and devilish, a motley mixture of beast and devil. Thus, by the grace of God in Christ, I judge of myself. Therefore I am in this respect a new creature. "Again, his judgement concerning happiness is new. He would as soon expect to dig it out of the earth, as to find it in riches, honour, pleasure (so called), or indeed in the enjoyment of any creature. He knows there can be no happiness on earth, but in the enjoyment of God, and in the foretaste of those rivers of pleasure which flow at his right hand for evermore. Thus by the grace of God in Christ I judge of happiness. Therefore I am in this respect a new creature. "Yet again, his judgement concerning holiness is new. He no longer judges it to be an outward thing; to consist either in doing no harm, in doing good, or in using the ordinances of God. He sees it is the life of God in the soul; the image of God fresh stamped on the heart; an entire renewal of the mind in every temper and thought, after the likeness of Him that created it. Thus, by the grace of God in Christ, I judge of holiness. Therefore I am in this respect a new creature. It is the de Secondly, his designs are new. sign of his life, not to heap up treasures upon earth, not to gain the praise of men, not to indulge the desires of the flesh, the desire of the eye, or the pride of life: but to regain the image of God, to have the life of God again planted in his soul, and to be renewed after his likeness in righteousness and all true holiness. This, by the grace of God in Christ, is the design of my life. Therefore Thirdly, his desires are new, and indeed the whole train of his passions and inclinations; they are no longer fixed on earthly things; they are now set on the things of Heaven. His love and joy and hope, his sorrow and fear have all respect to things above: they all point heavenward. Where his treasure is, there is his heart also.— I dare not say I am a new creature in this respect, for other desires often arise in my heart: but they do not reign, I put them all under my feet through Christ which strengtheneth me; therefore, I believe that He is creating me anew in this also, and that He has begun, though not finished his work. Fourthly, his conversation is new. It is always seasoned with salt, and fit to minister grace to the hearers. So is mine, by the grace of God in Christ; therefore, I am in this respect a new creature. "Fifthly, his actions are new. The tenor of his life singly points at the glory of God; all his substance and time are devoted thereto : whether he eats or drinks, or whatever he does, it either springs from, or leads to the love of God and man. Such, by the grace of God in Christ, is the tenor of my life; therefore, in this respect, I am a new creature. "But St. Paul tells us elsewhere, that the fruit of the Spirit is love, peace, joy, long-suffering, gentleness, meekness, temperance. Now although, by the grace of God in Christ, I find a measure of some of these in myself, viz. of peace, long-suffer ing, gentleness, meekness, temperance; yet others I find not: I cannot find in myself the love of God or of Christ; hence, my deadness and wanderings in public prayer; hence it is that even in the holy communion, I have rarely any more than a cold attention; hence, when I hear of the highest instance of God's love, my heart is still senseless and unaffected; yea, at this moment I feel no more love to Him than to one I had never heard of. Again, I have not that joy in the Holy Ghost, no settled, lasting joy; nor have I such a peace as excludes the possibility either of fear or doubt. When holy men have told me I had no faith, I have often doubted whether I had or no; and those doubts have made me very uneasy, till I was relieved by prayer and the Holy Scriptures. Yet upon the whole, although I have not yet that joy in the Holy Ghost, nor that love of God shed abroad in my heart, nor the full assurance of faith, nor the (proper) witness of the Spirit with my spirit that I am a child of God, much less am I, in the full and proper sense of the words, in Christ a new creature; I nevertheless trust that I have a measure of faith, and am accepted in the Beloved: I trust the hand-writing that was against me is blotted out, and that I am reconciled to God through his Son." This representation of his own state is evidently faithful; his Moravian friends did not, however, judge of it so favourably. Delamotte whose less active and less ambitious spirit rested contentedly after he had joined the brethren, said to him, "You are better than you was at Savannah. You know that you was then quite wrong; but you are not right yet. You know that you was then blind; but you do not see now. I doubt not but God will bring you to the right foundation; but I have no hope for you while you are on the present foundation, it is as different from the true, as the right hand from the left. You have all to begin anew. I have observed all your words and actions, and I see you are of the same spirit still: you have a simplicity, but it is a simplicity of your own; it is not the simplicity of Christ. You think you do not trust in your own works; but you do trust in your own works. You do not believe in Christ. You have a present freedom from sin; but it is only a temporary suspension of it, not a deliverance from it; and you have a peace, but it is not a true peace: if death were to approach, you would find all your fears return; but I am forbid to say any more; my heart sinks in me like a stone." This censure lost nothing of its oracular solemnity by the manner in which it was concluded. Wesley was troubled by it, and had recourse to bibliomancy, which was then his favourite practice for comfort. He begged of God, he says, an answer of peace, and opened on these words: " As many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy upon the Israel of God." A second trial gave him for a text My hour is not yet come. The opinion of ordinary men he despised: he triumphed over obloquy, and he was impenetrable to all reasoning which opposed his favourite tenets, or censured any part of his conduct; but when one who entered into his feelings with kindred feeling, and agreed with him entirely in opinion, assumed towards him the language of reproof and commiseration, then he was disturbed, and those doubts came upon him again, which might have led him to distrust his enthusiastic doctrine of assurance. This disquietude which chance texts of Scripture might as easily have aggravated as allayed, was removed by the stimulants of action and opposition, and more especially by sympathy and success; for though he might easily err concerning the cause of the effects which he produced, it was impossible to doubt their reality, and in many cases their utility was as evident as their existence. During his absence in Germany, Charles had prayed with some condemned* criminals in Newgate, and accompanied them, with two other clergymen, to Tyburn. In consequence of this, another party of poor creatures in the same dreadful situation implored the same assistance, and the two brothers wrought them into a state of mind not less happy than that of Socrates when he drank the hemlock. "It was the most glorious instance," says Wesley, "I ever saw, of faith triumphing over sin and The Ordinary, on these occasions, made but a sorry figure. "He would read prayers," Charles Wesley says, "and he preached most miserably." When this poor man, who seems willing enough to have done his duty if he had known how, would have got upon the cart with: the prisoners at the place of execution, they begged that he would not, and the mob kept him down. What kind of machine a Newgate Ordinary was in those days, may be seen in Fielding: the one who edifies Jonathan Wild with a sermon before the punch comes in, seems to have been drawn from the life. |