Randy L. Maddox

Wesley’s emphases on worship and the means of grace

In his Journal under the date of April 12, 1789, the elderly John Wesley clarified and defended the intention of the Methodist movement and the course it had taken: “Being Easter Day, we had a solemn assembly indeed, many hundred communicants in the morning and in the afternoon, far more hearers than our room would contain, though it is now considerably enlarged. Afterwards, I met the society and explained to them at large the original design of the Methodists, viz., not to be a distinct party, but to stir up all parties, Christians or heathens, to worship God in spirit and in truth, but the Church of England in particular to which they belonged from the beginning. With this view I have uniformly gone on for fifty years, never varying of choice - but of necessity - from the doctrine of the church at all nor from her discipline.” / In this retrospective, Wesley gave central place to the revitalization of worship in the Methodist project. To worship God “in spirit and in truth” (cf. John 4:23-24) meant to “love him, to delight in him, to desire him, with all our heart and mind and soul and strength; to imitate him we love by purifying ourselves, even as he is pure; and to obey him whom we love, and in whom we believe, both in thought and word and work.”

Collection of books owned by the Charles Wesley family in The John Rylands University Library

Evidence in the Kingswood School Archives’, Methodist History 41.2 (2003): 49–67; and Maddox, ‘John Wesley’s Reading: Evidence in the Book Collection at Wesley’s House, London’, Methodist History 41.3 (2003): 118–33. 2 The notebook is catalogued as MARC, DDCW 8/7. The lists appear on pp 33–53 counting from the front. The deed of conveyance, dated 4 August 1831, is part of the collection in the Methodist Archives (MARC, MAW Ra (Box 6)).

Wesley’s theological emphases

To understand and appreciate John Wesley, it is imperative to locate his life and work within the intellectual, social, and political context of Englands long eighteenth century. Other essays in this volume deal at length with Wesleys social and political context. This essay will focus primarily on the ways in which Wesley inhabited and deeply enriched a particular theological tradition, namely, English Arminianism. To that end, it is important to begin with a few background considerations. / Background Developments / One of the most intractable disputes within Wesleyan studies has to do with where to locate John Wesley within the wider Christian theological tradition. For example, whereas some scholars insist that Wesley belongs to the magisterial Protestant tradition, others maintain that he was deeply indebted to Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy. Among those who associate Wesley primarily with Protestantism, there is a lively debate concerning which of the Protestant traditions he inhabited most deeply. For example, some argue that he was essentially Lutheran in outlook, whereas others suggest that he is best understood within the Reformed tradition. Nor does the debate end there. Thus, some scholars insist that Wesley belongs specifically to the German-Pietist tradition, whereas others contend that he was ultimately a Puritan in outlook

Wesley as preacher

On October 3, 1749, Charles Wesley married Grace Murray to John Bennet. It was a devastating moment for John Wesley. Despite a host of earlier reservations about getting married, he had concluded that Grace Murray was indeed the woman for him. So much so, that he had even entered into various legal commitments to her. However, Charles had intervened and stopped any future developments in its tracks by literally carrying her off and marrying her to Bennet, a rival suitor. John worked through his distress in two ways. He wrote a moving poem that vented his suffering on God. More significantly, he returned to his work as a preacher. Such was Wesleys commitment to preaching, that one can well believe that this brought some relief amid of deep personal grief. As he noted in 1757, “About noon I preached at Woodseats, in the evening at Sheffield. I do indeed live by preaching.” Such is the legacy of preaching in his ministry that much of Methodism even to this day looks upon their ministers first and foremost as preachers. Failure in this arena spells failure overall. The legendary statistics are well known. Wesley rode up to 20,000 miles a year on horseback. He preached 800 sermons a year to crowds as large as 20,000. In a typical day he was up at 4.00 a.m., he preached at 5.00 a.m., and he was on the road to the next assignment at 6.00 a.m. Consider this neat snapshot of his work taken from Wednesday, July 21, 1779.