In 1770 Wesley's Conference met, and after a long and earnest discussion of the subject came to the decision that they had "leaned too much toward Calvinism." When the Minutes of this Conference were made public they created great excitement, for it was a blow at the prevailing belief of the times. Three classes rushed to the defense of what they regarded as truth: 1. The Calvinistic Methodists, who had been associated with Wesley, and regarded him as their leader. 2. The Church party, strong and influential. 3. The Dissenters; these were nearly all Calvinists. Between these parties there had been formerly no special sympathy, but they united to antagonize Wesley.
Against all these Wesley stood, as he says, "Athanasius contra mundum" ("Athanasius against the world"). With him was associated Rev. John Fletcher, the saintly vicar of Madeley. As a controversialist he was peerless, and as a saintly character modern times have not produced his superior.
The conflict was long and bitter. It was conducted on the one side by Rev. and Hon. Walter Shirley, Hon. Richard Hill, his brother, the famous Rowland Hill, Rev. Mr. Beveridge, and Rev. Augustus Toplady; and on the other side by Mr. Wesley, but mainly by Mr. Fletcher. It was admitted by all fair-minded men that the Damascus blade of the hero of Madeley won in the conflict and was master of the situation. Fletcher's Checks to Antinomianism was the result. These have stood for more than a hundred years a bulwark against the baneful errors which they seek to overthrow. These plumed warriors have long since adjusted their dogmatic differences, for harmony is the law of that world in which they live.
We shall proceed to give a brief statement of the fundamental doctrines held and advocated by Mr. Wesley, omitting any merely speculative opinions regarded by him as nonessential:
I. The Deity of Christ.
While Mr. Wesley had charity for doubters, he held with great firmness the supreme divinity and Godhead of Christ. "The Word existed," he says, "without any beginning. He was when all things began to be, whatever had a beginning. He was the Word which the Father begat or spoke from eternity." "The Word was with God, therefore distinct from God the Father. The word rendered with denotes a perpetual tendency, as it were, of the Son to the Father in unity of essence. He was with God alone, because nothing beside God had then any being. And the Word was God—supreme, eternal, independent. There was no creature in respect of which he could be styled God in a relative sense. Therefore he is styled so in the absolute sense."[K]
II. The Fall and Corruption of Man.
In regard to the fall and consequent corruption of human nature, Mr. Wesley accepted the faith of the Church of England, which is as follows: "Original, or birth, sin standeth not in the following of Adam (as the Pelagians do vainly talk), but it is the corruption of the nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam, whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and of his own nature is inclined to evil, and that continually." He taught that sin was both original and actual, sin of the heart and sin of the life, or outward sin and inward sin.
Of actual, or outward, sin he says: "Nothing is sin, strictly speaking, but a voluntary transgression of a known law of God. Therefore, every voluntary breach of the law of love is sin, and nothing else, if we speak properly." Speaking of a believer being freed from the actual commission of sin, he says: "I understand his of 'inward sin,' any sinful temper, passion, or affection, such as pride, self-will, love of the world." Mr. Wesley's views on this subject cannot be harmonized, except we admit his definition of sin—sin as an outward act, expressed by the voluntary commission of sin; and sin as a state or condition of the heart, expressed by the text, "All unrighteousness is sin."