It has been the fashion to paint the religious life of eighteenth-century England in the darkest colors.
"Never had religion seemed at so low an ebb," is Green's often-quoted judgment; and endless variations on this theme have included pictures of lifeless churches, worldly clergy, skeptical universities, unchurched masses, political corruption, drunken and debauched areas in the great cities. These accounts are accurate; but they do not tell the whole truth.
Dr. Sykes has very pertinently insisted that the Church of England in the eighteenth century must be seen from the vantage point of the seventeenth century. That century bequeathed to its successor a depleted ministry and a bigoted partisanship which ill © fitted the Church to deal with the Deists and with practical problems which came with the new century.
Seen in the light of the preceding century, the Georgian period "can claim a generous measure of praise for the good which it accomplished, and a more equitable degree of censure for the failings which were to no small extent the result of its peculiar situations
There is, of course, room for criticism enough.
The Church had been subordinated both to nationalReligion in Eighteenth-Century England istic and to commercial interests. Among the intellectual classes skepticism was the mode, and it has been often remarked that in these circles the Church was smiled at by those who did not deride it. The desire for peace and distrust of everything which might disturb the status quo made for sterility in religion, so that there is some truth in the statement that "'the typical mental attitude in the early eighteenth century was that of acceptance, as distinct from that of wonder, curiosity or challenge." "
But it is easy to exaggerate the darker pigments. If the Church tended to a latitudinarian spirit, it was not insensible to the newer currents of thought and was preparing the way for a fuller appreciation of the new knowledge. If speculative theology suffered, the ethical interests of religion were conserved. Indeed, the accusation of insensibility and of spiritual deadness is too often made from a partial survey of the facts. The literature to which appeal is made is the literature of the town and of a certain class in the town. Just as Professor Trevelyan remarks that a true picture of Britain in the eighteenth century must take account of Clive, of Wolfe, of Captain Cook, of Wesley and of James Watt,*® so one might insist that a picture of English religion of the period must include Isaac Watts, Philip Doddridge, William Law,
Bishop Butler, Bishop Berkeley, and many a country parson as well.
Certainly the best-advertised group of the first half 'of the century were the Deists. In general, they insisted upon natural religion as distinguished from revealed. God has given in nature what can be
John Wesley and Modern Religion discovered by man's reason, and there is no need that he should superadd anything. 'Must not their reason," asks Tindal, 'tantecedently to all external revelation, afford certain tests to distinguish between truth and falsehood, in all religious matters?" And he added:
"Tf it be evident that we cannot discern whether any instituted religion contains everything worthy and nothing unworthy of a divine original; except we can antecedently by our reason discern what is or is not worthy of having God for its author; it necessarily follows, that natural and revealed religion cannot differ." * Since natural and revealed religion must be the same, there is no need for a revelation to be added to natural religion discoverable by reason.
And this natural religion is understandable as well as discoverable by all; it is religion reduced to the simplest terms. While revealed religion is for those to whom it is revealed, natural religion is for everybody; and while revealed religion is not the same for all, since those who were living at the time of the revelation have the most certainty, for example, natural religion is the same everywhere for everyone. In general, the Deists reduced the tenets of natural religion to three: the existence of God, of a moral law, and the certainty of future rewards and punishments.
In a penetrating study of the parallel between Deism and Classicism, Professor Lovejoy has shown how the theory of the Deists agrees with that of the neo-classical critics of the Augustan Age. Both are expressions of the world view which seeks excellence in uniformity. 'The object of the effort of the reli- ;| | gious, moral, or social reformer, as of the literary
Religion in Eighteenth-Century England )critic, is therefore to standardize men and their beliefs, their likings, their activities, and their institutions. 95
And Professor Lovejoy indicates the various other characteristics of Deism which follow from this fundamental principle. The individual is free to depend upon his own reason, but this reason, at bottom, is identical with that of other men; or, men may depend i upon "common sense," that is, upon the sense common
to all men. Such an attitude would, of course, be &3 ; opposed to originality, to any considerable emphasis upon individual differences. Moreover, what is abstruse or so involved as to be obscure to the majority is either unimportant or untrue.
Deism did not penetrate far beyond the intellectual class. The controversy over it was a battle of books.
But a very similar attitude was widespread among the religious of the early eighteenth century. Social conditions called for moderation; the Revolution left
both government and trade on uneasy footings, and fanaticism of all kinds was suspected. In this atmosphere flourished a religion of moderation, emphasizing ethical requirements, subordinating all abstruse speculation, and fearing excessive zeal for doctrine or Church. Social good was the test of religion, and the common path was the way:
For forms of government, let fools contest; Whate'er is best administered is best; For modes of faith, let graceless zealots fight;
His can't be wrong, whose life is in the right:
In faith and hope the world will disagree, But all mankind's concern is Charity:
All must be false that thwart this one great end; And all of God, that bless mankind, or mend.
John Wesley and Modern Religion Or again:
Take nature's path, and mad opinion's leave; All states can reach it, and all heads conceive; Obvious her goods, in no extreme they dwell; There needs but thinking right, and meaning well.
Such an attitude was easy for the religiously indifferent of the day. The young clergyman was warned not to fly too high; he was to essay a more modest path, to flee the "pride" of which the Augustan Age was so afraid. But earnest men might also hold such an ideal. Robert Dodsley's Art of Preaching, published perhaps about 1738,° may be taken as illustrative of this temper so prevalent throughout the greater part of the century among the Established clergy, and also among most of the Dissenters. The very fact that Dodsley's poem on preaching is "in imitation of Horace's Art of Poetry" testifies to the moderating, regulatory mood in which it is written.
The preacher, according to Dodsley, must avoid extremes of orthodoxy or heterodoxy:
Most Preachers err (except the wiser few) Thinking establish'd Doctrines, therefore true:
Others, too fond of Novelty and Schemes, Amuse the World with airy idle Dreams:
Thus too much Faith, or too presuming Wit, Are Rocks where Bigots, or Free-thinkers split.
He must now be guided by something other than the authority which once determined man's beliefs:
Reason now reigns, and by her Aid we hope Truth may revive, and sickening Error droop:
She the sole Judge, the Rule, the gracious Light Kind Heaven has lent to guide our Minds aright.
Religion in Eighteenth-Century England Of the subjects which grace the pulpit, Dodsley specifies '""Truth, moral Virtue, Piety, and Peace"; and, while men have a right to their opinions, yet "sacred ought to be the publick Peace as Private
It is necessary that the preacher feel what he preaches, and he should take care to preach virtue with charm and denounce vice with severity. Nevertheless, adds the poet with a sneer:
With Zeal defend whate'er the Church believes, If you expect to thrive, or wear Lawn Sleeves.
To avoid obscure doctrines, and to preach virtue by simple rules, is the preacher's great business. There is a broad tolerance in Dodsley, albeit the tolerance of evasion. "Such Points as these be far too deep for Man."
Sure 'tis much nobler, and more like Divine, T' enlarge the Path to Heaven, than to confine; Insist Alone on useful Points, or plain; And know, God cannot hate a virtuous Man.
yours in useful Sermons to explain, Both what we owe to God, and what to Man.
Tis yours the Charms of Liberty to paint, His Country's Love in every Breast to plant:
Yours every social Virtue to improve, Justice, Forbearance, Charity, and Love; Yours too the private Virtues to augment,
Of Prudence, Temperance, Modesty, Content.
Reason, morality, public and private peace, the public good, moderation, these are the aims of the Zo PSig John Wesley and Modern Religion preacher. Religion is a restraining, regulatory, mitigating power, designed to make man live according to reason and to preserve social peace and happiness.
But while the via media of moral and rational religion was sufficient for some, others sought more earnestly for holiness of heart and life. Purposely, this survey is confined to the earlier part of the century, | that it may be evident what streams were freshening
English religious life before the Evangelical Revival.
And no survey can neglect the moral and spiritual earnestness illustrated by the Religious Societies.' In the not very fruitfully religious period of the Restoration, Dr. Anthony Horneck organized a group of young men in London into a religious society, which met once a week to promote holiness of life. This society was composed of members of the Church of England, and they used no prayers but those of the Church, carefully avoiding, since laymen took part, prayers reserved for the minister. The special rules to be observed contained practical admonitions: to love one another; not to revile those who reviled them; to keep close to the Church of England; to pray, if possible, seven times a day; to examine themselves every night.
The high aims of societies regulated in a similar fashion may be seen from the preamble to the rules of the society at St. Giles' Cripplegate. This sets forth, ""That the Sole design of this Society, being to promote Real Holiness of heart and Life; it is Absolutely necessary, that the Persons who enter into it do seriously Resolve to apply themselves in good earnest to all means proper to make them wise unto SalvaReligion in Eighteenth-Century England tion." * This society, like the others, sought to encourage Bible reading, prayer, frequent communion, and daily examination of one's life.
In the societies, members were to avoid discussing politics or worldly matters, and each was to watch over the other; "'and if they find any that walks disorderly let him Admonish him privately by himself and if it prove ineffectual let him be reprov'd before one or two more and if this prove ineffectual also, let him be reprov'd before the whole Society and if this reclaims him not let him be Excluded." ® In short, the societies were to exercise disciplinary care over their members, as they were to encourage each to enter upon a course of guidance and discipline for himself.
From the provision that apprentices were not to be received, and from the lists of members of the society at St. Giles', it appears that the membership was among the trades and artisan classes: joiners, leather dressers, tailors, perukemakers, buttonmakers, needlemakers, schoolmasters, are among those listed.*°
During the years following and well on into the eighteenth century, these societies developed and grew until they had no little effect. They later enjoined tenderness toward Dissenters, but remained Church of England societies, emphasizing attendance upon Church services and frequent communion. In addition, the members were bound to works of charity and to the forwarding of educational work—that is, catechizing—among the poor.
The societies met with opposition from those who saw them as encroachments upon the ministerial office and duties, and they incurred suspicion as political
John Wesley and Modern Religion organizations. Moreover, the organization of the Society for the Reformation of Manners, which busied itself with prosecution of offenders against public decency, profane swearers, and the like, gave rise to contention about informers and spying; and the religious societies suffered from public confusion of the two. But the societies left a permanent impression upon the religious life of England. Canon
Overton says that the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge was a "daughter of the Religious Societies," and that the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts was an offshoot of the S. P. C. K.' Contemporaries observed an increase of attendance at the Lord's Supper and at the services of the Church. ; That books of devotion were popular in this period is evidenced by the number of editions published and by references to them in contemporary writings. Mr.
Wickham Legg thinks that The Whole Duty of Man is possibly the most popular book of devotion that England has ever known.'" But between 1678 and 1764 fifty-two editions appeared of A Week's Preparation towards a Worthy Receiving of the Lord's
Supper, while Robert Nelson's Companion for the Festivals and Fasts of the Church of England went through so many editions that Boswell guessed it had the greatest sale of any work ever printed in English except the Bible. Taylor's Holy Living and Dying and 4 Kempis' Imitation of Christ were also popular, as were William Law's books, especially his A Serious
Call to a Devout and Holy Life.
Religion in Eighteenth-Century England These books fall into two classes, the ones intended as aids to devotion in connection with the rites of the Church and those aiming at personal discipline, the regulation of one's inner and outer life. It was from Jeremy Taylor that Wesley got the essence of the rules and regulations which he gave to the Holy Club at Oxford and to his helpers in the later Methodist
Societies, and it was from Taylor that Wesley took the method of self-examination which appears in his Diary.** Regulation of devotion and of life, the "Imitation of Christ," was part of the religious life of many in the early eighteenth century, as the books of devotion and self-discipline attest.
Among those to whom such books appealed were many of the High Church party. It is true that the party in the days of Queen Anne is now remembered more for political quarrels than for private devotion; but the lapse of years should make possible a more unbiased appraisal of High Church virtues and weaknesses. High Church was sometimes an epithet for any who showed unusual devotion to the Church.
According to a pamphlet published in 1705, possibly written by John Norris, anyone who appears "'to have a hearty zeal for the Church, is at all strict in the observation of its rules and orders, expressesany concern for its safety, or is found to be in those measures which are necessary for its security and preservation" is likely to be called a High Churchman.*
But there are attempts at more precise definition.
Hallam described the party as distinguished by great pretensions to sacerdotal power both spiritual and temporal, by a repugnance to toleration, and by a pV John Wesley and Modern Religion firm adherence to the Tory principle in the State.'®
These characteristics must be set against the background of the Commonwealth, when the Church of England was inundated by a tidal wave of Presbyterianism, Independency, and Sectarianism. The good
Churchman could not look back with equanimity upon "'the late unhappy times when Hell was broke loose" 1®; and a nervous zeal for the Establishment was excited by real and suspected enemies. The persecution of Dissenters was not sufficient, and ministers who had refused to conform to the liturgy, even though they were Churchmen at heart, fell under the suspicion and active persecution of the Church.
After the Revolution of 1689, many good men refused to take the oath of allegiance to William and Mary because of a scruple as to the legality of the succession, and these Nonjurors became a party half in and half out of the Church of England. Others who remained loyal to the new sovereigns were suspicious of the bishops who succeeded the deposed prelates, and the reign of Anne saw an unlovely bickering and controversies which threatened more serious — trouble.
In 1709, a firebrand of extreme High Church views, Dr. Sacheverell, attacked the Dissenters in scurrilous language and was impeached at the bar of the House of Lords. He was suspended for a time and made a tour of England which turned out to be a triumphal journey. Sacheverell belonged to the group of High Churchmen who were known as "high-flyers,' and what he himself defined as a High Churchman must be judged accordingly. The High ChurchReligion in Eighteenth-Century England man, in Dr. Sacheverell's mind, was one who stood for the divine right of episcopacy, for apostolic succession, for the use of liturgy instead of extemporary prayers, for the "primitive Doctrine and Discipline of the Ancient Church." He believed separation from the Church of England to be schism, and therefore held the Dissenters to be in a dangerous state. Moreover, he observed "the traditional customs as well as the written laws of the Church, and he always bowed very low before the Altar and at the name of Jesus." 7
The more militant High Churchmen were intent upon asserting the independence of the Church from the State, claiming that Convocation stood upon the same high ground of freedom as Parliament. 'They were suspicious of Dissenters and insistent upon depriving them of such privileges as tolerant Whigs had granted, even plotting to deprive them of educational advantages in their own academies as they had already been excluded from the Universities. There was much talk about ancient observances; the authority of the ecumenical councils and of the early Fathers was exalted; and the practice of the primitive Church held up as the rule and guide of Christianity. On the constitution of the Church and apostolic succession, the High Churchmen seem to have been agreed.
Bishop Beveridge (1637-1708), who was highly regarded by the moderate Nonjurors although he had accepted a bishopric under the new regime, was clear in his pronouncements concerning the ministry:
"Thus therefore, it is, that the apostolical office hath been handed down from one to another ever since the apostles' days to our time, and so will be to the end of John Wesley and Modern Religion the world, Christ himself being continually present at such imposition of hands; thereby transferring the same Spirit, which he had first breathed into his apostles, upon others successively after them...
Legg quotes from another sermon printed by Episcopal command, which went through four editions.
This sermon declares roundly that an ordination to be good and valid requires that the ordainer or ordainers have a power transmitted to him or them "by a continued Succession from Jesus Christ." This, says the preacher, means simply "that none is a lawful Minister, who is not Episcopally ordain'd."
In his poem, ""The Parish Priest," *° Samuel Wesley, Jr., portrays a clergyman who answers to Norris' description but who is also a High Churchman in a sense close to that of the definitions of Hallam and Sacheverell. This parish priest, Samuel Wesley's father-in-law in fact, was zealous to protect the doctrines of his flock.
Amongst his Corn no Tares neglected spring; That free-born Subjects ought to rule their King, That Sense and Revelation disagree, That Zeal is still at war with Charity; That Dust-born Reptiles may their God disown,
And place their foolish Reason in his throne.
No Colours false deceiv'd his wary Eye, Nor lukewarm Peace, nor Atheist Liberty.
Scripture and Fathers guide his Footsteps right:
For Truth is one, but Error infinite.
With Love to Souls, and deepest Learning fraught, His Master's Gospel undisguis'd he taught.
He show'd the Pow'r of Kings, the Mitre's Sway, Which Earth can neither give nor take away.
Religion in Eighteenth-Century England And God the faithful Sower pleas'd to bless, And crown'd his Harvest with a vast Success.
While forty Years his heav'nly Doctrine charms, No single Son forsakes the Church's Arms:
No Romish Wolf around his Fences prowl'd, Nor Fox Dissenter earth'd within his Fold.
It would be unfair to assume that High Church meant only zeal against popery and dissent. Samuel Wesley's lines concerning the daily life of his fatherin-law during his forty years of parish ministry should also be quoted:
He mourn'd with those who Pain or Want endure, A Guardian Angel to the Sick and Poor; Where the two best of Charities he join'd,
To cure the Body, and to heal the Mind.
Oft as the Year brought back the glorious Day When Infant Jesus in a Manger lay, Or when from Death the God triumphant came,
Or when the Holy-Ghost descends in Flame, Around his Board the welcome Needy sate, And crowd his Parlour, not besiege his Gate.
T' obey their Word his Children waited near, And learnt their Saviour's Image to revere.
This Charity perform'd, the wealthier Guest Was call'd to share his hospitable Feast; The Poor invited first, his Table grace, And Riches only held the second Place.
Such was the Man by Friends and Foes confest, Worthy the glorious Name of Parish Priest.
Although High Church was too often a party cry during the age of Queen Anne, one must not be John Wesley and Modern Religion tempted to assess the religious lives and belief of the High Churchmen as those of belligerents only. Indeed, the whole excited period must be judged with more moderation than has often been shown by those concerned to use ancient examples in modern controversies. 'The historian needs to be admonished, in Professor Trevelyan's words, not "'to forget that there was more in the religious sense of the nation than the feuds out of which, incidentally, our political liberties in large part arose." As he points out, the religious life of many families and parishes moved on little concerned with High and Low Church."* |
On the whole, the tendencies in English religious life thus far described were on the side of uniformity, control, discipline, or of corporate religion. Rationalism tended to repress individual aberrations and to secure belief that was uniform for all rational beings; the religious societies attempted to subdue natural impulses and substitute the restraints of habit and rules; while a high conception of the Church made for a subordination of individual to corporate religion.
Nevertheless, there was an individualistic element in rationalism; each man was to use his own reason. The societies promoted individual piety; and there was a high type of personal religion in many who were passionately devoted to the Church and its ministries.
Personal religion, understood as individual attitudes and tempers rather than the performance of outward duties, was emphasized by many in the early eighteenth century. Robert Nelson may be taken as an example of a High Churchman who understood reli-. gion to be of the heart. Nelson was a nonjuring sCia
Religion in Eighteenth-Century England layman whose writings were widely influential. The tenor of his work may be discerned in a short paragraph concerning prayer and the means of grace.
"These are happy instruments of enabling us to work out our salvation,' wrote Nelson; "but except we bring forth the fruit of the Spirit, 'love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance'; except we 'crucify the flesh with the affections and lusts' thereof; except we live in the Spirit, and walk in the Spirit, we shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven, that infinite happiness that is promised to all devout souls." ?? Christian perfection is not merely a perfect performance of outward devotions, although they "more or less advance our
Christian perfection as they tend to recover the image of God in our souls, and to work in us all Christian virtues." But "the temper of our minds must be changed, our hearts renewed, our inward affections purified and sanctified in order to make our outward things pleasing in God's sight." ** One of the forces making for individualism in England was undoubtedly Puritanism. During the seventeenth century, both in the Church of England and without among Presbyterians and Independents,
Puritanism was an individualistic leaven. 'True, the more conservative Puritans desired a rigid Church discipline; but the total effect of the Calvinistic emphasis upon the independent relation of the human soul to God was in the direction of individualism. In the same way, while the Puritan remembered that the powers that be are ordained of God, he never forgot his prior allegiance to the Great White Throne; he
John Wesley and Modern Religion must obey God rather than man. Social historians have seen in Puritanism one of the prime factors in the nascent capitalistic society, a principal influence in the formation of economic individualism. '"'In all countries alike,' wrote R. H. Tawney, "'the social theory of Calvinism went through the same process of development. It had begun by being the very soul of authoritarian regimentation. It ended by being the vehicle of an almost Utilitarian individualism."
Certainly, among those whose spiritual genealogy went back to seventeenth-century Puritanism, there were found many who insisted upon individualistic religion.
Isaac Watts, the hymn writer, may be taken as the most familiar example of this tendency toward individualistic religion. He played no small part in Wesley's own religious experience; and Watts's hymns have always been a standard part of the Methodist
Hymnbook. In 1707, Watts published his hymn, "Breathing after the Holy Spirit; or, Fervency of Devotion Desired." 'The lines are well known:
Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove, With all thy quickening powers; Kindle a flame of sacred love In these cold hearts of ours.
His doctrine of the love of God producing man's love is not only Johannine but Wesleyan:
Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove, With all thy quickening powers; Come, shed abroad a Saviour's love, And that shall kindle ours.
Religion in Eighteenth-Century England Certitude, which Wesley called Assurance, appears also in Watts's hymns, along with the note of joy.
Indeed, his hymn, "Why should the children of a King go mourning all their days?" is one of the great hymns which rebuke melancholy and "evangelical sadness."
Dost thou not dwell in all thy saints, And seal the heirs of heaven?
When wilt thou banish my complaints, And show my sins forgiven?
Assure my conscience of her part In the Redeemer's blood; And bear thy witness with my heart, That I am born of God.
Thou art the earnest of his love, The pledge of joys to come; And thy soft wings, celestial Dove, Will safe convey me home.
Hymns are not theology; but if words mean anything, Watts was giving expression in 1708 and 1709 to the essentials of a religion which emphasized the individual's experience, and the emotional rather than rational aspects of experience. Personal faith, the life of God in the soul of man and consequent assurance and joy, are all in the verses of the Nonconformist Isaac Watts. Methodists ought not to forget also that John Wesley died with the words of one of Watts's hymns on his lips:
I'll praise my Maker while I've breath.
But the tendency toward an individualistic, emo- | tional religion was found in less respectable circles. | a0 John Wesley and Modern Religion That England, in the early eighteenth century, was not a land of ordered quiet, of properly suppressed feelings, a land governed easily according to the best formulations of Mr. Locke, is, of course, evident to the most superficial reader of history.
One has only to remember the uprisings of 715 and of °45 and the stirrings during the American Revolution, not to mention other wars, to understand that the century was a turbulent one. The fear of fanaticism and enthusiasm which recurs throughout the period is evidence of the existence of fanaticism and enthusiasm, not of their absence. The fear aroused by "'papists," Quakers, French Prophets, and, later,
Methodists testifies to the shock that England had received during the Civil War; but it also evidences the continuance of tendencies toward religious fanaticism. From the triumphal progress of Sacheverell to the Gordon riots, in the excesses of French
Prophets, in the scenes at early Methodist meetings, there is plentiful evidence of the emotional instability of the English people. With all their faults, the English of the eighteenth century remained a vigorous, sentimental race, capable alike of storming the heights of Quebec, of weeping over the misfortunes of Pamela, or of sobbing to the rhythm of Whitefield's magic voice.
During the Commonwealth period there had been a welter of mystical and semi-mystical sects which added no little to the confusion of the time. Familists, Brownists, Seekers, Ranters, Quakers, and numerous individual mystics were united in little save a belief in the immediate communion of man with God.
Religion in Eighteenth-Century England The claim to immediate inspiration, what was called "enthusiasm," was no unimportant matter in the seventeenth century; and philosophers, theologians, and statesmen joined to combat the pretensions of those who asserted a revelation from God Himself.
In some form or other the inner light and prophecy were live questions long after the Restoration.
Mystics like Jakob Boehme, the German shoemaker (1575-1624), were influential not only in theology but also in literature."
As an illustration of the crasser expression of religious emotionalism, one may recall the outbreak of fanaticism coupled with the activity of the French
Prophets, or Camisards, which provoked Shaftesbury's Characteristics. Emissaries of these prophets went throughout the land prophesying destruction and claiming immediate inspiration as their authority.
For the most part they were recruited from the humbler ranks of society; but at least two gentlemen joined them, to the scandal of the squirearchy. Even after the fiasco of a prophesied resurrection in Bunhill
Fields, in 1708, the movement did not die out; and there were isolated followers of the "prophets" down at least until the middle of the century."°
If there were comparative quiet and freedom from fanaticism in the England of Walpole, it was not be- | cause emotion had been dissected out of English life.
The masses of the people still lived in an atmosphere of "wonder." It was not until 1736 that the law punishing witchcraft by death was stricken from the statute book. The upper classes were becoming relatively free from grosser superstitions, but belowstairs
John Wesley and Modern Religion and in rural districts fairies and witches were realities.
Such beliefs, divorced from the grim reality of bloody assizes, were no unwholesome fare; and a recent historian quotes Wordsworth's testimony to the growth of his own imagination partly through the influence of fairy tales and ballads heard in his childhood."® In many parts of England, men and women lived in simpler and perhaps more normal touch with nature, giving freer scope to their fancies and to their emotions and ready to respond to an appeal to the heart.
"In the early eighteenth century, therefore, one finds in England no dead uniformity of religious life.
There was a rationalism which made for a minimum of belief, and that to be acceptable to all everywhere, always, and at all times. There was also a strong emphasis upon corporate religion, the mediation of grace through the Church and its ministries. But there was also in many groups a religion of the inner life, from the inner light of the Quakers to the personal devotion of the High Churchman. And affecting many in the humbler ranks of society were prophetic and mystical movements which persisted, © although somewhat as echoes, after the turbulence of Cromwellian times.
CHAPTER III g WESLEY'S TRAINING AT EPWORTH AND OXFORD "From a child,' wrote John Wesley in his old age, "T was taught to love and reverence the Scripture, the oracles of God; and, next to these, to esteem the primitive Fathers, the writers of the first three centuries. Next after the primitive church, I esteemed our own, the Church of England, as the most scriptural national Church in the world." * These were
Wesley's childhood loyalties, the authorities of a good High Churchman, and in the Epworth rectory he learned to reverence them.
In the Isle of Axholme, in northern Lincolnshire, cut off from the rest of England during a part of the year by the waters which overspread the lowlands,
Samuel Wesley's family lived in proud isolation. The country, as the late Dean of Winchester remarked, was one "in which a man should possess his soul in patience, yet where reaction might breed volcanic energy." * And the Wesleys, disdaining social equality with the people of the land, were disliked by many of the parishioners and by the squirearchy who differed from the rector in politics. Under such conditions the influence of the home would be doubly great, and the children would reflect in unusual degree family ideas and characteristics.
John Wesley and Modern Religion Samuel Wesley was of good family; and although he was relegated to a living in a far-away corner of England, it was a good living, and he was not cut off from the intellectual and political life of the nation.
Three times, in 1701, in 1711, and apparently once later, he was proctor for the diocese of Lincoln at Convocation in London. Since these were the times when the controversies between the Lower House and the Bishops were at their height, the whole panorama of England's political and religious conflicts must have been unrolled in the parsonage at Epworth when the rector returned from his missions.
In religion, Samuel Wesley was a High Churchman, as were most of the country clergy. Moreover, he was a convert, having been educated at a dissenting academy before he decided to enter the Established
Church; and like many converts he seems to have held his adopted opinions with the greater zeal. It is true that some historians have refused to believe that Samuel Wesley held high notions of sacerdotal power, a repugnance to toleration, and a firm adherence to Tory principles; but the facts are against them. In 1775, John Wesley declared that he himself was "'an High Churchman, the son of an High Churchman, bred up from my childhood in the highest notions of passive obedience and non-resistance."* He was speaking here of the political aspects of High Churchmanship. Some of the other tenets he had abandoned; but he knew what they were. In 1745, he thought it providential that he had not persisted in them: "And yet had we continued in the impetuosity of our High
Church zeal," he wrote in A Farther Appeal, "neither 2aar Wesley's Training at Epworth and Oxford should we have been willing to converse with Dissenters, nor they to receive any good at our hands." *
His elder brother, Samuel, understood his father's aversion to any one tainted with the views of seventeenth-century Dissent. On Samuel Wesley's death,
Samuel Wesley, Jr., wrote that his father had been shocked by those Who Law's and Gospel's bonds in sunder rend, And blush not Bradshaw's saintship to defend; Alike the Crown and Mitre who forswore, And scoff'd prophanely at the Martyr's gore."
John Wesley published this in the first volume of the Arminian Magazine, which appeared in 1778.
If any further proof is needed, there are the elder Samuel Wesley's own words to his brother-in-law, that he was happy to have brought up his children in his own principles and practices, "'to a steady opposition and confederacy against all such as are avowed and declared enemies to God and his clergy, and who deny or disbelieve any articles of natural or revealed religion, as well as to such as are open or secret friends to the Great Rebellion, or to any such principles as do but squint towards the same practices; so that he hopes they are all staunch High-Church, and for inviolable passive obedience." ° It would seem, indeed, that Samuel Wesley was not simply a mild High Churchman, but that he belonged to the "high-flyers." When Sacheverell was impeached, his defense was more moderate and better written than had been expected from one of such temperament, and there was considerable speculation
4] John Wesley and Modern Religion as to the author, the most likely guesses being Smalridge or Atterbury. In his History of England, John
Wesley solved the problem by declaring that his father wrote Sacheverell's defense.' There is no other evidence for this, but it seems improbable that John
Wesley would have made such a statement on insufficient authority, and this authority was no doubt either his father or Sacheverell himself, whom John
Wesley as a boy visited at his father's request.
As to Samuel Wesley's militant orthodoxy, it is enough to cite his membership in the Lower House of Convocation which censured Whiston's Arian views, a subject on which the elder Wesley felt so strongly that his wife had engraved upon his tombstone the words: "As he liv'd so he died in the true Catholic
Faith of the Holy Trinity in Unity, and that Jesus Christ is God incarnate: and the only Savior of Mankind. Acts iv: 12."
In the enforcement of discipline, too, Wesley was of the strictest sect, punishing adulterers by public penance, compelling them to stand barefooted and — wrapped in a white sheet in the various churches of the parish. It was, in fact, partly this rigid discipline of the rector which aroused his parishioners to opposition during the earlier years of his incumbency. He was strict also, according to the standards of the day, in keeping the fasts and ceremonies of the Church.
He advised reading prayers on every holiday and on Wednesdays and Fridays, and he would like to have read prayers also on the eves of holidays. It was his custom to administer the Lord's Supper once a month,
Wesley's Training at Epworth and Oxford which was the practice of pious clergymen in that period.® But Wesley was not only a High Churchman and something of a politician; he was also a poet. True he was a very minor poet, but he was important enough to have been lampooned by Garth, by Swift, and by Pope. He wrote a more or less metrical version of the Old and New Testaments and numerous occasional pieces. But he was the friend of many of the well-known literary men of the day, and Swift and Pope both held him in high regard in spite of his poetry. From his journeys to London the rector must have come back with news of other matters than the squabbles of High and Low Church; and the lonely rectory in the lowlands of Lincolnshire was at least in second-hand touch with the literary world.
Quick-tempered but capable of sustained enthusiasm, a scholar although somewhat pedantic, a poet if a minor one, Samuel Wesley gave life and ambition to his household; and if he did not inspire love in his children, from his sons, at least, he called forth the deepest respect.
Less needs to be said of Susannah Wesley, for she is one of the most praised women in Christendom. Like her husband, Susannah came of good family. Her father was a distinguished Noncomformist preacher,
Dr. Samuel Annesley, whose uncle was an earl. She was, according to contemporaries, a woman of great charm, some thought of greater beauty than her sister who was painted by Lely. At an early age she was reading the Fathers and making up her mind about theological problems concerning which her elders
John Wesley and Modern Religion wrangled—and making up her mind that her distinguished father was wrong. Mrs. Wesley was of strong will, learned for a woman of her day, possessed of patience and of an ability for discipline which has remained a marvel to all students of Methodism.
In politics Mrs. Wesley was of the same belief as her husband; in fact going even further, since she refused to pray for King William. She showed an unfeigned belief in the supremacy of her husband, so that his poetic tribute to her, which is sometimes taken as a sign of the rector's overweening autocracy, is as truly a reflection of her sentiments as of his:
She graced my humble roof, and blest my life, Blest me by a far greater name than wife; Yet still I bore an undisputed sway, Nor was't her task but pleasure, to obey; Scarce thought, much less could act, what I denied,
In our low house there was no room for pride.® Writing to John, in February, 1735, she made clear her belief that "the visible order of providence" and civil government could not be established 'tand the due subservience of one man to another preserved without ensigns of authority, and difference in houses, furniture and apparel, all which are marks of distinction, and as such, in obedience to the will of God and not for vain glory, they ought to be used, and he that breaks his rank and goes out of character so far as he does so, so far he breaks the eternal order of the universe and abuses his Christian liberty." *° It was not from Samuel alone that the Wesley children learned to be Tories.
Wesley's Training at Epworth and Oxford The same principle Susannah carried over into religion, so that she firmly convinced the young collegian,
John, that faith is not assent to that which reason approves, as that budding theologian had contended.
"T am, therefore," wrote John to his mother in 1725, "at length come over entirely to your opinion, that saving faith (including practice) is an assent to what
God has revealed because He has revealed it and not because the truth of it may be evinced by reason." '* Susannah's mind, unlike that of her poetic husband, was methodical to a fault. Her theological ideas were held with tenacity but with pedestrian logic, and the little treatise on theology which she wrote for one of her daughters is a dry, rationalistic compendium. The story of her training and governance of the family has been often told, but must be remembered by all who would assess the mind of her distinguished son.
At John's request she wrote out, in her old age, an account of her principal rules in educating her children; and John included the letter in his published
"When turned a year old (and some before), they were taught to fear the rod, and to cry softly; by which means they escaped abundance of correction they might otherwise have had, and that most odious noise of the crying of children was rarely heard in the house, but the family usually lived in as much quietness as if there had not been a child among them." '"
With nineteen children, all told, although several died in infancy, such an arrangement had its adJohn Wesley and Modern Religion vantages. But the methodism of Susannah had only begun.
"They were so constantly used to eat and drink what was given them, that, when any of them was ill, there was no difficulty in making them take the most unpleasant medicine; for they durst not refuse it, though some of them would presently throw it up.
This I mention to show that a person may be taught to take anything, though it be never so much against his stomach. In order to form the minds of children, the first thing to be done is to conquer their will, and bring them to an obedient temper... . In the esteem of the world they pass for kind and indulgent whom
I call cruel parents, who permit their children to get habits which they know must be afterwards broken."
That Mrs. Wesley brought up her children by these strict rules is, of course, well known. They were to do this; they were not to do that. But she extended her rules also to their religious training.
"The children of this family were taught, as soon as they could speak, the Lord's Prayer, which they were made to say at rising and bed-time constantly; to which, as they grew bigger, were added a short prayer for their parents, and some collects; a short catechism, and some portions of Scripture, as their memories could bear."
After the fire which destroyed Epworth rectory, the children were scattered out among several families; and there they learned bad habits.
"When the house was rebuilt, and the children all brought home, we entered upon a strict reform; and then was begun the custom of singing psalms at beWesley's Training at Epworth and Oxford ginning and leaving school, morning and evening.
Then also that of a general retirement at five o'clock was entered upon, when the oldest took the youngest that could speak, and the second the next, to whom they read the Psalms for the day, and a chapter in the New Testament; as, in the morning, they were directed to read the Psalms and a chapter in the Old; after which they went to their private prayers, before they got their breakfast or came into the family."
This is enough to give an idea of Mrs. Wesley's method, although the whole letter is interesting and should be read if Susannah's mind is to be understood.
In the letter it is hinted that there was some difficulty in getting Samuel Wesley, Sr., to abide by the rules.
"Rules," "'habits," "obedience," are the great words.
There is no way of knowing whether Mrs. Wesley had read Locke's works on education; but the belief that anything can be taught, regardless of natural inclination, provided proper habits are built up is nothing if not Lockian.
It was no mean feat to command a household of so many children who had a poet for a father, but Susannah Wesley's pragmatic genius was sufficient.
Nor did her reverence for authority override her practical sense. When her husband was absent and his curate dry, she herself read prayers in the rectory; and the neighbors were admitted at their request.
The Rector objected, but he did not actually forbid the gatherings; and Susannah went her way sure that this was the sensible thing to do. A letter which she wrote to John when he was at Charterhouse is the last word in practicality. The boy had written her of John Wesley and Modern Religion some students who had met a ghost near Oxford; his mother replied:
"TI do not doubt the fact; but I cannot understand why these apparitions are permitted. If they were allowed to speak to us, and we had strength to bear such converse,—if they had commission to inform us of anything relating to their invisible world that would be of any use to us in this,—if they would instruct us how to avoid danger, or put us in a way of being wiser and better, there would be sense in it; but to appear for no end that we know of, unless to frighten people almost out of their wits, seems altogether unreasonable."
Even Mrs. Wesley's ghosts had to be practical.
No little scorn has been poured upon John Wesley for having engraved upon his mother's tombstone a verse which says that she Mourned a long night of griefs and fears,
A legal night of seventy years, because it was not until her old age that she found the peace and love which her father had experienced for forty years, although he did not preach about it.
Even Methodist historians usually preserve a discreet silence about the epitaph. Mrs. Wesley was a remarkable woman and is, in many ways, the founder of Methodism; but it is possible that John was better acquainted with his mother than are his modern critics.
Such was the home in which John Wesley spent the first eleven years of his life, and the influences upon his mind are apparent enough. From his mother he
Wesley's Training at Epworth and Oxford must have received his notions of methodicity and of the importance of habit, and from her also he possibly learned the lesson of moral independence, the grounding of action upon consideration. At six he would not accept bread or fruit if offered out of ordinary mealtime, but would reply, "I thank you, I will think of it." But from his father he possibly derived his urge to travel which later sent him to America, to Germany, and, in fifty years, to almost every corner of the three kingdoms. From his father, too, came his poetic bent, which was never as pronounced as in his brother Charles, but cropped up now and again, not only in poetry but in a suppressed and seldom revealed emotional strain. From both of them came his intellectual curiosity, which, while disdaining the critical scholarship to which his father would have urged him, manifested itself in a lively interest in all that was being done or written in that lively age.
While there is not enough evidence concerning his childhood to satisfy those psychologists who believe that mortal fate is fixed at a tender age, there is some material for those who would understand the mind of the foremost religious leader of the century. In the first place, it is certain that the rectory of Epworth was hospitable to the supernatural. The famous ghost story, that of Old Jeffrey, the Jacobite ghost who haunted the rectory when John was sixteen and in the Charterhouse in London, cannot be taken as determining the set of John's mind. It is rather an indication of what that set was. The care with which the schoolboy assembled and massed the evidence testifies at once to his curiosity about such matters and to the John Wesley and Modern Religion state of "expectancy" which existed in the Wesley household. Even more direct evidence is in the letters which John wrote to his mother, retailing stories of haunted houses, of boys who were snatched into the air by diabolical means, of men who saw ghosts and turned white as ashes. These are schoolboy tales, but they were obviously written to a mother who would listen to them sympathetically.
In his fifth year, the rectory was burned down, and John was at the last moment snatched from the burning building. The overjoyed rector dropped to his knees and gave God thanks for the salvation of the boy. That the incident left a deep impression on the boy's mind is evidenced by the fact that one of the earliest prints of Wesley showed, below his picture, a burning building and the words, "Is not this a brand plucked from the burning?" Forty years afterward,
Wesley recalled the very day and hour on which he was rescued. There is reason to think that the incident heightened Wesley's sense of vocation.
Isolated in a distant parish, surrounded by people known, even much later, for their churlish character, who cared little for the Rector and less for his politics, the Wesleys developed no little self-esteem. Of good birth themselves, they could not avoid some accentuation of family pride in their surroundings. It is noteworthy that Wesley seems to have had much trouble about the virtue of humility. The word occurs again and again in his self-examinations. When Wesley felt that he did trust in Christ and that his sins were taken away, he immediately began to pray for those
'""who had in a more especial manner despitefully used Naoribarm Wesley's Training at Epworth and Oxford me and persecuted me." ** It was a Christian act, but one suspects that for Wesley it was a very Christian act. His own opinions were often held with obstinacy, although at other times he was the most humble of men. But there was in him an aptitude for government, and his childhood would make this more pronounced.
It may have been during his childhood at Epworth that Wesley contracted a fear of the sea. His biographers have ignored this fear, possibly thinking it of no account or at most an idiosyncrasy; but, as will appear later, Wesley's fear of the sea plagued him no little during his American experience, and his struggle with it was tied up with his whole religious problem.
The sea, Wesley once said, using for him strangely emphatic language, he had both "dreaded and abhorred" from his youth. It is impossible now to determine the origin of this fear, although it may quite possibly have been caused by some mishap in a childhood excursion to the sea, or, more probably, by a misadventure in the overflowed area around Epworth, for during part of the year the rector had to visit
Wroote, in his parish, by boat. In London and at Oxford John apparently forgot this fear so that it reappeared the more unexpectedly on his voyage to America.
One other result of his home experiences must be noted. Wesley was apparently by nature rationalistic, but as has been seen, he had a poetic strain in his make-up. In many things his father and mother agreed: in High Church opinions, in politics—in the main—and in their ideas of social class. But in their
a John Wesley and Modern Religion characters and in their ideas of training they were worlds apart. "Reason and piety," said his mother.
"Child," said his father, "you think to carry everything by dint of argument; but you will find how little is ever done in this world by close reasoning."
It was his mother who most influenced Wesley's method of thinking. In a home where normal assocition with other children was impossible, the Wesleys were thrown upon themselves, and the result was unhappy for several of them. There is reason to think that John Wesley's emotional nature was buried under the methodical and reasoned life which he led even as a child. Some psychologists have thought that John's devotion to his mother was one of the reasons for his failure to make a successful marriage, but the reason may lie deeper than that. Susannah had a strain of asceticism in her, and she discouraged emotion in herself and in others. In Oxford, John recalled somewhat wistfully that his mother had more than once said that she loved him too well and would strive to love him less. The little boy who went up to Charterhouse in 1714 was trained to a pragmatic regime in which emotion had little play. He was sufficiently master of himself to be able to undergo the hardships of a public schoolboy with reasonable equanimity, and he obediently and methodically ran thrice around the schoolhouse yard every morning for — aJ: *'exercise. But his emotional life was not dead; it only
It is unnecessary to dwell upon John Wesley's experiences at the Charterhouse. There he seems to have relaxed a little the religious discipline to which e Wesley's Training at Epworth and Oxford he had been accustomed; and he was not happy. In later life, Wesley assumed that his childhood unhappiness was owing to a lack of religion; and he strove to supply a similar lack in the lives of the children at his school in Kingswood and elsewhere by a forbidding attack upon their sensibilities. Their lives, too, were doubtless unhappy, although they heard enough of religion. Schoolboys of Wesley's days, bullied by older students and subjected to a brutal educational system, were likely to be unhappy. But his own experiences underlie Wesley's later emphasis upon happiness through religion.
The Oxford to which John Wesley went up in 1720 as a student of Christ Church was at a low ebb educationally and religiously. Outward loyalty to the Church was a matter of pride, but any strict observance of its religious requirements was far to seek.
Instruction was little better. Satirists of the century made merry with the formal disputations which were a large part of the requirements for degrees, and sober historians admit that tutors were woefully lax in the performance of their duties.1° What Wesley actually studied cannot be determined exactly. In his diaries appear Latin and Greek classics, Hebrew and French and English literature. Following his ordination he. records a formidable and diversified list of books which he read, ranging from the Bible to Juvenal and from Locke to Milton.'7 Certainly he could not escape logic, and it was in many ways a subject suited to his mind and earlier training. After his election to a fellowship of Lincoln College, smallest of the OxJohn Wesley and Modern Religion ford colleges but in good repute for learning, Wesley became Greek lecturer and moderator of the classes.
As moderator Wesley would preside at the disputations. An unfriendly critic writing during the very time when Wesley was an undergraduate describes these disputations as follows:
'The persons of this argumentative drama are three, viz. the Opponent, the Respondent, and the Moderator. The Opponent is the person who always begins the attack....The Respondent sits overagainst the opponent, and is prepared to deny whatever he affirms, and always comes off with flying colours. ... The Moderator is the hero, or principal character of the drama, and is not much unlike the goddess
Victoria, as described by the poets, hovering between two armies in an engagement, and with an arbitrary nod, deciding the fate of the field. .. . Academical disputations are two-fold, ordinary and extraordinary, ordinary disputations are those which are privately perform'd in college every day, or twice or thrice a week (according to different customs or statutes) in term-time; extraordinary disputations I call those which are perform'd in the public schools of the university, as requisite qualifications for degrees: the method of both is the same, and equally arduous is the performance." ** The description which the writer gives of the public disputations is ludicrous in the extreme, and the sample of Latin argumentation, with the syllogistic fencing of opponent and proponent and the decisions of moderator, were intended for satire. But there is much truth in it,'® and Wesley himself, in later years,
Wesley's Training at Epworth and Oxford frequently spoke disparagingly of the whole system.
Nevertheless, logic remained part of his equipment, and he later gave thanks for his experience as moderator, since it gave him advantage as a controversialist.
Indeed, the experience of a moderator, who, according to the satirist, "struts about between the two wordy champions, during the time of action, to see that they do not wander from the question in debate," was no mean preparation for an eighteenth-century contender in the printed battles of the day. But it was an experience calculated to cramp the imagination if it did not kill it. At the best it was a strengthening of that reverence for exact disciplining of thought which had been inculcated into the child of the Epworth rectory.
During these years, Wesley read something of Locke, how much cannot be determined. In his old age, he read or re-read the Essay and objected particularly to Locke's disparagement of Aristotelian logic, concluding that the philosopher must have had "an unskilful master and read bad books upon the subject." 7° He makes his own predilection clear in another objection to Locke's remarks about logic, declaring that "'the true use of it (logic) is the noblest means under heaven to prevent or cure the obscurity of language." "To divide simple terms," he continued, "according to the logical rules of division, and then to define each member of the division according to the three rules of definition, does all that human art can do, in order to our having a clear and distinct idea of every word we use." ** "Clear and distinct ideas" play no small part in es) John Wesley and Modern Religion Wesley's theological and philosophical writings.
These he concluded to be the necessity of all knowledge and the aim of learning, but he did not go further with Descartes. Whether he read Locke's Essay earlier or later, he accepted the dictum that man has no innate ideas, but gets all his knowledge through the senses, excepting only some religious knowledge. And Wesley also decided early that knowledge should be limited to useful knowledge, approaching therein the pragmatic strain implicit in Locke and his followers.
In January, 1727, he wrote to his mother:
"Tt am shortly to take my Master's degree. As I shall from that time be less interrupted by business not of my own choosing, I have drawn up for myself a scheme of studies, from which I do not intend, for some years at least, to vary. I am perfectly come over to your opinion that there are many truths it is not worth while to know. Curiosity, indeed, might be a sufficient plea for our laying out some time upon them, if we had a half dozen centuries of life to come; but methinks it is great ill-husbandry to spend a considerable part of the small pittance allowed us — in what makes us neither a quick nor a sure return."
Thus he had come-over to his mother's opinion, which was not his father's, who wished his son to follow the path of critical learning. Knowledge should © be not obscure but useful. In his later life, he expressed his belief that God has purposely limited our knowledge, exactly proportioning it "to our state."
"We may know whatever is needful for life or godliness, whatever is necessary either for our present or eternal happiness. But how little beside can the most
Wesley's Training at Epworth and Oxford penetrating genius know with any certainty! Such pains, so to speak, hath God taken to hide pride from man; and to bound his thought within that channel of knowledge wherein he already finds eternal life." ?°
In Oxford, then, Wesley came to the conclusion that knowledge is common and useful. 'To possess abstruse and esoteric learning was to lay oneself open to "pride" in the eighteenth-century sense, lifting oneself above the common lot of man.
But Wesley could not restrain his restless mind. In his earlier, undergraduate days, he had read many plays and romances, including one work which he called the "Pyrates," perhaps Robinson Crusoe. His preference, throughout his life, for "the sentimental and romantic in literature" has been noticed by more than one student."* Moreover, he was a poet; and while he forsook the formal and trivial lines of his youthful muse, he added no little to English hymnody both by original composition and by translation and editing. In his youth the preponderance of influence upon his mind was undoubtedly toward discipline, order, conformity. But the other strain was not lost, and there was for Wesley the possibility of a continuing conflict between the two, at least until they could
be fused into a higher unity. In 1725, his life took a direction which it was to hold until his death sixtysix years later; and it was in this direction that the two tendencies in his nature and training were to find their confluence. o/ CHAPTER IV WESLEY IN OXFORD AND AMERICA WHEN John Wesley was about twenty-two, his father urged him to enter into holy orders. This was possibly the occasion of his beginning to think more seriously about religion. The next year he came across
Jeremy Taylor's Holy Living and Holy Dying. His account of this event in his life is found in the story of his religious progress which begins the treatise, A Plain Account of Christian Perfection, published in 1765. ('In reading several parts of this book [Holy Living and Dying]," he said, "I was exceedingly affected; that part in particular which relates to purity of intention. Instantly I resolved to dedicate all my life to God, all my thoughts and words, and actions; being thoroughly convinced, there was no medium; but that every part of my life —
(not some only) must either be a sacrifice to God, or myself, that is, in effect, to the devil." *; Five years later, when he laid the cornerstone of City. Road
Chapel in London, a great moment for him and for Methodism, Wesley again dated the beginning of the Methodist Movement in the year 1725.
In recent years, the importance of Wesley's experience in 1725 has been recognized, and some have gone so far as to call this his ""conversion." Others have adopted the terminology of the mystics and have
Wesley in Oxford and America referred to this as his "awakening." The latter term is perhaps the right one, if it is remembered that Wesley was not a mystic in the exact sense of the word, and that he did not go through the full course of awakening, purgation, illumination, and union often experienced by the mystic soul.
Influenced by Taylor, Wesley began to keep a diary, which he continued for sixty-five years. In 1726, according to the account in Christian Perfection, he began to read 4 Kempis, The Imitation of Christ. "The nature and extent of inward religion, the religion of the heart, now appeared to me in a stronger light than ever it had done before. I saw, that giving even all my life to God (supposing it possible to do this, and go on farther) would profit me nothing, unless I gave my heart, yea, all my heart to him. I saw, that 'simplicity of intention, and purity of affection,' one design in all we speak or do, and one desire ruling all our tempers, are indeed 'the wings of the soul,' without which she can never ascend to the mount of God." * A year or two afterward, Wesley read William Law's two great books, Christian Perfection (1726) and A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy
Life (1729). 'These convinced me more than ever," he wrote, "'of the absolute impossibility of being half a Christian; and I determined, through his grace (the absolute necessity of which I was deeply sensible of), to be all-devoted to God, to give him all my soul, my body, and substance." * From this time Wesley sought nothing less than Christan Perfection.
It is necessary to stress what has been too often for- - gotten, in spite of Wesley's reiterated statement, that 59 ) John Wesley and Modern Religion Wesley in Oxford, before he ever went to America, held the doctrine of Christian Perfection essentially as he held it throughout his life. Indeed, it is impossible to understand Wesley's religion and theology without grasping the central fact, that Christian Perfection, holiness, was the controlling idea in his life and teachings and the continuous goal of his experience; and it should be remembered that he at this time was "deeply sensible" of the "'absolute necessity" of grace. To make his ideas clearer one needs to look closer at William Law's teaching concerning perfection.
This little book, Christian Perfection, which Law wrote in 1725, is one of the most attractive religious books in the English language. Many of Law's sayings must have been doubly attractive to a young man whose family tradition was a well-turned phrase:
"But how unlike are Christians to Christianity"; "if therefore there be not an Entire Change in the Way to Heaven, if the once strait Gate be now a wide and open passage to all full, fat, and stately Christians...'; "More senseless than the Man, who should think he had hard Usage to be saved from a Shipwreck, unless he were carried off upon a Cedar
Plank." But Law's ideal of Christian Perfection, no less than his language, was also acceptable to Wesley's © mind.
Sometimes perfection appears in Law as a simple imitation of Christ in outward behavior, "a right Performance of all the Duties of Life, as is according to the Laws of Christ." He insists that "every Duty or Virtue of the Christian Life is founded in Truth
Wesley in Oxford and America and Reason, and is required because of its Fitness to be done, and not because God has Power to command what he pleases."" But Law insisted also that perfection is a "Perfection of the Heart," a "Habit of the Mind"; and he who has this must have been born again. "Christianity is another Birth, that brings into a Condition as new as when we first saw the Light. We begin again to be, we enter upon fresh
Terms of Life, have new Relations, new Hopes, and Fears, and entire Change of Everything that can be called good and evil." *® This is not simply a matter of adding virtue to virtue. Attention will be called later to Law's belief that human nature is diseased, that mankind is "ta Race of fallen Spirits.' *® If he had not believed it before, Wesley would have learned from Law a doctrine of original sin which necessitates "a new principle of life." Law's language as to the nature of perfection is explicit: "It is not therefore any Number of moral Virtues, no partial Obedience, no modes of Worship, no external Acts of Adoration, no Articles of Faith, but a new Principle of Life, an active Change of Temper, that makes us true Christians." * On January 1, 1733, Wesley preached at St. Mary's,
Oxford. In this sermon, to which reference will be made again, Wesley declared that the condition of one who is "in a state of acceptance with God" is not attested by "baptism, or any other outward form, but a right state of soul, a mind and spirit renewed after the image of Him that created it." More specifically, he spoke of seeking "that habitual disposition of soul which, in the sacred writings, is termed holiJohn Wesley and Modern Religion ness; and which directly implies, the being cleansed from sin...and by consequence, the being endued with those virtues which were also in Christ Jesus; the being so 'renewed in the spirit of our mind,' as to be
'perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect.'?" Nor did Wesley think of this holiness as something that might be attained by human endeavor alone. "Our gospel, as it knows no other foundation of good works than faith, or of faith than Christ, so it clearly informs us, we are not His disciples while we either deny Him to be the Author, or His Spirit to be the Inspirer and Perfecter, both of our faith and works...+ He alone can quicken those who are dead unto God, can breathe into them the breath of Christian life, and so prevent, accompany, and follow them with His grace, as to bring their good desires to good effect." His next paragraph goes further. "From what has been said, we may, thirdly} learn, that none is truly 'led by the Spirit,' unless that 'Spirit bear witness with his spirit, that he is a child of God'; unless he see the prize and the crown before him, and 'rejoice in hope of the glory of God.' "'®
Thirty-two years later, Wesley wrote to a friend concerning this sermon, that it "contains all that I now teach concerning salvation from all sin, and loying God with an undivided heart. In the same year
I printed (the first time I ventured to print anything) for the use of my pupils, A Collection of Forms of Prayer, and in this I spoke explicitly of giving 'the whole heart and the whole life to God.' This was then, as it is now, my idea of perfection, though I should have started at the word." °
Wesley in Oxford and America In other points, too, Wesley was holding doctrines which continued to characterize his preaching throughout his life. To his brother he wrote in 1731: