The Centrality of Religious Experience
JOHN WESLEY AND CHRISTIAN ANTIQUITY
resources of antiquity as a vision after which modern Christians might model their lives. He also expressed this intention with respect to more specific aspects of the Christian life, namely, Christian religious experience, the order of the Christian life, and Christian virtue.
The Centrality of Religious Experience John Wesley was part of a widely dispersed movement in Western
European culture in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that stressed the centrality of personal religious experience. In this respect, it is critical to note in beginning an examination of his views of ancient
Christianity as providing a vision of the individual Christian life that he consistently called upon Christian antiquity as a pattern for the sort of religious experience which he believed to be normative for individual Christian life. This was particularly critical in the light of the eighteenth-century British cultural millieu, which valued experiential (or,
"experimental") epistemologies. Wesley held, in particular, that there is a general religious experience, a "spiritual sensation" (to use his terms) which persons are aware of in varying degrees. Wesley could term this sort of religious experience "faith," in a general sense (but not in the specific sense of "the proper Christian faith" of "justifying faith," from which he distinguished this more general sense of the term). His Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, for example, defines "faith" in this general sense, following Hebrews 11:1,
Now faith (supposing the Scripture to be of God) is elenchos ton ou blepomenon—the demonstrative evidence of things unseen, the supernatural evidence of things invisible, not perceivable by eyes of flesh, or by any of our natural senses or faculties. Faith is that divine evidence whereby the spiritual man discerneth God and the things of God. It is with regard to the spiritual world what sense is with regard to the natural. It is the spiritual sensation of every soul that is born of God.
Elsewhere he maintained that this "spiritual sense" characterizes not only the regenerate, but, to some degree, every human. It might involve "conviction of sin" as well as "assurance of pardon" and the awareness of other spiritual states." In his correspondence with "John
Smith," he termed it "perceptible inspiration," and claimed that it was "the main doctrine of the Methodists.""*
Given this general stress on the immediate experience of God, it is important to note that Wesley and at least one of his interlocutors recognized a conceptual distinction between inward, divine inspiration, and the power to perform externally attested, miraculous acts.
"John Smith" wrote to Wesley:
"THE MANNERS OF THE ANCIENT CHRISTIANS"
There are three ways in which the Holy Spirit may be said to bear witness: first, by external, miraculous, sensible attestations (as by an audible voice from heaven, by visible signs, wonders, etc.); or secondly by internal, plainly perceptible whispers ('Go not into Macedonia', 'Go with these men', 'Join thyself unto this Christ', etc.); or third [and] lastly, by his standing testimony in the Holy Scriptures.!"
Although Wesley disagreed with "Smith" over the ages in which the first two forms of witness ceased, and wished to clarify the second form of witness, he accepted the conceptual distinctions laid down by "Smith.""* His principal point of contention with "Smith" (and with Bishop Smalbroke in the Farther Appeal) was over the second form of witness, that is, internal, divine inspiration, whereas the principal point of contention with Middleton was over the first form of witness, that is, publicly attested divine acts.
Wesley's Farther Appeal attempts to prove that immediate, divine inspiration was considered by the early Christians among the "ordinary" operations of the Holy Spirit available to Christians of every generation. Wesley undertook this argument in response to Bishop
Richard Smalbroke, a noted scholar of ancient Christianity who had attempted to prove that immediate divine inspiration was considered by Augustine, Jerome, Origen, and Chrysostom as belonging among the "extraordinary" gifts of the Holy Spirit reserved only for the apostolic age. Wesley responded to Smalbroke by producing loci from each of these four early Christian writers which illustrate their belief that the immediate divine inspiration (referred to by several scriptural passages) continued to be experienced by the Christians of their own
ages.'" Wesley cited, for example, a long passage from John Chrysostom asserting that the witness of the Spirit of which Paul speaks in Romans 8:15-16 was the common possession of Christians."" He conceded that some of the scriptural passages referring to divine inspiration were understood by ancient Christian writers as relating primarily to the apostolic age; but even in these cases, Wesley maintained, the writers held that in another sense the passages referred to their own age. His conclusion to this section of the Farther Appeal summarizes his views:
Therefore, upon the whole, the sense of the primitive church, so far as it can be gathered from the authors above cited, is that 'although some of the Scriptures primarily refer to those extraordinary gifts of the Spirit which were given to the apostles and a few other persons in the apostolical age; yet they refer also, in a secondary sense, to those ordinary operations of the Holy Spirit which all the children of God do and will experience, even to the end of the world."
The Farther Appeal indicates that Wesley held Christians through the fifth century to have experienced such inspirations.
JOHN WESLEY AND CHRISTIAN ANTIQUITY
Wesley's specific understanding of this immediate divine inspiration becomes even clearer in his correspondence with "John Smith."
"Smith's" question was whether the ordinary operations of the Holy Spirit were "perceptible" to Christians:
The dispute [in the Farther Appeal] was about the ordinary and extraordinary operations of the Holy Ghost. But of the perceptibility of the ordinary operations, as directly felt to be worked by him, there is not one word said, neither there, nor that I know of in one place in the Bible."
"Smith" actually conceded that "internal, plainly perceptible whispers," or "internal prophetic inspiration," remained through the fifth century, although he held that it was not experienced by Christians of the middle ages, such as Bernard of Clairvaux.¥ Wesley responded that Christians of all generations should expect the same divine inspiration known to the ancient Christians. His conception of this divine inspiration is revealed in a passage where Wesley cited "Smith's" definition of it, and comment parenthetically thereon:
'... by internal, plainly perceptible whispers' (I must add, not in words, at least not always, but by some kind of impressions equivalent thereto)... .2
Wesley's comment in this instance suggests that he understood the divine inspiration of the ancient (and modern) Christians as being a form of knowledge gained by impressions upon some organ other than the bodily senses. This conforms to his conception of faith, in a general sense, as a form of spiritual perception."
Wesley's interest in ancient Christian religious experience was motivated by Methodist claims to similar experiences. The Methodists' teaching of, and testimonies to, this sort of religious experience provoked considerable response from Anglican leaders. Wesley summarized their objections in introducing a section of his Farther Appeal,
Part I, Accordingly, whenever we speak of the Spirit of God, of his operations in the souls of men, of his revealing unto us the things of God, or inspiring us with good desires or tempers, whenever we mention the feeling his mighty power working in us according to his good pleasure, the general answer we have to expect is: 'This is all rank enthusiasm. So it was with the apostles and first Christians. But only enthusiasts pretend to this now.'
The issue of Christian religious experience was generally controverted in Wesley's age under the heading of "enthusiasm," and one of the central issues was whether perceptible (religious) experience was limited to "the apostles and first Christians," or available to persons of all time.
"THE MANNERS OF THE ANCIENT CHRISTIANS"
This was the issue between Wesley and Bishop Smalbroke. Wesley understood the controversy in the following terms:
That I confound the extraordinary with the ordinary operations of the Spirit, and therefore am an enthusiast, is also strongly urged in a Charge delivered to his clergy and lately published by the Lord
Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield."
Smalbroke took immediate, divine inspiration to be among the "extraordinary" operations of the Holy Spirit reserved for the apostolic age. Wesley undertook to show, in response to Smalbroke, that Christian writers through the fifth century considered immediate inspiration to be commonly experienced by Christians." In this manner, Wesley defended by appeal to ancient Christian precedents the view of religious experience that he and the Methodists advocated.
Similarly, it was the issue of "enthusiasm" that lay behind Wesley's polemical correspondence with "John Smith." The controversy took a differently nuanced form in this case, since "Smith's" question was whether the ordinary operations of the Holy Spirit were to be considered "perceptible," and since Smith conceded that Christians through the age of Constantine did indeed perceive the Spirit's operations. Nevertheless, "Smith" maintained that the operations of the 'Holy Spirit were no longer perceptible by Christians after the age of Chrysostom." Wesley argued in reply that, if there is good reason to believe that internal, "prophetic assurance" continued in the days of Origen and Chrysostom, then there is good reason to believe that it continued in the days of Bernard, and that it continues in modern times.*? Again, Wesley justified his view of religious experience by appeal to patristic precedent.
The controversy over "enthusiasm" continued, and Wesley continued to defend Methodist views by appeal to ancient Christian precedents. Bishop George Lavington's Enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists Compar'd (1749) attempted to draw a comparison between the wild and pernicious enthusiasms of some of the most eminent saints of the popish communion, and those of the Methodists in our own country.
Wesley argued that the Bishop's censures upon the Methodists could be applied with equal force against the "enthusiasm" of the martyrs of the ancient church."
Wesley's appeal to ancient Christian accounts of religious experience in order to demonstrate the validity of, and provide positive models for, modern religious experience was consistent throughout his career in the Evangelical Revival. It shows how he regarded the developing spiritual epistemologies of his age as a revival of the "vision" of the ancient Christians which contrasted with the conven-