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Kevin M. Watson

Kevin M. Watson

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On the Class Meeting

27 Tuesday Mar 2012

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Accountability, Christian Living, links, Methodist History, Ministry

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

class meeting, Seedbad

I recently wrote a post for Seedbed on “How to Reclaim Wesleyan Class Meetings.” Check it out if you are interested.

For those of you who are finding your way to my blog for the first time because of the Seedbed article – Welcome!

A year and a half ago I wrote a series of posts on the Wesleyan Class Meeting for the 21st century that may be of interest to Seedbed readers who want to learn more. For convenience, here are the titles of the posts in that series:

1. The Origin and Development of the Class Meeting.
2. The Potential Contribution of the Class Meeting for 21st c. Wesleyans/Methodists.
3. The Target Audience of Class Meetings.
4. Top Ten Ways to Guarantee Your Class Meeting Will Fail (Intended to be humorous).
5. Is the Class Meeting too Judgmental and Exclusive?
6. The Role of the Class Leader.

A good friend of mine from Munger Place, a church plant from Highland Park UMC in east Dallas, described his experience being a contemporary class leader in an excellent and insightful series of posts that gives a valuable perspective into the lay experience of the class meeting. His posts can be found here:

1. My experience with classes and the role being in a small group has played in my faith journey.
2. The impact leading a class meeting has had on my Christian faith.
3. The impact of classes on my church.
4. The potential impact of class meetings on The UMC.

Finally, I have received questions in various online forums about the difference between the early Methodist class meeting and contemporary Covenant Discipleship groups. I am working on a post to describe the similarities and differences of these two groups as I see them.

As always, if you would like to subscribe to this blog and automatically receive future posts, you can subscribe by email by clicking here or in a reader by clicking here.

Doctrine, Polity, and the UMNS

06 Wednesday Apr 2011

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Article Review, links, Ministry

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Book of Discipline, Doctrine, Polity, UMC

Controversy has swirled the last few weeks over Rob Bell’s newest book and Chad Holtz’s early departure from his student pastorate. Generally, the discussions related to both have seemed to me to generate a lot more heat than light. For the most part, a welcomed exception was a recent article by Heather Hahn of the United Methodist New Service. Hahn’s article shed significant light on Chad Holtz’s agreement to leave his student pastor appointment before the end of this appointment cycle. The article also reminded me that the blogosphere is sometimes as good at facilitating a rush to judgment as it is helpful in facilitating conversation and reflection among people.

In my view, the article took a turn for the worse when it came to the section “What the church teaches on hell.” This section was confusing and contained information that is inaccurate. Here is the section in its entirety:

The Book of Discipline, the denomination’s law book, does not contain any specific statement on heaven or hell.

However, the Evangelical United Brethren Church, one of the denomination’s predecessors, states in Article XII of its Confession of Faith: “We believe in the resurrection of the dead; the righteous to life eternal and the wicked to endless condemnation.”

The Confession, adopted in 1963, and the Articles of Religion of the Methodist Church from 1808 are both part of The United Methodist Church’s doctrinal standards in the Book of Discipline. As such, they cannot be altered — even by General Conference, the denomination’s top lawmaking body.

A particular belief about heaven or hell is not part of the denomination’s baptismal covenant, and therefore is not a requirement for membership in The United Methodist Church.

However, Holtz’s status as a pastor puts him in a different category, said the Rev. Taylor Burton-Edwards, director of worship resources at the United Methodist Board of Discipleship.

“This is where Chad got himself into trouble,” Burton-Edwards said. “He was articulating doctrine that was contrary to the doctrine of this church.”

Here are my main issues with this paragraph:

1. The paragraph first states that the Book of Discipline “does not contain any specific statement on heaven or hell.” But, as the very next sentence points out, one of the articles of the Confession of Faith reads, “We believe in the resurrection of the dead; the righteous to life eternal and the wicked to endless condemnation.” If “the wicked to endless condemnation” is not a way of signifying hell, then I’m not sure what it is referring to. Moreover, the first sentence of that article, which is not quoted in the UMNS article, makes it even more difficult to believe that this statement is not referring to heaven and hell: “We believe all men stand under the righteous judgment of Jesus Christ, both now and in the last day.” The Confession of Faith is not only in the Book of Discipline, it is part of the relatively small body of material considered to be standards of doctrine for United Methodists. Thus, the first statement of the UMNS paragraph is only accurate in so far as it literally means that the words heaven and hell don’t appear in this article from the Confession of Faith.

2. The article then says that the Confession of Faith and the Articles of Religion are “both part of The United Methodist Church’s doctrinal standards in the Book of Discipline. As such, they cannot be altered – even by the General Conference.” This is simply and obviously inaccurate. I think Hahn is referring to the fact that the Articles of Religion and Confession of Faith are protected by the first and second Restrictive Rules that say that General Conference “shall not revoke, alter, or change” them (see para 17, 18 of the Constitution in the BOD). In fact, the doctrinal standards can be altered and the Book of Discipline clearly describes the process for changing them. In order to change the Confession of Faith, General Conference would have to approve an amendment to the second Restrictive Rule by a “two-thirds majority of the General Conference present and voting” and because it is a Restrictive Rule a “three-fourths majority of all the members o the annual conferences present and voting” would be required (para 59). The Constitution certainly makes it very difficult to change the Confession of Faith or the Articles of Religion, but it is not true that they “cannot be altered.”

3. Next, the article says that members do not have to have “a particular belief about heaven or hell” because this is not “part of the denomination’s baptismal covenant, and therefore is not a requirement for membership in The United Methodist Church.” Let me say that I love the liturgy for baptism in the UM hymnal. I think it is profound. However, I do not think it is intended to be a comprehensive doctrinal statement. I am not familiar with the precedent that the baptismal covenant is a complete summary of the beliefs that The United Methodist Church expects prospective members to affirm. The sacrament of communion, for example, is not mentioned, so does that mean it is dispensable? Moreover, according to the BOD “a professing member of a local church may be charged with… (d) dissemination of doctrines contrary to the established standards of doctrine of The United Methodist Church” (para 2702.3.d), a clear reference to the Articles of Religion and the Confession of Faith. According to the BOD, the Articles of Religion and Confession of Faith are not an additional set of beliefs that clergy are supposed to adhere to. Rather, they are an expression of the “established standards of doctrine” of The UMC. Ultimately, I think the distinction between laity and clergy is a false distinction.

4. The quote from Taylor Burton-Edwards at the end of the section adds another layer of confusion. I think this quote is intended to be connected to the previous two sentences, where the distinction between what members have to believe and what clergy have to believe is made. However, the quote from Burton-Edwards contradicts the opening statement of this section. At the end of the article, it seems that the conclusion is that saying you don’t believe in hell is contrary to UM doctrine. So, what are we to do with the first sentence?

This may all seem rather uptight, and that may indeed be an occupational hazard of my line of work. I am convinced that we will have more helpful and productive conversations about issues like the UMNS article raises when we first clearly communicate the facts that can be agreed upon. Before we can discuss what we ought to believe or teach, we first need to be clear about what The UMC does teach. In the areas I have outlined, I fear that the UMNS has actually added confusion (unintentionally) to the conversation about what The UMC teaches about hell.

Update: I just reread an article published yesterday by Heather Hahn and UMNS that addresses some of the same issues as the article I am interacting with here. I noticed that the more recent article has a paragraph very similar to the one above, but it has corrected the mistakes I note in #2. This article reads, “Church doctrine can only be changed through a constitutional amendment process, which requires approval by a two-thirds majority of General Conference and a three-fourths majority of all annual conference members present and voting.” Kuddos to Hahn and UMNS for getting this part right the second time. (Though this part of the article still contains what I think is a very confusing opening line, “The Book of Discipline, The United Methodist Church’s law book, does not make specific mention of heaven or hell.”)

The General Rules and a Holy Lent

09 Wednesday Mar 2011

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Accountability, Christian Living, links, Methodist History, Ministry, Wesley

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Christian living, discipleship, General Rules, Michael Cartwright, Wesley


One of many highlights of last week’s annual meeting of the Wesleyan Theological Society was a conversation I had with Michael G. Cartwright about a new resource on the “General Rules.” Cartwright and Andrew D. Kinsey have developed “Watching Over One Another in Love: Reclaiming the Wesleyan Rule of Life for the Church’s Mission” which is a 28 day day study of the “General Rules.” I have not had the chance to read through this resource, but it looks excellent and I am looking forward to getting into it. (My first impression, when I was given a copy was that the design and layout is beautiful!)

And the price of this resource is right. You can download it here for free! For more, you can also go to The Indiana Annual Conference’s Wesleyan ConneXion page to download another free resource that contains articles by Richard P. Heitzenrater and William J. Abraham on the relevance of the Wesleyan tradition for contemporary United Methodism.

As I write this on Ash Wednesday, I can’t help but think that using “Watching Over Another in Love ” could be a great way to help you have a holy Lent in preparation for the good news that we will hear again on Easter Sunday. In fact, it would be a great way to take on John Meunier’s recent challenge to focus on what it would look like to “be Methodist” during the forty days of Lent.

Signs of Transformation

20 Thursday Jan 2011

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Blogroll, Christian Living, links, Ministry, Wesley

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Yesterday Sloan Looney posted about the impact that Munger Place Church is having on her life. As someone who is involved at Munger, I was thrilled to read her positive assessment of Munger.

I wanted to link to Sloan’s post here because it isn’t often that a lay person is so pumped about their church that they take the time to write such a thoughtful essay. Sloan is also a member of one of the Munger small groups, which are patterned after the early Methodist class meeting. My hope is that one of the reasons she has experienced such amazing community at Munger is in part because she is meeting weekly with a group of Christians who listen to how things are in her faith journey and whom she listens to as well.

In a time when there is so much hand-wringing amongst leaders in the UMC, I praise God for signs like this that the Holy Spirit is still at work! One person’s life has been so touched by God through the ministries of a brand new UM congregation, that she is willing to put it into words in a public forum. How cool is that?

Thank you, Sloan!

Recommended Reading

27 Wednesday Oct 2010

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Book Review, Christian Living, links, Methodist History, Wesley

≈ 4 Comments


I want to recommend three books that I have recently read (in one instance, re-read) and three books that I am really looking forward reading.


Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers is Telling the American Church
by Kenda Dean.

If you are involved in ministry with youth and young adults, you should read this book. If you have children and care about them becoming mature Christians, you should read this book. Oh, and if you care about people in this demographic… you should read this book.

I just finished reading Almost Christian and (as you may be able to tell) I thought it was excellent. Almost Christian chews on the research and data that was released with Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton’s Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers, which has already made a big splash in conversations about the formation of youth and young adults. I plan on blogging about Dean’s book in the near future, so I won’t say more at this point.


Charles Wesley and the Struggle for Methodist Identity by Gareth Lloyd.

I re-read this book during my time working in the Methodist Archives in Manchester. Gareth Lloyd is also the archivist for the Methodist material in Manchester. Lloyd’s book does two things that are both major contributions to Wesleyan Studies and the history of Methodism. First, he argues that John Wesley’s perspective has dominated the history of Methodism in ways that have distorted the picture. Thus, Charles Wesley and the Struggle for Methodist Identity seeks to begin to restore some balance and bring the picture back into focus. The second contribution of Lloyd’s work is that the book acts as a kind of guide to the primary source material that has all too often been overlooked by Methodist historians. One of Lloyd’s key arguments is that scholarship relating to Charles Wesley is inadequate because it has tended to rely on nineteenth century secondary source material, rather than going back to the original materials. Because of his position at the Rylands, Lloyd is the ideal person to make this case and to provide suggestions as to where key materials are that have yet to be mined.

Warning: The main negative of this book is its price. It is currently only available in hardcover and is $99. (Oh, you can purchase a Kindle version, which is $20 cheaper.)


Wesleyan Beliefs: Formal and Popular Expressions of the Core Beliefs of Wesleyan Communities by Ted A. Campbell.

Finally, Ted A. Campbell’s latest contribution to Wesleyan Studies has just come off the presses. If nothing else, you should read this book because it is endorsed by both Richard P. Heitzenrater and Randy L. Maddox. Maddox’s endorsement suggests that “Campbell’s careful study should put to rest finally the frequent caricature of Methodism as unconcerned about doctrinal beliefs… This is a must-read for scholars of the Wesleyan/Methodist tradition and beyond!”

My brief summary of Campbell’s argument would be that studies of Methodist or Wesleyan doctrine or beliefs have tended to fall into one of two camps. They are either focused on a rigid study of official doctrinal statements or academic contributions from members of these traditions, or they are focused on the opposite extreme of the popular practices and expressions of faith of Wesleyan or Methodist faith communities at particular points in time. In Wesley Beliefs, Campbell aims to bring these two legitimate foci into conversation with one another. In so doing, he finds that the study of official statements of doctrine along with more popular expressions of lay spirituality (such as hymnals, catechisms, and the architectural design of churches) reveal significant harmony.

(Full disclosure: Ted Campbell is my Ph.D. advisor here at S.M.U., so I am perhaps predisposed to think highly of his work.)

Here are three books that I am chomping at the bit to get my hands on, in fact I hope to be able pick up a few this weekend at the American Academy of Religion. Since I have not read them, I will not comment on them any further at this point, except to say that I think they are worth checking out.

The Methodist Experience in America, Vol 1: A History
by Russell E. Richey, Kenneth E. Rowe, and Jean Miller Schmidt

From Aldersgate to Azusa Street: Wesleyan, Holiness, and Pentecostal Visions of the New Creation edited by Henry H. Knight III.

T&T Clark Companion to Methodism edited by Charles Yrigoyen, Jr.

A Great Week, I Even Get to Preach

16 Friday Jul 2010

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Life, links

≈ 1 Comment

This week has been wonderful. I was able to have several conversations with people for my AAR paper on Methodist seminaries and the Civil Rights Movement. The research and conversations related to this paper are progressing nicely.

Yesterday I had coffee with Andrew Conard and gave him a quick tour of Perkins School of Theology. (He even got to see my carrel, which to my surprise is apparently not on gowalla.) I really enjoyed the conversation with Andrew and the chance to catch up.

After hanging out with Andrew, I drove to Carrollton Church of the Nazarene to attend the ordination service at the Dallas District Assembly for a good friend of mine, Scott Dermer. Watching my friend be ordained and worshipping with another tradition that is part of the Wesleyan family was inspirational.

To top off a great week, I will be preaching at both services at New Haven United Methodist Church in Tulsa, OK this weekend, as well as visiting with Sunday School classes during the Sunday School hour. I am really looking forward to preaching again and to worshipping with the people at New Haven UMC.

Was unChristian Wrong?

01 Thursday Jul 2010

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Book Review, links

≈ 3 Comments

Scot McKnight has written a post on Bradley R. E. Wright’s new book Christians are Hate-Filled Hypocrites… and Other Lies You’ve Been Told: A Sociologist Shatters Myths from the Secular and Christian Media. My first thought on seeing the title of the book was, Would the title of that book even fit in a tweet? (It will, with two characters to spare!) McKnight’s post is mostly an introduction to the book and an encouragement for us to buy it.

I have not read it, but it sounds like Wright’s book may be trying to set the record straight on some of the assertions made by unChristian: What a New Generation Really Things about Christianity… and Why it Matters. If that is, at least in part, what Wright is in fact trying to do, I will be very interested to read the book (when I can scratch up the money and time to read something not related to my dissertation). I will also be interested to see if it gets as much press as unChristian did. I suspect that if Wright is trying to provide nuance and subtlety to the interpretation and use of statistics which can be used to bludgeon other people in arguments, it regrettably will not be as popular as a book that just allows you to create a neat stereotype of an entire group of people. (At the moment it is ranked 21,241 on amazon, which is not bad.)

I will look forward to writing more if and when I have a chance to read the book for myself.

Has anyone read the book? Are my hunches about what it will be about on target at all? What are you thoughts?

(By the way, Bradley R. E. Wright also has a blog, which I have enjoyed reading. In addition to being a professor of sociology at the University of Connecticut, he is also a gifted photographer.)

Books, books, books

14 Monday Jun 2010

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Life, links

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books

Recently finished:

Heart Religion in the British Enlightenment: Gender and Emotion in Early Methodism, Phyllis Mack
The Dominance of Evangelicalism: The Age of Spurgeon and Moody, David W. Bebbington
Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815, Gordon S. Wood
God, Race, and American Politics: A Short History, Mark A. Noll
Canonical Theism, William J. Abraham, Jason E. Vickers, Natalie B. Van Kirk
Nazarene Roots, Stan Ingersol
Knowing Christ Today: Why We Can Trust Spiritual Knowledge, Dallas Willard
Slave Religion: The “Invisible Institution” in the Antebellum South, Albert J. Raboteau
“There is a River”: The Black Struggle for Freedom in America, Vincent Harding

Currently Reading:

America’s God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln, Mark A. Noll
Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63, Taylor Branch
Populist Saints: B. T. and Ellen Roberts and the First Free Methodists, Howard A. Snyder
Hannah’s Child: A Theologian’s Memoir, Stanley Hauerwas

What are you reading?

John Meunier on Doubt and Pastoral Ministry

19 Friday Mar 2010

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in links, Ministry

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

doubt, Ministry

I highly recommend this post that John Meunier has written about his own calling to ministry in the United Methodist Church and on the calling of a pastor to teach the faith of the church. This is a beautifully written, compelling piece. Thanks John!

Prooftexting Wesley

12 Friday Mar 2010

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Christian Living, links, Methodist History, Wesley

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

prooftexting, social holiness, social justice, Wesley

When I taught United Methodist History last semester, I asked my students to search either the internet or denominational publications for articles which specifically interacted with John Wesley and appealed to him in order to make a point about the contemporary United Methodist Church. The assignment was for the students to research in depth what Wesley actually said about whatever the article addressed and determine whether the article had faithfully appropriated Wesley. The assignment ended up succeeding beyond my expectations for it. There were several students who found what they were looking for, or did not dive as deep as they could have into the Wesleyan corpus. However, there were many papers that reflected systematic investigation into what Wesley wrote about a particular topic. And best of all, there were a few instances of students who read Wesley so carefully and conscientiously that they allowed themselves to be surprised by him.

One of the motivations for the assignment was that popular writing about Wesley often reflects a shallow engagement with Wesley’s own writing and is a foil for saying what the person would have said if they were simply stating their opinion. I am not aiming this at a particular group or theological spectrum. I have seen too many instances all across the theological spectrum of prooftexting Wesley. Everyone who goes to seminary is taught not to prooftext the Bible (prooftexting means pulling a passage out of its context and using it to prove something that does not follow from the context it is found within). Most seminarians make a real effort to avoid doing this, and are happy to call others on it when they prooftext. And yet, prooftexting Wesley seems to be a beloved pastime.

The most recent example of this has been in response to comments by Glen Beck that suggested people should flee from churches that promote social justice. (I want to be clear, at this point, that this is not a disguised attempt to defend Beck. In fact, though this post is prompted by the response of others to Glen Beck, this post is not about Glen Beck at all. It is about John Wesley, whose thought I would rather spend my time and energy interacting with.) The main reason I became aware of the recent prooftext is because I actually quoted the passage that has been used in the discussion, so that my post has twice been linked to in relation to these conversations. Jeremy Smith, using good blogging etiquette, linked to my original post (which is nothing more than the quote from Wesley that Smith uses). However, a post by BaptistPlanet padded their argument by suggesting that I agreed with them, when – again – my original post was not making an argument, it was literally just the quote from Wesley. Here is what they attributed to me: “As Kevin Watson observed last year, their denominational devotion to social justice extends unbroken all the way back to John Wesley:” Please read my original post, and see if you think you can get that out of my original post.

At this point, some of you are probably wondering if I am going to actually mention the quote from Wesley that is the source of this. Here it is:

“Directly opposite to this is the gospel of Christ. Solitary religion is not to be found there. ‘Holy solitaries’ is a phrase no more consistent with the gospel than holy adulterers. The gospel of Christ knows of no religion, but social; no holiness but social holiness.”

The move that Jeremy made in his initial post on this, which seems to be a frequent move, is to equate social holiness with social justice. I think this is questionable on its own merits (see for example this post and this post by Andrew Thompson – a Th.D. student at Duke who is studying with Randy Maddox and Richard Heitzenrater). However, what I think is indisputable is that it is not a valid move to make when interacting with the passage mentioned above, which Jeremy explicitly cites on his blog. (In fairness, my guess is that Jeremy googled something like “no holiness but social holiness” and came up with my post, which cites the single passage, and not the entire Preface. I will remedy that below by citing the entire Preface. Though I do think it is incumbent on all who appeal to Wesley to do this sort of investigation.)

The quote from Wesley comes from the 1739 Preface to his “Hymns and Sacred Poems”. As I mentioned, I am going to quote the Preface in its entirety at the end of this post. I urge you to read Wesley’s comments in their entirety, to put this quote back in its context. The passage is not that long, and if we are not willing to take the time to read Wesley in some depth, we should probably stop appealing to him.

As a student of Wesley and the history of Methodism, I think it is worth getting this right for its own sake. And as a pastor in The United Methodist Church, I think the rest of the Preface goes a long way towards explaining why there is apparent disagreement about conflating social justice and social holiness. I have never met a Christian (at least as far as I can remember) who has said, I don’t believe that Christians should help other people. I have met many Christians who are concerned that the desire to help other people has replaced the importance of faith in Jesus Christ. Christians are right to insist that only Christ can save us. Salvation is not something that we can earn by our effort. Thus, a few paragraphs before Wesley says “no holiness but social holiness” he writes, “Other foundation therefore can no man lay, without being an adversary to Christ and his gospel, than faith alone; faith, though necessarily producing both, yet not including either good works, or holiness.” Faith is prior, it is the foundation. Wesley wants us always to be explicit about this.

The other thing that is missed when Wesley’s words are pulled out of context is why he is writing this. The major contrast Wesley is making is “the manner of building up souls in Christ taught by St. Paul” from “that taught by the Mystics.” This is not explicit in the passage, but given what was going in the Fetter Lane Society, which Wesley was part of at the time, I think it seems likely that the target in his mind for these attacks was the Moravian quietists in Fetter Lane – the ones who said you should do nothing but wait for faith, by yourself without the means of grace. It is not hard to imagine this audience when Wesley writes, “For contemplation is, with them, the fulfilling of the law, even a contemplation that ‘consists in a cessation from all works.’”

It seems to me that when Wesley says “social holiness” what he means is that we do not grow in our relationship with God – we do not become holy – by ourselves. John Meunier’s comment on Jeremy’s original post comes closest to the point, “Wesley clearly meant by social holiness the idea that we have to be in connection and relationship with other Christians to be holy. You can’t sit in your closet and by holy. You have to be with other people to love them.” (This is comment #12. John frequently blogs here.)

Does this mean that Christians, particularly Methodists, should not care about helping others? Of course not! The Greatest Commandment is to love God and love our neighbor. The “General Rules” command Methodists to do no harm, do good, and practice the means of grace. But I am convinced that Wesley would be adamant that the foundation of our reaching out to help others has to be faith in Jesus Christ. I actually don’t think it is all that controversial amongst Methodists that Christians should help others. I have never heard a Methodist say they think we should stop going on mission trips to build houses or repair damaged churches. I have never heard the most conservative Christian say it is a bad idea to send food to starving people. They, rightly in my view, get impatient when they perceive that the church is becoming merely a social service agency. There is no holiness without social holiness. That is why Wesley created the society, class, and band structure. So Methodists could watch over one another in love and encourage each other to growth in holiness, of which good works are absolutely a part.

But social justice is not the same thing as social holiness. Our tendency to equate the two reflects just how impoverished our understanding of the holiness that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit invite us to is at the moment.

As promised, the entirety of Wesley’s Preface to the 1739 Hymns and Sacred Poems follows. I pulled this from the Duke Center for Studies in the Wesleyan Tradition, which is an excellent online resource, you should check it out.

——

1. Some verses, it may be observ’d, in the following
collection, were wrote upon the scheme of the mystic divines.
And these, ’tis own’d, we had once in great veneration, as the
best explainers of the gospel of Christ. But we are now
convinced that we therein “greatly err’d, not knowing the
Scriptures, neither the power of God.” And because this is an
error which many serious minds are sooner or later exposed to,
and which indeed most easily besets those who seek the Lord
Jesus in sincerity, we believe ourselves indispensably obliged, in
the presence of God, and angels, and men, to declare wherein
we apprehend those writers not to teach “the truth as it is in
Jesus.”

2. And first, we apprehend them to lay another foundation.
They are carefull, indeed, to pull down our own works, and to
prove that “by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified.”
But why is this? Only “to establish our own righteousness” in
the place of our own works. They speak largely and well against
expecting to be accepted of God for our virtuous actions—and
then teach that we are to be accepted for our virtuous habits or
tempers. Still the ground of our acceptance is placed in
ourselves. The difference is only this: common writers suppose
we are to be justified for the sake of our outward righteousness.
These suppose we are to be justified for the sake of our inward
righteousness. Whereas in truth we are no more justified for the
sake of one than of the other. For neither our own inward nor
outward righteousness is the ground of our justification.
Holiness of heart, as well as holiness of life, is not the cause but
the effect ofit. The sole cause of our acceptance with God (or, that for the
sake of which, on the account of which we are accepted) is the
righteousness and the death of Christ, who fulfilled God’s law
and died in our stead. And even the condition of it is not (as they
suppose) our holiness either of heart or life, but our faith alone,
faith contradistinguish’d from holiness as well as from good
works. Other foundation therefore can no man lay, without being
an adversary to Christ and his gospel, than faith alone, faith,
though necessarily producing both, yet not including either good
works or holiness.

3. But supposing them to have laid the foundation right,
the manner of building thereon which they advise is quite
opposite to that prescribed by Christ. He commands to “build up
one another.” They advise, “To the desert, to the desert, and God
will build you up.” Numberless are the commendations that
occur in all their writings, not of retirement intermix’d with
conversation, but of an intire seclusion from men (perhaps for
months or years), in order to purify the soul. Whereas, according
to the judgment of our Lord and the writings of his apostles, it is
only when we are “knit together” that we “have nourishment
from him,” and “increase with the increase of God.” Neither is
there any time when the weakest member can say to the
strongest, or the strongest to the weakest, “I have no need of
thee.” Accordingly our blessed Lord, when his disciples were in
their weakest state, sent them forth, not alone but two by two.
When they were strengthened a little, not by solitude but by
abiding with him and one another, he commanded them to
“wait,” not separate but being assembled together, “for the
promise of the Father.” And “they were all with one accord in
one place” when they received the gift of the Holy Ghost.
Express mention is made in the same chapter that when “there
were added unto them three thousand souls,” “all that believed
were together,” “and continued steadfastly” not only “in the
apostles” doctrine,” but also “in fellowship and in breaking of
bread,” and in praying “with one accord.”
Agreeable to which is the account the great Apostle gives of the
manner which he had been taught of God, “for the perfecting of
the saints,” “for the edifying of the body of Christ,” even to the
end of the world. And according to St. Paul, “all” who will ever
“come, in the unity of the faith, unto a perfect man, unto the
measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,” must together
“grow up into him, from whom the whole body fitly join’d
together and compacted” (or strengthen’d) “by that which every
joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the
measure of every part, maketh increase of the body, unto the
edifying of itself in love.” Ephesians iv. 15, 16.

4. So widely distant is the manner of building up souls in
Christ taught by St. Paul from that taught by the mysticks! Nor
do they differ as to the foundation, or the manner of building
thereon, more than they do with regard to the superstructure. For
the religion these authors wou’d edify us in is
3Ori., “love”; corrected in 5th edn. (1756).
solitary religion. If thou wilt be perfect, say they,
trouble not thyself about outward works. It is better to
work virtues in the will. He hath attain’d the true
resignation who hath estranged himself from all outward
works, that God may work inwardly in him, without any
turning to outward things. These are the true worshippers,
who worship God in spirit and in truth.
For contemplation is with them the fulfilling of the law, even a
contemplation that “consists in a cessation of all works.”

5. Directly opposite to this is the gospel of Christ. Solitary
religion is not to be found there. “Holy solitaries” is a phrase no
more consistent with the gospel than holy adulterers. The gospel
of Christ knows of no religion but social; no holiness but social
holiness. “Faith working by love” is the length and breadth and
depth and height of Christian perfection. “This commandment
have we from Christ, that he who loveth3 God love his brother
also;” and that we manifest our love
“by doing good unto all men, especially to them that are of the
household of faith.” And in truth, whosoever loveth his brethren
not in word only, but as Christ loved him, cannot but be “zealous
of good works.” He feels in his soul a burning, restless desire, of
spending and being spent for them. “My father,” will he say,
“worketh hitherto, and I work.” And at all possible opportunities
he is, like his Master, “going about doing good.”

6. This then is the way. Walk ye in it, whosoever ye are
that have believed in his name. Ye know, “Other foundation can
no man lay than that which is laid, even Jesus Christ.” Ye feel
that “by grace ye are saved through faith”; saved from sin by
Christ form’d “in your hearts,” and from fear by “his Spirit
bearing witness with your spirit, that ye are the sons of God.” Ye
are taught of God, “not to forsake the assembling of yourselves
together, as the manner of some is”; but to instruct, admonish,
exhort, reprove, comfort, confirm, and every way build up one
another. “Ye
have an unction from the Holy One” that teacheth you to
renounce any other or higher perfection than “faith working by
love,” faith “zealous of good works,” faith “as it hath
opportunity doing good unto all men.” “As ye have therefore
received Jesus Christ the Lord, so walk ye in him; rooted and
built up in him, and stablish’d in the faith, and abounding
therein” more and more. Only, “Beware lest any man spoil you
thro’ philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after
the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.” For “ye are
complete in him.” “He is Alpha and Omega, the beginning and
the ending, the first and the last.” Only “continue in” him,
“grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of
the gospel.” “And when Christ, who is our life, shall appear,
then shall ye also appear with him in glory!”

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