Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T01:03:54.558Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Sacraments in Early American Methodism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Paul S. Sanders
Paul S. Sanders
Affiliation:
Amherst College
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In an essay written in 19291 Professor Tillich concluded that the sacraments continue to exist in modern Protestantism largely through historical impetus. The conservatism of custom and a vague awareness that their observance is somehow due to our Lord are apparently sufficient to prevent their total extinction. The last generation has of course witnessed a liturgical revival in our churches; but this new interest is by no means universal and appears on the whole to be superficial. It is less devoted to an understanding of Christian faith which might require liturgical expression than to the ornamentation of the places and procedures of worship. Its activity is rooted less in theology than in aesthetics and psychology, being perhaps more often an expression of cultural sophistication than of any serious appreciation of the sacramental quality of Christian life.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 26 , Issue 4 , December 1957 , pp. 355 - 371
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1957

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Tillich, P., “Nature and Sacrament,” in The Protestant Era (Chicago, 1948), pp. 94–112.Google Scholar

2. J. Wesley, Minutes of the Conference; quoted in Tyerman, L., The Life and Times of John Wesley (6th edition, 3 vols.; London 1890), II, 576.Google Scholar

3. Wesley, J., Journal (Standard Edition, ed. Curnock, N., 8 vols.; London 1909–1916), II, 293.Google Scholar

4. Cf. Cell, G. C., The Rediscovery of John Wesley (New York, 1935), p. 145.Google Scholar “Wesley's life-long resistance to the separation of his societies from the Anglican Church was therefore dictated by something far more significant than a blindly tenacious conservatism. It was dictated by an intelligent religious appreciation of the Christian Church as the means of grace. It was rooted and grounded in a profoundly soteriological evaluation of the Church” (italics Cell's).

5. Whitehead's, J.Life of the Rev. John Wesley (London, 1793)Google Scholar was the first official biography. See also Coke, T. and Moore, H., Life of the Rev. Mr. Wesley (Americaa edition; Philadelphia, 1793)Google Scholar; Watson, R., Life of Rev. John Wesley (First American edition; New York, 1853).Google Scholar Even Tyerman concludes that if Wesley appears inconsistent, “we must take [him] as we find him” (op. cit., I. 496).

6. E.g., Holden, W. H., John Wesley in Company with High Churchmen (London, 1870);Google ScholarHockin, F., John Wesley and Modern Methodism (4th edition; London, 1887);Google ScholarUrlin, B. D., John Wesley's Place in Church History (London, 1870);Google ScholarLittle, A. S., The Times and Teaching of John Wesley (Milwaukee, 1905).Google Scholar

7. E.g., Rigg, J. H., The Churchmanship of John Wesley (revised edition; London, 1886);Google ScholarThe Living Wesley (2nd edition; London, 1891)Google Scholar; Stevenson, G. J., Memorials of the Wesley Family (London, 1872).Google Scholar

8. Every, G., The High Church Party, 1688–1718 (London, 1956).Google Scholar

9. Abbey, C. J. and Overton, J. H., The English Church in the Eighteenth Century (2 vols.; London, 1878), I, 135f.;Google Scholar II, 67–72. See also Addleshaw, G. W. O., The High Church Tradition (London, 1941);Google ScholarMore, P. E. and Cross, F. L., Anglicanism (Milwaukee, 1935)Google Scholar, especially P. E. More, “The Spirit of Anglicanism” and P. B. Arnott, “Anglicanism in the Seventeenth Century.”

10. Cell, op. cit., p. 185.

11. J. Wesley, Minutes of the 1745 Conference; quoted in Cell, op. cit., p. 243.

12. Dimond, S., The Psychology of the Methodist Revival (London, 1926), p. 235.Google Scholar

13. Cf. Cell's comment, “The Wesleyan reconstruction of the Christian ethic of life is an original and unique synthesis of the Protestant ethic of grace with the Catholic ethic of holiness” (op. cit., p. 347).

14. Underhill, E., Worship (New York, 1937), pp. 303–307.Google Scholar

15. See Battenbury, J. E., The Eucharistic Hymns of John and Charles Wesley (London, 1948)Google Scholar for discussion and for a reprint of the hymns and the “extract” of Brevint's tract.

16. The chief sources for ascertaining Wesley's Eucharistic doctrine are, besides the hymns, the following: “The Duty of Constant Communion” (Sermons on Several Occasions, ed. by P. Jackson, 2 vols.; New York, 1831Google Scholar, Sermon No. CVI, written 1732, revised 1788); “The Means of Grace” (Standard Edition of the Standard Sermons, ed. by E. H. Sugden, 2 vols.; London, 1921Google Scholar, sermon XII); “Upon our Lord's Sermon on the Mount, Discourse VI” (Ibid., sermon XXI); Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (London, 1755;Google Scholar based on Bengel's Gnomon, and constituting with the Standard Sermons the doctrinal standard of British Methodism); A Roman Catechism, with a Reply Thereto (Works, 3rd American edition, ed. by J. Emory; 7 vols.; New York, 1831, Vol. V)Google Scholar; Popery Calmly Considered (Ibid.); besides hundreds of occasional and incidental references in the Journal and the Letters (Standard Edition, ed. J. Telford, 8 vols.; London, 1931)Google Scholar, together with his revision of the Prayer Book offices and the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion for the Americans in 1784. See also Bowmer, J. C., The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper in Early Methodism (Westminster, 1951).Google Scholar

17. Cf. Dix, G., The Shape of the Liturgy (Westminster, 1945), p. 161.Google Scholar

18. Petition presented to the Virginia Assembly; quoted in James, C. F., Documentary History of the Struggle for Religious Liberty in Virginia (Lynchburg, 1900), p. 75.Google Scholar

19. Letters, VII, 237ff.Google Scholar

20. A Pocket Hymn-Book, designed as a Constant Companion for the Pious (10th edition; Philadelphia, 1790).Google Scholar

21. Lee, J., Short History of the Methodists in the United States of America 1766–1809 (Baltimore, 1810) p. 107.Google Scholar

22. A comparison of the text of Wesley's revision of the Thirty-Nine Articles with the original may be found in Emory, R., History of the Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church (New York, 1844), pp. 95–109.Google Scholar

23. The sources for Wesley's teaching on Baptism are chiefly the following: A Treatise on Baptism (Works, Vol. VI); Notes upon the New Testament; the following Standard Sermons: XII, “The Means of Grace;” XIV, “The Marks of the New Birth;” XV, “The Great Privilege of Those That Are Born of God;” XXXVIII, “Original Sin,” and XXXIX, “New Birth;” together with Wesley's revision of the Articles of Religion and the offices of the Book of Common Prayer.

24. See especially Standard Sermons XIV, XV, and XXXIX. Wesley very nearly overstated his case in the sermon on Original Sin (XXXVIII), so anxious was he to confute the Socinian views of Dr. John Taylor. Proper emphasis must be allowed his insistent stress on prevenient grace.

25. See Harmon, N. B., The Rites and Ritual of Episcopal Methodism (Nashville, 1926)Google Scholar for a detailed study of changes in the offices.

26. Wheeler, H., History and Exposition of the Twenty-five Articles of Religion of the Methodist Episcopal Church (New York, 1908), p. 281.Google Scholar

27. Emory, op. cit. p. 45. This was in 1784; the action was rescinded in 1786. All subsequent references to Disciplinary provisions are taken from Emory.

28. Cf. Hibbard, P. G., Christian Baptism (New York, 1842)Google Scholar; The Religion of Childhood (Cincinnati, 1864).Google Scholar

29. Cf. Scott, L. H., “Methodist Theology in America in the Nineteenth Century,” Religion in Life, XXV, 1 (Winter, 1955–1956), 87–98.Google Scholar

30. Wheeler, op. cit., p. 314.

31. Emory, op. cit., p. 323.

32. Cf. Mend, S. E., “American Protestantism During the Revolutionary Epoch,” Church History, XXII, 4 (12 1953), 279–297.Google Scholar