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‘Perhaps he cannot know’: John Wesley's Use of Doubt as a Principle of his ‘Catholic Spirit’
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 June 2016
Abstract
John Wesley published his sermon ‘Catholic Spirit’ in 1750, after he and his preachers had experienced persecution by Church leaders. Wesley stressed that persecution stemmed from lack of tolerance, and one of the reasons for this was the absence of liberty of thinking in the Church. In order for liberty of thinking to be practised, one had to be able to doubt one's own opinions, thereby accepting the limitations of one's knowledge. Most of this sermon, now lauded for its ecumenical brilliance, asserts that such acceptance provides space for tolerance. This tolerance leads to Christian unity. In addition to exploring the sermon, this essay addresses An Answer to the Rev. Mr. Church's Remarks on the Rev. Mr. John Wesley's Last Journal (1745), Letter to a Roman Catholic (1749) and Wesley's correspondence with Gilbert Boyce (1750). The argument thus provides an example of how doubt contributed to the Methodist emphasis on tolerance.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Studies in Church History , Volume 52: DOUBTING CHRISTIANITY: THE CHURCH AND DOUBT , June 2016 , pp. 331 - 346
- Copyright
- Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2016
Footnotes
I would like to express my appreciation to Geordan Hammond for his helpful comments on this essay, and to Hunter Cummings and Timothy Crutcher for their insights on an earlier draft.
References
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4 John Wesley, ‘Catholic Spirit’, in Works, ed. Baker et al., 2: 81–96. The sermon first appeared in Wesley's Sermons on Several Occasions, 3 vols (London, 1750), 3: 181–7, and later as a separate publication, Catholick Spirit: A Sermon on 2 Kings x. 15 (London, 1755).
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17 Works, ed. Baker et al., 2: 84.
18 See ibid. 3: 579–92, a sermon preached at the laying of the foundation stone of his New Chapel in London on 21 April 1777, in which he described the Calvinist separation from his movement, beginning with the protest of George Whitefield (1714–70) when Wesley published the sermon ‘Free Grace’ (1739; ibid. 542–63). He asserted: ‘None of these have any manner of connection with the original Methodists. They are branches broken off from the tree; if they break from the Church also, we are not accountable for it’: ibid. 591. Rowland Hill (1744–1833), a Dissenting minister, wasted no time in publishing a scathing attack on Wesley for this sermon in The Imposture Detected, and the Dead Vindicated in a Letter to a Friend, Containing Some Gentle Strictures on the False and Libellous Harangue Lately Delivered by Mr. John Wesley, upon his Laying his First Stone of his New Dissenting House, near the City Road (London, 1777). Hill accused Wesley of deism, of ‘Popish Pelagianism’, of allowing women to preach, and of Dissent, and quoted from the 1770 Methodist Conference Minutes in which the doctrine of predestination was officially denounced.
19 Works, ed. Baker et al., 9: 85. On Wesley and antinomianism, see W. Stephen Gunter, The Limits of Love Divine (Nashville, TN, 1989).
20 John Wesley, A Farther Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion, Part II, in Works, ed. Baker et al., 11: 203–71, at 203.
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22 Lavington was bishop of Exeter from 1746 to 1762: ODNB, s.n. ‘Lavington, George (1684–1762)’, online edn (May 2009), at: <http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/16136>, accessed 11 February 2015. There had been rioting against the Methodists before Lavington arrived in Exeter, according to Cennick, John, An Account of a Late Riot at Exeter (London, 1745)Google Scholar; see also Haydon, Colin, ‘Bishop George Lavington of Exeter (1684–1762) and The Enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists Compar'd’, Southern History 37 (2015), 60–85Google Scholar.
23 Lavington, George, The Enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists Compar'd, Part II (London, 1750)Google Scholar.
24 John Wesley, A Second Letter to the Author of Enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists Compar'd (London, 1751), in Works, ed. Baker et al., 11: 387–429, at 422–3.
25 Ibid. 426.
26 Ibid. 410.
27 English, John C., ‘John Wesley and the Rights of Conscience’, Journal of Church and State 37 (1995), 351–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 352. Freedom of worship did not extend to Roman Catholics, who were under the limits of penal law until the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1791 (31 Geo. III. c. 32).
28 Jews had been expelled from England by Edward I in 1290. They were readmitted to England in 1655/6, but were not granted citizenship until the Jewish Naturalization Act of 1753 (26 Geo. II. c. 26), which was repealed in 1754: David Feldman, ‘Conceiving Difference: Religion, Race, and the Jews in England c.1750–1900’, History Workshop Journal 76 (Autumn 2013), 160–81, at 167. It was not until the Jewish Relief Act of 1858 (21 & 22 Vic., cap. 49), which allowed Jews to sit in Parliament, that all restrictions against Jews were lifted.
29 The Letters of the Rev. John Wesley, A.M., ed. John Telford, 8 vols (London, 1931), 4: 151–2 (John Wesley to the Earl of Dartmouth, 10 April 1761).
30 John Wesley, Thoughts upon Liberty, in Works, ed. Jackson, 11: 34–46, at 37–8; see also Weber, Theodore R., Politics in the Order of Salvation: Transforming Wesleyan Political Ethics (Nashville, TN, 2001), 322Google Scholar.
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32 CICan. 1: 1245. The Council of Trent (1545–63), though it addresses justification, does not address the issue of those who are justified being subject to papal authority: see Tanner, Norman P., ed., Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 2 vols (London, 1990)Google Scholar, 2: 671–80.
33 [John Wesley], A Roman Catechism faithfully drawn out of the allowed Writings of the Church of Rome with a Reply thereto (1756), in Works, ed. Jackson, 10: 86–128, at 87. This document is an abridgement of a tract by John Williams, later bishop of Chichester, A Catechism representing the Doctrines and Practices of the Church of Rome with an Answer thereunto (London, 1683); see also Butler, Methodists and Papists, 94–9. Wesley affirmed that he had published A Roman Catechism: Works, ed. Baker et al., 22: 167 (Journal, 20 December 1768). A copy in the John Rylands Library, Manchester, states that it was ‘reprinted' in 1756 but lacks any ascription of authorship; however, it can be assumed that this is the document to which Wesley referred, though it is obviously a reprint of Williams's work.
34 John Wesley, The Advantage of the Members of the Church of England over those of the Church of Rome (1753), in Works, ed. Jackson, 10: 133–9, at 139.
35 Catholic Relief Act (18 Geo. III, c. 60); Letters, ed. Telford, 6: 370–3 (John Wesley to the printer of the Public Advertiser, 12 January 1780).
36 Weber, Politics, 330–1.
37 Letters, ed. Telford, 6: 370–3.
38 Challoner, Richard, A Caveat against the Methodists: Shewing how unsafe it is for any Christian to join himself to their Society, or to adhere to their Teachers (London, 1760), 17–18Google Scholar. This went through six editions: Beckerlegge, Oliver A., ed., John Wesley's Writings on Roman Catholicism (London, 2003), 19Google Scholar. On Challoner, see Barnard, James, The Life of the Venerable and Right Reverend Richard Challoner, D.D., Bishop of Debra (Dublin, 1793)Google Scholar; Duffy, Eamon, Challoner and his Church (London, 1981)Google Scholar.
39 Works, ed. Baker et al., 19: 320 (Journal, 25 March 1743).
40 Letters, ed. Telford, 4: 297 (John Wesley to John Newton, 14 May 1765).
41 Campbell, Ted A., ‘The Shape of Wesleyan Thought: The Question of John Wesley's Essential Doctrines’, Asbury Theological Journal 59 (2004), 27–48Google Scholar, at 30–1.
42 McGonigle, ‘John Wesley’, 65.
43 Oden, Thomas C., John Wesley's Teachings, 2 vols (Grand Rapids, MI, 2012), 1Google Scholar: 126.
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45 Maddox, Randy, ‘Opinions, Religion, and “Catholic Spirit”: John Wesley on Theological Integrity’, Methodist History 47 (1992), 63–87Google Scholar, at 65.
46 See Letters, ed. Telford, 3: 157–8, 167 (John Wesley to William Dodd, 5 February, 12 March 1756).
47 Maddox, ‘Opinions’, 81 n. Clark, J. C. D, English Society, 1660–1832: Ideology, Social Structure and Political Practice during the Ancien Regime, 2nd edn (Cambridge, 2000)Google Scholar, 9, argues that ‘Enlightenment’ is no longer a useful term of historical explanation.
48 Locke, Essay 2.8.7 (ed. Nidditch, 134).
49 Maddox, ‘Opinions’, 65.
50 Ibid. 81 n.
51 Works, ed. Baker et al., 2: 84.
52 Locke, John, A Letter concerning Toleration, 3rd edn (Boston, 1743), 24Google Scholar–5. Locke did not extend toleration to atheists or Roman Catholics.
53 Ibid. 10.
54 Works, ed. Jackson, 10: 80.
55 Ibid.
56 Ibid. 84.
57 Ibid. 81.
58 Challoner, Caveat, 5.
59 Lavington, George, The Enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists Compar'd, Part I (London, 1749), 13Google Scholar.
60 Locke, Toleration, 25.
61 Ibid. 493.
62 Ibid. 92.
63 Works, ed. Jackson, 10: 133–9.
64 See Works, ed. Baker et al., 26: 418–26, for the correspondence between them during 1750.
65 Ibid. 425.
66 Ibid. 2: 86.
67 Ibid. 26: 426.
68 Wesley did argue that Calvinists should give up predestination, which he called ‘blasphemy’: Works, ed. Baker et al., 3: 542–63. However, he did not say that those who believed in predestination were not a part of the Church. See also A Dialogue between a Predestinarian and his Friend, 2nd edn (London, 1741), which ran to five editions in Wesley's lifetime: Works, ed. Baker et al., 13: 227–38. In Predestination Calmly Considered (London, 1752), which ran to seven editions in Wesley's lifetime, Wesley pleaded: ‘If we serve God, our agreement is far better than our difference. Therefore, as far as may be, setting aside that difference, let us unite in destroying the works of the devil, in bringing all we can from the power of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear son’: ibid. 13: 258–320, at 319–20 . Finally, he asserted that no one could doubt that Calvinists had true religion, but held wrong opinions: ‘On the Trinity’ (1775), ibid. 2: 374–86, at 376.