So I really liked this sermon. John makes reference to having been preaching this doctrine of salvation by faith (with wesleyan particulars) for "five and twenty" years, and this gives the impression of having been worked over several times, like a river rock. His sense of Salvation as specifically not being "going to heaven, to eternal happiness. It is not the soul's going to paradise..." but a present tense action, evidenced by "ye are saved." He gives a clear definition of salvation that includes pretty much the entire work of God in a person's life. I might phrase his sense of salvation as one's being included in the family of faith. Ye are saved, ye are grafted in to God's holy people. He'll then split out his sense of salvation into two general parts, justification and sanctification. He gives "pardon" as a synonym for justification, which helps my modern brain significantly, though it's still a bit locked in the judicial paradigm of sin/atonement, which is not my favorite frame, though it's the most common in the tradition. He will then spend the rest of his time, more or less, making parallel arguments that the only prerequisite and most proximate condition of both sanctification and justification is Faith, given by his exegesis of the Greek to mean both "A divine evidence and conviction of things not seen", evidence and conviction being both meanings of the word "ελεγκος." I think this is a brilliant move and it's further proof that our preachers need to at least be taught Greek at some level. Moving on. He addresses what he feels is a distortion of his teaching and gives, I think, a helpful clarification for me as to how he understands faith and works to be involved in the justification and sanctification of the believer. I will rephrase him for brevity, that faith is the only prerequisite and nearest proximate condition for the beginning of the with-God life, that we start this journey with nothing but faith, and that good works and holy living are required to sustain this with-God life that was inaugurated by faith alone. I had a friend who made this distinction with the difference between "unconditional" and "unconditioned". I cant remember which is which, though, which shows maybe the device was a bit obtuse. Anyways I appreciate this from Wesley. He also makes a distinction between the kind of repentance we require to inaugurate this with-God life and the kind of repentance that sustains it; one is convinced of their total depravity, and the other is simply convicted that the sinful nature, while dethroned from their life, is not dead and buried. That's an interesting tidbit I wanted to document for later. He ends with this sort of movement towards the call to faith, or call to respond to God, with four points on the kind of faith that saves. First, the divine evidence and conviction that God has promised salvation in holy scripture. Second, divine evidence and conviction that what God has promised, He is able to do. Third, divine evidence and conviction that what God is able to do, He is willing to do right now, and Fourth, divine evidence and conviction that what God has promised, is able, and willing to do, He has actually done for you. "Expect it by faith, expect it as you are, expect it now!"