“Wesley also found fault with their new method of encouraging people to claim perfection by faith (“The bidding them say, ‘I believe,’” as Wesley put it) with no other evidence, and then affirming that those people were perfected because they said they believed. Here they were taking Wesley's teaching a step further than he was willing to go, but in a direction that seemed logical. Wesley had long taught that the blessing of perfection comes by faith alone and does not depend on the preparation or worthiness of the recipient. So why could someone not believe to have received it without any further evidence, for why would faith need evidence? Wesley, however, was never willing to affirm this conclusion. Years later he expressed his position as follows (by “absolute decrees,” he means the idea that a man is predestined to believe or not believe, and can do nothing but wait and see): To say that every man can believe to justification or sanctification when he will is contrary to plain matter of fact. Everyone can confute it by his own experience. And yet if you deny that every man can believe if he will, you run full into absolute decrees. How will you untie this knot? I apprehend very easily. That every man may believe if he will I earnestly maintain, and yet that he can believe when he will I totally deny. But there will be always something in the matter which we cannot well comprehend or explain.”
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Joshua Nickel,
Groaning After Full Redemption: John Wesley's Quest for Scriptural Holiness
