Wesley Wednesday: February 15, 2023

 This week's quote comes from Sermon 16, The Means of Grace.  This is an especially important sermon for those of us who are "Wesleyan-Anglican" types:

    By 'means of grace' I understand outward signs, words, or actions ordained of God, and appointed for this end - to be the ordinary channels whereby he might convey to men preventing, justifying, or sanctifying grace.

    I use this expression, 'means of grace', because I know none better, and because it has been generally used in the Christian church for many ages: in particular by our own church, which directs us to bless God both for the 'means of grace and hope of glory'; and teaches us that a sacrament is 'an outward sign of inward grace, and a means whereby we receive the same'.

    The chief of these means are prayer, whether in secret or with the great congregation; searching the Scriptures (which implies reading, hearing, and meditating thereon) and receiving the Lord's Supper, eating bread and drinking wine in remembrance of him; and these we believe to be ordained of God as the ordinary channels of conveying his grace to the souls of men.

(Bold type indicates Wesley's own, original emphasis. The picture is of the Wesley statue on the campus of Asbury Theological Seminary.)