The Scripture Way of Salvation: The Heart of John Wesley's Theology

By Prof. Kenneth J. Collins

Taking its title from one of John Wesley's most important sermons, The Scripture Way of Salvation explores the soteriological content of Wesley's entire literary corpus (sermons, letters, theological treatises, journals, and the notes on the Old and New Testaments). Fundamentally a doctrinal study, it is historically sensitive to the subtle shifts and nuances of Wesley's continuing reflections about the processes of salvation and the nature of Christian life. Collins provides a clear discussion of Wesley's emerging views about the development and maturation of Christian life, and in so doing highlights the essential structure that undergirds and provides the framework for Wesley's way of thinking about the processes of salvation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Abingdon Press
• Release date: Oct 1, 2010
• ISBN: 9781426729362

Prof. Kenneth J. Collins

Kenneth J. Collins is Professor of Historical Theology and Wesley Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore Kentucky, and an elder in the Kentucky Conference of The United Methodist Church. He also teaches at the Baltic Methodist Theological Seminary in Estonia, and is a member of the Wesleyan Theological Society, Wesley Historical Society, and Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality. He is the author of A Real Christian: The Life of John Wesley, The Scripture Way of Salvation: The Heart of John Wesley's Theology, co-editor of Conversion in the Wesleyan Tradition, and John Wesley: A Theological Journey.

Book preview

Image1

For

M. Elton Hendricks

from one student of Wesley to another

Image2

ABINGDON PRESS

Nashville

THE SCRIPTURE WAY OF SALVATION:

THE HEART OF JOHN WESLEY'S THEOLOGY

Copyright © 1997 by Abingdon Press

All rights reserved.

No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by means of any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission should be addressed in writing to Abingdon Press, 201 Eighth Avenue, South, Nashville, TN 37203, USA.

This book is printed on recycled acid-free, elemental-chlorine-free paper.

Book design by J. S. Lofbomm

---

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Collins, Kenneth J.

The scripture way of salvation : the heart of John Wesley's theology / Kenneth J. Collins.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-687-00962-6 (alk. paper)

1. Salvation.   2.  Grace (Theology)   3.  Wesley, John, 1703-1791—Contributions in the doctrine of salvation.   4.  Methodist Church—doctrines.    I.   Title.

BT751.2.C635 1997

234 ' . 092—dc21

97-16419

CIP

---

ISBN 13: 978-0-687-00962-6

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, Copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations noted KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible

08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 —12 11 10 9

MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Acknowledgments

---

I would like to thank the following people for helping me in the writing of this book: Richard P. Heitzenrater, Professor of Church History and Wesley Studies at Duke Divinity School, for the time spent in several long phone conversations exploring various points of Wesley's theology; John Seery, the Reference Librarian of Asbury Theological Seminary, for teaching me electronic researching and making it so much fun; and Susan Pulsipher, the Librarian at Methodist College, for her generous advice and assistance at various points along the way. Last, but certainly not least, I would like to thank the women of my life: Marilyn, Brooke, and Lauren, for putting up with a husband and father who is always talking about Wesley.

Contents

---

Introduction

---

Chapter 1: Grace, Creation, and the Fall of Humanity

---

The Ever-Present Grace of God

Grace as Divine Favor and Empowerment

The Creation of Humanity

The Fall of Humanity

Original Sin

How Original Sin Is Transferred

The Consequences of Original Sin

Prevenient Grace

The Benefits of Prevenient Grace

Chapter 2: Convincing Grace and Initial Repentance

---

Convincing Grace

The Importance of Preaching

The Moral Law

Repentance and Works Meet for Repentance

Repentance

Works Meet for Repentance

The Necessity of Repentance and

Works Meet for Repentance

Distinctions Pertaining to Repentance, Works, and Faith

Not in the Same Sense

Not in the Same Degree

Chapter 3: Justification by Grace Through Faith

---

The legal State: Preparation for Justification

Faith

The Atonement

Justification

What Is Justification?

Grace, Works, and Imputation

The Question of Sola Fide

Chapter 4: Regeneration by Grace Through Faith

---

Grace as the Power of God

The New Birth as the Foundation of the

Christian Life

The New Birth as a Necessary Change

Are There Degrees of Regeneration?

The New Birth as a Vast Change

The New Birth as a Crucial Change

The Temporal Elements as Key

The New Birth as a Liberating Change

Faith

Hope

Love

Baptism and the New Birth

Chapter 5: The Doctrine of Christian Assurance

---

Doctrinal Considerations

Historical Considerations

1738-1747

1748-1770

1771-1791

Excursus: The Motif of Real Christianity as a Clue to Wesley's Doctrine of Salvation

Significant Modifications in the Theme of Real Christianity, 1725-1747

The Theme of Real Christianity Developed, 1748-1770

The Motif of Real Christianity Resplendent, 1771-1791

Chapter 6: Sanctification by Grace Through Faith

---

Grace

Repentance

Social Religion

Works Meet for Repentance

Faith

Entire Sanctification, or Christian Perfection

What Christian Perfection Is Not

What Christian Perfection Is

When Does Entire Sanctification Occur?

Can the Grace of Christian Perfection Be Lost?

Do the Entirely Sanctified Still Need Christ?

Assurance

Excursus: Does the Via Salutis Evidence an Order?

The Order Repudiated

The Order Affirmed

Chapter 7: Final Justification

---

The Danger of Privileging This Life

Death

The Judgment

Final justification

Is There a Second justification?

Holiness, Works, and the Law Revisited

The Question of Merit

Conclusion: An Ecumenical Soteriology?

---

Abbreviations

---

Notes

---

Index

Introduction

---

The title of this work is taken, in part, from a summary sermon that Wesley produced in 1765, The Scripture Way of Salvation. And though some scholars have focused on the third term of this title, to indicate something of the process of salvation, my own reading of Wesley's works deems the second term to be far more important. Indeed, in a real sense, this second term is indicative of Wesley's basic theological orientation, which considers Scripture to be the ultimate norm or guide for the Christian life. It is, after all, not The Traditional Way of Salvation, or The Rational Way of Salvation, or The Experiential Way of Salvation, but "The Scripture Way of Salvation." Contained in this sermon, in other words, is Wesley's best attempt to explicate what the Word of God—as he tells us in the Preface to his sermons—reveals concerning the way to heaven—how to land safe on that happy shore.¹ The term way, therefore, as used by Wesley, is synonymous with the term mode or fashion. It is the Scripture way as opposed to some other way.

The second part of the title of this present work—The Heart of Wesley's Theology—is equally descriptive. Not only does it suggest that Wesley's theological interests, for the most part, were not speculative but practical, ever concerned with the doctrine of salvation; but it also indicates that there is a sophisticated depth dimension to Wesley's theology that reverberates with the language of the human heart. Accordingly, such terms as affections, tempers, and dispositions will play a large role here. In fact, if one fails to take this depth dimension into account, if one's description of Wesley's soteriological thought proceeds merely on an ideological or conceptual level, then one is no longer describing Wesley's thought.² To be sure, one aspect of Wesley's theological genius was his uncanny ability to demonstrate how disruption of the human soul due to sin, the absence of inward religion, issues in all manner of evil: personal, social, and political.³ This present work, therefore, will pay close attention to this depth dimension throughout.

My larger task, however, is to explore the full range of Wesley's doctrine of salvation in terms of his entire literary corpus (theological treatises, letters, journals, sermons, and notes on the Old and New Testaments). As such, this work is essentially a doctrinal study, though it will be historically sensitive to the subtle shifts and nuances as Wesley continued to reflect on the processes of salvation, especially in terms of the doctrines of justification, assurance, and the witness of the Spirit. Indeed, I will challenge, through careful argument and considerable evidence, the assumption—popular by now—that the elderly Wesley offered a very broad way to salvation (by deeming the faith of a servant to be equivalent to justifying faith) and thereby repudiated a few of his more significant theological emphases present as early as 1725, in particular the motif of real Christianity.

Moreover, as I explore the elements of Wesley's soteriology such as the doctrines of creation, original sin, prevenient grace, repentance, justification, the new birth, entire sanctification, and final justification, I will focus to a great extent on primary sources in order to grapple seriously with Wesley's own thought. Indeed, works that are overly dependent on secondary interpretations may unduly privilege contemporary readings of Wesley with the result that the concerns of the twentieth century may take precedence over those of the eighteenth. Nevertheless, I will appeal to significant secondary sources but only to the extent that they are helpful in illuminating Wesley's own writings and world. The aim here, in other words, is to have Wesley speak for himself, as far as this is possible, given the presuppositions of any interpretive method and the assumptions (and biases) of the historian.

In terms of the flow of the material itself, I will incorporate into the larger discussion three vital themes: (a) the dynamic, (b) the order, and (c) the purpose of the Wesleyan way of salvation.

First, I will note that the dynamic of the Wesleyan way of salvation is expressed in a number of conjunctions, the principal one, of course, being that of law and grace. Recent works, however, following the lead of Albert Outler, have placed a premium on grace to the relative neglect, in my judgment, of the moral law. When this is done, what may (though not necessarily) emerge is a rather sentimental reading of Wesley that lacks the seriousness and the imperative force of much of his theology. Indeed, for Wesley, grace is not amorphous, but is almost always expressed and understood in the context of the moral law, that incorruptible picture of the high and holy One that inhabiteth eternity.⁴ And though Wesley's thought clearly resonates with Luther's notion of sola gratia, in terms of the moments of both justification and entire sanctification (where there are significant law pauses), for the most part, the moral law forms the context in which grace is to be understood in the trajectory of the normal Christian life. Put another way, grace for Wesley is most often normed grace, and it, therefore, must be comprehended and evaluated in terms of the revealed will of God. Indeed, without this context, without such a normative setting, grace may quickly become empty and vapid, and human self-will or ideology or sentimentality may inevitably provide its content. To avoid this error, I will track law and grace throughout the Wesleyan via salutis, from creation to eternity, with all the significant points along the way.

Other conjunctions in Wesley's theology that I will consider include justification and sanctification, faith and works, instantaneousness and process, the divine and human. In light of these several conjunctions, I will be careful to argue that it is erroneous to maintain, on the one hand, that justification represents a juridical theme and is therefore instantaneous, while sanctification represents a participatory theme and is therefore characterized by process. As will become increasingly clear, such a division of labor will hardly hold for Wesley's sophisticated and intricate theology. In particular, I will argue throughout this work that the instantaneous elements of the Wesleyan way of salvation are not limited to justification and juridical themes, as is sometimes supposed, but pertain to sanctification and participatory ones as well. Simply put, both justification and sanctification are marked by both instantaneous and processive elements. Accordingly, failure to take both elements of this conjunction into account can only result in a skewed reading of Wesley.

Second, I will demonstrate that the order of the Wesleyan way of salvation, its larger structure, is marked by parallelism. That is, Wesley's understanding of faith, grace, the role of works, the moral law, repentance, assurance, the activity of the Holy Spirit, and so forth in terms of justification is paralleled in his treatment of these same elements in terms of entire sanctification. However, here there is parallelism with a difference: Though there is similarity, for example, between legal repentance (prior to justification) and evangelical repentance (prior to entire sanctification), these doctrines are also distinct due to the growth in grace that has taken place in the interim. Here, in other words, the interpreter must be sensitive to a blending of both similarity and difference. In light of this, and after much further substantiation, I will contend that a dynamic parallelism that is attentive to both the similarities and differences of Wesley's major soteriological doctrines is an important interpretive tool in terms of his overall soteriology. There is an implicit order, a rhyme and reason, to Wesley's various reflections on the processes of redemption. And though Wesley's practical theology emerged, to some extent, as he responded to the diverse needs of the eighteenth-century revival, his theology, especially in terms of the doctrine of salvation, nevertheless evidenced the mind of its articulator, which was orderly, rational, and coherent.

Finally, I will maintain that the purpose of the Wesleyan way of salvation is to transport believers to a larger world than they had previously imagined: to God through faith, and to their neighbors through love. Indeed, faith working by love is at the heart of this endeavor where dispositional and relational change in the human heart holds consequence for the neighbor and for the larger world as well. But the purpose of the via salutis, as the last chapter of this book will indicate, involves the challenges and possibilities not only of this life but also of the life that is to come. Put another way, holiness in both time and eternity is the goal of the via salutis. Here eschatology completes soteriology. Here the life to come brings temporal, mundane existence to its fullness.

By the concluding chapter, the astute reader should recognize that Wesley's best thinking about the process of redemption contains a number of tensions or conjunctions. The danger, for the interpreter of Wesley's thought, then, lies in considering only one half of these conjunctions with the result that a distorted picture of his theology will emerge. If, for example, one simply focuses on the processive aspects of Wesley's doctrine of salvation, a very Catholic reading of Wesley will result. If, on the other hand, one emphasizes the instantaneous elements of his soteriology, a very Protestant reading will arise. In turn, depending on which pole of the conjunction one underscores, Wesley can be made to appear as a High Church Anglican or a Low Church Evangelical, a sacramentarian or a revivalistic preacher, a proclaimer of grace or an exhorter of works, a deeply spiritual man or a conventional moralist. Each pole, in other words, has a contribution to make, but no one pole can stand alone.

The challenge for any interpreter of Wesley, then, is to see the whole Wesley. However, this wholeness does not simply involve the entirety of Wesley's life, as if chronology itself were the key to interpretation. While chronological concerns are important, they must be matched by close attention to the depth and sophistication that was characteristic of Wesley's thought during most stages of his career. This means, then, that as one grapples with Wesley's doctrine of salvation, at any point in his life, one must endeavor to take notice of all the nuances that pertain to his thought at that time. Indeed, the most problematic readings of Wesley have emerged from an unwillingness— no doubt for all sorts of reasons—to see this eighteenth-century man on his own terms and with his own vocabulary. I will do my best, then, as far as this is possible, to avoid this error. Indeed, I believe that Wesley presented on his own terms, in the setting of his numerous nuances, in the tensions of his very conjunctive theology, and with all his failures and limitations, will emerge as far more relevant to our age, or to any age for that matter, than I—or any others—might have preferred to make him out to be.

Chapter 1

---

Grace, Creation, and the Fall of Humanity

---

The Ever-Present Grace of God

---

The key theme in Wesley's theology, which not only ties his various doctrines together, but which also lies behind them as their source and context, is the grace of God. From the creation of humanity to the glorification of the saints, from the gift of conscience to the gentle leading of the Holy Spirit, and from the conviction of sin to the restoration of the love of God and neighbor in the human heart, the grace of God is over all. In fact, there is no point in Wesley's theology of salvation where divine grace is not the leading motif, whether he is considering the fall of humanity or any step along the way in the process of redemption. Any interpretation of his theology that fails to take this vital ingredient into account in a significant way will necessarily be wide of the mark. Simply put, grace is the first chord struck in Wesley's theology, and hence in the present work as well.

Grace as Divine Favor and Empowerment

Many interpreters, especially those outside the Methodist tradition, have failed to note the subtlety, the nuances present in Wesley's soteriology (doctrine of salvation) due to his sophisticated understanding of grace. Wesley defines the grace of God in not one but two key ways. On the one hand, like Luther and Calvin before him, Wesley views grace, first of all, as the undeserved favour¹ of God: All the blessings which God hath bestowed upon man are of his mere grace, bounty, or favour: his free, undeserved favour, favour altogether undeserved.² It fact, it is the sheer givenness of spiritual insight and of divine grace, Albert Outler points out, that distinguishes Wesley from Pelagius—and for that matter, from Arminius and Episcopius.³ On the other hand, this first conception by no means exhausts what Wesley means by grace. Beyond this, his considerable readings in the broad Catholic tradition (both Greek and Roman),⁴ which underscored participation in and empowerment through the life of God, helped Wesley to see grace in yet another way, as the power of the Holy Ghost⁵ to enable people to walk in the ways of God. Simply put, the former understanding accents the favor of God toward humanity; the latter, human participation and renewal.

Interestingly enough, earlier in this century George Croft Cell, a noted Methodist historian, put forth the thesis that Wesley's theology brings together a Protestant conception of grace and a Catholic conception of holiness:

The most important fact therefore about the Wesleyan understanding of the Gospel in relation to the Christian ethic of life is that the early Protestant doctrine of justification by faith and the Catholic appreciation of the idea of holiness or Christian perfection—two principles that had been fatally put asunder in the great Church conflicts of the sixteenth century—reappeared in the comprehensive spirit of Wesley's teaching fitly framed together in a well-balanced synthesis.⁶

While considerable evidence can be gathered to support Cell's thesis, it is perhaps more accurate to suggest that the dividing line between the motifs of divine favor (Protestant emphasis) and human participation in the life of God (Catholic emphasis) lies not so much between the doctrines of justification by faith and Christian perfection or holiness, as Cell suggests, but actually lies within Wesley's intricate conception of grace itself. As Albert Outler points out in his introduction to Wesley's sermons, "The 'catholic substance' of Wesley's theology is the theme of participation—the idea that all life is of grace and all grace is the mediation of Christ by the Holy Spirit."⁷ Indeed, for Wesley, grace involves not only declaring sinners to be just out of the bountiful favor of God, but it also entails actually transforming, assisting, and renewing their hearts in holiness by that very same grace. Moreover, though these two senses of grace are intertwined throughout Wesley's writings, the particular sense that is emphasized often depends on the doctrine—such as repentance or justification—under review.

The Creation of Humanity

In light of the preceding distinction, it is not surprising that when Wesley describes the creation of humanity, he underscores grace not in the second sense as empowerment by the Holy Spirit, nor as divine/human cooperation, but as the utter favor, bounty, or goodness of God. It was free grace that 'formed man of the dust of the ground,' he writes, 'and breathed into him a living soul.'⁸ Elsewhere, he affirms the initial goodness of Creation in that every creature was 'good' in its primeval state.⁹ Nothing other than the freedom and goodness of God, then, are the source, the fount, of humanity.

Throughout his writings, Wesley maintains that God created humanity not as a simple creature but as a complex one, as one composed of both body and spirit.¹⁰ In an early manuscript sermon,¹¹ The Image of God, for instance, he elaborates:

But we should observe, first, that man even at his creation was a compound of matter and spirit; and that it was ordained by the original law that during this vital union neither part of the compound should act at all but together with its companion; that the dependence on each other should be inviolably maintained.¹²

Concerning the first aspect, that is, the body, Wesley's thought does indeed contain some elements that are primitive even by eighteenthcentury standards. Reviving the classical thought of Empedocles, Wesley contends, for example, that the human body is composed of the four elements [dust, water, air, and fire], duly proportioned and mixed together.¹³ And in his sermon, What is Man? (1788), Wesley not only describes the body as a curious machine in a way reminiscent of Descartes, but also affirms that the body is suitably described as "a little portion of earth."¹⁴

But a person is not simply a body; he or she is also what Wesley calls a soul—a self-moving, thinking principle (res cogitans).¹⁵ And although Wesley asserts that in the present state of existence the human soul cannot be considered apart from the body, the two being intimately connected, yet the death of the body will not involve the death of the soul. Simply put, the essence of a person, what is often identified as the I or the self, will continue to exist even when the body dies.I cannot but believe this self-moving, thinking principle, with all its passions and affections, Wesley writes, will continue to exist although the body be mouldered into dust.¹⁶

Not only does Wesley affirm the immortality of the soul, he also closely identifies the spirit or soul of a human being—these terms are interchangeable for Wesley¹⁷—with the image of God itself. For example, in his sermon What is Man? Wesley reflects on this identification and by doing so assesses the relative worth of the spirit in comparison with the body:

The body is not the man; that man is not only a house of clay, but an immortal spirit; a spirit made in the image of God, an incorruptible picture of the God of glory; a spirit that is of infinitely more value than the whole earth; of more value than the sun, moon, and stars put together; yea, than the whole material creation.¹⁸

This identification of the spirit of humanity with the image of God, with what scholars sometimes refer to as the imago Dei, is explored by Wesley under three aspects, namely, the natural, political, and moral images of God.¹⁹ In the sermon, The Image of God (1730), Wesley points out that men and women were created in what he will later call the natural image of God (in his sermon The New Birth) in that they have spirits that have been endued with understanding, will, and liberty.²⁰ Moreover, Wesley's conception of the natural image remained, for the most part, unchanged throughout the years, as demonstrated in his late sermon The End of Christ's Coming (1781):

The Lord God . . . created man in his own image—in his own natural image... that is, a spirit, as God is a spirit: endued with understanding, which, if not the essence, seems to be the most essential property of a spirit.

He was endued also with a will, with various affections . . . that he might love, desire, and delight in that which is good; otherwise his understanding had been to no purpose. He was likewise endued with liberty, a power of choosing what was good, and refusing what was not so. Without this both the will and understanding would have been utterly useless.²¹

Remarkably, Wesley does not restrict the natural image of God to human beings; instead he contends that "every spirit in the universe is endued with understanding, and in consequence with a will and with a measure of liberty."²² In fact, in his sermon The General Deliverance (1781), he notes that the original state of the brute creation was characterized by an innate principle of self-motion, a degree of understanding, a will including various passions, and liberty—all the ingredients that have just been noted in terms of humanity.²³ Simply put, the entire animal realm participates in the natural image of God, in however limited a fashion. Humanity does not hold exclusive rights here.

The second aspect of the imago Dei in which humanity was created is the so-called political image, an image that not only surfaces in a midcareer sermon such as The New Birth, but also in the late sermon The General Deliverance.²⁴ In defining and explaining the nature of this aspect, Wesley appeals to the language of the Bible, the book of Genesis in particular, and observes that humanity was given dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.²⁵ Describing the order and government established in creation, Wesley writes that Man was God's vice-regent upon earth, the prince and governor of this lower world.²⁶ This means, interestingly enough, that although God is the Governor of the earth par excellence, the Supreme Being has not claimed exclusive prerogatives here, but has graciously allowed humanity to share in this rule and to exercise an authority over the lower creation. Here humanity is distinguished in certain respects from the rest of creation and a hierarchy of sorts is established. God as Governor does not rule in isolation, but governs through His appointed vice-regents.

But humanity's position within the created order can also be viewed another way, not so much in terms of rule and authority, but in terms of the mediation of divine, bountiful grace. Humanity, according to Wesley, is the great conduit, the chosen vehicle, of God's blessings for the rest of creation, and is therefore in some sense responsible for the general state of the animal realm.²⁷ And in describing the original and gracious nature of this relationship of humanity to the rest of the animal realm, Wesley observes:

As all the blessings of God in paradise flowed through man to the inferior creatures; as man was the great channel of communication between the Creator and the whole brute creation; so when man made himself incapable of transmitting those blessings, that communication was necessarily cut off.²⁸

Moreover, it should be noted that God has not only chosen to bless the lower creation through human beings, but it is generally his pleasure, Wesley acknowledges, to help man by man.²⁹ The grace of God, in other words, often wears a human face.

The third and last aspect of the imago Dei in which humanity was created is the moral image. Taking Ephesians 4:24 as his guide, "clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness," Wesley develops this last aspect in terms of the resplendent love of God especially in his sermon Justification by Faith (1746):

In the image of God was man made; holy as he that created him is holy, merciful as the author of all is merciful, perfect as his Father in heaven is perfect. As God is love, so man dwelling in love dwelt in God, and God in him. God made him to be 'an image of his own eternity,' an incorruptible picture of the God of glory. He was accordingly pure, as God is pure, from every spot of sin. He knew not evil in any kind or degree, but was inwardly and outwardly sinless and undefiled.³⁰

And two years later, Wesley describes the moral image of God in his sermon Upon Our Lord's Sermon on the Mount, Discourse the Ninth (1748) by underscoring several characteristics not mentioned in some of his other theological pieces. For example, those who mirror the very likeness of God in which they were created are kind, benevolent, compassionate, tender-hearted; and that not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward.³¹ However, other traits that Wesley cites are not drawn, by implication, from a description of Adam and Eve in their pristine state, but are culled from the second Adam, Jesus Christ, who in his internal, human righteousness is marked by love, reverence, resignation to his Father; humility, meekness, gentleness; love to lost mankind, and every other holy and heavenly temper.³² Nevertheless, the two characteristics or traits to which Wesley continually returns with respect to the moral image, whether the reference is to Adam or to Christ, are the same ones highlighted by the apostle Paul in his letter to the Ephesians cited earlier, namely, true righteousness and holiness.

Of the three aspects of the image of God, namely, the natural, the political, and the moral, Wesley designates the last as the principal image. For example, in his sermon The New Birth (1760), he writes, "So God created man in his own image .. . but chiefly in his moral image."³³ Judging from a careful reading of Wesley's writings, it appears that the moral image is singled out for three reasons.

First, this image, conceived as both true righteousness and holiness, represents a dimension that distinguishes humanity from the rest of creation. That is, men and women, unlike the beasts of the field, are capable of God; they are able to worship the Most High in spirit and in truth, and their hearts can be filled with the holy tempers of love suitable to their noble estate:

What then makes the barrier between men and brutes? The line which they cannot pass? It was not reason. Set aside that ambiguous term: exchange it for the plain word, understanding, and who can deny that brutes have this? . . . But it is this: man is capable of God; the inferior creatures are not. We have no ground to believe that they are in any degree capable of knowing, loving, or obeying God. This is the specific difference between man and brute—the great gulf which they cannot pass over.³⁴

Second, the moral image is crucial because it is the context for the very possibility of sin."Why is there sin in