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John Wesley: Difference between revisions
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John Wesley taught what he believed and not what someone else told him to preach. He was a firm believer that salvation is by God's grace alone, and that the love of God can and should reign in a believer's heart. Healings and other supernatural occurences also followed his ministry, along with persecution from the established churches. | John Wesley taught what he believed and not what someone else told him to preach. He was a firm believer that salvation is by God's grace alone, and that the love of God can and should reign in a believer's heart. Healings and other supernatural occurences also followed his ministry, along with persecution from the established churches. | ||
=John Wesley on the Godhead= | |||
William Branham taught a view of the Godhead that was very similar to the doctrines taught by one of John Wesley's contemporaries, '''Emmanual Swedenborg'''. Swedenborg taught strongly against the Trinity, and wrote: | |||
:''"The divinity of the Father was the Lord’s soul. ...The passion of the cross was the final temptation which the Lord endured as the Grand Prophet; and it was the means of the glorification of his humanity; that is, of its union with the divinity of the Father. ...God is one, in essence and person, and Jesus Christ is He.”'' (Emmanuel Swedenborg) | |||
These statements are so similar to William Branham's tapes, that it makes you wonder whether the angel that appeared to William Branham was the same angel that appeared to Emmanuel Swedenborg. Swedenborg's statements above were all presented to John Wesley. His conclusion on these doctrines is as follows: | |||
:''“The grand error which we learn from [this] whole work is, that there are not three persons in one God. …Notwithstanding all [these] new revelations, I believe, according to the old one, “There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Spirit; and these three are one” For the term ‘person’ I contend not. I know no better: If any does, let him use it. …No there is not a word in all the Bible concerning any such union of the humanity of Christ with the divinity of the Father. He was then glorified, when he was received again into the glory which he had before the world began. …what heaps of absurdity are here! Only fit to have a place in Orlando Furioso. …Blasphemy, joined with consummate nonsense."'' ~ Thoughts on the writings of Baron Swedenborg, by John Wesley, Wakefield, May 8, 1782. | |||
Lee Vayle, who edited William Branham's book "The Church Ages" held that the mystery of the seven seals was the restoration of the correct teaching of the Godhead. If this doctrine of Lee Vayle's is correct, then the correct teaching on the Godhead was actually restored 300 years earlier by Emmanuel Swedenborg and had nothing to do with William Branham. | |||
John Wesley also wrote: | |||
:''"O my brethren, let none of you that fear God recommend such a writer any more; much less labor to make the deadly poison palatable, by sweetening it with all care! All his folly and nonsense we may excuse; but not his making God a liar; not his contradicting, in so open and flagrant a manner, the whole oracles of God! True, his tales are often exceeding lively, and as entertaining as the tales of... the fairies! But I dare not give up my Bible for them; and I must give up one or the other. If the preceding extracts are from God, then the Bible is only a fable! But if all Scriptures are given by inspiration of God, then let these dreams sink into the pit from whence they came." ~ Thoughts on the writings of Baron Swedenborg, by John Wesley, Wakefield, May 8, 1782. | |||
=Youth= | =Youth= | ||