John Wesley

Scripture alone as the final court of appeal for doctrine, stated as a personal resolve rather than a scholastic formula: he wants only "the way to heaven," and since God "hath written it down in a book," resolves to be homo unius libri, a man of one book. As a working Anglican priest he did not treat this as excluding reason, tradition, or experience as real subordinate sources, but the sermons consistently argue from Scripture as final, including against his own tradition's received practice.

WORTH CORRECTINGVerified directly against the primary text on the verification pass (ccel.org/ccel/wesley/sermons.iv.html, First Series Preface, §5) — exact match apart from trivial capitalization. Earlier in this same research pass, two fetch attempts had failed to reach the primary Preface and the quote was provisionally sourced from convergent secondary citations only; that caveat is now resolved.

"I want to know one thing, — the way to heaven... He hath written it down in a book. O give me that book! At any price, give me the book of God! I have it: Here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be homo unius libri."Preface to Sermons on Several Occasions (1746), §5

Real but not, properly speaking, natural: general knowledge of God and morality is genuinely available to all people and leaves them without excuse, but Wesley refuses to call this a leftover natural faculty — it is already the universal, Christ-merited operation of prevenient grace reaching everyone ahead of and apart from their choice. It is usually stifled rather than followed, and cannot itself save.

WORTH CORRECTINGDistinct from Calvin's version of this same stance: Calvin frames the light as natural-but-corrupted; Wesley frames it as never merely natural at all, already supernatural grace from the first spark.

"Some great truths, as the being and attributes of God, and the difference between moral good and evil, were known, in some measure, to the heathen world... this is not natural: It is more properly termed preventing grace. Every man has a greater or less measure of this, which waiteth not for the call of man."On Working Out Our Own Salvation, opening paragraph and §II.4

Total depravity by nature, stated as strongly as anywhere in this project, paired with universal prevenient grace such that no one is actually left in the bare state depravity describes. The fall side: humanity's every disposition is "only evil continually," with no admixture of good, aimed directly at "fair side of human nature" writers of his own day. The grace side, in the same body of work: every person already has some measure of grace restoring some capacity to respond, prior to and independent of anything they've done.

WORTH CORRECTINGPaired quote, the hinge of his whole soteriology: "There is no man that is in a state of mere nature; there is no man... that is wholly void of the grace of God... no man sins because he has not grace, but because he does not use the grace which he hath." — On Working Out Our Own Salvation, §II.4. Corrected on verification pass: an earlier draft of the cite above spliced a rhetorical question ("Was there no intermission of this evil?") with its answer into a single false declarative sentence — replaced with the two genuine, separately-quoted passages shown here.

"God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." (Gen. 6:5, the sermon's text) "It was always the same, that it 'was only evil continually;' every year, every day, every hour, every moment. He never deviated into good."Original Sin, §5

Grounded in God's foreknowledge of who will believe, not an eternal decree that causes belief or unbelief. Reworks Romans 8:29-30 as the order salvation follows rather than a causal chain fixed from eternity: God's knowledge of a person's future faith no more causes that faith than a person's knowledge that the sun is shining causes the sun to shine. Argues at length (Free Grace) that unconditional election-and-reprobation makes Christ's universal gospel invitations insincere.

WORTH CORRECTINGCorrected on verification pass: an earlier draft welded two non-adjacent clauses from §5 into one false sentence. This replacement is a single genuine continuous passage.

"We must not think they are because he knows them. No: he knows them because they are. Just as... I now know the sun shines: yet the sun does not shine because I know it, but I know it because he shines."On Predestination, §5

A trust that grasps Christ, inseparable from an assurance of pardon rather than a bare intellectual assent. Explicitly collapses a distinction some drew between a "faith of adherence" and a "faith of assurance": confidence in God presupposes already knowing oneself to be his child, so assurance is logically prior to confident trust, not a separate, higher-tier experience. Paired with an inward, felt witness of the Spirit alongside (not instead of) rational self-examination against scriptural marks.

"Faith is a divine evidence and conviction... that Christ loved me, and gave Himself for me." — The Scripture Way of Salvation, §II.2. "The assurance goes before the confidence. For a man cannot have a childlike confidence in God till he knows he is a child of God."same sermon, §II.3

Pardon, not transformation — a declared change of legal status, sharply distinguished from sanctification even though the two begin in the same moment. States the distinction as a category error to blur: justification does not make a person actually righteous, only forgiven and accepted.

"The plain scriptural notion of justification is pardon, the forgiveness of sins." — Justification by Faith, §II.5. "It is not the being made actually just and righteous. This is 'sanctification'... a distinct gift of God, and of a totally different nature."same sermon, §II.1

Christ died for every person without exception, not only the elect. Stacks universal-scope texts against a definite-atonement reading and argues that universal invitation and definite atonement cannot both be sincere: if the call to "whosoever" excludes some from the outset, the call itself is a deception.

"He is the propitiation, not for our sins only, but also for the sins of the whole world;... He gave himself a ransom for all;... He tasted death for every man."Free Grace, §21

Real apostasy is possible — a genuinely saved believer can finally fall away, a direct qualification on the assurance believers otherwise enjoy in the present. Follows from the same synergistic structure as his election and original-sin positions: a person's faith is a real, grace-enabled but genuinely free response, not the guaranteed unfolding of an unconditional decree, so it can in principle be withdrawn.

"They are also saved from the fear, though not from the possibility, of falling away from the grace of God, and coming short of the great and precious promises."Salvation by Faith, §II.4

Baptism is the ordinary means of a real regeneration in which 'a principle of grace is infused,' so for an infant there is no conscious entry point at all — but the grace given is conditional on a life lived in keeping with it, not an unconditional guarantee. Held alongside a direct, felt witness of the Spirit as the ground of assurance, which is the closest anything in this map comes to requiring a discernible moment. Prior to any of this, prevenient grace means the Spirit is already at work in every living person: 'there is no man that is in a state of mere nature.'

WORTH CORRECTINGGenuine unresolved tension in Wesley's own corpus: infant baptismal regeneration and a felt adult witness are two different entry points, and the sources read for this project do not reconcile them. See core-beliefs.md in the John Wesley folder.

"An inward impression on the soul, whereby the Spirit of God directly witnesses to my spirit, that I am a child of God."The Witness of the Spirit, Discourse One

Infants included, and baptism is the ordinary means of a real regeneration — not hedging on that language the way some traditions do — but conditioned on a life lived in keeping with it rather than an unconditional guarantee, the same conditional structure Augustine's baptismal theology has in this map. Mode is treated as indifferent: washing, dipping, or sprinkling are all valid, since neither Scripture's precepts nor the Greek word itself requires immersion.

WORTH CORRECTINGImmediately qualified: "Baptism doth now save us, if we live answerable thereto; if we repent, believe, and obey the gospel." — same section, §II.5

"By water then, as a means, the water of baptism, we are regenerated or born again... Herein a principle of grace is infused, which will not be wholly taken away, unless we quench the Holy Spirit of God by long-continued wickedness."A Treatise on Baptism, §II.4

A real means of grace with genuine spiritual effect, received as often as possible — ruling out bare memorialism — but the text used here argues for frequency of communion, not a positive doctrine of how Christ is present in the elements. Tagged to the real-but-spiritual-presence category as the best fit for what is actually argued and the standard account of inherited High Church Anglican eucharistic theology, not a directly stated metaphysical claim.

WORTH CORRECTINGWhat's confirmed directly is the 'real means of grace, not bare sign' claim; the specific 'spiritual presence' label rests partly on the wider scholarly consensus about Wesleyan sacramental theology rather than being stated in so many words in this sermon.

"The grace of God given herein confirms to us the pardon of our sins, by enabling us to leave them... as our bodies are strengthened by bread and wine, so are our souls by these tokens of the body and blood of Christ."The Duty of Constant Communion, §I.3