelism at its face value, and ask what was the good news which God commissioned him to take to the people of eighteenth century England. For of one thing all true evangelists quickly become convinced: that the only sustaining motivation for reaching out to people with the gospel is the impelling power of the Holy Spirit. And this comes most readily when the evangelist fulfills the proper role of messenger, handing over to the world that which has been entrusted to all evangelists from the very beginning. By thus honoring the proper evangelistic calling, the evangelist is in turn honored by the God who has commissioned the task. Put differently, when the true gospel is truly proclaimed, the evangelist finds an indwelling and outpouring of spiritual power which render questions of evangelistic motivation — and method, for that matter — altogether secondary.

Such, at least, is the inference we can draw from the formative years of Wesley's evangelistic ministry; for such is the implication of his own edited narrative of that period of his life. The Journal for these months leaves us with an overwhelming sense, not only of a personal search for faith, but also of a theological quest, which matched and then superseded his inward spiritual inquiry. With the true instinct of an evangelist, it quickly became his concern to render the gospel which had so changed his own life into plain truth for plain people, by discerning its essential message of good news, and then proclaiming it far and wide.

Significantly, the question which occupied Wesley during this formative theological quest was the doctrine of justification by faith. It is interesting first of all to note that, in his conversations in Georgia with Spangenberg and Toltschig, and in the summary of his pilgrimage leading to May 24th, 1738, the word which is used almost exclusively to describe his spiritual quest is faith, not justification. Indeed, justification does not appear until the closing paragraphs of the Georgia Journal:

This, then, I have learned in the ends of the earth — that I'm fallen short of the glory of God': that my whole heart is 'altogether corrupt and abominable'; and consequently my whole life (seeing it cannot be that an 'evil tree' should 'bring forth good fruit'): that, 'alienated' as I am from the life of God, I am 'a child of wrath,' an heir of hell: that my own works, my own sufferings, my own righteousness, are so far from reconciling me to an offended God. so far from making any atonement for the least of those sins, which 'are more in number than the hairs of my head,' that the most specious of them need an atonement themselves, or they cannot abide His righteous judgment: that 'having the sentence of death' in my heart, and having nothing in or of myself to plead, I have no hope, but that of being justified freely, 'through the redemption that is in Jesus'; I have no hope, but that if I seek I shall find Christ, and 'be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.'8

As Martin Schmidt observes, the "problem of justification, having been 80 clearly stated, could not again be avoided."9 Not yet clear in Wesley's thinking, however, and not altogether clarified by Schmidt, is the distinction between justification as that which God does for us in Christ, and faith as the sole condition of that justification. At this juncture it was faith, defined in the words of the Anglican tradition as "a sure trust and confidence in God, that, through the merits of Christ, my sins are forgiven, and I reconciled to the favor of God," which remained Wesley's primary concern. But we should note that, even as he described the anguish of his personal faith crisis, he stated the issue circumspectly:

I want that faith which none can have without knowing that he hath it (though many imagine they have it, who have it not) . . . [by which] he is freed from doubt, 'having the love of God shed abroad in his heart, through the Holy Ghost which is given unto him'; which 'Spirit itself beareth witness with his spirit, that he is a child of God."10

As Albert Outler has suggested, Wesley's preoccupations with 'holy living' and 'the means of grace' before 1738 had probably obscured the priority of justifying faith as antecedent to, and the ground of, 'the faith that works by love.'11 What may further obscure the issue in viewing Wesley the evangelist, however, is that his understanding of this ordo salutis came initially through German Pietism rather than his own Anglican or Puritan traditions.12 He was searching for an inward assurance of faith which, when he finally received it, he rightly identified as a gracious work of divine initiative. But this faith, which was the condition of his justification, was not his justification per se, and as we follow his reflections through these early years, we shall observe that this was precisely the distinction he first had to establish for himself, and then make clear to his Anglican and Calvinist critics alike, in order for him to proclaim it with assurance as the good news of salvation for all.

We receive the first indication that Wesley the theologian began to supersede Wesley the convert at an early point in the Moravian Journal, where he contrasts Zinzendorf's distinction between justification and the assurance of faith with Bohler's position that knowledge of justification is necessarily part of justification.13 The contrast is not labored; but, as with so much in the Journal, the words should be measured carefully. For Wesley proceeds to expound the point by citing from several sermons he heard at Herrnhut concerning the "state of those who are 'weak in faith,' who are justified, but have not yet a new, clean heart; who have received forgiveness through the blood of Christ, but have not received the constant indwelling of the Holy Ghost.14 One of the sermons made such an impression on him that he transcribed it in detail:

You grieve for your sins. You are deeply humble. Your heart is broken. Well: but all this is nothing to your justification. The remission of your sins is not owing to this cause, either in whole or in part. Your humiliation and contrition have no influence on that. Nay, observe further, that it may hinder your justification; that is, if you build anything upon it; if you think, I must be so or so contrite.... The right foundation is, not your contrition (though that is not your own), not your righteousness, nothing of your own, nothing that is wrought in you by the Holy Ghost; but it is something without you, viz. the righteousness and blood of Christ.15

The remaining testimonies transcribed by Wesley from his Herrnhut conversations focus, in one way or another, on these distinctions. First, the radical nature of the doctrine of justification by faith, which he never ceased to affirm thereafter: that sinful human nature is deeply alienated from God, and of itself has no capacity at all for reconciliation. Atonement is wholly God's initiative in Christ, and it is complete. It is not the beginning of salvation — it is salvation. All sins are forgiven; all alienation is resolved. Because of Christ's atoning passion, the sinner is completely forgiven and restored to favor in the sight of God.

The condition of justification, however, is not as radical as its work. The work of justification is Christ's and Christ's alone. The condition of justification is faith, and faith alone, which also comes directly from God as a gift — a sure confidence in the merits of Christ's passion. Yet there are degrees to this condition, and the justified sinner may not receive the full assurance of faith for quite some time, even though the condition might be evidenced to others by the fruits of the Spirit in a person's life. While the gift of full assurance should be expected, and indeed sought in prayerful expectancy, it should not therefore be confused with the work of justification, which is God's radical reconciliation in Christ of human beings radically alienated in sin.

All of which points to the third dimension of the doctrine, namely the importance of working out the salvation bestowed on the sinner by the justifying work of Christ. A radical doctrine of reconciliation can easily be abused by neglecting the good works which necessarily must follow from the condition of justifying faith. In the account which Wesley gives in the Herrnhut Journal of his conversation with Christian David, we find this dimension of the doctrine brought sharply into focus as the issue of faith and works. As David described the problem,

We found a great remissness of behavior . . . among us. And indeed the same was to be found in most of those round about us, whether Lutherans or Calvinists; so insisting on faith as to forget, at least in practice, both holiness and good works. Observing this terrible abuse of preaching Christ given for us, we began to insist more than ever on Christ living in US.16

David went on to describe the extremes to which the Moravian community had then taken this principle, to the point of excluding from the Lord's Supper any who could not testify to a full assurance of the indwelling Christ. By contrast, he had subsequently modified his own view to one of affirming "that Christ in us, and Christ for us, ought, indeed, to be both insisted on; but first and principally Christ for us as being the ground of all." In other words, what is felt by a potential believer is no more a prerequisite for justifying faith than the good works such a person might do. Moreover, as David went on to observe, the sort of preaching which proclaimed Christ given for us was found always to "be accompanied with power;" for, if "rightly believed," it assuredly led to Christ being "formed in us."l7

As we have noted, this was not as yet a major issue for Wesley; though by the time this section of the Journal was published, it had emerged with some cogency as a practical antinomianism in his societies, and in the form of Quietism had been the occasion of his rift with the Fetter Lane Society.l8 We can note, therefore, that even as he was wrestling with the existential implications of a radical doctrine which proclaims sinners wholly justified by Christ coram Deo, he remained theologically objective — an important foundation for authentic evangelism.

At this early stage of his evangelistic ministry, as the Journal narrative makes clear on almost every page, Wesley wants us to be aware that his spiritual journey and his theological instincts provided him with a constant tension. On the one hand, he was forging some quite pivotal theological distinctions. On the other hand, he had many questions about his inward assurance of faith. In October of 1738, for example, after reading Jonathan Edwards' Faithful Narrative, he records that he was thrown "into great perplexity" by some correspondence with a friend over those who are "weak in the faith," and was driven to a further self-examination. As a result of this, while affirming some signs of the new birth in his life, he concludes that he did not have the full assurance of faith. Though even with such a "measure of faith," he trusted that he was reconciled to God through Christ.19 In a letter to his brother, Samuel, later that month, he described this measure of faith as a mustard seed, and exhorted those "who have not received joy in the Holy Ghost, the love of God, and the plerophory of faith . . . Christians in that imperfect sense wherein I call myself such . . . to pray that God would give them also . . . to feel his love 'shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto them.' "20

And significantly, in a Journal entry dated October 29th, 1738, we find the following reflection:

In the evening being troubled at what some said of 'the kingdom of God within us,' and doubtful of my own state, I called upon God, and received this answer from His word: 'He himself also waited for the kingdom of God.' 'But should not I wait in silence and retirement?' was the thought that immediately struck into my mind. I opened my testament again on those words 'Seest thou not how faith wrought together with his works? And by works was faith made perfect.'21

The distinctions continue to develop: justification as God's work; faith as the condition of justification in the believer, also a gift from God, and received by degrees; and good works as the condition of faith, thereby affirming it as true and lively.

We then come to a pivotal Journal entry, dated November 12th, 1738, where Wesley the editor makes clear that the preceding references have been leading to a decisive moment in the narrative:

I preached twice at the Castle. In the following week I began more narrowly to inquire what the doctrine of the Church of England is concerning the much-controverted point of justification by faith; and the sum of what I found in the Homilies I extracted and printed for the use of others.22

This twelve page pamphlet went through numerous editions in Wesley's lifetime, and was included in the Pine edition of his collected works. It is a masterly piece of editing, and became a standard component of Methodist instruction, thereby linking the members of the early societies to the tap-root of the English Reformation and its via media which was so agonizingly forged through the political and religious minefield of the sixteenth century.

The language is almost certain that of Thomas Cranmer, a theologian not unlike Wesley, in that the exigencies of his task rendered the form of his writing plain truth for plain people. Wesley's extract begins with the clear statement that all persons are sinners and therefore in no way can be justified by their works.23 We receive our justification, or righteousness, "of God's mercy, and Christ's Merits embraced by faith." This great mystery of our redemption comes from the wisdom of God, and God alone, who has "tempered his Justice and Mercy together." With Romans 3 and 8 as referents, justification is identified as three-fold:

Upon God's Part, his great mercy and Grace; upon Christ's Part, the Satisfaction of God's Justice . . . ; and upon our Part, True and Lively Faith in the Merits of Jesus Christ.... And therefore St. Paul declareth nothing on behalf of Man, concerning his Justification, but only a True and lively Faith, which itself is the Gift of God.24

Then comes the critical distinction:

And yet that Faith doth not shut out Repentance, Hope, Love, and the Fear of God, to be joined with Faith in every Man that is justified. But it shutteth them out from the office of justifying. So that altho' they be all present together in him that is justified, yet they justify not altogether.25

And to make the point completely clear:

And the true Sense of this Doctrine, we are justified freely by Faith without Works, or we are justified by Faith in CHRIST only, is not, That this is our own Act, to believe in CHRIST, or this our Faith in Christ, which is within us, doth justify us (for that were to account ourselves to be justified by some Act or Virtue that is within ourselves) yet we must renounce the Merit of all, of Faith, Hope, Charity, and all other Virtues and Good Works, which we either have done, shall do, or can do, as far too weak to deserve our Justification . . . Therefore in that respect we renounce as it were, again, Faith, Works and all other virtues. For our Corruption thro' Original Sin is so great, that all our Faith, Charity, Words and Works cannot merit or deserve any Part of our Justification for us.26

It is clear in these Homilies that Cramner wanted to stress the place of good works in the order of salvation; though in Wesley's editing, this is not given as much prominence. As we have noted, his major theological concern at this stage was the distinction between justification and faith. Yet his theological instincts hold true, and this further dimension of the doctrine is given its due:

Neither doth Faith shut out Good Works, necessarily to be done afterwards, of Duty towards God: (For we are most bounden to serve God, in doing Good Works, commanded in Scripture, all the Days of our Life). But we may not do them to this Intent, to be justified by doing them. For all the Good Works we can do, are not able to deserve our Justification.... For that Faith which bringeth not forth Repentance, but either Evil Works, or no Good Works, is not a right, pure and living Faith, but a Dead and Devilish one, as St. Paul and St. James call it.... Let us then by our Works declare our Faith to be the Living, Christian Faith.... Let it be daily increasing more and more by Good Works; so shall you be sure, that you shall please God, and when his Will is, receive the End of your Faith, even the Salvation of your Souls.27

Perhaps most significant about this theological publication (apart from the fact that he found it necessary to publish it at all — an indication of the extent to which eighteenth century Anglicanism had departed from its own roots) is that Wesley placed it in juxtaposition with persisting questions about his own religious experience. The Journal narrative — edited, we must remember, for publication — continues to give indications of his own self doubt.28 Likewise, he continues to evaluate the evidence for "degrees of faith." On January 25th, 1739, for example, he baptized five persons, and noted that of all the persons he had baptized recently, only one was born again "in the full sense of the word.... Most of them were only born again in a lower sense; that is, received the remission of their sins. And some (as it has since too plainly appeared) neither in one sense nor the other."29

The evangelistic issue is already emerging: that there is certainty in proclaiming what God has done for us in Christ; but that proclaiming what has happened in us provides much less certainty. In his correspondence, he is ready to affirm the reality of an inward assurance of faith, even as an instantaneous change. But he is also at pains to distinguish this from the central truth of the gospel.30

To understand Wesley's concern for this evangelistic clarity, we must place it in the context of an ongoing dispute in Anglican and Puritan theology over the proper cause of justification, a dispute which had abated somewhat in the eighteenth century, but which had its origins in the late decades of the sixteenth. And in this regard, we continue to be indebted to the seminal article by Albert Outler, "The Place of Wesley in the Christian Tradition."31 The issue was whether Christ's atoning death was the formal or meritorious cause of justifying faith, a dispute which had ensued from the formulations of the Council of Trent. The Tridentine position was that Christ's passion was the meritorious cause of justifying faith, the formal cause being the conferred justice of God; while the Calvinist position, leading inexorably to the TULIP formulation, was to stipulate that Christ's atoning death was the formal cause, lest there should be any hint of human participation in a justification that was the work of Christ and Christ alone. Since a formal cause is by definition efficacious, this necessarily connoted an imputed righteousness which rendered good works altogether secondary in the ordo salutis. By the same token, it required a doctrine of limited atonement, since clearly not all persons found Christ's atonement efficacious in their lives.

Perhaps most important of all, at the level of practical Christian experience, it rendered the assurance of faith synonymous with justification. According to this view of atonement, there could be no affirmation by degrees of faith, no vindication of faith by virtue of one's good works or disposition, no waiting for the assurance of faith in the knowledge that the merits of Christ's atoning death had accomplished one's pardon and reconciliation with God, no "sure trust and confidence" in what Christ had done as the bedrock of "a true and lively faith." Rather, since atonement was limited, grace was perforce irresistible, and assurance of faith indispensable to justification itself. Little wonder that this led to the excesses of enthusiasm which so many Anglicans found to be theologically abnormal, morally suspect, and emotionally quite distasteful.

It has been argued by C. F. Allison that the dispute shaped Anglican theology during the seventeenth century into an "ineluctable movement . . . towards a moralism masquerading as faith."32 The problem was that Anglican theology, instead of working through the originative position of the Articles and Homilies, which essentially left unresolved the question of formal or meritorious cause of justification, attempted to synergize faith and works, thereby robbing both words of their distinctively Christian usage and power.33

Wesley had to have been aware of these issues, which is why the years we are presently considering must be regarded as theologically and evangelistically highly formative. And the issue with which he was wrestling most acutely was how to reappropriate for the purposes of evangelistic proclamation a theological position which had become well-nigh de-traditioned. It was not that Anglican theologians denied the merits of Christ's atoning death. But in order to moderate the "enthusiasms" which seemed to accompany the popular expressions of sola fide, they stressed the importance of the virtues which preceded justification. Take, for example, the following passage from the conclusion to George Bull's Harmonia Apostolica, a standard work in Wesley's day:

When the first Protestants taught that we were justified by faith alone, they did not therefore mean, that by this faith, other virtues, and other good works were excluded, as by no means necessary unto the obtaining of justification, or that faith had in the work of justification a greater effect than other virtues. But . . . that the word faith denotes such an obedience as is united with confidence in the merits of Jesus Christ, and a perfect rejection of all merits of our own, and which therefore excludes all those works which are performed with any confidence in, or opinion of, our own merits.34

It is difficult not to interject the anguished cri de coeur of the evangelist, that such a theology will not preach. It is a theological attempt, not to close the stable door after the horse has bolted, but rather to close the door on a stable which does not have a horse. It is precisely why Wesley, in the General Rules of 1743, described Methodists as those who, having the form of godliness, sought the power.

Not that we should deny all validity to this Anglican synergism. There was a legitimate fear of the practical antinomianism which, as we have noted, Wesley was quickly to encounter in his societies. Once again, the words of George Bull:

Neither is it undeserving of notice, that of the thirty-nine articles of the Church of England, thirty-eight are laid down without any explanation; but this one, on the Justification of man, is not given without this express caution, that a fuller and more complete explanation of it must be sought in the Homily on Justification. For the revered Fathers of our Church were very anxious lest any man, too superstitiously adhering to the words of the article, should twist them into some dangerous sense, which alas! we see this day to be done by many.35

Wesley's concern, by contrast, was to formulate the power of this foundational gospel message without losing its doctrinal soundness; and it is highly significant that the issue was brought to a head with his decision to preach in the open air. Indeed, this was not only the watershed of his evangelistic ministry, but of his evangelical theology also, since thereinafter his doctrinal thinking was shaped by the honing of his theological reflections into evangelistic proclamations. Evangelism is the "headlining" of the gospel, the pointed communication of the essentials of the Christian message. And there is nothing better suited for this than the frequent presentation of the gospel to plain people who, neither having a church background, nor caring to have one, require plain truth. This is what renders Wesley not only a major evangelist in the history of the church, but a considerable theologian also.36

As he began to find his stride in this new ministry, the power of a message which had the justifying work of Christ at its center became very evident. The subsequent refinement of the doctrine, expressed variously in the correspondence with the pseudonymous John Smith,37 the Minutes of 1745,38 the sermon "Justification by Faith," published in 1746,39 and definitively in the sermon "The Lord Our Righteousness," in 1765,40 did not depart from the position of the Anglican Homilies. Wesley merely sharpened the distinctions: between justification as that which is earned for us by the merits of Christ; faith as the condition of justification, likewise a gift from God, a supernatural elenchos, a regeneration of will, a new birth; and the assurance of faith, which comes to some at once, and to others by degrees.41 Then, in answer to Anglican objections, he linked good works necessarily to faith, but as the condition of sustaining, not obtaining justification. In answer to Calvinist objections, he stressed the radical nature of sin and divine initiative alike, affirming imputed righteousness as the condition of faith, just as faith was the condition of justification. This was not, however, a divine self-deception.42 Imputed righteousness was the beginning of a real transformation, to which Wesley gave full doctrinal integrity as the equally gracious divine initiative of sanctification.43

This left the doctrine of justification not only distinct, but sufficiently radical for Wesley to state that, in proclaiming God as all things and humankind as nothing, Methodist came to the very edge of Calvinism.44 And we might add, to the edge of Lutheranism also. For in the latter part of 1739, as a further component of these doctrinal clarifications, Wesley published an edited version of two treatises by the early English Reformation scholar, Robert Barnes.45 It is as if Wesley, having made all theological allowances for the proper grounding of justification by faith in the ordo salutis, needed to emphasize one more time the radical nature of this cutting edge of the evangel.

In Robert Barnes, we find not only England's first Lutheran scholar of note, but also one of the most colorful characters to emerge from those early decades of the sixteenth century, when "the life-giving airs of the Renaissance seemed to be blowing upon England."46 For the English Reformation at the outset was more an outcome of Renaissance humanism than religious protest — an intellectual movement which was carried through by political events rather than a popular following of a religious leader.47

Cambridge proved to be a lively center for this atmosphere of intellectual inquiry, and fertile ground for the Lutheran theology infiltrating from the continent. In particular, an informal group who met at the White Horse Inn were noted from their open discussion of the new scholarship.48 A Barnes, who had joined the Augustinian Friars at the University in 1514, and rapidly advanced to become head of the house, was an acknowledged leader of this group, and soon became marked as one whose criticisms of ecclesiastical practices could not be ignored. Tried on charges of heresy, he agreed to do public penance; but hearing that his life was in danger, he fled to Wittenberg, where he was warmly welcomed by the theological community. Writing under the name of Antonius Anglus, he published a series of treatises during the early 1530s, of which the two edited by Wesley are among the most mature: "Onely fayth iustifieth before God;" and "Free will of man, after the fall of Adam, of his natural strength, can doe nothing but sin before God."49

In the first of these, Wesley's editing for the most part serves merely to clarify.50 The treatise is allowed to make its own case, and powerfully so. At the outset, it is the work of Christ which is affirmed as the sole cause of our justification:

Now if we will truly confess Christ, then must we grant with our Hearts, that Christ is all our Righteousness, all our Redemption, all our Wisdom, all our Holiness, alone the Purchaser of Grace alone the Peace-maker between God and Man. Briefly, all Goodness that we have, that it is of him, by him and for his sake only. And that we have need of nothing towards our Salvation, but of him only, and we desire no other Salvation, nor no other Satisfaction; nor any help of any other Creature, either heavenly or earthly, but of him only; 51

Justification is freely given, by grace:

But let us go to our Purpose, St. Paul saith, All Men be sinners, and fallen short of the Glory of God, but they are justified freely by his Grace, through the Redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Rom. iii.23, 24. What is this, that all Men have sinned, yea and are justified freely? How shall a sinner do good Works? How can he deserve to be justified? What call you freely? if there be any deserving, less or more, then is it not freely. What call you by his Grace? if it be any part of Works, then it is not of Grace. For as St. Paul saith, Then Grace were not Grace, Rom. xi.6. Here can be no Evasion, the Words be so plain. If you bring in any help of Works, then for so much is not our Redemption freely, nor yet is it of Grace, as concerning the Part that cometh of Works, but partly of Works, and then do you destroy all St. Paul, and his whole Disputation.52

If it is faith alone that justifies, it is not, however, a prerequisite for justification; for the faith which justifies is itself a gift from God, and not the result of human reasoning:

The very true Way of Justification is this: First cometh God, for the Love of Christ Jesus, only of his mere Mercy, and giveth us freely the Gift of Faith, whereby we do believe God and his holy Word, and stick fast unto the Promises of God; . . . This is not such a Faith as Men dream when they believe that there is one God, and believe that he is eternal, believe also that he made the World of nought, yea, and believe that the Gospel is true, and all things that God speaketh must be true and fulfilled, with other such things. This, I say, is not the Faith that we be justified by, for Devils and Infidels have this Faith; and also we may attain to these things by Strength of Reason: But the Faith that shall justify us, must be of another manner of Strength, for it must come from Heaven, and not from the Strength of Reason. It must also make me believe that God the Maker of heaven and Earth is not only a Father, but also My Father; . . . that he is not only My Father, but also a Merciful Father; yea, and that unto me Merciful, and so merciful, that he will not impute my Sins into me, though they be never so great, so long as I hang on the blessed Blood of Christ Jesus, and sin not of Malice, but of Frailty, and of no Pleasure.53

It is interesting to note that the only major excision in Wesley's editing of this treatise is a somewhat confusing section near the end, concerning justification and works of repentance. Barnes has argued that the injunctions in the Epistle of James on good works must be expounded in light of what Paul has to say on justification. The weight of his argument is that good works which follow from justification are incumbent on the Christian, and will be rewarded accordingly.54 But in no way are they to be regarded as part of justification; nor yet are works of repentance to be regarded as efficacious for remission of sins. Wesley omits some vigorous, but highly questionable, exegesis of scriptural paradigms of faith, thereby leaving the force of this argument intact.55

His editing of the second treatise on Freewill likewise serves to clarify the main argument. Omitting Barnes' polemics on the technicalities of contrition and attrition, which, while familiar to sixteenth century scholars, would make little sense to those who had probably never heard of "Duns men,"56 the result is again a powerful statement of the position that there is absolutely nothing in the human will which can initiate atonement with God. Our faith is wholly a gift:

Where now is our good Desire, and good Endeavor, and Application to good? For our Spirit can do nothing but evil, and is of himself but a damnable Servant. What good can a damnable Servant do of himself? So that here it is openly proved, that the Freewill of Man, of his own Strength, of his own Power, can do nothing but sin.57

Unlike the edition of the Anglican Homilies, the Barnes extract was published only once. But it does much to clarify the outcome of this formative period of spiritual and theological tension in Wesley's ministry. In short, the much-controverted point of justification by faith became the touchstone for his evangelism. It ensured that Christ, and Christ alone, was the center of what was proclaimed in and through the early Methodist movement. As Wesley put it in his early masterpiece, "The Principles of a Methodist," citing Cranmer almost word for word:

In strictness, therefore, neither our faith nor our works justify us, that is, deserve the remission of our sins. But God himself justifies us, of his own mercy, through the merits of his Son only.58

The implications remain no less significant for evangelism today. With Christ as the center of our evangel, the message is proclaimed without the handicap or obstruction of self-conscious or self esteeming messengers. Christian witness assumes its proper role, namely a testimony to what Christ has done for us, rather than a recounting of what the Holy Spirit has done in us. There is of course a place for the latter, but not as the cutting edge of our evangelism; rather as the substance of Christian development, the oikodom? of the body as we grow in grace and are nurtured in the faith. The evangelistic challenge, on the other hand, is the call, first of all to salvation in Christ, and then to service for Christ. What that does in us, as the fruit of justification, can easily distract from the immediate power and challenge of Christ's justifying work, and should therefore not be at the forefront of what we proclaim as the evangel to the world.

There remain two questions to be addressed, both of which point to further implications of Wesley's evangelism; though the scope of this paper permits only their brief consideration. The first concerns the fullness of God's grace as it was proclaimed in the early Methodist evangel. It is not surprising that this should have become an issue shortly after Wesley took to the fields with the gospel, since the preaching of Whitefield had preceded him so thoroughly in and around Bristol. The Calvinist message of salvation by absolute decrees carried an evangelistic power by virtue of its critical challenge to the human will. Yet Wesley, steeped in a tradition which stressed the catholicity of grace, could not and would not concede either a limited atonement or the irresistibility of a grace which was gracious precisely in its bestowal of a freedom to resist grace. His message was one of salvation for all, by free grace, and with only one condition: a sure and confident trust in the merits of the Christ who had obtained that salvation for the whole human race through his atoning passion.

As he was to note some forty years later, in "Thoughts upon Salvation by Faith," it was very much a surprise to him and his brother, that, in preaching free grace for all, they should have thereby been accused of preaching salvation by works.59 If those who held to a doctrine of absolute decrees wished to infer that such a faith was a rejection of God's sovereignty, and thus a salvation by works, he did not have time to argue the point.60 For in practice, the preaching of salvation for all carried no less evangelistic power at the critical moment of invitation to the sinner. Indeed, it was precisely because the message of free grace reached people with cogency and with evident results that he affirmed it as an integral part of what God had called him to preach:

Thursday, 26 [April 1739]. Preaching at Newgate on those words, 'He that believeth hath everlasting life', I was led, I know not how, to speak strongly and explicitly of predestination, and then to pray that if I spake not the truth of God he would stay his hand, and work no more among us; if this was his truth, he would 'not delay to confirm it by signs following'. Immediately the power of God fell upon us. One, and another, and another, sunk to the earth. You might see them dropping on all sides as thunderstruck.61

Friday, 27 [April 1739]. All Newgate rang with the cries of those whom the word of God cut to the heart; two of whom were in a moment filled with joy, to the astonishment of those that beheld them 62

Wesley's disputes with the Calvinists of his day were not limited to this issue, of course;63 but in terms of his evangelism, it was the most important. Which is why it is so noteworthy that, precisely as an evangelistic issue, it proved altogether moot. For in proclaiming Christ as the savior of all, there was no blunting of the cutting edge of justification by faith. The response was just as dramatic as that which was evoked by a proclamation of salvation by decrees. The essential difference was the fullness of the evangelistic message. The gospel preached by Wesley was a call to discipleship no less than an invitation to salvation. Put differently, his evangelism made clear that there was a purpose to the justification of a sinner beyond the immediate gift of forgiveness and reconciliation.

This constitutes the second of our concluding points, namely that the Christ who reconciles us to God is also the Christ who calls us to service. The transforming grace of Christ was well understood by Wesley as a process of sanctification, leading to the maturity of Christian perfection. But how could this be proclaimed as a message of God's salvation, when perforce it was a message which tended to focus on the forgiven sinner, albeit in a context of grace? It would surely tend to fall into the evangelistic trap which Wesley was at such pains to avoid in clarifying the distinctive doctrine of justification.

The answer lay in the immediacy of the relationship with Christ, not only initiated, but also sustained at any given moment by justifying faith. Inasmuch as sanctifying grace works at all times through the immediacy of justifying grace, the transforming relationship of sanctification could therefore be proclaimed evangelistically as obedience. In this way, rather than a message of what Christ does in us, which would tend to draw attention to the messenger rather than the message (and thereby disempower the gospel), the necessary good works which follow upon justification were proclaimed as that which Christ calls us to do in the world, a call just as gracious and just as critical as the invitation to forgiveness and reconciliation.

This evangelistic paradigm still holds true for the church of today. The gospel entrusted to evangelists for all the world must be proclaimed as the fullness of a salvation which is wholly Christ-centered.64 Martin Schmidt puts it well, commenting on Peter Bohler's advice that Wesley should preach faith until he had it:

In this pregnant statement lies the deep truth that the task of the preacher is not to bring before his hearers himself or his own spiritual attainment, but the authoritative Word, the greater reality of God.65

Justification may not be the whole of salvation,66 but it is the fullness of God's salvation at any given moment for the sinner who repents and is reconciled to God in Christ. It was this which Wesley came to see as he examined that "much-controverted point." Our sanctification or our backsliding, our perfection or our immaturity, our obedience or our disobedience, our assurance or our doubts, our faith or our lack of faith, all become as nothing at the very moment — at any moment — we throw ourselves on the mercy of God through the merits of the One who is our Judge, but also our Redeemer. And that, no less for us than for those who heard Wesley in person, is most assuredly a message of good news.

NOTES

2The Journal of The Rev. John Wesley, A.M., Standard Edition, ed. Nehemiah Curnock, 8 vols. (London: Charles H. Kelly, 1909-1916), 2:158.

3Journal, 2:159-66. This version is edited and abbreviated. For the fullest available text, see Letters, ed. Baker, 1:397-410, where the editor's detailed textual comments provide much additional information.

4Journal, 1:160ff. It should be noted that Wesley's use of the word "social" connotes Christian discipleship in a social context.

5Minutes of the Methodist Conference, from The First Held in London, by the Late Rev. John Wesley, A.M., in the Year 1 744, Volume 1, p. 10. Cf. The Works of John Wesley, 14 vols. (London: Wesleyan Conference Office, 1872; reprint ed., Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House,1979),8:300.

6Journal, 1:436, 438-

7See John Walsh, "Methodism and the Mob in the Eighteenth Century," in Popular Belief and Practice, ed. G. J. Cuming and Derek Baker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972).

8Journal, 1:423f.

9Martin Schmidt, John Wesley: A Theological Biography, Volume 1 (Nashville: Abingdon Press, n.d.), p. 221.

10Journal, 1:424-

11The Works of John Wesley, Bicentennial Edition, Editor-in-Chief Frank Baker, Volume 1: Sermons 1, 1-33, ed. Albert C. Outler (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1984), p. 181.

12This was quickly tempered by the writings he had long since imbibed from his native traditions. Out of these, "and with his Eastern pneumatology as his key, Wesley . . . developed a soteriology . . . [in which] . . . therapeutic metaphors tend to outweigh the forensic ones that had dominated Western traditions since Anselm" (ibid., p. 80).

l3Journal, 2:13f.

14bid, p. 25.

15Ibid, p. 27.

16Ibid, p. 35.

17Ibid, &f.

18Ibid, p. 312 &ff.

19Ibid, pp. 83ff.

20Letters, ed. Baker, 1:576f.

2lJournal, 2:97.

22Ibid, p. 101.

23The Doctrine of Salvation, Faith, and Good Works, Extracted from The Homilies of the Church of England, The Sixth Edition (London: Printed by W. Strahan, 1744),p. 2.

24Ibid, pp. 3f.

25Ibid, p. 4.

26Ibid, pp. 5, 6.

27Ibid, pp. 4, 6, 10.

28Journal, 2:103, 115f., 125f.

29Ibid, p. 135.

30Letters, ed. Baker. 1:622f.

31In The Place of Wesley in the Christian Tradition, ed. Kenneth E. Rowe (Metuchen, N.J): The Scarecrow Press, Inc.,1976). See also Wesley, Sermons, ed. Outler. 1: 181.

32C. F. Allison, The Rise of Moralism: The Proclamation of the Gospel from Hooker to Baxter (New York: The Seabury Press, 1966), p. 192.

33I have examined this issue further in The Early Methodist Class Meeting Its Origins and Significance (Nashville: Discipleship Resources, 1985), pp. 49ff.

34George Bull, Harmonia Apostolica. Or Two Dissertations; in the Forms of which the Doctrine of St. James on Justification by Works is Explained and Defended in the latter the Agreement of St. Paul with St. James is clearly shown, Second Edition. Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology, Volume 24 (Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1844), p. 206. See also Wesley, Sermons, ed. Outler, 1:191, n55; Journal, 2:470.

35Harmonia Apostolica, p. 207. See also Journal, 2:470; Sermons, ed. Outler, 1:50.

360n this, see M. Douglas Meeks, "John Wesley's Heritage and the Future of Systematic Theology," in Wesleyan Theology Today: A Bicentennial Theological Consultation, ed. Theodore Runyon (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1985), pp. 43ff.

37Works, Oxford Edition, Volume 26: Letters II, 17W1755, ed. Frank Baker (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), beginning on page 138.

38Works, 14 vols., 8:281ff.

39Sermons, ed. Outler, 1:181ff.

40Ibid, pp. 444ff.

41Letters, ed. Baker, 2:254f.

42Sermons, ed. Outler, 1:188.

43Journal, 1:275f. See also Harald Lindstrom, Wesley and Sanctification: A Study in the Doctrine of Salvation (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, Francis Asbury Press, 1980), pp. 74f.

44Works, 14 vols., 8:284f.

45Journal, 2:282-

46J, D. Mackie, The Earlier Tudors 1485-1558 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952), p. 235.

47N. S. Tjernagel, Henry VIII and the Lutherans: A Study in Anglo-Lutheran Relations from 1521-1547 (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1965), PP- 34f.

48The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe, ed. Stephen Reed Catley (London: L. & G. Seeley, 1838), 5:415.

49The Whole workes of W. Tyndall, John Frith, and Doct. Barnes, three worthy Martyrs, and principal teachers of this Church of England . . . (London: John Daye, 1573), pp. 226-42; 266-82.

50Two Treatises, The First On Justification by Faith only, according to he Doctrine of the Eleventh Article of the Church of England The Second On the Sinfulness of Man 's natural Will, and his utter Inability to do Works acceptable to God, until he be justify’d and born again of the Spirit of God, according to the Doctrine of our Ninth, Tenth, Twelfth, and Thirteenth Articles.... To which is prefix'd A Preface, containing Some Account of the Life and Death of Dr. Barnes: Extracted from The Book of Martyrs. By john_wesley, A.M. Fellow of Lincoln-College, Oxford (London: Printed and Sold by John Lewis [Printer to the Religious Societies], 1739), pp. 25-76.

51Ibid., pp. 26f.

52Ibid, p. 32.

53Ibid., pp. 57f.

54Works, ed. Daye, pp. 240f.

55Treatises, ed. Wesley, pp. 74f.

56Compare, for example, the Daye edition, pp. 272f., with the Wesley edition, p.98. For a definitive survey of Scotism, which flowered after the premature death of Duns Scotus in 1308, and which continued to be influential at the time of the Reformation in England, see Meyrick H. Carre, Phases of Thought in England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1949), pp. 144ff.

57Treatises, ed. Wesley, p. 90.

58Works, 14 vols., 8:362.

59Ibid., 11:493.

60Ibid., p. 494.

61Letters, ed. Baker, 1:639f.

62Journal, 2:185.

63See Robert E. Cushman, "Salvation for All-Wesley and Calvinism," in his volume, Faith Seeking Understanding: Essays Theological and Critical (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1981).

64I have given this detailed treatment in "Christ Our Righteousness: The Center of Wesley's Evangelistic Message," Perkins Journal 37.3 (Spring, 1984).

65Wesley, 1:237.

66"The Scripture Way of Salvation," in Works, Bicentennial Edition, Volume 2: Sermons II, 34-70, ed. Albert C. Outler (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1985), pp. 157ff.  

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