Welcome to part eight of John Wesley's journal, read to you by David Macareth. This section deals with the conversion of John Wesley. Wesley knows that he isn't a Christian. He's been struggling and striving to find the way of salvation. He has wrestled against the doctrine of justification by faith alone in Jesus Christ alone, because he would rather be saved by his own works. But little by little, The Holy Spirit is reeling him in and bringing him to that true understanding of salvation by faith alone in Jesus Christ alone. Friday the 19th of May 1738. My brother had a second return of his pleurisy. A few of us spent Saturday night in prayer. The next day, being Sunday, after hearing Dr Helen preach a truly Christian sermon on, they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and so said he, may all you be if it is not your own fault. Assisting him at the Holy Communion, his curate being taken ill in the church, I received the surprising news that my brother had found rest to his soul. His bodily strength returned also from that hour. Who is so great a God as our God? I preached at St John's, Wapping at three, and at St Bennett's, Paul's Wharf in the evening. At these churches, likewise, I am to preach no more. At St Antolin's I preached on the Thursday following. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I had continual sorrow and heaviness in my heart, something of which I described in the broken manner I was able in the following letter to a friend. But why is it that so great, so wise, so holy a God will use such an instrument as me? Lord, let the dead bury their dead, but wilt thou send the dead to raise the dead? Wesley is lamenting over the fact that he's preaching the gospel and people are finding the Lord Jesus Christ, but he himself is still fumbling in the dark. Yea, thou sendest them whom thou wilt send, and showest mercy by whom thou wilt show mercy. Amen. Be it then according to thy will. If thou speak the word, Judas shall cast out devils. All my works, my righteousness, my prayers need atonement for themselves, so that my mouth is stopped. I have nothing to plead. God is holy. I am unholy. God is a consuming fire. I am altogether a sinner, meet to be consumed. Yet I hear a voice, and is it not the voice of God, saying, Believe, and thou shalt be saved. He that believeth has passed from death unto life. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Oh, let no one deceive us by vain words, as if we had already attained this faith. That is the proper Christian faith. By its fruits we shall know. Do we already feel peace with God and joy in the Holy Ghost? Does his spirit bear witness with our spirit that we are the children of God? Alas, with mine he does not, nor, I fear, with yours. O thou Saviour of men, save us from trusting in anything but thee. Draw us after thee, let us be emptied of ourselves, and then fill us with all peace and joy in believing. And let nothing separate us from thy love, in time or in eternity. What occurred on Wednesday the 24th of May 1738, I think best to relate at large after premising what may make it the better understood. Let him that cannot receive it ask of the Father of Lights that he would give more light to him and me. So this is now Wesley detailing the thought process that he went through in order to become a Christian. He was a very thoughtful man, a very intelligent man, and there was much wrestling going on in his heart. And it's all leading up to his Aldersgate Street experience, which we'll read about here, an experience that has gone down in history, a remarkable experience of Wesley's conversion. But let's read. His account of this, one, I believe till I was about 10 years old, I had not sinned away that washing of the Holy Ghost. So he believed that, but it was clearly false theology that he had been taught as a child, which was given me in baptism, because nobody's saved through being baptized as an infant or baptism full stop. But he'd been brought up to believe that he was regenerate and by the Holy Ghost in baptism. That's not true, that's a Romish doctrine. I continue, having been strictly educated and carefully taught that I could only be saved by universal obedience, by keeping all the commandments of God, in the meaning of which I was diligently instructed. And those instructions, so far as they respected outward duties and sins, I gladly received and often thought of. But all that was said to me of inward obedience or holiness, I neither understood nor remembered. so that I was indeed as ignorant of the true meaning of the law as I was of the gospel of Christ. Two, the next six or seven years were spent at school, where outward restraints being removed, I was much more negligent than before, even of outward duties, and almost continually guilty of outward sins, which I knew to be such, though they were not scandalous in the eye of the world. However, I still read the scriptures and said my prayers morning and evening. And what I now hoped to be saved by was, one, not being so bad as other people, two, having still a kindness for religion, and three, reading the Bible, going to church and saying my prayers. Those things won't save us. It's only finding Jesus that saves us. Being removed to the university for five years, I still said my prayers, both in public and in private, and read with the scriptures several other books of religion, especially comments on the New Testament. Yet I had not all this while so much as a notion of inward holiness, nay, went on habitually and for the most part very contentedly in some or other known sin. indeed with some intermission and short struggles, especially before and after the Holy Communion, which I was obliged to receive thrice a year. I cannot well tell what I hope to be saved by now, when I was continually sinning against that little light I had, unless by those transient fits of what many divines taught me to call repentance. Verse four, when I was about 22, my father pressed me to enter into holy orders. At the same time, the providence of God directing me to campus, presumably that's Thomas a campus, Christ's pattern, I began to see that true religion was seated in the heart and that God's law extended to all our thoughts as well as words and actions. I was, however, very angry at Kempis for being too strict, though I read him only in Dean Stanhope's translation. Yet I had frequently much sensible comfort in reading hymns, such as I was an utter stranger to before. And meeting likewise with a religious friend, which I never had till now, I began to alter the whole form of my conversation and to set in earnest upon a new life. I set apart an hour or two a day for religious retirement. I communicated every week. I watched against all sin, whether in word or deed. I began to aim at and pray for inward holiness, so that now, doing so much and living so good a life, I doubted not that I was a good Christian." Because none of us are good Christians just by our lives, and we're never as good as we think we are. Our own righteousness is our filthy rags before Almighty God. We need the righteousness that is given to us through Jesus Christ in order to be saved. 5. Removing soon after to another college, I executed a resolution which I was before convinced was of the utmost importance, shaking off at once all my trifling acquaintance. I began to see more and more the value of time. I applied myself closer to study. I watched more carefully against actual sins. I advised others to be religious according to that scheme of religion by which I modelled my own life. but meeting now with Mr Law's Christian perfection and serious call. Although I was much offended at many parts of both, yet they convinced me more than ever of the exceeding height and breadth and depth of the law of God. The light flowed in so mightily upon my soul that everything appeared in a new view. I cried to God for help and resolved not to prolong the time of obeying him as I had never done before, and by my continued endeavour to keep his whole law inward and outward to the utmost of my power, I was persuaded that I should be accepted of him and that I was even then in a state of salvation." So Wesley was trusting his works and his religion to save him, but he wasn't saved. And that he had to learn. Verse six, in 1730, I began visiting the prisons, assisting the poor and sick in town and doing what other good I could by my presence or my little fortune to the bodies and souls of all men. To this end, I abridged myself of all superfluities and many that are called necessaries of life. I soon became a byword for so doing, and I rejoiced that my name was cast out as evil. The next spring I began observing the Wednesday and Friday fasts commonly observed in the ancient church, tasting no food till three in the afternoon, and now I knew not how to go any further. I diligently strove against all sin. I omitted no sort of self-denial which I thought lawful. I carefully used, both in public and in private, all the means of grace at all opportunities. I omitted no occasion of doing good. I, for that reason, suffered evil, and all this I knew to be nothing unless it was directed toward inward holiness. Accordingly this, the image of God was what I aimed at in all, by doing His will, not my own. Yet when after continuing some years in this course I apprehended myself to be near death, I could not find that all this gave me any comfort or any assurance of acceptance with God. At this I was then not a little surprised, not imagining I had been all this time building on the sand, nor considering that other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid by God, even Christ Jesus, 7. Soon after, a contemplative man convinced me still more than I was convinced before that outward works are nothing, being alone, and in several conversations instructed me how to pursue inward holiness or a union of the soul with God. But even of his instructions, though I then received them as the words of God, I cannot but now observe one that he spoke so incautiously against trusting in outward works that he discouraged me from doing them at all, to that he recommended, as it were, to supply what was wanting in them, mental prayer and the like exercises, as the most effectual means of purifying the soul and uniting it with God. Now these were in truth as much my own works as visiting the sick or clothing the naked. And the union with God thus pursued was really my own righteousness as any I had before pursued under another name. So Wesley had gone from outward works such as visiting the sick or visiting prisons, now to inward prayer and thought that he could be saved by inward prayer and seeking God through prayer. And that also he found was a work which could not save him. 8. In this refined way of trusting to my own works and my own righteousness, so zealously inculcated by the mystic writers, I dragged on heavily, finding no comfort or help therein till the time of my leaving England. On shipboard, however, I was again active in outward works, where it pleased God of His free mercy to give me twenty-six of the Moravian brethren for companions, who endeavoured to show me a more excellent way, but I understood it not at first. It was too learned and too wise, so that it seemed foolishness unto me, and I continue preaching and following after and trusting in that righteousness whereby no flesh can be justified. Wesley's meeting with the Moravians was an extraordinarily important event for him, and we have the account previously read of the storm in the Atlantic when the English passengers on board ship were going crazy with fear. The Moravians were as calm as anything and not afraid at all because of their evangelical faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Part nine. All the time I was at Savannah I was thus beating the air, being ignorant of the righteousness of Christ which by a living faith in him bringeth salvation to every one that believeth. I sought to establish my own righteousness and so laboured in the fire all my days. I was now properly under the law. I knew that the law of God was spiritual. I consented to it, that it was good. Yea, I delighted in it after the inner man, yet was I carnal, sold under sin. Every day I was constrained to cry out, what I do I allow not, for what I would I do not, but what I hate that I do. To will is indeed present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good which I would, I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do. I find a law that when I would do good, evil is present with me, even the law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and still bringing me into captivity to the law of sin. 10. In this vile, abject state of bondage to sin, I was indeed fighting continually, but not conquering. Before I had willingly served sin, now it was unwillingly, but still I served it. I fell and rose and fell again. Sometimes I was overcome and in heaviness, sometimes I overcame and was in joy. But as in the former state I had some foretastes of the terrors of the law, so had I in this of the comforts of the gospel, During this whole struggle between nature and grace, which had now continued above ten years, I had many remarkable returns to prayer, especially when I was in trouble. I had many sensible comforts, which are indeed no other than short anticipations of the life of faith. But I was still under the law, not under grace. Most who are called Christians are content to live and die in For I was only striving with, not freed from, sin. Neither had I the witness of the Spirit within my spirit, and indeed with my spirit, and indeed could not, for I sought it not by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law. 11. In my return to England, January 1738, being in imminent danger of death and very uneasy on that account, I was strongly convinced that the cause of that uneasiness was unbelief, and that gaining a true living faith was the one thing needful for me. But still I fixed not this faith on its right object. I meant only faith in God, not faith in or through Christ. Again, I knew not that I was wholly void of this faith, but only thought I had not enough of it. So that when Peter Bowler, whom God prepared for me as soon as I came to London, affirmed of true faith in Christ, which is but one, that it had those two fruits inseparably attending it, dominion over sin and constant peace from a sense of forgiveness, I was quite amazed and looked upon it as a new gospel. If this was so, it was clear I had not faith, but I was not willing to be convinced of this. Therefore, I disputed with all my might and laboured to prove that faith might be where these were not, especially where the sense of forgiveness was not. For all the scriptures relating to this, I had been a long since taught to construe away and to call all Presbyterians who spoke otherwise. all Presbyterians who spoke otherwise, so this was the objection of the church to justification by faith and Wesley's objection that he'd been trained and taught in to explain away those verses even though Peter Bowler was explaining it to him. Besides, I well saw no one could in the nature of things have such a sense of forgiveness and not feel it, but I felt it not. If then there was no faith without this, all my pretensions to faith dropped at once. 12. When I met Peter Bowler again, he consented to put the dispute upon the issue which I desired, namely scripture and experience. I first consulted the scripture, but when I set aside the glosses of men and simply considered the words of God, comparing them together, endeavouring to illustrate the obscure by the plainer passages, I found they all made against me and was forced to retreat to my last hold That experience would never agree with the literal interpretation of those scriptures. Nor could I therefore allow it to be true till I found some living witnesses of it. He replied he could show me such at any time if I desired it the next day. And accordingly, the next day he came again with three others, all of whom testified of their own personal experience, that a true living faith in Christ is inseparable from a sense of pardon for all past and freedom from all present sins. They added with one mouth that this faith was the free gift of God, and that he would surely bestow it upon every soul who earnestly and perseveringly sought it. I was now throughly convinced, and by the grace of God I resolved to seek it unto the end. One, by absolutely renouncing all dependence in whole or in part upon my own works or righteousness, on which I had really grounded my hope of salvation, though I knew it not from my youth up. Two, by adding to the constant use of all the other means of grace, continual prayer for this very thing, justifying, saving faith, a full reliance on the blood of Christ, shed for me a trust in him as my Christ, as my soul, justification, sanctification and redemption. 13. I continued thus to seek it, though with strange indifference, dullness and coldness, and unusually frequent relapses into sin. Till Wednesday, May the 24th, I think it was about five this morning, that I opened my testament on those words, there are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, even that ye should be partakers of the divine nature. 2 Peter 1 verse 4. Just as I went out, I opened it again on those words. Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. In the afternoon, I was asked to go to St. Paul's. The anthem was, out of the deep have I called unto thee, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice. O let thine ears consider well the voice of my complaint. If thou, Lord, wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss, O Lord, who may abide it? For there is mercy with thee, therefore shalt thou be feared. O Israel, trust in the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption. And he shall redeem Israel from all his sins. 14. In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street where one was reading Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation, and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death. This is the great account of God's working in Wesley's heart. He says, I felt my heart strangely warmed. And he came to that faith, trusting in Jesus Christ alone for the forgiveness of his sins. There's of course this wonderful connection here with Luther's preface to the epistle to the Romans that Luther himself discovered through teaching Romans chapter 1 that the just shall live by faith. So what great things God did in these two men, but here Wesley felt his heart strangely warmed and this has gone down in history. 15. I began to pray with all my might for those who had in a more special manner despitefully used me and persecuted me. I then testified openly to all there what I now first felt in my heart. But it was not long before the enemy suggested, this cannot be faithful, where is thy joy? Then was I taught that peace and victory over sin are essential to faith in the captain of our salvation. But that as to the transports of joy that usually attend the beginning of it, especially in those who have mourned deeply, God sometimes giveth, sometimes withholdeth them according to the counsels of his own will." So Wesley had believed his heart was warmed and he wasn't over abounding with joy at this moment in time and was wondering why that was. My own experience was similar to Wesley's, but it soon followed. 16. After my return home, I was much buffeted with temptations, but cried out and they fled away. They returned again and again. I as often lifted up my eyes and he sent me help from his holy place. And herein I found the difference between this and my former state chiefly consisted. I was striving, yea, fighting with all my might under the law as well as under grace. But then I was sometimes, if not often, conquered. Now I was always conqueror. 17, Thursday the 25th. The moment I awaked, Jesus, Master, was in my heart and in my mouth. And I found all my strength lay in keeping my eye fixed upon him, and my soul waiting on him continually. Being again at St. Paul's in the afternoon, I could taste the good word of God in the anthem which began, my song shall be always of the loving kindness of the Lord. With my mouth will I ever be showing forth thy truth from one generation to another. Yet the enemy injected a fear, if thou dost believe, where is there not more a sensible change? I answered, yet not I, that I know not, but this I know, I have now peace with God, and I sin not today, and Jesus my master has forbid me to take thought for the morrow. 18. But is not any sort of fear continued, the tempter, a proof that thou dost not believe? I desired my master to answer for me, and opened his book upon those words of St Paul. Without were fightings, within were fears. Then inferred I, well may fears be within me, but I must go on and tread them under my feet. So here we have Wesley now, a baby Christian, wrestling with temptation and the attacks of Satan, but growing in grace. And this is such a wonderful historical account of the conversion of John Wesley.