SERMONS

ON

SEVERAL OCCASIONS.

To the READER.

1. I HAVE had a desire for several years, if God should spare me a little longer, to print in one collection, all that I had before published in separate tracts. (I mean all the PROSE, except the Notes on the Bible, the System of Philosophy, the Christian Library, and the Books which were designed for the use of Kingswood School.) These I wanted to see printed together; but on a better paper, and with a little larger print than before.

2. I wanted to methodize these tracts, to range them under proper heads, placing those together which were on similar subjects, and in such order, that one might illustrate another. This it is easy to see may be of use to the serious reader, who will then readily observe, that there is scarce any subject of importance, either in practical or controversial divinity, which is not treated of more or less, either professedly or occasionally.

3. But a far more necessary work than that of methodizing was the correcting them. The correcting barely the errors of the press, is of much more consequence than I had conceived, till I began to read them over with much more attention than I had done before. These in many places were such as not only obscured, but wholly destroyed the sense; and frequently to such a degree, that it would have been impossible for any but me to restore it, neither could I do it myself in several places, without long consideration; the word inserted having little or no resemblance to that which I had used.

4. But as necessary as these corrections were, there were others of a different kind, which were more necessary still. In revising what I had wrote on so many various subjects and occasions, and for so long a course of years, I found cause for not only rational or verbal corrections, but frequently for correcting the sense also. I am the more concerned to do this, because none but myself has a right to do it. Accordingly I have altered many words or sentences; many others I have omitted, and in various parts I have added more or less as I judged the subject required: So that in this edition, I present to serious and candid men, my last and maturest thoughts: agreeable, I hope, to Scripture, Reason, and Christian Antiquity.

5. It may be needful to mention one thing more, because it is a little out of the common way. In the extract from Milton’s Paradise Lost, and in that from Dr. Young’s Night Thoughts, I placed a mark before those passages, which I judged were most worthy of the reader’s notice; the same thing I have taken the liberty to do, throughout the ensuing volumes: Many will be glad of such an help; tho’ still, every man has a right to judge for himself, particularly in matters of religion, because every man must give an account of himself to God.

JOHN WESLEY.

MARCH 1771.

THE
PREFACE.

THE following Sermons contain the substance of what I have been preaching, for between eight and nine years last past. During that time I have frequently spoken in public, on every subject in the ensuing collection: and I am not conscious, that there is any one point of doctrine, on which I am accustomed to speak in public, which is not here, incidentally, if not professedly, laid before every Christian reader. Every serious man, who peruses these, will therefore see in the clearest manner, what these doctrines are, which I embrace and teach, as the essentials of true religion.

2. But I am throughly sensible, these are not proposed, in such a manner as some may expect. Nothing here appears in an elaborate, elegant or oratorical dress. If it had been my desire or design to write thus, my leisure would not permit. But in truth I at present designed nothing less; for I now write (as I generally speak) ad populum: to the bulk of mankind, to those who neither relish nor understand the art of speaking; but who notwithstanding are competent judges of those truths, which are necessary to present and future happiness. I mention this, that curious readers may spare themselves the labour, of seeking for what they will not find.

3. I design plain truth for plain people. Therefore of set purpose I abstain from all nice and philosophical speculations, from all perplext and intricate reasonings; and as far as possible, from even the shew of learning, unless in sometimes citing the original scripture. I labour to avoid all words which are not easy to be understood, all which are not used in common life: and in particular, those kind of technical terms, that so frequently occur in bodies of divinity, those modes of speaking which men of reading are intimately acquainted with, but which to common people are an unknown tongue. Yet I am not assured, that I do not sometimes slide into them unawares: it is so extremely natural to imagine, that a word which is familiar to ourselves, is so to all the world.

4. Nay, my design is, in some sense to forget all that ever I have read in my life. I mean to speak, in the general, as if I had never read one author, antient or modern (always excepting the inspired.) I am persuaded, that on the one hand, this may be a means of enabling me more clearly to express the sentiments of my heart, while I simply follow the chain of my own thoughts, without intangling myself with those of other men: and that, on the other, I shall come with fewer weights upon my mind, with less of prejudice and prepossession, either to search for myself, or to deliver to others, the naked truths of the gospel.

5. To candid, reasonable men, I am not afraid to lay open what have been the inmost thoughts of my heart. I have thought, * “I am a creature of a day, passing thro’ life, as an arrow thro’ the air. I am a spirit, come from God, and returning to God: just hovering over the great gulph; till a few moments hence, I am no more seen; I drop into an unchangeable eternity! I want to know one thing, the way to heaven: how to land safe on that happy shore. God himself has condescended to teach the way; for this very end he came from heaven. He hath written it down in a book. O give me that book! At any price, give me the book of God! I have it: here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be Homo unius libri. Here then I am, far from the busy ways of men. I sit down alone: only God is here. In his presence I open, I read his book; for this end, to find the way to heaven. Is there a doubt concerning the meaning of what I read? Does any thing appear dark or intricate? I lift up my heart to the Father of lights. “Lord, is it not thy word, If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God? Thou givest liberally and upbraidest not. Thou hast said, If any be willing to do thy will, he shall know. I am willing to do. Let me know thy will.” I  then search after and consider parallel passages of scripture, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. I meditate thereon, with all the attention and earnestness of which my mind is capable. If any doubt still remains, I consult those who are experienced in the things of God: and then, the writings whereby being dead, they yet speak. And what I thus learn, that I teach.

6. I have accordingly set down in the following Sermons, what I find in the Bible concerning the way to heaven; with a view to distinguish this way of God, from all those which are the inventions of men. I have endeavoured to describe the true, the scriptural, experimental religion, so as to omit nothing which is a real part thereof, and to add nothing thereto which is not. And herein it is more especially my desire, first, to guard those who are just setting their faces toward heaven, (and who having little acquaintance with the things of God, are the more liable to be turned out of the way) from formality, from mere outside religion, which has almost driven heart-religion out of the world: and secondly, to warn those who know the religion of the heart, the faith which worketh by love, lest at any time they make void the law thro’ faith, and so fall back into the snare of the devil.

7. By the advice and at the request of some of my friends, I have prefixt to the other sermons contained in this volume, three sermons of my own and one of my Brother’s, preached before the University of Oxford. My design required some discourses on those heads. And I preferred these before any others, as being a stronger answer than any which can be drawn up now, to those who have frequently asserted, “That we have changed our doctrine of late, and do not preach now, what we did some years ago.” Any man of understanding may now judge for himself, when he has compared the latter with the former sermons.

8. But some may say, I have mistaken the way myself, altho’ I take upon me to teach it to others. It is probable, many will think this, and it is very possible, that I have. But I trust, whereinsoever I have mistaken, my mind is open to conviction. I sincerely desire to be better informed. I say to God and man, “What I know not, teach thou me!”

9. * Are you persuaded, you see more clearly than me? It is not unlikely that you may. Then, treat me, as you would desire to be treated yourself upon a change of circumstances. Point me out a better way than I have yet known. Shew me it is so, by plain proof of scripture. And if I linger in the path I have been accustomed to tread, and am therefore unwilling to leave, labour with me a little, take me by the hand, and lead me as I am able to bear. But be not displeased if I intreat you, not to beat me down, in order to quicken my pace: I can go but feebly and slowly at best; then, I should not be able to go at all. May I not request of you further, not to give me hard names, in order to bring me into the right way? Suppose I was ever so much in the wrong, I doubt this would not set me right. Rather, it would make me run so much the farther from you, and so get more and more out of the way.

10. * Nay, perhaps, if you are angry, so shall I be too; and then there will be small hopes of finding the truth. If once anger arise, ἠΰτε καπνός (as Homer somewhere expresses it) this smoke will so dim the eyes of my soul, that I shall be able to see nothing clearly. For God’s sake, if it be possible to avoid it, let us not provoke one another to wrath. Let us not kindle in each other this fire of hell; much less, blow it up into a flame. If we could discern truth by that dreadful light, would it not be loss rather than gain? For how far is love, even with many wrong opinions, to be preferred before truth itself without love? We may die without the knowledge of many truths, and yet be carried into Abraham’s bosom. But if we die without love, what will knowledge avail? Just as much as it avails the devil and his angels!

The God of love forbid we should ever make the trial! May he prepare us for the knowledge of all truth, by filling our hearts with all his love, and with all joy and peace in believing.