"(1) As to the end of my being, I lay it down for a rule that I cannot be too happy, or therefore too holy; and thence infer that the more steadily I keep my eye upon the prize of our high calling the better, and the more of my thoughts, and words, and actions are directly pointed at the attainment of it. (2) As to the instituted means of attaining it, I likewise lay it down for a rule that I am to use them every time
I may. (3) As to prudential means, I believe this rule holds of things indifferent in themselves: whatever I know to do me hurt, that to me is not indifferent, but resolutely to be abstained from; whatever
I know to do me good, that to me is not indifferent, but resolutely to be embraced." *° That he was seeking holiness, Christian Perfection, is sufficiently clear. Concerning his second point, the use of the "instituted means," Wesley's sermon, written in 1732 for his pupils, "On the Duty of Constant
Communion," is a sufficient illustration. In _ this communion: "the benefits of doing it are so great to all that do it in obedience to him; viz., the forgiveness of our past sins, the present strengthening and refreshing of our souls... . Now, when we are convinced of having sinned against God, what surer way have we of procuring pardon from him, than the 'showing forth the Lord's death'; and beseeching him, for the sake of His Son's sufferings, to blot out all our sins?"
"The grace of God given herein," he adds, "confirms John Wesley and Modern Religion to us the pardon of our sins, and enables us to leave them." "This is the food of our souls: This gives strength to perform our duty, and leads us on to perfection." 'The Lord's Supper, according to Wesley, is a real "means of grace" and not a figurative or poetic gesture.'* In 1787, Wesley reprinted this sermon in the Arminian Magazine; and in the note prefixed to the sermon he says that he had added very little but retrenched much, "'as I then used more words than I use now." But he asserted: "I thank God, I have not yet seen cause to alter my sentiments in any point which is therein delivered." 7"
But there can be no question that, in 1732, Wesley's High Churchmanship was excessive. (It is probable that John Clayton, one of the Oxford Methodists, had influenced the group in the direction of an excessive reverence for certain supposed authorities of the Early Church. Particularly did Wesley esteem the Apostolic Constitutions, which he later decided—and rightly—were not of such antiquity or authority as he had supposed. But the high authority of the Fathers of the Primitive Church was an article of faith which he had inherited from his father, had had confirmed in Oxford, and, as will appear later, was never entirely discarded. Wesley was also influenced in his earlier period by reading Fleury's Manners of the Ancient Christians. In his study of the ancient
Church he found matter congenial to his ideas of Christian Perfection. In the Apostolic Constitutions, the episcopal blessing of catechumens is that God
"may give them a new heart, and renew a right spirit in their inward parts, that they may both know Wesley in Oxford and America and do thy will with full purpose of heart, and with a willing soul." ?* It was this for which Wesley was striving; and commandments to austerity of life and godliness fitted into the ideals of the Oxford Club. In the Apostolic Constitutions, wearing gold, dressing the hair, and like superfluities were forbidden; and men were admonished to be industrious, "for no one of those who are dedicated to God ought to be idle."
After 1729, when "a serious man" warned him that he must seek companions, that the Bible knows nothing of solitary religion, Wesley sought holiness, not by himself, but as a member of a religious society. The Oxford Club, the beginning of which he found when he returned to Oxford after serving for a time as his father's curate, was the new religious society with which his name and Methodism are forever linked.
The history of this society is too well known to need repetition here. The serious studies of the members, not only in devotional works but in the Bible, their meticulous keeping both of the rules of the University and of the observances of the Church, their charities, especially their work with prisoners, earned for them the contempt of those to whom serious striving after a high religious ideal was matter for ridicule. It is true that Wesley spoke of religion as "the cheerfullest thing in the world" *° and identified holiness with happiness, but the asceticism of the group is beyond | question. As has been suggested, their excesses were perhaps inevitable to a group of serious young men who were in deadly earnest about religion in surroundings decidedly unfavorable to such endeavor.
But Wesley believed that "singularity" was necessary.
John Wesley and Modern Religion When he was being examined for priest's orders, his examiner had said to him: "Do you know what you are about? You are bidding defiance to all mankind.
He that would live a Christian priest ought to know that, whether his hand be against every man or no, he must expect every man's hand should be against him." *® And Wesley adduced the contempt in which he and his group were held as evidence of their rightness. Indeed, he was in danger of taking some little pride in it.
In a pathetic paragraph, he begged his mother to grant him that "little part of Thursday evening" which she formerly used to correct his judgment, that she might now correct his heart. Humility is the "surest and safest way" to renounce the world; "But how the question recurs, How am I to do this? To own the necessity of it is not be he humble." '* He had early objected to Jeremy Taylor's doctrine that one must hold oneself the worst in every company.
But he agreed that it is possible to have "absolute humility" before God.'* But what did this humility before God imply? The truth is, that Wesley was wresthng with the problem of assurance. Can aman be humble and at the same time know himself a Christian? |
As far back as 1725, Wesley wrote to his mother concerning Bishop Taylor's views, objecting to an interpretation which he could not accept but which he could not answer to his own satisfaction. He quoted Taylor on repentance: "Repentance contains in it all the parts of an holy life from our return to our death. A man can have but one proper repentWesley in Oxford and America ance—viz., when the rite of baptism is verified by God's grace coming upon us and our obedience. And after this change, if we ever fall into the contrary state there is no place left for any more repentance." *® Such a position implied the denial of any real assurance to the Christian: "A true pentitent must all the days of his life pray for pardon and never think the work completed till he died. Whether God has forgiven us or not we know not, therefore still be sorrowful for ever having sinned."
This seemed to Wesley to contradict Taylor's teaching concerning the grace given by the Holy Spirit in the Lord's Supper. 'Now, surely," he wrote his mother, "these graces are not of so little force, as that we can't perceive whether we have them or no; and if we dwell in Christ, and Christ in us, which He will not do till we are regenerate, certainly we must be sensible of it." °° And in a later letter he put his finger on the difficulty. "That we can never be so certain of the pardon of our sins as to be assured that they will never rise up against us, I firmly believe.
We know that they will infallibly do so, if ever we apostatize, and I am not satisfied what evidence there can be of our final perseverance till we have finished our course. But I am persuaded we may know if we are now in a state of salvation, since that is expressly promised in the Holy Scriptures to our sincere endeavours, and we are surely able to judge of our own sincerity." ?! Already he was convinced of the truth which he was to hold throughout his ministry, that a man may know that he is saved.
All this lies behind the stern precisianism of his conJohn Wesley and Modern Religion duct, the meticulous observance of forms and ceremonies, the anxious spirit which he betrays particularly in his letters explaining his refusal to succeed his aging father at Epworth."" In methodical fashion, reflecting the character of his mind and of his training, he marshalled his arguments to his father. He must have as his only consideration, the glory of God.
But that means to promote holiness in ourselves and others. These must go together. At Oxford, this holiness is most nearly possible because of his religious friends, of retirement, of freedom from trifling acquaintance, of freedom from worldly cares, of opportunity for public prayer twice a day, and of weekly communion. There is also abundant opportunity to benefit others. This is evidenced by experience, which "is worth a thousand reasons."
In his search for perfection Wesley had sought help wherever he could find it, but a sound instinct forbade his accepting anything which would depreciate the value either of good works or of the Church. The tenacity with which he clung to these two is illustrated in his reaction to European Protestant ideas and to mysticism. Two or three years before he sailed for America, he "fell among some Lutheran and Calvinist authors, whose confused and indigested accounts magnified faith to such an amazing size that it quite hid all the rest of the commandments. ... I did not then see [he added] that this was the natural effect of their overgrown fear of Popery; being so terrified with the cry of merits and good works, that they plunged into the other extreme. In this labyrinth I was utterly lost; not being able to find out
Wesley in Oxford and America what my error was, nor yet to reconcile this uncouth hypothesis either with Scripture or common sense." 2°
There is shrewd criticism here, but it is to be noted that faith is lumped with "the rest of the commandments." Wesley never finally gave over his distrust of too great emphasis upon faith alone; and he was later to resolve the difficulty by a psychological analysis of "salvation." 7* Also he came later to a truer appreciation of the non-intellectual elements in faith.
But at the time he fell back upon the Anglican compromise as he understood it, being helped by Beveridge, Taylor, and Nelson, although their differing interpretations of Scripture confused him. At least, the Anglican position, he thought, preserved both faith and good works.
By the mystics, of whom he later spoke with unusual harshness, Wesley meant apparently the Quietists, who taught that man must wait quietly and passively without moral striving or institutional helps for the moving of the Spirit of God. In 1736, he wrote to his brother, Samuel, from Georgia: "I think the rock on which I had the nearest made shipwreck of the faith was the writings of the Mystics; under which term I comprehend all, and only those, who slight any of the means of grace." "? Later he drew up a longer indictment against the mystical writers, accusing them of relying on inward tempers for salvation. Groping as he was for a more satisfactory experience, Wesley was sure of some things. He sought an inwardly realized religion, but he was certain that the Scriptures and reason and the means of grace must be preserved. _
John Wesley and Modern Religion After declining to accept the succession to Epworth, Wesley seems to have reconsidered; but it was too late, and the parish was given to another. This may have made easier Wesley's acceptance of an invitation to accompany General Oglethorpe to Georgia as missionary to the Indians. Charles was to go along as secretary to Oglethorpe.
In setting forth his reasons for consenting to go to Georgia, Wesley expressed a fear that "favourable judges" would think more highly of him than they should, evidence that he feared an interpretation of his motives directly opposite to that which modern writers have given to them. His chief motive, he wrote to Dr. Burton, one of the Georgia trustees,
"is the hope of saving my own soul." 7° Methodists, who are reputed to have considerable interest in their souls, have been strangely unkind in their comments on this statement. Wesley was seeking perfection, and when he spoke of saving his soul he was thinking of this goal which he held always before him, not merely of saving his soul in heaven. If seeking Christian Perfection is a legitimate goal, then there is nothing illegitimate in avowing it. The fact that Wesley was willing to go to America with this in view is, indeed, starthng; but this is perhaps no compliment to the startled.
'That Wesley should think his pilgrimage easier among the red Indians is understandable when one remembers how the Indians were idealized by the eighteenth century. They were supposed to have escaped the corruptions of civilization and to have retained their primitive simplicity. Wesley expected to learn
Wesley in Oxford and America the "sense of the gospel of Christ" by preaching to them, for they were as little children who would
"know of every doctrine whether it be of God." With them he could mortify the flesh, for he would have no incitements to abuse his natural appetites.
Wesley's second motive in going to America was his desire to impart to the heathen "'a saving knowledge of the gospel of Christ." He felt that he could not successfully preach to the heathen until perfection was reached. "It is not for me, who have been a grievous sinner from my youth up," he wrote, "and am yet heavy laden with foolish and hurtful desires, to expect God should work so great things by my hands; but I am assured, if I be once fully converted myself, He will then employ me both to strengthen my brethren and to preach His name to the Gentiles, that the very ends of the earth may see the salvation of our God." More than is here must not be read into this letter. At some later time he inserted the word "fully," indicating that he realized that his search had been for perfection. He does not, however, say that he was a sinner at the time he wrote, and the foolish and hurtful desires which he talks about are such imperfections as he was to learn later are associated with man's natural infirmities. But he was groaning for perfection, and he was fully persuaded that among the simple, idyllic Indians of America he might attain the goal.
Father Piette thinks that Wesley contemplated removing the Holy Club and Oxford to Georgia, there to establish in an idyllic wilderness the society of seekers after God."" There is some evidence for this, since
John Wesley and Modern Religion several of the Club expected to go, and Benjamin Ingham did accompany Charles and John Wesley. If Wesley intended such a transfer of the Holy Club, it would explain more satisfactorily his acceptance of the Georgia mission so soon after refusing the parish of Epworth. It would also illustrate again the romantic side of Wesley's character and religion. But, however that be, Wesley departed for Georgia to save his own soul as well as to preach Christ, being, as he said later, devoted to the Bible, the Primitive
Church, and the Church of England. :
The expedition to America, with all its disappointments and disillusionments, storms at sea, struggles with the ungrateful colonists, including a terrible experience with a dissolute woman who tried to destroy his reputation, and his unfortunate love affair with Sophia Hopkey, had importance for Wesley in three things: he learned more about himself, about people of a class with which he had little acquaintance, and about a type of religion to which he was a stranger.
In Georgia he learned not only that the red Indians were really savages and not the picturesque, noble creatures of eighteenth-century imagination, but that the whites, many of them, were also savages. Heretofore, he had dealt with the lower classes as a gentleman scholar and a clergyman. He had served them and preached to them and taught them, but it was as a gentleman receiving the gratitude of the humble poor. Now he met men face to face in situations which gave full vent to their passions and evil will.
His belief in natural depravity received no setback here; it is likely that he saw more clearly than ever ri aa Wesley in Oxford and America that Christian Perfection is an ideal not to be obtained but by the grace of God.
Wesley's natural sensitiveness, which was protected even in the prison of Oxford and among the poor by the proximity of familiar objects and people and by a refuge in his rooms in Lincoln College, was increased by the sight of human sufferings in surroundings which accentuated them and the seeming callousness of fellow human beings. His account of the impression produced upon him by the sufferings of one of the women emigrants in childbirth is poignant evidence. "This," wrote Wesley in his Journal, "is the second time I have been witness—there being only a door between us—of one of the deepest distresses which life affords. The groans of the sick person had very short intermissions. And how were they filled up by the assistants? With strong cries to God?
With counselling her that was encompassed with sorrows of death to trust in Him? With exhortation to each other to fear Him who is able to inflict sharper pains than these? No; but with laughing and jesting, at no time convenient, but at this least of all." °°
Wesley was an Oxford don of limited experience, and America was a school wherein he learned much. The importance of his experiences there is frequently overlooked or restricted to his contact with the Moravians.
It was on the voyage to America that he began to discover that, with all his self-discipline and education of mind and will, he had not attained to mastery over his emotional life. This discovery was the more important because Wesley was aiming, not merely at right conduct or at salvation by performance of John Wesley and Modern Religion duties, but at inward peace and holiness. On January
25, 1736, in the great storm which he so graphically describes in his Journal, Wesley was confronted by his own fear of death and by the spectacle of simple
German peasants, the Moravians on board, singing and waiting on the other passengers, unafraid."
Curnock observed that this was a crucial hour in the history of Wesley, and Father Piette thinks that Wesley learned here that religion is not an affair only of the intellect and of the will.*° In the first place, the Oxford don was humiliated by a revival of his fear of the sea in its most intense form, a fear all the more excruciating in that it was possibly a survival of some childhood experience in the fenlands. With all his disciplining of himself, his development of right habits, and with all his intellectual training he was at the mercy of anemotion. Not that his fear was marked, for the officers seem to have been as afraid as Wesley; and his conduct was exemplary. But to a sensitive man it was enough that he was afraid.
Moreover, the contrast between the gentleman and scholar and the simple peasants was in itself humiliat-_ ing. Not only had they demonstrated their humility by attending other passengers in the most servile duties, but their self-possession and unfeigned trust in God stood out in painful contrast to the fear of the leader of the Oxford Methodists. Here was something which Wesley had not met before. He was not only being humbled, but he was also learning something new about Christian humility before God.
Other of Wesley's experiences in America, particularly those in which he learned that he was an impresWesley in Oxford and America sionable young don and not the cast-iron creature of habit and reflection that he seems to have thought himself, were likewise revealing to him. That Sophia
Hopkey was in love with him Wesley seems not to have found out; but that he was in love with her he suspected—to his own misery. His belief in the way of renunciation, the conviction which he then held concerning the celibacy of the clergy, both combined to make him interpret his own emotions as the wiles of Satan. "So I was once more 'snatched as a:brand out of the fire,' ?* he wrote when Mr. Causton, the girl's guardian, had interrupted a conversation with Sophia which was getting on dangerous ground.
There is pathos in the young clergyman's self-abasement when one remembers his goal and the tormenting sense that he was preserved for some great end.
"She went, and I saw myself in the toils. But how to escape I saw not. If I continued to converse with her, though not alone, I found I should love her more and more. And the time to break it off was past. I felt it was now beyond my strength. My resolutions indeed remained. But how long? Yet a little longer, till another shock of temptation, and then I well knew they would break in sunder as a thread of tow that has touched the fire. I had many times prayed that if it was best our intercourse should break off, and that if I could not do it she might. But this I saw less and less reason to expect. So that all these things were against me, and I lay struggling in the net; nay, scarcely struggling, as even fearing to be delivered." *?
As a love affair, it is amusing; as part of the epic of a soul, it is tragedy.
John Wesley and Modern Religion Wesley had disciplined his will and his mind, to use the old-fashioned terminology; but he had not been able to control his feelings. His emotional life was rising up in the very new world into which he had come, to reveal how large a part of life is beyond our thought and resolutions. More than once the Oxford don in the American wilderness must have recalled his father's words: "Child, you will find how little is ever done in this world by close reasoning." His mother had taught him to develop proper habits— habits of thought, habits of speech, habits of action.
Man can accomplish anything by right habits. Method is the thing. But even a methodist may be afraid of the sea. Even a methodist may awake to the stirrings of love when lonely and homesick in the southern savannah-land. Even a methodist can wax angry when evil men—and worse, men of low degree—oppose one's every effort for their good. In all this
Wesley was learning that one must love God not only with all one's mind and with all one's strength, but also with all one's "heart." This dawning recognition of his emotional lack lies behind the self-analysis | which Wesley made on board ship returning to England:
"By the most infallible of proofs, inward feeling, I am convinced, "1, Of unbelief; having no such faith in Christ as will prevent my heart being troubled; which it could not be, if I believed in God, and rightly believed also in Him; | "2. Of pride, throughout my life past; inasmuch as I thought I had what I find I have not:
Wesley in Oxford and America "3. Of gross irrecollection; inasmuch as in a storm I cry to God every moment; in a calm, not:
"4, Of levity and luxuriancy of spirit, recurring whenever the pressure is taken off, and appearing by my speaking words not tending to edify; but most by my manner of speaking to my enemies."
But in spite of these disappointments and despairs it must not be assumed that the Georgia expedition was either all sorrow or fruitless. The Charleston
Hymnbook, which Wesley published in 1737, is a study in his spiritual condition. Dr. Simon remarked on the evangelical quality of many of the hymns which Wesley edited and published and wondered that he did not take them more to heart. The answer is that from the first Wesley held much closer to the so-called evangelical position than has usually been allowed. At least the main lines of his faith are evident in such verses as these from the 1737 hymnbook:
God's Image which our Sins destroy Thy Grace restores below, And Truth and Holiness and Joy From Thee, their Fountain, flow.
We wou'd no longer lie Like Slaves beneath thy Throne:
O let us Abba, Father, cry And thou the Kindred own.
Ten Thousand Thousand precious Gifts My daily Thanks employ; Nor is the least a chearful Heart That tasts those Gifts with Joy.
Alas, O Lord, we cannot love Unless thou draw our Heart! if John Wesley and Modern Religion But there's a Voice of sovereign Grace Sounds from thy sacred Word, Here ye despairing Sinners come And trust upon the Lord.
Tis not by Works of Righteousness Which our own Hands have done; But we are saved by sovereign Grace Abounding thro' thy Son.*+ These verses are not untrue to Wesley's earlier convictions unless it be in the greater insistence upon faith, and it is very easy to overemphasize this. Wes~ ley had always believed in faith, faith joined with works. And he had always believed that love is the gift of God and that men are saved by the grace of God. Moreover, in spite of all his self-torture, Wesley was not living in unrelieved misery. Curnock remarks that the fourth Savannah Diary shows him so busy and happy that he has not time to be much tempted, and it was from Georgia that Wesley wrote to Mrs. Chapman his beautiful letter on "Christian
Cheerfulness." *° In his search after Christian perfection he was practicing, in his mistaken devotion | to some documents which he imagined to represent the early Church, an annoying High Churchmanship which offended reasonable men in the colony. He was still fighting for Christian humility and look-— ing for a converted heart. But he had made some gains.
In estimating the influence of his Georgia experiences one must not overlook the books which Wesley was reading. Further study convinced him that the Apostolic Constitutions were of later date, and thereWesley in Oxford and America fore of less authority, than he had thought. He was, consequently, somewhat relieved from some of his extremely High Churchmanship. But he was also reading works which he afterwards listed as the most precious of all to him, outside the Bible. These were the Imitation of Christ (which Wesley always called the "Christian Pattern") "and the small remains of Clemens Romanus, Polycarp, and Ignatius" and the Life of James Haliburton, onetime Professor of Divinity in the University of St. Andrews.*® The importance of faith is expressly taught in three of these.
"Let us cleave then to His blessings," wrote Clement, "and consider what are the means of possessing it....
For what reason was our father Abraham blessed? was it not because he wrought righteousness and truth through faith?' ** And Clement adds that those worthies who were descended from Abraham "were highly honoured, and made great, not for their own sake, or for their own works, or for the righteousness which they wrought, but through the operation of His will. And we, too, being called by His will in Christ Jesus, are not justified by ourselves, nor by our own wisdom, or understanding, or godliness, or works which we have wrought in holiness of heart; but by that faith through which, from the beginning, Almighty God has justified all men." ** It is hard to believe, in the light of Wesley's later teaching, that he overlooked that exquisite saying of Ignatius, in his epistle to the Ephesians: "'For the beginning is faith, and the end is love." *° It was probably in Georgia that Wesley first met with the Life of Haliburton, a book which, Wesley
John Wesley and Modern Religion thought, described the life of God in the soul of man better than any he had seen.*® This book tells of the Scot's conversion in moving language: "It was in this extremity God stepped in. . . . Towards the beginning of February, 1698, this seasonable relief came.
I was then, as I remember, at secret prayer, when he discovered himself to me, when he let me see, that there are forgiveness with him and mercy, and plenteous redemption. Y now with wonder beheld Christ in his glory, full of grace and truth. I saw that he, who had before rejected all my offerings, was well pleased in the Beloved, being fully satisfied, not only that there is forgiveness of sins, through the redemption which is in Jesus, but also, that God by this means might be just in justifying even the ungodly that believe in him. ... And yet more, when he let me see, that to me, even to me, was the word of this salvation sent; that even I was invited to come, and take the water of life freely." ** Reference will be made in another chapter to a book Wesley read at this time, that set forth a definition of faith in words almost identical with those used © by Wesley. For the present, it is sufficient to recall that in 1735, 1736, and 1737, Wesley was reading A.
H. Francke's Nicodemus: or, A treatise on the Fear of Man. Would he who thought himself ''a brand plucked from the burning" for some great purpose have overlooked this sentence: "A single man, setting aside the fear of flesh and blood, and going forth in the name of the living God, hath frequently saved. a whole nation''? *"
In the light of his reading, as well as in consideraWesley in Oxford and America tion of express statements which he made concerning grace and faith before leaving Oxford, it is impossible to claim that Wesley was taught the doctrine of justification by faith in 1738, after he returned to England. But his gains in America were largely in fields other than theological. In February, 1738, he reflected on his stay in America:
"Hereby I trust He hath in some measure 'humbled me and proved me, and shown me what was in my heart." Hereby I am come to know assuredly that, if 'in all our ways we acknowledge God,' He will, where reason fails, 'direct our path,' by lot or by other means which He knoweth. Hereby I am delivered from the fear of the sea, which I had both dreaded and abhorred from my youth."
In the wilderness, he had been able to rely upon his position as Fellow of Lincoln, or as John Wesley, Gentleman, and his reason was often helpless where there was no precedent to guide. In this condition, he had cast his cares upon the Lord; and, however superstitious the method, at bottom it was trust which saved him. His reference to conquering fear is explained by his Journal of January 13th. In "a thorough storm," on the homeward journey, he had lain down without fear; and the next day he had applied » the word of God to every soul on board with a consequent loss of "that fearfulness and heaviness" which he had almost continually before.** Already he
was learning, not intellectually but by experience, the psychological value of humble faith.
In his wider acquaintance with men he had learned not only the depth of human depravity but the good John Wesley and Modern Religion residing in those who were outside the ecclesiastical fold to which he belonged. His extreme High
Church views were not gone, but he had come to respect the Moravians. His acquaintance with them had shown him a simple people whom he believed to live in the simplicity of the Apostolic Church, and their devotions had opened to him the riches of German hymnody. In his Diary are frequent references to German hymns he was translating. Several are in the hymn book he compiled which was published in Charleston in 1737. Not only these hymns but those which he later translated, some of them added thus to the treasuries of English devotion, must have been first read and appreciated in America. Attention has already been called to the evangelical note in the hymns of the Charleston book, but the student ought not to overlook the deepened emotional values which Wesley gained in this way. That Wesley translated for his hymn book such a hymn as C. F. Richter's,
'""My soul before thee prostrate lies," is evidence that he felt the power of such verses as these:
Ye Sons of Men, here nought avails Your Strength, here all your Wisdom fails; Who bids a Sinful Heart be clean?
Thou only, Lord, supreme of Men.
When my warm'd Thoughts I fix on thee And plunge me in the Mercie's Sea, Then ev'n on me thy Face shall shine And quicken this dead Heart of Mine.
So ev'n in Storms my Zeal shall grow, So shall I thy hid sweetness know, And feel (what endless Age shall prove) That thou, my Lord, my God art Love!
CHAPTER V WESLEY'S RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE InN 1738 Wesley returned to England under conditions which increased the nervous strain noticeable in his earlier religious quest. He left Georgia with his enemies apparently triumphing. They had indicted him for various alleged offenses (mainly, it is true, of an ecclesiastical nature) , and his return boded an uneasy session with the trustees of the colony.
The latter treated him with courtesy and stood by him, but they accepted his resignation with a readiness which did not salve his feelings. Several summaries of his stay in America and of his spiritual history evidence the growing strain under which he was laboring.
He had summed up the Georgia years by citing his gains. He had learned to know what was in his heart; to beware of men; to trust God to direct his path.
He had been delivered from his fear of the sea. He had become acquainted with many of God's servants, particularly the Moravians, and had gained access to the writings of holy men through his acquirement of German, Spanish, and Italian. The gospel had been preached in Georgia. Moreover, the trustees now had a chance to learn the truth about their colony. He was going to tell them, and he did.'
John Wesley and Modern Religion On the voyage home he had summed up his spiritual history, beginning with the well-known words: "I went to America, to convert the Indians; but oh, who shall convert me?" He thought that, if the gospel be true, he was safe; but in a storm he sometimes doubted. He had been taught not to lay too much stress on outward works or on faith without works, and he believed that he had not. He had avoided both the Lutheran and the mystical extremes; and he had learned the good rule in interpreting Scripture, Consensus veterum: quod ab omnibus, quod ubique, quod semper creditum." 'Thus he mused about himself.
But later, he grew more self-condemnatory.
Now he had learned that, whereas he went to America to convert others, he "'was himself never converted." His later corrections of this and other statements will be considered in due course. When he returned from America he had decided that his heart was "altogether corrupt and abominable," that he was
"a child of wrath"; that he had only the faith of devils. The faith which he lacked was "'a sure trust and confidence in God, that, through the merits of |
Christ, my sins are forgiven, and I reconciled to the favour of God." "I want that faith which none can have without knowing that he hath it... . And he is freed from doubt, 'having the love of God shed abroad — in his heart, through the Holy Ghost which is given unto him'; which 'Spirit beareth witness with his spirit, that he is a child of God.' " ® In short, Wesley had decided that he was not a Christian, and that to be a Christian he must have a kind of faith which would drive out doubt and fear
Wesley's Religious Experience and would be accompanied by the witness of the Spirit that he was a child of God. In this state of mind, Wesley met a young German, a Moravian missionary on his way to Georgia, Peter Bohler. During the next three months, until Bohler sailed, Wesley saw the Moravian missionary several times. They went to Oxford together and talked much; but Wesley says that he did not understand Bohler, and Bohler's comment was: "My brother, my brother, that philosophy of yours must be purged away." * A month later,
Bohler convinced Wesley of unbelief, although, according to his Journal, he had already come to that conclusion before arriving in London. Bohler advised Wesley to preach faith until he had it, and then to preach it because he had it. At subsequent meetings, Bohler discoursed on the holiness and happiness which attend faith. Wesley had read Haliburton, and he was ready to adduce the Scottish writer as an example of instantaneous conversion." Bohler convinced him that in the early days of the Church, conversion was instantaneous; and several were brought to Wesley to testify to their conversion in the same manner. "Here ended my disputing," said Wesley;
"T could now only cry out, "Lord, help Thou my unbelief.' " ° Father Piette has argued that Bohler was not teaching Wesley justification by faith, but the primary place of the love of God in Christian experience; and there is ground for the argument.' When Bohler sailed for America, he wrote to Wesley, urging him to "taste, and then see, how exceedingly (vehementer) the Son of God has loved you, and loves you still; and John Wesley and Modern Religion that so you may continually trust confidently (confidere) in Him, and feel His life in you and in your flesh." He was obviously pleading here for Wesley to realize the love of God, and calling Wesley's failure to grasp the necessity of this, unbelief. 'Beware the sin of unbelief," he wrote, ''and if you have not conquered it yet, see that you conquer it to-morrow through the blood of Christ." ° Toward the close of the letter Bohler associates himself with Wesley and his companions by changing from the second person to the first. He would have Wesley and his brother
Charles and Hall admonish one another "to believe, and then to walk circumspectly in the sight of God, to fight lawfully against the devil and the world, and to crucify and to tread all sin under our feet, as far as we are permitted through the grace of the second
The fact that Wesley's translation of Bohler's Latin letter has certain strange omissions and changes points to a misunderstanding of the Moravian's meaning.'® Wesley had decided he was not a Christian, and he was sure that Bohler thought the same. Later, he understood better what his German > friend was driving at.
Wesley was approaching the resolution of the inner conflict which had developed slowly for many years by reason of the submergence of his emotional nature, becoming critical when, disappointed in himself and in men, he had met experience after experience which had torn away the intellectual and disciplinary covering of his natural feelings. He now sat down once more to sum up his spiritual pilgrimage.
In the light of his belief that he had overlooked the Wesley's Religious Experience power of faith in Christian living, his former life seemed less than Christian. Again we set down the record as it is, without consideration of his later and more mature judgment.
In his Oxford days, said Wesley, he had aimed at inward holiness, "the image of God." But he had not found assurance or comfort. Nor could the mystics help him, for they only substituted inward works for outer works. At Savannah he had been beating the air. "In this vile, abject state of bondage to sin, I was indeed fighting continually, but not conquering.
Before I had willingly served sin: now it was unwillingly; but still I served it. I fell, and rose, and fell again. Sometimes I was overcome, and in heaviness; sometimes I overcame, and was in joy. For as in the former state I had some foretastes of the terrors of the law; so had I in this, of the comforts of the gospel.
During this whole struggle between nature and grace, which had now continued above ten years, I had many remarkable returns to prayer, especially when I was in trouble; I had many sensible comforts, which are indeed no other than short anticipations of the life of faith. But I was still 'under the law,' not 'under grace' (the state most who are called Christians are content to live and die in); for I was only striving with, not freed from, sin. Neither had I the witness of the Spirit with my spirit, and indeed could not; for I 'sought it not by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law.' " ** Wesley's meaning is clear, although his analysis is slightly different from his earlier summaries. He was seeking inward peace and assurance, and he was
John Wesley and Modern Religion looking for a permanent plane of living where he should conquer always, instead of fighting and sometimes falling. Later it will be seen how Wesley came gradually to understand that life is not made up of such permanent planes of existence where men, haying achieved, go on at the same exalted level. Also he was later to understand that the assurance of salvation which he coveted is not always to be found in those who are indubitably Christians. But, for the time, his own strivings had prepared him psychologically for Peter Bohler's teaching, as Wesley understood it. Faith is the gift of God; it may be had instantaneously. "I was now thoroughly convinced,"
Wesley wrote in a summary of his religious experience, "and, by the grace of God, I resolved to seek it unto the end, (1) by absolutely renouncing all dependence, in whole or in part, upon my own works of righteousness; on which I had really grounded my hope of salvation, though I knew it not, from my youth up;
(2) by adding to the constant use of all the other means of grace, continual prayer for this very thing, justifying, saving faith, a full reliance on the blood of Christ shed for me; a trust in Him, as my Christ, as —- my sole justification, sanctification, and redemption, 47
Two things should be noticed here. In the first place, he had not been aware that he was trusting in his own works. Yet this problem was before his mind years before. He was not an ignorant man hearing for the first time of justification by faith, but a trained student of theology who had tried to avoid either extreme, trusting in faith without works or in Wesley's Religious Experience works without faith. But now he identified his condition with that of those who believe in salvation by works alone. In the second place, he determined to seek this faith by prayer, in addition to the use of "'all the other means of grace." Nothing in his new attitude excluded the means of grace; he still sought his new life within the institutions of the Church.
On Wednesday, May 24, 1738, he opened his Testament (evidently practicing a sort of bibliomancy) at the words, "There are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, even that ye should be partakers of the divine nature." Later he read, *'Thou art not far from the kingdom of God." At St. Paul's in the afternoon, the anthem was '"'Out of the deep have I called unto Thee, O Lord; Lord, hear my voice... O Israel, trust in the Lord: for with the Lord there is mercy, and with Him is plenteous redemption.
And He shall redeem Israel from all his sins."" In the evening he went to a society in Aldersgate Street where some one was reading Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans. ''About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death." *'
Any interpretation of John Wesley's personal religion is determined by the significance given to his Aldersgate Street experience. Traditionally, Methodists and non-Methodists alike have seen in this experience the evangelical conversion of Wesley. But John Wesley and Modern Religion of late years more and more scholars have classified this as a mystical rather than an evangelical conversion. Dimond points out the likeness between the mystic "Awakening, Purgation, and Illumination" and Wesley's religious crisis in 1725, '"'the discipline during the intervening period, and the conversion in 1738." ** The proper approach to an evaluation of the 1738 experience is by a study of Wesley's subsequent religious life and of his own more mature conclusions concerning his "conversion" and his whole religious experience.
In the first place, Wesley persisted for some time in the belief that, prior to May 24, 1738, he had not been a Christian. On October 30, 1738, he wrote his brother Samuel, who did not look with a friendly eye on what he considered his brother's extravagances:
"By a Christian I mean one who so believes in Christ as that sin hath no more dominion over him; and in this obvious sense of the word I was not a Christian till May the 24th last past."'" But Wesley was troubled by his persistent spiritual unevenness. heyeeeeaageeFaa
At the time of his "'conversion,' Wesley was astonished that he did not feel those "transports of joy" usually associated with conversion. He concluded that in this experiences vary.'® On January 4, 1739, there is a pathetic summary of his condition, in which Wesley declares explicitly: "I affirm I am not a Christian now.... that I am not a Christian at this day I as assuredly know as that Jesus is the Christ." His reasons are that he does not have the fruits of the Spirit, love, peace, and joy. "I do not love either the Father or the Son.'' He knows this because he feels
Wesley's Religious Experience it; "there is no word more proper, more clear, or more strong." Moreover, he still is "hankering after a happiness in loving and being loved by one or another." "Though I have endured hardships, though
I have in all things denied myself and taken up my cross, | am not a Christian. My works are nothing, my sufferings are nothing; I have not the fruits of the Spirit of Christ. Though I have constantly used all the means of grace for twenty years, I am not a Chrisae
This cannot be dismissed as a mood, for Wesley was not given to moods. It is plain that he had been disappointed in not finding the inner peace and joy which he craved. Moreover, he had not found the freedom from all wrong desires and wandering thoughts which he had expected. When his doctrines are examined, it will be seen how his own experience parallels the working out of his theories concerning sin in believers and concerning the stages of the Christian life which succeed forgiveness of sins and adoption into the family of God. Wesley's high ideal of the Christian life led him to doubt his own Christianity when he did not have the assurance which he craved and the perfection which he longed for; moreover his new estimate of the place of emotion in the religious life led him to anticipate an evenness and an intensity of feeling which he did not have.
Canon Overton, a sympathetic Anglican biographer of Wesley, thought that the outburst of January, 1739, was the last evidence of spiritual uneasiness in Wesley's experience. "Henceforth," said Canon
Overton, "during the whole of his long life hardly John Wesley and Modern Religion the shadow of a doubt about his spiritual state crossed his path; clouds and darkness constantly swept over his outer life, but there was perpetual and unclouded sunshine within." '* 'The facts do not bear this out.
In April, 1739, Wesley wrote to James Hutton, describing the great work at Bristol, but saying: "I am still dead and cold, unless while I am speaking." "
But far more important is a letter which Wesley wrote to his brother, Charles, in 1766, twenty-eight years after the Aldersgate experience, concealing significant parts of his thought in shorthand or Greek.
"In one of my last I was saying that I do not feel the wrath of God abiding on me; nor can I believe it does. And yet (this is the mystery) I do not love
God. I never did. Therefore I never believed in the Christian sense of the word. Therefore I am only an honest heathen, a proselyte of the Temple, one of the God-fearers. And yet to be so employed of God! and so hedged in that I can neither get forward nor backward! Surely there never was such an instance before, from the beginning of the world! If I ever have had that faith, it would not be so strange. But I never had any other evidence of the eternal or invisible world than I have now; and that is none at all, unless such as fairly shines from reason's glimmering ray. I have no direct witness, I do not say that I am a child of God, but of anything invisible or eternal. |
"And yet I dare not preach otherwise than I do, either concerning faith, or love, or justification, or perfection. And yet I find rather an increase than a . decrease of zeal for the whole work of God and every
Wesley's Religious Ex perience part of it. I am borne along, I know not how, that I can't stand still. I want all the world to come to him whom I know not. Neither am I impelled to this by fear of any kind. I have no more fear than love. Or if I have any fear, it is not that of falling into hell but of falling into nothing.
"I hope you are with Billy Evans. If there is an Israelite indeed, I think he is one. O insist everywhere on full redemption, receivable by faith alone! Consequently to be looked for now. You are made, as it were, for this very thing. Just here you are in your element. In connexion I beat you; but in strong, pointed sentences you beat me. Go on, in your own way, what God has peculiarly called you to. Press the instantaneous blessing: then I shall have more time for my peculiar calling, enforcing the gradual work." "° This letter must be understood in reference to its historical setting. In the early part of the 1760's, beginning at Otley, there had been an outburst of claims to perfect love. Many professed that they had passed suddenly from the status of justified souls to that of sanctified. The doctrinal implications will be reviewed in another chapter, but the meaning for Wesley was that he was faced again with claims to a greater intensity and constancy of emotional states than he had himself attained. He who had preached that men are to strive for a love which casteth out even the suggestion of evil and which gives a high and unchanging level of emotional stability, had not himself received such a salvation. Moreover, he had preached that a man could not stand still, that he
John Wesley and Modern Religion must either go forward or backward. His own experience seemed to contradict his doctrine.
The truth is that Wesley had from the first been seeking nothing less than perfection. He found that a trained will and disciplined mind do not mean perfection, for the emotions are unruly. Then, in the enthusiasm of 1738 and immediately afterward, he had expected complete peace and joy and constant dominion over every taint of sin, inward and outward, as a result of the realization of the boundless love of God through faith. But he had been compelled, through the years, to readjust his doctrines, as his sermons on ""Wandering Thoughts," "Sin in Believers,"' and the like, testify. There must be another stage in the Christian life: the justified man must be sanctified. But Wesley himself had not reached this high plateau of the Spirit, where, as he believed at first, men may be free from even the suggestion of evil.
Indeed, Wesley was by nature and training little fitted for experiences of emotional intensity.
Throughout his life he had rationed his time and allotted his tasks with a methodicity impossible to more ~ romantic natures. Sometimes, even in his old age, he looked back with a kind of nostalgia to the ordered days at Oxford. 'Let me be again an Oxford Methodist!"? he cried to Charles in 1772. 'I am often in doubt whether it would not be best for me to resume all my Oxford rules, great and small. I did then walk closely with God and redeem the time." 7* Feelings are desirable, but Wesley could not rid himself of his reliance upon reason administering by the rules of Wesley's Religious Experience logic. In 1786, he wrote to Elizabeth Ritchie that he had not heard or read of anything like his own experience. Count Zinzendorf had said that there are three ways by which God leads his people: by apposite texts of Scripture, by impressions, by plain and clear reasons. Wesley had been led by reason and Scripture, but rarely by impressions. "I see," he wrote, '"abundantly more than I feel." And there is something
pathetic in the line with which he concludes: "I want to feel more love and zeal for God." *° "T want to feel." 'This is a recurring note in Wesley's long years. Not that he was by any means devoid of feeling, but there was not that ebullience of emotion which some seem to have. The reader who comes to Wesley's Journal with the idea that he was a preacher of feeling cannot but be surprised at the paucity of reference to the great evangelist's own feelings. There are occasional entries: "The longer
I spoke the more strength I had, till at twelve I was as one refreshed with wine"; 'I explained the nature of inward religion, words flowing upon me faster than
I could speak"; "I intended to have given an exhortation to the Society; but as soon as we met, the Spirit of supplication fell upon us, so that I could hardly do anything but pray and give thanks." But compared to the mass of the Journal such entries are rare.
The high emotional experiences recorded there are of other people. Wesley himself had earnests of the feeling which others had, and he would have liked to feel more. In the 1737 hymn book, he transcribed
Addison's hymn, '"When all thy mercies, O my God"; . 95
John Wesley and Modern Religion but the latter lines of the first stanza he changed to read, Why my cold heart, art thou not lost In wonder, love and praise?
It is illustrative of the ease with which theories can. be made that this, on first glance, seems only a proof of Wesley's preconverted state of soul. But Wesley never changed the lines. To the time of his last hymn book, he continued to reprint the hymn as he had printed it almost half a century before. Apparently, to the end it was to him a remarkable fact that he felt no more than he did.
With these facts in mind, one is prepared to understand Wesley's reinterpretation of his own experience, a reinterpretation which made possible one of his great intuitive syntheses. By readjusting his ideas concerning his own experience he was enabled to see the deeper significance of the doctrines he had been preaching concerning the progressive nature of the Christian life. So long as he thought of himself as having been a sinner before 1738, so long he was unable to appreciate some aspects of the Christian life and so long his own spiritual history puzzled him.
A few years after Wesley wrote to his brother that he did not have the love of God in his heart, he issued the first volume of his Works, the first collected edition, for which he had bought new paper and new type. In the first volume, which appeared in 1771,
Wesley set forth reasons for the new collected edition in thirty-two duodecimo volumes. One of the reasons was that typographical errors and others which obscured the sense must be corrected. Then he added a Wesley's Religious Experience paragraph which should long ago have given students a key to one of the most important changes in' his thought. "But as necessary as these corrections were," he wrote, "'there were others of a different kind, which were more necessary still. In revising what I had wrote on so many various subjects and occasions, and for so long a course of years, I found cause for not only rational or verbal corrections, but frequently for correcting the sense also. I am the more concerned to do this, because none but myself has a right to do it. Accordingly I have altered many words or sentences; many others I have omitted, and in various parts I have added more or less as I judged the subject required: So that in this edition, I present to serious and candid men, my last and maturest thoughts: agreeable, I hope, to Scripture, Reason, and Christian Antiquity." ** It was for this edition that Wesley corrected his first two journals, modifying or recanting some strong expressions which he had used indicating that, before his conversion in 1738, he had not been a Christian. In the summary of his condition which concludes the last Savannah Journal, Wesley made several corrections. 'To the statement, "that I, who went to America to convert others, was never myself converted to God," he added: "I am not sure of this."
To his judgment that all his sacrifice and striving were but "dung and dross," since they were not ennobled by faith, he appended the statement: "I had even then the faith of a servant, though not that of a son." And the collection of condemnations which were summed up in the conclusion, that he was then
John Wesley and Modern Religion "a child of wrath," he withdrew with the simple words, "I believe not." He had defined the faith which he lacked as 'fa sure trust and confidence in God, that, through the merits of Christ, my sins are forgiven, and I reconciled to the favour of God." He amended this by inserting after the words, ""The faith
I want [lack] is," the explanation, "the faith of a son." And in the first summary which occurs in the Journal account of May 19-24, 1738, Wesley corrects his exclamation, "Oh let no one deceive us by vain words, as if we had already attained this faith!"
"That is," runs the correction, "the proper Christian faith ie The importance of these corrections lies partly in the fact that they were introduced into the copy which Wesley so carefully prepared for the edition which was to carry needed corrections of his writings.
He had definitely moderated his former estimates of his condition before 1738, estimates which had been written down under the influence of those troublous days when he returned from the struggles in Georgia to the difficulties at home. Now, he set forth his corrections so that there might be no mistake about it.
But Wesley had not reckoned with his printer.
William Pine of Bristol has been well called the world's worst printer. He omitted whole pages and so bungled the text that Wesley added a page of errata to each volume, calling attention, sometimes sharply, _ to the omissions and errors of his printer. |
It is part of the irony of history that Wesley was defeated first of all by his printer, and secondly by his editors and biographers. The corrections to the SaWesley's Religious Experience vannah Journal did not become a part of the text until 1829-1831, when Thomas Jackson edited the Third Collected Edition of Wesley's Works. Jackson stated that for these corrections he had the authority of Wesley's own corrections of the First Collected
Edition, and subsequent editors and biographers have only copied Jackson's note. Indeed, a recent writer has gone so far as to question the authenticity of the corrections, declaring that they cannot be used in any account of Wesley's thought, on the ground that they were never authorized for publication during Wesley's lifetime." For this reason it is necessary to state clearly the authority for the statement made above, that Wesley included these corrections in his copy for the 1771-74 edition of his Works. All that was necessary to assure anyone of Wesley's inclusion of these retractions and modifications was to turn to the back of the volume containing the First and Second Journals. In volume xxvi of The Works of the Rev. John Wesley, M.A. ... Bristol: Printed by William Pine, in Wine Street. MDCCLXXIV, is a list of errata containing every one of the corrections about which so much ado has been made. When the second edition was printed in 1809, the editor simply overlooked or ignored the errata, and Jackson was the first to include them; but even Dr. Curnock, to whom all students of Methodism owe so much, failed to notice that Wesley had included these corrections of earlier statements concerning his religious experience in the errata attached to the first edition.
So much has been said about the authenticity of Wesley's corrections because they are vital to a corJohn Wesley and Modern Religion rect interpretation of his experience. But this is not the only evidence that Wesley did not, in later life, regard his experience of May 24, 1738, as a conversion in the usual sense that the word carries in evangelical circles. It has been strangely assumed by many who write or speak about Wesley, that he dated everything in his religious experience from the Aldersgate episode, and that he made that the starting point of Methodism. Asa matter of fact, after the first year or two, he never mentioned the occurrence in his writings.
In his Short History of the People Called Methodists, which he appended to his Concise History of the Church, he makes no reference to the Aldersgate experience, the only mention of anything connected with it being the statement: "In all our steps we were greatly assisted by the advice and exhortations of Peter Bohler, an excellent young man, belonging to the society commonly called Moravians" **; and he is speaking here of the organization of the societies, not of his personal experience. The Methodist societies he dates back to 1729, which is, of course, the date of the Holy Club of Oxford. When Wesley delivered the address at the laying of the cornerstone of the City
Road Chapel in London, April 21, 1770, he reviewed the history of Methodism. It was an epochal occasion for him, the establishment of Methodism in perma- — nent and respectable headquarters in the capitol. But he began his story of Methodism with his acquaintance with a Kempis and Bishop Taylor; and of Aldersgate ©
Street and of Peter Bohler there is never a word.""
Wesley did often refer to 1738 as an epoch in his and in Methodist history; but his references must be Wesley's Religious Experience taken for what they mean and not changed into a mythical chronology referring to his conversion.
Wesley understood, of course, that his new understanding of justification by faith—whether this was a restatement of Luther's or Calvin's doctrine will be considered later—meant a change in his theological and evangelistic message. 'Therefore his references:
"Forty years ago I knew and preached every Christian doctrine which I preach now"; "'And this is the doctrine which I have constantly believed and taught for near eight and twenty years." In another sense,
1738 was an epochal year. It marked what Wesley recognized as the third stage in the rise of the Methodist Societies. In his A Short History of the People
Called Methodists, written in 1781 and appended to his Concise Ecclesiastical History, he wrote:
"On Monday, May 1, our little society began in London. But it may be observed, the first rise of Methodism, so called, was in November, 1729, when four of us met together at Oxford; the second was at Savannah, in April, 1736, when twenty or thirty persons met at my house; the last was at London, on this day, when forty or fifty of us agreed to meet together every Wednesday evening, in order to a free conversation, begun and ended with singing and prayer." ° To attempt to place in their historical perspective the events of 1738 is not in any way to minimize the importance of Aldersgate Street for John Wesley and for Methodism. But it is necessary to emphasize that attempts to interpret that experience as an evangelical conversion which transformed Wesley from a sinner
John Wesley and Modern Religion to a saint, or from a naturalistic humanist to a Christian, are in contradiction to Wesley's own judgment and misreadings of the facts. There can be no doubt that Wesley changed his mind about the Aldersgalal experience: the alterations in the Journal included by |
Wesley in the 1771 edition of his Works, with the) express statement that important changes were tobe __ made, puts this beyond a doubt. And the other evidence is equally convincing. It must be taken, therefore, either that Wesley, in his later years, suffered a retrogression of spirit and became a man unable to understand his own spiritual history, or that his later views represent -his mature judgment, that they are the Wesleyan interpretation.
According to the corrections which Wesley made in his Journal, he was before 1738 a servant of God, having Christian faith, but lacking the full, filial faith which characterizes "adult" children of God.
In 1736, Spangenberg had been describing the fruits of faith. Wesley cried: "If this be so, I have no © faith!" 'That wise man, Mr. Spangenberg," replied:
"Habes fidem, sed exiguam: You have faith, but it is" weak." In 1771, Wesley recalled this, and wrote to Benson: "Here, in this very point, is your mistake.
You was as really a believer when you came to Kingswood as you are now. ... You have faith, but it is weak. This was your case too." *? In 1785, Wesley retold the same story to Mary Cooke, adding: '""The very same thing I say to you, my dear friend. You have faith, but it is only as a grain of mustard-seed."
Wesley had decided that Aldersgate Street marked a stage in his religious experience, and a very important Wesley's Religious Experience stage; but it was neither the beginning of his Chinistian life nor the end of it.
And this seems a true analysis. For fifteen years, or thereabout, before 1738 he had been seeking Christian Perfection. In doing so, he had disciplined himself as few men have. His methodical and rationalistic nature made this his natural course: and he did not give over this discipline till death. But his emotional life was suppressed. His mother had taught him so; and his own ascetic beliefs had emphasized the tendency. But in Georgia he had found his reason and will insufficient. All too painfully he was reminded of his lack of emotional stability and of peace.
He believed the love of God and man to be the essence of religion; but he had not realized that love. The vital, vivid sense that God loves and forgives had not been a part of his own experience.
The fusing of his personality demanded an emotional experience, and apparently the evening when his heart was "strangely warmed" saw the time when, in Dimond's words, "'a powerful self-sentiment became identified, in ways too profound and secret for self-analysis, with a disinterested religious sentiment, the object of which was God revealed in Christ." **
Or, it might be expressed by saying that Wesley had reached the stage when all his energies and interests were channeled into his devotion to God. His conversion, in short, was not an evangelical but a mystical conversion—that is, the conversion of a religious man to a higher state of religious devotion. His is nearer the type of Pascal than of Augustine. But he was too much the Briton 'of the eighteenth century to John Wesley and Modern Religion experience the mystical union with God which characterized the classical mystics. His strangely warmed heart signifies what Piette calls an "intense perception of the love of God." *? And this perception of the love of God awoke in him an answering love. It was not highly emotional, and it was never to be. But it was an unwavering devotion.
Wesley never claimed to have attained perfect love or Christian Perfection; but no student of his life can fail to be impressed with the consistent quality of his long years of almost unbelievable activity. The troubled hours, noted above, seem to have broken in only when he struggled. to find a satisfactory explanation of apparent inconsistencies in his experience. But these hours were few, and there is no trace of them whatsoever during the last twenty years of his life. He was cheerful, he never complained, and he maintained a level of activity which is yet a wonder to the readers of his Journal. There are evidences of some emotional peaks in his experience, but not many.
Although quick tempered and not by nature a humble man, Wesley lived for nearly sixty-five years on an. ethical plane worthy of a saint. At the same time, he tried diligently to find some solid, rational expression of his faith; and, while his theology was often inconsistent and is certainly not fully adequate for later generations, he himself was never satisfied until he had reached a mental synthesis agreeable with his own intellectual presuppositions. Beauty did not, indeed, play any large place in Wesley's life; but he made no inconsiderable contribution to hymnology, and he was quick to appreciate the place of song in Wesley's Religious Experience Christian societies. There is reason then for including
Wesley, along with St. Francis, Wyclif, and Luther, among those in whom Christian ideas and experience have reasserted themselves "with fresh, creative energy." This Professor Lyman has done, illustrating his thesis, that religious creativity "is proportionate to the vital union effected between the four typical religious motives—the ethical, the mystical, the aesthetic, and the philosophic." * To use another terminology, Wesley was a mixture of classical and romantic tendencies. Always he maintained his passion for holiness, which demanded of him the constant imitation of Christ, which led him not only to form religious societies, but to use constantly the means of grace. But orientated with this was a conscious religious experience, embracing trust and insight and the fruits of the Spirit, love, joy, and peace.