It is not for us to defend these views, but simply to record them, as the theological faith of the founder of Methodism, and that which the Methodist Church in all the world has professed to believe and teach.
VIII. The Resurrection of the Dead.
Mr. Wesley taught the doctrine of the general resurrection of the human body. "The plain notion of a resurrection," he says, "requires that the selfsame body that died should rise again. Nothing can be said to be raised again but that body that died. If God gives to our souls a new body, this cannot be called a resurrection of the body, because the word plainly implies the fresh production of what was before."[H]
While he holds that the same body is to be raised, it is not a natural, but a spiritual, body. "It is sown in this world a merely animal body—maintained by food, sleep, and air, like the body of brutes. But it is raised of a more refined contexture, needing none of these animal refreshments, and endued with qualities of a spiritual nature like the angels of God." "We must be entirely changed, for such flesh and blood as we are clothed with now cannot enter into that kingdom which is wholly spiritual."[I] He speaks of the place from which the dead rise as evidence of its being the same body that died (John v, 28). "The hour is coming when all that are in their graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth." "Now, if the same body do not rise again, what need is there of opening the graves at the end of the world?" The graves can give up no bodies but those which were laid in them. If we were not to rise with the very same bodies that died, then they might rest forever.
Mr. Wesley taught, in harmony with the Scriptures, the doctrine of
IX. General Judgment.
This, Mr. Wesley claimed, would take place at the second coming of Christ, at the end of the world, "when the Son of man shall come in his glory." "The dead of all nations will be gathered before him." This he calls "the day of the Lord, the space from the creation of men upon the earth to the end of all things;" "the days of the sons of men, the time that is now passing over us. When this is ended the day of the Lord begins." "The time when we are to give this account" is at the second advent, "when the great white throne comes down from heaven, and he who sitteth thereon, from whose face the heavens and earth shall flee away." It is "then the dead, small and great, stand before God, and the books will be opened." "Before all these the whole human race shall appear," etc.[F]
X. Eternal Reward and Punishment.