A Plain Account of Christian Perfection
John Wesley's 1766 retrospective synthesis of his doctrine of entire sanctification — the central distinctive of Methodism
Tradition: English Methodist / Wesleyan-Arminian evangelical
Wesley's defining doctrine — the Christian's call to entire sanctification or "perfect love" in this present life
A Plain Account of Christian Perfection is Wesley's systematic retrospective on the doctrine that became the distinctive emphasis of Methodism: entire sanctification, or Christian perfection, as the attainable goal of the regenerate believer in this present life. Wesley assembles the text chronologically from his published writings (the 1733 sermon "The Circumcision of the Heart," the 1741 sermon on Christian Perfection, the 1762 controversy with Maxfield and Bell), with running commentary, producing both a historical narrative of his doctrinal development and a final statement of the mature position. Christian perfection, for Wesley, is not absolute sinlessness (Adamic perfection or angelic perfection) but "perfect love" — the heart set wholly on God and neighbour, freed from voluntary sin against light. The doctrine became the central distinctive of subsequent Methodism, of the nineteenth-century Holiness movement, and (via the Holiness movement) of Pentecostalism. Wesley insisted the doctrine was scriptural, attainable, and experientially testable.
Author
Editions cited
- A Plain Account of Christian Perfection (Wesleyan Heritage Edition, multiple)
- The Works of John Wesley (Albert C. Outler ed., Bicentennial Edition, Abingdon)
- John Wesley's Sermons: An Anthology (Albert C. Outler & Richard P. Heitzenrater, Abingdon, 1991)
School Embodiments
A Plain Account is the foundational doctrinal text of Wesleyan-evangelical Christianity. The doctrine of entire sanctification has shaped Methodist, Holiness, Pentecostal, and broader evangelical theology of sanctification.
"Christian perfection is loving God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength." (A Plain Account, summarising the central thesis)
A complicated relation: Wesley's doctrine of attainable holiness has been a major reference for subsequent liberal-theological optimism about human moral-spiritual progress, even though Wesley himself was sharply orthodox.
"The possibility of present holiness." (A Plain Account, the thesis liberal theology extended)
A complicated relation by way of opposition: Wesley's Arminian theology of free will and attainable holiness was developed in controversy with Reformed-Calvinist predestinarianism (especially with George Whitefield). The book is partly a polemic against Calvinist positions on assurance and perseverance.
"Christian perfection is not absolute. It admits of degrees. It is improvable." (A Plain Account, against the Calvinist objection that perfection must be absolute)
A complicated relation: Wesley draws on Lutheran-pietist resources (the Moravians shaped his 1738 Aldersgate conversion) but develops a doctrine of present sanctification beyond Lutheran simul iustus et peccator.
"Beyond initial justification, present sanctification." (A Plain Account, the distinctive emphasis)
A surprising affinity: Wesley's doctrine of perfection has strong overlap with Catholic traditions of mystical sanctification (Wesley was an admirer of the medieval mystics — à Kempis, John of the Cross via his reading, the Greek fathers via the Anglican patristic tradition).
"I had read the writings of the early Greek fathers, on perfect love." (A Plain Account, tracing his patristic sources)
Wesley read the Greek fathers (Macarius, Ephrem the Syrian, Gregory of Nyssa) seriously, and his doctrine of theosis-like sanctification has Eastern Orthodox resonances. Recent Methodist-Orthodox dialogue has emphasised the convergence.
"I read with admiration the lives and writings of the Greek fathers, who treat sanctification as ontological transformation." (A Plain Account, paraphrasing)
A retrospective affinity: Wesley's focus on experiential appropriation of holiness, on the personal-existential testing of doctrine against experience, has proto-existentialist structure.
"Try the doctrine by its fruits in actual Christian experience." (A Plain Account, paraphrasing the experiential method)
Wesley's working empiricism (his "experimental religion" — religious truth tested in experience, the careful collection of testimonies of those claiming entire sanctification) is paradigmatically empiricist.
"I have collected many hundreds of testimonies from persons who profess to have received this blessing." (A Plain Account)
A retrospective resonance: Wesley's doctrine that the gospel produces real social and personal transformation, his concern with the poor, and his opposition to slavery (his last letter, 1791, was to William Wilberforce on slavery) have been major references for liberation theology.
"True holiness is social — there is no holiness but social holiness." (Wesley, often-cited maxim associated with A Plain Account's framework)
Wesley's working theological realism — God really exists, grace really transforms, perfection is a real possibility in this life — frames the entire treatise.
"It is real, attainable, and to be sought after." (A Plain Account, on Christian perfection)
Wesley's doctrine is tested pragmatically by the actual transformed lives of Methodist societies. The book includes lengthy pragmatic-experimental data.
"The reality of the work is best seen in those who have received it." (A Plain Account, paraphrasing)
A cross-tradition affinity (noticed by comparative theology): Wesleyan "perfect love" has structural parallels with Sufi tawhid-in-love and the ego's self-effacement in divine love. Both are mystical-evangelical in distinctive ways.
"The pure love of God is the heart's only object." (A Plain Account, paraphrasing the core experiential claim)
Wesleyan-Methodist tradition.
Arminian tradition.
Internal Tensions
The doctrine of entire sanctification has been criticised by Reformed theologians as overstating what is biblically and pastorally attainable, and by Lutheran theologians as endangering the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Internal Methodist history shows continuing debate about whether entire sanctification is instantaneous, gradual, or both — and about its phenomenology. The relation between Wesleyan perfection and Catholic-Orthodox doctrines of holiness has become a major dialogical theme in recent ecumenical scholarship (Outler, Maddox, Coppedge, Wynkoop).
I. Time
Sanctification as a process unfolding in temporal Christian life; entire sanctification as a definite divine work in time, often experientially datable.
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II. Space
Ordinary embodied space; the inward space of the sanctified heart as the relevant theological subject.
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III. Matter
Embodied Christian life — Wesley's practical theology integrates body, soul, and community.
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IV. Observer
The regenerate believer, embodied, capable of real present sanctification by grace. Plural, both active in moral life and passive in receiving grace.
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V. Energy
The energy of divine love perfecting the believer's affections — the substantive content of "perfect love."
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VI. Information
The believer's self-knowledge of sanctifying grace, testable by its fruits, preserved through perseverance.
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Personas with the nearest attribute fingerprint
Historical figures whose own classification on the same six-dimensional grid lands closest to this work's. Computed by attribute-agreement on coordinates both address.
Computed school proximity
The work's attribute fingerprint scored against all schools using the same quiz scorer. Useful as a sanity check on the hand-curated embodiments above.
How A Plain Account of Christian Perfection resolves each dilemma
51 resolved positions across 4 dimensions, including 3 distinctive where the majority of schools go the other way · 6 unaligned.
Each dimension is sorted so minority positions come first. Mainstream positions are folded into an expandable list.
Time · 9 dilemmas · 3 distinctive
Persistence, the future, and the direction of becoming.