The Sermons of John Wesley
1872 Edition
(Thomas Jackson, editor)
An Introduction
by
RYAN N. DANKER
The Sermons of John Wesley form an essential part of
the Wesleyan Methodist theological corpus. Any person who would
want to know "the way to heaven" according to Wesley would look
to these sermons. The Wesley Center for Applied Theology is pleased
to present to the public these essential Wesleyan materials. One
will find in them the work of a true theologian, a theologian
who, throughout his life, searched for the great truths of God
and preached a message of responsible grace to the people of eighteenth
century Britain which is still vital and contemporary for us today.
ANGLICAN DIVINE
As with all historical persons, events, and documents John Wesley
himself must be understood in his own Anglican context. John Wesley
never left the Anglican Church. He was an ordained priest in the
Church of England and continually fought to keep the Methodist
Connection within the Established Church. He was a mixture of
evangelical and High Church tendencies which one can see from
his emphasis on both the liturgy and sacraments but also field
preaching regardless of parish boundaries. Nevertheless, John
Wesley was still a High-Church eighteenth century Anglican divine.
Anglicanism cannot be seen as just another form of Protestantism.
The Anglican Church did not split from Rome over theological issues;
such as justification by faith as the Continental Protestants.
The Church of England split mainly over issues of authority and
has grown to become its own distinct form of Christianity. Some
have claimed that Anglicanism bridges Roman Catholicism and Continental
Protestantism. The "via media" [middle way] that came out
of the Elizabethan Settlement could be seen as Anglicanism in
a nutshell.
Theology within Anglican circles was done differently from that
of the Protestants and Catholics. Anglican theology was mainly
directed toward liturgical endeavors (i.e. homilies, prayers,
litanies). Randy Maddox has stated: Due to its unique
history of development, the Anglican tradition understood the standard
forms and practice of theology differently from their continental
counterparts (both Roman Catholic and Protestant). Instead of identifying
"serious" theological activity with the production of scholastic
summaries/defences of doctrine, Anglicans followed the example of
the early church in focusing this activity on the production of
such formative materials as creeds, collections of catechetical
homilies, and liturgies (Maddox 216).Much has been said
concerning the fact that John Wesley never wrote a "systematic theology".
Some have gone so far as to claim that he was not a theologian at
all due to this fact. But from what we have seen within the context
of Anglican theology, John Wesley is a classic Anglican divine (theologian).
The Sermons of John Wesley would then be considered a major, and
important, part of his theological writings.
A METHODIST BOOK OF HOMILIES
Within Anglicanism the official theological documents were the
Book of Common Prayer (BCP), the Thirty-Nine Articles
of Religion, and the Book of Homilies. These homilies (sermons)
were to be read to the people of the Church of England and were
considered a standard for religious orthodoxy. Thomas Cranmer,
who also wrote the original BCP, compiled the first book
of homilies. Cranmer was burned at the stake by "Bloody Mary"
and today is considered an Anglican martyr.
Wesley, as an Anglican, understood the importance of a standard
set of sermons for the people. Richard Heitzenrater states in
his book, Wesley and the People Called Methodists, "Wesley
no doubt has the function of the Book of Homilies in mind as he
designed these volumes - homiletical material that provided a
solid doctrinal basis and boundary for homiletical proclamation
by uneducated preachers" (Heitzenrater 177).
Wesley not only supplied the preachers with sermons but also
with the fifty-volume Christian Library in which he placed
and edited the works of the Church Fathers and Divines as an educational
tool for this preachers. The Sermons can be seen within this same
pedagogical genre for Wesley.
For a full understanding of the Methodist movement one must understand
that the majority of the "preachers" enlisted by John and Charles
Wesley were lay persons. Methodism began in the educated cradle
of Oxford University and the Holy Club was made up of intellectuals
seeking a higher spiritual plain but as the movement went out
into the fields and grew the need for those without ordination
or a divinity degree became overwhelming apparent. Preachers were
enlisted by Wesley but then understood that educational material,
provided by Wesley himself, must be read and that the good preacher
was actually educated in many areas including: science, philosophy,
history, and divinity. Wesley placed a great emphasis on education.
This, of course, is to be expected. From his childhood on, Wesley
was given some of the best education in England. From the detailed
accounts of his early education with his mother and father, to
his training at Charterhouse and Oxford it is not hard to see
why Wesley saw education as important. Wesley wanted the best-educated
preachers he could come up with but when he saw that the preachers
must come mainly from the laity he set into motion ways to educate
them. The Sermons were a main part of this endeavor. The
preachers, generally lacking formal education, received many resources
in their training. The early Minutes of Conference has listed specific
publications that Wesley had written for doctrinal guidance. In
1746, he had published the first volume of a projected three-volume
series of Sermons on Several Occasions. The preface indicated clearly
Wesley's intentions: the reader will see "what those doctrines are
which I embrace and teach as the essentials of true religion" (Sermons
1:103). His hope was to reach "the bulk of [humanity]," to design
"plain truth for plain people," to be homo unius libri -
a person of one book, the Bible, wherein one could find "the way
to heaven" (Heitzentater 176).THE WESLEYAN STANDARDS
The first of these projected three volumes of sermons published
in 1746 was followed by the second in 1748, the third in 1750,
and the fourth in 1760. In 1763 something called the "Model Deed"
was written and approved at conference, which set John Wesley
up as having power to dismiss and appoint preachers. This thus
gave him theological oversight over the entire Methodist movement.
Within this agreement was established the Standards. The Standards
for Methodism were from this point on John Wesley's Explanatory
Notes Upon the New Testament and his four-volumes of sermons.
Sugden wrote in the Introduction of his edition of the Standard
Sermons: The doctrinal standards to which every minister
of the Methodist Church is required to conform is legally defined
in the Model Deed as follows: 'No person or persons whomever shall
. . .be permitted to preach . . . who shall maintain, promulgate,
or teach any doctrine or practice contrary to what is contained
in certain Notes on the New Testament, commonly reputed to be the
notes of the said John Wesley, and in the first four volumes of
sermons commonly reputed to be written and published by him (Sugden
4).The Standard Sermons, then, would include the forty-four
sermons found in these four volumes. We have included a specific
table for these sermons. In 1771 John Wesley, himself, printed his
collected Works and actually included nine more sermons than the
four volumes previously printed. In subsequent printings of the
Standards, though, Wesley did not include these nine. One must understand
that there are more Wesley sermons than just the Standards. Having
Standard sermons does not relegate the others to unimportance. The
Standards are just the ones, as well as the Notes, which ministers
within Methodism are required to follow. The Standard Sermons are
still considered a part of the doctrinal standards of The United
Methodist Church, the largest Wesleyan body in the world.
WESLEY'S VISION
Wesley envisioned the Methodist movement to be a movement of
revitalization. The movement was to revitalize not only the Church
of England without, but also the hearts of men and women within.
The grace of God to be found in the means of grace and the life
lived in the love of Christ are seen as the essential elements
of Wesley's theology. Albert Outler has stated, "The heart of
Wesley's gospel was always its lively sense of God's grace at
work at every level of creation and history in persons and communities"
(Outler 98).
The Sermons represent a part of Wesley's written understanding
of God's redemptive work. One must remember, though, to look at
these sermons with an understanding of what period of Wesley's
life they were written. Most scholars follow the understanding
that Wesley had three distinct time-periods within his life. The
first would be pre-Aldersgate (birth to 1738), the second his
more Protestant period (1738 to 1765-70), and the third his more
mature period (1765-70 to 1791). The sermons must be understood
within their respective periods. The reason for this understanding
is not that Wesley changed all of his theological opinions between
these periods but that Wesley was one who believed in experiential
divinity. Experience had a place among Wesley's sources of theology
and just as a person grows in age and stature, so they grow in
knowledge and love of God. Outler states: None of these
sermons stands alone; none is norm for all the others. Wesley can
quite readily be quoted against himself when this passage or that
is taken out of context. His sermons are bound to be misread unless
they are understood as experimental statements and restatements
of his vision of the Christian life (Outler 87).Wesley's
primary goal was always to present the gospel as well as he could
with the best understanding he could. He firmly believed that the
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ was sufficient to cure the oppression
of sin found in the human heart. One will find holiness to be an
essential doctrine in the reading of these sermons. Wesleyans to
this present day still believe that holiness of heart and life is
essential to the Christian sojourn. Love perfected in the individual,
mirrored after the example of Jesus, will always be a mainstay of
a Wesleyan understanding. Wesley stated in his own preface to the
Sermons, "I have accordingly set down in the following sermons what
I find in the Bible concerning the way to heaven; with a view to
distinguish this way of God from all those which are the inventions
of men" (Outler 106).
Wesley's theology transcended the past divisions of the Church
including Catholic and Protestant as well as East and West. One
can find in his writings an eclectic collection of ideas and concepts
from all corners of the Christian Church. One can read his sermons
and find sources from the early church, the eastern divines, the
Catholic mystics, and the Protestant Reformers. Kenneth Collins
writes: "In light of this, it is tempting, no doubt,
to emphasize one of these poles to the detriment of the other such
that our reading of Wesley will appear either as a "Protestant"
or as a "Catholic" one. However, it is best to forgo this attempt
and instead to rejoice in the breadth of Wesley's theological perspective
and in the nuances of his carefully crafted theology. In doing so,
not only will we be able to see, perhaps, a larger Wesley than we
have previously imagined, not only will we be equipped with the
theological wherewithal for rich dialogue with a diversity of theological
traditions, but we will be also be free, most important of all,
to bear witness to the hope and promise of a distinctively Wesleyan
via salutis ["way of salvation"] (Collins 207).
ENDNOTES
Collins, J. Kenneth. The
Scripture Way of Salvation: The Heart of John Wesley's Theology.
Nashville: Abingdon Press. 1997.
Heitzenrater, P. Richard. Wesley
and the People Called Methodists. Nashville: Abingdon
Press. 1995.
Maddox, L. Randy. gen.ed. Rethinking
Wesley's Theology for Contemporary Methodism. Nashville:
Kingswood Books. 1998.
Outler, C. Albert. ed. The Works
of John Wesley: Volume I, Sermons I, 1-33. Nashville:
Abingdon Press. 1984.
Sugden, H. Edward. ed. John Wesley's
Fifty-Three Sermons. Nashville: Abingdon. Second
Printing, 1984.
Copyright © 1999-2002
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