WESLEY

GOD’S LOVE TO FALLEN MAN

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

John Wesley was born at Epworth rectory in Lincolnshire, England, in 1703.  He was educated at Charterhouse school and in 1720 entered Christ Church College, Oxford, where he graduated in 1724.  He was noted for his classical taste as well as for his religious fervor, and on being ordained deacon by Bishop Potter, of Oxford, he became his father’s curate in 1727.  Being recalled to Oxford to fulfil his duties as fellow of Lincoln he became the head of the Oxford “Methodists,” as they were called.  He had the characteristics of a great general, being systematic in his work and a lover of discipline, and established Methodism in London by his sermons at the Foundery.  His speaking style suggested power in repose.  His voice was clear and resonant, his countenance kindly, and his tone extremely moderate.  His sermons wore carefully written, altho not read in the pulpit.  They moved others because he was himself moved.  At an advanced age he preached several times a day, and traveled many miles on horseback.  At seventy years of age he had published thirty octavo volumes.  He composed hymns on horseback, and studied French and mathematics in spare hours, and was never a moment idle until his death, in 1791.

WESLEY

1703—­1791

GOD’S LOVE TO FALLEN MAN

Not as the transgression, so is the free gift.—­Romans v., 15.

How exceedingly common, and how bitter is the outcry against our first parent, for the mischief which he not only brought upon himself, but entailed upon his latest posterity!  It was by his wilful rebellion against God “that sin entered into the world.”  “By one man’s disobedience,” as the apostle observes, the many, as many as were then in the loins of their forefathers, were made, or constituted sinners:  not only deprived of the favor of God, but also of His image; of all virtue, righteousness, and true holiness, and sunk partly into the image of the devil, in pride, malice, and all other diabolical tempers; partly into the image of the brute, being fallen under the dominion of brutal passions and groveling appetites.  Hence also death entered into the world, with all his forerunners and attendants; pain, sickness, and a whole train of uneasy as well as unholy passions and tempers.

“For all this we may thank Adam,” has been echoed down from generation to generation.  The self-same charge has been repeated in every age and every nation where the oracles of God are known, in which alone this grand and important event has been discovered to the children of men.  Has not your heart, and probably your lips too, joined in the general charge?  How few are there of those who believe the Scriptural relation of the Fall of Man, and have not entertained the same thought concerning our first parent? severely condemning him, that, through wilful disobedience to the sole command of his Creator,