Free will?

I have been reading The Theology of John Wesley lately. I really like Collins as an author; he is careful and thorough. And, unlike some recent Wesleyan scholars, he doesn't try to push free will back onto Wesley.

What? you ask. You thought Wesley believed in free will and it was only those Calvinists who didn't. Wrong! Wesley believed in total depravity; I mean total depravity. But, he also believed in free grace:

We [Wesley and Fletcher] both steadily assert that the will of man is by nature free only to evil. Yet we both believe that every man has a measure of free-will restored to him by grace.

So, what Wesley believed in was free grace, not free will. I think he was right. If you understand Wesley here, the rest of his theology makes sense. The concept of sanctification is not a works oriented, man centered doctrine, but one of free grace poured out on the believer. Because Wesley believed in free grace, he was not bound to the paradigm of the Reformers, who believed that man was doomed to sin every day, in every way, even after salvation. For Wesley, salvation was from sin, not just the effects of sin, not just past sins, but the being of sin. But, it was all by grace, not one ounce of it was by mankind's works. In his sermon The Scripture Way of Salvation, he asks if you believed you could be saved from sin. If you didn't, why not? Was it because of something in your life that you had to remove first? Then, says Wesley, you are no longer seeking holiness by faith, but by works!