A good introduction, though a little short.
Quotes:
the queen crushed the Presbyterian movement in 1593.
Westminster Assembly of Divines.
during 1725, Wesley understood for the first time that holiness is the end or goal of religion.
method
Such a resolve was actually a prescription for a deep and longlasting malaise in Wesley's life, for it, in effect, made obedience to the moral law the basis of acceptance, a frustrating impossibility for any aspirant. Put another way, this approach made sanctification the ground of justification.
The term "Methodist" came later when John Bingham, of Christ Church, observed there was "a new set of Methodists" springing up among them.
Wesley's views on both the cruciality of holiness and the value of inward religion (a true circumcision of the heart) are emphases that will remain throughout his lengthy career.
The very first exercise of authority in the New World by John Wesley was to stave in the rum casks, which had been aboard the ship—an action that, though within the regulations of the trustees, was not only presumptuous, but also cost him the good will of some of the colonists.
And though the invitation to partake of the sacrament seemed to be open to all who were heartily sorry for their sins, those who had not been episcopally baptized were simply refused admittance to the Lord's Table.
Wesley's pastoral style and practices in Savannah, and later in Frederica, caused considerable resentment, even pain, among some of his flock.
Earlier, he had established small groups in Savannah for mutual accountability and care; and this practice constituted what Wesley himself later termed "the second rise of Methodism."
I felt my heart strangely warmed.
By July 4, Wesley had reached Marienborn, where he conversed with Count Zinzendorf, the leader of the Moravians. Wesley's reception at this community was somewhat mixed, and he was even refused permission to partake of the Lord's Supper.
for Wesley, love is much more than simply a constellation of feelings or emotions, which is often fleeting. On the contrary, love is an ongoing, not easily swayed, disposition that characterizes a person over time, which is both disposing and empowering
affections, on the one hand, are simply "the will exerting itself [in] various ways."78 In other words, they are the expressions of the will, the particular actualizations of an undergirding, predisposing reality. Tempers, on the other hand, appear to be more foundational and may even inform the affections themselves
The stubborn sinner, for example, after years of debauchery, can yet enjoy the gift of prevenient grace and can be convicted, justified, and made holy by the presence of the Holy Spirit in a relatively short period of time due to the supernatural nature and efficaciousness of saving grace. Sadly, on the other hand, the entirely sanctified—those whose predisposing tempers have been restored to the image of God in all humility, patience, and love— may yet misuse their graciously restored freedom to choose evil and thereby become enslaved in unholy passions once more.
Judging from a careful reading of his journals and letters, one gets the sense that Wesley was actually uncomfortable among the
Methodism was obviously reaching a strata of society not well served by the Anglican Church.
Wesley strongly criticized American slavery,
Wesley reasons that a human or positive law cannot overturn natural law; it cannot, as he puts it, "change the nature of things."16 In other words, not only are matters that pertain to the basic rights of humans, as beings created in the image of God, not subject to the whims of the crowd or to the vagaries of their votes but also laws that express the popular will are valid only to the extent that they are in harmony with natural or moral law, with "the everlasting fitness of all things that are or ever were created."
A month before Mary left, Wesley had imprudently decided to draft a letter rehashing nearly all of his wife's faults from the time of their wedding some twenty-three years earlier to the present.
As a good pastor, Wesley, despite much criticism from the Calvinists, acknowledged every degree of grace, every glimmer of light; but he also urged people to go forward, to enjoy the liberties of grace for which Christ died, even the holiness without which no one will see the Lord which has its beginning, its instantiation, not in the spirit of bondage unto fear, but in the new birth.
As our American brethren are now totally disentangled both from the State and from the English hierarchy, we dare not entangle them again either with the one or the other. They are now at full liberty simply to follow the Scriptures and the Primitive Church.
Exercising the role of a bishop at the 1784 Conference, Wesley set apart Thomas Coke as superintendent by the imposition of hands and by prayer. Wesley's diary referred to this event using the language of "ordained." The journal, however, stated that Dr. Coke was "appointed," though the actual certificate given to the new superintendent employed the words, "set apart." Once in America, Thomas Coke had instructions to consecrate Francis Asbury as General Superintendent, a ceremony that took place at the founding Christmas Conference of 1784.7 Beyond this, Wesley ordained Richard Whatcoat and Thomas Vasey as elders in order to foster the work of the Methodists in America.
a letter to Barnabas Thomas in March 1785, Wesley made his case along the following lines: "I am now as firmly attached to the Church of England as I ever was since you knew me. But meantime I know myself to be as real a Christian bishop as the Archbishop of Canterbury."
had not only ordained for the American work, but also crafted The Sunday Service, an edited form of The Book of Common Prayer, that was brought over to the New World
Men may call me a knave or a fool, a rascal, a scoundrel, and I am content; but they shall never by my consent call me Bishop!
at the Conference of 1784, Wesley promulgated the Deed of Declaration, which provided for the structure of Methodism beyond his death.
spiritual growth, for Wesley, was principally, though not exclusively, a matter of the will and the various tempers or dispositions that constitute it.
Indeed, the principal question for Wesley, from his earliest days at Oxford to the preaching of his final sermon, had always been, not "What can I know?" but "How can I love?"
the life of the soul, what Wesley often termed inward religion, must form, at least to some extent, the basis of the social axis in terms of both motivation and ultimate purpose.
In September 1790, Wesley had referred to Christian perfection as "the grand depositum which God has lodged with the people called Methodists"; and he maintained, furthermore, that "for the sake of propagating this chiefly He appeared to have raised us up."
Wesley had cautioned that "the Methodists are to spread life among all denominations; which they will do till they form a separate sect."
Clearly, then, in Wesley's eyes, the ongoing practice of slavery was nothing less than a scandal, "not only to Christianity but [to] humanity [as well]."
"Time has shaken me by the hand," Wesley wrote to Freeborn Garrettson in February 1790, "and death is not far behind."
"I felt my heart strangely warmed."
For Wesley, then, the transitions from sinner to justified believer, as well as from being initially holy as a child of God to becoming entirely so were each, for want of better language, "threshold" changes, changes that were distinct and, therefore, in some sense set apart from earlier growth in grace.
Put another way, justification (broadly understood) and entire sanctification were the two principal foci of the Wesleyan way of salvation; and their integrity was held in place precisely by the language of sola gratia, sola fide.
But this "Protestant" side of Wesley that highlights the divine gracious activity at every step along the way must, of course, be seen in conjunction with his "Catholic" side (drawn in part from the Eastern Fathers mediated to him by his own Anglican tradition) that does indeed highlight divine/human cooperation as aspirants await the further instantiation of grace in works of piety, charity, and the like, and, of course, in the means of grace.
many of the evangelical Calvinists simply could not comprehend the imperative mood in Wesley's theology ("God works; therefore you can work; God works; therefore you must work") and how it could possibly be in harmony with sola gratia and sola fide.
Wesley, for his part, actually held these "Catholic" and "Protestant" emphases together in a large and intricate tension, in which the sheer gratuity of grace was not undermined by the importance of responding to divine initiatives and thereby growing in holiness.
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