Varieties of Religious Experience, a Study in Human Nature

by William James

and a short time ere his death, John Wesley wrote:— "In London alone I found 652 members of our Society who were exceeding clear in their experience, and whose testimony I could see no reason to doubt. And every one of these (without a single exception) has declared that his deliverance from sin was instantaneous; that the change was wrought in a moment. Had half of these, or one third, or one in twenty, declared it was GRADUALLY wrought in THEM, I should have believed this, with regard to THEM, and thought that SOME were gradually sanctified and some instantaneously. But as I have not found, in so long a space of time, a single person speaking thus, I cannot but believe that sanctification is commonly, if not always, an instantaneous work."[122]