1790. (continued 2)

“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 is now past. And what I can do now, I cannot tell. The Methodists grow more and more self indulgent, because they grow rich. Although many of them are still deplorably poor (Tell it not in Gath; publish it not in the streets of Askelon!), yet many others, in the space of twenty, thirty, or forty years, are twenty, thirty, yea, a hundred times richer than they were when they first entered the society. And it is an observation which admits of few exceptions, that nine in ten of these decreased in grace, in the same proportion as they increased in wealth. Indeed, according to the natural tendency of riches, we cannot expect it to be otherwise.

“But how astonishing a thing is this! Does it not seem (and yet this cannot be!) that true scriptural Christianity has a tendency, in process of time, to undermine and destroy itself? For, wherever it spreads, it must cause diligence and frugality, which, in the natural course of things, beget riches. And riches naturally beget pride, love of the world, and every temper that is destructive to Christianity. Now, if there be no way to prevent this, Christianity is inconsistent with itself, and, of consequence, cannot stand, cannot long continue among any people; since, wherever it generally prevails, it saps its own foundation.

“But, allowing that diligence and frugality must produce riches, is there no means to hinder riches destroying the religion of those that possess them? I can see only one possible way; find out another who can. Do you gain all you can, and save all you can? Then you must, in the nature of things, grow rich. Then if you have any desire to escape the damnation of hell, give all you can; otherwise I can have no more hope of your salvation, than for that of Judas Iscariot.

“I call God to record upon my soul, that I advise no more than I practise. I do, blessed be God, gain, and save, and give all I can. And so, I trust in God, I shall do, while the breath of God is in my nostrils. But what then? I count all things but loss, for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus, my Lord! Still

To the same effect is Wesley’s searching and terrible sermon, on the Rich Fool, written at Balham, February 19, 1790; and another written at Bristol, September 21, 1790, on the text, “If riches increase, set not thine heart upon them.” In the latter sermon, he writes:

“By whatsoever means thy riches increase, whether with or without labour; whether by trade, legacies, or any other way, unless thy charities increase in the same proportion,—unless thou givest a full tenth of thy substance, of thy fixed and occasional income, thou dost undoubtedly set thy heart upon thy gold, and it will eat thy flesh as fire.

“But O! who can convince a rich man, that he sets his heart upon riches? For considerably above half a century, I have spoken on this head, with all the plainness that was in my power. But with how little effect? I doubt whether I have, in all that time, convinced fifty misers of covetousness.

“I have a message from God unto thee, O rich man, whether thou wilt hear, or whether thou wilt forbear. Riches have increased with thee; at the peril of thy soul, set not thine heart upon them. Be thankful to Him that gave thee such a talent, so much power of doing good. Yet dare not to rejoice over them, but with fear and trembling.

“Let us descend to particulars; and see that each of you deal faithfully with his own soul. If any of you have now twice, thrice, or four times as much substance as when you first saw my face, faithfully examine yourselves, and see if you do not set your hearts, if not directly on riches themselves, yet, on some of the things that are purchaseable thereby, which comes to the same thing. Do you not eat more plentifully or more delicately than you did ten or twenty years ago? Do not you use more drink, or drink of a more costly kind, than you did then? Do you sleep on as hard a bed as you did once, suppose your health will bear it? Do you fast as often now you are rich, as you did when you were poor? Ought you not in all reason to do this, rather more often than more seldom? I am afraid, your own heart condemns you. You are not clear in this matter.

“Do not some of you seek no small part of happiness in that trifle of trifles, dress? Do not you bestow more money, or, which is the same, more time and pains upon it, than you did once? I doubt this is not done to please God. Then it pleases the devil. If you laid aside your needless ornaments, some years since, ruffles, necklaces, spider caps, ugly, unbecoming bonnets, costly linen, expensive laces, have you not, in defiance of religion and reason, taken to them again?

“After having served you between sixty and seventy years, with dim eyes, shaking hands, and tottering feet, I give you one more advice before I sink into the dust. Mark those words of St. Paul, Those that desire, or endeavour, to be rich, that moment, fall into temptation; yea, a deep gulf of temptation, out of which nothing less than Almighty power can deliver them. Permit me to come a little closer still: perhaps I may not trouble you any more on this head. I am pained for you that are rich in this world. Do you give all you can? You who receive £500 a year, and spend only £200, do you give £300 back to God? If not, you certainly rob God of that £300. ‘Nay, may I not do what I will with my own?’ Here lies the ground of your mistake. It is not your own. It cannot be, unless you are Lord of heaven and earth. ‘However, I must provide for my children.’ Certainly. But how? By making them rich? When you will probably make them heathens, as some of you have done already. Leave them enough to live on, not in idleness and luxury, but by honest industry. And if you have not children, upon what scriptural or rational principle can you leave a groat behind you, more than will bury you? I pray consider: What are you the better for what you leave behind you? What does it signify, whether you leave behind you ten thousand pounds, or ten thousand shoes and boots? Oh, leave nothing behind you! Send all you have before you into a better world! Lend it, lend it all unto the Lord, and it shall be paid you again! Is there any danger that His truth should fail? It is fixed as the pillars of heaven. Haste, haste, my brethren, haste! lest you be called away, before you have settled what you have, on this security!”⁠[767]

To say the least, this was plain speaking, such as is seldom heard at present; the following, in the sermon on Matthew vi. 22, 23, written at Bristol, September 25, 1789, is terrific.

“How great is the darkness of that execrable wretch (I can give him no better title, be he rich or poor), who will sell his own child to the devil! who will barter her own eternal happiness, for any quantity of gold or silver! What a monster would any man be accounted, who devoured the flesh of his own offspring! And is he not as great a monster, who, by his own act and deed, gives her to be devoured by that roaring lion? As he certainly does (so far as is in his power), who marries her to an ungodly man. ‘But he is rich; he has £10,000!’ What if it were £100,000? The more the worse; the less probability will she have of escaping the damnation of hell. With what face wilt thou look upon her, when she tells thee in the realms below, ‘Thou hast plunged me into this place of torment! Hadst thou given me to a good man, however poor, I might now have been in Abraham’s bosom!’

“Are any of you, that are called Methodists, seeking to marry your children well (as the cant phrase is), that is, to sell them to some purchaser, that has much money, but little or no religion? Have ye profited no more by all ye have heard? Man, woman, think what you are about. Dare you also sell your child to the devil? You undoubtedly do this (as far as in you lies), when you marry a son or a daughter to a child of the devil, though it be one that wallows in gold and silver. O take warning in time! Beware of the gilded bait! Death and hell are hid beneath. Prefer grace before gold and precious stones; glory in heaven, to riches on earth! If you do not, you are worse than the very Canaanites. They only made their children pass through the fire to Moloch. You make yours pass into the fire that never shall be quenched, and to stay in it for ever. O how great is the darkness that causes you, after you have done this, to wipe your mouth and say, you have done no evil!

“Upwards of fifty years, I have ministered unto you. I have been your servant for Christ’s sake. During this time, I have given you many solemn warnings on this head. I now give you one more, perhaps the last. Dare any of you, in choosing your calling or situation, eye the things on earth, rather than the things above? In choosing a profession or a companion of life for your child, do you look at earth or heaven? And can you deliberately prefer, either for yourself or your offspring, a child of the devil with money, to a child of God without it? Repent, repent of your vile earthly mindedness! Renounce the title of Christians; or prefer, both in your own case and the case of your children, grace to money, and heaven to earth. For the time to come, at least, let your eye be single, that your whole body may be full of light!”

These were Wesley’s last words to the Methodists. The extracts are long; but, in this money making, mammon worshipping, intensely worldly age, they may be useful.

The other sermons, published in the last year of Wesley’s life, and in the year subsequent to his death, are well worthy of the reader’s notice. That on “Knowing Christ after the flesh” is perhaps the only one, in the English language, on such a subject. That on the text, “There is one God,” is characteristically thoughtful, keen, logical, and evangelical. That on “Walking by Faith,” terse, vigorous, earnest, practical, and terribly faithful. That on “The Wedding Garment,” an excellent exposition of an often ill used text. That on “The Deceitfulness of the Human Heart” is one which none but a man like Wesley could have preached. That on “Atheism,” ingenious, searching, and powerful. That on “The Treasure in Earthen Vessels,” simple and beautiful. While that on “Life like a Dream” was being printed on the very day when Wesley’s corpse lay in the chapel in City Road; and that on “Faith, the evidence of things not seen,” was the last he ever wrote, and was finished only six weeks previous to his death.

Both the last mentioned deserve quoting. They are the profoundly interesting musings of an old man, conscious that he must soon enter the spiritual and unseen world. Imagining a disembodied soul before him, he thus soliloquises.

“Now that your eyes are open, see how inexpressibly different are all the things that are now around you! What a difference do you perceive in yourself! Where is your body? Your house of clay? Where are your limbs? your hands, your feet, your head? There they lie; cold, insensible! What a change is in the immortal spirit! You see everything around you: but how? Not with eyes of flesh and blood! You hear; but not by a stream of undulating air, striking on an extended membrane. You feel; but in how wonderful a manner! You have no nerves to convey the ethereal fire to the common sensory; rather are you not now all eye, all ear, all feeling, all perception?”

Again, in his last, the sermon on faith:

“How will this material universe appear to a disembodied spirit? Who can tell whether any of these objects, that now surround us, will appear the same as they do now? What astonishing scenes will then discover themselves to our newly opening senses! Probably fields of ether, not only tenfold, but ten thousand fold, ‘the length of this terrene.’ And with what variety of furniture, animate and inanimate! How many orders of beings, not discovered by organs of flesh and blood! Perhaps ‘thrones, dominions, principalities, and, powers!’ And shall we not then, as far as angels’ ken, survey the bounds of creation, and see every place where the Almighty

Yea, shall we not be able to move, quick as thought, through the wide realms of uncreated night? Above all, the moment we step into eternity, shall we not feel ourselves swallowed up of Him, who is in this and every place, who filleth heaven and earth? It is only the veil of flesh and blood which now hinders us from perceiving, that the great Creator cannot but fill the whole immensity of space; He is every moment above us, beneath us, and on every side. Indeed, in this dark abode, this land of shadows, this region of sin and death, the thick cloud, which is interposed between, conceals Him from our sight. But then the veil will disappear, and He will appear in unclouded majesty, God over all, blessed for ever!”

The blessed old man already had glimpses of the shining ones, and of the gates of that celestial city, into which, six weeks after these words were written, he triumphantly entered.

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