Conclusion

Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned. 1 TIMOTHY 1:5

We began with a sentence: the grace that pardons is the grace that heals. It is worth looking back to see how far that one conviction has carried us.

Wesley looked at human nature and saw a disease: pride, self-will, love of the world, a heart turned away from God. He looked at the gospel and saw a cure. God goes before us with grace, stirring conscience and good desires before we ever seek Him. He justifies the ungodly freely, for Christ’s sake, the moment they believe. In the same moment He gives them a new birth and, by His Spirit, witnesses to them that they are His children. And then He goes on working, through prayer and Scripture and the Lord’s Supper, through fellowship and works of mercy, until love for Him and for our neighbour fills the heart and rules the life.

Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. PHILIPPIANS 1:6

What he gives us

Wesley gives the church at least four gifts that it keeps needing to receive again.

The first is the refusal to separate faith and holiness. Some Christians preach faith and forget that it must change us. Others preach holiness and forget that it comes by grace. Wesley held both with equal force. We are saved by faith alone, and the faith that saves is never alone; it works by love.

The second is assurance. Wesley knew what it was to be a disciplined, sincere, orthodox Christian without the knowledge that God loved him. He wanted no one else to live that way. The witness of the Spirit, guarded by Scripture and tested by its fruits, is one of the great comforts of the Christian life, and he taught the church to expect it.

The third is a high expectation of grace. Whatever we make of his more detailed claims about perfection, Wesley believed that God could do far more in a human heart than most Christians dare to hope. He would not accept that the Christian life is only forgiveness and struggle. He preached perfect love as the goal, and he sent people after it with all their hearts.

The fourth is a Christianity that goes outward. He took the gospel to the fields and the mining villages, gathered the converts into small groups where they watched over one another, taught them to gain, save and give, sent them to visit the sick and the prisoner, and at the last lifted his voice against the slave trade. For Wesley, love that stayed inside a meeting room was not love at all.

Let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth. 1 JOHN 3:18

What to leave behind

This book has tried to be honest about the places where Wesley must be read with care. His language about perfection sometimes ran ahead of his own careful qualifications, and those who followed him did not always keep the qualifications. His controversy with the Calvinists was conducted with more heat than fairness, even though his friendship with Whitefield survived it. His leadership of the movement was often autocratic. His marriage was unhappy, and he bears part of the blame. He was a man of his time on many questions, and some of his words about other peoples are painful to read.

The best of all

Near the end of his life, those at his bedside remembered him saying, more than once, that the best of all is that God is with us. It is a fitting summary. For all his energy, all his organisation, all his miles and sermons and societies, Wesley’s message was not finally about what we do. It was about what God does: that He comes to us, forgives us, lives in us and loves through us. The Christian life begins with grace and goes on by grace, and its end is love.

Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. 1 JOHN 4:7

The best way to honour Wesley is not to admire him but to go where he pointed. Go to Christ in faith. Use the means He has given. Find companions who will watch over your soul. Visit the sick and give to the poor. And expect God to fill your heart with His love, as you are, and now.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Look back over the chapters of this book. Which one teaching of Wesley’s has most searched or helped you?

2. Ask whether you have separated faith and holiness in your own life, and in which direction you lean.

3. Choose one practical step from these pages — a small group, a visit, a change in giving — and take it this month.

4. Name one caution from this book that you need to keep in mind as you read Wesley for yourself.

5. Decide which of his sermons you will read next, and when.

A PRAYER

Gracious God, You went before me with Your grace, You pardoned me for Christ’s sake, and You have begun to make me new. Finish the work You have begun.

Thank You for Your servant John Wesley, for all that was faithful in his teaching and his life, and forgive what was not.

Give me faith that works by love, companions who will help me on the way, and a heart that goes out to the poor and the lost.

Fill me with Your love until it rules my tempers, my words and my actions. And let me know, all my days, that the best of all is that You are with us. Amen.