There were two movements, more or less within the Methodist Societies, during the lifetime of the Wesleys, that threatened to wreck their work. The first emanated from Moither and the Moravians, the second from Whitefield and his followers.
A perverted Quietism, introduced by Molther, caused the breach with the
Moravians, and gave the Wesleys a great deal of trouble for some years
afterwards, especially in 1739 and 1740. Those who came under the spell
made much
113
of the text--the locus classicus of Quietism--'Be still,
and know that I am God.' 'Stillness' meant to cease from the
means of grace, and even from the reading of the Scriptures and prayer,
because of the peril of trusting in them. Those who were 'still'
would call themselves nothing but 'poor sinners' or 'happy
sinners'--greatly to the disgust of honest John Nelson, whose
robust common sense held 'the poor sinnership' in hearty
contempt. Two passages from Charles Wesley's Journal for
April, 1740, will sufficiently illustrate the situation and the peril.
'April 8: I got home, weary, wounded, bruised, and faint, through the
contradiction of sinner; poor sinners, as they call themselves,
these heady, violent, fierce contenders for stillness. I could not bear
the thought of meeting them again.' 'April 25: Many here (in London)
insist that a part of their Christian calling is
liberty from obeying, not liberty to obey. The
unjustified, say they, are to be still: that is, not
to search the Scriptures, not to pray, not to
communicate, not to do good, not to endeavor,
not to desire for it is impossible to use means
without trusting in them. Their practice is
agreeable to their principles. Lazy and proud
themselves, bitter and censorious toward others,
they trample upon the ordinances and despise
the commands of Christ.'
There are many allusions to 'stillness' in the hymns. One is headed 'The True Stillness':
|
114 |
|
Still for Thy loving kindness, Lord, I in Thy Temple wait: I look to find Thee in Thy word, Or at Thy table meet. Here in Thine own appointed ways I wait to learn Thy will; Silent I stand belore Thy face, And hear Thee say, 'Be still!' 'Be still, and know that I am God!' 'Tis all I live to know! To feel the virtue of Thy blood, And spread its praise below! |
Another hymn has the lines,
|
Place no longer let us give To the old Tempter's will; Never more our deity leave, While Satan cries, 'Be still!' Stand we in the ancient way, And here with God ourselves acquaint; Pray we, every moment pray, And never, never faint. |
Another hymn is a lament over those who had lapsed into 'stillness':
|
Whom still we love with grief and pain, And weep for their return in vain. |
|
In vain, till Thou the power bestow, The double power of quickening grace! And make the happy sinners know Their Tempter, with his angel face; Who leads Them captive at his will, Captive--but happy sinners still! |
|
115 |
Another is entitled 'A Poor Sinner':
|
I would be truly still, Nor set a time to Thee, But act according to Thy will And speak, and think, and be. |
|
I would with Thee be one; And till the grace is given, Incessant pray, Thy will be done, In earth as 'tis in heaven. |
The other movement was the Calvinistic propaganda. Many of the hymns of Methodism reflect the life-long controversy of the Wesleys with the Calvinists.
It was undoubtedly these great hymns that were largely accountable for the diffusion of Arminian doctrine throughout evangelical Christendom. In this respect they mark a theological epoch. For the work of the Wesleys was the death of Calvinism, or at least of its baser nature.
The Calvinism that survives in the world today is a thing refined,
rarefied. The baser sort of Calvinism is so utterly extinct in our
days--thanks to Methodism--that it is difficult for us to realize
that it ever existed. The sublimated spirit of Calvinism that lives in
the modern representatives of the Reformed Churches we can admire greatly.
The deep sense of the sinfulness of sin, the profound apprehension of
grace as utterly and unutterably
116
undeserved, the humility and the reverence which attend upon these
thoughts--all these are spiritual characteristics for which we cannot be
too thankful. And we could willingly detect more of all these notes in
modern religion.
There, indeed, lies at once the source and the strength of all that is best in Calvinism. The doctrine of Calvin is the doctrine of Augustine, extended to its relentless issue, and it is in the religious experience of Augustine that we must seek the germ of his doctrine. It was Augustine's deep conviction of sin and his sense of absolute helplessness apart from the overmastering and overwhelming grace of God--it was this, passing into his writings, and, after many centuries, developed with pitiless logic, by a mind much more formal and much less subtle than his, which became Calvinism. At this time of day we can afford to recognize that the noble source of the doctrinal perversion was nothing less than that deep instinct of the Christian soul which is expressed in the language of Toplady:
|
Nothing in my hand I bring, Simply to Thy Cross I cling! |
This is the better side: there was a worse. There is plentiful evidence
of that in the early literature of Methodism. Charles Wesley once quoted
from Calvin's Institutes (l. iii. c. 24) a
frightful passage concerning the reprobate,
'God speaketh to them that they may be the
117
deafer: He gives light to them that they may be the blinder; He offers
instruction to them that they may be the more ignorant; and uses the
remedy that they may not be healed.' And elsewhere the poet of
Methodism records that during his exposition of a controverted passage of
Scripture at Bristol one of his hearers 'even called for damnation upon
his own soul if Christ died for all, and if God was willing THAT ALL MEN
SHOULD BE SAVED.' This was the faith, and this the temper of
eighteenth-century Calvinism. And this was where the early Methodists
joined issue with the 'doctrines of grace.' What the Wesleys contended
for was a universal gospel; what they denied vehemently was that doctrine
of election which, as John Wesley said, amounted to this: 'One in
twenty (suppose) of mankind are elected; nineteen in twenty are
reprobated. The elect shall be saved, do what they will; the reprobate
shall be damned, do what they can.'
It is characteristic that the reasons for which the Wesleys opposed
Calvinism were all practical reasons. It disturbed the peace of the
Societies, and they were forced to fight it for the sake of peace. It
appeared amongst the early Methodists as an alien propaganda, and it had
to be encountered. Then it led undoubtedly to serious laxity of conduct:
the Antinomian peril was very real in the early days of Methodism, and it
was largely the result of Predestinarian doctrine.
118
Antinomianism was not then the mere ghost of dead heresy or the bold
paradox of exalted pietism, but a hideous danger, which the Wesleys
met everywhere. And then the doctrinal grounds of opposition were also
practical. Neither of the Wesleys had much interest in speculative theology.
But they preached an illimitable salvation; they denied that there was any
limit whatever to the gospel except such as was set by the unwillingness of
men to accept salvation. They taught that the forgiving love of God was
boundless.
The literature of the controversy between Methodism and Calvinism is today largely forgotten. It is as well so. The pamphlets and sermons of 1740 and 1770, the publications of Wesley, Fletcher, and Olivers on the one side, and of Whitefield, Toplady, and Sir Richard Hill on the other, have only an antiquarian interest. All that really survives today from that remote contest is a batch of hymns--Toplady's 'Rock of Ages! cleft for me.'--and many of the stirring stanzas that Charles Wesley wrote at the time. Several of these familiar hymns, indeed, can scarcely be understood as they ought unless we remember the implicit protest against a limited gospel which they contain.
|
The world He suffered to redeem: For all He hath the atonement made; For those that will not come to Him The ransom of His life was paid! |
|
O for a trumpet voice On all the world to call! To bid their hearts rejoice In Him who died for all! For all my Lord was crucified, For all, for all my Savior died! |
|
O let Thy love my heart constrain, Thy love for every sinner free, That every fallen soul of man May taste the grace that found out me; That all mankind with me may prove Thy sovereign, everlasting love. |
But if it be asked where in these hymns of controversy Charles Wesley's most effective protest against the doctrine of Calvin is to be found, there can be little doubt, we think, that it is in precisely those lines which express the deepest depth of humility, the lines in which he writes of the grace of God:
|
Throughout the world its breadth is known, Wide as infinity! So wide, it never passed by one, Or it had passed by me. |