Wesley Corpus

He asked me what I meant by perfection. I told him without any disguise or reserve. When I ceased speaking, he said, “Mr. Wesley, if this be all you mean, publish it to all the world. If any one then can confute what you say, he may have free leave.” I answered, “My Lord, I will; ” and accordingly wrote and published the sermon on Christian perfection. In this I endeavoured to show, (1.) In what sense Christians are not, (2.) In what sense they are, perfect. “(1.) In what sense they are not. They are not perfect in knowledge. They are not free from ignorance, no, nor from mistake. We are no more to expect any living man to be infallible, than to be omniscient. They are not free from. infirmities, such as weakness or slowness of understanding, irregular quickness or heaviness of imagination. Such in another kind are impropriety of language, ungracefulness of pronunciation; to which one might add a thousand nameless defects, either in conversation or behaviour. From such infirmities as these none are perfectly freed till their spirits return to God; neither can we expect till then to be wholly freed from temptation; for ‘the servant is not above his master.” But neither in this sense is there any absolute perfection on earth. There is no perfection of degrees, none which does not admit of a continual increase. “(2.) In what sense then are they perfect? Observe, we are not now speaking of babes in Christ, but adult Christians. But even babes in Christ are so far perfect as not to commit sin. This St. John affirms expressly; and it cannot be disproved by the examples of the Old Testament. For what, if the holiest of the ancient Jews did sometimes commit sin? We cannot infer from hence, that “all Christians do and must commit sin as long as they live.’ “But does not the Scripture say, ‘A just man sinneth seven times a day?’ It does not. Indeed it says, “A just man falleth seven times. But this is quite another thing; for, First, the words, a day, are not in the text. Secondly, here is no mention of falling into sin at all. What is here mentioned, is, falling into temporal affliction. “But elsewhere Solomon says, “There is no man that sinneth not.