‘By Christian perfection,
I mean (1) loving God with all our heart. Do you object to this?
I mean (2) a heart and life devoted to God. Do you desire less?
I mean (3) regaining the whole image of God. What objection to this?
I mean (4) having all the mind that was in Christ. Is this going too far?
I mean (5) walking uniformly as Christ walked. And this surely no Christian will object to.
If anyone means anything more or anything else by perfection, I have no concern with it. But if this is wrong, yet what need of this heat about it, this violence, I had almost said, fury of opposition, carried so far as even not to lay out anything with this man, or that woman, who professes it?’
(John Wesley’s Journal, June 1769)
(This was not all he said on the subject, as one of his 44 Sermons addressed the issue. But if we are going to join this same debate 250 years on, we should look at the original sources if possible.)