by
J. Steven O'Malley

The intent of this study is to provide a historical and theological context for the treatment of the eschatological thought of John Wesley and Jurgen Moltmann by examining their respective uses of sources from the continental Pietism of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The general influence of Pietism on the thought of each of these men has been noted,¹ but attention has not been given to examining its specific significance for their eschatological thought. Our task will proceed by identifying the relevant Pietist sources and then assessing their positive and negative impact. The goal is to demonstrate that the relative place of eschatological thought in our subjects can be more precisely delineated by considering the influence of Pietistic motifs in their respective work.

Pietist Eschatological Motifs Influencing John Wesley

There is evidence that German Pietism was a chief source of Wesley's eschatological thought. However, the most recent treatment of Pietist influence upon Wesley does not address this relationship.2  His discussion is limited to the Lutheran and Moravian manifestations of Pietism and its treatment of Spener does not address the eschatological thought that was central to his theology and resulted in his speaking of "hope for better times for the church."³ As Stein has recently shown, this expectation deeply informed Spener's soteriology, as well as that of his leading disciple, A. H. Francke, whom Wesley read and commended to his fellow Methodists.⁴

It has been shown that Spener (and the Hallensian Pietism that followed him) derived his eschatological orientation from the influence of the federalist school of Reformed theology and the Reformed separatist, Jean Labadie, whose work he encountered at Strassburg. Likewise, it is the connection with Rhineland (Reformed) and Wilrttemberg Pietism that was a primary contributor to Wesley's eschatological ideas, together With influence from the English Puritanism that was indigenous to his immediate environment.⁵

Johann Albrecht Bengel (1684-1752), the Tübingen (Württemberg) Pietist whose field was Biblical studies, brought to a culmination the tradition of symbolic-prophetic Biblical exegesis that is traced to the federal school of Dutch and German Reformed Pietism. Its principal representatives were Johannes Cocceius (1603-1669) and his student Campegius Vitringa (1659-1722). Bengel, a student of Vitringa, brought this eschatological-oriented mode of Biblical interpretation to an advanced state of development in his Gnomon (Commentary) upon the Old and New Testaments.⁶ In the introduction to his Notes on Revelation, Wesley strongly acknowledged his dependence upon Bengel in developing his Notes.⁷

John Wesley's Use of Bengel's "Gnomon."

What, then, was the nature of Bengel's influence on Wesley and in what ways might this eschatological thinking have influenced Wesley's reflections on the future of the kingdom and the personal destiny of believers?

Wesley issued disclaimers with reference to Bengel's chronological speculations on the millennium. For example, when Bengel claimed that Christ's millennial kingdom would begin in 1836, Wesley declared that he "had no opinion" about this, for "these calculations are far above, out of my sight. I have only one thing to do - to save my soul, and those that hear me."⁸ Nonetheless, Wesley discloses in the Introduction to his Notes on Revelation that for many years he had overlooked the "middle parts" of the book, due to their obscurity; and "perhaps I should have lived and died in this sentiment, had I not seen the works of the great Bengelius." Wesley credits Bengel with reviving his hopes of understanding these prophecies.⁹

Wesley's principles for interpreting this material, reflecting Bengel's approach, are explicated in Wesley's introduction to Revelation 6.10 In these principles, he recognized that, while Revelation was written with reference to ancient kingdoms, "yet the Revelation contains what relates to the whole world, through which the Christian church is extended"; further, "We must take care not to overlook what is already fulfilled; and not to describe as what is still to come."¹¹

While these principles concern the prophetic fulfillment of God's redemptive deeds in history, it should not be forgotten that these acts were being interpreted for Methodists whose mandate is the desire to flee the wrath to come, to be "saved from their sins."¹² Hence, in commenting upon Revelation 12:12, Wesley related prophecy to the believer's status cor deo: "We live in the little time wherein Satan hath great wrath: and this little time is now upon the decline."¹³

It is instructive to note that this discussion is prefaced by Wesley's interpretation of the seventh trumpet (Rev 10:6) as referring to the period from 800 (Charles the Great) to 1836-the date Bengel had set for the return of Christ and the last judgment! 14 However, in nine letters of 1788, Wesley distanced himself from this opinion.

Hence, Wesley's reliance upon this Pietist exegete is extensive, though not slavish, with his major interest being to mine the practical, soteriological import of Bengel's treatment of the eschatological dimensions of the Biblical text. The dimensions that most interested Wesley concerned the eschatological implications for the Christian life, death and resurrection, judgment, heaven, and hell. On each of these subjects Wesley was in substantial agreement with the interpretations given in Bengel's Gnomon.¹⁵

Wesley noted in Sermon LVII that physical death, being a mark of the fall, is not precluded by growth in grace within believers. It is signified in the deterioration of the body prior to death.¹⁶ In his exposition of Luke 16, he identified paradise and hades as abodes of the dead, prior to their resurrection, with his emphasis falling on the impossibility of repentance in that state and, hence, the urgency of repentance in the present moment.¹⁷

There is a measure of tension in Wesley's thought between the conquest of death that occurs within the regenerated at their physical death and its abolition that occurs as a final eschatological event (explained in his note on Revelation 20:14).18 The nature of the resurrected bodies of believers is treated extensively in his sermon "On the Resurrection of the Dead,"¹⁹ where he speaks of the transformation of the glorified body occurring in direct proportion to the extent to which the old, fallen nature has been crucified by Christ during its temporal existence.

Positioned between the general resurrection and the inauguration of heaven and hell stands the judgment, which Wesley treats in depth in his sermon "The Great Assize."²⁰ Here he provides possibly his most extensive treatment of the eschatological signs in the heavens and on earth that presage the judgment. It will occur before the Great White Throne that will stand suspended far above the earth. Hence, in Christ's presence all the resurrected appear to give account of the totality of their thoughts and deeds, resulting either in acquittal and admission to heaven or in condemnation and sentence to hell. The latter is treated more extensively by Wesley than the former, especially in his sermon "Of Hell."²¹ Based on Mark 9:48, this sermon describes hell as consisting of the withdrawal of God's presence and of all blessings of life, as well as the introduction of the pain of eternal fire.²² However, his greater concern was with the practical and present implications of these end-time portrayals, implications that could function as support for his admonitions against temptations in this life.²³

Although Wesley appeared not to have been acquainted with the technical terms "rapture" and "tribulation,"²⁴ he did take a position on the question of the millennium. There are two distinct millennial ages-the first will occur when Satan is bound and the second when the saints shall reign. As he explains in his Notes:

By observing these two distinct thousand years, many difficulties are avoided. There is room enough for the fulfilling of all the prophecies, and those which before seemed to clash are reconciled; particularly those which speak, on the one hand, of a most flourishing state of the church as yet to come; and, on the other, of the fatal security of men  in the last days of the world.²⁵

Wesley's abbreviated treatment of the millennial theme (to which may be joined his identification of the popes from the time of Gregory VII as the antichrist)²⁶ is to be contrasted with the more speculative millennial views of his Pietist mentor, the exegete Bengel.

Having reviewed the basic areas of Wesley's dependence upon Bengel, as a basis for Wesley's eschatological reflections, let us proceed to examine how his position may be understood within the larger context of his Sitz irn Leben that prompted him to direct the Bengelian influences in ways quite different from those pursued by his mentor.

William Pope Harrison observes that Wesley aspired to uphold the Biblical standards of holiness in line with the rigor of Puritanism, but he sought to attain this standard within the context of the means of grace that were supplied by Anglicanism.²⁷ Hence, the Lord's Supper was to be taken weekly, even daily if possible. In addition, fasting, the hours of prayer according to the Book of Common Prayer, and charitable works were all to be observed as the ecclesial means to life devoted to God. It was only after Aldersgate, when his crisis of faith produced personal assurance of saving grace, that Wesley emerged from near despair to evangelical conviction.

By contrast, Bengel, as a young Lutheran theological student at Ttibingen, reflected a peaceful and confident sense of divine favor that enabled him to proceed with his Biblical labors in an unabated fashion. Bengel's trials came in the form of his struggle to discern and become convinced of the presence of truth, of divine revelation, within the objective text of Scripture. Wesley's struggles were located more in his heartfelt search for experiential and subjective verification of the promises of Scripture. For Bengel, the unconverted person

Bengel therefore appeals for a liberality of spirit to allow the converted, dedicated Biblical scholar "the full liberty of disclosing to us every private scruple" ill the quest for certainty.²⁹

In view of these differences in outlook, Wesley could assume a more facile distinction between 'essentials" and "opinions," and Wesley's twofold explanation of the millennium, that he discusses briefly and without argumentation, for him certainly falls within that category of "opinions." Even when it comes to such "essential" doctrines as the Trinity, Wesley can assert that we are not required to believe in the manner of the Trinity, but only in the fact.³⁰ What is more important is to make plain for godly living the great practical principles of the gospel.

By contrast, Bengel's concern was for the objective (scholarly) verification of Biblical truth, that he sought to pursue on carefully delineated exegetical principles. Whereas Wesley's eschatological thought is mainly expressed within the context of his soteriology,³¹ Bengel's eschatological focus is located primarily within the text of Scripture itself, which he interprets according to his symbolic-prophetic method of exposition. For Bengel, the prophetic aspect is the dominant and unifying theme for interpreting Scripture as a whole. This aspect is linked to his view of history, the view Moltmann later would regard as being more teleological than truly eschatological.

Bengel's interpretation of the Apocalypse produced a system that linked the anticipated "favorable times" of the church with the age of

 Pietism and the rise of missions, culminating in the overthrow of the Beast and the parousia of Christ in 1836 that would be followed by the millennium. By contrast, Wesley, whose main interest was soteriology, had scant interest in this technical, chronological data. While borrowing Bengel 's basic formulations on the millennium, these were imprecisely formulated and were not vitally linked to his soteriological concerns that affirmed Christian perfection in this life. Wesley's conservatism with regard to eschatological speculation may also have reflected his controversy with the radical adventism of one of his own converts, George Bell.³²

Pietist Influences on the Eschatology of Jurgen Moltmann

In articulating his "theology of hope," Jurgen Moltmann drew from the same store of Pietist luminaries as did Wesley before him, but these sources function quite differently than they did for Wesley. In contrast with Wesley's minimal interest in end time details, Moltmann's thought is substantially influenced by his use of eschatological motifs that were transmitted by the Pietists. This influence is especially apparent in his interest in the renowned medieval interpreter of the Apocalypse, Joachim of Fiore (1131-1202), and in the continuation of Joachite motifs in the symbolic-prophetic school of Pietist exegesis that culminated in Bengel.

Moltmann's interest in these motifs, seen first in an important group of historical essays from the 1950s, emerges from his sympathetic though critical study of a wide range of church and radical Pietists, together with their antecedents in medieval apocalypticism.³³ Joachim, the seminal apocalyptic writer in this group, first explicated the symbolic-prophetic mode of exegesis that was used later by Bengel. It had spawned a host of late medieval apocalyptic movements and social protests (that Wesley would disparage as antinomian).³⁴ Moltmann traces its reappearance in the left wing of the Reformation, and in the later representatives of the federalist (covenant) school of Rhineland and Württemburg Pietism. With this school, the symbolic-prophetic exegetical mode finally had enabled millennial thought to be represented within rather than outside the mainline state church traditions.

Joachim's method of Biblical interpretation, based on the symbolic and prophetic reading of the text of Scripture, had resulted in a threefold historical schema correlated with the Persons of the Trinity. Moltmann was drawn to this formulation of an economic, rather than an ontological understanding of the Godhead found in the ancient ecumenical creeds. By contrast, Wesley adhered to the traditional formulations as an expression of his intent for Methodism to be a source of renewal within Anglicanism.

Moltmann was attracted to Joachim's future orientation, whereby he had predicted the imminence of the "Third Age," that of the Spirit, that would be marked by the fullness of the Spirit as an indwelling Presence within the lives of humankind. Authority no longer would be externally and coercively imposed from without, as in the former ages of Israel (the Age of the Father) and the Church (the Age of the Son).³⁵ Moltmann also affirms Joachim's outlook over against the more normative, Augustinian view of history that subdued the element of progress in the historical struggle between the two cities and also spiritualized, and thereby relativized, the doctrine of the millennium by identifying it with the age of the church in history since Pentecost.³⁶

Moltmann found in Joachim the basis for overcoming what he has called the "monotheistic interpretation of the lordship of God" by Joachim's advocacy of a "trinitarian understanding of the Kingdom."³⁷ He saw a correlation between such monotheistic emphases and social systems organized under the control of despotic monarchs or oligarchies. By contrast, Wesley did not hesitate to support the Hanoverian monarchs, despite the protests of the American colonists (including many of the Methodists in America). Moltmann affirms Joachim in asserting that "there is hardly anyone who has influenced European movements for liberty in church, state, and culture more profoundly than this twelfth century Cistercian abbot from Calabria, who believed that in his vision₅ he had penetrated the concordance of the Old and New Testaments, and the mystery of the book of Revelation."³⁵

Further, Moltmann taken issue with the charge of Aquinas that Joachim had "dissolved" the doctrine of the Trinity in world history. It was rather "a question of appropriating to the different Persons of the Trinity the forms which the Kingdom took in the different eras of world history."³⁹ Moltmann explains Joachim's third form of the Kingdom, that of the Spirit. It is said to be the "rebirth of men and women through the energies of the Spirit," whereby God rules through direct revelation and knowledge and people are turned from being God's children into God's friends.⁴⁰) Hence, Moltmann's understanding of the quality of life in the coming Kingdom is essentially shaped by Joachim's portrayal of "friendship with God." This friendship is the highest stage of freedom and also uniquely the mark of the Kingdom of the Spirit (cf. 2 Cor. 3:17).

By comparison, Wesley identifies this eschatological stage of free and unfettered friendship with God with one's personal, processive attainment of "full salvation," not with a coming historical epoch. By that he means the "eternal life" that begins "when it pleases the Father to reveal the Son in our heart." This is when "happiness" begins, when, says Wesley, "The life which I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me."⁴¹ Nonetheless, and despite the fact that Wesley '5 frame of reference is more personal-soteriological and Moltmann's is more historical-transformationist, both men tend to speak in terms of an "anticipated eschatology."⁴²

It is puzzling to observe that the theologian who did the most to adapt the Joachite, economic view of the Trinity and its realistic eschatology to the concerns of pastoral ministry (F. A. Lampe) was ignored by Wesley and the Methodists, but not by Moltmann, who cites Lampe as one who gave definitive expression to the sense of progress in the eighteenth-century. Lampe integrated the soteriological perspective, Wesley's focus, both the prophetic view of historical transformation, the concerns of Joachim and later of Moltmann. As a Pietist, Lampe presented the order of salvation that was to be personally appropriated in a stepwise fashion.⁴³ The ordo was correlated with his presentation of the successive ages of redemption within universal history, as understood under the dispensations of God's successive covenants, with humanity (the Heilsgeschichte).

Lampe discovered signs of this coming convergence by examining the prophetic text of Scripture, the rise of evangelical awakenings (including those in his own Bremen parish), and the new breakthroughs in science,

Finally, attention needs to be given to Moltmann's use of Bengel, which differs as well from Wesley's reliance on this great Pietist exegete. Wesley was attracted to Bengel's pious erudition in interpreting the text, but had little interest in the chronological calculations offered by Bengel since Wesley's concerns were mainly soteriological. He did not explicate the possible connections between Bengel's emphasis on entire sanctification and a millennial future. On the other hand, Moltmann sees important eschatological themes being brought into renewed focus by Bengel, themes akin to those previously articulated by Joachim.

Moltmann is aware that Bengel had proceeded upon the basis of Joachim's conviction that prophecy is knowledge. What is especially insightful for Moltmann is Bengel's conviction that a proper knowledge of Biblical prophecy delivers one from acts of sin that arise either from presumption or despair. Both states, notes Moltmann, share the common problem of prematurity. The former prematurely anticipates what is desired from God, and the latter prematurely anticipates God's non-fulfillment.⁴⁵ However, Moltmann criticizes Bengel for undermining the openness to the future that is inherent in Biblical prophecy by reducing it to anticipated history, that is "prognostic and predictive." He observes,

In Bengel's defense, it has been argued that he counsels "faithfulness to a time and place about which one is conscientious but not compulsive."⁴⁷ There is some analogy here with Wesley's tendency to speak of the anticipation and cooperation with the ongoing work of saving grace within the life of the awakened Christian.⁴⁸ However, for Bengel and for Moltmann, the frame of reference is not one's individual development within the ordo salutis, but rather one's apprehension of the redemptive movement that is occurring in toto within and through world history. It should be cautioned that Bengel does not counsel that the knowledge of the future is in itself salvific, "although it may contribute to the sanctifying process in that it thwarts presumption and despair by giving heed to the proper time and place for the service of God and neighbor."⁴⁹

Conclusion

Our study has sought to explicate the different uses of a common school of eschatological thought as found in the work of Wesley and Moltmann. Moltmann extends his discussion to include other Neo-Pietist sources such as J. C. Blumhardt (1805-81), whose socio-political work increasingly emphasized the human role in the imitation of the end-time events.⁵⁰ Wesley's eschatological thought also was influenced by other Pietists.⁵¹

It has been contended that Wesley was only minimally interested in formulating doctrines concerning end-time events. Indeed, even the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England that he abridged contain no article on the Last Judgment! What references exist concerning these matters, as in Wesley's Notes, are largely derived from Bengel and are little integrated into his major soteriological concerns. With regard to the latter, there undeniably does exist a latent, anticipatory and progressive eschatological dimension to his conception of the ordo salutis. His sermons on the judgment and the afterlife also reflect these soteriological concerns.

By comparison, Moltmann finds within Bengel, as in the medieval apocalyptic and Reformed federal traditions that preceded him, substantial support for the enunciation of an economic (rather than an ontological) formulation of the Godhead, and for a realistic, non-spiritualized view of the coming Kingdom of God. Still, given these differences, Wesley and Moltmann share an anticipatory outlook, and each has contributed in distinctive ways to shifting the Protestant theological tradition and the Christian life from static to dynamic categories of self-understanding.

¹See Kenneth 1. Collins, "The Influence of Early German Pietism on John Wesley," Covenant Quarterly, 48:4 (1990), 23-42; and 1. Steven O'Malley, "The Role of Pietism in the Theology of Jurgen Moltmann," The Asbury' Theological Journal 48:1 (Spring 1993), 121-127.

²Collins, supra.

³See K. James Stein, "Philipp Jakob Spener's Hope for Better Times for the Church," Covenant Quarterly 37 (August 1979), 3-20; and Stein, Philipp Jakob Spener: Pietist Patriarch (Chicago; Covenant Press, 1986). Likewise, the author has found helpful an unpublished paper by James B. Bross titled "John Wesley and Eschatology" that treats Wesley's use of Johann Bengel, but does not provide a comparative theological analysis of their respective positions.

⁴See August H. Francke, Nicodemus in A Christian Library, John Wesley, ed. (Landin J. Kershaw, 1826), 29:468.

⁵For a treatment of the latter influence, see Robert Monk, John Wesley: His Puritan Heritage (Abingdon, 1966). The influence of the Puritans is seen in Wesley's "Covenant Renewal Service," in which covenantal promise and fulfillment are treated from an eschatological perspective. Other sources could include the Apostolic Fathers, especially Irenaeus.

⁶See Johann Albrecht Bengel, Gnomon of the New Testament (1742), tr. C.T. Lewis and M.R. Vincent (Philadelphia, 1864).

7 John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, 2 vols. (Baker repr., 1983; from an undated ed. published by the Wesleyan-Methodist Book-Room, London).

⁸John Wesley, Letter to Charles Wesley-1788, No. CCCVI, in The Works of John Wesley, 3rd ed., Wesleyan Methodist Book Room, London, 1872 (repr. 1979, Baker), XII, 319.

⁹John Wesley, Notes, 11, n.p.

¹⁰Wesley, Notes. In introducing Revelation 4, Wesley divides the entire book into the following parts: "The first, second, and third chapters contain the introduction; the fourth and fifth, the proposition; the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth describe things which are already fulfilled; the tenth to the fourteenth, things which are now fulfilling; the fifteenth to the nineteenth things which will be fulfilled shortly; the twentieth, twenty-first, and twenty-second, things at a greater distance" (Notes, Revelation 4).

¹¹Wesley, Introduction to Notes on Revelation.

¹²Wesley, "The Rules of the United Societies," VIII, 3rd ed., Wesleyan Methodist Book Room, London, 1872 (repr. 1979, Baker), 269-271.

¹³Wesley, Notes, Revelation 12:12.

¹⁴Wesley, Notes on Revelation 12:12. "The scheme of Wesley's treatment of the ages of history are in conformity with those devised by Bengel." Wesley acknowledged his indebtedness to Bengel's scheme in the Introduction to his Notes on Revelation.

¹⁵Compare Bengel's treatment of these themes, as summarized in F. E. Stoeffler, German Pietisnl in the Eighteenth Century (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1973), 224-236.

¹⁶Sermon LVII, "The Fall of Man," Works VII, 22cf.

¹⁷Sermon CXII, "The Rich Man & Lazarus," Works, VII, 244-515.

¹⁸Sermon LXLV, "The New Creation," Works, VI, 295-296; and Notes on the New Testament, Revelation 20:14.

¹⁹Sermon CXXXVII, Works, VII, 474-485.

²⁰Works, V, 171-185.

²¹Works, VI, 381-391.

²²Works, VI, 390.

²³Works, VI, 390.

²⁴Bross (op. cit., 7) notes that Wesley does not use these in his discussion of the relevant texts (Notes on Matthew 25:40 and I Thess. 4:17).

²⁵Notes, Revelation 20:4-7.

²⁶Notes, Revelation 17:11.

²⁷William Pope Harrison, "John Albert Bengel," in The Quarterly Review of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (Nashville: M.E.S. Publishing House), 29:2 (1889), 400-0~

²⁸Bengel's Gnomon, cited by Harrison, 401.

²⁹Harrison, 401.

³⁰John Wesley, "On the Trinity," Sermon LV, Works, VI, 204.

³¹See the discussion of Clarence L. Bence, "Processive Eschatology: A Wesleyan Alternative," Wesleyan Theological Journal 14 (Spring, 1979), 45-59.

³²Bell scheduled the end of the world for February 28, 1763, thus unleashing a fever of antinomian ecstasy. See Wesley, "Journal," October 29, 1762 to February 9, 1763, and Works III, 119-128.

³³These interpreters, in addition to Joachim and Bengel, include Jacob Boehme (1595-1624), Johannes Coccejius (1603-1669), Campegius Vitringa (1659-1722), Friedrich A. Lampe (1683-1729), Gottfried Arnold (1666-1714),

Count Zinzendorf (1700-1760), Gerhard Tersteegen (1697-1769), Friedrich Oetinger (1702-1782), and the Neo-Pietist I. C. Blumhardt (1805-1880).

³⁴See Wesley's confrontation with George Bell, as seen in note above.

³⁵See Wesley's confrontation with George Bell, as seen in note above. By contrast with Moltmann, Wesley insisted on retaining the Anglican structures of an ordained ministry in relation to the sacraments to balance the evangelical structures that his societies fostered.

³⁶Moltmann notes that Joachim's outlook also challenged the authority of his near contemporary, Thomas Aquinas, and his apotheosis of the Church of Rome and its dogma as the Summa Theologica (Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom), 203.

³⁷Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom, 203.

³⁸Ibid.

³⁹Ibid., 204.

⁴⁰Ibid., 205.

⁴¹John Wesley, Works, XII, 430.

⁴²Cyril Downes, "The Eschatological Doctrines of John and Charles Wesley" (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Edinburgh, 1974), 37, cited by Bence, 52.

⁴³These steps included the effectual call, faith, justification, regeneration, sanctification, sealing, and glorification. See the summation of his thought in J. S. O'Malley, Pilgrimage of Faith: The Legacy of the Otterbeins (Scarecrow, 1973).

⁴⁴J. Steven O'Malley, "The Role of Pietism in the Theology of Jurgen Moltmann," Asbury Theological Journal 48:1 (Spring, 1993), 124.

⁴⁵Jurgen Moltmann, The Theology of Hope, tr. J. W. Leitch (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), 23-25; and John C. Weborg, "The Eschatological Ethics of Johann Albrecht Bengel," The Covenant Quarterly (May 1978), 33.

⁴⁶Jurgen Moltmann, Hope and Planning, tr. Margaret Charkson (New York: Harper & Row, 1971), 187.

⁴⁷Weborg, "The Eschatological Ethic," 33.

⁴⁸O'Malley, "The Role of Pietism," 125.

⁴⁹Bengel expresses the act of comprehending the present moment in the light of eternity with the metaphor of existing "before the eyes of Jesus." By comparison, Wesley focused on the need for the sanctified believers to have eyes fixed upon God. For Bengel, this visual imagery was also a motivation to seek the sanctified life, in that it represents an antidote to the sin of losing time for the labors of love by the indulgence of sloth (acedia) (J. A. Bengel, Sechzig erbauliche Reden uber die Offenbarung Johann's oder vielmehr Jesu Christi, Neue Auflage, Stuttgart: Johann Christoph Erhard, 1771, 60, 104). See Wesley's exposition of Matthew 6:22 in Sermon 28, Works, V, 362-3.

⁵⁰O'Malley, "The Role of Pietism. . .", 125.

⁵¹Note, e.g., the hymnody of Gerhard Tersteegen (1697-1769), a man formed in the context of the Rhineland Reformed Pietism. Wesley translated into English four of Tersteegen's hymns. He was drawn to Tersteegen by the latter's reverence for the inward witness of the Spirit, expressed in terms of the inward progression of grace that renovates our lives. This progression was viewed as a personal, existential fulfillment of the prophetic sense of Scripture. See Francis Bevan, The Hymns of Tersteegen and Others (New York: Loizeaux Brothers, n.d.).

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