Grace of God

Once, as I rode out into the woods for my health, in 1737, having alighted from my horse in a retired place, as my manner commonly has been, to walk for divine contemplation and prayer, I had a view, that for me was extraordinary, of the glory of the Son of God, as Mediator between God and man, and his wonderful, great, full, pure and sweet grace and love, and meek and gentle condescension. This grace that appeared so calm and sweet, appeared also great above the heavens. The person of Christ appeared ineffably excellent, with an excellency great enough to swallow up all thought and conception—which continued, as near as I can judge, about an hour; which kept me the greater part of the time in a flood of tears, and weeping aloud.

What has been begun by grace alone is in such fashion performed by grace and by free choice, that in cooperation, not separately; at one and the same time, not by turns; the result is wrought by both of them. It is not that grace does part and free choice does part, but each does the entire work by its individual energy. Free choice, in truth, does the entire work, and so also does grace, but, even as the whole is done in the former (by cooperation), so the whole is done of the latter (by origination).

Have you never beheld a condemned prisoner dissolved into tears upon the unexpected and unmerited receipt of a pardon, who all the time before was as hard as a flint? The hammer of the law may break the icy heart of a man with terrors and horror, and yet it may remain ice still, unchanged; but when the fire of love kindly thaws its ice, it is changed and dissolved into water—it is no longer ice, but of another nature.… Therefore meditate much on the love of God and Christ to your unworthy soul.