[733] See also Wesley's Works, vol. xii. p. 446, &c.
[734] For this reason, among others, not much has been said in this sketch about Wesley's opinions, because they were different at different stages of his life. Moreover, though Wesley was an able man and a well-read man, and could write in admirably lucid and racy language, he can by no means be ranked among theologians of the first order. He could never, for instance, have met Dr. Clarke, as Waterland did; or, to compare him with one who was brought into contact with him, he could never have written the Serious Call, nor have answered Tindal, as Law did.
[735] 'I retract several expressions in our hymns which imply impossibility; of falling from perfection; I do not contend for the term "sinless," though I do not object against it.' And in a sermon on the text, 'In many things we offend all,' 'We are all liable to be mistaken, both in speculation and practice,' &c. 'Christian perfection certainly does admit of degrees,' &c.
[736] But, as a staunch Churchman, he agreed with the Baptismal Service. In his Treatise on Baptism he writes, 'Regeneration, which our Church in so many places ascribes to baptism, is more than barely being admitted into the Church. By water we are regenerated or born again; a principle of grace is infused which will not be wholly taken away unless we quench the Spirit of God by long-continued wickedness.' The same sentiments are expressed in his sermon on the 'New Birth.'
[737] See inter alia, T. Somerville's My Own Life and Times (1741-1841). 'He [J. Wesley] had attended, he told me, some of the most interesting debates at the General Assembly, which he liked "very ill indeed," saying there was too much heat,' &c., pp. 253-4.
[738] See Tyerman, iii. 278.
[739] Southey, i. 301, &c.
[740] So said Charles (see Jackson's Life of C. Wesley). John, however, gave a different account. 'My brother,' he said to John Pawson, 'suspects everybody, and he is continually imposed upon; but I suspect nobody, and I am never imposed upon.'
[741] 'I seldom,' he wrote to Fletcher in 1768, 'find it profitable for me to converse with any who are not athirst for perfection and big with the earnest expectation of receiving it every moment.'—Tyerman, iii. 4.
[742] 'With my latest breath will I bear testimony against giving up to infidels one great proof of the unseen world; I mean that of witchcraft and apparitions, confirmed by the testimony of all ages.'—Id. 11. See also T. Somerville's My own Life and Times, p. 254. 'On my asking him if he had seen Farmer's Essays on Demoniacs, then recently published, I recollect his answer was, "Nay, sir, I shall never open that book. Why should a man attend to arguments against possessions of the Devil, who has seen so many of them as I have?"'