The world as his parish

The Wesleys set out to preach the Gospel to all. In the end the Anglicans could not hold them. The two Churches remain divided 300 years later (see leading article)

SOMETIMES in the history of Christianity two people converge, work together as colleagues, and immense forces of creativity are unleashed. So it was with Sts Cyril and Methodius, with Sts Francis and Clare, and with Sts Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross though they overlapped for only a few years. Protestant examples of the same phenomenon are the Quakers George Fox and Margaret Fell, Catherine and William Booth in the nineteenth century, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Eberhard Bethge in the twentieth.

The brothers John and Charles Wesley are in the same league, the latter the author of more than 9,000 hymns. When as priests of the Church of England, educated at Christ Church, Oxford, and then ordained in the cathedral there, they set out on their respective ministries, they could never have imagined that by the end of the twentieth century the worldwide Methodist community would number some 70 million.

The son of the Anglican rector of Epworth, a village in a remote corner of Lincolnshire, John Wesley was a pioneer in many areas of Christian living. He preached outdoors all over the United Kingdom and Ireland, his last recorded outdoor service being in Winchelsea, Sussex. He was not the only gifted preacher in the Methodist movement and his foresight in using local preachers (as he did eventually, for he had to be persuaded, always a tough proposition) was a stroke of genius: it enabled Methodism to grow even if its ordained ministry was limited in numbers. Nowadays preachers have to undergo a rigorous period of training before being accepted by the Methodist Connexion. Such preachers come now from all parts of society, ranging from those with a university background to those from sometimes more rural environments whose lives have been lit up by the power of the Spirit.

John Wesley was also a keen supporter of the campaign for the abolition of the slave trade, a system of iniquity he had first come across during his short period as a missionary in Georgia. Indeed his last letter, in the final week of his life, was to urge William Wilberforce on in his parliamentary campaign against slavery in the British Empire.

Thus at the heart of Methodism, when most true to itself, has been a passion for social righteousness. ?There is no holiness but social holiness?, John Wesley maintained. But personal holiness mattered intensely to the Wesleys. They instilled in Methodism (then also influencing the Holiness Movement worldwide) a yearning for perfection more analogous theologically to some strands in Roman Catholicism than English Dissent, or even some Anglican piety.

John Wesley was no mere activist, even though he travelled thousands of miles, mainly on horseback, often reading works of philosophy or literature as he rode with the reins of his horse loose. With such a lifestyle it is no wonder that his wife, the widow Mrs Mary Vazeille, found it too difficult to live with him, though the failure of his marriage had doubtless multiple causes.

Both John Wesley and his brother Charles were keen sacramentalists in an age when this was not widespread, urging frequent attendance at Holy Communion. Indeed, it was offered to all regardless, for John Wesley considered the Eucharist to be a ?converting ordinance?. His brother?s hymns on the Lord?s Supper, based on the work of an Anglican divine, reveal a strong doctrine of eucharistic presence. Until recently, however, Methodism generally, especially after it split in several directions in the nineteenth century, has not been as devout in regular celebrations as its founder.

John Wesley was also keen to encourage his followers to become mature in their faith. Hence he issued in his Christian Library series a number of books, some of which he abridged, including the Imitation of Christ. He translated works, too, from French, German and Spanish. His most original liturgical contribution was his Covenant service, the inspiration for which he got from the Puritan Richard Alleine. His insistence that his followers meet in small groups ? class meetings, as they were called ? for both fellowship and edification, was also significant.

A split with eighteenth-century Anglicanism became inevitable after John Wesley?s decision to ordain leaders for America, when the then Bishop of London, under whom the colony came, refused, not perceiving the importance of the continent. Wesley took the view that as far as he could see from studying the life of the early Church, bishops, priests and deacons were of one order and therefore in extreme circumstances he had the authority to ordain. Mission clearly for him took precedence over discipline, though his brother never agreed with the action he took.

John Wesley was also an ecumenical pioneer, translating hymns from the German pietist tradition, especially from the Moravians, as well as being aware of the contributions of the early Church Fathers. (Recent work, especially by American scholars, has shown how much the Wesleys looked back to the theology of the undivided Church.) He knew, too, the writings of William Law and the Nonjurors, yet came to a deeper understanding of faith in 1738 after reading Martin Luther?s Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans. He also regarded highly the book by the Puritan Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor.

At the institutional level, Wesley took the idea of quarterly meetings from the Quakers, but his Connexionalism, expressed annually in the Methodist Conference, was the seat of Methodist authority. This way of keeping people in touch with each other was, however, more like the sobornost of the Eastern Orthodox tradition in its stress on ?togetherness? than much Western Christianity. It has always been in part an error to aver that Methodism has no episcopacy, for it has its conference meeting annually, its superintendent ministers who oversee a number of churches grouped together locally, and now the chairmen and chairwomen of its districts ? often larger in area than many dioceses ? a form of authority which is national, regional and local.

?The world is my parish?, John Wesley once wrote, considering himself the friend of all and enemy of none. A person of the catholic spirit, he maintained in his famous sermon on the subject, is one who ?gives his hand to all those whose hearts are right with his heart; one who knows how to value, and praise God for all the advantages he enjoys, with regard to the knowledge of the things of God, the true scriptural manner of worshipping Him, and, above all, his union with a congregation fearing God and working righteousness?. It is because of this spirit that Methodists have been involved in united or uniting Churches in South India, Canada and Australia, although attempts to heal the wounds in the English psyche caused by the division between Anglicans and Methodists have yet to succeed, despite several attempts.

Did John Wesley save England from revolution? Revisionist historians are not so sure now of Elie Halevy?s judgement to that effect. There were, after all, but 70,000 Methodists in Britain at the time of Wesley?s death, though his preaching had reached many more. But certainly he created in England and elsewhere a Church which had and has both a Protestant and a Catholic lung, which some still argue is a unique and original synthesis of the Protestant doctrine of grace and the Catholic stress on holiness.