Abstract
On 24 August 1744, in a sermon at St Mary’s, Oxford, John Wesley indicted what he perceived to be a poverty of ‘Scriptural Christianity’ within the University. Wesley began his homily by portraying an early declension of the Church; already in apostolic times, he maintained, the ‘mystery of iniquity’ had grown up alongside the ‘mystery of godliness’. Wesley then painted a dramatic picture of enduring conflict between these two forces throughout church history, declaring, ‘Here we tread a beaten path: the still increasing corruptions of the succeeding generations have been largely described from time to time, by those witnesses God raised up, to show that he had “built his church upon a rock, and the gates of hell should not” wholly “prevail against her”.’
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