John Wesley was one of the spiritual giants of the 18th century. He not only lived a holy life himself, but he helped to bring thousands of others into a living, obedient love relationship with Christ. But today I often see books and pamphlets that quote portions of John Wesley's writings or sermons, making it seem as though he too taught a gospel of easy believerism, a gospel of salvation by faith alone, as do the men who quote him.
In fact, the passage from his writings that is probably most often quoted is the page from his personal journal where he describes his conversion or spiritual awakening at the Aldersgate Church. And indeed, that was a major turning point in Wesley's spiritual life. It's where he came to a personal appreciation of the key role that grace plays in our salvation. Until then, he had been trying to do it all, just living a life of holiness that was not a spirit-filled life.
But you know, in my library, I have a complete set of John Wesley's writings, a set that numbers 14 volumes. And each of those volumes contain 540 pages. So his writings come to a total of some 7, 560 pages. And do you know how many references Wesley makes to the Aldersgate experience in all of those 7,560 pages? Well, it's a grand total of one. John Wesley did believe in dramatic conversion experiences, but he knew there was far more to the Christian life than just being converted.
He never believed that conversion was an end in itself, that salvation was all finished at that point. No, like the early Christians, or the Waldensians, or the early Anabaptists, Wesley preached the gospel of Jesus, not the gospel of Martin Luther. He correctly understood that the Scriptures speak of salvation in two senses. There is the past event when we are initially converted and born again. And we can correctly speak of that as when we were saved.
But our ultimate salvation depends on maintaining an obedient love relationship with Christ throughout the remainder of our lives. And that's why Jesus says, " He who endures to the end will be saved. " So there is a future aspect of salvation, not just a past one. Knowing this, Wesley was not afraid to stand up to the preachers of cheap grace, of eternal security, and of imputed righteousness instead of genuine godliness. And don't you ever be afraid either.
To be sure, Wesley would have said, " Yes, I believe in imputed righteousness. " But what he meant by that was quite different from the way the doctrine is usually taught today and the way it was taught by so many people in his day. He believed that Jesus actually makes us righteous if we live in obedient relationship with Him. That it's not a bookkeeping entry in heaven, but rather we actually do become righteous because of the grace of God. Well tonight I'm going to be reading to you two works of Wesley.
I should explain that I have occasionally substituted a more modern word or a clearer phrase for one that Wesley used, but not that often. Because Wesley is a very clear writer and most of what he says is quite understandable to a modern reader. More importantly, the contents of his messages are something that all modern readers need to hear. Incidentally, Wesley quotes or paraphrases Scriptures all throughout his writings, normally without giving any Scripture citation.
So in this regard, I am going to be reading His passages just as He wrote them. And I'm trusting that you, the listener, are sufficiently familiar with the Bible to recognize when he's quoting Scripture. The first work of Wesley's I want to read tonight attacks the false doctrine of imputed righteousness and easy believerism. Now, if you've listened to other messages of mine, you know that my speaking style is more conversational as a teacher. Wesley's style, of course, was very passionate as a revival preacher.
So as I read this material, which was probably originally given as a sermon, I'll try to put some of the passion and energy that he would have put into it when he originally delivered it. Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord. Nothing under heaven can be more sure than this, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. No one who is not saved from sin here can be saved from hell hereafter. No one can see the kingdom of God above unless the kingdom of God is in Him below.
Whoever will reign with Christ in heaven must have Christ reigning in Him on earth. And yet as certain as this is, and as clearly as it is taught in every part of the Holy Scriptures, among all of the truths of God, there is probably none which is less received by man. Yes, professing Christians invariably invent one way or another to get to heaven without holiness. In the place of holiness, some have substituted penances, pilgrimages, and praying to saints and angels.
However, Protestants won't be satisfied in that manner. Yet thousands of such Protestants also think that they too will see God without holiness. How? They say that Christ has already accomplished and suffered everything for us. They say that His righteousness is imputed to us. Therefore, we need none of our own. Since there is so much righteousness and holiness in Him, there needs to be none in us.
In fact, they claim that to think that we have any holiness, or to desire or seek any holiness, is to renounce Christ. They say that from the beginning to the end of salvation, all is Christ, nothing is in man, and that those who teach otherwise are preachers of legalism and know nothing of the gospel. What evasion! What has Satan done? Why he's persuaded the very man who received this doctrine to turn the grace of God into licentiousness.
For wherever this doctrine of easy grace is received, it leaves no place for holiness. In fact, it makes men afraid of personal holiness, afraid of cherishing any thought of it. For they fear that any step towards holiness might be a denial of the faith and a rejection of Christ in His righteousness. In short, they're infinitely more afraid of the works of God than of the works of the devil. Here is Satan's masterpiece. We are to believe that men are holy without a grain of holiness in them.
Holy in Christ, however unholy in themselves. They're supposedly in Christ, although they have not one jot of the mind that was in Christ. They think they're complete in Him, although they are as proud, as vain, as covetous, and as lustful as ever. They think they can continue in unrighteousness because Christ has fulfilled all righteousness. Oh, you simple ones! Don't be deceived!
For assuredly as the Lord lives, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God. Such indeed were some of you, but you are washed, but you are sanctified, not only justified, by the Spirit of our God. You are really changed. You're not only accounted as righteous, you are made righteous.
In fact, I testify unto you that if you still continue in sin, Christ shall profit you nothing. Christ is no savior to you unless He saves you from your sins. And that unless it purifies your heart, faith shall profit you nothing. What? Talk of Christ as saving His people in their sins? Well, that's no better than to say He saves them from the guilt, but not from the power of sin. Will you make the righteousness of Christ a cover for the unrighteousness of man?
So that by this means the unrighteous of every kind shall inherit the kingdom of God? What are you doing? And please don't stupidly call holiness legalism. A silly, meaningless word. Don't be afraid of being under the law of God, rather fear for being under the law of sin. Permit me to warn you of another silly, meaningless phrase. Don't say, " Oh, I can do nothing. " If so, then you know nothing of Christ, then you have no faith.
For if you have faith, if you believe, then you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you. You can love Him and keep His commandments. And to you, His commandments are not grievous, as John said at 1 John 5:3. Grievous to them who believe? Far from it! They are the joy of your heart! Show then your love for Christ by keeping His commandments, by blamelessly walking in all His ordinances. Honor Christ by obeying Him with all of your might, by serving Him with all of Your strength.
Glorify Christ by imitating Christ in everything, by walking as He walked. Trust in Christ to live and to reign in your heart. This is the gospel, the pure, genuine gospel. Not the new, but the old, the everlasting gospel. This next piece we're going to read from John Wesley is a sermon concerning the dress or apparel of Christians. One of the things that greatly vexed John Wesley was the loose dress among so many of the Methodists.
He had decided at the outset of the Methodist movement not to make rules as to how the members of the Methodist society were to dress. Towards the end of his life, he came to regret that. He came to feel like I wish I had made some rules the way the Quakers do and the Moravian brethren. He doesn't mention the Amish and Mennonites because unless I'm mistaken, there were no Amish or Mennonites in England during the days of John Wesley.
Before we get into the actual sermon I want to read, I would like to read to you just a short excerpt from another sermon dealing with this same issue of dress. He says, " I am distressed. I know not what to do. I see what I might have done once. " I might have said peremptorily and expressly, " Here I am, I and my Bible. I will not, I dare not vary from this book either in great things or small. I have no power to dispense with one jot or tittle of what is contained therein.
I am determined to be a Bible Christian, not almost, but altogether. Who will meet me on this ground, join me on this, or not at all? With regard to dress in particular, I might have been as firm, and I now see it would have been far better as either the people called Quakers or the Moravian brethren. I might have said this is our manner of dress, which we know is both scriptural and rational. If you join with us, you are to dress as we do, but you need not join us unless you please.
But alas, the time has now passed, and what I can do now, I know not. Now I want to read to you one of the sermons he delivered, again, very close to the end of his life, where he tries one last time to exhort the members of the Methodist Society to dress plainly and cheaply like the Quakers and the Moravian brethren.
He takes as this text, 1 Peter 3:3 and 4, which reads from the King James, " Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of wearing of gold or putting on of apparel, but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.
" Wesley says, " Paul exhorts all those who desire to be transformed by the renewal of their minds, and to prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God, not to be conformed to this world. " Indeed, this exhortation relates more directly to the wisdom of the world, which is totally opposite to his good and acceptable and perfect will. But it likewise has a reference even to the manners and customs of the world, which naturally flow from the world's wisdom and spirit, and are exactly suited thereto.
And it was not beneath the wisdom of God to give us some specific directions in this respect also. Some of these, particularly those in that text, concern even the apparel of Christians. And both this passage and the parallel one of Paul are as specific as possible. Paul's words are in 1 Timothy 2:9 and 10, " I will that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, not with gold or pearls or costly array, but which befits women professing godliness with good works.
" Yet some may say, isn't it strange that the all-wise spirit of God should condescend to take notice of such trifles as these? To take notice of such insignificant trifles, things of so little moment, or rather of none at all. For what does it signify provided we take care of the soul, what the body is covered with, whether it's silk or sackcloth. They say what harm can there be in the wearing of gold or silver or precious stones, or any other of those beautiful things that God has so amply provided us?
May we not apply this to what Paul has observed on another occasion that every creation of God is good, and nothing to be rejected. Well, it is certain that many who sincerely fear God have warmly embraced this opinion. And their practice bears this out because they're not the least worried about conforming to the world by putting on as often as occasion offers either gold or pearls or costly apparel. And indeed, they are not well pleased with those Christians that think it is their duty to reject such things.
For they feel that this is one branch of Christian liberty. Yes, some have gone even considerably further. They've gone so far as to make it a point to convert those who had once refrained from wearing such clothing to bringing them to feel comfortable wearing them again, assuring them that it was mere superstition to think that there was any harm in them. Not only that, a very respectable person has said in these expressed terms, " I do not desire that any who dress plain should be in our society. " End quote.
He's talking about the Methodist society there. It is therefore certainly worth our while to consider this matter thoroughly and to seriously inquire whether there is any harm in putting on of gold or jewels or costly apparel. But before we enter any further on the subject, let it be observed that slovenliness is no part of Christianity, that neither this nor any text of Scripture condemns neatness of apparel. Certainly this is a duty, not a sin. Cleanliness is indeed next to godliness.
And surely everyone should attend to this if he would not have the good that is in him evil spoken of. But now let's get back to our primary question, which was what harm does it do to adorn ourselves with gold or pearls or costly arrays, supposing that we can afford it. That is, suppose it doesn't hurt or impoverish our family in any way. Well, the first harm is this, that it engenders pride, and where there's already pride, it further increases it.
Whoever narrowly observes what passes in his own heart will easily discern this. Nothing is more natural than to think ourselves better because we are dressed in better clothes. And it is scarcely possible for a man to wear a costly apparel without in some measure valuing himself because of it. Someone may say, but may not one man be just as proud though he's clad in sackcloth as another is though he's clad in gold?
Since this argument is constantly being put forward and is supposed to be unanswerable, it will be worthwhile to answer it once for all and to show the utter emptiness of it. May not then one clad in sackcloth, you ask, be as proud as he that is clad in cloth of gold? I answer, certainly he may. I suppose no one doubts that. And what inference can you draw from this? Take a parallel case. Suppose one man who drinks a cup of wholesome wine may be as sick as another that drinks poison.
But does this prove that the poison has no more tendency to hurt a man than the wine? Or does it excuse any man for taking what has a natural tendency to make him sick? Now to apply that to our present situation. Experience shows that fine clothes do have a natural tendency to make a man full of pride. Plain clothes don't. And although it's true that a person may be full of pride and yet wear plain clothes, yet plain clothes have no natural tendency to cause or to increase this sickness of pride.
Therefore, all who desire to be clothed with humility abstain from that poison of costly apparel. Secondly, the wearing of gay or costly apparel naturally tends to breed and to increase vanity. And by vanity I mean the love and the desire of being admired and praised. Every one of you that is fond of dress has a witness of this in your own heart. Whether you will confess it before man or not, you are convinced of this before God.
You know in your hearts it is with a view to be admired that you so adorn yourself and that you would not take the same pains if no one was going to see you but God and His holy angels. Now, the more you indulge this foolish desire, the more it grows upon you. You have vanity enough by nature, but by indulging it in this way, you increase it a hundredfold. When you aim instead at pleasing God, these ornaments will drop off.
Another point, the wearing of fancy and costly apparel naturally tends to beget every turbulent and uneasy passion. And it's on this very account that the apostle places this outward adorning in direct opposition to the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit. How remarkably does he add which is in the sight of God of great value? No one can easily conceive this unless he himself were to make this sad experiment. The utter opposition there is between outward adorning and this inward quietness of spirit.
You can never thoroughly enjoy this quietness of spirit while you are fond of the outward adorning. It is only while you dispossess yourself of that outward adorning that you can in patience possess your soul. Only when you have cast off your fondness for dress will the peace of God reign in your hearts. Another objection is that fancy and costly apparel directly tends to create and inflame lust. That fact is plain and undeniable and it has this effect both on the wearer and on the beholder.
And did you not know this would be the natural consequence of your elegant adorning? To bring the matter home further, did you not desire? Did you not design that it would do so? And yet all the time you presented to public view a face supposedly full of innocence and virtue. Meanwhile, you do not yourself escape the snare that you've spread for others. The dart recoils and you are infected with the same poison with which you infected others. You kindle a flame which consumes both yourself and your admirers.
A further point is that the wearing of costly garments is directly opposite to being adorned with good works. Nothing can be more evident than this, for the more you spend on your own apparel, the less you have to clothe the naked, to feed the hungry, to lodge strangers, to relieve those who are sick and in prison, and to lessen the numerous afflictions to which you are exposed in this vale of tears. So here there is no room for the evasion used before. Namely, I may be as humble in cloth of gold as in sackcloth.
Even if you could be as humble when you choose costly apparel rather than plain apparel, which I flatly deny, you still could not be as charitable or as plenteous in good works. Because every shilling which you save from your own clothing, you may expend in clothing the naked and relieving the various necessities of the poor whom you always have with you, as Jesus said. Therefore, every shilling which you needlessly spend on your apparel is in effect stolen from God and from the poor.
And look at how many precious opportunities of doing good you've defrauded yourself of. How often have you prevented yourself from doing good by purchasing that which you didn't need? And for what purpose did you buy these ornaments? To please God? No, but to please your own fancy or to gain the admiration and applause of those who were no wiser than yourself? How much good you might have done with that money instead? And what an irreparable loss you have by not doing it.
For it is true that the day is at hand when every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor. I pray that you reflect on what I have said. Perhaps you've not seen it in this light before. When you are laying out that money for costly apparel, which you could have otherwise spared for the poor, you thereby deprived them of what God, the proprietor of all, had lodged in your hands for their use?
If so, what you put upon yourself in the way of clothing, you are in effect tearing from the back of the naked. Just as the costly and delicate food which you eat, you have snatched from the mouth of the hungry. For the sake of Christ, don't throw this money away. Don't waste on yourself what may clothe the poor, naked, shivering fellow creature. Many years ago when I was at Oxford on a cold winter's day, a young woman, one of those who worked at the school, called out to me.
I looked at her and said, " You seem half-starved. Have you nothing to cover yourself but that thin linen gown? " She said, " Sir, this is all I have. " So I put my hand in my pocket, but I found I had scarcely any money left, having just spent what I had on some pictures for my wall. It immediately struck me, won't my master say, well done, good and faithful steward? You have just adorned your walls with the money which might have covered this poor creature from the cold.
Are not those pictures the blood of this poor maiden? And I encourage you to look at your expensive apparel in the same light, your gown, your hat, your headdress. Everything about you that costs more than what need alone required you to lay out is the blood of the poor. Now it is true that great allowances are to be made for those who have never been warned of these things and perhaps didn't know that there is a word in the Bible which forbids costly apparel. But what is that to you?
You have been warned over and over. Yes, in the clearest manner possible. And what have you profited thereby? Do you not still dress like other people of your same income? Is not your dress as fancy, as expensive as theirs who never had such warnings? Now how will you answer for this when you and I stand together at the judgment seat of Christ? In fact, have not many of you grown finer as fast as you've grown richer? As your income has increased, have you not increased in what you spend on clothing?
Witness the profusion of ribbons, gauze, or linen about your heads? What have you profited by bearing the reproach of Christ? How have you profited by being called a Methodist? Are you not as fashionably dressed as those who are not Methodists? Perhaps you ask, but may we not just as well buy fashionable things as things that are unfashionable? I answer, not if they give you a bold, immodest look as those huge hats, bonnets and headdresses do, and not if they cost more than other clothing.
But I can afford it, you may say. Oh, lay aside forever that idle nonsensical word. No Christian can afford to waste any part of the substance that God has entrusted him with. How long are you going to stay here on earth? May not tomorrow? Or perhaps even tonight? You'd be summoned to arise and go hence in order to give an account of this and all your talents to the judge of the quick and the dead? How then can it be that after so many warnings you persist in the same folly?
Is it not because of this that there are still among you some that neither profit themselves by all they hear nor are willing that others should. And if any of you are almost persuaded to dress as Christians, will these other persons reason, rally, and laugh you out of it? Oh, you meddlers, I entreat you not to do the devil's work any longer. Whatever you do yourselves, please do not harden the hearts of others. And those of you who are of a better mind, avoid these tempters with all possible care.
And if you come where any of them are, either beg them to be silenced or else just leave the room. What's more, the putting on of costly apparel is directly opposite to what the apostle calls the hidden man of the heart. That is to the whole image of God wherein we were created and which is stamped anew upon the heart of every Christian believer. It is opposite to the mind which was in Christ Jesus and the whole nature of inward holiness.
All the time you are studying this outward adorning, the whole inward work of the Spirit stands still, or rather it goes back, although by very gentle and almost imperceptible degrees. Instead of growing more heavenly minded, you are becoming more and more earthly minded. If you once had fellowship with the Father and the Son, that fellowship now gradually declines. And you sink deeper and deeper into the spirit of the world, into foolish and hurtful desires and groveling appetites.
All of these evils and a thousand more spring from that one root of indulging yourself in costly apparel. Why then doesn't everyone who either loves or fears God flee from it as from the face of a serpent? Why are you still so conformed to the irrational, sinful customs of a frantic world? Why do you still despise the express commandment of God uttered in the clearest terms? You see the light? Why do you not follow the light of your own mind? Your conscience tells you the truth.
Why don't you obey the dictates of your conscience? Perhaps you will answer because the universal custom is against me and I don't know how to go against the flow of society. Well, in response, I have to acknowledge you're correct. Not only secular society, but even the religious world flows the other way. A person doesn't have to look into the theaters. He can simply look at the churches, at the meetings of every denomination, except for a few old-fashioned Quakers or the people called Moravians.
Look into the congregations in London or elsewhere, even of those that are called gospel ministers. Look into Northampton Chapel or into the Tabernacle or the Chapel at Tottenham Court Road. In fact, look at the very people that sit under this very pulpit or by the side of it. I'll refrain from mentioning their names. Are these all not just as fashionably adorned as those of the same rank in other places? This is a melancholy truth, and I am ashamed of it. But I know not how to change it.
I call heaven and earth to witness this day that it is not my fault. The trumpet has not given an uncertain sound for the past 50 years. Oh God, thou knowest I have borne a clear and a faithful testimony, in print, in preaching, in meetings of the Methodist society. I have not shunned to declare the whole counsel of God. I am therefore clear of the blood of those who will not hear. It lies upon their own head.
I warn you once more in the name and in the presence of God that the number of those who rebel against God is no excuse for your rebellion. He has expressly told us, " Thou shalt not follow the multitude to do evil. " Who of you desires to stand against the whole world? If millions condemn you, it is enough that you are acquitted by God and by your own conscience. Perhaps you say, well, I could bear the contempt or the reproach of all the world.
I regard none but my own relations, those especially that are of my own household, my father, my mother, my brothers and sisters, and perhaps even my spouse are teasing me continually. You say this is such a trial that very few can appreciate except those who bear it. And I just do not have the strength to bear it. Well, my reply is this, not of your own strength, you don't. Certainly you have not. But there is strength laid up for you on one who is mighty.
His grace is sufficient for you, and He now sees your case, and He is ready to give the needed strength to you. Meantime, remember His somber declaration concerning those who fear man more than God. He said, " He who loveth father or brother or sister, husband or wife more than me is not worthy of me. " But are there not some among you who once did renounce this conformity to the world and who dressed in every point, neat and plain, suitable to your profession? Why then did you not persevere in it?
Why did you turn back from the good way? Did you make an acquaintance, perhaps a friendship, with some who were still fond of fancy dress? If so, it's no wonder then that you went backwards. No less was to be expected than that one sin would lead you on to another. It was one sin to contract a friendship with any who knew not God. For know you not that friendship with the world is enmity with God? And this led you back into another sin, into that conformity to the world from which you had once cleanly escaped.
But what are you to do now? Why, if you're wise, escape for your life. Do not delay. Look not behind you. Without any loss of time, renounce the cause and the effect together. I mean, now, today, before your heart is hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, cut off at one stroke, that sinful friendship with the ungodly, and that sinful conformity to the world. Determine to do it this day. Do not delay until tomorrow, lest you delay forever. I say this for God's sake, for your own soul's sake.
Fix your resolution right now. I conjure you all who have any regard for me. Show me before I die that I have not labored in vain for nearly a half a century in this respect. Before I die, let me see a Methodist congregation dressed as plainly as a Quaker congregation. Only be more consistent with yourselves. Let your dress be cheap as well as plain. Otherwise you do but trifle with God and with me and with your own souls.
Another little aside here, Wesley is referring to the fact that the Quakers dress plain, but many of them dress with costly, very fine linen, which came to be known as Quaker linen. Okay, we continue, " I pray, let there be no costly silks among you, no matter how grave in appearance they may be. Let there be no Quaker linen proverbially so-called for their exquisite fineness, no Brussels lace, no expensive hats or bonnets, those scandals of female modesty.
Be holy dressed from head to foot as persons professing godliness. And let not any of you who are rich in this world endeavor to excuse yourselves from this by talking nonsense. For it is stark, unadulterated nonsense to say, " Oh, but I can afford this or that. " If you have any regard to common sense, let that silly word never come out of your mouth. No man living can afford to waste part of what God has committed to his trust.
No one can afford to throw any part of that food and raiment into the ocean, which was lodged with him on purpose to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. And it is far worse than simple waste to spend any part of it in gay or costly apparel. For this is no less than to turn wholesome food into deadly poison. It is giving so much money to poison both yourself and others as well. For your example will spread.
And with it, pride, vanity, anger, lust, love of the world, and a thousand foolish and hurtful desires which tend to pierce them through with many sorrows. And you say there is no harm in all of this. Oh God, arise and maintain thy own cause. Let not men or devils any longer put out our eyes and lead us blindfolded into the pit of destruction. I beseech you, every man that is here present before God, every woman, young or old, married or single. Yes, every child who knows good from evil, take this to heart.
Each of you take the apostles ' advice, or at least do not hinder others from taking it. I beseech you, O you parents, do not hinder your children from following their own convictions, even though you might think they would look prettier if they were adorned with such gewgaws as other children wear. I beseech you, O you husbands, not to hinder your wives. You, O wives, do not hinder your husbands either by word or by deed from acting just as they are persuaded in their own minds.
Above all, I beseech you half Methodists, you who vacillate between us and the world, you who frequently, perhaps constantly hear our preaching, but are in no further connection with us. Yes, and all of you who were once fully connected with us, but are not so now. Whatever you may practice yourselves, please do not say one word to hinder others from receiving and practicing the advice which has now been given. In yet a little while, we shall not need these poor coverings.
For this corruptible body shall put on incorruption. Yet a few days hence, and this mortal body shall put on immortality. In the meantime, let this be our only care to put off the old man, our old nature which is corrupt, which is altogether evil, and to put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. To sum it all up in one word, put on Christ so that when He shall appear, you may appear with Him in glory.