WATCHNIGHT, COVENANT SERVICE, AND THE LOVE-FEAST IN EARLY BRITISH METHODISM
by
William Parkes
Hester Ann Rogers was the wife of James Rogers, one of John Wesley's preachers whose journal of spiritual experiences (joined with selected letters) went into numerous editions both authorized and otherwise in the first half of the nineteenth century. Hester Rogers wrote to John Wesley from Dublin in January, 1788:
The Christmas festival was a most blessed season. On Christmas morning, at four o'clock, the preaching-house was well filled, and God was truly present to bless; many were awakened, and some converted. Four were justified at the watch-night on new year's eve. Several also found pardon at the love-feast, and many witnessed a good confession; but the time of renewing of covenant exceeded all; fourteen souls were that day born of God; some at their classes, and the rest at the sweet, solemn season of the covenant. The house was truly shaken by the power of God. . .it was none other than the ante-chamber of glory to my soul.1
There could be no better introduction than this singularly powerful account of the three distinctive means of grace embodied in the life of early Methodism--beyond the preaching service and the sharing where permitted or desired in the sacramental life.
None of these worship acts buttressing deeper spiritual formation were the creation of John Wesley or his immediate cohorts. Wesley borrowed from a deep well of resources, but added features that were peculiarly his own. The intention of all three of the worship experiences to which Rogers referred was to offer further opportunities for believers to "build each other up" and the convicted to encounter transforming grace. The completed tapestry had a Wesley weave, but the cloth was extracted from the practice of the Apostolic church, later developments in both Eastern and Western Christendom, German Pietism, English Puritanism, the Reformed Covenantal tradition, Laudian and Caroline schools of high Anglicanism, and the Moravians. The Watchnight was envisaged as an evangelical manifestation of the vigils of the early church, made all the more powerful by the warmth of zeal and commitment. The Lovefeast was seen as having its vital roots in the Agape of the New Testament, revived by the Unitas Fratrum. It was to be the Methodist feast of Christian love, testimony and song, preferred by so very many to the Eucharist itself. The Renewal of the Covenant had the fullness of biblical authority and perfectly expressed that covenant of grace that Christians must appropriate constantly.
That many within the Wesleyan/Methodist stream of faith today have never even heard of Covenants, Watchnights, and Love-feasts is sad but nevertheless true. British Methodism and her daughter churches around the world retain the Covenant, but it is now a far cry from three hours of penetrating self examination. The imperious majesty of the awesome words of the original form have given way to something considerably more accommodating to the tenor of the twentieth-century spiritual climate. Yet even this accommodation remains too challenging for many. Worship on the first Sunday of a new year is frequently set amidst plentiful empty seats. The Watchnight lingers, but many churches no longer open their doors for the midnight service on the last day of the old year. Christmas eve Eucharist has largely replaced it, but Evangelical Anglicans have adopted it in many places. The Love-feast suffered from neglect, followed by almost its total loss after the 1880s. Happily, here and there it is having a resurgence, both as a Wesleyan/Methodist expression and, in a more liturgically orientated form. almost as a neo-sacrament at ecumenical gatherings. A few places have maintained a continuity of practice extending more than two hundred and fifty years.2
It would be a tragedy if these distinct expressions of God's people in deep encounter with Christ were ever to be confined to short paragraphs and brief footnotes in standard historiographical studies. The very glory that so frequently surrounded them has the right to demand some attention. They might well ask of us who seek to serve the present age whether their decline has been to our great loss.3
The Love-Feast
The Christian fellowship meal which heightened the concept of love among believers was from its foundation closely related to the Eucharist. Precisely how and in what form is a matter of some historical dispute, but the coupling of the two is beyond question.4 That it degenerated into squabbles over food allocation and took on the status of something of a charitable deed towards the poor cannot be denied. Its spiritual content was never entirely extinguished, however, as vestiges of the Agape still appear in the rituals of the Eastern Orthodox churches. As late as 407, Chrysostom recalled "a custom most beautiful and most beneficial; for it was a supporter of love, a solace of poverty, and a discipline of humility."5 Frank Baker sees a faint survival in England in the granting of especially minted coins to the "worthy poor" by the sovereign on Maundy Thursday. Since this once included foot-washing as a symbol of the humility that should ideally be a mark of regal power, the origins of the Maundy distribution probably belong elsewhere, largely in the traditions of early English Christianity.6
John Wesley was well aware of primitive practice, but made no claim to being a full restorationist. He first encountered the meal of celebration in Savannah, Georgia, on Monday, August 8, 1737. This was only ten years after its re-introduction by Zinzendorf among the Brethren in Herrnhut. Following Anglican prayers that evening:
. . .we joined with the Germans in one of their love-feasts. It was begun and ended with thanksgiving and prayer, and celebrated in so decent and solemn a manner as a Christian of the apostolic age would have allowed to be worthy of Christ.7
It was the apostolicity of the practice that made a distinctive appeal to Wesley at this stage of his spiritual pilgrimage. The form existing among the Moravians in Georgia was ultimately to bear only a partial resemblance to the later normative Methodist pattern. Following his evangelical awakening Wesley visited the Moravians in Germany for three months in the summer of 1738. Here he formed somewhat mixed impressions, but remained totally convinced of the value of the Love-feast.
On his return to England and again taking up some responsible leadership in the Fetter Lane Society, it is hardly surprising that this largely but not entirely Moravian group should have adopted Rules which included the provision once a month of an evening ". . .general Love-feast, from seven till ten."8 The simple and quietly devout feasts that he had encountered in America and Germany began to radically change. Whether it was by design or under the powerful leading and aegis of the Holy Spirit aiding the glow and fervor of people recently renewed, remains beyond present historical knowledge. The Rules became well nigh meaningless when on new year's day, 1738:
Mr. Hall, Kinchin, Ingham, Whitefield, Hutchins, and my brother Charles were present at our love-feast at Fetter Lane, with about sixty of our brethren. About three in the morning, as we were continuing instant in prayer, the power God came mightily upon us, inasmuch that many cried out for exceeding joy, and many fell to the ground. As soon as we were recovered a little from that awe and amazement at the presence of His majesty we broke out with one voice: "We praise Thee, O God; we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord."9
This record of an all-male assembly reads almost like the reunion of a large segment of the Holy Club. Something touched so vitally by God could not be restricted, and a Love-feast for women took place at Fetter Lane on February 18, 1739. Thereafter there were alternative feasts for men and women every two weeks in London. Bristol then followed where the first was for the women of the Society on April 9. The separation of the sexes had been a common practice among the Moravians, but this broke down quite early among the Methodists. "General" feasts became the norm even though that there was no mixed seating for several years. When this became common knowledge outside the Societies, it provided a platform for the salacious to accuse Wesley's people of carnality of the worst kind. The name Love-feast was alone sufficient to trigger wild imaginations and produce disgustingly scurrilous broadsides.10 Well before 1740 came to a close the Love-feast had become an established feature on the calendar of all the major Societies. James Hutton, the Moravian book-seller, would occasionally lead the London gatherings, and this was a recognition that presidency at the Love-feast could differ from that demanded at the Eucharist.
Disputations over the stillness controversy broke out at a general Love-feast on April 13, 1740, at Fetter Lane. Charles Wesley was broken-hearted at "finding so little love, and so much dispute.... Our brother Hodges next began talking at random.... The women stopped his mouth."11 The contention came to a crucial head on July 20, and John Wesley's chosen stage was a Love-feast. He presented his views with conviction, making it perfectly plain that it was strictly a "choose you this day" ultimatum. The quietists denial of the need for any of the ordinances, or even the reading of the scriptures before the full enlightenment of faith as they understood it, was declared an affront and "flatly contrary to the word of God." The atmosphere must have been electric as Wesley asked all those of the same judgment to "follow me." Only eighteen or nineteen did so, the majority of them women.12 On Wednesday of that week, Wesley's "little company" met at the Foundry, and the first distinctly Methodist Society was born.
The popularity of the Love-feast was enhanced by the absence of the Lord's Supper, except in the larger Societies where the few ordained associates of the Wesley's were able to make a modicum of provision. This led to monthly celebrations in many places, but the more usual and later settled practice was to hold them quarterly.13 John Wesley's own vivid description in his Plain Account of the People Called Methodists is strong on background but frail on detail:
In order to increase. . .a grateful sense of all his mercies, I desired that, one evening in a quarter, all the men in band, on a second, all the women, would meet; and on a third, both men and women together; that we might together "eat bread" as the ancient Christians did, "with gladness and singleness of heart." At these love-feasts (so we termed them, retaining the name, as well as the thing, which was in use from the beginning) our food is only a little plain cake and water. But we seldom return from them without being fed, not only with the "meat which perisheth," but with "that which endureth to eternal life."14
The food was no more than symbolic, a small portion of cake or bread. Cake was preferred so that there could be no confusion with the elements in the Eucharist. Water, or occasionally tea, was the chosen drink. Wine was never used for the same reason as bread, but there are accounts of it being introduced in some places by non-Wesleyans in the following century. It thus differed from the much fuller meals at Love-feasts served from time to time by the Moravians, the Dunkers (Church of the Brethren), and some other Anabaptist bodies. Large and often individually produced loving cups, with texts, figures, or the name of the Society on them, were passed from hand to hand rather than personally handled by the presiding preacher. The imagery of a common servanthood was thus allied to that of a common meal. Vital as this time of sharing was, most participants would consider it peripheral to the heart of the feast. By far the greater part of any Methodist celebration was occupied with open praise, singing, testimony, prayer, preaching, and calls for deeper discipleship. Brief reports on the Lord's work in other places might be given by visitors from other Societies. No set form was demanded and it was never circumscribed by the boundaries of liturgy. At the same time, it possessed all the necessary elements of a dynamic liturgy for it was truly "lay-work."
The hymnody associated with the feasts was carefully selected. Charles Wesley's Love-feast, first published in the 1740 edition of Hymns and Sacred Poems, has invariably been sung in some version to the present time. In the original form it had four distinct parts, each with four eight-line verses and a further part containing six.15 Countless thousands in the first eighty years of British Methodism would know the thrill of waiting for the opening of a Love-feast, always marked by the lining out of:
Come and let us sweetly join
Christ to praise in hymns divine;
Give we all, with one accord.
Glory to our common Lord.
Hands and hearts and voices raise;
Sing as in the ancient days;
Antedate the joys above,
Celebrate the feast of love.
Other Wesley hymns commonly associated with the occasion included "All thanks to the Lamb who gave us to meet..." and the still very familiar "All praise to our redeeming Lord, who joins us by his grace." Doddridge's "O Happy day that fixed my choice..." (from a non-Methodist source) was also popular, but the roof-lifting refrain was a later addition.16 Testimonies were expected to be lively and current. It was said that men and women who could barely speak a sentence of reasonable English in their common speech would often find a fluent "prayer language" in Love-feasts. John Wesley's lines (adapted from Zinzendorf), "Unloose our stammering tongues to tell..." became a common reality.
The discipline imposed upon entry to Love-feasts remained in place for most of the first hundred years of Methodism. For a short period, only members of the select bands, the inner core of the Society who could testify to salvation and the attainment of or serious pursuit of perfect love, could be present. This very soon gave way to the admittance of all who were members of a Society, those who "desired to be saved from their sins...." Stewards were appointed to ensure that an offering was taken for the poor fund and that none attended without producing a band or class ticket, or a written note by the itinerant. They were issued quarterly and had to be current. This practice was observed by all the branches of British Methodism, although only the Wesleyans retained the bands. The security notwithstanding, many slipped into feasts, sometimes on "borrowed" tickets, and found themselves under conviction. Two such became towering figures. William Clowes, powerful evangelist and co-founder with Hugh Bourne of Primitive Methodism, was told to "cover the name written on it with my thumb" at a feast in Burslem in 1805. The steward was of the zealous kind and:
examined them minutely.... A puff of wind came and blew the door-keeper's candle out. I presented him my ticket. . .he called for another light, just as he was going to read my ticket, another puff came, and away went his light.... The man. . . hastily pushed back the ticket into my hand saying: "Move on." So I passed into the gallery of the chapel.17
Jabez Bunting, the imperiously magisterial power broker of the Wesleyan connection for so much of the nineteenth century, often repeated: "Many attribute their conversion to their having attended a love-feast; I owe mine to having been shut out of one."18 When the great Joseph Benson was the Superintendent preacher in Manchester, he was happy to relax the requirement of a ticket for those young people who might be won for the Lord. The youthful Bunting had attended feasts several times, sharing his mother's class ticket. When Alexander Mather succeeded Benson, traditional discipline was restored. Now shut out, Bunting was brought to the point of deep inner searching and "once for all renounced sin."
Revivals, both local and spreading over a wide area, frequently began and continued through Love-feasts.19 Greatly used in these outpourings were figures on the revivalist wing of Wesleyanism, both lay and itinerant. Among the former were those who could be described as specialist practioners of the Love-feast, such as "Praying Nanny" Cutler, whom William Bramwell, the key man among the revivalists, believed was the main instrument in the great Yorkshire revival that began shortly after the death of Wesley.20 Quaint Sammy Hick and William Dawson were also mightily used. All the leading ministerial figures who stood for revivals against the increasing opposition of the Wesleyan Conference to "exciteable religion" fervently believed in Love-feasts as instruments for the promotion of heart faith. Bramwell, a man as mighty in prayer as preaching, John Smith, David Stoner, Hodgson Casson, and Thomas Collins constantly called for them.21 Expressions such as "irresistible," "the power of the grace of entire sanctification," "the power of God so fell," "with reluctance they departed," "voices could scarce be heard," and "I have got it!," abound in magazine accounts and biographies. Long after regular Love-feasts had given way to straight prayer meetings and "tea gatherings" in the major Wesleyan body and most of the smaller offshoots, the Primitive Methodists retained the circuit quarterly celebrations.22 With the exception of some isolated reports from Ireland, they were never associated in British Methodism with Quarterly Meetings.23
The Watchnight
The Watchnight had as much of an ancient lineage as the Lovefeast. The roots ran deep in the traditional nights of prayer in the early church and the watching and praying associated with our Lord in the garden.24 The precise date of its introduction by John Wesley is uncertain. His account of its beginnings as a specific act of worship within the United Societies is clear enough, but, somewhat surprisingly, the Journal is silent as to the day or even month. On March 12, 1742, what was probably the second Bristol Watchnight took place.25 The first was very definitely in Kingswood, near Bristol, where the Methodist Watchnight was introduced to counteract the "wild carousals of the Kingswood miners" on Saturday nights. Many of the Methodist converts had participated in the crude and drunken ribaldry in former days.26 Wesley makes no mention of this in his own account, but the known rough and miserable state of the Kingswood community gives it the ring of truth. Note:
About this time, I was informed that several persons in Kingswood frequently met together at the school; and when they could spare the time, spent the greater part of the night in prayer, and praise, and thanksgiving. Some advised me to put an end to this; but, upon weighing the thing thoroughly, and comparing it with the practice of the ancient Christians, I could see no cause to forbid it. Rather, I believed it might be made of more general use. So I sent them word, I designed to watch with them on the Friday nearest the full moon, that we might have light thither and back again. I gave public notice of this the Sunday before. . .that I intended to preach; desiring that they, and they only, would meet me there.... On Friday abundance of people came. . .we continued till a little beyond the noon of night, singing, praying, and praising God. This we have continued to do once a month ever since, in Bristol, London, and Newcastle, as well as Kingswood; and exceeding great are the blessings we have found therein....27
"About this time" strongly suggests the introduction of the Watchnight at or near the time of the beginning of the class meeting, for it immediately follows this account in the text. This can be confidently dated as February 15, 1742.28 The school in question was that established by Wesley for the people of Kingswood and their children. As with the Love-feast, Wesley demanded the credibility that came from the practices of the "ancient Christians." It meant for him more than the authority of the forms of worship discernable within the New Testament. It had to include the total record of God's people as displayed in the writings of the Ante-Nicene fathers. Nothing could be rejected out of hand up to the reign of Constantine. By 1748, when he wrote his Plain Account of the People Called Methodists, he was able to confront some of the criticism of Watchnights. Having asserted that "the word of God sunk deep into the heart, even of those who until then knew him not," he faced the accusers or the uncomfortable:
If it be said, "This was only owing to the novelty of the thing. . .or perhaps the awful silence of the night," I am not careful to answer in this matter. Be it so: However, the impression then made on many souls has never since been effaced. . . allowing that God did make use either of the novelty or any other indifferent circumstance, in order to bring sinners to repentance, yet they are brought. If. . .either by the novelty of this ancient custom, or by any other indifferent circumstance, it is in my power to "save a soul from death, and hide a multitude of sins," am I clear before God if I do it not, if I do not snatch that brand out of the burning?29
John Bishop argues that Wesley shared in Moravian Watchnights in London long before the Kingswood event. That may be true, but the dates that Bishop gives to support his contention, namely the last day of the year in both 1739 and 1740, cannot be verified from the Journal.30 On December 31, 1739, Wesley simply records the long and disturbing conversation with Molther, the leading protagonist among the Moravians for the "quietist" or "stillness" position. The last day of 1740 found him in Kingswood, where a powerful evening service took place, including the presence of many from Bristol. Wesley does not state that it was a Watchnight, and there was no Moravian connection.
Yet it cannot be doubted that, as with the Love-feast, the diet of Moravian worship had a profound effect on Wesley.31 At the same time, it was no mere copying. Under his leadership it took on different characteristics. The Wesleyan spirit would inject fervor and fire into any framework that was adopted. This was especially true of the crucial areas of worship and devotion. Wesley fused together in his heart and mind a rainbow coalition and tried and tested it in the life of the Societies. The coloring came from the Prayer Book of the English church, the preaching tradition of Puritanism at its best and most open, and radical continental Pietism as interpreted by the Moravians. It was from the last of these that Wesley gained the highest inspiration for Watchnights, but he was also wide awake to the knowledge that all-night prayer gatherings were a feature of Puritanism, both inside the established church and among the Independents. More important than any proven or probable modifications that he made from the traditions of a wider Christendom was the constant overriding preference for that which could be shown as established among the "ancient Christians."
Nights of prayer, or prayer and praise, while clearly having a kinship, must not be identified with the Watchnight celebration. Some of the early ones did extend well beyond the midnight hour, and especially if preceded by a Love-feast as was the custom in some areas. But this was unusual. The timing "at half an hour past eight. . .till a little after midnight" was the general practice.32 Whole nights spent in prayer by the people of God can be stimulated by a constellation of reasons. Watchnights were for a particular reason and planned at a particular season. Following the Moravian practice, the first London Watchnights took place on Friday evenings nearest the full moon. John Wesley referred to it as a "solemn service," "a particular blessing," and that "generally there was a deep awe on the congregation, perhaps in some measure owing to the silence of the night...."33 Reviewing the Watchnights after several years of use, Wesley declared: "It has generally been an extremely solemn season; when the word of God sunk deep into the heart, even of those who till then knew him not."34 The "Watching" in the Watchnight was the "watching unto prayer," the watching for the Lord's outpouring, and the watching of eschatological expectancy. This was largely understood in a realized sense; the Kingdom as here and now in the rapture of praise and the majesty of Christ's light symbolized by hundreds of candles challenging the night. Nor did this end when the service closed. After the Bristol Watchnight held on March 12, 1742, Wesley reported:
The Lord was gloriously with us at the watch-night; so that my voice was lost in the cries of the people. After midnight, about a hundred of us walked home together, singing, and rejoicing, and praising God.35
Traditions peculiar to certain regions such as Scotland, Wales, Cornwall and the West, the Midlands, and the North, both on the East and West side, have always been part of the British Methodist heritage. The writer recalls from his first appointment in Yorkshire the post-Watchnight practice of joining hands around the outside of the church and lustily rendering a very localized version of "Hail shining Morn" to immediately welcome the new year. The church historian had found references to this practice as far back as 1833. Other Methodist and Wesleyan Reform churches in the area did precisely the same thing, except that they were not agreed on the choice of hymn.
As the monthly or quarterly Watchnights gradually gave way to a single annual celebration associated with the new year, the eschatological strand, as distinctive as in the Covenant, became ever more pronounced. The day and time encouraged such concepts, and the Watchnight hymns, so powerfully important in creating the character of the service, resounded with a cry for Christ's millennium. None personified this better than Charles Wesley's:
Come, let us anew
Our journey pursue,
Roll round with the year,
And never stand still till the Master appear.
The arrow is flown,
The moment is gone;
The millennial year
Rushes on to our view, and eternity's here.
O that each in the day
of His coming may say,
"I have fought my way through,
I have finished the work thou didst give me to do!"
O that each from his Lord
May receive the glad word,
"Well and faithfully done!
Enter into my joy, and sit down on my throne."36
Joy, mingled with a measured solemnity and the final advent hope, feature prominently in a hymn which was the only one actually headed "Watch-nights" in Wesley's Hymns:
Join, all ye ransomed sons of grace,
The holy joy prolong,
And shout to the Redeemer's praise
A solemn midnight song.
Blessing, and thanks, and love, and might,
Be to our Jesus given,
Who turns our darkness into light,
Who turns our hell to heaven.
Thither our faithful souls he leads,
Thither he bids us rise,
With crowns of joy upon our heads,
To meet him in the skies.37
How incomparably glorious compared to so many weak and "meatless" ditties which all too many Wesleyan people now have sadly become accustomed to as their main sustenance. Those within the heritage who neglect the very best representation of our sung faith and creed are in peril of being absorbed within the somewhat mediocre orbit of much that passes for evangelical hymnology.
Other hymns linked to the Watchnight were Charles Wesley's "Sing to the great Jehovah's praise" and "Captain of Israel's host, and Guide."38 Later in the nineteenth century, Frances Ridley Havergal's "Standing at the portal of the opening year" and "Another year is dawning" became firm favorites. Two and sometimes three preachers were used at Watchnights in some of the smaller Methodist bodies. Margaret Adams, who became an itinerant with the Bible Christians,39 testified that she was "invited to a Watchnight at Goosham Mill, and out of curiosity I went. I took no heed. . . being careless, but when a third preacher began. . .he described my character. . .I gave myself to God." She fell to the ground, and cried so loudly that the preacher could not go on. She said that "the false curls under my bonnet felt they were on fire, and I would have cut off my hair if I had scissors!"40 Watchnights served not only as an agency for mission, but also featured a degree of social control. August 1, 1834, was the vesting day for the absolute abolition of slavery in Jamaica. The island authorities feared rioting and disruption. Instead there was complete calm. Several thousands had gathered in the Methodist churches on the island, spending the final hours to midnight in great Watchnights. At the moment of emancipation, it was said the Doxology could be heard ringing throughout the night.41
The level of denunciation aimed at the Love-feast was more than maintained with the Watchnight. Robert Southey, the Poet Laureate, stormed: "The Watch-night was another of Wesley's objectionable institutions.... Mr Wesley disregarded the offence which he gave, by renewing a practice that had notoriously been abolished, because of the obvious to which it led."42 John Baily, an Irish Anglican, felt threatened by "midnight assemblies" and considered Wesley to be a "harebrained enthusiast." He replied by asking Baily if he had ever read the Prayer Book, with its mention of vigils, and reminded him that he had "the authority of our own national church as well as the universal church, in the earliest ages."43 Strong implications of sexual immorality were contained in the worst of the satirical lampoons. The anonymous writers of Fanatical Conversion and Perfection were particularly abusive. The former claimed that the length of the Watchnight service was to heighten the expectancy and anticipation of unspeakable doings involving "yielding saints," whom "John's Exorcists" would make "pregnant sinners."44 The second author made his vulgar challenge in gross doggerel:
Preaching LUBBERS, who have dropp'd their PACK;
In watch-night Labours prove themselves not slack,
Thro' Calls of Love to tender Scenes advance,
And slide into Adult'ry in a Trance?45
Old as it is, the riposte of Abel Stevens is surely sufficient: "These meetings are public, and their supposed possible evils are unknown, except in the conjecture of writers who have never witnessed them."46 It was true, as Charles Wesley wrote of the Kingswood miners, that "Oft have we passed the guilty night, In revellings and frantic mirth," but now:
We will not close our wakeful eyes,
We will not let our eyelids sleep,
But humbly lift them to the skies,
And all a solemn vigil keep;
So many years on sin bestowed,
Can we not watch one night for God?47
The Renewal of the Covenant
The origin, subsequent history, and "doctrine as worship" features of the Covenant are by far the most complex of the three distinctives examined here. At the same time, the Covenant has received more scholarly attention than the Love-feast and much more than the Watchnight.48 John Wesley gave deep and long consideration to this penetrating and searchingly moving service before very carefully and with solid preparation presenting it for the consideration of the Methodist people. In his Short History of the People Called Methodists, completed in late 1781, Wesley traced the beginnings:
August 6, 1755, I mentioned to our congregation in London, a means of increasing serious religion, which had been frequently practiced by our forefathers--the joining in a covenant to serve God with all our heart and with all our soul. I explained this for several mornings following: And on Friday many of us kept a fast unto the Lord; beseeching Him to give us wisdom and strength, that we might "promise unto the Lord our God, and keep it." On Monday, at six in the evening, we met for that purpose at the French church in Spitalfields. After I had recited the tenor of the covenant proposed, in the words of that blessed man, Richard Alleine, all the people stood up, in token of assent, to the number of about eighteen hundred. Such a night I scarce ever knew before. Surely the fruit of it shall remain for ever.49
John Wesley recorded some ten occasions when the service was held in the French church before the opening of the chapel in City Road, and there may have been others.50 It has been argued that this was because of his sensibilities on the necessity of a consecrated building for the celebration of the Lord's Supper. Wesley placed little or no store by such considerations, and it is far more likely that it was simply a matter of a building large enough to seat the congregation.51 Preparation for the first Covenant was meticulous, and in an entirely different category than the Love-feast and Watchnight. It was by explanation and catechising in depth. Full-length preparatory services were a common feature, especially in places where they were to engage in their first Covenant. Fasting and prayer, the appeal to historical continuity, and the generating of expectancy were all significant for Wesley. The original Covenant service was long. The form set forth by Joseph Alleine, based in part on the work of his kinsman Richard Alleine and prepared by Wesley for inclusion in his Christian Library, would occupy well over an hour in a worship context, quite apart from hymns, further prayers, and readings and an exhortation.52 David Tripp rightly observes that it is difficult to find any significant event in the summer of 1755 which might have led John Wesley to conceive of such a service.53 The awakening was in its seventeenth year, and Wesley may have considered that, while the breadth of the work was ever increasing, something was lacking in regard to its depth. Disciplined discipleship had to be evoked.
If we cannot trace the defining moment of Wesley's passionate wish to share the covenantal relationship of the believer with the beloved through a solemn affirmation, the sources that fed it can be identified. But perhaps more important is the need to recognize how vital covenant theology was for John Wesley.54 Renewal of the Covenant defined something that had gone before. It was not a new relationship to be honored and marked, but one established by God, first with God's original people and now with the new Israel. It demanded particular reminder and renewal with gathered witnesses at least annually. The covenant of grace was operative from baptism; it was therefore a reinforcement of baptismal vows.55 It was also a renewal of all the limitless promises arising from the new birth, for baptism without regeneration had no permanent validity.56 God's covenant with his people was therefore re-enacted firstly by initiation and then actualization and made the contractural demand of being re-confirmed through individual and collective renewal.57 In Methodist thought the strong association of both sacraments with covenantal theology and typology has raised problems, consciously or otherwise, in assessing the importance of such a singular and isolated act as the Covenant Renewal.58 Its lack of use in the United States may not be entirely due to its omission from the Sunday Service of the Methodists, compiled by Wesley. Neither can it be totally explained by the long periods of anti-liturgical preference in American Methodism. There may well have been some recognition that the Lord's Supper had built within it such a recognizable motif of covenantal renewal that an added gloss such as the Covenant service could diminish that content.59
An element of mystery surrounds the means by which John Wesley distributed the text of the Directions. Apart from the form in volume 30 of his Christian Library, a work hardly likely to be carried by the preachers or retained in many chapels, the text was not published until 1780.60 David Tripp, while rightly identifying Wesley's motivation for the Covenant service as originating in a form of prayer devised by Joseph Alleine in about 1659, with additional directions and the Covenant Prayer itself extracted from Richard Alleine's Vindiciae Pietatis published in 1663, insists that there were further influences. The scriptural content is obvious, as is the more general Puritan emphasis on covenant theology and the practice of personal covenanting as a contract of faithfulness to God.61 Somewhat less obvious is Tripp's observation that there is a Laudian or old-type High Anglican connection.62 Such churchmen advocated no service in any way similar to the Covenant Renewal, but the principle ran strongly through both the Confirmation rite and the Communion order where both acts were envisaged as the renewing of the baptismal promises. Samuel Wesley seemingly made much of covenant theology in his work, The Pious Communicant Rightly Prepared (1700), insisting: "...because there are few who have come of age without being guilty of some breaches of this Covenant, we do, after we have taken it upon ourselves in Confirmation, renew it again at the Holy Communion."63
One should tread warily, however, in pressing this line of influence. Reformed theology as a whole is drenched with covenantal concepts, including its view of the sacraments. This is acknowledged by David Tripp who otherwise meticulously searches for origins in all manner of places: "It may fairly be said that the starting-point of Methodist dogmatic theology in the early nineteenth century, at least on the subject of the Covenant, is in chapters VII, XXVIII, and XXIX of the Confession of Faith of the Westminster Assembly, adjusted by the Methodist convictions on God's universal love, on free will and on the peccability of believers."64
Wherever else in Wesley's reading and experience, apart from the Alleine Puritan devotions, he appropriated the design of Covenant Renewal, the Moravians played little or no part. He had been present at what J. E. Hutton describes as the practice of the "The Cup of Covenant" at Herrnhut in 1738, but it did not approach a Renewal as Wesley understood it. It consisted largely of a celebration of the covenant of faith between believers on the occasion of the sending out of missionaries, although they did sing a hymn described as the Brethren's Covenant Hymn.65 Direct indebtedness to the Moravians has been claimed, but C. W. Towlson is surely correct in his judgment that "...it is improbable that Methodism owes anything to Moravianism in this respect."66
At least thirteen editions of the Directions appeared before 1812. Even so, as late as 1888 the service was not incorporated in the Wesleyan Order of Administration of the Sacraments. Emendations were frequently made to the text and surviving copies used by preachers consistently display much deletion and changing of words. This was always in the direction of a discernable softening of much of the awesome language of the original, and an obvious desire to shorten the pre-sacramental service by reducing the ten-part Covenant Prayer.67 By the mid-nineteenth century, Methodists had problems with such language as: "O Most dreadful God. . .I beseech thee accept of thy poor Prodigal now prostrating himself at thy door," or "O blessed Jesus, I come to thee hungry, wretched, miserable, blind, and naked; a most loathsome, polluted wretch, a guilty, condemned malefactor."68 Revisions were made by the Wesleyans in 1879 and 1897. British Methodists of all persuasions had some form of Covenant service, although they differed considerably in length and content. With the exception of the Methodist New Connection and Wesleyan Reformers, it never claimed the same allegiance among the dissenting bodies.
The service for the Renewal of the Covenant is still held on the first Sunday in January in every Methodist church. Sometimes congregations will unite for the occasion. The once exceedingly long preamble is now reduced to quite short prayers of Adoration and Confession. The nature of the Covenant relationship is set forth, and the invitation given. The Covenant Prayer is a highly truncated version of the original, but both the spirit and content of its essential obligations remain. We might ask whether there could ever be a deeper consecration:
I am no longer my own, but yours. Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will; put me to doing, put me to suffering; let me be employed for you or laid aside for you, exalted for you or brought low for you; let me be full, let me be empty; let me have all things, let me have nothing; I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things to your pleasure and disposal. And now, glorious and blessed God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, you are mine and I am yours. So be it. And the covenant now made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.69
Endnotes
1The Experience and Spiritual Letters of Mrs Hester Ann Rogers: with a sermon preached on the occasion of her death by the Rev. Thomas Coke, LL.D. Also an Appendix written by her husband (Halifax: William Milner, 1855), 141-142.
2A barn Love-feast at Alport, set in a remote part of the Derbyshire Dales has been held regularly under Methodist auspices for at least two hundred and forty years. Long before that the building was used by a Puritan conventicle. Frank Baker, Methodism and the Love-Feast (London: Epworth, 1957), 57; Leslie F. Church, More About the Early Methodist People, (London: Epworth, 1949), 238-9.
3The four-volume History of the Methodist Church in Great Britain (London: Epworth, 1965, 1978, 1983, 1988) sadly demonstrates this. In his exposition "The People Called Methodists, The Means of Grace," 1:259-73, A. Raymond George devotes less than a single page to the "institutions" of Love-feast, Watchnight, and Covenant Service. There are other scattered and brief references, but the Covenant, in spite of its current use, fares particularly badly. Love-feasts are given somewhat more attention.
4The most thorough study of the Love-feast remains that of R. Lee Cole, Love-Feasts: A History of the Christian Agape (London: Epworth, 1916), but it contains little on Wesleyan usage. Frank Baker's comparatively short study of 1957 is helpful, both historically and as a practical guide. See also Church, 237-42.
5Cited by Baker, 9.
6Ibid.
7The Journal of the Rev. John Wesley, A.M., Ed. Nehemiah Curnock (London: Epworth, 1909), I:377.
8The Works of John Wesley (Jackson), reprint ed. (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press, 1979), I:93.
9Ibid., 170.
10The unknown writer of The Love-Feast: A Poem (London: n.p., 1778) waxed lyrical on the supposed sexual orgies taking place in the Love-feasts:
There Saints, new born, lascivious Orgies hold,
Meek Lambs by Day, at Night no Wolves so bold,
There the new Adam tries the old one's Fort,
And Children of the Light in Darkness sport...
Revealing his ignorance, the author confuses the chalice used in the Eucharist with the Love-feast, and his lampoon does not stop at accusing the Methodists of incest:
Together wanton pairs promiscuous run,
Brothers with Sisters, Mothers with a Son:
Fathers, perhaps with yielding Daughters meet,
And Converts find their Pastor's Doctrines sweet;
Pure Souls are fir'd with Love's divinest Spark
And Paradise is open'd in the Dark. (p. 28)
For satirical attacks on Methodism, see Albert M. Lyles, Methodism Mocked (London: Epworth, 1960), especially chap. 5, "Satire of Methodist Practices," 82-95.
11The Journal of The Rev. Charles Wesley, M.A. (Jackson), reprint ed. (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press, 1980), I:216-17.
12Works (Jackson), I:282.
13Frank Baker, A Charge to Keep (London: Epworth, 1947), 120.
14Works (Jackson), VIII:258-9.
15The Works of John Wesley (Bicentenial Edition), vol. 7, A Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodists, ed. Franz Hildebrandt and Oliver A. Beckerlegge, with James Dale (Nashville: Abingdon, 1983), 695-700 for textual and historical analysis of the hymn. This was Wesley's definitive hymn book of 1780. The 1875 edition, with the supplement generally known as Wesley's Hymns, retained the whole text but divided it into four distinct hymns (519, 520, 521, and 522). In the Methodist Hymn Book of 1933 the first verse was divided into eight four-line stanzas (748) and the third part of the original, "Let us join 'tis God commands," is set as a separate hymn (713). In the current British Methodist hymnal, Hymns and Psalms, the form is much nearer the original, being retained as a single hymn, but in two parts with a total of twelve four-line verses (756).
16Frank Baker, Methodism and the Love-Feast, 17-24, for hymns associated with the Love-feast. He points out the link between these hymns and the singing of grace before food. It cannot be claimed that the practice entirely owes its genesis to the Love-feast, but there is certainly an association.
17John T. Wilkinson, William Clowes 1780-1851 (London: Epworth, 1951), 18, citing the Journals of William Clowes (London: Primitive Methodist Book-Room, 1844).
18T. Percival Bunting and G. Stringer Rowe, The Life of Jabez Bunting, D.D. (London: T. Woolmer, 1887), 34.
19This was especially true of the great Yorkshire revivals which began in the 1790s and had an increasing influence well into the 1820s under men such as William Bramwell and others. Cornwall witnessed many revivals where Love-feasts played a highly prominent and frequently emotional role. Adam Clarke recorded several cases of divine healing in Love-feasts associated with a powerful revival in the the Channel Islands (Adam Clarke to John Wesley, July, 1789, cited in R. D. Moore, Methodism in the Channel Islands, London: Epworth, 1952, 55-56).
20For the work of Bramwell and Ann Cutler, and the effect both spiritually and bodily of Yorkshire Love-feasts, see Michael R. Watts, The Dissenters, vol.II, The Expansion of Evan-gelical Nonconformity 1791-1859 (Oxford: OUP, 1995), 65-67.
21The "Primitive Wesleyan" or Revivalist band of preachers, itinerant and lay, were totally convinced of the value of Love-feasts in the work of revivals, long after the rite had settled down in many places as a testimony meeting with bread or cake and water. This raised disciplinary questions because of regulations limiting attendance to those in Society, and the revivalists' conviction that Love-feasts, like the Supper of our Lord, could be a "saving ordinance."
22The Methodist Recorder, Winter Number, 1896, 49-50.
23Frank Baker, Methodism and the Love-Feast, 54, 62.
24Church, 241-2.
25Henry Bett, The Spirit of Methodism (London: Epworth, 1937), 57; John Bishop, Methodist Worship in Relation to Free Church Worship (Scholars Studies Press, 1975), 92-94; Henry D. Rack, Reasonable Enthusiast: John Wesley and the Rise of Methodism (London: Epworth, 1989), 411-412.
26Works (Jackson), I, 263.
27William Myles, A Chronological History of the People Called Methodists (London: Wesleyan Conference Office, fourth ed., 1813), 56; Church, 242-243.
28Works (Jackson), VIII, 255-256.
29Ibid., I, 397.
30Ibid., VIII, 256.
31Bishop, 93.
32J. H. Overton, John Wesley (London: Methuen, 1891), 30, from an Anglican perspective seeks to root not only Watchnights but also class-meetings in Wesley's admiration for apostolic practice, thus discounting Moravian influence. C. H. Towlson, Moravian and Methodist: Relationships and Influences in the Eighteenth Century (London: Epworth, 1957), 216-20, ultimately decides for Moravian origins, as do most commentators. Rack, 411, states: "The watchnight has been claimed, much less plausibly, as an importation from the Moravians," but he cites no reasons for this judgment. Obviously, the precedent of the early church cannot be discounted.
33Works (Jackson), I, 364.
34Ibid.
35Ibid., VIII, 256.
36Originally in Hymns for New Year's Day (1749) and A Collection of Hymns for the People Called Methodists (1780), 45. The Works of John Wesley (Bicentennial Ed.), Vol. 7, 136-137; Methodist Hymn Book (1933), 956; Hymns and Psalms (1983), 354.
37Not in the Watchnight selection in the 1780 collection. In Wesley's Hymns (1875), 976; Methodist Hymn Book, 960.
38The former was the last of the seven hymns in Hymns for New Year's Day (Bristol: 1750), with a continuity in Wesley's Hymns, 979; The Methodist Hymn Book (New) (Wesleyan Methodist New Connexion and Wesleyan Reform Union, 1904), 931; Methodist Hymn Book, 959; Hymns and Psalms, 360. The glorious and all too short "Captain of Israel's Host" was first published in Short Hymns on Select Passages of Scripture, 1762. In the 1780 work, 317, and in every Wesleyan and Methodist post-1932 collection to the present. Amazingly, it is not in the United Methodist Hymnal (1989).
39A largely West Country and rural Methodist offshoot (as distinct from a schism) which existed from 1815 until 1907 when, with the Methodist New Connection and United Methodist Free Churches, it became part of the United Methodist Church (Great Britain). In turn, this church entered the much wider Methodist union of 1932, with the Wesleyan and Primitive Mtehodists. The Bible Christian work was largely centred on the poorer classes.
They were solidly Wesleyan in doctrine and highly revivalistic. Akin in ethos to the much larger Primitive Methodist Church, they also accepted women as itinerants from their earliest days. Again, like the Primitives, they abandoned the practice before the end the nineteenth century.
40Zechariah Taft, Biographical Sketches. . .of Holy Women, vol. II (Leeds: for the author, 1828), 256.
41Frank Baker, A Charge to Keep, 82.
42Robert Southey, The Life of John Wesley, ed. Arthur Reynolds (London: Hutchinson, 1903), 257.
43Works (Jackson), IX, 80-81; The Letters of John Wesley, ed. John Telford (London: Epworth, 1931), 3, 287.
44Fanatical Conversion; or, Methodism Displayed. A Satire. Illustrated and Verified by Notes from J. Wesley's Fanatical Journals... (London: 1779); and Perfection: A Poetical Epistle. Calmly Addressed to the Greatest Hypocrite in England (London: 1778), cited in Lyles, 91.
45"Lubbers," i.e., A lazy, clumsy, or ignorant fellow. One out of place, as in "Land-lubber," sailors' terminology for one unequal to the task. Reference to the background of many of Wesley's preachers.
46Abel Stevens, History of Methodism (London: James Hagger, n.d.), II, 189.
47First published in Hymns and Sacred Poems (1742); Bishop, 93-94.
48The best treatment of the Covenant is David Tripp, The Renewal of the Covenant in the Methodist Tradition (London: Epworth, 1968); an excellent historical and theological examination, but heavily analytical on liturgical minutia. Also, Frederick Hunter, "The Origins of Wesley's Covenant Service" (The London Quarterly & Holborn Review, January, 1939), 78-87; Frank Baker, "The Beginnings of the Methodist Covenant Service" (The London Quarterly & Holborn Review, July, 1955), 215-20; Rupert E. Davies, "The History and Theology of the Methodist Covenant Service" (Theology, February, 1961), 62-68.
49Works (Jackson), XIII, 337; the received opinion that this was the first Covenant service has not gone unchallenged. John S. Simon, John Wesley and the Advance of Methodism, London: Epworth, 1925, 97-98, took the exhortation to the Newcastle Society by Wesley on July 10, 1748, that they renew their covenant with God, and quoting Joseph Alleine, as the first such service. Frederick Hunter gives priority to January 1, 1748 (cited: 82), and likewise Frank Baker emphasizes the events of December, 1747 to January, 1748, as "experiments with a simple form of covenant" (cited: 215-216); similarly, in his Charge to Keep, 121-122, he claims that in 1755 "Wesley crystallized another type of service which he had already used." With Tripp (12-15), 1755 remains by far the most likely earliest date of a Covenant service properly understood as such. Covenant themes were regularly applied by Wesley to his people in the 1740s, including calls to personal renewal of God's covenant. But a strong covenant theme does not a Covenant service make.
50At first, Covenant services were restricted to the larger Societies such as London, Bristol, Newcastle, Dublin, and Cork. Known French Church usage: August 11, 1755, April 11, 1757, February 29, 1760, January 1, 1762, December 25, 1762, January 1, 1766, January 1, 1767, January 1, 1769, January 1, 1771, and January 1, 1772; here the pattern changing to New Year's day is clearly discernable. Later, the first Sunday in the year became the norm. Tripp, 16-25.
51John C. Bowmer, "John Wesley's Huguenot Chapels" (Wesley Historical Society Proceedings, XXVII), 26, projects the view of a consecrated building. Wesley's convictions are best seen in Works (Jackson), III, 195.
52The service of 1780 contains five long sections and a ten-part Covenant Prayer. In all, there are approximately five thousand words.
53Tripp, 27.
54Ibid., 108-112; this aspect has received relatively scant treatment in Wesleyan doctrinal and historical studies. It has no prominence even in the strongest attempt to tie John Wesley within the Reformed tradition (George Croft Cell, The Rediscovery of John Wesley, New York: Henry Holt, 1935). Of the classical theologians, William Burt Pope is fairly typical in emphasizing the covenantal aspects of the sacraments, rather than in any wider context (A Compendium of Christian Theology, London: Wesleyan Conference Office, 1879, III, 299-334). This vein has continued in sacramental studies such as Ole E. Borgen, John Wesley on the Sacraments (Grand Rapids, Francis Asbury Press, 1985), especially 136-139; Rob L. Staples, Outward Sign and Inward Grace (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press, 1991) where there is a strong recognition of covenantal connections throughout, and Gayle Carlton Felton, This Gift of Water (Nashville, Abingdon, 1992), especially 52-53. John Deschner, Wesley's Christology (Grand Rapids: Francis Asbury Press, 1988) has perhaps the most incisive comments on Wesley's approach to covenantal thought in recent years, seeing the problem of overlap from time to time with dispensational terminology in Wesley (extended footnote 15, 112-114). The covenant theme is also strong in Howard A. Snyder, The Radical Wesley (Downers Grove: Inter-Varsity Press, 1980), 113-116, 136, 139, 149-150, 160-162.
55This is made very clear in the text of the 1780 Covenant Service.
56Standard Sermons of John Wesley, ed. Edward H. Sugden (London: Epworth, 1935), Sermon XXXIX, "The New Birth," II, 242.
57For the strong association with renewing baptismal vows and the confirming aspect of the Covenant, see Tripp, chap. 5, "The Covenant and its Renewal in Methodist Thought," 106-131.
58For W. B. Pope, the sacraments are "seals of a covenant," A Higher Catechism of Theology (London: Wesleyan Methodist Book-Room, 1880), 333-334; if the seal, what further sealing is necessary, one might ask. Benjamin Field logically would appear to make a service such as the Covenant Renewal unnecessary: "[Baptism as a seal], on God's part is a visible assurance of this faithfulness to His covenant stipulations; and on our part a pledge by which we make ourselves party to the covenant, promising to fulfill its conditions," The Student's Handbook of Christian Theology, ed. J. C. Symons (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1894), 308. Other examples could be cited.
59This is not to say that the Covenant service has been entirely unknown in the United States. Its presence (in a very slightly modified form of the British Methodist service of 1936) in The Book of Worship for Church and Home (New York & Nashville: Methodist Publishing House, 1952), 46-53, signifies some use. It is here alongside "a Watch-Night Service or on the First Sunday of the New Year," but there are no Watchnight features in the service as published. It was not within the official Rituals of the Church, but one of many "Orders for Occasional Use." It is not in the current Rituals of the United Methodist Church, where the Baptismal services are now titled "The Baptismal Covenant."
60Thomas Lee, one of the preachers published the Covenant service minus for some reason the Covenant Prayer, prior to Wesley. It appeared as: An Extract from the Thirtieth Volume of the "Christian Library" published by the Rev. Mr. Wesley (Sheffield: 1779). He sent an advertisement to all his brethren. "Mr Wesley's reaction is not known."
61The writing of personal covenants was a common Puritan practice, as it was with many Methodists. Southey actually believed that some of them wrote in their own blood. This was vehemently denied by Jabez Bunting.
62Tripp, 63-68.
63Cited by Tripp, 8.
64Ibid., 112; Deschner, 112, also finds Westminster Confession structures in Wesley's thought. Whether free will in this period had such a prominent place in Methodist dogmatics (with the possible exception of a shift discernable in Richard Watson) is more conjectural.
65J. E. Hutton, A History of the Moravian Church, 224, cited in Tripp, 9.
66Towlson, 223.
67By comparison, the present service in The Methodist Service Book (London: Methodist Publishing House, 1975), 171-181, with Holy Communion, four or five hymns, and a sermon of average length (twenty minutes?) can be completed in a little over one hour.
68The 1780 service remained in use in some form for over one hundred years. Words here are from the opening lines and part five of the Covenant Prayer.
69Current Covenant affirmation, Methodist Service Book, 180.
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