Letters III (1756–1765) (The Works of John Wesley volume 27)

Abstract

This volume has been long awaited by students of Wesley's life and character, for his letters are more revealing than the deceptive journal. The late Frank Baker edited the first two volumes of letters in this Bicentennial Edition (BE) as long ago as 1980–2. The new editor is Professor of Church History at Southern Methodist University and a veteran Wesley scholar. For the period they cover so far, the BE edition is clearly superior to Telford's 1931 ‘Standard’ edition. It has the meticulous text for which the standard was set by Baker, exact sources for the letters and, where needed, corrected identities of recipients. Baker's volumes had welcome selections from Wesley's correspondents. From now on these will no longer be in the printed volumes but available online in full. The present volume adds a number of letters not in Telford: nothing dramatic, but welcome for fresh details. One letter, to Sarah Ryan on 12 November 1761, in Telford is dropped in this edition without explanation. A full index is necessarily postponed until the letter volumes are complete, but there is a complete list of Wesley's correspondence and a new index of people mentioned in the letters. The overall introduction remains Frank Baker's in the first letter volume and one wonders whether it might be useful to have a brief introduction to each volume, sketching the main issues covered and some mention of the wider background (in this volume, invasion worries during the Seven Years' War). We learn of these matters here largely through scattered comments in the footnotes.Many of Wesley's correspondents were women to whom he wrote more freely than anyone but his brother, occasionally mentioning his spiritual state. In the case of Sarah Ryan this had a disastrous effect, for one of the features of this volume is the breakdown of Wesley's marriage. It is difficult to judge this sad affair fairly, since most of the evidence comes from Wesley's letters to his wife (hers he burnt). He complains that she read his correspondence, rifled his belongings, and rendered his domestic life a miserable imprisonment. To add insult to injury from her point of view, his letters to Ryan were markedly more intimate than his to her, for their businesslike tone was hardly softened by addressing her as ‘my dear love’.One recurring theme was that Methodism was separating from the Church of England, and indeed some preachers started to administer the Lord's Supper. A few were expelled for paying a dubious Greek bishop to ordain them. Letters to the evangelical Samuel Walker of Truro showed Wesley resisting his desire to reduce the preachers in his parish to ‘readers’ under his control. Wesley also continued to oversee societies and preachers in the evangelical Henry Venn's Huddersfield parish. Wesley ceased about this time to hope for a ‘union’ with the evangelical clergy but this was impossible because of his disapproval of their Calvinism and theirs of his perfectionism and violations of church order.Much of Wesley's correspondence shows him in the role of pastor, not much discussed by his biographers except for a chapter in Martin Schmidt's ‘theological biography’. A long correspondence with Samuel Furly saw him through from college to early curacies. Wesley was no respecter of persons. It is noticeable that he addressed aristocrats politely but firmly for the good of their souls. Much of the correspondence, especially to women, concerns Wesley's controversial perfection doctrine. He defined it as received in a moment yet with growth before and after; as cleansing from conscious sin yet subject to ‘infirmities’. He probed them with questions on their experience and it was his fascination and optimism about the gift which made him hesitate far too long (so his brother and others thought) when faced with the perfectionist excesses of Maxfield and Bell in the early 1760s.Charles, mysteriously, is absent from the correspondence between December 1756 and early 1760. The first extant letter from John begins, ‘Where you are I know not.’ Is this a similar situation to that in 1753, when John complained that Charles travelled on impulse and did not coordinate with his brother? But Charles seems to have ceased to itinerate altogether after 1756, despite periodic attempts to stir him up.These letters are a major source for Wesley's life and opinions, shaped by controversy and experience. It is good to see more of them again and one must wish Professor Campbell well in the preparation of further volumes.