John Wesley was a churchman - even to the end of his life he did not want his followers to desert the CofE. He said "Ye yourselves were at first called in the Church of England......and though ye have and will have a thousand temptations to leave it, and set up for yourselves, regard them not; be Church of England men still; do not cast away the peculiar glory which God hath put upon you and frustrate the design of Providence, the very end for which God hath raised you up." However, many of his followers were not so loyal and restrained. There were slender ties which for a time held the movement to the CofE but as the years rolled on, the movement grew and gathered momentum and the Wesleyans as a whole drifted away into separatism. The rift began with the places of worship built by the Countess of Huntingdon, which from 1781 had been registered as dissenting Chapels since they would not accept the authority of the established Church. John Wesley widened the breach by taking the matter of 'ordination' into his own hands. (As an aside, John's brother Charles was shocked by the 'ordinations' and in a letter to John he wrote " Before you have quite broken down the bridge, stop and consider.") The established Church was not without some blame either. Had the Bishops guided the movement along the right lines it's possible that Jn Wesley's dream of a great spiritual revival within the Church might have been realized.
Yes, and as I said, if they had ordained Wesley's preachers so that they could provide the sacraments to the Wesleyans, they probably would have remained within the CoE.
My issue is who authorized him to revise the Prayerbook, as if he were the Convocation of bishops itself? What about altering the articles of religion? The list can go on and on. Why did he think he as a mere priest could ordain?
There's nothing laudable in refusing to see any good whatsoever in a man who tried his best to breath life into a church that in many aspects had grown complacent in its witness. There's also nothing traitorous in recognizing there were wrongs done on both sides. I spent my childhood in the Methodist church, the people were good and faithful people. It was there that I learned that a Christian life is, at its best, a holy life and that we are saved to serve. John Wesley was a great evangelist, a great christian, and whether you choose to see it or not, a great Anglican. And I'm proud to be a member of the same church.
And what we have been trying to get over is, you have to hold to the faith once revealed! Separation is bad enough, but it can be healed, we are separated from Orthodoxy, but we hold to apostolic faith. Just like the question of apostolic order,if methodists do not have apostolic order, it can be transmitted, if they consider it important enough, yet if they don't hold to the basic teachings, what would be the point?
John Wesley felt his conversion came on May 24, 1738 whilst worshiping with Moravians in London. The preacher was speaking on Justification by Faith. Wesley began to feel a stirring. He wrote, "I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death; and then I testified openly to all there what I now first felt in my heart."
My personal experience seems to be the polar opposite of the Wesley brothers. I was raised as a young boy in a dead, dry, Methodist church, where "perfunctory" was the name of the game. When given the choice by my parents at age 18, I quickly visited my Uncle's Parish, wanting to see what gave him such joy, energy, and strength. I found a close, personal, powerful connection to God in the Sacraments, and felt encircled by loving people in the parish, and never looked back. Thank you Lord! Jeff
He used that heartfelt moment to produce newfangled teachings to raise his status above the rest of the church, allowed himself to alter theology as he saw fit, like a Modern Day Prophet. Thanks Jeff, that's exactly what I experienced in my own attendances of Methodist churches. Wesley mistook his piety for a whole new vision of Church. Two hundred years later, Methodism is a non-descript Protestantism. Wesley's schism bore no good fruit at all.
That is a complex and perplexing statement. Salvation is an act of God, or in simple terms, a promise acted upon by God. Salvation isn't a feeling, but a promise. An old Baptist minister friend once said "If salvation is a feeling, I'm eternally lost at 6am on a Monday morning" Jeff
Wesley and his followers cashed in on his 'conversion narrative' to teach a totally new theology, that regeneration happened at faith, and not baptism. Just like modern evangelicals, he thought that baptism itself was of nothing. And it is from Wesley that we receive our modern "born-again evangelicals" unable to defend their faith in face of militant atheism and Roman Catholicism.
What teachings exactly don't they hold to? The ones you claim arn't teaching, The Seven Ecumenical Councils for a start! Who said that Councils, were not as it were ,teaching ,I wouldn't as an Anglican Cleric countenance an organisaton that wouldn't keep to Revelation' scripture & Councils . The Necessity of Bishops for another, the Methodists around where I live do not agree with the ,'Real Presence,'!They do not appear to be concerned with apostolic Order, or they didn't. They might be nice people, but it wasn't obvious at a series of meetings they held on scripture and the Church in this district!
My question is what material in the seven councils do Methodists reject. Just saying councils, without more, is not enough for productive discussion. As far as episcopacy, Methodists in the US vest in their bishops much more authority than does the TEC. Moreover, as far as the Lord's supper, the Methodist articles of religion specifically affirm the Anglican view of the real presence, stating: " Article 18—Of the Lord's Supper The Supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves one to another, but rather is a sacrament of our redemption by Christ's death; insomuch that, to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith receive the same, the bread which we break is a partaking of the body of Christ; and likewise the cup of blessing is a partaking of the blood of Christ. Transubstantiation, or the change of the substance of bread and wine in the Supper of our Lord, cannot be proved by Holy Writ, but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions. The body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the Supper, only after a heavenly and spiritual manner. And the mean whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is faith. The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not by Christ's ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshiped." As far as requiring ascent to all 7 councils or apostolic succession...neither is required or even addressed in the orthodox Anglican formularies.
A very appropriate sermon by the sainted Rev. Wesley: http://archives.umc.org/frames.asp?url=http://gbgm-umc.org/UMhistory/Wesley/sermons/index.html
You continue to amaze with your gross mischaracterizations, this time of evangelicalism, and of Wesley's view of baptism. Wesley's view might rightly be called sacramental evangelicalism. I can tell you though: If you are depending on water baptism to be the moment of your being born again, you are still in your sins. We are saved by grace through faith and spiritually reborn by the Holy Spirit upon coming to faith, not by any outward ritual.
Who told you that? It might be alright for our Anglo Catholic bretheren, but even that I find hard to accept!
One fact remains and cannot be changed by anyone here attempting and desiring to smear John Wesley: He remained a loyal member and minister of the CoE all his life. That his followers could not remain in the CoE was neither his nor their fault. And I'll tell you this, as I have said before: Where I live and all over the USA, the churches that have reached the masses -- those in small towns and remote rural areas -- are the Methodists and Baptists, not the Episcopalians.
Let me repeat, my knowledge of Methodism isn't a close one. Along with my late wife, I attended a series of meetings led by an Anglican Clergyman and my impression is that they were not only anti anglican, but hostile to our beliefs. On the question of the Real Presence, they denied it! Quite clearly and forcefully! The denied the need for apostolic succession, in either Order or Faith. The question of the Ecumenical Councils was easily answered. They accepted four,that's alright for methodists, most mainstream Christian Sects do, but as I have been taught, seven is necessary to be a catholic.