JOHN WESLEY'S DOCTRINE OF THE NEW BIRTH

by

Kenneth J. Collins[1]

            I am surprised that so little work has been done on John Wesley's doctrine of the new birth.  Beyond Paul Sanders' piece, "John Wesley and Baptismal Regeneration,"[2] Timothy Smith's small volume, Whitefield and Wesley on the New Birth,[3] and Thomas Oden's contemporary translation of Wesley's sermons on the new birth,[4] little has been produced in the field on this specific theme. Granted, full-length theologies such as William Cannon's Theology of John Wesley or, on a more contemporary note, Randy Maddox's Responsible Grace do indeed explore this important topic; nevertheless, it remains something of an oddity that so little has been done on this doctrine in the periodical literature. In light of this void, I would like to explore Wesley's doctrine of the new birth and demonstrate not only that it formed an integral component of his overall theology, but also that it has important implications for how we conceive and foster the work of holiness today.

The New Birth as the Foundation of the Christian Life

            In a letter to Dr. John Taylor, tutor at the Warrington Academy, Wesley countered the dissenting minister's latitudinarian notions by pointing out that, if we take away the doctrines of justification and the new birth, how is Christianity better than Heathenism?[5] Indeed, so crucial was the doctrine of the new birth for Wesley that less than a year later he noted in his sermon "The New Birth" that "If any doctrines within the whole compass of Christianity may be properly termed fundamental, they are doubtless these two-the doctrine of justification, and that of the new birth."[6]  Moreover, demonstrating remarkable consistency, ten years later Wesley reaffirmed the fundamental nature of justification and the new birth in his piece titled "On the Death of George Whitefield," where he counseled his followers among other things: "Keep close to these good, old, unfashionable doctrines, how many soever contradict and blaspheme."[7]

            Wesley's linkage of justification and the new birth in his discussions of the foundational doctrines of Christianity was by no means an accident. "In order of time," he writes, "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."[8] Nevertheless, though justification and the new birth occur simultaneously in the life of the believer, and are therefore at least temporally linked, the doctrines themselves can be distinguished logically. That is, justification is that great work which God does for us, in forgiving our sins; the new birth is that great work which God does in us by renewing our fallen nature. The one relates to issues of guilt and forgiveness; the other to the nature or essence of  a human being. 

            Recently, there have been attempts by some scholars to explain how a justified person can lack Christian assurance by  separating the doctrines of justification and the new birth and thereby  claim that believers can be justified, forgiven of their sins, and yet not be born of God.[9] Wesley, however, once again insisted on the connection between these doctrines as evidenced in his comments to Thomas Maxfield  in 1762:

I dislike your directly or indirectly depreciating justification: saying a justified person is not "in Christ," is not "born of God," is not a "new creature," has not a "new heart," is not "sanctified," not a "temple of the Holy Ghost" or that he "cannot please God," or cannot "grow in grace."[10]

            Why did Wesley so stress the linkage between these doctrines? Clues can be garnered from his short piece, "A Word to a Condemned Malefactor" in which the one-time Oxford fellow reasons  that if justification occurs without the kind of renewal of our nature which takes place in the new birth,  then a renewed dominion of sin would not be far behind. Indeed, "If all your past sins were now to be forgiven," Wesley points out, "you would immediately sin again; that is, unless your heart were cleansed; unless it were created anew."[11] In addition, affirming justification without the new birth, that is, postulating freedom from the guilt of sin without the concomitant freedom from its power could easily result in the antinomianism (I'm forgiven, even though I continue to commit sin) that Wesley rightly deplored. So, for Wesley, it is clear that another and much different kind of work is required in the lives of Christian believers beyond justification. Simply put, forgiveness is not enough.

The New Birth as a Necessary Change

            Just as John Wesley linked the doctrines of justification and regeneration, so too did he link regeneration with the doctrine of original sin. In other words, as justification and the new birth are the foundations of the Christian life, so too is the doctrine of original sin the foundation of the new birth. In his 1760 sermon "The New Birth," for example, Wesley observes: "This, then, is the foundation of the new birth-the entire corruption of our nature. Hence it is, that being born in sin, we must be 'born again.'"[12] And a few years earlier, Wesley affirmed the same linkage but this time he employed the specific language of regeneration, indicating at least in this context that he used the phrases "the new birth" and "regeneration" interchangeably. "And as the corruption of our nature evidences the absolute necessity of regeneration," Wesley notes, "so the necessity of regeneration proves the corruption of our nature." So, with this particular linkage in place, we are now able to understand precisely why Wesley took such great pains to articulate his doctrine of original sin and thereby produce one of his largest theological treatises ever. That is, if the problem of original sin was misprized or even outright repudiated, then the solution of the new birth would be misprized as well.

            Wesley's preferred way, however, of underscoring the necessity of the new birth for holiness, and thus for salvation as well, often entailed a reference to and at times even a commentary on  John 3:3, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." For example, in 1784 in writing to his nephew Samuel Wesley, a nephew who was accomplished in many respects and was undoubtedly the product of a godly home, the elderly Wesley nevertheless cautioned: "I feared you were not born again; and 'except a man be born again,' if we may credit the Son of God, 'he cannot see the kingdom of heaven' except he experience that inward change of the earthly, sensual mind for the mind which was in Christ Jesus."[13] Others may have mistaken the various elements of Christian nurture or a degree of virtue for the reality of the new birth; clearly John Wesley did not.

            Moreover, not only did Wesley, throughout his career, underscore the necessity of the new birth for holiness, but for happiness as well. He reasoned that as long as pride, self-will, and idolatry, these general sources of misery, reign in the heart, there can be no place for happiness. But these unholy tempers must reign, Wesley points out, "till the bent of our nature is changed, that is, till we are born again."[14] Here a familiar idiom has been given a slightly different modulation: being born in misery, we must be born again. 

The New Birth as a Vast Change

            In his Farther Appeal, written in 1745, Wesley describes the new birth as a "vast, inward change."[15] Several years later, in commenting on John 3:3, he depicts the new birth in a similar fashion as "an entire change of heart as well as of life."[16] However, this emphasis on the magnitude of the change entailed in the new birth, its entirety, is perhaps expressed most clearly, once again, in Wesley's sermon "The New Birth," written in 1760, in which he writes:

From hence it manifestly appears, what is the nature of the new birth. It is that great change which God works in the soul when he brings it into life; when he raises it from the death of sin to the life of righteousness. It is the change wrought in the whole soul by the almighty Spirit of God when it is "created anew in Christ Jesus.[17]

            While there is clearly a sense in which the new birth as described in the preceding excerpt may encompass the entire process of sanctification, it nevertheless would be a mistake to limit it to such a referent. Put another way, the vastness of the change of the new birth must not be understood simply in terms of Christian perfection or the larger process of sanctification, for that would be to look merely soteriologically "upward." Its thoroughness must also be understood by looking soteriologically "downward" towards the doctrine of original sin which serves as its foundation. When this latter approach is taken a much different picture emerges. Observe, for example, in the following selection drawn from Wesley's treatise The Doctrine of Original Sin how Wesley explores the thoroughness of the change of the new birth against the backdrop of the magnitude, the extent of original sin. Wesley writes:

Learn from hence the nature and necessity of regeneration. (1) The nature: It is not a partial, but a total change. Thy whole nature is corrupted; therefore, the whole must be renewed.... It is not a change made by human industry, but by the almighty Spirit of God.[18]    

            In this context, then, the totality of the change of the new birth refers not to the entirety of the process of sanctification, but to the integrity, the thoroughness of its beginning. Speaking in a natural way, when a child is born the completeness of this work is not mistaken for subsequent growth and maturity. So too, spiritually speaking, the new birth is a complete work, in the sense of its nature and integrity, a work which nevertheless admits of  further growth in grace. Again, by way of illustration, when a child is born into the world, its parents would not say that the child is somewhat born or almost born. On the contrary, they realize that the child is fully, completely born and indeed could never be "more" born than it already is. It is the same way with spiritual birth; it has a fullness and a completeness to it that nevertheless admits of future growth in grace and decisive change. If fact, not only did Wesley draw an analogy between natural birth and spiritual birth,[19] but he also pressed this analogy to illuminate precisely his teaching on the thoroughgoing change of the new birth. However, Wesley begins the analogy not with natural birth, as one would expect, but with spiritual birth and he then works backwards to draw the relation to natural birth in order to highlight the thoroughness of the latter! He writes: "for that which is regenerated was also generated or begotten; but the whole man is regenerated, therefore the whole man is generated."[20]  The new birth, then, is not a partial change, but an entire, general, universal change; it is that change whereby a soul moves from death to life, whereby a soul-at least initially-becomes holy.  

The New Birth as a Crucial Change

            A. The Beginning of Holiness. In his writings on the new birth, Wesley underscores that this soteriological event is not a natural change, one which could be brought about merely by human will or design, but a supernatural change. Accordingly, Wesley affirms in a letter to the Lord Bishop of Gloucester, written in 1762, that it is the office not of humanity but "of the Holy Ghost to sanctify."[21] Elsewhere in his writings, Wesley likewise takes great care to distinguish all human effort and virtue from the vast change which takes place in regeneration through the power of the Holy Spirit. In his sermon "On a Single-Eye," for example, he declares:

Let them be ever so learned, ever so well versed in every branch of polite literature; yea, ever so courteous, so humane; yet if their eye is not singly fixed on God, they can know nothing of scriptural religion. They do not even know what Christian holiness means: what is the entrance of it, the new birth, with all the circumstances attending it.[22]

And in a note which some may suggest smacks of sarcasm, Wesley adds: "They know no more of this [change] than do the beasts of the field."[23]

            Moreover, viewed in another sense, the connection between the doctrines of original sin and the new birth postulated by Wesley not only pointed to the absolute necessity of  regeneration for salvation, as noted earlier, but also kept this crucial doctrine from being misunderstood in a moralistic way, as if an increase in education, virtue, or even the employment of the means of grace was all that was entailed in this glorious work of God. Wesley elaborates:

Go to church twice a day, go to the Lord's table every week, say ever so many prayers in private; hear ever so many sermons, good sermons, excellent sermons, the best that ever were preached; read ever so many good books-still you must be born again. None of these things will stand in the place of the new birth; no, nor any thing under heaven. Let this therefore, if you have not already experienced this inward work of God, be your continual prayer: "Lord, add this to all thy blessings, let me be born again!"[24]

Even more emphatically, Wesley distinguished the new birth, that supernatural work of the Most High, from all commonplace, though misguided, notions of this grace. In his piece, The New Birth, for example, he reasons:

Thousands do really believe, that they have found a broad way which leadeth not to destruction. "What danger," say they, "can a woman be in that is so harmless and so virtuous? What fear is there that so honest a man, one of so strict morality, should miss of heaven; especially if, over and above all this, they constantly attend on church and sacrament?" One of these will ask with all assurance, "What! shall not I do as well as my neighbors?" Yes, as well as our unholy neighbors; as well as your neighbors that die in their sins! For you will all drop into the pit together, into the nethermost hell! You will all lie together in the lake of fire; "the lake of fire burning with brimstone." Then, at length, you will see (but God grant you may see it before!) the necessity of holiness in order to glory; and, consequently, of the new birth, since none can be holy, except he be born again.[25] 

            The new birth, then, or what is sometimes called initial sanctification, marks the beginning not simply of an incremental change, not merely one of degree, but of a qualitative change which issues in a distinct kind of life, a life which  men and women cannot bring about by themselves. In fact, Wesley so emphasizes this supernatural change that he maintains repeatedly throughout his writings that spiritual life itself commences when we are born again.[26] In the Conference Minutes of 1745, for example, Wesley and his preachers responded to the question, "When does inward sanctification begin?" by pointing out: "In the moment we are justified. The seed of every virtue is then sown in the soul. From that time the believer gradually dies to sin, and grows in grace."[27] Again, Wesley observes: "Justification of life, as being connected with the new birth [is] the beginning of spiritual life, which leads us, through the life of holiness, to life eternal, to glory."[28]  Wesley develops this same theme in his 1787 sermon "On God's Vineyard," in which he argues that  "The new birth is the first point of sanctification, which may increase more and more unto the perfect day."[29] In light of  this evidence, and much more could be cited, it is clear that holiness, the presence of the Holy Spirit in the human heart in sanctifying power, begins not at the reception of prevenient or convincing grace, but at regeneration and justification. Prior to sanctifying grace, that grace which makes one holy, believers may be many things (recipients of prevenient grace, convinced of sin, moral and virtuous), but they are not yet holy.

            Yet another way in which the elderly Wesley highlighted the soteriological importance of  the new birth was to contend that "no good work, properly so called, can go before justification," and therefore before regeneration as well.[30] This was not merely an early emphasis of Wesley's, but a later one as well. In his 1781 sermon "On Zeal," he points out that "no outward works are acceptable to him [God] unless they spring from holy tempers, without which no man can have a place in the kingdom of Christ and of God.[31] This issue of good works, like Wesley's views on regeneration, once again indicates the subtlety of his position. On the one hand, in light of his doctrine of prevenient grace, Wesley refused to refer to these works prior to justification and regeneration as "splendid sins" as the Calvinists were inclined to do, but on the other hand, since these works were not informed by sanctifying, regenerating grace, they were not deemed good, strictly speaking. The genius and balance of Wesley's theology, then, is that it holds both of these ideas together and without contradiction.

            B. The Temporal Elements as Key. Perhaps Wesley's favorite way of underscoring the decisive nature of the new birth was to distinguish it from the larger process of sanctification and then to demonstrate, quite clearly, the significance of its temporal elements. For example, in his treatise on original sin, produced in 1756, Wesley notes:

But regeneration is not "gaining habits of holiness;" it is quite a different thing. It is not a natural, but a super­natural change; and is just as different from the gradual "gaining habits," as a child's being born into the world is from his growing up into a man. The new birth is not, as you suppose, the progress, or the whole, of sanctification, but the beginning of it.[32]

            In a similar fashion, Wesley asserts that regeneration is not to be confused with the ongoing process of holiness: "This is a part of sanc­tification, not the whole; it is the gate of it, the entrance into it."[33] Even more emphatically, in 1787, Wesley criticized his one-time mentor, William Law, for confounding the new birth with the gradual process of sanctification. Wesley reasoned:

It is true a late very eminent author, in his strange trea­tise on regeneration, proceeds entirely on the supposition that it is the whole, gradual progress of sanctification.  No; it is only the threshold of sanctification-the first entrance upon it.[34]

            It should be apparent by now that, since Wesley distinguished the new birth from the process of sanctification, then he must have also considered, by way of corollary, the new birth itself to be a decisive, instantaneous event. This is precisely what is found throughout his writings. Thus, in a letter to John Downes drafted in 1759, Wesley not only underscores the supernat­ural flavor of this work, a commonplace by now, but also indicates something of the temporal elements involved:

We do believe regeneration (or in plain English, the new birth) to be as miraculous or supernatural a work now as it was seventeen hundred years ago. We likewise believe that the spiritual life, which commences when we are born again, must in the nature of the thing have a first moment as well as the natural.[35]

            The next year, in his sermon The New Birth, Wesley depicted the instantaneousness of regeneration against the backdrop of the process of sanctification, and indicates that the former is a decisive aspect of the latter. Drawing a by-now-familiar analogy between natural birth and spiritual birth in this piece, Wesley points out that a child is born of woman "in a moment, or at least in a very short time."[36] After this, the child continues to grow until it reach­es maturity. In the same way, he argues, "a child is born of God in a short time, if not in a moment. But it is by slow degrees that he afterward grows up to the measure of the full stature of Christ."[37] 

            The relation, then, which holds between natural birth and maturation is similar to the relation between the new birth and sanctification. That is, Wesley is attentive to the crisis of the new birth, the instantaneous element, and to the process of sanctification, the gradual element. Both aspects are acknowl­edged; neither, therefore, should be neglected. Moreover, this instantaneous emphasis is not simply a concern of the middle-aged Wesley, but of the elderly Wesley as well.  Notice, for example, in the following selection from his 1765 The Scripture Way of Salvation how Wesley never repudiates the instantaneousness and therefore the discreteness of the new birth. He writes: "At the same time that we are justified, yea, in that very moment, sanctification, begins. In that instant we are 'born again,' 'born from above,' 'born of the Spirit.'"[38]

            The key, perhaps, to unraveling Wesley's larger thought here is found in his further identification of the instantaneous element with inward religion, that is, of the association of a moment of grace, so to speak, with the activity of God. Thus, in an important 1775 letter to Mary Bosanquet, Wesley maintains that "inward holiness is mostly instantaneous. . .but outward holiness is mostly gradual."[39] The former element refers to divine activi­ty in terms of the gifts of grace and holiness; the latter refers to human activity, to works of piety, mercy and the like, which prepare one for the reception of these gifts. Put another way, inward holiness, making the heart and its dispositions sacred is the activity of God alone, for it is none other than the Holy Spirit-not the believer-who is both the fount and the cause of all holiness. To be sure, believers participate in the process of redemption, but they receive-they do not generate - the holy love of God. 

            So, the problem with many recent interpretations of Wesley's thought on this score is that they conceive the language of "moment" and "instant" simply in a chronological sense, while Wesley utilizes such terminology also, and more importantly, in a soteriological sense. In other words, this terminology highlights not human response over time, but the graciousness and efficacy of divine initiative. That is, the instantaneous elements of Wesley's via salutis are his principal vehicles for under­scoring the crucial truth that it is God, not humanity, who both forgives sins and makes holy. Temporal elements, in other words, indicate soteriological roles. By way of analogy, observe Wesley's language in his sermon The Scripture Way of Salvation as he demonstrates that temporal elements (with respect to entire sanctification) are expressive of the relation between works and faith. He states: 

And by this token may you surely know whether you seek it by faith or by works.  If by works, you want something to be done first, before you are sanctified. You think, "I must first be or do thus or thus." Then you are seeking it by works unto this day. If you seek it by faith, you may expect it as you are: and if as you are, then expect it now.[40]

            This means, of course, that interpretations of Wesley's doctrine of salvation which identify the juridical aspects of redemption (justification or forgiveness) as instantaneous, and the thera­peutic aspects (sanctification) as simply processive are wide of the mark. Indeed, Wesley's doctrine of redemption is much more sophisticated than this categorization can allow. Broadly under­stood, sanctification is characterized by both process and in­stantaneousness, for the new birth (initial sanctification), as with justification, must, to use Wesley's own words, "have a first moment."[41] In addition, it is precisely the introduction of the instantaneous element in terms of initial sanctification which brings the notion of grace as the unmerited  favor of God back into the picture where it belongs. That is, regeneration, although it represents divine empowerment, is like justification in that it too under­scores the gratuity of grace. Again, regeneration, as with justification, is by grace through faith. We cannot, after all, give birth to ourselves.[42]

The New Birth as Liberating Change

            When some of Wesley's peers heard from him of the great liberty of the children of God, especially in terms of freedom from the power of sin, where sin is defined as a voluntary transgression of a known law of God,[43] they balked and offered a number of qualifications to this teaching. One such qualification took this form. A Christian believer, one who is born of God, is not one who does not commit sin, but who does not commit sin habitually. Wesley, however, took exception to the addition of the word "habitually" which he judged to be an evasion. In his Marks of the New Birth, he questions his detractors, no doubt with some measure of exasperation:

Habitually! Whence is that? I read it not. It is not written in the Book. God plainly saith, But some men will say, "True; whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin habitually." He "doth not commit sin." And thou addest, "habitual­ly"![44]

A few years later, in 1756, Wesley responded to his detrac­tors by exploring the example of a drunkard who maintained that the state of his soul was well since he was not drunk continual­ly. In a letter to William Dodd, Wesley states:

I tell my neighbor here, "William, you are a child of the devil; for you commit sin: you was drunk yesterday." "No, sir," says the man, "I do not live or continue in sin" (which Mr. Dodd says is the true meaning of the text), "I am not drunk continually, but only now and then, once in a fortnight or a month." Shall I tell him he is in the way to heaven or to hell? I think he is in the high road to destruction, and that if I tell him otherwise his blood will be upon my head.[45]

            By the exclusion of the word "habitually" or "continually" from this context, Wesley believes he is safeguarding one of the precious promises of the gospel, namely, that so long as the children of God abide in the love of God and continue to believe, they will not commit sin. In other words, sanctifying, regenerating faith and willful sin are mutually exclusive in Wesley's thought. When the one appears the other recedes. In fact, Wesley details the slow and subtle process of the loss of faith and a descent into sin - what some might call a reversal of the via salutis - in his sermon The Great Privilege of those that are Born of God.[46] Neverthe­less, his emphasis is elsewhere; not on human sin and weakness, but on the sufficiency of God's grace. The optimism of grace, therefore, not the pessimism of nature is the major emphasis here.[47]

            So then, Wesley's views on sin and grace highlight not only the moment by moment dependence of the believer on God, but also the availability of divine life-sustaining grace. Therefore, a Christian not only can but should be free from the power of sin. Nevertheless, the Christian can fall through a loss of faith and sin like any other person. Wesley holds both these ideas togeth­er.

A Call to Holiness

            It should be evident by now that Wesley held a relatively "high" view of the new birth.  Indeed, his doctrine, so carefully crafted, marks a greater degree of grace and liberty than many theologies, Wesleyan or otherwise, can allow. For example, in some Methodist interpretations the cruciality of Wesley's doctrine of the new birth is mitigated in a process of incremental growth and development where qualitative soteriological distinctions are at the very least blurred. In other assessments the liberty of regeneration, the freedom which the sons and daughters of God actually enjoy, is misprized because of failure to consider properly the issue of infirmity and the ongoing presence of inbred sin. Here, so it is claimed, the believer can never be free from the power or dominion of sin. However, such a position is more descriptive of the theology of John Calvin and some of his followers than that of John Wesley. Calvin taught, in effect, that "we sin in thought, word, and deed every day."

            Beyond this, some Methodist interpretations deprecate or minimize the importance of the new birth precisely in order to highlight entire sanctification. While in one sense the motives in this approach may be noble, they nevertheless constitute a self-defeating strategy. For if Methodist theologians fail to grasp the beginning of holiness and spiritual life aright, how will they ever grasp the beauty of Christian perfection? Again, if they fail to comprehend the liberty of regeneration, how will they ever comprehend the gracious freedom of perfect love?

            So then, if we think that we have found a different way to heaven, if we take comfort in faith and grace while neglecting the very substance of salvation which is holiness, then we are wide of the mark. If we think that we have discovered a more broad or easier path to blessedness, if we take refuge in doctrine or ideology, or the means of grace or works of mercy and the like while neglecting the very heart of redemption which is holy love, then again we are wide of the mark. Indeed, for Wesley, there are not two ways of redemption, a lower and higher way, a way of sin and a way of holiness. No, there is but one way, a way which begins redemptively in holiness at the new birth and is perfected by the magnificent grace of God at entire sanctification. Listen to Wesley thunder against the broad way and all such mistaken conceptions:

No, it cannot be; none shall live with God, but he that now lives to God; none shall enjoy the glory of God in heaven, but he that bears the image of God on earth; none that is not saved from sin here can be saved from hell hereafter; none can see the kingdom of God above, unless the kingdom of God be in him below. Whosoever will reign with Christ in heaven, must have Christ reigning in him on earth. He must have "that mind in him which was in Christ," enabling him "to walk as Christ also walked."[48]

            In light of these things, how, then, shall we live? And how will we be able to face the King, the Lord of glory, if we neglect so great a salvation, if we appear before His throne without a glorious wedding garment? Let us, therefore, be attentive to the things which make for sanctity, let us ever be mindful of the holy and precious love of God, and in the words of the author of the book of Hebrews, which have reverberated throughout the history of the church as the clarion call of the Kingdom, let us "pursue peace with everyone, and the holiness without which no one will see the Lord" (Heb. 12:14).

Endnotes:

            [1]Presented as the Presidential Address to the 1996 annual meeting of the Wesleyan Theological Society convened in Washington, D. C. For a more extensive treatment of this topic, see Kenneth J. Collins, The Scripture Way of Salvation: The Heart of John Wesley's Theology (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1997).

            [2]Paul S. Sanders, "John Wesley and Baptismal Regeneration," Religion in Life 23 (1954): 591-603. For a more extensive treatment of the topic of the new birth see my forthcoming work  The Scripture Way of Salvation: The Heart of John Wesley's Theology (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1997).

            [3]Timothy L. Smith, Whitefield and Wesley on the New Birth (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Francis Asbury Press of Zondervan Publishing House, 1986).

            [4]Thomas C. Oden, The New Birth: John Wesley (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1984). 

            [5]W. Reginald Ward and Richard P. Heitzenrater, The Works of John Wesley, Bicentennial ed., vol. 21: Journals and Diaries IV (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1992), 205.

            [6]Albert C. Outler, ed., The Works of John Wesley, Bicentennial ed., vol. 1-4: Sermons (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1984-1987), 2:187.

            [7]Ibid., 2:343. 

            [8]Ibid., 2:187.

            [9]See Scott Kisker, "Justified But Unregenerate? The Rela­tionship of Assurance to Justification and Regeneration in the Thought of John Wesley," Wesleyan Theological Journal 28 (Spring-Fall 1993): 55 ff.

            [10]Ward, Journals, 21:395.

            [11]Thomas Jackson, ed., The Works of Rev. John Wesley, 14 vols. (London: Wesleyan Methodist Book Room, 1829-1831), reprinted Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1978. Indeed, Wesley indicates that one of the prerequisites for being a gospel minister was to preach the whole counsel of God, "even justification and sanctification prepatory to glory." Even more emphatically he adds: "He that does not put asunder what God has joined, but publishes alike, 'Christ dying for us, and Christ living in us.'" Cf. Jackson, Wesley's Works, 10:456.

            [12]Outler, Sermons, 2:190.

            [13]John Telford, ed., The Letters of John Wesley, A.M., 8 vols. (London: The Epworth Press, 1931), 7:30. The circumstances of this correspondence were somewhat distressing to Wesley since Samuel, his nephew, had just made his way into the Roman Catholic Church, though he later had a change of heart.  For additional references to Wesley's use of John 3:3 Cf. Jackson, Wesley's Works, 9:452, 459, 11:268; Outler, Sermons, 3:391; Telford, Letters, 7:231; and John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament (Salem, Ohio: Schmul Publishers), p. 218.

            [14]Outler, Sermons, 6:73. Observe in this context that Wesley underscores the power or dominion of sin in the human heart apart from the new birth. But even with this glorious change of regeneration, unholy tempers will remain in the heart until the grace of entire sanctification is received; the important point, however, is that these tempers will no longer reign. For more on these important distinctions, cf. Wesley's sermons "On Sin in Believers," and "On the Repentance of Believers," Outler, Sermons, 1:314-353.

            [15]Gerald R. Cragg, ed., The Works of John Wesley, Vol. 11. The Appeals to Men of Reason and Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), 107.  

            [16]Wesley, NT Notes, 218. 

            [17]Outler, Sermons,  2:193-94. See also Wesley's letter to the Lord Bishop of Gloucester in Telford, Letters, 4: 382-83, where he uses the same language. 

            [18]Jackson, Wesley's Works,  9:459.

            [19]Outler, Sermons,  2:198-199.

            [20]Ward, Journals, 21:436. See also Wesley's sermon, "On Living Without God," where he once again underscores that the new birth is not, and cannot be, a partial change. Cf. Outler, Sermons, 4:173-74.    

            [21]Telford, Letters, 4:380.   

            [22]Outler, Sermons, 4:124. Compare this sermon also with "The New Birth," a piece in which Wesley, once again, makes a distinction between conventional morality and the new birth.  Cf. Outler, Sermons, 2:194-95. 

            [23]Ibid.

            [24]Ibid., 2:200-201. 

            [25]Ibid., 2:195.

            [26]Telford, Letters, 4:332. Compare this letter to Wesley's sermon, "On Working Out Our Own Salvation," where he notes that "salvation begins with what is usually termed (and very properly) "preventing grace." This, however, does not contradict his earlier statements so long as it is realized that in the former Wesley is referring to salvation, properly speaking, which always includes holiness; but in the latter, he is simply highlighting a "degree" of salvation in that the sinner is at least on the way to holiness. In short, in no sense was Wesley arguing in his sermon "On Working Out Our Own Salvation" that those who merely have prevenient grace are in fact holy and are therefore redeemed, properly speaking. Cf. Outler, Sermons, 3:203.  

            [27]Jackson, Wesley's Works, 8:285.

            [28]Outler, Sermons, 2:411. Bracketed material is mine. Interestingly enough, in his sermon, "On Living Without God," Wesley indicates that at regeneration the spiritual senses of the believer  come alive to discern the love of God. In this context, he employs such sensory language as "tasting" and "feeling" to make his point. Cf. Outler, Sermons, 4:173. 

            [29]Ibid., 3:507.

            [30]Cragg, Societies, 11:449.

            [31]Outler, Sermons, 3:320. For a different view which argues that Wesley basically put aside this distinction, see Richard Heitzenrater's piece, "The Imitatio Christi and the Great Commandment: Virtue and Obligation in Wesley's Ministry with the Poor" in The Portion of the Poor: Good News to the Poor in the Wesleyan Tradition, ed. Douglas Meeks (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1995), 61-62. From my perspective, however, two extremes need to be avoided: on the one hand the Calvinist claim that works prior to justification are "splendid sins" and on the other hand Heitzenrater's claim, without any qualification or nuance, that such works are good. Judging from the distinctions which Wesley makes in his sermon "The Scripture Way of Salvation," with respect to works prior to justification, I contend that Wesley maintained that these works are in "some sense" good (because prevenient grace informs them), but that they are not good strictly speaking--the reason for this last judgment being that such works do not flow from sanctifying grace.   

            [32]Jackson, Wesley's Works, 9:310.

            [33]Outler, Sermons, 2:198. Bracketed material is mine.

            [34]Ibid., 3:507. Also in this same material, Wesley high­lights the instantaneous element of regeneration and maintains that a person is "born at once."

            [35]Telford, Letters, 4:332. Wesley's additional comment "Let it be wrought at all, and we will not contend whether it be wrought gradually or instantaneously," does not detract from his basic position that the new birth is instantaneous; instead, it serves to highlight the importance of real transformation, a favorite theme of Wesley's. Emphasis is mine.

            [36]Outler, Sermons, 2:198. Lindstrom notes that it is "this combination of the gradual and instantaneous that particularly distinguishes Wesley's conception of the process of salvation." Cf. Lindstrom, Sanctification, 121.

            [37]Ibid.

            [38]Ibid., 2:158. I have underscored the words "moment" and "instant." The other emphasis is Wesley's own.

            [39]Telford, Letters, 6:189-90.

            [40]Outler, Sermons, 2:169. Emphasis is mine.

            [41]Telford, Letters, 4:332.

            [42]Outler, Sermons, 2:163.

            [43]Wesley's definition of sin, unlike a Calvinist one, focuses on the issue of volition as revealed in the following: "Nothing is sin, strictly speaking, but a voluntary transgres­sion of a known law of God. Therefore every voluntary breach of the law of love is sin; and nothing else, if we speak properly. To strain the matter farther is only to make way for Calvinism. There may be ten thousand wandering thoughts and forgetful intervals without any breach of love, though not without transgressing the Adamic law. But Calvinists would fain confound these together." Cf. Telford, Letters, 5:322. See also Wesley's sermon "The Great Privilege of those who are Born of God," which was produced in 1748, in Outler, Sermons, 1:436, and additional comments in Telford, Letters, 4:155 and 5:322.

            [44]Outler, Sermons, 1:420.

            [45]Telford, Letters, 3:169.

            [46]Outler, Sermons, 1:439ff.

            [47]Does Wesley's doctrine of sin, then, mean that those who are born of God can never sin again? Moreover, does the evidence of willful sin subsequent to the new birth indicate that one was never truly born of God? To these questions Wesley replies: "It is plain, in fact, that those whom we cannot deny to have been truly 'born of God' nevertheless not only could but did commit sin, even gross, outward sin. They did transgress the plain, known laws of God, speaking or acting what they know he had forbidden.... I answer, what has been long observed is this: so long as 'he that is born of God keepeth himself' (which he is able to do by the grace of God) 'the wicked one toucheth him not.' But if he keepeth not himself, if he abide not in the faith, he may commit sin even as another man." Cf. Outler, Sermons, 1:436, 438.  

            [48]Jackson, Wesley's Works, 10:364. 

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