This week’s look at John Wesley’s A Plain Account of Christian Perfection witnesses another encounter with an important book and author to Wesley. He shares having “met with” it in 1726, the year after his encounter with Bishop Jeremy Taylor’s book. Again, I love the language of “met with” for his reading. I’ve had that sort of experience with a book.
The book on this occasion is one of the most famous in Christian literature, Thomas a Kempis’ The Imitation of Christ, which Wesley references by an alternative title, “Christian’s Pattern.” He titles this article, “Simplicity of Intention.”
Wesley writes:
The nature and extent of inward religion, the religion of the heart, now appeared to me in a stronger light than ever it had done before. I saw that giving even all my life to God (supposing it possible to do this, and go no farther) would profit me nothing, unless I gave my heart, yea, all my heart to Him.
Wesley was not in the least opposed to good works. Indeed, the Methodist movement engaged in works of compassion and works of seeking justice. However, Wesley lifts up the significance of knowing Christianity as a “heart religion.” Christianity is about the transformation of human hearts.
This is really a false division anyway. As our hearts are transformed by God’s grace, we gain the mind of Christ and the heart of God. We affirm the truth of 1 John 4:19, “We love because he first loved us.” And we pray, “Lord, may the things that break your heart break ours as well.”
We love because he has transformed our hearts by his love. We forgive because we’ve been forgiven. We seek justice because God is transforming our hearts to love justice as he does. We show grace because we’ve been shown grace. We love because he first loved us.
Guy M Williams 