Abstract
During the month of August 1739, just 15 months after his heartwarming Aldersgate experience of May 24, 1738, John Wesley (1703–1791) had three separate interviews with Bishop Joseph Butler (1692–1752) in Bristol, England. Frank Baker has noted that the first interview lasted about 15 minutes, the second about 30 minutes, and the final one approximately one hour.1 In his meeting, the relatively young Wesley, who had gained momentum through his proclamation of justifying grace in the open fields, was perhaps too aggressive with the Bishop of Bristol. Despite Wesley’s admiration of Butler’s masterful denunciation of Deism, it was perhaps too bold for him to expect that the Bishop would receive the likes of a George Whitefield (1714–1770) or himself and the enthusiastic affectations they were incurring in their open-field preaching.2 After some discussion about the nature of faith in its justifying sense, Butler turned to what was probably irritating him the most about the Methodist preachers, especially Wesley and Whitefield. It appeared, at least to Butler, that the Methodists assumed that God was doing something special in their faith and ministry that was isolated from other believers who did not embrace their cause. To Wesley, Butler accosted: “Sir, the pretending to extraordinary revelations and gifts of the Holy Ghost is a horrid thing, a very horrid thing.”3
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Notes
Frank Baker, “John Wesley and Bishop Joseph Butler: A Fragment of John Wesley’s Manuscript Journal 16th to 24th August 1739,” Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society 42 (1980): 93–100.
The essence of the interview between Bishop Butler and John Wesley is found in Wesley’s journal as well. See Nehemiah Curnock (ed.), The Journal of John Wesley (London: Epworth Press, 1938), 2:256–57
W. R. Ward (ed.), “Appendix B: Wesley’s Interview with Bishop Butler, August 16 and 18, 1739,” in The Bicentennial Edition of The Works of John Wesley, ed. Reginald Ward and Richard P. Heitzenrater (Nashville, TN: Reginald Ward and Richard P. 1990), 19: 471–74. Hereafter all citations of this edition of Wesley’s works are mentioned as BEW.
See Joseph Butler, The Analogy of Religion, Introduction by Ernest C. Mossner (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing, 1961).
For representations of Deism see James A. Herrick, The Radical Rhetoric of the English Deists: The Discourse of Skepticism, 1680–1750 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1997);
Kerry Walters, Revolutionary Deists: Early America’s Rational Infidels (Amherst, MA: Promotheus Books, 2011);
Jeffrey R. Wigglesworth, Deism in England: Theology, Politics, and Newtonian Public Science (Manchester: University of Manchester, 2009). For Wesley’s complimentary remarks on Butler’s Analogy of Religion see John Wesley’s journal entries for January 1, 1746 and May 20, 1768 in BEW 20:112 and 22:134 respectively.
Robert Webster, Methodism and the Miraculous: John Wesley’s Idea of the Supernatural and the Identification of Methodists in the Eighteenth Century (Lexington, KY: Emeth Press, 2013).
See Scott J. Jones, John Wesley’s Conception and Use of Scripture (Nashville, TN: Kingswood Books, 1995).
Thomas C. Oden, Doctrinal Standards in the Wesleyan Tradition, rev. ed. (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1988; 2008), 92.
John Wesley, “On the Trinity,” BEW 2:385–86. See Geoffrey Wainwright’s “Trinitarian Theology and Wesleyan Holiness,” in S. T. Kimbrough Jr. (ed.), Orthodox and Wesleyan Spirituality (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2002), 59–80.
See also S. T. Kimbrough Jr. (ed.), Orthodox and Wesleyan Scriptural Understanding and Practice (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2005);
S. T. Kimbrough Orthodox and Wesleyan Ecclesiology (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2007).
Thomas Dockwray, The Operation of the Holy Spirit Imperceptible, and How Men may Know when they are under the Guidance and Influence of the Spirit (Newcastle, UK: John White, 1743);
Richard Smalbroke, A Charge deliver’d to the Reverend the Clergy in several Parts of the Diocese of Lichfield and Coventry, in a Triennial Visitation of the same in 1741 (London: J. & P. Knapton, 1744. For Wesley’s response see his A Farther Appeal of Men of Reason and Religion, BEW 11:139–72.
See Samuel Jackson (ed.), The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge (New York and London: Funk & Wagnalls, 1910), s.v. “Irregularity.”
Luke Tyerman, The Life and Times of Rev. John Wesley, M.A.: Founder of the Methodists, vol. 1 (London: Hodder & Houghton, 1870), 369.
Stephen Gunter, The Limits of “Love Divine”: John Wesley’s Response to Antinominalism and Enthusiasm (Nashville, TN: Kingswood Books, 1989), 162–63.
See also John Wesley, Letters of Rev. John Wesley, ed. John Telford, vol. 4 (London: Epworth Press, 1960), 162.
Kenneth Newport, “George Bell, Prophet and Enthusiast,” Methodist History 35 (1997): 95–105;
Kenneth Newport, Apocalypse & Millennium: Studies in Biblical Eisegesis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 97–100;
Kenneth Newport and Gareth Lloyd, “George Bell and Early Methodist Enthusiasm: A New Manuscript Source from the Manuscript Archives,” Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 80 (1998): 89–101.
George Bell, Letter to John Wesley on April 6, 1761 (Letter 142), Arminian Magazine 3 (1780): 674–76.
Miss B., Letter to John Wesley on April 6, 1761 (Letter 162), Arminian Magazine, 4 (1781): 278.
See also William Beveridge’s, Private Thoughts. Part II. Private Thoughts Upon a Christian Life: Or, Necessary Devotion for its Beginning and Progress Upon Earth, in Order to its Final Perfection in the Beatific Vision (London: T. Longman, 1724).
Charles Goodwin, “Setting Perfection Too High: John Wesley’s Changing Attitudes Toward the ‘London Blessing,’” Methodist History 36 (1998): 89.
John Whitehead, Life of the Rev. Wesley, M.A. Some Time Fellow of Lincoln-College, Oxford, 2 vols. (London: Stephen Couchman, 1793), 2:297.
See Henry D. Rack, Reasonable Enthusiast: John Wesley and the Rise of Methodism (London: The Epworth Press, 2002), 337.
Goerge Bell, Letter to John Wesley (Letter 142), 674. But note, Luke Tyerman, The Life and Times of John Wesley, M.A., Founder of the Methodists, vol. 2 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1871), 433. He [George Bell] was converted in the year 1758, and pretended to be sanctified in the month of March, 1761.
John Wesley, Letters of John Wesley, 4:196. See Gareth Lloyd, “‘A Cloud of Perfect Witnesses’: John Wesley and the London Disturbances 1760–1763,” Asbury Theological Journal 56–57, no 2–1 (2002): 117–36 (122).
John Wesley, Farther Thoughts on Christian Perfection (London: n. p., 1763).
See Thomas Percival Bunting, The Life of Jabez Bunting. D. D. with Notices of Contemporary Persons and Event, vol. 1 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1859), 189.
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© 2014 Wolfgang Vondey
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Webster, R. (2014). The Holy Spirit and the Miraculous: John Wesley’s Egalitarian View of the Supernatural and its Problems. In: Vondey, W. (eds) The Holy Spirit and the Christian Life. CHARIS: Christianity and Renewal—Interdisciplinary Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137375995_9
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