JUSTIFIED BUT UNREGENERATE? THE RELATIONSHIP OF ASSURANCE TO JUSTIFICATION AND REGENERATION IN THE THOUGHT OF JOHN WESLEY

Scott Kisker

INTRODUCTION

Assurance of salvation has occupied a definite place in the history of the Wesleyan movement and in Wesleyan theology. Most major Wesleyan theologians have dealt with the topic to some extent, especially when articulating a Wesleyan understanding of salvation. The importance of this place within Wesleyan theology, or even within John Wesley's own understanding of salvation, is disputed, however. This study relates assurance to justification and regeneration. It takes its initial cue from Edward Sugden's observation and evidence presented in a footnote in his edition of Wesley's 'The Almost Christian." Although Wesley says in this sermon that assurance is necessary to full Christianity, he later contradicts this opinion.1 At the base of both opinions lie Wesley's earlier and later analyses and assessments of his own spiritual state as it related to his well-noted experience of May, 1738, in Aldersgate Street. Early in his evangelical career, Wesley had held that, before his experience at Aldersgate, he was a "child of wrath." He wrote in his Journal for February 1,1738:

That "alienated" as I am "from the life of God," I am "a child of wrath," and 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.2

As Wesley saw it at that time, he believed he did not have that faith which would grant him pardon from all of his sins. He was relying on his own righteousness. Then at Aldersgate he was justified before God, given an assurance of that fact, and made regenerate. From there he could go on to entire sanctification. In the 1774 edition of the Journal, Wesley corrected that statement. In a footnote to the line which reads, "I am a child of wrath," Wesley added, "I believe not." By making this correction, Wesley indicated that, at least by 1774, he believed he was already reconciled to God when he went to Georgia (although he had no perception of it himself). It is clear from Wesley's writings that he did not feel a peace with God when he was in Georgia. He says of his good works (in his Journal entry of February 1, 1738) that, "all these things, though when ennobled by faith in Christ they are holy, and just, and good, yet without it are 'dung and dross,' meet only to he purged away by 'the fire that never shall be quenched.' "3 This is not a description of a peaceful and joyful spirit. And yet in another footnote on the same page of this Journal (again added in 1774) Wesley wrote that he "had even then the faith of a servant, though not the faith of a son."4 Wesley was rescued from the "wrath of God" when he had but "the faith of a servant, and not "the faith of a son. "This seems to imply that Wesley now believed (in 1774) that he had been justified (that is, he had received pardon for his sins and thus escaped God's wrath) prior to Aldersgate. He did not know it, then, nor did he possess the fruits of such a pardon. The broader theological implication of these corrections which Sugden noted is that Wesley came to believe that while assurance is a gracious gift of God, it is not "essential" to being a Christian. This development of Wesley's thought was largely ignored by William Cannon in his The The-ology of John Wesley. In a chapter on "Redemption and Assurance," Cannon simply describes assurance, but does not mention Wesley's waffling on the issue.5 Nevertheless, the development was recognized by Colin Williams6 and later by Albert Outler.7 Theodore Jennings, and others who wish to diminish the role of assurance experiences within Methodist theology, point to this development as evidence for their position.8 Current scholarship generally argues, convincingly, that Wesley changed his opinion sometime in the 1740s, coming to hold that assurance is not necessary to justification. This is not to say, however, that assurance is not necessary to the Christian life. Christianity involves both justification and regeneration. In Wesley's ordo salutis, justification and the new birth (the Latinate term being regeneration) occur concurrently.9 This paper will argue that the two may be separated temporally and that Wesley continued to hold that assurance and regeneration are linked. One might be justified (without assurance) without being regenerate (with assurance) . One cannot, however, be "born again" and not know it. A clear separation between "justification" and "regeneration" is at some points difficult. Even after the 1740s, Wesley used the term justification, "broadly defined," in such a way as to include regeneration. Furthermore, in at least one place Wesley stated plainly that justification and regeneration occur simultaneously. 10 Nevertheless, the evidence that Wesley consistently linked regeneration and assurance, even after the 1740s, is convincing, and this distinction may clear up some supposed inconsistencies in Wesley's thought.11 To make this argument, this article will first establish what Wesley meant specifically by the term "assurance." Second, this article will look at Wesley's understanding of "justification" and "regeneration." Third, this article will examine the relationships between justification and assurance and between regeneration and assurance in Wesley's writings.

THE NATURE OF ASSURANCE

Even prior to his 1738 experience at Aldersgate, Wesley had an understanding of experiential religion although he knew that he himself did not possess it. This has been aptly demonstrated by Cohn Williams in John Wesley's Theology Today.12 Wesley was convinced by Moravian Peter Boehler that the notion of assurance was scriptural.13 After this had been demonstrated to him, Wesley asked to interview people who could attest to the experience of the type of faith that implies assurance in their own lives. Peter Boehler then brought to Wesley a group of these people, and they testified "of their own personal experience that a true living faith in Christ is inseparable from a sense of pardon for all past, and freedom from all present sins."14 In this context, assurance is understood to be composed of two primary elements. First, assurance implies a sense of pardon for all past sins.

This is not an understanding which is arrived at through reflection. It is "sensed"-known to the heart of the recipient apart from outward or even inward signs. Second, assurance implies power over sin.15 This is properly an outward sign of a fundamental change that has taken place within the believer. The believer notices alterations in character, and can take stock of them, and feel assured that what is sensed has actually happened. This twofold understanding of the nature of assurance is the framework within which Wesley interpreted his Aldersgate experience in the months immediately after it.16 Furthermore, this understanding continued consistently throughout his life. Wesley made these same distinctions in his most extensive treatment of the nature of assurance, his sermon entitled "The Witness of the Spirit, I," which was written in 1746. In this sermon Wesley divided assurance into two categories. The first is the "witness of our own spirit." This witness is "that God hath given us to be holy of heart, and holy in outward conversation."17 This witness of our own spirit includes having a loving heart toward all humankind as well as for God, and that we do the things which are "pleasing in his sight."18 The witness of our own spirit corresponds to the experience of power over sin referred to by the Moravians, though including inward as well as outward signs. The second category Wesley described is the "witness of God's Spirit." In describing this category, Wesley said this:

It is hard to find words in the language of men to explain "the deep things of God." Indeed there are none that will adequately express what the children of God experience. But perhaps one might say... the testimony of the Spirit is an inward impression on the soul, whereby the Spirit of God directly "witnesses to my spirit that I am a child of God"; that all my sins are blotted out, and I, even I, am reconciled to God. 19

This corresponds to the Moravian understanding of a sense of pardon for all past sins. Wesley continued to view assurance in this twofold way even into later life. In the second sermon he writes on this subject, "The Witness of the Spirit, II," he says, "After twenty years farther consideration I see no cause to retract any part of [my earlier sermon on the witness of the Spirit]. Neither do I now conceive how any of these expressions may be altered so as to make them more intelligible."20 Thus Wesley can be said to have been consistent throughout his ministry in his understanding of the two general aspects of assurance. This permits us to turn to the relationship of justification and regeneration with some hope of consistency.

JUSTIFICATION AND REGENERATION IN WESLEY'S THOUGHT

In one of Wesley's early sermons, Salvation by Faith," written in 1738 just after his Aldersgate experience), he made little distinction between "justification" and, what he was most concerned about in this sermon, being "saved." Being saved to Wesley implied that a sinner has been "saved (to comprise all in one word) from sin."21 Being saved from sin assumes what is generally thought of as "justification." Justification (taken in and of itself apart from the rest of God's saving acts) occurs when a "sinful man find(s) favor with God."22 The sinful man has been pardoned for all of his sins. But, in 1738, Wesley took "justification" to include the inward change as well as deliverance from wrath, or pardon.

"Justification," which taken in its largest sense, implies a deliverance from guilt and punishment, by the atonement of Christ actually applied to the soul of the sinner now believing in him, and a deliverance from the power of sin, through Christ "formed in his heart."23

Note that this is "justification taken in its largest sense." This becomes important later. As early as 1740, Wesley said he believed that there might be degrees of justifying faith, and that these degrees were at least efficacious enough for sinners to permit them to attend the Lord's supper. In a preface to the second Extract of Wesley's Journal, Wesley wrote in opposition to the Moravians:

In flat opposition to this I assert: (1) "that a man may have a degree of justifying faith before he is wholly freed from all doubt and fear, and before he has (in the full proper sense) a new clean heart"; (2) "That a man may use the ordinances of God, the Lord's supper in particular, before he has such a faith as excludes all doubt and fear, and implies a new, a clean heart."24

Here again, a distinction is made between having a degree of justifying faith, and having a new and clean heart which Wesley claims is implied in being born of God. In the 1746 sermon which Wesley preached explicitly on the doctrine of justification, he narrowed his definition of "justification." Here he delineated exactly what is meant by the term, but he did not take it in its "largest sense. In "Justification by Faith" he defines justification this way:

The plain scriptural notion of justification is pardon, the forgiveness of sins. It is that act of God the Father whereby, for the sake of the propitiation made by the blood of his Son, he "showeth forth his righteousness (or mercy) by the remission of the sins that are past." This is the easy, natural account of it given by St. Paul throughout his whole Epistle.25

Wesley was careful in this sermon not to confuse "justification" with "sanctification." "The one implies what God does for us through his Son; the other what he works in us by his Spirit."26 Sanctification, which begins at the point of the new birth, is not the same thing as justification. The idea of degrees of justifying faith, as well as this distinction between what God does for us and what God does in us, is carried on throughout the later writings of Wesley, at least implicitly. It is through the understanding of this implicit meaning that one can make sense of Wesley's writings concerning justification, regeneration, and assurance. The confusion stems from the close link made between these two concepts in Wesley's 1760 sermon, "The New Birth." In the preface to the body of this sermon, Wesley writes:

If any doctrines within the whole of Christianity may properly be termed fundamental they are doubtless these two - the doctrine of justification and that of the new birth: the former relating to that great work which God does for us, in forgiving our sins; the latter to the great work God does in us, in renewing our fallen nature. In order of time neither of these is before the other. In the moment we are justified by the grace of God through the redemption that is in Jesus we are also "born of the Spirit": but in order of thinking, as it is termed, justification precedes the new birth. We first conceive his wrath to he turned away, and then his Spirit to work in our hearts.27

Here the separation between the two aspects of Christian life is maintained in thought, but linked in time. That this is Wesley's consistent view on the subject has largely been taken for granted by scholars with viewpoints as diverse as Cohn Williams and Kenneth Collins.28 It is this temporal link that I wish to call into question. Although Wesley here explicitly states the temporal relationship between the two, it is also clear that the type of justification he is describing is that which assumes one can "conceive" of God's wrath being turned away-thus implying some sort of assurance. We again have a seeming contradiction, with Wesley one place assuming assurance with justification and later saying the two are not linked. I intend to show in what follows that the statement found in "The New Birth" is more the exception than the rule in Wesley's thought.

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN JUSTIFICATION, REGENERATION, AND ASSURANCE

As we saw in the discussion of Wesley's understanding of justification, he did not at first separate justification from sanctification, which includes new birth and victory over sin. Wesley interpreted his Aldersgate experience as his having, at that time, been pardoned by God. His initial Journal entry reporting about his Aldersgate experience reads, "I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of death."29 Wesley assumed, at this early point in his career, that since he "felt" his sins were taken away at that time, that it was actually at that time that he was "saved from the law of death."30 As we saw earlier, by the 1740s Wesley had begun to make a distinction between a "degree of justifying faith," and that faith which "implies a new, a clean heart."31 He made this distinction in the context of the controversy he had with the Moravians over the means of grace. This distinction did not mean that Wesley abandoned the importance of assurance. As can be seen from the following excerpt from Wesley's Journal, assurance is required for Christian life. This is because Christian life implies living a new life in Christ, which is impossible without regeneration. On January 25, 1740, John Wesley tells of this encounter he had with a grieving sinner.

......... One came to me in the evening to know if a man could not be saved without the faith of assurance. I answered, (1)I cannot approve of your terms because they are not scriptural. I find no such phrase as either, "faith of assurance" or "faith of adherence" in the Bible. Besides you speak as if there were two faiths; whereas St. Paul tells us there is but one faith in the Lord. (2) By "ye are saved by faith" I understand, ye are saved from your inward and outward sins. (3) I never yet knew one soul thus saved without what you call "the faith of assurance"; I mean a sure confidence that, by the merits of Christ he was reconciled to the favor of God.32

Note that Wesley here defined what it meant to be "saved" not as being saved from the wrath of God, but as being saved from sin. Wesley meant that one cannot be regenerate without the faith which implies assurance. He does not necessarily rule out the possibility that one could be justified without assurance. Thus, if Wesley is using his terms carefully, he is not referring to the relationship between justification, narrowly defined, and assurance. It is quite probable that in dealing pastorally with the woman who came to him, Wesley saw that she needed to be spurred on towards regeneration. In the following paragraph of his account he wrote that, in fact, she did receive assurance. That is not to say that Wesley was always consistent in his use of the term "justified" after 1740. In the Minutes of 1744, Wesley again writes as if the term "justified" implies being saved from sin.

That all true Christians have this faith, even such a faith as implies an assurance of God's love, appears from Rorn. 8:15, Eph. 4:23, II Cor. 13:5, Heb. 8:10, 1 Jn. 4:10 and 19. And that no man can be justified and not know it appears farther from the very nature of things-for faith after repentance is ease after pain, rest after toil, light after darkness-and from the immediate as well as distant fruits.33 Wesley must have been using the term 'lustified" here to include being saved from the power of sin. "That no man can be justified and not know it appears from the nature of things . . . and from the immediate as well as distant fruits."34 Justification here implies the "immediate and distant fruits." He is not using the term here in the same way he used it in 1740, where a person could have a degree of justifying faith without having fruits, such as removal of doubts and fears, and a clean heart. For this reason, he makes assurance implied in justification. If justification is taken in its broadest sense, it includes regeneration, and for Wesley it is impossible for a person to be regenerate without knowing it. Not using the word "justification" consistently got Wesley in a good deal of trouble. Apparently, a member of the society, one who had not professed that he had received assurance, died sometime before the 1745 annual conference. Wesley had to clarify his understanding of justification in the minutes of that year.

Q1. Is an assurance of God's love absolutely necessary to our being in his favor, or may there possibly be some exempt cases? A. We dare not positively say there are not. Q2. Is such an assurance absolutely necessary to inward and outward holiness? A. To inward, we apprehend that it is: to outward we apprehend that it is not.35

This is not a complete departure from what Wesley had written in 1744; rather, it is a clarification. Although in this statement he avoided use of the word justification, it is clear that he was referring to justification when he talked about a person being in favor with God. This was Wesley's narrow definition of justification. Assurance is not absolutely necessary for this. However, assurance is necessary for inward holiness, and inward holiness is, of course, the result of regeneration This rejection of the necessity of assurance for justification, while maintaining its necessity for regeneration, can be seen further in a letter Wesley wrote to his brother Charles in 1747. In this letter, Wesley attempted to clarify his position regarding the issue of the relationship between justification and assurance.

By justifying faith I mean that faith which whosoever hath is not under the wrath and the curse of God. By a sense of pardon I mean a distinct, explicit assurance that my sins are forgiven. I allow: (1) that there is such an explicit assurance: (2) that it is the common privilege of real Christians; (3) that it is the proper Christian faith, which purifieth the heart and overcometh the world. But I cannot allow that justifying faith is such an assurance, or necessarily connected therewith.36

A very interesting implication of what Wesley says here is that, although one may no longer be under the wrath of God without assurance, yet assurance is the common privilege of real Christians. Wesley is emphasizing his belief that assurance is the common privilege. It is something which real Christians have in common. Furthermore, Wesley is limiting "real Christians" to those who have experienced the new birth-those who have hearts that have begun to be purified. This is consistent with Wesley's emphasis on holiness of heart and life as part of what is entailed in being a Christian. Finally, assurance is that proper Christian faith which "purifieth the heart."37 Thus, the importance of assurance is in no way diminished as it relates to being a Christian. We can see in another letter, written in 1755 to Mr. Richard Thompson, that Wesley does see assurance implied in the type of faith which is an "evidence of things unseen." This is a reference to Hebrews 11:1, and is a definition of faith which Wesley uses at this time when he is talking about regeneration.

As to the nature of {assurance], I think a divine conviction of pardon is directly implied in the evidence, or conviction, of things unseen. But if not, it is no absurdity to suppose that, when God pardons a mourning broken-hearted sinner, His mercy obliges him to another act-to witness to his spirit, that he has pardoned him.38

That it is clear that Wesley is here not writing about a faith by which a sinner is removed from the wrath of God, can be seen from the very next paragraph in the letter.

I agree with you, that a justifying faith cannot be a conviction that I am justified; and that a man who is not assured that his sins are forgiven may yet have a kind or degree of faith, which distinguishes him, not only from the devil, but also from a heathen; and on which I may admit him to the Lord's supper. But still I believe the proper Christian faith, which purifies the heart, implies such a conviction.39

Justifying faith is here explicitly contrasted with that faith which purifies the heart. Assurance is not required for the former; it is for the latter. This point is further illustrated in Wesley's 1765 sermon, "The Scripture Way of Salvation." In this sermon Wesley describes that faith by which a person is saved. He again makes a reference to Hebrews 11:1 in defining faith, in general, as a divine evidence. It must be remembered though that when Wesley earlier wrote about being saved, he was referring to salvation from the "power" of sin, and not from the "wrath' of God. Again, this is the sense in which Wesley uses salvation in this sermon.

Faith is a divine evidence and conviction . . . that Christ "loved me, and gave himself for me." It is by this faith . . . that we receive Christ"; that we receive him in all his offices, as our Prophet, Priest, and King. It is by this that he "is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption."40

It is a statement so obvious: faith which is defined as an "evidence" requires that there be an evidence. The type of faith described in Hebrews 11 must imply assurance. Furthermore, it is through this type of faith that a person is brought into a new life which involves wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. It appears that Wesley has made a distinction between two types of faith. The one type of faith results in a sinner's being justified, while the other (that of Hebrews 11) results in a person under conviction being made regenerate. This sounds a lot like the old distinction between the faith of adherence and the faith of assurance, a distinction which Wesley explicitly rejects. In a letter to Dr. Rutherford, written in 1768, Wesley writes, in effect, that there is only one faith-that which results in fear of God and working righteousness. He writes that those who have such faith generally have assurance.

I believe a consciousness of being in the favor of God. . . is the common privilege of Christians fearing God and working righteousness. Yet I do not affirm, there are no exceptions to this general rule. Possibly some may be in the favor of God and yet go mourning all the day long.... Therefore I have not for many years thought a consciousness of acceptance to be essential to justifying faith.41

Both the justified and the regenerate fear God and work righteousness, and generally have assurance. However, there are exceptions. Wesley's own life, before his own Aldersgate experience of assurance, is an example. Although there is only one type of faith, there are degrees of that faith, and only the final degree results in assurance. In his 1788 sermon "On Faith," Wesley spells out what he believes about degrees of faith. He clearly distances himself from the condemning opinions he held on degrees of faith at the start of his evangelical career. Wesley discussed the types of faith which are "saving," but he no longer reserved the term as a synonym for being "saved from sin." The term now means, strictly, being saved from wrath. For this type of saving, even a faith that does not imply assurance is enough (though it implies a person is not properly regenerate). He goes on to say that justifying faith even in small degrees, is the "faith of a servant," while regeneration results in the "faith of a son."

But what is the faith which is properly saving? Which brings eternal salvation to all those that keep it to the end? It is such a conviction of God and of the things of God as even in its infant state enables everyone that possesses it to "fear God and work righteousness." And whosoever in every nation believes thus far the Apostle declares is "accepted of him." He actually is at that very moment in a state of acceptance. But he is at present only a servant of God, and not properly a son. Meantime let it be observed that the wrath of God no longer "abideth on him."42

This concept of faith allows Wesley to be true to his understanding that there is only one faith. However, different degrees of that one faith have different implications for the recipient.

CONCLUSION

I am convinced that, for Wesley after about 1740, assurance was never implied in justification "narrowly" defined. Furthermore, after 1745, he generally uses the term narrowly. Wesley's more mature under-standing was that justification, like sanctification, involves a process. At the beginning of conviction, one receives a "degree of justifying faith." Although it is only a degree, it is nonetheless justifying faith. That is, it is still faith by which a sinner is pardoned by God and removed from His wrath. The sinner is justified. However, that sinner does not necessarily perceive that fact, either by the direct witness of the Spirit or by evidences which stem from the new birth. The sinner sees God (which is the condition of faith) as a man may "see" the sun in degrees even though his eyes are closed.43 Thus the sinner is continually under conviction of sin and fear of God. Within this conceptual framework, my guess would be that Wesley's own justification took place sometime after his decision to enter the priesthood-perhaps when he joined the Holy Club. The sinner would continue in this state of conviction and repentance until God saw fit to grant him full justifying faith. At that point, the sinner has his eyes fully opened and truly "sees" God. He realizes that his sins are forgiven by the "testimony of God's Spirit." He has that inward assurance. He is now free to love God and he begins to see the fruits of being forgiven (faith, hope, and love). And thus by the "witness of his own spirit" he has the assurance that he had been born from above. The sinner is now properly "saved," not only from the wrath of God, but more importantly (at least in Wesley's understanding) from the power of sin. We can now understand how Wesley (in the 1774 footnote) could have conceived of himself as justified prior to Aldersgate, although he did not then have assurance. Furthermore, assurance remained an essential and fundamental aspect of living the Christian life. Although assurance was not implied in justification, it was implied in the true Christian faith-being born again. A person cannot truly live the Christian life without assurance because without it he or she does not truly "love God," nor does he or she have "power over sin." Cohn Williams has a section in the seventh chapter of John Wesley's Theology Today which is entitled "Assurance-not necessary to salvation."44 As I see it, this heading is quite false. For Wesley, salvation is not only being saved from the wrath of God, but it implies being saved from sin, and salvation from sin, as shown above, is not possible without assurance. What are the implications of this understanding? First of all, the possibility that a sinner will be content simply to know that he or she has been justified, and will thus remain an outward sinner who is under conviction, is ruled out. The terms "content," and "under conviction" are mutually exclusive. A person who has received even a degree of justifying faith will be in agony over his or her sin, and therefore anxious to be out of that state. Further implications stem from the pastoral concerns which caused Wesley to doubt the accuracy of his early formulation of justification and assurance. The first implication is that people who are under conviction are certainly suitable guests at the Lord's supper. If the Lord has given them a degree of justifying faith and pardoned them, even if they do not yet know it, it is not for the church to reject them. The second is that, in the event of a death within the society, one may console the grieving by pointing out that the departed brother's or sister's grieving over sin was itself a sign of justification. It is true, I think, that Wesley would have considered himself primarily a pastor. However, the effect this has on his theology, at least in this case, is not to excuse inconsistency. Rather, the pastoral aspect of his theology provided a critique of his theological formulations. Wesley's theology is truly practical. He did not try to fit the issues he faced within the societies to preconceived theological constructions. Rather, he allowed those issues to challenge and to nuance his thought.

NOTES

1Edward Sugden, ed., Wesley's Standard Sermons.' vol.1 (London: Epworth Press, 1921), p.61.

2Richard P. Heitzenrater and W. Reginald Ward, eds., The Works of John Wesley.' Journal and Diaries, vol. ]8 (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990), p.215 (italics added).

3Heitzenrater, Journal and Diaries, 18:215.

4Heitzenrater, Journal and Diaries, 18:215.

5William Ragsdale Cannon, The Theology of John Wesley: with Special Reference to the Doctrine of Justification (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1946), pp.201-220.

6Colin W. Williams, John Wesley's Theology Today (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1960), pp.112-114.

7Albert C. Outler, ed., John Wesley (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964), p.59.

8Theodore Wesley Jennings, Jr., "John Wesley Against Aldersgate," Quarterly Review (Fall 1988), pp.3-22. For a Reformed evaluation, see Mark A. Noll, "John Wesley and the Doctrine of Assurance," Bibliotheca Sacra (April 1975), p.173.

9Albert C. Outler, ed., The Works of John Wesley: Sermons, vol. 2 (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1985), p.187, and Williams, p.99.

10In "The New Birth," Outler, Sermons, 2:187.

11I am indebted to Dr. Ted Campbell for his helpful critiques and aid in formulating this argument.

12Colin W. Williams, pp.102-4. 13Heitzenrater, Journal and Diaries, 18:248.

14Heitzenrater, Journal and Diaries, 18:248.

15Kenneth J. Collins, Wesley on Salvation: a Study in the Standard Sermons (Grand Rapids: Francis Asbury Press, 1989), p.78.

16Wesley interpreted his Aldersgate experience thusly in his Journal entry describing the experience. Heitzenrater, Journal and Diaries, 18:249-250.

17Outler, Sermons, 1:273.

18Outler, Sermons, 1:273.

19Outler, Sermons, 1:274.

20Outler, Sermons, 1:287.

21Out1er, Sermons, 1:121.

22Outler, Sermons, 1:118.

23Outler, Sermons, 1:124 (italics added).

24Heitzenrater, Journal and Diaries, 18:220.

25Outler, Sermons, 1:189.

26Outler, Sermons, 1:187.

27Outler, Sermons, 2:187.

28Williams, p.99, and Collins, p.69.

29Outler, John Wesley, p.66.

30Outler, John Wesley, p.66.

31Heitzenrater, Journal and Diaries, 18:220.

32Heitzenrater, Journal and Diaries, 19:136.

33Outler, John Wesley, p.137 (italics added).

34Outler, John Wesley, p.137.

35Outler, John Wesley, p.149.

36Frank Baker, ed., The Works of John Wesley, Letters, vol.26 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), pp.254-5.

37Baker, Letters, 26:255.

38Baker, Letters, 26:575.

39Baker, Letters, 26:575.

40Outler, Sermons, 2:161-2.

41Outler, Sermons, 2:161-2.

42Outler, Sermons, 3:497.

43Albert Outler, John Wesley, p.149.

44Williams, p.112.