CHAPTER X WESLEY'S DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH Ir Wesley strove to preserve discipline and method in religion, he also sought to keep his followers in the stream of Church life. In any discussion of Wesley's beliefs about the Church one must reckon with a confusion that is partly owing to the dust of controversy and partly to a failure to distinguish carefully Wesley's essential ideas. The student of Wesley will do well to have in mind the various forms which the corporate fellowship of Christians has taken in the West. Usually these are distinguished as episcopal, presbyterian, independent, and the like; but such definitions rest upon matters of organization rather than upon any deep-lying social differences.
The sociological divisions which have been made familiar to Western readers through the writings of Ernst Troeltsch offer a better basis for the study of Wesley's great experiment.
Troeltsch recognized three great types "'of the sociological development of Christian thought:" the Church, the sect, and mysticism. It is with the first
two that one has to do in considering Wesley, for he early repudiated mysticism. "The Church-type, to characterize very briefly Troeltsch's idea, attempts universality and uniformity. Its essence is its objective, institutional character, and it makes place
John Wesley and Modern Religion in the institution for various degrees of capacity and maturity. 'The Church is the great educator of the nations." To an extent, the Church compromises with the social order in which it exists. The secttype, on the other hand, aspires to "direct personal fellowship between the members of the group" and seeks for "'personal inward perfection." The sects are voluntary groups and small in comparison with the larger and supposedly universal institutions of the Church-type. Troeltsch believed that both types stem back into the New Testament; but the Churchtype emphasizes grace, while the sect-type tends to exalt the Law, as, for example, the Sermon on the Mount.
However much of a caricature of Troeltsch's elaborate discussion the above paragraph may be, perhaps it makes plain that there is a vital distinction between the two types of institutional expression. There is, of course, no thought of prejudgment by the use of the terms, "church" and "'sect."" While the latter name rose partly as a term of reproach, those groups which may be called sects, to distinguish the sociological type to which they belong, are granted by most liberal Christians to-day the right to be considered —
Christian churches as truly as any other. The nomenclature is only for the sake of preserving the distinctions between the ideals and structure of the two groups.
No one will deny that Wesley began as a High Churchman devoted to the Church of England. His father and mother were both of the same persuasion, and his brothers remained much the same throughout
Wesley's Doctrine of the Church ~ their lives. High Churchmanship, in the eighteenthcentury sense, let it be said again, was not a matter of ritualism. In 1755, when the question of separation from the Church of England was being hotly debated, Charles Wesley set forth his High Church views in the following lines:
Yet, while I warmly for her faith contend, Shall I her blots and blemishes defend?
Inventions added in a fatal hour, Human appendages of pomp and power Whatever shines in outward grandeur great, I give it up—a creature of the State!
Let others for the shape and colour fight, Of garments short or long, or black or white; Or, fairly matched, in furious battle join For and against the sponsors and the sign;
Copes, hoods, and surplices the Church miscall, And fiercely run their heads against the wall; Far different care is mine; o'er earth to see Diffused her true essential piety.?
The Churchmanship of the Wesleys in Oxford was the Churchmanship of the early eighteenth century, consisting of devotion to the Church, high ideas of passive obedience and the like, to which they added the ordering of their lives by what they conceived to have been the customs of the Early Church, especially in the observance of fasts and in ascetic practices.
In Oxford, Wesley had been led to prize the A postolic Constitutions as of the highest antiquity and authority. During part of his sojourn in America,
Wesley was studying the Constitutions and was much influenced by them until he decided that they were of later date than he had thought. But a study of these ga7 John Wesley and Modern Religion Constitutions of the fourth century reveal much which either directly influenced Wesley or was congruent with his beliefs at this time. According to the Constitutions, there were to be daily services, morning and evening, and fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays. 'The eucharist is spoken of as an "'unbloody' sacrifice," and baptism is the "'laver of regeneration."
Marriage of the clergy, while not forbidden, was restricted; and among those whom the clergy were forbidden to marry were servants and widows, a prohibition which may partly explain Charles' violent opposition to John's proposed marriage to Grace Murray and his actual marriage with Mrs. Vazeille. The threefold order of the ministry was taught, and it was expressly stated that presbyters were not permitted to ordain deacons, deaconesses or readers, not even singers or porters. All ordination was restricted to bishops.
In the Ecclesiastical or Apostolical Canons, which he also studied at this time, there are other points of belief which coincide with his position in Oxford and, largely, in America. 'Trine immersion is enjoined; the marriage of unmarried clergy forbidden; and the three orders uncompromisingly proclaimed. |
On the question of apostolic succession, Wesley at this time, held high views. It is unnecessary to illustrate this, since the fact is generally admitted. But it may be worth while to state more fully Wesley's position on the Lord's Supper and on baptism during this earlier period. In 1725, Wesley wrote his mother that he had always supposed "that when I communicated worthily, 7.e., with faith and humility, and —
Wesley's Doctrine of the Church thankfulness, my preceding sins were ipso facto forgiven me." To this his mother agreed, although her answer would indicate that she is thinking of repentance and the state of mind of the communicant rather than of communication itself. In Wesley's Forms of Prayer (1733), the prayer for Sunday evening thanks
God "for so often feeding my soul and body with thy most precious body and blood, those pledges of love, and sure conveyances of strength and comfort." '
The prayer for the communicant is that he may approach the altar with gifts of "humility, faith, hope, love, and all those holy dispositions which become the solemn remembrance of a crucified Saviour." The Lord's Supper was a real means of grace, but the emphasis is placed upon the disposition of the communicant in his solemn remembrance of the Lord's death.
On his voyage to America, Wesley was reading Brevint, probably, as his editor says, the preface concerning the Christian "Sacrament and Sacrifice," ° which the Wesleys later reprinted. "At the holy table,' wrote Brevint, "the people meet to worship
God, and God is present to meet and bless His people."
The Sacrament is a memorial, a sign of present graces, a means of grace, a pledge of future glory, a commemorative sacrifice, a sacrifice of ourselves and our goods. Brevint's position, which Wesley so far accepted as later to reprint it as a preface to Hymns on the Lord's Supper,® may be seen from a few short excerpts.
The Lord's Supper "is not a bare memorial only, but may actually convey as many blessings to me, as it brings curses on the profane receiver. Indeed, in John Wesley and Modern Religion what manner this is done I know not; it is enough for me to admire." 'This Victim having been offered up in the fulness of times, and in the midst of the world, which is Christ's great temple, and having been thence carried up to heaven, which is His sanctuary, from thence spreads salvation all around, as the * burnt-offering did its smoke. |And thus His body and blood have everywhere, but especially at this Sacraa ment, a true and real presence... . This great and holy mystery communicates to us the death of our blessed Lord, both as offering Himself to God, and as giving Himself to man. As He offered Himself to God, it enters me into that mystical body for which He died, and which is dead with Christ; yea, it sets me on the very shoulders of that eternal Priest, while
He offers up Himself and intercedes for His spiritual Israel. And by this means it conveys to me the communion of His sufferings, which leads to a communion in all His graces and glories. As He offers Himself to man, the holy Sacrament is, after the Sacrifice for sin, the true sacrifice of peace-offerings, and the table purposely set to receive those mercies that are sent down from His altar." 'Nevertheless, this sacrifice, which by a real oblation was not to be offered more than once, is by a devout and thankful commemoration to be offered up every day. ... And thus do we every day offer unto God the meritorious sufferings of our Lord, as the only sure ground whereon God may give, and we obtain, the blessings we pray for....
To men it is a sacred table, where God's minister is ordered to represent from God his Master the passion of His dear Son, as still fresh, and still powerful for Wesley's Doctrine of the Church their eternal salvation. And to God it is an altar, whereon men mystically present to Him the same ~ sacrifice, as still bleeding and sueing for mercy."
These lengthy quotations are necessary, since there is no doubt that they represent John Wesley's views before 1738. In the same way, numerous references attest his belief in baptismal regeneration. Here again, views expressed by another set forth clearly what he seems himself to have believed. In this instance the "'other" was his father. In 1700, Samuel
Wesley wrote a "Short Treatise on Baptism," and John published it with some abridgment.' Its general tenor is clear from a few quotations. 'The benefits received from baptism are "the washing away the guilt of original sin, by the application of the merits of Christ's death''; entering into covenant with God; admission into the Church. "By baptism, we who are
'by nature children of wrath,' are made the children of God. And this regeneration which our Church in so many places ascribes to baptism is more than barely being admitted into the Church, though commonly connected therewith.... By water, then, as a means, the water of baptism, we are regenerated or born again; whence it is also called by the Apostle, 'the washing of baptism.' Our Church therefore ascribes no greater virtue to baptism than Christ himself has done. Nor does she ascribe it to the outward washing, but to the inward grace, which, added thereto, makes itasacrament. Herein a principle of grace is infused, which will not be wholly taken away, unless we quench the Holy Spirit of God by long-continued wickedness." 'The treatise further defends effusion as John Wesley and Modern Religion a mode—although the quantity of water used was said not to be material—and the baptism of infants.
This is high doctrine, indeed; but his doctrines, overstrained and highflying as some of them were, must not be allowed to cloud the essential beauty of his piety nor of his conception of the Church. Perhaps nowhere in his writings is there a phrase which more aptly sets forth his ideal of the Church than that which occurs in his Forms of Prayer, where he speaks of the Church as the "Catholic seminary of divine love." * The Church is a guide and support and, in a true sense, brings men into the presence of Christ.
It has been assumed by some writers on Methodism that the conviction which Wesley arrived at, about 1738, concerning salvation by faith, and his own heightened experience of the love of God changed his
High Church views and made him a liberal Churchman, if not a Dissenter at heart. Nothing could be further from the truth. Five months after the Aldersgate experience, John and Charles Wesley had an interview with the Bishop of London, Edmund Gibson; and in that interview the Wesleys contended for the rebaptizing of those who had received Dissenters' baptism and were dissatisfied with it. The Bishop disapproved, having no liking for rebaptism and believing Dissenters' baptism valid. The next month
Charles called again on the Bishop and somewhat incensed that prelate by insisting on approval for rebaptism of a woman who had been baptized by a Dissenter.° December 30, 1745, seven and a half years after Aldersgate, Wesley wrote to his brother-in-law,
Wesley's Doctrine of the Church Wesley Hall, concerning the Church and ministry:
""We believe it would not be right for us to administer either baptism or the Lord's supper unless we had a commission so to do from those bishops whom we apprehend to be in succession from the Apostles. ...
We believe that the threefold order of ministers . . . is not only authorized by its apostolical institution, but also by the written Word." '° Three weeks after writing this letter, Wesley read the book which changed his opinions concerning the nature of the ministry in the Primitive Church; but the point'to be noticed here is that changed views of immediate communion with God or of faith did not compel new conceptions of the Church and ministry. The most that can be said is that increased emphasis upon faith tended to soften Wesley's zeal for institutional requirements, and association with non-Churchmen weakened his exclusiveness.
In many parishes, Methodists were excluded from the communion table. In others, the Methodists scrupled to receive the sacraments at the hands of men whom they believed ungodly. Some of the preachers insisted that they should have the right to administer the sacraments as well as to preach. The question of separation from the Church was becoming acute. In the Conference of 1744, the question,
"Do we separate from the Church?" was answered:
"Wedo not. We hold communion therewith for conscience sake, by constantly attending both the word preached, and the sacraments administered therein."
But already Wesley was forced to face the possibility that, after his death, the Methodists might secede John Wesley and Modern Religion from the Church. 'We are persuaded," runs the answer to Question 12, "the body of our hearers will even after our death remain in the Church, unless they be thrust out. We believe notwithstanding either that they will be thrust out, or that they will' leaven the whole Church. We do, and will do, all we can to prevent those consequences which are supposed likely to happen after our death. But we cannot with good conscience neglect the present opportunity of saving souls while we live, for fear of consequences which may possibly or probably happen after we are — dead"?
Already, by 1745, Wesley was defining schism as causeless breach, rupture, or division within the Church; and he declared the Methodists were no more guilty of this than they were of murder.'? This definition of schism helped Wesley, not only in defending the Methodists from the accusations of their enemies, but also for discussion of the legality of separation. He could not say that separation was illegal, if he regarded schism, not as the sin of leaving the Church, but as raising needless divisions within the Church.
By 1755, the situation was tense. Charles was in a state of excitement that vented itself in letters to all and sundry. He confided to a close friend that he was doubtful of his brother. The preachers, he feared, would overpersuade John.'* Already Charles and John were disputing whether ordination meant separation.
John said, "No"; Charles, "Yes." The preachers were, indeed, pressing Wesley hard; and, in Septem- — ber, 1755, he wrote to the Rev. Samuel Walker that \ Wesley's Doctrine of the Church some of the arguments put forth he could not answer.
The arguments were, that the preachers could not confine themselves to the Liturgy, and that there were several things in the Book of Common Prayer which seemed contrary to Scripture. Besides, the laws of the Church were in part papistical. Finally, many of the ministers of the Established Church were not sent of God, and their doctrines were subversive to the gospel. Wesley confessed that he could not at that time answer to his own satisfaction, and that his decision to remain in the Church rested on no good premises—a terrible condition for a logician. But he insisted that the essence of the Church to him was not in her orders and laws but in her doctrines and worship.**
It is not necessary to follow the controversy over separation, which recurred again and again; for the present it is enough to note that Wesley was arriving at a definition of the Church. Already, in his Earnest
Appeal, he had said that the Church is visibly joined "by assembling together to hear His word and partake of His supper." And Wesley interpreted the XIXth
Article of Faith as defining the visible Church of England by three essentials: (1) living faith; (2) preaching, and consequently hearing the pure word of God; (3) a due administration of the sacraments, "the ordinary means whereby God increaseth faith."
According to Wesley, the Church visible is defined not by Catholic but by Protestant standards. The Church is to promote faith, but its essentials are doctrine and worship. But Wesley's growing tolerance was too much even for a strict adherence to the deJohn Wesley and Modern Religion mand for "pure" doctrine or for unsullied worship.
In his old age, he admitted that he could not defend the Article altogether. To do so would be to declare the Church of Rome not even a part of the Catholic
Church. "Whoever they are that have 'one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one God and Father of all,' I can easily bear with their holding wrong opinions, yea, and superstitious modes of worship.
Nor would I, on these accounts, scruple still to include them within the pale of the catholic Church; neither would I have any objection to receive them, if they desired it, as members of the Church of England." '®
As early as 1755, Wesley declared that he who has no assurance that his sins are forgiven may have "'a kind or degree of faith which distinguishes him not only from a devil but also from an heathen"; and he added that, on this faith, he might "admit him to the Lord's
Supper." '7 The Church was distinguished by doctrine and worship, but the terms were inclusive, not exclusive.
Wesley did not intend that his Methodist societies should be taken for a church. When Troeltsch wrote that Methodism "'belonged essentially to the sect-type and not to the church-type, in spite of its earnest desire to remain inside the Established Church," he was thinking of the Methodist Societies and not of Wesley's own ideal for them. Canon Overton once wrote: "It is a purely modern notion that the Wesleyan movement ever was, or ever was intended to be, except by Wesley—a Church movement." ?® But Overton's exception is just the point: Wesley did intend his movement to be a Church movement. Unless
Wesley's Doctrine of the Church his repeated statements, repeated for fifty years, are to be set down as sentimental maunderings, the conclusion is not to be avoided that he wished his societies to be societies within the Church. He came to prefer the simplicity of Methodist meetings to the drawhngs of clerks and the unedifying sermons of unawakened clergymen; but he insisted that Methodist services were purposely designed of to be worship, as that term is understood technically. The Methodist service was worship, "but not such as supersedes the Church Service; it presupposes public prayer, like the sermons at the University. If it were designed to be instead of the Church Service, it would be essentially defective; for it seldom has the four grand parts of public prayer, deprecation, petition, intercession, and thanksgiving." *° Tyerman thought Wesley was wrong in insisting on short prayers in Methodist services, but he understood that Wesley required this because the services did not supersede but presupposed the public prayer of the Church.
No one supposes that Wesley contemplated the existence of two types of church organization, the church-type and the sect-type, as sociological institutions, and deliberately set about their combination.
But, in the face of the evidence, it seems impossible to avoid the conclusion that Wesley did deliberately seek to combine the qualities of an individualistic, intense religious piety, best attainable at its highest in a voluntary society, with those qualities characteristic of the Church. That this did not endure in England after Wesley's death, was doubtless inevitable; but its failure should not obscure the Founder's dream.
John Wesley and Modern Religion That this was Wesley's ideal was shown plainly in the setting up of the Methodist Church in America.
Whatever may be said of his ordinations, this much is sure: Wesley deliberately inaugurated a Church in America. Unquestionably the American Methodists departed from Wesley's wishes in this respect, but he intended to provide for the continuation of Church life for those who could no longer enjoy this under the English Establishment. His purpose was plainly expressed in his certificate to Dr. Coke. He would take care of those who wished "to continue under my care, and still adhere to the doctrines and discipline of the Church of England" and who "are greatly distressed for want of ministers to administer the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's supper, according to the usage of the said Church." ?* In other words, since the mark of union with a Church, according to Wesley, is unity of doctrine and worship, he was providing for just that. To accomplish this further,
Wesley issued what he called an "edition" of the Prayer Book, abridged and renamed "'Sunday Service."
Just as in England he had tried to retain his followers — as members of a religious society within the Church, so in America he designed the continuance of Church life according to the doctrines and worship of the Church of England, although not in dependence upon English bishops, and with such changes in Articles and Liturgy as seemed necessary in view of American conditions. | Wesley's belief in the Church is evidenced also by his continued belief in the importance of the sacraments. In one who insisted so much that the visible
Wesley's Doctrine of the Church Church is a company of faithful men, and who believed so heartily in regeneration, the retention of infant baptism is, at first thought, inconsistent. But Wesley never believed baptism a mere ceremony. He noted that faith was given to some of his converts when he baptized them; and he had regard for that "inward grace, which is supposed by our Church to be given with and through that sign to all infants." ??
His father's tract which was quoted to illustrate Wesley's views on baptism before 1738, was published by Wesley in 1756; and there is no indication that Wesley then disagreed with it. Indeed, the tract was printed without any note that it was a reprint of his father's treatise. There is some indication that Wesley modified his views in later years. In Sermon XXXIX, he declared it to be certain that "our Church" supposes all baptized in infancy to be at the same time born again. 'Nor is it an objection of any weight against this," he added, "that we cannot comprehend how this work can be wrought in infants. For neither can we comprehend how it is wrought in a person of mature years." Sugden thinks that his further statement may indicate some hesitation: ""Whatever be the case with infants, it is sure all of riper years who are baptized are not at the same time born again." ** In Wesley's
Sunday Service, which he prepared for the American Church, the service is abridged, and there are two significant omissions. In the minister's closing exhortation to thankful prayer, he is to say: 'Seeing now, dearly beloved brethren, that this Child is grafted into the body of Christ's Church," instead of "regenerate and grafted" as the Prayer Book has it.
John Wesley and Modern Religion Also in the Thanksgiving prayer, "that it hath pleased thee to regenerate this infant with thy Holy Spirit, to receive him for thine own child by adoption" has been changed to read: "that it hath pleased thee to receive this Infant for thine own Child by adoption."
But the change was not thorough, for Wesley retained the prayers "'to sanctify water to the mystical washing away of sin," and "that he may receive remission of his sins by spiritual regeneration." Wesley wavered as to baptismal regeneration, but he continued to regard the sacrament of baptism as a conferring of grace.
Whatever Wesley's views on baptism, his interests were not centered there. Baptism was a rite already performed so far as most of his hearers were concerned. The Lord's Supper was on a different footing.
There is the less need for details here, since Dr. Rattenbury has an excellent exposition of Wesley's views accessible to readers in Wesley's Legacy to the World.** It is necessary only to make clear the general nature of Wesley's views throughout his evangelical ministry.
To understand Wesley's high conception of the Lord's Supper one must keep in mind his discussion of the means of grace in his sermon on that subject, which is included in the Standard Sermons." There are, says Wesley, means which are ordained of God asas. the usual channels of His grace. "These means ; Wesley understood to be "outward signs, words, or actions, ordained of God, and appointed for this end, to be the ordinary channels whereby He might convey to man, preventing, justifying, or sanctifying grace." The Wesley's Doctrine of the Church words which he uses are from the Prayer Book. The chief of these means are prayer, searching the Scriptures, receiving the Lord's Supper; but their value depends upon their subservience to the end of religion.
"Use all means as means.... not for their own sake, but in order to the renewal of your soul in righteousness and true holiness." 'There is in them no intrinsic power whatsoever. In this spirit one should partake of the Lord's Supper, for in this "ye openly exhibit the same by these visible signs, before God and angels, and men; ye manifest your solemn remembrance of His death, till He cometh in the clouds of heaven."
Eating | of that bread and drinking of that cup are "the» outward, visible means whereby God conveys into our souls all that spiritual grace, that righteousness, and peace, and joyin the Holy Ghost, which were purchased by the body of Christ once broken, and the blood of Christ once shed for us."
In 1745, John and Charles Wesley published their Hymns on the Lord's Supper, signing themselves "Presbyters of the Church of England" and prefixing as a preface extracts from Dr. Brevint on "The Christian Sacrament and Sacrifice." ?* Thus the book which John Wesley read on his way to America was reprinted with hymns arranged under the various divisions of the Preface. The communicant was to expect the presence of Christ at the sacrament:
In Thy ordinance appear, Come and meet Thy followers here.
Sinner, with awe draw near, And find thy Saviour here.
25] John Wesley and Modern Religion The Lord's Supper is the supreme rite in which the recipient may expect the grace of God:
Fasting He doth, and hearing bless, And prayer can much avail, Good vessels all to draw the grace Out of salvation's well.
But none like this mysterious rite Which dying mercy gave, Can draw forth all His promised might And all His will to save.
Certainly the manner of this conveying of grace is mysterious, but the Wesleys reject any suggestion of materialism in the sacrament:
These the virtue did convey, Yet still remains the same.
Who shall say how bread and wine God into man conveys!
In a real sense, the Lord's Supper is a showing forth of Christ's death, not only to men, but to God.
Father, let the sinner go, The Lamb did once atone, Lo! we to Thy justice show The passion of Thy Son.
And in this sense the Eucharist is a sacrifice, a commemorative sacrifice.
The death Thou never canst repeat, Once offer'd up to die no more.
Wesley's Doctrine of the Church Yet may we celebrate below, And daily thus Thine offering show Exposed before Thy Father's eyes; In this tremendous mystery Present Thee bleeding on a tree, Our everlasting Sacrifice.
But not only is the sacrament a commemorative sacrifice before God, but it is a sacrifice of man himself and of all that he has.
Take my soul and body's powers, : Take my memory, mind, and will, All my goods, and all my hours, All I know, and all I feel, All I think, and speak, and do; Take my heart—but make it new.
These quotations will give some idea of the Wesleys' hymns for the Lord's Supper. It should be plain from these that the doctrine was not Roman but evangelical, in the best sense of the word, and true to the highest type of Anglican piety. Wesley makes several claims for the sacrament. In the first place, it is commanded. It is also, as the Reformers thought, a preaching of the gospel. But the sacrament is a real means of grace; the recipient is to take it in faith that the Lord will fulfil his promises and confer upon the true worshiper "'that righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, which were purchased by the body of Christ once broken, and the blood of Christ once shed for us." 7"
Thinking of the Lord's Supper as at the heart of Christian worship, Wesley also regarded it as peculiarly fitted for those who can truly say, "the rememJohn Wesley and Modern Religion brance of our sins is grievous unto us." "In latter times," he wrote, "many have affirmed that the Lord's
Supper is not a converting, but a confirming ordinance. And among us it has been diligently taught that none but those who are converted, who have received the Holy Ghost, who are believers in the full sense, ought to communicate. But experience shows the gross falsehood of that assertion that the Lord's
Supper is not a converting ordinance. Ye are the witnesses. For many now present know, the very beginning of your conversion to God (perhaps, in some, the first deep conviction) was wrought at the Lord's Supper." ?* Or, as he put it again: "'no fitness is required at the time of communicating, but a sense of our state, of our utter sinfulness and helplessness."
These hymns were published in 1745, and the statements just quoted were made in 1740. That essentially these opinions were retained by Wesley throughout his ministry is evident from his publishing in 1788 a which he had written for his pupils in Oxford in 1733.
In this sermon he declares the Lord's Supper to entail as benefits: "the forgiveness of our past sins, the present strengthening and refreshing of our souls." And he lays upon sinners especially the necessity of coming to the Communion: "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?" By practice and precept, Wesley urged his people to attend the Lord's Supper. In 1764, in the midst of his work, he advised the societies at Bristol to lose no opportuWesley's Doctrine of the Church nities of receiving the sacrament. All who neglected it suffered loss; most of them had become '"'dead as stones." °° Three years before he died, he wrote to one of his preachers concerning a young man who neglected this sacrament, that, "if he obstinately persists in that neglect, you can't give him any more tickets for our society."*! 'The Church and the Sacraments" was not a rallying cry but an expression of Wesley's unwavering devotion to the visible symbols and means of the ever-present and ever-active grace of God.
It is evident, then, that to Wesley the esse of a visible Church is the possession of doctrines and sacra~ ments: for a visible Church is a congregation of faithful men, "in the which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments duly administered according to Christ's ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same." Because of this definition, Wesley contended, until his death, that he had not separated from the Church of England: he held to what he considered to be the essentials of Anglican doctrine; and he worshiped, whenever possible, in communion with the Church of England.
Although he had not in everything obeyed the bishops, he had remained in communion with the Church and he held her doctrines. Whether such a definition and such a defense are in themselves defensible is not now the question. Undoubtedly Wesley so believed.
But while Wesley believed the esse of the Church to be doctrine and worship, of which the sacrament pf the Lord's Supper was a central part, he did not despise the outward government of the Church. This
Zo9 John Wesley and Modern Religion belonged to the bene esse of the Church, and even — after he had become convinced that there was no one form of church government required in Scripture, he yet retained his belief in the wisdom and expediency of the government of the Church of England.
Wesley had not come easily by his change in belief concerning church government. As late as '1745, as has been seen, he held to his High Church views that three orders of the ministry were required by Scripture and by the practice and teaching of the Primitive
Church. With more ingenuity than reason, he had defended his preaching throughout the kingdom on ~ the ground that he had, in ordination, received '"'an indelible character" which gave him power to preach and to administer the sacraments without regard to parish boundaries. 'The Moravians were novel and unprimitive in their church discipline, it seemed to him, because their bishops were "mere shadows," and were so named only to please those who lay stress upon the ""Threefold Order." The Moravian ordination seemed, to him, evidence that they looked upon episcopal ordination as nothing. These objections
Wesley listed, in a letter to the church at Herrnhut, as among those things "which seem not agreeable to © ' the gospel of Christ." °" a Such firmly held opinions, which were agreeable to him by reason of his High Church upbringing, were — little affected by his belief that conscious fellowship — with God is the privilege of all Christians or by his — own experience in Aldersgate Street. But the opin- — ions could not hold against what he took to be cogent —
Wesley's Doctrine of the Church argument. The Man of Reason was as real as the Churchman or the Saint in Wesley. In 1746, he read
Chancellor King's book on the constitution of the Primitive Church and was thereby convinced that bishops and presbyters, or elders, are of the same order
"and consequently have the same right to ordain."
This is, of course, a direct denial of the claim that episcopal government wherein the bishops alone can ordain is by divine right. This view was confirmed to Wesley by reading Stillingfleet's Irenicon. Of the latter he wrote, in 1756: "I think he has unanswerably proved that neither Christ nor His Apostles prescribed any particular form of Church government, and that the plea for the divine right of Episcopacy was never heard of in the _ primitive nicch,"'.** Such a position may be thought by modern readers to have been a greater innovation in the eighteenth century than it really was. Nineteenth-century controversies have tended to slur over the fact that many of the great names of the English Church in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, to say nothing of | the eighteenth, can be cited for this very doctrine concerning episcopacy. For this matter, no less than
St. Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century can be quoted for the view that the episcopate is not a distinct order; and with him agreed most of the schoolmen.** It was Archbishop Ussher who an- -swered Charles the First's question as to whether aeercrs ini the Ancient Church ordained, by saying: "I can shew your Majesty more, even where
Biers alone successively ordained Bishops. 99 35 John Wesley and Modern Religion The Archbishop's reference was to the presbyters of Alexandria, according to Jerome's account—a classic reference for this matter. In the eighteenth century, after Queen Anne, the bishop "retained much of the former respect, but it was not quite of the kind it had been when the belief in episcopacy as a divinely appointed constitution remained comparatively unimpaired." °° Archbishop Manning thought that the Revolution of 1688 "greatly weakened in the Anglican Church the hold of episcopacy as a divine institution." And a writer who died in 1770 testified that "in my younger days, to deny the divine succession of bishops was rank atheism."
It may be well to look more closely at some statements of Stillingfleet and King in the books which so much influenced Wesley that he threw over a doctrine he had held from his youth and adopted the one to which he was faithful for the remainder of his life.
The whole design of Stillingfleet's book, according to his own statement, was "to prove that the form of church government is a mere matter of prudence, regulated by the word of God." ** He thinks a great proof of this is, that "after episcopal government was settled in the church, yet ordination by presbyters was looked upon as valid." ** King says that a presbyter is ""a person in holy orders, having thereby an inherent right to perform the whole office of a bishop; but being possessed of no place or parish, not actually discharging it, without the permission and consent of the bishop of a place or parish." *® These views are based upon the assumption that bishops in the Primitive Church were presbyters in charge of a church, —
Wesley's Doctrine of the Church and that there were as many bishops as churches. Indeed, King likens the relations of bishops and presbyters in the Primitive Church to that existing in the Church of England between rectors and curates.
Both have the authority of the Church to the full ministry of the Church, but jurisdiction in a particular place lies in the bishop.*°
Here is a distinction between spiritual power and jurisdiction. Into the first, according to King, the deacon and the presbyter, or bishop, using presbyter and bishop to mean the same "order," are inducted by ordination, "the grant of a peculiar commission and power, which remains indelible in the person to whom it is committed, and can never be obliterated or rased out, except the person himself cause it by his heresy, apostacy, or most extremely gross and scandalous impiety." 'Now this sort of ordination," adds King,
"was conferred only upon deacons and presbyters, or on deacons and bishops, presbyters and bishops being here to be considered as all one, as ministers of the church universal." *t The question is not now whether King was correct but what he taught in the book which convinced John Wesley that bishops and presbyters are of the same order.
The convictions which had come to him through Lord King's book, later confirmed by reading Stillingfleet, Wesley held for thirty-eight years before he acted upon them. In 1784 he set apart Richard
Whatcoat and Thomas Vasey as elders and Dr.
Thomas Coke as superintendent for the American Methodists, events concerning the meaning of which reams of good paper and no little ink have been
John Wesley and Modern Religion expended. Later, he ordained several other men, most of them for Scotland, but at least three for England, one of these latter being Alexander Mather, who was also "'set apart"' as superintendent. If Wesley had not set apart Coke, and later Mather, as superintendents, there would be no question as to what he had done.
It would be accepted that he had acted upon his belief that presbyters have the right to ordain, that he had, as Whatcoat said of his own case, "formed a presbyter" and ordained his preachers deacons and presbyters. But what was he doing when he "set apart"
Coke as superintendent?
For the High Churchman of the present day, the answer is easy. Wesley, in his enthusiasm—or in his senility—violated a fundamental law and attempted to confer a higher order of ministry than he himself possessed. There is no more succinct statement of this view than Charles Wesley's doggerel:
Wesley his hands on Coke hath laid, But who laid hands on him?
Others, reacting from such a view, have contended that Wesley meant nothing in particular and everything in general by thus setting apart a superintendent. He was merely appointing Coke to look after the American Methodists in place of Wesley himself.
Or, the answer is expanded by saying that Wesley - meant nothing by any of his ordinations. He had come to the conclusion that ordination is merely official appointment. But before deciding on any explanation of Wesley's conduct, the student of Methodism should
Wesley's Doctrine of the Church recall certain facts concerning Wesley's attitude and intentions.
In the first place, Wesley's sole aim, kept constantly before his mind, if we are to believe his own words, was "'to promote, so far as I am able, vital, practical religion; and by the grace of God to beget, preserve and increase the life of God in the souls of men."*?
This he said in 1756, and this he continued to say until his death, his depreciators themselves being judges.
In the name of his high purpose, he had violated the customs, if not the laws, of the Church of England; and he had expressly said that he would violate them further, if necessary for the gospel's sake.
This intention of Wesley was aided, in so far as matters of government were concerned, by his belief that no form of church polity was ordained of God or provable by Scripture as the sole, valid mode. His conclusions, ratified by much modern scholarship, were those of his instructors, Bishop Stillingfleet and Chancellor King, that, in the Primitive Church, there were different forms of government, and the rule determining polity was that of prudence.
But it must be remembered also that Wesley had a predilection, fostered by his training and by all his sentimental associations, for the Church of England.
In 1785, he wrote that he was as firmly attached to the Church of England as ever.** In 1756, he declared "the Episcopal form of Church government to be both scriptural and apostolical." "I mean," he added, "'well agreeing with the practice and writings of the Apostles. But that it is prescribedin Scripture
I do not believe." ** A quarter of a century later, he John Wesley and Modern Religion reiterated that he preferred episcopal ordination to any other, "where it can be had." This is understandable not as a prejudice but as Wesley's conviction growing out of his high respect for the ministry of the Church. That he could ever have thought the setting apart of a ministry by the Church of no importance is an impossible conclusion for any remembering his high estimate of the sacraments and of the ministry of the Word. Again, let it be repeated, that to him, the sacraments were not magical; there was in them no opus operatum. But they were real means of grace, and the Christian or the seeker after God neglected them at the peril of his soul. But these sacraments could be administered only by authorized ministers of the visible Church.
Once more, one must reckon with Wesley's belief in the church-type of Christianity. As much as he was devoted to his societies as voluntary associations for the promotion of holiness, he never for one moment thought of substituting a loose, edifying, disciplinary institution for the Church with its ministry and its sacraments. True, he was not bound by a narrow ecclesiasticism. He once employed a layman to help distribute the cup, but he defended his action by appeal to the Early Church. And he believed that the divine commission was more important than any visible calling by the Church. But he was too much the practical Englishman, as well as too much the son of a great tradition, to envisage an amorphous Christianity long enduring without the visible Church.
This is the explanation of his famous '"'Korah" sermon, preached in 1789, which many have taken as a Wesley's Doctrine of the Church recantation of his ordinations.*° What Wesley was actually doing was to denounce those preachers who had taken upon themselves the authority to administer the sacraments simply because they had the authority to preach. Lay-preaching was allowed by Wesley because he thought it a necessity and agreeable to the principle of the Church; but lay-administration of the sacraments he did not so consider, and he would have none of it. This was not ecclesiasticism but a sense of the value of institutions which it was part of his mission to bring over from the older world into the new. If his followers have at any time imagined that he was but a preacher of a spiritual Christianity without institutional ties or social duties, without corporate worship or the means of grace efficacious to the believing soul, the fault is not Wesley's. He repeated his fundamental doctrines often enough.
Wesley was a practical administrator, one of the greatest executive minds of his century. His own experience had taught him what his close acquaintance with the Anglican Church would have given him otherwise: an appreciation for the jurisdictional side of the Church. His constant criticism of the English bishops was that their superintendency was not effective for practical godliness. Modern analogies must not be allowed to warp Wesley's idea here.
Present-day churches, especially in America, have more and more separated certain phases of administration, after the fashion of business, into the hands of "boards"; but no such analogy will help to the understanding of Wesley's mind. In the eighteenth century, the spiritual work of the Church was not so John Wesley and Modern Religion | divorced from administration. What he would have said about modern church organization is not to the point here, nor is it perhaps a subject for meditation by the pious. The parish priest had certain administrative work to do, and the English bishop, in addition to his "'spiritual" duties of confirmation and ordination, had large executive and administrative tasks.
The idea of administration as part of the work of the ministry was perfectly familiar to Wesley by tradition and temperament, and this work was connected in his mind, not with semi-clerical postions, but with the ministry of the Church.
Remembering then Wesley's primary purpose, his conviction that government is of the bene esse but not of the esse of the Church, his predilection for episcopal polity, and his deep sense both of the importance of the spiritual and of the administrative work of the ministry, one may contemplate what actually happened in 1784.
Wesley knew the American people and what was going on in America better than most people in England knew them. His own experience in Georgia had given point to his warning to Lord Dartmouth and — to Lord North, in 1775, that the Americans were not to be trifled with and that they were devoted to liberty. In England, he had for years been forced to withstand the importunities of his preachers for ordination, and he knew that the Americans, with less patience and with more excuse, were clamoring for a ministry competent to administer the sacraments.
All this he set forth in the letter to the American Methodists which he sent with Coke and his helpers.
Wesley's Doctrine of the Church He had explained the necessity of the case to the Bishop of London, asking his help. But the bishop "peremptorily refused," and other bishops agreed, saying they had nothing to do with America. 'Then,' said
Wesley, "I saw my way clear, and was fully convinced what it was my duty to do."
In Drew's Life of Coke, it is said, and in quotation evidently from Coke himself, that Wesley conferred privately with the Doctor in 1784, telling him of the plan tosettlea Churchin America. Drew (or Coke?) declared that Wesley, "keeping his eye upon the conduct of the primitive churches in the ages of unadulterated Christianity, had much admired the mode of ordaining bishops which the church of Alexandria had practiced. That to preserve its purity, that church would never suffer the interference of a foreign bishop in any of their ordinations; but that the presbyters of that venerable apostolic church, on the death of a bishop, exercised the right of ordaining another from their own body, by the laying on of hands. and finally, that being himself a presbyter, he wished Dr. Coke to accept ordination from his hands, and to proceed in that character to the continent of America, to superintend the societies in the United
States." Did Wesley suggest all this to Coke in that first interview? *° There is no need at this late date to discuss the character of Dr. Coke. He was a great missionary, fearless and apostolic in his ministry; but he was a man who wanted to be a bishop. That he later suggested union with the newly formed Protestant Episcopal Church in America proves nothing. Wesley
John Wesley and Modern Religion might have doubted the wisdom of such a union, but it was consonant with his own intention. But Coke also offered, towards the end of his life, to return to the Church of England, if he were made a bishop in India. Moreover, in the letter which he wrote Wesley in August, 1784, it looks as if Wesley had first suggested that Coke go to America and ordain the preachers there by virtue of the authority which Coke already had, that of a presbyter of the Church of England, the same status as Wesley's own. This seems probable from Coke's urgent tone to Wesley. He may "want all the influence in America" which Wesley can give. He goes on to urge his claims for trust and to suggest even the details, the house in which the ordination could take place. "I shall entreat you to ponder these things," he ends.** To say that Coke did not truly interpret Wesley's meaning in the first conversation in February, 1784, is not to say that Coke lied. Wesley did keep his eyes on the Primitive Church, and he did admire the example of the venerable, apostolic church of Alexandria in ordaining bishops by the hands of presbyters.
It is highly probable that, as Coke said, Wesley gave him Lord King's book to study and several months to decide. But the conference had afterward appointed
Coke, Whatcoat, and Vasey to America, although they disagreed with any proposal to ordain them.
The matter is not certain. Wesley himself brought it up at the Conference, and Pawson thought that Wesley's mind was made up. Nevertheless, Coke's letter looks as if a little urging were yet necessary before Wesley took the step.
Wesley's Doctrine of the Church However this may be, on the second of September, Wesley "set apart as a superintendent, by the imposition of my hands, and prayer, (being assisted by other ordained ministers,) Thomas Coke, doctor of civil law, a presbyter of the Church of England." Tyerman's judgment is well known: "Wesley meant the ceremony to be a mere formality likely to recommend his delegate to the favour of the Methodists in America: Coke, in his ambition, wished, and intended it to be considered as an ordination to a bishopric."
That Coke so intended is undeniable. In America, he asserted as much in his sermon at the ordination of Asbury to be superintendent. Wesley disavowed any responsibility for what Coke said, and Henry Moore declares that Wesley had solemnly warned Coke not to use the title of bishop. But what had Wesley meant to do?
The words, "'set apart," have been taken as support for Tyerman's view; but Wesley's Diary would seem to deprive this of force. His entries for the days in question are:
"Sept. 1. 4 prayed, Ordained R. Whatcoat and T.
"Sept. 2. 4 prayed, Ordained Dr. Coke!" *° Whatever he chose to say in public, in his Diary he said simply that he had "ordained." Nor do the terms which he used give much information; for he liked his own nomenclature. In Acts xx. 28 he had translated "bishops" as "overseers." In his certificates for - Whatcoat and Vasey and in the Sunday Service for America, he changed "'presbyters" to "elders." There is no reason to think he may not have done likewise
John Wesley and Modern Religion with "bishop," simply substituting "superintendent."
The word was well known: it was used for Lutheran bishops, and Thomas Jackson quotes a work of 1698 by an English Churchman who prefers the same term." Moreover, "superintendent" expressed Wesley's preference as against a diocesan episcopate, for which he thought there was no scriptural authority and little practical justification.
Contemporaries seem to have thought that Wesley meant to ordain a bishop. This was Charles' brokenhearted conclusion. Certainly Coke and Asbury thought so. But no better testimony can be adduced than that of Henry Moore, whom Wesley later ordained a presbyter for England. Moore says roundly, that Wesley, "being peculiarly attached to every rite of the Church of England, he afterwards ordained
Dr. Coke a superintendent...." And Moore explains Wesley's feelings about the word "bishop" in thorough consonance with what is otherwise known of Wesley's attitude: "But the association in his mind, between the assumed title, and the display connected with it in the later ages of the church, was too strong. He could not, at that moment, separate the plain, laborious —
Bishops of the American Societies, where there is no legal establishment, from the dignified Prelates of the mighty Empire of Great Britain. That our brethren who are in that office, are true Scriptural Bishops," added Moore, "I have no doubt at all; nor do I wish that the title should be relinquished, as it is grown into use, and is known, by every one in the United
States, to designate men distinguished only by their simplicity and abundant labours." °' Moore was with Wesley's Doctrine of the Church Wesley when the latter wrote to Asbury rebuking him for using the title, bishop, and there is no reason to doubt that Wesley expressed himself at this time concerning his reasons.
To Charles' accusations, John entered no denial of the fact. He contented himself with denying any intention to separate and by declaring that he believed himself a scriptural episcopos. It is hard to believe that Emory's conclusion is not right, that, if Wesley had not intended to make Coke a superintendent, in the sense of an episcopos, he would have said so. And it is hard to avoid Emory's other arguments.°? Wesley wrote to Asbury that he, Wesley, was "father of the whole family," and "in a measure, provide for you all." Asbury was an elder brother; Wesley was the father.
Did Wesley then intend to make Coke a bishop?
Yes, in Wesley's meaning of the word. He did not intend to convey any sacerdotal powers. But he never intended that in any ordination, for he did not thus think of the ministry. Nor did he intend to confer upon Coke any ministerial power of ordination, whatever Coke thought.' That power Coke already had, according to Wesley's theory, by virtue of his ordination as a presbyter of the Church of England. But in ordaining Coke he intended to do something, and something different from that which he did for Whatcoat and Vasey.
What that something was it is impossible to discover unless one is willing to take Wesley at his word.
He had said, and repeatedly said, that he considered bishop and presbyter to be of the same order. He John Wesley and Modern Religion could not have meant the same sacerdotal, sacramentarian status; for Wesley did not hold to that conception of the ministry. Coke was a presbyter after his ordination, as he was before, having the same spiritual functions, the power of administering the sacraments and of ordination. But by his ordination
Wesley sought to set Dr. Coke apart as a scriptural and primitive bishop, according to Wesley's idea of that office; and he defined the function by his translation of the title, "superintendent." He conferred no new spiritual character but an administrative authority. There is nothing vague or amorphous in this, except as it is made so by sacramentarian notions or by modern analogies. It is doubtful whether Wesley used the words "order" and "office" to distinguish between spiritual and administrative functions; but if the words are used in this sense they describe what he meant. The distinction is as old as the first century, and Wesley was not ignorant of it.
Both spiritual and administrative functions were in the ministry, and, therefore, it was by ordination, solemn setting apart by prayer and laying on of hands
(which Augustine said meant prayer), that Wesley gave to Coke, Whatcoat, and Vasey their respective orders and offices. As to their spiritual powers, the three were pares. A superintendent, in Wesley's sense, had no confirmation or ordination as his special privilege. But as to their administrative, jurisdictional function, Coke was primus inter pares. Wesley never forgot King's analogy. In his comment on Acts xx. 17, Wesley had written of the elders of Ephesus:
'These are called bishops in the 28th verse, (rendered Wesley's Doctrine of the Church overseers in our translation.) Perhaps elders and bishops were then the same; or no otherwise different than are the rector of a parish and his curates."
And Wesley believed that presbyters have the power to ordain bishops, that is those who have the spiritual power of presbyters and the administrative authority of superintendents.
One of Wesley's dominant ideas was always the Church, which is visibly a congregation of faithful men, in which the pure word of God is preached and the sacraments duly administered. But there must be organization also; and, although no single polity is de jure divino, Wesley preferred the model of the Church of England. This model was to be shorn of the pomp of power, the ostentation of Anglican episcopacy. His ideal was that which Henry Moore expressed as the common understanding in America of Methodist bishops, "men distinguished only by their simplicity and abundant labours." Dean H. N. Bate characterized Methodist episcopacy as 'Presbyterian in origin, tripartite in function, mon-episcopal in practice." °* The first two express the facts, so far as Wesley is concerned. It is possible that Wesley might have agreed with the third.
But, in America, the Methodists must be in a Church. There is reason to think that he anticipated the breaking away in England also and tried to provide for it by ordaining Henry Moore and Mather as superintendents. But it was not the way for English
Methodists. For America there could be no other path, and Wesley would not have his people tied to loose societies, however helpful, deprived of the sacraJohn Wesley and Modern Religion ments and a settled church life. His models were in the Scriptures, the Primitive Church, the Church of England; but, more than anything else, he would have the spiritual life of his followers, engendered, cherished, fed within a Church to which everyone might belong who had a desire to flee from the wrath to come and to be saved from their sins, and to seek the company of the people of God to assist them in working out their salvation. His spiritual children must not be deprived of their Christian heritage, membership in a Church that is "'a catholic seminary of divine love."
CHAPTER XI INDIVIDUALISM AND EMOTION IN WESLEY'S RELIGION THROUGH this study of Wesley's religion and theology attention has been called to the tension between two elements in his experience and thought. On the one side, are his predilection for clear and distinct ideas; his appreciation of the moral struggle; his belief in the values of a disciplined life; and his devotion to the Church and to the means of grace. On the other side, are the individualistic character of much of his religion; the place given to emotion in the religious life; and 'his recognition of variety and growth. It will be helpful at this point to look more closely at these latter elements in Wesley's teaching.
That Wesley's appeal was individualistic is too well known to need any further stress. Not that he differed in this from large sections of the Christian
Church then and now, for there has always been a strongly individualistic tendency in Christianity. It is Customary to refer to Wesley's individualism as an inheritance from seventeenth-century nonconformity; but this is an unjustifiable narrowing of his background. Wesley insisted that there had been in the Church throughout the centuries Christians who believed and practiced a "spiritual" faith. He won- "ls John Wesley and Modern Religion dered, indeed, if these were not mainly those who were called heretics by rich and powerful Christians, and he introduced strange names into his company:
Montanus and Pelagius are spoken of in high terms.
Wesley recognized the power of the Reformation and of the efforts of the earlier Puritans; but he thought the latter declined in spirituality when they came to power in the Commonwealth. For his own work,
Wesley found the beginnings in William Law. Infidelity increased after the Restoration until about 1725, "when Mr. Law published his 'Practical Treatise on Christian Perfection, and, not long after, his
'Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life.' Here the seed was sown, which soon grew up, and spread to Oxford, London, Bristol, Leeds, York, and, within a few years, to the greatest part of England, Scotland, and Ireland."*? In High Churchmen like William
Law, as well as in the early Puritans, Wesley recognized a worthy type of personal religion.
In the conclusion of his sermon on ""The Circumcision of the Heart," which Wesley preached at St.
Mary's, Oxford, January 1, 1733, he quoted from "those children of God" who, "being dead, still speak tous." The paragraph is a mosaic of quotations, but the sum of all is that personal piety which is not confined to the classical mystics but belongs to the Church Universal. ' "Desire not to live but to praise
His name,' "' quoted Wesley; " 'let all your thoughts, words, and works tend to His glory. Set your heart firm on Him, and on other things only as they are in and from Him. Let your soul be filled with so entire a love of Him that you may love nothing but for His —
Individualism and Emotion in Wesley's Religion sake.' 'Have a pure intention of heart, a steadfast regard to His glory in all your actions.' 'Fix your eye upon the blessed hope of your calling, and make all the things of the world minister unto it.' For then, and not till then, is that 'mind in us which was also in Christ Jesus'; when, in every motion of our heart, in every word of our tongue, in every work of our hands, we 'pursue nothing but in relation to Him, and in subordination to His pleasure.' " ?
Reference has been made in an earlier chapter to what has been taken as evidence of the painful selfcenteredness of Wesley before his "conversion," that he went to America to save his own soul. In his letter to Dr. Burton, in October, 1735, Wesley wrote, that his "chief motive, to which all the rest are subordinate, is the hope of saving my own soul." His second motive was his belief that he could do "more good in America." But Wesley's motives never changed. In 1788, he wrote that "I have only one thing to do, to save my own soul and those that hear me." * Not only are the motives unchanged, but neither is their order. In 1788, as in 1735, Wesley sought to save his own soul and the souls of others.
The truth is that Wesley believed religion to be personal, and an individualistic religion must seek the salvation of individual souls. In these pages, it has been contended that Wesley thought the Church necessary and would have nothing of "solitary" religion; but one must keep in mind that there have always been those who have united devotion to the Church with a fine type of individualistic piety. There is no contradiction here. The High Churchman of 1735
John Wesley and Modern Religion preached an individualistic religion; Wesley the Methodist of 1788 did likewise. The Christian lives within the framework of the Church and in the societies which are included in it;-but religion is the experience of the individual, and to the individual must appeal be made. This is why Wesley's sermons were so effectual; they appealed directly to men. When John
Nelson, afterward one of Wesley's most useful preachers, first heard him, it seemed to the stonemason that the preacher was speaking to him alone.* "Call upon thy God," cried Wesley in a characteristic paragraph in one of his sermons, "'till He make His 'goodness to 'pass before thee'... cry unto Him day and night, who 'while we were without strength, died for the ungodly,' until thou knowest in whom thou hast believed, and canst say, 'My Lord, and my God!' Remember, 'always to pray, and not to faint,' till thou also canst lift up thy hand unto heaven, and declare to Him that liveth forever and ever, 'Lord Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest that I love
Thee.' " ® Wesley's appeal was for concrete, individual experience. Concerning the varieties of individual experience Wesley was continuously curious. He was always interested in the different ways by which men might come to the love of God and the different ways in which that love might manifest itself. The best known of his collections of such data is that of the autobiographies of his preachers which have been published more than once. But his letters also are a storehouse of materials, revealing as they do his inquiries into the minutiz of individual experience.
Individualism and Emotion in Wesley's Religion On one side of his mind, Wesley distrusted dreams and visions and the more exotic type of experience, and he warned his followers against them. But he showed an unusual interest in such matters, even when he expressed cautious judgments about them.
Indeed, his doctrine that God expresses himself in the most minute details of life, supporting not only the Universe but also looking after the least things concerning his children, made for a willingness to listen at least to any story, however improbable. Wesley certainly kept alive a sense of wonder, and this was no doubt responsible for many of the excesses among the early Methodists.
If religion is primarily a concrete, individual experience, there must be variability. Although Wesley warned against relying on uncommon experiences or seeking unusual ones, nevertheless he recognized what he called the "irreconcilable variability in the operations of the Holy Spirit on the souls of men."
No one formula could cover them all. But Wesley tried to reduce this "irreconcilable variability," so far as he could, not to uniformity in detail, but within such limits as would protect a reasonable and an ethical faith. He would restrict the ambitions of his followers, therefore, to increase of love. They were in danger of forgetting that "love is the highest gift of God; humble, gentle, patient love; that all visions, revelations, manifestations, whatever, are little things compared to love; and that all the gifts above-mentioned are either the same with, or infinitely inferior to, it." "There is nothing higher in religion," he added; '"'there is, in effect, nothing else; if you look
John Wesley and Modern Religion for anything but more love, you are looking wide of the mark, you are getting out of the royal way....
Settle it then in your heart, that from the moment God has saved you from all sin, you are to aim at nothing more, but more of that love described in the thirteenth of the Corinthians. You can go no higher than this, till you are carried into Abraham's Bosome."
To this concrete, individual experience appeal is made for convincing evidence of the truth of religion. | What we ourselves have felt and seen With confidence we tell, And publish to the sons of men The signs infallible.
But this experience involves the irrational side of man's nature, and Wesley thought of religion as rooted in this side of man's life. As early as 1726, he had seen "that giving even all my life to God (supposing it possible to do this, and go no farther) would profit me nothing, unless I gave my heart, yea, all my heart, to him." He saw that simplicity of intention, and purity of affection, that is, "one design in all we speak or do, and one desire ruling all our tempers," are indeed "the wings of the soul" by which it ascends to the mount of the Lord. He desired the mind of Christ, although he conceived religion (circa 1729)
"as an uniform following of Christ, an entire inward and outward conformity to our Master."' In 1733, in the sermon on ""The Circumcision of the Heart,"
Wesley defined religion in terms with which he agreed Individualism and Emotion in Wesley's Religion nearly half a century later. Religion, which here is called the "circumcision of the heart," is "'that habitual disposition of soul which, in the sacred writings, is termed holiness; and which directly implies, the being cleansed from sin, 'from all falthiness both of flesh and spirit'; and, by consequence, the being endued with these virtues which were in Christ Jesus; the being so 'renewed in the spirit of our mind,' as to be 'perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect.' " Later in the sermon he spoke of love toward God as "the one perfect good" which is to be the ultimate end of every Christian.* In a sermon which he preached at Savannah in 1736, Wesley was yet more explicit. The chief sense of the words, "though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor .... and have not love, it profiteth me nothing," he conceives to be nothing less than the following: "that whatsoever we do, and whatsoever we suffer, if we are not renewed in the spirit of our mind, by 'the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost given unto us,' we cannot enter into life eternal. None can enter there, unless in virtue of the covenant which God hath given unto man in the Son of his love." ® When Wesley, then, declared that the real root of religion is "in the hidden man of the heart," he was not making a new discovery; he was but developing an idea which had been in his preaching before 1738. It may be wearisome to repeat constantly that, after 1738, Wesley's change was mainly a change in emphasis, owing to his intense realization of that which he had previously preached; but it is necessary to make clear that Wesley did not, in 1738, suddenly