“The Church’s One Foundation Is Jesus Christ Her Lord!”
Dear Friends,
For your enjoyment and edification, I pray, below are excerpts from my one-person show, A Heart Strangely Warmed, based on the Anglican priest, evangelist, and founder of Methodism, John Wesley, compiled and written over forty years ago.
While on a brief hiatus from “The Church’s One Foundation,” I’ve found the time to record it for you as well, sans the British accent. The last time I performed it was for Wycliffe Hall, Oxford University, their Summer School, June 2010, at Lincoln College, where John Wesley attended, taught, and preached. His journals and sermons, along with an earlier one-man show, The Man from Aldersgate, written by Brad L. Smith and performed by the indefatigable Roger Nelson, served as my primary sources for the play, which I took to colleges, universities, seminaries, and churches throughout the country, including once for the Free Methodist World Convention held at Market Square Arena in Indianapolis, with a dramatic entrance on horseback!
My version of his life and theology, in contrast to the earlier one by Mr. Smith, included Wesley’s emphasis on Christian holiness, or “Christian perfection” as Wesley often referred to it. Sadly, Wesley’s words from 250 years ago must ring foreign today to many members of the wayward United Methodist Church.
It’s been my joy to revisit them, which I give to you in two parts, with Part II coming in two weeks, September 4. As it is a “dramatized” reading, I hope you’ll find the time to listen to this podcast (not simply read it), and to pass it along to a friend.
With Thanks for You!
D. Paul
A Heart Strangely Warmed, Part I
(An elderly John Wesley sits on his desk, talking to the audience) Having lost my sermon notes, I preached extempore at All Hallows, Lombard Street, this morning and again this afternoon. I found great liberty of Spirit…I preached…I preached that the natural man has no true knowledge of the things of God. Though he may be a living man, he is a dead Christian. “Nay, you say, but I constantly attend all the ordinances of God: I keep to my church and sacrament!” It is well you do; but all this will not keep you from hell, except you be born again. Go to church twice a day; go to the Lord’s table every week; say ever so many prayers in private; hear ever so many good sermons; read ever so many good books; still, “you must be born again.” I found great liberty of spirit…and the congregation seemed to be much affected, save my man, Michael Fenwick, who fell fast asleep in the last pew.
Ah, how is this? Where is my list? … I just had it … right here … my list of churches … ah, here it is, here it is! (reads) Ah yes, I now have more invitations to preach in churches than I can accept: Do I now please men? Has the offence of the cross ceased? It seems after being scandalous for nearly fifty years, I am at length growing into an honorable man. And I do love a commodious room, a soft cushion, a handsome pulpit, but the world is my parish, so where is my zeal if I do not trample all these under foot in order to save on more soul:
A charge to keep I have, A God to glorify; A never dying soul to save, And fit it for the sky. To serve the present age, My calling to fulfill: Oh, may it all my pow’rs engage, To do my Master’s will!
It was inevitable that I became a preacher. Besides my father’s wish for me to succeed him as a rector, both of my grandfathers had been outstanding clergyman as well. In February of 1709, when Dissenters burned our Rectory in retaliation to my fathers preaching against their false doctrine, I was the last child plucked from the nursery, even as the house collapsed in flames; from that moment on, mother was sure I had been as a brand plucked from the fire, to be used by God as his servant for the Kingdom.
John Wesley being plucked from the fire, which burned the Epworth Rectory. Picture, without attribution, taken from the Epworth Old Rectory website: epwortholdrectory.org.uk
My mother … what can I say about my dear mother … she was a remarkable, deeply pious woman. While still in her teens, she knew Greek, Latin and French, and tutored us children accordingly. Susanna could hold her own against any man in a discussion on theology; she was high-spirited, keen-witted, modest, aggressive—and generous to a fault. In twenty-one years, she had nineteen children, nine dying in childbirth or shortly thereafter. About my seven surviving sisters, what can I say—not one of them made a good marriage. All three of us boys, Samuel, Charles, and myself, became shepherds of Christian flocks, much to my father’s delight. My father…there is so much one could say. He enrolled at Oxford as a “poor scholar” with only forty-five shillings to his name, and proceeded to work his way through Exeter as a servitor. He cared for the less fortunate all his life and served as Rector of Epworth in Lincolnshire for 39 years. His poetic efforts have been diminished, but who is to say what inspiration they served for the great hymns of my brother, Charles: Come, O thou Traveler Unknown, Whom still I hold, but cannot see. My Company before is gone, And I am left alone with thee. With thee all night I mean to stay, And wrestle till the break of day.
We were poor, but never in matters of the Spirit. You passed on to us all your diligence for study, your untiring zeal for the Lord, and your keen wit. You encouraged us in our schooling and sent what little money you had to help ease our burden. You prayed for us, wept for us, spent yourself for us. What more could a son ask for in a father. Samuel lived out his three score and ten and went joyfully to his eternal reward.
His good friend, General James Oglethorpe, desiring to do something in honor of my father’s memory, offered me the post of Chaplain to all the Georgia colonists, including an opportunity to preach to the Indians. I was willing, yea, even glad to go and preach to the Indians, naively, if not arrogantly, assuming they were like little children—humble, willing to learn—eager to do the will of God. I did not admit it to myself, but my own eagerness for the mission was more personal than providential.
It was in 1726, that my brother, Charles, (following in my footsteps) began his studies at Christ Church College, Oxford; the same year, after examination in Homer and Horace, I was duly elected to a Fellowship at Lincoln College. I never knew a college besides Lincoln whereof the members were so perfectly satisfied. Father was honored that his “Jack” was one of twelve Fellows; and I exceedingly content, even while residing in a rather tight set of rooms in Chapel Quad, overlooking Turi Street. Soon, though, I was granted leave to assist my father in the parish of Wroot—a futile effort— and after two years was fortuitously summoned by the Rector back to Lincoln to become a tutor in Greek Testament. Charles had begun what was known as “The Holy Club,” soon to be called The Oxford Methodists, and disparagingly referred to as The Bible Moths, Bible Bigots, The Godly Club, and The Enthusiasts. We seventeen souls applied ourselves, and our meager resources, toward aiding the plight of the poor in prison and in the streets. I had faithfully endeavored to serve God, and thought I had succeeded as well as most. But for several years, I had become increasingly restless in the service. It was as if I needed a change. Taking General Oglethorpe up on his offer, I embarked from Gravesend aboard the brigantine, The Simmonds, on 14 October 1735, and arrived in Savannah, Georgia, 8 February 1736. I was 33—the age our Lord was, when at the cross, He took upon His Holiness the sins of the world; the age He defeated the devil and vanquished death itself. I was 33, and I, John Wesley, was a failure.
I tried to introduce the confessional, penance, and similar practices, and refused both the sacraments and Christian burial to all nonconformists. My High Church notions hardly fitted the conditions in the New World. And my much-vaunted ministry to the Indians fared little better. At first, I tried to blame it on the pretext that they were savages beyond God’s help; oh, I preached earnestly, but in the power of the flesh, and neither laid the foundation for repentance nor of belief in the true Gospel. Finally, the truth became apparent even to the cloistered confines of my own mind: I had gone to America to convert the Indian, but found that I myself was not converted. With such dismal failures, I did not need another, but there she was—Miss Sophia Hopkey. We had met on the journey over. What a preposterous relationship. Miss Hopkey took it upon herself to resolve my dilemma. She eloped with another man.
I fled to England, and arrived in Deal on 1 February 1738. During the return, a violent storm engulfed the boat. Being in imminent danger of death, and very uneasy on that account, I became convinced that the cause of that uneasiness was unbelief, and that the gaining of a true, living faith was the “one thing needful” for me. I knew not that I was wholly void of this faith, but only thought I had not enough of it. Then when one, Peter Bohler, a devout Moravian, whom God had prepared for me to meet upon my arrival in London, affirmed of this true faith in Christ, I was quite amazed and looked upon it as a new gospel. If this was so, it was clear I had not faith. When I asked Brother Bohler how could I preach to others when I had no faith myself, he replied, “Preach faith until you have it; then because you have it, you will preach it.” This is the mystery: I wanted all the world to come to what I did not know myself; I had no direct witness; I could not say with assurance that I was a child of God.
I awoke at 5 o’clock the morning of 24 May 1738, and found these words confronting me in the New Testament: “Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these, ye might be partakers of the divine nature.” (2 Peter 1:14) I closed my Bible to meditate on the words, “…partakers of the divine nature.” Then I opened it again and this time another verse seemed to virtually leap out at me: “Thou art not far from the Kingdom of God.” (Mark 12:34) All the rest of that morning these two promises filled my mind. In the afternoon, I went to the services held in the vast St. Paul’s Cathedral. The anthem was: “O Israel, trust in the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy and with him there is plenteous redemption…and He shall redeem Israel from all their sins.” Surely, I thought, this is a most fitting place in which God could reveal Himself to me…but it was not the place of God’s choosing. In the evening, I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Martin Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while Luther’s commentary was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed…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. I began to pray will all my might for those who had trespassed against me, and then I testified openly what I felt in my heart! I rushed out of the meeting to tell the good news to my ailing brother. Many followed, and in a moment my brother’s sick room became a sanctuary of joy. As we knelt beside his bed, Charles led us in singing a hymn he had written only the day before:
Where shall my wondering soul begin? How shall I all to heaven aspire? A slave redeemed from death and sin, A brand plucked from eternal fire. How shall I equal triumphs raise, Or sing my Great Deliverer’s praise!
It was then, my calling became clear: It happened that one of the former members of our Holy Club, George Whitefield, having great success with open-air or field preaching, urged me to do likewise. At first, the very thought of preaching in the streets and fields appalled me, and I hesitated for a lengthy time. I thought the saving of souls almost a sin if it were not done in a church. I am a child of the church, ordained in the church, but soon church after church barred its doors to me, and a priest deprived of his church is still a priest, nonetheless.
On 2 April 1739, at four in the afternoon, I submitted to be more vile, and proclaimed to about 3,000 at Bristol, the glad tidings of salvation, speaking from a little eminence in a brick yard adjoining the city. Many came to jeer and to ridicule, armed with clubs and bricks and rotten eggs; but I spoke: Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. For when the natural man is born of the Spirit, in the twinkling of an eye, there is a total change. Eyes and ears, heart and mind are opened: He sees the light of God’s love in the face of Jesus Christ. He hears the inward voice of God, saying, ‘Be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee.’ He feels in his heart the mighty working of the Spirit of God. He grasps with his mind the truth of the Word—it is now that he is properly said to live! Let this, my friends, be your continual prayer: Lord, let me be born again! Deny whatever Thou pleasest, but deny not this: Let me be ‘born from above’. Take away whatsoever seemeth Thee good—reputation, friends, home, health—only give me this: to be born of the Spirit, to be received into the Kingdom of God. To be born, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.” And then, they no longer laughed in contempt, but called aloud to Him who is mighty to save! Hallelujah!
Amen
The Wesley Memorial Methodist Church, High Street, Epworth, England. Picture, without attribution, found on the Epworth, Schunthorpe & Gainsborough Methodist Circuit website: esgmethodist.org.uk.
"A Heart Strangely Warmed," Part I