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CONSIDER WESLEY

On All Saints Day, 1778, John Wesley spoke at a ceremony to lay the foundation of his new Chapel on City Road, London. In his sermon on that day, Wesley claimed that Methodism was nothing less than the religion of the Bible and “the religion of the primitive Church, of the whole Church in the purest ages” (Sermon “On Laying the Foundation of the New Chapel, near the City-Road, London” (Works, 3:586). He expanded on this by naming specific Christian authors from the second, third, and fourth centuries who, he believed, had expressed the essence of true Christian faith. He also went on to cite the sixteenth-century founding of the Church of England as another instance of the church “in the purest ages.” 

Beyond his intense study of the Bible, which we considered in the last issue of Catalyst, a student preparing for ministry in a Wesleyan context should consider Wesley’s rich appropriation of the Christian heritage. Interestingly, he himself did not use the term “tradition” in the manner in which we do today to describe the Christian past that we value positively. The term “tradition” had quite negative connotations in Wesley’s day, and the fact that he does not use it is one reason why the so-called “Wesleyan Quadrilateral” is not quite Wesleyan. But John Wesley did have a deep knowledge of Christian history, and a critical sense of what he valued (and devalued) in that history. 

Although John Wesley had studied some narrative works on church history (such as that of J.L. von Mosheim), his encounter with Christian history came mainly through his study of primary texts. When he decided to pursue ordination in 1725, both his mother and his father wrote to him, offering their advice as to what he should read. His father encouraged him to read works of biblical scholarship, Anglican authors, and a long list of early Christian writers, including Eusebius of Caesarea, Athanasius, Basil the Great, John Chrysostom, Augustine, Jerome, and Ambrose. His mother encouraged him to read what she called “practical divinity,” and her suggestions included medieval authors of the Devotio Moderna school (such as Thomas à Kempis) and Anglican devotional writers (such as Jeremy Taylor). My own study of John Wesley and Christian Antiquity (Kingswood, 1991) documents Wesley’s references to at least thirty ancient Christian authors, and since machine-readable versions of Wesley’s works have become available, more could be added. 

Wesley’s comments on these various authors show how he valued and devalued particular epochs in Christian history. His opinions show some independence of thought. In the sermon at City Road Chapel, mentioned above, he includes Tertullian and Origen in his list of true Christians of the early church. (You will not find them in any lists of saints, Eastern or Western.) He conspicuously omits Augustine of Hippo, of whom he offered (on a different occasion) the following opinion, “A wonderful saint! As full of pride, passion, bitterness, censoriousness, and as foul-mouthed to all who contradicted him, as George Fox himself” (a letter to John Fletcher, 18 August 1775; in Works, 6:175). In general, Wesley valued the early church prior to the time of Constantine, and then the church after the Reformation, although he acknowledged many instances of true faith in the Middle Ages. 

What did Wesley’s familiarity with Christian history do for the Revival? I once read some of the early and previously unpublished stories of J.R.R. Tolkien, and found them remarkably dull compared to the richness of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The introduction to this volume, though, included a comment by Tolkien’s son Christopher, who explained that for decades prior to his writing the Hobbit series, Tolkien had been developing an elaborate scheme of languages, cultures, traditions, and histories, all of which appear in the background of Tolkien’s later works. They give his later works the richness and depth of literary perspective that the earlier stories, by themselves, lacked. This may offer a clue for understanding how Wesley used the riches of Christian history. 

As Christians, we are not in the business of proclaiming church history; we are in the business of proclaiming “Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2). But Wesley’s knowledge of the Christian tradition supplied a rich background against which he set his work of preaching the eternal gospel. As you prepare for ministry, consider Wesley’s example of a deep knowledge and use of the Christian past, informed by your own encounter with real authors (including Wesley) from that rich inheritance of faith. 

Ted A. Campbell, Wesley Theological Seminary.