Some Wonderful John
Wesley Quotes
Compiled for my class on
The points we chiefly insisted upon were . . .that orthodoxy, or
right opinions, is, at best, but a very slender part of religion, if it can be allowed to
be any part of it at all; that neither does
religion consist in negatives, in bare harmlessness of any kind; nor merely in externals, in doing good, or using
the means of grace, in works of piety (so called) or of charity; that it is nothing short of, or different from,
“the mind that was in Christ;” the
image of God stamped upon the heart; inward
righteousness, attended with the peace of God; and
“joy in the Holy Ghost.”
A Plain Account of the People Called Methodists (VIII, p. 252)
By salvation I mean, not barely, according to the vulgar notion,
deliverance from hell, or going to heaven; but a present deliverance from sin, a
restoration of the soul to its primitive health, its original purity; a recovery of the
divine nature; the renewal of our souls after the image of God, in righteousness and true
holiness, in justice, mercy, and truth.
(Works VIII, p. 47)
Without faith we cannot be thus saved; for we cannot rightly serve God unless we love him. And we cannot love him unless we know him; neither can we know God unless by faith. Therefore, salvation by faith is only, in other words, the love of God by the knowledge of God; or, the recovery of the image of God, by a true, spiritual acquaintance with him.
(Works VIII, pp. 47-48)
The more I converse with this people, the more I am amazed. That God hath wrought a great work among them is manifest; and yet the main of them, believers and unbelievers, are not able to give a rational account of the plainest principles of religion. It is plain, God begins His work at the heart; then “the inspiration of the highest giveth understanding.”
(Journal,