Category: Wesleyan Spirituality

`The veteran Methodist scholar Geoffrey Wainwright in a superb essay on Wesleyan hymnody and Chalcedon reminisced:

"When Paul Tillich was still a figure in  twentieth-century theology I liked to say to students that Charles Wesley had captured first Tillich and then Chalcedon in just two lines: 

“Being’s source begins to be,

And God himself is born.” 

………………..

John Wesley has rightly been described as a reasonable enthusiast. But his sermons are too often dismissed as rational argument over-endowed with logic and theological precision, lacking the vitality and imagination necessary to sustain interest and persuade the spirit. How about this then, as a pargrapah that, for spiritual experience described and communicated, stands alongside the effusive Francis De Sales, the intense Teresa of Avila, the passionately alight Augustine, and the enigmatic author of the Cloud of Unknowing, as an account of authentic experience of God, given classic expression in words. 

From what has been said, we may learn…what the life of God in the soul of a believer is; wherein it properly consists; and what is immediately and necessarily implied therein. It immediately and necessarily implies the continual inspiration of God's Holy Spirit; God's breathing into the soul, and the soul's breathing back what it first receives from God; a continual action of God upon the soul, and a re-action of the soul upon God; an unceasing presence of God, the loving, pardoning God, manifested to the heart, and perceived by faith; and an unceasing return of love, praise, and prayer, offering up all the thoughts of our hearts, all the words of our tongues, all the works of our hands, all our body, soul, and spirit, to be a holy sacrifice, acceptable unto God in Christ Jesus.

John Wesley warned against excess enthusiasm. As a revivalist he witnessed spiritual enthusiasms which ranged from ecstatic excess to anguished wailing to physical collapse. He developed criteria for discerning what was of the Spirit of God and what was countetrfeit, what was exaggerated and self-serving and what was genuinely a work of God. This most balanced of rationalists sought to balance reason with experience and both with Scripture, a further check being whether these were congruent to the theological tradition of the Church.

I am a Wesley enthusiast. I have a Victorian framed print in my College Study, where Wesley looks smirkingly over at the small original Victorian bust of C H Spurgeon the Calvinist, who glowers sternly back at the diminutive Arminian! I love them both! This small methodistical man is far too easily overlooked in the theological traditions and in the history of Christian spiritual traditions. I first studied Wesley's life and thought when writing Evangelical Spirituality, and I found him attractively annoying, annoyingly argumentative, and in key points of controversy singularly persuasive. Who else would write a treatise called "Predestination Calmly Considered"? Can you think of a better way to wrong foot an opponent in a heated debate that to calmly consider the matter, and tell the opponent to calm down? Or who would entitle a tract "A Plain Account of Christian Perfection", penned in the heat of doctrinal controversy, as he threaded through the theological complexities and ducked the pejorative rejoinders of his opponents?

But what persuaded me then, and still holds my loyalty, though with significant qualifications is the Wesleyan approach to holiness embedded in their theology of grace, which is profoundly biblical, doctrinally passionate, intensely practical and everywhere celebrated in the whole Wesleyan oeuvre. I include Charles' hymns as one of the two primary sources of Wesleyan theology, along with John's Standard Sermons. And then there are John's Treatises, Controversial Tracts, Letters and Journal. But it is John's theological writings that are the reason for this post.

Lest readers of this blog forget, I am an unrepentant bibliophile. Amongst the books I own, read and cherish for what they are, are several volumes of the high quality production of the Bicentennnial Edition of John Wesley's Works. And Abingdon have just announced the publication of Volume 13 which contains John Wesley on Christian Perfection and on Predestination and controversies with the Calvinists. See picture below.

Here's the blurb:

The second of three volumes devoted to Wesley’s theological writings
contains two major sets of material. The first set (edited by Paul
Chilcote) contains writings throughout Wesley’s ministry devoted to
defense of the doctrine of Christian perfection, including "A Plain
Account of Christian Perfection." The second set (edited by Kenneth
Collins) collects Wesley’s various treatises focused on predestination
and related issues, often in direct debate with Calvinist writers,
including "Predestination Calmly Considered."

To have the "Plain Account" in a critical edition, accompanied by all the other relevant writings on Christian Perfection has been a desideratum for Wesleyan scholars for ever and a day. I can't finish this post without a quote from John Wesley, one I consider a consummate practical theologian:

It were well you should be thoroughly sensible of this—the heaven of
heavens is love. There is nothing higher in religion; there is, in
effect, nothing else; if you look for anything but more love, you are
looking wide of the mark, you are getting out of the royal way. And when
you are asking others, “Have you received this or that blessing?” if
you mean anything but love, you mean wrong; you are leading them out of
the way, and putting them upon a false scent. 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 bosom.

And there you have it. Plainly stated. Told you. Argumentative, and persuasive!

Hymn CD's can either inspire or depress, draw or shove me towards worship or kill devotional intent stone dead, shake up my tired ideas or bore me with cliches, and therefore be a means of grace or a source of annoyance. But now and again we come across a sound and expression of faith that touches most of the positive chords in our particular and personal spirituality – such as it is, and such as I am, at the moment, this music resonates with the deep places of the soul.

Maddy Prior and the Carnival Band have been my equivalent of a devotional companion for years. Their album, Sing Lustily and with Good Courage, was so played, scratched and enjoyed I've bought it again. The combination of Maddy Prior's clear and liquid voice, the authentic 18th Century instruments, and the repristination of hymns by Watts, Wesley, Montgomery and others, have made this for me a regularly taken spiritual tonic. And their much more recent album, Paradise Found, commemorating the tercentenary of the birth of Charles Wesley has for me the same tonic quality. The tunes for some of the better known Wesley masterpieces are different, and if at times I was disappointed and at least uncertain, several listenings have persuaded me that there's more than one way to sing a hymn, even the same hymn!

We listened to Paradise Found driving to Gwennap, with ruined tin mine workings around us, rolling Cornwall countryside, nearly every village with a Methodist meeting place (some of them now converted (ironic word) into lovely houses, or business premises). Take for example, Come O Thou Traveller Unknown, the beautifully spiritualised story of Jacob wrestling, which Wesley transformed into a hymn about the longing soul refusing to let the unknown Saviour go until he tells his name:

….

Wrestling I will not let thee go

Till I Thy name, Thy nature know!

 

Tis Love!, 'tis Love! Thou diedst for me,

I hear Thy whisper in my heart,

The morning breaks, the shadows flee,

Pure Universal Love Thou art!

And the utterly hilarious (I use the word in its true meaning of joyful laughter as the inner dance of the spirit) My God I am Thine. Listening to this as we travelled from Trewint Cottage where Wesley was given hospitality on his first pioneering preaching visits to Cornwall, then down to Truro, was like a step back in time. The sun was shining, the trees were early autumn colours, and the lightness of the music, the sheer exuberance of unembarrassed joy, and the combination of music, colour and historical significance of place, was one of those epiphany episodes you don't plan, and you can only enjoy.

I really would love to hear a modern praise band, bass guitar, drums, some brass, woodwind and strings, and as many other guitars as you like, romping through the theological and spiritual merriment of this hymn:

My God, I am Thine, what a comfort divine,
What a blessing to know that my Jesus is mine!
In the heavenly Lamb thrice happy I am,
And my heart it doth dance at the sound of His Name.

True pleasures abound in the rapturous sound;
And whoever hath found it hath paradise found:
My Jesus to know, and feel His blood flow,
’Tis life everlasting, ’tis Heaven below.

Yet onward I haste to the heavenly feast:
That, that is the fulness; but this is the taste!
And this I shall prove, till with joy I remove
To the heaven of heavens in Jesus’s love.

And so on. I'm well aware of the difficulty post-modern pilgrims like us have with such explicit spiritual experience, distilled into biblical metaphors, and imbibed in a state of uncrtical devotional intoxication, innocent of any hermeneutic of suspicion, and founded as the whole thing is in the biblical metanarrative of redemption, itself cause for much post-modern trembling. But by jings, you just need to have stood in Gwennap Pit, used your imagination, remembered what it is to pray, and then listened to the lilting music of authentic 18th Century instruments accompanying Maddy Prior as as she sings of the 'heaven of heavens in Jesus's love' – there's something about song linked to the deep encounters of the soul, that touches those even deeper realities, and transforms the way we see the world, ourselves and each other – and brings us within reach of the Mystery that is redeeming love.

Or as Charles describes it:

Thy love I soon expect to find

In all its depth and height:

To comprehend the Eternal Mind

And grasp the Infinite.

Amongst the fascinating questions surrounding John Wesley is the difficulty of honouring a remarkable Christian without devaluing him by well-meaning but unnecessary hagiography. His faults, like his virtues, were reassuringly human with the usual complications of his own mixed motives, the distortions of other people's partisan opinions and prejudices imposed on an already complex personality, and the flow of a narrative that has to weigh the changing continuities of an unusually long, energetic and mutli-faceted life.

Wesley's Journal is a case in point. Is it accurate reporting of facts or revival propaganda? Is it a field-preacher's travelogue or a vindication of his divine calling? Does it present the real Wesley, or construct a presented Wesley? Should the reader hear Wesley's voice, and if so which voice – the personal voice of religious devotion, the formal voice of a religious leader, the informative voice of an organisational strategist, the combative voice of an innovator under pressure, the self-justifying voice of a controverisal figure? Well, all of them, and at different times in his life these varying voices were more or less dominant. Compared to many religious journals, Wesley's Journal is less an account of inner spiritual states, and more a record of evangelical activism expressed in one long continuous narrative, written like (and often reading like) an audit trail of activity, achievement and strategic planning intended ultimately as a statement of life purpose pursued with persistent faithfulness and relentless attention to detail. The 7 Volumes of the Bicentennial Edition of The Journal and Diaries of John Wesley, are a marvel of scholarly detail, providing in the critical notes the kind of information needed to understand Wesley in the context of his own life experience, against the background of his times, and providing persepctives and correctives that do justice to his position as leader of a movement that changed the religious landscape of Christian Britain, America and beyond.

Richard Heitzenrater is one of the remarkable Wesleyan scholars whose work underlies the editing of the Bicentennial Edition of Wesley's Works. He was one of the supervising Editors for the Journal, and the author of one of the best resources in trying to understand John Wesley, his aptly named book, The Elusive Mr Wesley. For years now I've been a student of Wesleyan theology and spirituality – (and, as a matter of balance, a student of Jonathan Edwards 's thought and spirituality). What intrigues me about Wesley is precisely the word Heitzenrater used, "elusive". There is something comfortingly frustrating about a Christian leader who fits no neat categories, who inspires loyalty and opposition, who claimed lifelong allegiance to his Church, but shaped a dissenting movement, whose written sermons read like treatises and whose preaching while not electrifying like Whitefield's nevertheless carried a potently persuasive voice.

So wherever I go in my travels, I'm looking for Wesley's footprints. And I found a huge one at Gwennap Pit. Methodism made a deep and lasting impact on Cornwall, in the villages, amongst the tin mining communities,and in the main towns. usually liability to subsidence makes a piece of real estate a dodgy deal – but this piece of sunken ground, probably caused by settling over underground mine workings, provided what Wesley later called his amphitheatre. You can read about it here. (http://www.methodistrecorder.co.uk/cornwall.htm)

For myself, I was happy to be in a place so steeped in early Evangelical experience. It's far too easy to dismiss the importance of place, as if there was no such thing as sacred geography. What makes a place like Gwennap Pit special is the story of what happened there, its significance in the story of thousands of hearers, many of whom heard the Gospel, met God, wrestled with their own angels. Indeed that story of Jacob at Peniel, told in one of Charles Wesley's greatest hymns, is a story about an encounter with God that made the place special. Sacred geography, remembered place, where the ground is holy because God was found there, and found to be worth finding.

A couple of extracts from John Wesley's Journal show how Wesley, ever the pragmatist, saw both the practical use, and the sacred purpose, of a hole in the ground!

Sun. Sep 11, 1768 "At five I took my old stand at Gwennap, in the amphitheatre. I suppose no human voice could have commanded such an audience on plain ground; but the ground rising all round gave me such an advantage that I believe all could hear distinctly."

Sun Sep 3 1775 "At five in the evening I preached in the amphitheatre at Gwennap. I think this is the most magnificent spectacle which is to be seen on this side of heaven. And no music is to be heard upon earth comparable to the sound of many thousand voices, when they are all harmoniously joined together singing praises to God and the lamb".

Wish I'd been there, then! 

Visited here yesterday – will say why later.

Just back from Cardiff where, as Jane Austen’s Emma would say, in an attempt at modesty but without trying too hard,  ‘People tell me I acquitted myself quite well’! We had a great afternoon singing, contextualising, analysing, criticising (in the literary sense), and admiring one of the greatest repositories of Christian spiritual experience ever composed, A Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodists. (Available from Amazon for around £30 – you can hardly get a hefty theological paperback for that now – and this is a critically annotated work of undisputed spiritual genius)!

Following each lecture we had some discussion and several questions I found intriguing and to be thought about further.

Doesn’t Isaac Watts, an Old Dissenter, have an equal claim on our admiration, and isn’t he the real originator of the hymn that articulates and perpetuates the spiritual theology and experience of Evangelicalism? HMMMMMMM?   That sparked a debate about the Evangelical movement, its origins, earliest representatives, and the relative importance and positions of Watts and Wesley in relation to Evangelical hymnody.

In the current post-Christendom, postmodern situation of a sidelined and increasingly marginalised church, should the old hymns of the tradition be preserved as they are, or updated, or dispensed with as no longer serviceable artefacts of a previous generation’s spirituality? With their out of date and frankly meaningless discourse to most folk outside, and increasingly inside, the church what now is the apologetic and evangelistic value of traditional hymns? HMMMMMMMM?  This got us talking about the place of traditional and classic expressions of faith, over and against the need for language and theology which ‘connects’ and ‘communicates’. After all, how many now use the King James Version when more contemporary translations are available?

Going back to Charles Wesley, what drove a man to produce such an enormous output of versification? Around 9,000 hymns with a huge output in four years that ran into several thousand – 3 or 4 a day! HMMMMMMMM? This raised the question of heightened awareness, inspiration, poetic gift and technical skill, pastoral strategy and catechetical intentions and much else. And perhaps the recognition that creative overdrive and spiritual experience and individual psychological drives are not always to be interpreted as if they cancelled each other out. We are, as was commented, fearfully and wonderfully made.

These and much else made for good talk, good laughter and good learning, both me and those who came to share the day.