Christian Fools

“Then He said unto them, O fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.” Luke 24:25

Those of you who read the religious announcements in the newspapers of yesterday would see the subject for my sermon this evening is “Christian Fools.” Possibly some of you thought there was a printer’s error and that what I really meant to announce was “Professing Christian fools.” The paper gave it quite correctly. My subject tonight is “Christian Fools.” Probably some of you think that this is a most unsuitable title for a servant of God to give to his sermon, and yet I make no apology whatever for it. It fits exactly my subject for tonight: it expresses accurately what I am going to speak about: and—“what is far more to the point—it epitomizes our text: “Then He said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.”

Those words were spoken by Christ on the day of His resurrection: spoken not to worldlings but to Christians. That which occasioned them was this. The disciples to whom He was speaking were lopsided in their theology: they believed a certain part of God’s truth and they refused to believe another part of the truth that did not suit them; they believed some Scriptures but they did not believe all that the prophets had spoken, and the reason they did not was because they were unable to harmonize the two different parts of God’s truth. They were like some people today: when it comes to their theology; they walk by reason and by logic rather than by faith.

In the Old Testament there were many prophecies concerning the coming Messiah that spoke of His glory. If there was one thing the Old Testament prediction made plain, it was that the Messiah of Israel should be glorious. It spoke of His power, His honor, His majesty, His dominion, His triumphs. But on the other hand, there were many prophecies in the Old Testament that spoke of a suffering Messiah, that portrayed His humiliation, His degradation, His rejection, His death at the hands of wicked men. And these disciples of Christ believed the former set of prophecies, but they would not believe in the second: they could not see how it was possible to harmonize the two. If the coming Messiah was to be a glorious Messiah, possessing power and majesty and dominion: if He would be triumphant, then how could He, at the same time, be a suffering Messiah, despised, humiliated, rejected of men? And because the disciples could not fit the two together, because they were unable to harmonize them, they refused to believe both, and Christ told them to their faces that they were fools. He says, “O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.”

I suppose some of us have wondered how it was possible for these disciples, these followers of Christ, who had been privileged to be with Him during His public ministry and those who had been so intimate with Him, had been instructed by Him, had witnessed His wonderful miracles; how it was possible for such men to err so grievously and to act so foolishly. And yet we need not be surprised; the same thing is happening all around us today. Christendom tonight is full of men and women who believe portions of God’s truth, but who do not believe all that the prophets have spoken. In other words, my friends, Christendom tonight is full of men and women that the Son of God says are “fools” because of their slowness of heart to believe.
Now very likely, the sermon tonight will make some of my hearers angry: probably they are the ones who most need the rebuke of the text. When a servant of God wields the sword of the Spirit, if he does his work faithfully and effectively, then some of his hearers are bound to get cut and wounded: and, my friends, that is always God’s way. God always wounds before He heals. And I want to remind you at the outset that this text is no invention of mine. These are the words of One who never wounded unnecessarily, but they are also the words of the True and Faithful Witness who never hesitated to preach the whole truth of God, whether men would receive it or whether they would reject it. I know it is not a pleasant thing to be called a fool, especially if we have a high regard for ourselves and rate our own wisdom and orthodoxy very highly—it wounds our pride. But we need to be wounded, all of us. We need to be humbled; we need to be rebuked; we need to have that word from the lips of Christ which is as a two-edged sword.

Now notice, dear friends, that Christ did not upbraid these disciples because they did not understand, but because of their lack of faith. The trouble with them was they reasoned too much. Very likely they prided themselves on their logical minds and said, Well, surely we are not asked to believe impossibilities and absurdities: both of these cannot be true; one is true and the other cannot be. Either the Messiah of Israel is going to be a glorious and a triumphant Messiah, or else He is going to be a rejected and a humiliated one: they cannot both be true. That is why Christ said to them—not because of their failure to understand, but because of their lack of faith—“O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.”

I am afraid that today there are many who only believe what they can understand, and if there is something else that they cannot understand, they do not believe it. If they have devised to themselves a systematized theology (or more probably they have adopted someone else’s system of theology), and they hear a sermon (no matter how much Scripture there may be in it) which they cannot fit into their little system of theology, they won’t have it. They place a higher value on consistency than they do on fidelity. That is just what was the matter with these disciples: they could not see the consistency of the two things and therefore they were only prepared to believe the one.

The same thing, my friends, is true today with many preachers. There are multitudes of preachers in Australia tonight whose theology is narrower than the teaching of this Book. Then away to the winds with theology! —I mean human systems of theology which are narrower than Scripture. For example, there are men today who read God’s Word, and they see that the gospel is to be preached to every creature, and that God commands all who hear that gospel to believe in Christ; then they come across some texts on election, predestination:—“Many are called but few are chosen,” and they say, Well, I cannot harmonize this, I cannot see how it is possible to preach, unhampered, a gospel to every creature, and yet for election to be true. And because they cannot harmonize the two things, they neither believe the two nor will they preach both. They cannot harmonize election with a gospel that is to be preached to every creature, and so the Arminians preach the gospel but they leave out election.

Yes, but there are many Calvinists who equally come under the rebuke of our text. They believe in the sovereignty of God, but they refuse to believe in the responsibility of man. I read a book by a hyper-Calvinist only a few weeks ago, by a man whose shoe-latchet the present speaker in many things is not fit to stoop down and unloose—a man of God, a faithful servant of His, one from whom I have learned not a little—and yet he had the effrontery to say, that responsibility is the most awful word in the English language, and then went on to tirade against human responsibility. They cannot understand how that it is possible for God to fix the smallest and the greatest events, and yet not to infringe upon man’s accountability—men themselves choosing the evil and rejecting the good—and therefore because they cannot see both they will only believe in one.

Listen! If man were nothing more than clay in the hands of the Potter there would be no difficulty. Scripture affirms in Romans 9 that man is clay in the hands of the Potter, but that only gives you one aspect of the truth. That emphasizes the absoluteness of God’s control over all the works and creatures of His hands; but from other Scriptures we learn that man is something more than lifeless clay. Man has been endowed with understanding; man has been given a will. Yes, I freely admit that his understanding is darkened; I fully allow that his will is in bondage; but they are still there; they have not been destroyed. If man was nothing more than a block of wood or a block of stone, it would be easy to understand how that God could fix the place that he was to occupy and the purpose that he was to fulfil; but, my friends, it is very far from easy to understand how that God can shape and direct all history and yet leave man fully responsible and not infringe upon his accountability.

Now there are some who have devised a very simple but a most unsatisfactory method of getting rid of the difficulty, and that is to deny its existence. There are Arminians who have presented the “free-will” of man in such a way as to virtually dethrone God, and I have no sympathy whatever with their system. On the other hand, there have been some Calvinists who have presented a kind of fatalism (I know not what else to term it) reducing man to nothing more than a block of wood, exonerating him of all blame and excusing him for his unbelief. But they are both equally wrong, and I scarcely know which is the more mischievous of the two. When the Calvinist says, All things happen according to the predestination of God. I heartily say Amen, and I am willing to be called a Calvinist; but if the Arminian says that when a man sins the sin is his own, and that if he continues sinning he will surely perish, and that if he perishes his blood is on his own head, then I believe the Arminian speaks according to God’s truth; though I am not willing to be called an Arminian. The trouble is when we tie ourselves down to a theological system.

Now listen a little more closely still. When the Calvinist says that faith is the gift of God and that no sinner ever does or can believe until God gives him that faith, I heartily say Amen; but when the Arminian says that the gospel commands all who hear it to believe, and that it is the duty of every sinner to believe, I also say Amen. What? you say, You are going to stand up and preach faith-duty-duty-faith? I know that is jolting to some of you. Now bear with me patiently for a moment and I will try and not shock you too badly. Whose is the gospel? It is God’s. Whose voice is it that is heard speaking in the gospel? It is God’s. To whom has God commanded the gospel to be preached? To every creature. What does the gospel say to every creature? It says, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.” It says, “Whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” It says, “The gospel of Christ is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth.” God commands, not invites. God commands every man, woman and child that hears that gospel to believe it, for the gospel is true; therefore it is the duty of every man to believe what God has said. Let me give you the alternative. If it is not the duty of every sinner to believe the gospel, then it is his duty not to believe it—one or the other. Do you mean to tell me it is the duty of an unconverted sinner to reject the gospel? I am not talking now about his ability to believe it.

Some of you say, Well how can it be his duty to believe it, when he cannot do so? Is it his duty to do an impossibility? Well, listen! Is my duty, is my responsibility measured by my ability, by my power to perform? Here is a man who has ordered a hundred pounds’ worth of furniture; he receives it, and he is given thirty days’ credit in which to pay for it; but during the next thirty days he squanders his money, and at the end of the month he is practically bankrupt. When the firm presents their bill to him, he says, “I am sorry but I am unable to pay you.” He is speaking the truth. “I am unable, it does not lie within my power to pay you.” Would the head of that business house say, “All right, that ends the matter then: sorry to hear that you do not have the power, but evidently we cannot do anything.” No, my friend, ability does not measure our responsibility. Man is responsible to do many things that he is not able to do. You that are Christians are responsible to live a sinless life, for God says to you, “Awake to righteousness and sin not,” and in the first Epistle of John we read, “These things write I unto you, that ye sin not.” God sets before you and me a standard of holy perfection. There is not one of us that is capable of measuring up to it, but that is our responsibility, and that is what we are going to be measured by when we stand before the judgment-seat of Christ.

Now then there are many Arminian preachers who are afraid to preach sermons on certain texts of the Bible. They would be afraid to stand up and preach from John 6:44—“No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him.” They would be afraid to stand up and preach from Romans 9:18—“Therefore hath He mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth.” Yes, and it is also true that there are many Calvinist preachers who are equally afraid to preach from certain texts of the Scriptures lest their orthodoxy be challenged and lest they be called Freewillers. They are afraid to stand up and preach, for example, on the words of the Lord Jesus: —“How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” Or on such a verse as this: —“The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force;” or “Strive (agonize) to enter in at the Strait Gate.” And to show you that I am not imagining things, I am just going to read you three lines. Listen! “At the meeting at... [I will leave out the name] on January 15th last, the question was asked to the effect: Had not some of our ministers for the sake of orthodoxy abstained from preaching from certain texts, and the answer was in the affirmative.” I am reading now from a Strict Baptist magazine! That was a meeting of Strict Baptist preachers and they were honest enough to admit, themselves, that because they were afraid of their orthodoxy being challenged, they were silent on certain texts of Scripture. O may God remove from all of us the fear of man.

Some of you perhaps are thinking right now in your own minds, Well, Brother Pink, I do not see how you are consistent with yourself. My friends, that does not trouble me one iota, and it won’t cause one hair in my head to go gray if I am inconsistent with any Calvinistic creed: the only thing that concerns me is to be consistent with the Holy Spirit, and to teach as the Holy Spirit shall enable, the whole counsel of God; to leave out nothing, to withhold nothing, and to give a proportionate presentation of God’s truth. Do you know, I believe that most of the theological errors of the past have grown out of, not so much a denial of God’s truth, as a disproportionate emphasis of it. Let me give you a simple illustration. The most comely countenance with the most beautiful features would soon become ugly if one feature were to grow while the others remained undeveloped. You can take the most beautiful baby there is in the world tonight and if that baby’s nose were to grow while its eyes and its cheeks and its mouth and its ears remained undeveloped, it would soon become unsightly. The same is true with every other member of its face.

Beauty is mainly a matter of proportion and this is true of God’s Word. It is only as truth is presented in its proper proportions that the beauty and blessedness to it are maintained in the hearts and lives of God’s people. The sad thing is that almost everywhere today there is just one feature of truth being disproportionately emphasized.

And listen again! If God’s truth is to be presented proportionately and effectively then each truth of God’s Word must be presented separately. If I am speaking upon the humanity of Christ, if I am seeking to emphasize the reality of His manhood, how that He was made like unto His brethren in all things, how that He was tempted in all points as they were—sin excepted—I would not bring into my sermon a reference to His Godhood; and if you were to hear me preach the next twelve Sunday nights on the manhood of Christ and never refer to His Deity in those sermons, I hope none of you brethren would be so foolish as to draw the conclusion, Oh dear me, Brother Pink no longer believes in the Godhood of our Savior.

Again, if I am preaching on the wrath of God, the holy hatred of God for sin and His vengeance upon it, I would be weakening my sermon to bring in at the close a reference to His tenderness, mercy and love, for in my judgment that would be to blunt the point of the special truth I was seeking to press on the unconverted. And, in the same way, if I am pressing on the unconverted their need, their duty and importance of seeking the Lord, calling upon, coming to and believing on Him for themselves, I would not bring in or explain the work of the Holy Spirit in conversion.

Each truth needs to be presented separately that it may have its clear outline presented to the heart and to the mind. And after all, my friends, we are not saved by believing in the Spirit, we are saved by believing in Christ. We are not saved by believing in the work of the Spirit within us (no man was ever saved by believing that); we are saved by trusting in the work of Christ outside of us. O may God help us to maintain the balance of truth. There is something more in this Book, brethren and sisters, beside election, particular redemption and the new birth. They are there, and I would not say one word to weaken or to repudiate them, but that is not all that is in this Book. There is a human side. There is man’s responsibility. There is the sinner’s repentance. There is the sinner’s believing in Christ. There is the pressing of the gospel upon the unsaved; and I want to tell you frankly that is a church does not evangelize it will fossilize: and, if I am not much mistaken, that is what happened to some of the Strict Baptist Churches in Australia. Numbers of them that once had a healthy existence are now no more; and some others are already dead but they are not yet buried; and I believe one of the main reasons for that is this—they failed at the vital point of evangelism. If a church does not evangelize it will fossilize. That is God’s method of perpetuating His work and of maintaining His churches. God uses means, and the means that the Holy Spirit uses in His work is the preaching of the gospel to the unconverted, to every creature. True, the preaching will avail nothing without the Spirit’s blessing and application. True, no sinner will or can believe until God has quickened him. Yet he ought to, and is commanded to.

Now I meant, if time had allowed me, to come back again to the text and give you a few striking examples of where many have failed in holding the balance of God’s truth. Take for example the Unitarians. I have met numbers of Unitarians who believe this Book is God’s word, and believe that they can prove their creed from this Book. They appeal to such Scriptures as Deuteronomy 6:4 —“The Lord our God is one Lord.” Their creed is the unity of God and they argue that if there be three divine persons there must be three Gods; they cannot harmonize them, they cannot reconcile three persons with one God; so what do they do? Well, they hold fast to the one and they let go the other. They say the two won’t mix—either God is one or else He is three; He cannot be both. When they come to the Person of Christ they emphasize such passages as—“He grew in wisdom.” Well, they say, if He was a divine person, how could He grow in wisdom? They emphasize such passages as “He prayed,” and they say it is an absurdity to think of God praying to God. They say, He died—how could God die? No, He cannot be divine: He is a good man; He is a holy man; He is a perfect man; and because they cannot reconcile the two classes of Scriptures they believe the one and reject the other. And Christ says to them, Ye are fools because ye are slow of heart to believe all.

Take the Universalists. I have met numbers of Universalists—several here in Sydney. I was going to say that I have less suspicion of the reality of their own salvation than I have of some of yours. At any rate they seem to give such evidence in their daily walk that they commune with Christ that it really makes one wonder where they are. Well now, the Universalists are staggered by the doctrine of eternal punishment. They say “God is love.” “The mercy of God endureth forever.” God is good: how can a merciful, loving God send any to eternal suffering? The Universalists say they cannot both be true: if there is such a thing as eternal punishment, then God can’t be love: if God is love, there cannot be such a thing as eternal punishment. You see what they are doing? They are reasoning: they are walking by logic: they have drawn up their own scheme and system of theology and that which they cannot fit exactly into that scheme, somewhere, well, away with it!

But the Unitarians and the Universalists and the Arminians are not the only ones who are guilty of that. I am sorry to say that it is equally true, in some respects, of many Calvinists. They are unsound when it comes to the gospel. They are all at sea when it comes to the matter of believing. I am not going to keep you very much longer, but listen closely now. There are many Calvinists who say, Believing is an evidence of our salvation, but it is not a condition or the cause of salvation. But, my friends, I make so bold as to say that those who so teach take issue with this Book. Now I want you to turn with me to four passages in the New Testament. I am not asking you to take my word for anything. You turn with me now to four passages in God’s own word. First of all Romans 1:16-17 —“For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation.” The power of God unto salvation to whom? —“the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth.” Now I have no hesitation whatever in saying to every grown-up person in this room tonight, if you had read that verse just now for the first time in your life, and had never read a page of either Calvinistic or Arminian literature; if you read that verse without any bias one way or the other, it would only mean one thing to you.

Now turn to Romans 13:11—“And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep, for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.” The salvation that is spoken of there is the salvation of the body, the glorification of the believer, the final consummation of our redemption: but what I want you to notice is where the Holy Spirit Himself puts the starting point. “Now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.” THAT is when it begins, so far as our actual experience is concerned.

Now turn to Hebrews 10:39 , and you have one there that is plainer still—that is outside the realm of debate—that has no ambiguity about it: “But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.” You cannot get around that if you live to be a thousand years old. “Them that believe to the saving of the soul.” The sinner’s believing does have something to do with his salvation: God says so! If you deny it you are taking issue with God. “Believe to the saving of the soul.”

Now turn to Luke 7:50 —“And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee.” He did not say thy faith is an evidence that you have been saved. “Thy faith hath saved thee.” Now in the light of those last two verses I make this assertion, that believing in Christ is the cause of the sinner’s salvation. But listen closely to this qualification. It is neither the meritorious cause nor is it the effectual cause! You must put these three things together to get the complete thing. The blood of Christ is the meritorious cause of salvation; the regenerating work of the Spirit is the effective cause of salvation; but the sinner’s own believing is the instrumental cause of his salvation. We believe to the saving of the soul. I repeat that. The blood of Christ is the meritorious cause: without that all the believing in the world could not save a soul. The regenerating work of the Spirit is the effectual cause: without this, no sinner would come or will believe with the heart. But the believing of the sinner in Christ is the instrumental cause—that which extends the empty hand to receive the gift that the gospel presents to him—and where there is no personal trust in Christ there is no salvation—“I did not say “quickening.”
Now I want to make this very plain and I am going to weigh my words. If instead of you trusting in the sacrificial blood of Christ, you are trusting in something that you believe the Spirit has done in you, you are building your house upon the sand, which in time of testing will fall to the ground.

“On Christ the solid Rock I stand, All other ground is sinking sand.”

If you are building your hope for eternity on what you think or feel that the Spirit of God has done in you, instead of putting your trust in what Christ did for sinners, you are building your house on the sand. And that may apply to some church-members here tonight. O my friends, the gospel of God does not invite you to look inside and pin your faith to what you think the Holy Spirit has done in you; the gospel of God commands you to look outside of yourself, away from all your feelings and frames, to what the Lord Jesus Christ did on the cross for sinners as sinners.
Now my last word tonight is directed to the unconverted, for my text also applies directly to them. Last Sunday evening I said a good deal about the necessity of being quiet, of standing still, of waiting upon God; but I want to supplement those remarks in concluding tonight by saying that those are all admonitions that are given to the converted, and that the Holy Scriptures speak in very different terms to those of you who are unconverted. The Bible does not bid you to sit still, to wait and be quiet; the Bible commands you to flee from the wrath to come. It bids you to strive to enter in at the strait gate. I am quoting Scripture now. It bids you seek the Lord. It bids you come unto Him. It bids you believe in Him, and if you do not you will be damned, whoever you are.
I am very much afraid that there are some here tonight who entertain the notion that all they have to do is just to sit still and wait until God comes and saves you. My friends, I do not know of a single promise of God that He will do so. I do not know of a single line in this Book that encourages you to continue in your sinful inactivity. I am going to speak very plainly now. The devil will tell you there is no cause for you to be concerned: there is not a bit of need for you to worry: if your name is in the Lamb’s Book of Life you will be saved, whether you believe or no. That is the devil’s lie! It is not God’s truth. The devil will tell you that if you have been elected to salvation there is not a bit of need for you to be alarmed, disturbed or exercised; no need at all for you to seek and search after the Lord; that when God’s good time comes He is going to do it all for you: not a bit of good for you to read the Bible and cry out to Him: and if He has not elected you, well, there is no need for sure, for it’s useless.

Yes, the devil will speak in those tones and terms and he ill come quoting Scripture to you. But there is no salvation for the sinner apart from his believing in Christ. I close with this quotation—2 Thessalonians 2:13 , “God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through—Through what? “Sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.” That is how God saves. That is how God carries out His purpose—by the sanctification of the Spirit and by your belief of the truth.

And my friends, I have not limited God. God could, if He so chose, make the fields to grow crops without the farmer plowing them and sowing the seed, but that is not His way; that is not the method He selects. God could keep us in health and strength without our taking any food at all or wasting time in sleeping if He so chose, but that is not His way. And God could save every sinner on earth tonight without them believing if He wanted to, but it is not His way! I am not limiting God, I am describing to you the plan and method that God Himself has set forth in His Word, and if you would be saved, sinner, you have got to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ for yourself. I say it reverently: the Holy Spirit won’t believe for you. The Holy Spirit may put it into your heart and give you the desire to believe. If you have the desire it is because He has put it there, but He won’t believe for you: believing is a human act. It is the sinner himself, in all his wretchedness and need, coming to Christ, as a drowning man clutches a straw, and as the old hymn says—“Just as I am without one plea, But that thy blood was shed for me.”

O sinner, Christ is saying to you tonight, “O fools and slow of heart to believe all.” You do believe much as you sit there. There are some of you who believe that Jesus is the Son of God. There are some of you who believe that He is the only Savior who can save any sinner. You believe that, then why not believe all? Why not believe in Him for yourself? Why not trust His precious blood for yourself; and why not tonight? God is ready to save you now if you believe on Him. The blood has been shed, the sacrifice has been offered, the atonement has been made, the feast has been spread. The call goes out to you tonight, “Come, for all things are now ready.” And I say again, the devil will tell you as you are sitting there, “There is no need for me to come tonight; I will just wait till God gets ready to come and save me.” How do you know that while you are waiting death may not come and smite you down. “Boast not thyself of tomorrow for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.” The Holy Spirit saith, “Today if ye will hear His voice harden not your hearts.” Yes, man can “harden” his heart: God says so; and God calls to you: “Harden not your heart.” That is something you do yourself—not the devil—you do it. God is speaking to you through His Word tonight. O may His grace forbid that He shall say our text to any of you after you have left this room—O God forbid that you should be among those “fools” who believe not all. You do believe that Christ is God’s appointed Savior for sinners, why not your Savior? O may the Spirit draw you by the cords of love to that One who has said, “Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.”

Preached by Arthur W. Pink in Sydney, Australia—1927.

http://www.pbministries.org/books/pink/Miscellaneous/christian_fools.htm

The Bible and Homosexuality

Rev. Angus Stewart

Jesus Christ taught that marriage is an one flesh union between one man and one woman for life: “Have ye not read [in Genesis 1:27 and 2:24], that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder” (Matt. 19:4-6). Thus sex between a man and a woman before marriage (fornication) or between a married person and someone other than his or her spouse (adultery) or between a man or woman and an animal (bestiality) or between two men (sodomy) or between two women (lesbianism) is sinful. If Christ even declared that “whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart” (Matt. 5:28), two men lying together is also evil.

After His atoning death and resurrection, the glorified Christ commissioned His apostles to declare His Word to the nations and to write inspired Scripture. Paul, “a servant of Jesus Christ” (Rom. 1:1), speaks of the “vile affections” of lesbianism (“even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature”) and sodomy (“likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet”) (Rom. 1:26-27). “Be not deceived,” writes the apostle, “abusers of themselves with mankind” (sodomites) shall not “inherit the kingdom of God” (I Cor. 6:9-10). These were not merely Paul’s own speculations, for he declares, “the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord” (I Cor. 14:37).

All sins not atoned for by the blood of Christ and not repented of bring everlasting punishment in Hell, but homosexuality is an especially grievous transgression. First, it is “against nature” as it is contrary to God’s creation of us as male and female (Rom. 1:26-27). Second, it is itself a judgement of God upon men and women for their idolatry (Rom. 1:18-25): “For this cause God gave them up unto [the] vile affections” of lesbianism and sodomy (Rom. 1:26-27). God’s giving someone over to homosexuality is an instance of “the wrath of God … revealed from heaven” in this world (Rom. 1:18). Third, sodomy is the central sin which brought down fire from heaven: “Sodom and Gomorrah … going after strange flesh [cf. Gen. 19:4-5], are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire” (Jude 7). God’s raining down fire and brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19:24) pictures the Hell fire that awaits impenitent homosexuals, and, indeed, all impenitent sinners (II Peter 2:6). Fourth, homosexuality, once it gains societal approval (as in our day), is paraded brazenly: “they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not” (Isa. 3:9). Thus they "glory ... in their shame" (Phil. 3:19) with all the debaucheries of their Gay Pride parades.

However, homosexuality is not the unpardonable sin. After listing various iniquities, including sodomy (“abusers of themselves with mankind”), the apostle declares to the Corinthian believers, “And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God” (I Cor. 6:9-11). This is the way of deliverance for the homosexual, the only way of deliverance for us all.

http://www.cprf.co.uk/articles/homosexuality.htm

The ARCHBISHOP and THE BIBLE

 

The Most Revd. DESMOND MPILO TUTU:

"I say the things I say because of who I am.
My ultimate mandate is from Jesus Christ." (Argus, 28.4.86)

Becoming Archbishop "is all like a dream. I am quite overcome
by the awesomeness of it all, and of the tremendous responsibility
that has been placed on my shoulders." (Cape Times, 16.4.86)

Bishop Tutu	The Bible
On the Divinity of Christ "Some people thought there was something odd about Jesus' birth… It may be that Jesus was an illegitimate son." (Cape Times, 24.10.80)	Jesus Christ, the Son of God "Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpeted is, God with us." (Isiah 7:14 - Matthew 1:23). "and the virgin's name was Mary." (Luke 1:27)
On the Holy Spirit "The Holy Spirit is not limited to the Christian Church. For example, Mahatma Gandhi, who is a Hindu… The Holy Spirit shines through him." (St. Alban's Cathedral, Pretoria, 23.11.78)	The Holy Spirit Testifies of Christ Jesus said: "The Spirit of Truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness to Me." (John 15:26). "He will glorify Me, for He will take what is Mine, and declare it to you." (John 16:14)
On the Kingdom of God "When justice prevails over injustice as in Zimbabwe, it shows that the kingdom of God is here already." (Ecunews 11/1980)	The Kingdom of God is Within You Jesus said: "My kingdom is not of this world." (John 18:36). "Unless one is born anew… born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God." (John 3:3, 5)
On Peace "I receive the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the Nelson Mandelas, the Walter Sisulus, the Govan Mbekis, the Winnie Mandelas, the Albertina Sisulus." (Winnie Mandela: "With our boxes of matches and our necklaces we shall liberate this country." - 30.4.86 at Munsieville, Tvl., UCANEWS 9/86)	The Peace of God "Bessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." (Matthew 5:9) "Peace I leave with you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.." (John 14:17) "The peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." (Phil. 4:7)
On the ANC "Mandela is my leader, and I am not going to be dictated to as to who should be my leader." (The Star, 16.8.85) (Nelson Mandela: "There is no alternative to taking up arms. There is no room for peaceful struggle in South Africa." (Washington Times, cit. UCANEWS 10/85)	Look unto Jesus, the Author of our Faith Jesus said: "Follow Me… I am the light of the world. He who follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." (John 8:12)
On the West's Refusal to Disinvest "The West can go to Hell!" (Cape Times, 23.7.86)	The Keys of Hell Jesus Christ: "I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and death." (Rev. 1:18)
On Rebellion "You build up a process of disobeying on a massive scale, that will mean nearly all the laws in the statute book, so that this country becomes ungovernable." (Eloff Report, 1984)	No Rebellion - God is a God of Order "Those who forsake the law praise the wicked, but those who keep the law strive against them." (Proverbs 28:4). "Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the Emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by Him to punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do right." (l Peter 2:13, 14)
On Violence "One young man with a stone in his hands can achieve more than I can with a dozen sermons." (Daily Telegraph, London, Nov. 1984) "Unless America puts pressure on South Africa… the only way forward is to overthrow the Government by force." (Sunday Times, 26.1.86) "There comes a time when it is justifiable to overthrow an unjust system by violence." (Argus, 3.4.86) "I will tell you the day… (when) we must use violence to overthrow an unjust system." (The Argus, 24.6.87)	No Violence - All Authority comes from God. "A man of violence entices his neighbour and leads him in a way that is not good." (Proverbs 16:29) "Let every peson be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore who resists the authorities, resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment." (Romans 13: 1, 2)
On the Last Judgment "Thank God I am black. White people will have a lot to answer for at the last judgment." (Argus, 19.3.84)	Jesus Christ only is the Judge "God will render to every man according to his works: To those who by patience and well-doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, He will give eternal life; but for those who are factious and do not obey the truth, but obey wickedness, there will be wrath and fury." (Romans 2:6-8)
On Neighbour-Relations "I am not saying Whites would be massacred…" (Cape Times, 11.12.84) "Imagine what would happen if only 30 percent of domestic servants (in white households) would poison their employers' food." (Volkskrant, Holland, 15.11.84) "Suppose you gave them each a vial of arsenic… They look after the white people's children…" (WNBC-TV Dec. 85) "Is it not surprising that Black resistance has not yet blown up a schoolbus with white children? They are the softest targets." (Ibid. and Sunday Times, 26.l.86) "There will be no sympathy for the Jews when the Blacks take over." (Boston Jewish Times, Nov. 21, 1986)	Love your Neighbour "Devise not evil against your neighbour who dwells trustingly beside you." (Proverbs 3:29). "Love does no wrong to a neighbour; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law." (Romans 13:10) "So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all men, and especially to those who are of the household of faith." (Galatians 6:12). "Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them." (Mathew 7:12)
On Communism "If the Russians were to come to South Africa, most Blacks would welcome them as saviours." (St. Paul's Cathedral, London, November 1984) "Communist China will provide a very good model for developing countries." (Washington Inquirer, 29.8.86)	Salvation only in Christ False prophets "promise freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption." (2 Peter 2:19). "There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." (Acts 4:12)
On Revolution "Every Christian must be a revolutionary. Jesus was a revolutionry. I am a revolutionary if you understand by that somebody who wants to completely change things." (Rapport, 20.4.86)	Revolution of the Heart "Put off the old nature and put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness." (Ephesians 4:24)
On Daily Bread "I call on the international community to apply punitive sanctions against this Government." (Argus, 3.4.86) "I do not regret what I have said, (Die Burger, 22.8.86) and I am not going to be dictated to by anybody."	Murder by Starvation "The bread of the needy is the life of the poor; whoever deprives them of it is a man of blood. To take away a neighbour's living is to murder him; to deprive an employee of his wages is to shed blood." (Ecclesiasticus 34:21-22
On Economics "I am a socialist. I hate capitalism." (Sunday Times, 29.12.85; idea 32/83) "I think I would use Marxist insights, 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.' That, I think, is in line with what Our Lord, himself, would have taught." (Inside South Africa, April 1988)	Work and Pray "You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth; that He may confirm His covenant which He swore to your fathers." (Deut. 8:18) "A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich." (Prov. 10:4, 6) "If anyone will not work, let him not eat." (2 Thess. 3:10)
On Christ's Political Role "If Jesus Christ came to South Africa today, he would be in trouble with the authorities because of his solidarity with the poor, the oppressed, the hungry, and he would certainly be detained… I am sure that many whites would say that he deserved it; there is no smoke without fire." (Cape Times, 14.2.86)	Jesus did not Seek Political Conflict Jesus said: "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." (Matt. 22:21; Mk. 12:17; Lk. 20:25) The Roman governor Pontius Pilate "sought to release Him", saying: "I find no crime in him." (John 19:6, 12) "I did not find this man guilty…I have found in him no crime deserving death." (Lk. 23:14, 22)

 

"A bishop, as God's steward, must be blameless; he must not be arrogant or quick tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of goodness, master of himself, upright, holy, and self-controlled; he must hold firm to the sure word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also confute those who contradict it." (Titus 1:7-9)

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John Wesley, False Apostle of Free Will

Rev. Angus Stewart

(Slightly modified from an article first published in the British Reformed Journal)

John Wesley, A Biography

Author: Stephen Tomkins

Oxford: Lion Publishing, 2003

Paperback, 208 pp.

ISBN 0 7459 5078 7

In 24 short chapters, Stephen Tomkins has given us an interesting and readable life of the heretic, John Wesley (1703-1791). This book is all the more valuable because it was written by one who is sympathetic to Wesley and his “gospel” of man’s free will.

Wesley was a remarkable man by any standards, “a man of rare ability, passion and commitment and unique energy” (p. 199). In his 87 years, he rode over 250,000 miles to preach over 40,000 sermons (p. 199). He was a man of indomitable will, rising at 4 a.m. each morning and braving foul weather and hostile crowds. One reads of his escapes from angry mobs with wonder (pp. 110-120). Tomkins writes that in his last few years he was widely received with “veneration;” indeed he was “almost a national treasure” (p. 183). In 1790, there were 61,811 Methodists in the United States and 71,463 in the United Kingdom (p. 190). Today, there are some 33 million Methodists worldwide. Last 2003 was the tercentenary of Wesley’s birth and accolades poured in from all over the world, with some of the most effusive coming from purported Calvinists. Surely then John Wesley was a faithful servant of God, owned and honoured in the cause of Jesus Christ?

The Reformed believer is not dazzled by a man’s popular acclaim. Instead, he “judgeth all things” in the light of “the mind of Christ” (I Cor. 2:15-16) revealed in sacred Scripture and summed in the Reformed confessions. We bear record of John Wesley that he had a zeal for God, but was it according to knowledge (Rom. 10:2)? We marvel at his endurance: riding from London to Bristol, Wales and Ireland in the west; and to Newcastle and Scotland in the north. But we also remember another who is even more assiduous, ever “going to and fro in the earth” (Job 1:7). Wesley studied extremely hard, even reading when on horseback. But the Scripture speaks of those who are “Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (II Tim. 3:7). And did not our Lord call down “woe” upon the scribes and the Pharisees for travelling across “sea and land to make one proselyte” because they made him “twofold more the child of hell than” themselves (Matt. 23:15)? The question is this: What was the gospel that Wesley preached? Was it the true gospel (with some weaknesses, perhaps) or was it “another gospel” “which is not another” (Gal. 1:6-7)? Tomkins’ book alone provides enough information to answer this question. Wesley even quotes Whitefield as saying that the two of them “preached two different gospels” (p. 94).

Wesley’s gospel was the false gospel of salvation by the free will of the sinner. Free will, for all his talk of God’s grace, was the deciding factor in salvation. In loving free will, Wesley hated predestination calling it “blasphemy.” He declared, “It represents the most holy God as worse than the Devil, as both more false, more cruel, and more unjust” (p. 78).

However, the Canons of Dordt state that the “decree of election and reprobation” is “revealed in the Word of God” and “though men of perverse, impure and unstable minds wrest [it] to their own destruction, yet to holy and pious souls [it] affords unspeakable consolation” (I.6). Where does this leave Wesley? Not with the “holy and pious souls,” but with the “men of perverse, impure and unstable minds” who “wrest” the truth of predestination “to their own destruction.”

In its “Conclusion,” the Synod of Dordt “warns calumniators to consider the terrible judgment of God which awaits them.” Wesley certainly belongs in this category for he is guilty of the sins that the “Conclusion” proceeds to enumerate:

bearing false witness against the confessions of so many Churches [including the Church of England in which he lived and died] ... distressing the consciences of the weak; and ... labouring to render suspected the society of the truly faithful.

Remember that Wesley was not simply a church member but a church office-bearer and that his church’s creed (article 17 of the Thirty-Nine Articles) taught election. Moreover, he was a founder of societies (and eventually a denomination) and he saw himself as a restorer of primitive Christianity! If church teachers shall receive a greater judgment (James 3:1), where will this leave Wesley? A false apostle of free will.

With his faith in free will, not only predestination but also the doctrines of total depravity, particular atonement, irresistible grace and the perseverance of the saints had to go (pp. 71, 96, 171), contrary to articles 9, 15 and 17 of the Thirty-Nine Articles. At the 1770 Methodist Conference, Wesley’s doctrine of justification by free will led him to espouse an even more crude heresy: justification by works (pp. 171-173). Briefly, Wesley dropped the formula that the conference had approved but “almost immediately afterwards” he printed a defence of the original minutes (p. 173). Tomkins makes no reference to the controversial subject of Wesley’s denial of the imputed righteousness of Christ in justification.

Wesley’s corruption of the will of God in sovereign grace fits with his misunderstanding of the will of God in providence. Wesley believed in opening the Bible at random for guidance at critical junctures (pp. 54, 78), as did his brother, Charles (pp. 68-69). He also resorted to lots (pp. 54, 75, 78), dreams (p. 133) and intuitions (p. 71). This unscriptural understanding of divine guidance led him into further trouble.

Wesley and Whitefield had reached a truce on God’s decree, agreeing to “let sleeping dogmas lie,” as Tomkins puts it. But one day, Wesley “found himself inwardly called to speak out against predestination” (p. 71; italics mine). Tomkins continues, “After making the point at length, [Wesley] prayed aloud (again on divine impulse) that if he was right God would send a sign.” People began to fall down and cry out (pp. 72-73). To Wesley, Almighty God was “stamping Divine approval” on his message (p. 73). “On one occasion,” writes Tomkins, Wesley even ascribed his recovery from illness “as a reward [from God] for preaching against the Calvinists” (p. 98)!

While mysticism led him to preach against predestination, the casting of lots brought him to publish against it: “he resorted to pulling God’s will out of a hat and was told ‘Print and preach,’ which he did” (p. 78). What are we to make of this? The Lord “put a lying spirit in the mouth” of John Wesley (I Kings 22:23) and He willed, in His sovereignty over the lot (Prov. 16:33), that Wesley’s lies be printed for the deceiving of the reprobate (II Thess. 2:10-12) and the testing of the elect. Not content to attack the truth of predestination merely in his preaching and his books, Wesley also used “hymns,” as did his brother, Charles (p. 93).

Wesley’s doctrine of entire sanctification by the free will of man fits with his teaching of justification by the free will of man, though not with articles 9 and 15 of the Thirty-Nine Articles. He was already teaching perfectionism in the “Holy Club” at Oxford University in 1733 (p. 38). By 1739-1740, through a dispute with the Moravians, he reached the point were he would “castigate any who denied perfection as antinomians who were happy to accept their sinfulness” (p. 88). This was a doctrine in which Wesley “passionately believed” (p. 156). Tomkins sees perfectionism as a great “preoccupation” of Wesley’s, “the very heart” of his “spirituality.” “Faith, Wesley said, was the door of religion; holiness, ‘religion itself’” (p. 197). Thus he “preached” entire sanctification and “fought for it at length” (p. 156).

Wesley’s free will theology also carried over into his view of the church. Though an ordained minister in the Church of England, he organized a connexion of societies (along side the institute church) governed by his rules and regulations, i.e. his free will (e.g., pp. 166-167). Methodist laymen were being used of God (p. 81), Wesley thought, so in 1739 he “gave his permission” for them to continue preaching (p. 82), contrary to articles 23 and 36 of the Thirty-Nine Articles. When a Methodist lay preacher administered communion in 1755, Charles states, “John was not greatly troubled” (contra article 23 of the Thirty-Nine Articles). Wesley “suggested that this was the logical conclusion of appointing lay people to preach: ‘We have in effect ordained already’” (p. 150). This is the slippery slope of disobedience, for if an unordained person may preach (the greater thing; cf. I Cor. 1:17), how can he be stopped from administering the sacraments (the lesser thing)?

Women preaching followed in the 1760s (pp. 159-160) with Wesley giving them rules (p. 167). Sarah Crosby “travelled nearly 1,000 miles a year, speaking at over 200 public meetings and 600 class or band meetings” (p. 175). Mary Bosanquet, another woman preacher, “married Wesley’s close friend and defender John Fletcher in 1781, and the couple operated virtually as joint ministers in his Madeley parish” (p. 190). As Tomkins says, Wesley “was a pragmatist;” this was “his deepest instinct” (p. 160). Remember too that when Wesley was a boy, his mother, Susanna, “led in prayer and discussion and read sermons” and missionary stories to 200 members—including men—of her husband Samuel’s congregation in their crowded parsonage on Sunday afternoons when he was away at Convocation (p. 16).

Wesley and the Methodists also corrupted God’s worship with their “testimonies” (p. 81) and hymn singing. The apostle of free will further attacked the Psalms by his “censored” version of them in the liturgy he drafted for the American Methodists. Tomkins writes, “He bowdlerized the Psalms, finding the honesty of biblical worship ‘highly improper for the mouths of a Christian congregation’” (p. 187). In other words, Wesley’s free willism could not survive the naked truth of God’s absolute sovereignty and the terrible imprecations upon the wicked set forth in the Psalms.

Both John and Charles wrote hymns, with the latter penning between 4,000 and 10,000 (p. 95). John published America’s first hymn book in 1736 (p. 51). Tomkins writes,

These hymns were of vital importance to Methodism. They were used to gather crowds for outdoor preaching, they were a popular part of the societies’ worship, and they wrote Methodist teaching in the memory of the singers and in their hearts too ... They were also weapons in the war over predestination and perfection, and much of Charles’s sectarian propaganda survives in hymns sung all over the world today (pp. 95-96; italics mine).

Tomkins adds, “John was not above stopping the congregation halfway through to ask them if they really meant what they were singing” (p. 96). What about that for a way of catching a congregation in an Arminian, perfectionist trap! Write “exuberant and emotional,” anti-Calvinist hymns (p. 95); lead those assembled in the singing; then explain their meaning; and the people are snared. Ulster fundamentalist, Ian Paisley, once stated that he could derive all five points of Calvinism from the hymns of the Wesleys. John and Charles would turn in their graves!

Methodist revivalist meetings were attended with charismatic phenomena. There were people crying out (pp. 65, 71, 105, 108) or laughing (p. 157), with children often playing “prominent parts” (p. 175) in both the wailing (p. 155) and the laughing (p. 157). Some fell down prostrate (pp. 72, 79, 105, 156-157) and others had visions and revelations (p. 156).

Was this a rare thing? No, Tomkins writes, “this kind of thing happened almost daily” (p. 71).

But did this occur where Wesley himself was preaching? Yes, his preaching provoked the “charismatic phenomena” (p. 65), including the “wailing and convulsions” (p. 103). Thus his preaching was a “noisy event” (p. 72). Tomkins writes that “charismatic phenomena ... were to surround Wesley throughout his life” (p. 39).

But did not Wesley oppose these things? No. He was “impressed,” “delighted” and “wholly positive” regarding the charismatic phenomena (pp. 73, 157) viewing the outbreaks “most favourably” (p. 105). Wesley “championed ... charismatic gifts” (p. 195) and “embraced” dreams and visions “unreservedly” (p. 65).

Of course! For not only other Methodists (pp. 60, 102, 123, 161), but also Wesley himself had dreams (p. 133). He also held to miraculous healing (pp. 162-163) and evidently believed that on one occasion he raised the dead or at least one “dangerously ill.” Concerning the latter, Wesley issued the challenge: “I wait to hear who will either disprove this fact, or philosophically account for it” (p. 106).

Tomkins traces Wesley’s belief in the paranormal back to his teenage days. While John was at Charterhouse School in London, his family thought that Epworth rectory, where they lived, was being visited by a poltergeist whom they named “Old Jeffery” (pp. 18-20). The ghost stories were passed on to John who was “fascinated” (p. 19). Tomkins writes,

John was utterly convinced. He evidently had an innate taste for the supernatural and Old Jeffery brought it to the surface. Intrigued by his family’s accounts, he later collected and published them … His letters home often repeated other ghost stories he had heard. When he next went home, he wrote an account of the haunting from Samuel’s diary and the family’s recollections … In later years, he was to welcome the paranormal manifestations his preaching provoked in a way that upset even his closest colleagues (p. 20).

Other “bizarre religious phenomena of Methodism” include the man “who had the gift of preaching in his sleep.”

He would sing a hymn, recite a text and then preach a six-point sermon, sometimes breaking off to dispute with a clergyman who came to interrupt him (p. 144).

Then there was the Wesleyan lay preacher who spoke in tongues and the demon-possessed girl who recovered before Wesley was able to make it to her house (p. 144).

Tomkins sums up the role of charismatic phenomena in Methodism:

The importance of Methodism’s willingness to embrace the miraculous and charismatic has not always been recognised, but it was crucial. It was, though by no means uniformly, a religion of dreams and visions, healings, convulsions, ecstatic worship, exorcisms and messages and guidance from God. Such phenomena were exciting for participants and drew many spectators. They were also often decisive in Methodist conversions and played an ongoing part in their spiritual lives (p. 85).

Tomkins rightly sees Wesley and his Methodism as a forerunner of the Pentecostal movement (pp. 196, 198-199). This is where his free will gospel was to take many of his followers in years to come.

Moreover, the fusion of free will and emotionalism in modern Pentecostalism has much in common with Wesley who stressed “look[ing] within” and “feel[ing]” God’s love (p. 66) and who “put such store on his feelings as proof of his soul’s state” (p. 62). John Wesley’s love of the medieval mystics and his indebtedness to the “emotional” Moravians (p. 46) comes in here too. They placed a lot of “emphasis on experience and feelings in the spiritual life.” There is a lot to be said for Tomkins’ reckoning: “Moravian spirituality ... [had] an incalculable impact on the shape of Methodism” (p. 46).

Tomkins concludes that Wesley “certainly” was a “web of contradictions” (p. 195) whose accounts of his life and work contain “a dizzying degree of spin” (p. 196). This applies to his religion, spirituality, churchmanship, politics and even his relationships with the opposite sex (pp. 195-197).

In 1751, Wesley wedded Molly Vazeille, but their marriage was “distant and unhappy” (p. 167). In a chapter dealing with the period 1759-1763, Tomkins states,

Wesley’s private life was far from perfect at this time. He saw little of his wife and received no letters from her. He gave her the benefit of his plain speaking, writing to her with a list of the faults he wanted her to mend and wishing her ‘the blessing which you now want above any other—namely, unfeigned and deep repentance’ (pp. 158-159).

Tomkins writes of Wesley’s “romantic debacles” (p. 196) with women both before and after his marriage to Molly. His conclusion is that Wesley’s

personal relationships with women were, even according to admirers, an ‘inexcusable weakness.’ He was surely not—with all due respect to Molly Wesley—an adulterer [in the sense of actual sexual intercourse with other women] … However, he suffered from a failure to discern between the romantic and pastoral, which blighted his romances and cast a shadow over his pastoring (p. 197).

Wesley plagiarised an anti-slavery work written by a Quaker and a book by Samuel Johnson in support of the British taxing of the American colonies (pp. 177-178). Augustus Toplady “publicly decried his disgraceful fraud” and “trumpeted Wesley’s intellectual bankruptcy in The Old Fox Tarr’d and Feather’d” (p. 179). Tomkins writes,

Wesley was a serial plagiarist and simply saw nothing wrong with regurgitating other people’s work. As a writer, he inserted other people’s writings into his own as happily and as unannounced as he inserted his own into other people’s as an editor (p. 178).

Wesley also engaged in the same shameful practices in the field of theology. Tomkins writes,

Protesting his hatred of controversy, Wesley entered the ring in March 1770 with an extraordinary blow, even for him: he condensed and distorted Toplady’s 134-page book Absolute Predestination into a 12-page tract, ending with these words:

The sum of all is this: One in twenty (suppose) of mankind are elected; nineteen in twenty are reprobated. The elect shall be saved, do what they will; the reprobate will be damned, do what they can. Reader believe this or be damned. Witness my hand, A- T- (p. 170).

Tomkins states, “Now this fraud had proved [Wesley] a criminal worthy to be transported to America if not hanged” (p. 170). Wesley did not respond to Toplady, and this “was just as well, as it is hard to see what he could have said in his defence” (p. 171).

Tomkins quotes at length “a most extraordinary letter [from John Wesley] to Charles in 1766” in which “he bares his soul in the most bleak and moving way:”

In one of my last [letters] I was saying that I do not feel the wrath of God abiding on me; nor can I believe it does. And yet (this is the mystery), I do not love God. I never did. Therefore I never believed, in the Christian sense of the word. Therefore I am only an honest heathen … And yet, to be so employed of God! And so hedged in that I can neither get forward nor backward! Surely there was never such an instance before, from the beginning of the world! If I ever have had that faith, it would not be so strange. But I never had any other evidence of the eternal or invisible world than I have now; and that is none at all, unless such as faintly shines from reason’s glimmering ray. I have no direct witness (I do not say, that I am a child of God, but) of anything invisible or eternal.

And yet I dare not preach otherwise than I do, either concerning faith, or love, or justification, or perfection. And yet I find rather an increase than a decrease of zeal for the whole work of God and every part of it. I am borne along, I know not how, that I can’t stand still. I want all the world to come to what I do not know (p. 168; italics mine).

What are we to make of this bizarre letter of confession? Here, the apostle of free will, now in his sixties, confesses that he does not love God, believe or have the direct witness of divine sonship or even of things invisible or eternal; and that he never did. “I do not love God. I never did … I want all the world to come to what I do not know” (p. 168; italics mine). And can it be that Wesley never gained an interest in the Saviour’s blood?

Wesley’s heretical theology revealed itself very clearly in his (doctrinally significant) abridgement of the Thirty-Nine Articles for the American Methodists (1784). Tomkins notes,

He left out 15 of the Thirty-Nine Articles, extensively abridging the remainder. The missing articles included ‘Christ Alone Without Sin’ [15], which denied perfection, ‘Predestination and Election’ [17], for obvious reasons, and most notably ‘Works Before Justification’ [13], which, with its overstatement [sic] of the contrast before and after justification, was maybe too much like hard-line evangelicalism for Wesley’s mature tastes (p. 187).

A further comparison of the Thirty-Nine Articles with Wesley’s American Methodist Articles of Religion (1784)—both found in Philip Schaff’s The Creeds of Christendom (vol. 3)—reveals other striking omissions. Gone is the confession of the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed and the Athanasian Creed (8), probably because of the “overconfident damnations” of the last (p. 187). More than half of the article on original sin (9) is removed, for it speaks of the inevitable conflict between the flesh and the Spirit. Article 18, “Of obtaining eternal salvation only by the name of Christ,” is gone, as is the second half of article 19, “Of the church,” which states that Rome has not only erred in ceremonies “but also in matters of faith.” The articles on ordination (36) and against lay preaching and lay administering of the sacraments (23) were omitted for obvious reasons.

Key phrases are dropped, for example, the denial of “passions” to God (1) and the eternal generation of the Son, “begotten from everlasting of the Father” (2).

A defence could at least be made of some of the other omissions. Christ’s descent into hell is not clearly explained in article 3. The homilies (35, 11), the Erastianism of articles 21 (“General councils may not be gathered together without the commandment and will of princes”) and 37 (the monarch’s “chief government” of “ecclesiastical or civil” affairs), and the English provenance of articles 35, 36 and 37, would hardly fit with the new American situation.

But the doctrinally significant omissions are a sure mark of the apostasy of John Wesley. His heresies finally resulted in his “gutting” the creed; such is often the case.

Tomkins writes that Wesley “was a founding father of evangelicalism, but for his last 20 years, he consistently retreated from its stark certainties” (p. 196). This is where Wesley’s free will theology took him! Of course! Free will, itself, is the end of the certainties of the evangel, and Wesley’s followers today are still retreating—ever more consistently—from the gospel!