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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 June 2016
John Wesley published his sermon ‘Catholic Spirit’ in 1750, after he and his preachers had experienced persecution by Church leaders. Wesley stressed that persecution stemmed from lack of tolerance, and one of the reasons for this was the absence of liberty of thinking in the Church. In order for liberty of thinking to be practised, one had to be able to doubt one's own opinions, thereby accepting the limitations of one's knowledge. Most of this sermon, now lauded for its ecumenical brilliance, asserts that such acceptance provides space for tolerance. This tolerance leads to Christian unity. In addition to exploring the sermon, this essay addresses An Answer to the Rev. Mr. Church's Remarks on the Rev. Mr. John Wesley's Last Journal (1745), Letter to a Roman Catholic (1749) and Wesley's correspondence with Gilbert Boyce (1750). The argument thus provides an example of how doubt contributed to the Methodist emphasis on tolerance.
I would like to express my appreciation to Geordan Hammond for his helpful comments on this essay, and to Hunter Cummings and Timothy Crutcher for their insights on an earlier draft.
1 John Wesley, An Answer to the Rev. Mr. Church's Remarks on the Rev. Mr. John Wesley's Last Journal (1745), in The Works of John Wesley, ed. Frank Baker et al. (Oxford / Nashville, TN, 1976–), 9: 81–122, at 81.
2 See Barr, Josiah Henry, Early Methodists under Persecution (New York, 1916)Google Scholar; Hempton, David, Methodism: Empire of Spirit (New Haven, CT, 2005), 1–92Google Scholar; Lyles, Albert, Methodism Mocked: The Satiric Reaction to Methodism in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1960)Google Scholar; McInelly, Brett C., Textual Warfare and the Making of Methodism (Oxford, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a list of works by opponents, see Field, Clive D., ‘Anti-Methodist Publications in the Eighteenth Century: A Revised Bibliography’, Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 73 (1991), 159–280CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 For Wesley's writings as response to controversy, see Outler, Albert, ‘The Place of Wesley in Christian Tradition’, in Rowe, Kenneth, ed., The Place of Wesley in the Christian Tradition: Essays delivered at Drew University in Celebration of the Commencement of the Oxford Edition of the Works of John Wesley, 2nd edn (Lanham, MD, 1980), 15–32Google Scholar; Rivers, Isabel, Reason, Grace and Sentiment: A Study of the Language of Religion and Ethics in England 1660–1780, 2 vols (Cambridge, 2005)Google Scholar, 1: 206. For instance, Wesley wrote Principles of a Methodist in 1740 in response to Josiah Tucker (1713–99), who had published an essay documenting what he called ‘inconsistencies’ in Methodism in A Brief History of the Principles of Methodism (Oxford, 1742): Rupert E. Davies, ‘An Introductory Comment to Principles of a Methodist’, in Works, ed. Baker et al., 9: 47. For Wesley's hatred of controversy, see ibid. 21: 134 (Journal, 13 January 1758).
4 John Wesley, ‘Catholic Spirit’, in Works, ed. Baker et al., 2: 81–96. The sermon first appeared in Wesley's Sermons on Several Occasions, 3 vols (London, 1750), 3: 181–7, and later as a separate publication, Catholick Spirit: A Sermon on 2 Kings x. 15 (London, 1755).
5 For the Calvinist-Arminian controversy as influencing the writing of ‘Catholic Spirit’, see Schwenk, James L., Catholic Spirit: Wesley, Whitefield, and the Quest for Evangelical Unity in Eighteenth-Century British Methodism (Lanham, MD, 2008), 29–48Google Scholar. For early Methodist work in Ireland and subsequent persecution, see Crookshank, C. H., History of Methodism in Ireland, 3 vols (Belfast, 1885)Google Scholar; Rogel, Samuel J., John Wesley in Ireland 1747–89, 2 vols (Lampeter, 1993)Google Scholar; Cooney, Dudley Levistone, The Methodists in Ireland (Dublin, 2004)Google Scholar.
6 Wesley, John, Letter to a Roman Catholic (Dublin, 1750)Google Scholar, and a total of three editions in Wesley's lifetime: The Works of the Rev. John Wesley, M.A., ed. Thomas Jackson, 14 vols (London, 1872; first publ. 1829–31), 10: 80.
7 Wolterstorff, Nicholas, John Locke and the Ethics of Belief (Cambridge, 1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, x.
8 For the treatment of Jews in late seventeenth-century England, see Katz, David S., The Jews in the History of England 1485–1850 (Oxford, 1994), 145Google Scholar–89.
9 For an overview of British empiricism, see Priest, Stephen, The British Empiricists, 2nd edn (New York, 2007), 1–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For Locke and the Jews, see Matar, Nabil, ‘John Locke and the Jews’, JEH 44 (1993), 45–62Google Scholar.
10 For Locke and toleration, see Marshall, John, John Locke, Toleration and Early Enlightenment Culture (Cambridge, 2006)Google Scholar. For Locke and Wesley, see Pedlar, James E., ‘Sensing the Spirit: Wesley's Use of Empiricism and his Use of the Language of Spiritual Sensation’, Asbury Journal 67 (2012), 85–104Google Scholar.
11 Richard Paul Heitzenrater, ‘John Wesley and the Oxford Methodists’ (PhD dissertation, Duke University, 1972), 58, 511; according to Heitzenrater, Wesley not only read An Essay concerning Human Understanding, but also owned a copy. It was included in the curriculum of the school he founded, Kingswood: John Wesley, ‘A Short Account of the School in Kingswood, Near Bristol' (1768), in Works, ed. Jackson, 13: 283–9, at 288.
12 John Wesley, Remarks upon Mr. Locke's Essay concerning Human Understanding (1781), in Works, ed. Jackson, 13: 455–64.
13 See Rack, Henry D., Reasonable Enthusiast: John Wesley and the Rise of Methodism, 3rd edn (London, 2002), 33Google Scholar; idem, ‘A Man of Reason and Religion? Wesley and the Enlightenment’, Wesley & Methodist Studies 1 (2009), 1–17. Brantley, Richard E., Locke, Wesley and the Method of English Romanticism (Gainesville, FL, 1984)Google Scholar, aligned Wesley directly with Locke. Rack agrees that Wesley was influenced by Locke, but disagrees with Brantley about the extent of this influence, arguing that Brantley conveniently avoided Wesley's appeal to spiritual senses, which was not Lockean: Rack, Henry D., ‘Methodism and Romanticism’, Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society 45 (1985), 63Google Scholar–5, at 64.
14 Crutcher, Timothy J., The Crucible of Life: The Role of Experience in John Wesley's Theological Method (Lexington, KY, 2010), 16Google Scholar.
15 Butler, David, Methodists and Papists: John Wesley and the Catholic Church in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1995), 50Google Scholar; McGonigle, Herbert, ‘John Wesley: Exemplar of Catholic Spirit’, in Ecumenism and History: Studies in Honour of John H. Y. Briggs, ed. Cross, Anthony R. (London, 2002), 50–68Google Scholar, at 55.
16 Jean Orcibal, ‘The Theological Originality of John Wesley and Continental Spirituality’, transl. R. J. A. Sharp, in Rupert Davies, A. Raymond George and Gordon Rupp, eds, A History of the Methodist Church in Great Britain, 4 vols (London, 1965–88), 1: 83–111.
17 Works, ed. Baker et al., 2: 84.
18 See ibid. 3: 579–92, a sermon preached at the laying of the foundation stone of his New Chapel in London on 21 April 1777, in which he described the Calvinist separation from his movement, beginning with the protest of George Whitefield (1714–70) when Wesley published the sermon ‘Free Grace’ (1739; ibid. 542–63). He asserted: ‘None of these have any manner of connection with the original Methodists. They are branches broken off from the tree; if they break from the Church also, we are not accountable for it’: ibid. 591. Rowland Hill (1744–1833), a Dissenting minister, wasted no time in publishing a scathing attack on Wesley for this sermon in The Imposture Detected, and the Dead Vindicated in a Letter to a Friend, Containing Some Gentle Strictures on the False and Libellous Harangue Lately Delivered by Mr. John Wesley, upon his Laying his First Stone of his New Dissenting House, near the City Road (London, 1777). Hill accused Wesley of deism, of ‘Popish Pelagianism’, of allowing women to preach, and of Dissent, and quoted from the 1770 Methodist Conference Minutes in which the doctrine of predestination was officially denounced.
19 Works, ed. Baker et al., 9: 85. On Wesley and antinomianism, see W. Stephen Gunter, The Limits of Love Divine (Nashville, TN, 1989).
20 John Wesley, A Farther Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion, Part II, in Works, ed. Baker et al., 11: 203–71, at 203.
21 Locke, John, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), ed. Nidditch, Peter H. (Oxford, 1975), 7Google Scholar.
22 Lavington was bishop of Exeter from 1746 to 1762: ODNB, s.n. ‘Lavington, George (1684–1762)’, online edn (May 2009), at: <http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/16136>, accessed 11 February 2015. There had been rioting against the Methodists before Lavington arrived in Exeter, according to Cennick, John, An Account of a Late Riot at Exeter (London, 1745)Google Scholar; see also Haydon, Colin, ‘Bishop George Lavington of Exeter (1684–1762) and The Enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists Compar'd’, Southern History 37 (2015), 60–85Google Scholar.
23 Lavington, George, The Enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists Compar'd, Part II (London, 1750)Google Scholar.
24 John Wesley, A Second Letter to the Author of Enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists Compar'd (London, 1751), in Works, ed. Baker et al., 11: 387–429, at 422–3.
25 Ibid. 426.
26 Ibid. 410.
27 English, John C., ‘John Wesley and the Rights of Conscience’, Journal of Church and State 37 (1995), 351–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 352. Freedom of worship did not extend to Roman Catholics, who were under the limits of penal law until the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1791 (31 Geo. III. c. 32).
28 Jews had been expelled from England by Edward I in 1290. They were readmitted to England in 1655/6, but were not granted citizenship until the Jewish Naturalization Act of 1753 (26 Geo. II. c. 26), which was repealed in 1754: David Feldman, ‘Conceiving Difference: Religion, Race, and the Jews in England c.1750–1900’, History Workshop Journal 76 (Autumn 2013), 160–81, at 167. It was not until the Jewish Relief Act of 1858 (21 & 22 Vic., cap. 49), which allowed Jews to sit in Parliament, that all restrictions against Jews were lifted.
29 The Letters of the Rev. John Wesley, A.M., ed. John Telford, 8 vols (London, 1931), 4: 151–2 (John Wesley to the Earl of Dartmouth, 10 April 1761).
30 John Wesley, Thoughts upon Liberty, in Works, ed. Jackson, 11: 34–46, at 37–8; see also Weber, Theodore R., Politics in the Order of Salvation: Transforming Wesleyan Political Ethics (Nashville, TN, 2001), 322Google Scholar.
31 Letters, ed. Telford, 3: 246 (John Wesley to ‘A Gentleman at Bristol', 6 January 1758).
32 CICan. 1: 1245. The Council of Trent (1545–63), though it addresses justification, does not address the issue of those who are justified being subject to papal authority: see Tanner, Norman P., ed., Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 2 vols (London, 1990)Google Scholar, 2: 671–80.
33 [John Wesley], A Roman Catechism faithfully drawn out of the allowed Writings of the Church of Rome with a Reply thereto (1756), in Works, ed. Jackson, 10: 86–128, at 87. This document is an abridgement of a tract by John Williams, later bishop of Chichester, A Catechism representing the Doctrines and Practices of the Church of Rome with an Answer thereunto (London, 1683); see also Butler, Methodists and Papists, 94–9. Wesley affirmed that he had published A Roman Catechism: Works, ed. Baker et al., 22: 167 (Journal, 20 December 1768). A copy in the John Rylands Library, Manchester, states that it was ‘reprinted' in 1756 but lacks any ascription of authorship; however, it can be assumed that this is the document to which Wesley referred, though it is obviously a reprint of Williams's work.
34 John Wesley, The Advantage of the Members of the Church of England over those of the Church of Rome (1753), in Works, ed. Jackson, 10: 133–9, at 139.
35 Catholic Relief Act (18 Geo. III, c. 60); Letters, ed. Telford, 6: 370–3 (John Wesley to the printer of the Public Advertiser, 12 January 1780).
36 Weber, Politics, 330–1.
37 Letters, ed. Telford, 6: 370–3.
38 Challoner, Richard, A Caveat against the Methodists: Shewing how unsafe it is for any Christian to join himself to their Society, or to adhere to their Teachers (London, 1760), 17–18Google Scholar. This went through six editions: Beckerlegge, Oliver A., ed., John Wesley's Writings on Roman Catholicism (London, 2003), 19Google Scholar. On Challoner, see Barnard, James, The Life of the Venerable and Right Reverend Richard Challoner, D.D., Bishop of Debra (Dublin, 1793)Google Scholar; Duffy, Eamon, Challoner and his Church (London, 1981)Google Scholar.
39 Works, ed. Baker et al., 19: 320 (Journal, 25 March 1743).
40 Letters, ed. Telford, 4: 297 (John Wesley to John Newton, 14 May 1765).
41 Campbell, Ted A., ‘The Shape of Wesleyan Thought: The Question of John Wesley's Essential Doctrines’, Asbury Theological Journal 59 (2004), 27–48Google Scholar, at 30–1.
42 McGonigle, ‘John Wesley’, 65.
43 Oden, Thomas C., John Wesley's Teachings, 2 vols (Grand Rapids, MI, 2012), 1Google Scholar: 126.
44 Outler, Albert, ed., John Wesley (London, 1964), 92Google Scholar.
45 Maddox, Randy, ‘Opinions, Religion, and “Catholic Spirit”: John Wesley on Theological Integrity’, Methodist History 47 (1992), 63–87Google Scholar, at 65.
46 See Letters, ed. Telford, 3: 157–8, 167 (John Wesley to William Dodd, 5 February, 12 March 1756).
47 Maddox, ‘Opinions’, 81 n. Clark, J. C. D, English Society, 1660–1832: Ideology, Social Structure and Political Practice during the Ancien Regime, 2nd edn (Cambridge, 2000)Google Scholar, 9, argues that ‘Enlightenment’ is no longer a useful term of historical explanation.
48 Locke, Essay 2.8.7 (ed. Nidditch, 134).
49 Maddox, ‘Opinions’, 65.
50 Ibid. 81 n.
51 Works, ed. Baker et al., 2: 84.
52 Locke, John, A Letter concerning Toleration, 3rd edn (Boston, 1743), 24Google Scholar–5. Locke did not extend toleration to atheists or Roman Catholics.
53 Ibid. 10.
54 Works, ed. Jackson, 10: 80.
55 Ibid.
56 Ibid. 84.
57 Ibid. 81.
58 Challoner, Caveat, 5.
59 Lavington, George, The Enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists Compar'd, Part I (London, 1749), 13Google Scholar.
60 Locke, Toleration, 25.
61 Ibid. 493.
62 Ibid. 92.
63 Works, ed. Jackson, 10: 133–9.
64 See Works, ed. Baker et al., 26: 418–26, for the correspondence between them during 1750.
65 Ibid. 425.
66 Ibid. 2: 86.
67 Ibid. 26: 426.
68 Wesley did argue that Calvinists should give up predestination, which he called ‘blasphemy’: Works, ed. Baker et al., 3: 542–63. However, he did not say that those who believed in predestination were not a part of the Church. See also A Dialogue between a Predestinarian and his Friend, 2nd edn (London, 1741), which ran to five editions in Wesley's lifetime: Works, ed. Baker et al., 13: 227–38. In Predestination Calmly Considered (London, 1752), which ran to seven editions in Wesley's lifetime, Wesley pleaded: ‘If we serve God, our agreement is far better than our difference. Therefore, as far as may be, setting aside that difference, let us unite in destroying the works of the devil, in bringing all we can from the power of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear son’: ibid. 13: 258–320, at 319–20 . Finally, he asserted that no one could doubt that Calvinists had true religion, but held wrong opinions: ‘On the Trinity’ (1775), ibid. 2: 374–86, at 376.