1. Wesley’s theology is charismatic in its stress on God’s grace in the life and experience of the church. Wesley was deeply conscious of the operation of the grace of God in personal experience and in the life of the church—God’s grace “preventing [or coming before], accompanying, and following” every person. 2

     Wesley was as deeply conscious of God’s grace as were the leaders of the sixteenth-century Reformation. He had a deep optimism of grace that formed the foundation of his emphasis on the universal atonement, the witness of the Spirit, and Christian perfection. Wesley’s stress on “preventing,” or prevenient, grace is especially important and sets him apart from the earlier Reformers. Colin Williams has observed that Wesley “broke the chain of logical necessity by which the Calvinist doctrine of predestination seems to flow from the doctrine of original sin, by his doctrine of prevenient grace.” 3

     This doctrine teaches that God’s grace has been shed abroad indiscriminately to all people as an unconditional benefit of the Atonement, enabling them to take the initial steps toward God. Wesley argued, “There is no man that is in a state of mere nature; there is no man, unless he has quenched the Spirit, that is wholly void of the grace of God. No man living is entirely destitute of what is vulgarly called natural conscience. But this is not natural: It is more properly termed preventing grace. . . . no man sins because he has no grace, but because he does not use the grace which he hath.”  4

     Wesley saw the whole plan of salvation as grounded in the grace of God. It follows that the church exists and lives by God’s grace. Although Wesley said little specifically about the church being dependent on grace, this is the clear implication of his view. Whenever he discusses the church he stresses the spiritual, living meaning of it. Perhaps Wesley’s most compact definition of the New Testament church is his comment on Acts 5:11: “A company of men, called by the gospel, grafted into Christ by baptism, animated by love, united by all kind of fellowship, and disciplined by the death of Ananias and Sapphira.” 5 Wesley wrote in “A Letter to a Roman Catholic” in 1749,

     I believe that Christ by his Apostles gathered unto himself a Church, to which he has continually added such as shall be saved; that this catholic, that is, universal, Church, extending to all nations and all ages, is holy in all its members, who have fellowship with the holy angels, who constantly minister to these heirs of salvation; and with all the living members of Christ on earth, as well as all who are departed in his faith and fear. 6

     Whoever they are that have “one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one God and Father of all,” I can easily bear with their holding wrong opinions, yea, and superstitious modes of worship; nor would I, on these accounts, scruple still to include them within the pale of the catholic Church; neither would I have any objection to receive them, if they desired it, as members of the Church of England. 7

• The unity of the church is based on the Christian koinonia in the Holy Spirit.

• The holiness of the church is grounded in the discipline of grace which guides and matures the Christian life from its . . . justifying faith to its . . sanctification.

• The catholicity of the church is defined by the universal outreach of redemption, the essential community of all true believers.

• The apostolicity of the church is gauged by the succession of apostolic doctrine in those who have been faithful to the apostolic witness. 8

     This seems to be an apt summary. It shows how Wesley took a more charismatic than institutional approach to the church, stressing the vital operations of grace in the life and experience of the believing community.

     2. Wesley’s understanding of the church and Christian experience can be described as charismatic because of the place of the Holy Spirit in his theology and because of his openness to the gifts of the Spirit.

     Without debating the precise role of the Holy Spirit in Wesley’s doctrine of entire sanctification, or the appropriate terminology to describe the role of the Spirit, we can at least affirm that the Holy Spirit played a significant role in Wesley’s thought. Wesley was biblical in understanding salvation in strongly christological rather than primarily pneumatological terms. That is, his primary focus was on Jesus Christ and secondarily on the Holy Spirit. Yet he stressed the Spirit’s role in testifying to Christ and making him real to us in present experience. The “more excellent purpose” for which the Holy Spirit was poured out at Pentecost was “to give them . . . the mind which was in Christ, those holy fruits of the Spirit, which whosoever hath not, is none of His.” 9

     Wesley did not expound a complete doctrine of the gifts of the Spirit. He did say enough, however (mainly in response to charges that he himself claimed extraordinary gifts and inspirations), for us to understand his general perspective.

     He had a fundamental optimism regarding the gifts, though he only occasionally revealed it. He advised Christians that the best gifts “are worth your pursuit, though but few of you can attain them.” 10 “Perfecting the saints” in Ephesians 4:12 involves “completing them both in number and their various gifts and graces.” Gifts are given for their usefulness, by which “alone are we to estimate all our gifts and talents.” 11

     But there is a complicating factor in Wesley’s views. He made a distinction between “ordinary” and “extraordinary” gifts that is not precisely biblical and leads to a certain amount of ambiguity in his attitude toward the charismata.

     The “ordinary gifts” included “convincing speech,” persuasion, knowledge, faith, “easy elocution,” and pastors and teachers as “ordinary officers.” 12 Among the “extraordinary gifts” he included healing, miracles, prophecy (in the sense of foretelling), discernment of spirits, speaking in tongues, and the interpretation of tongues. He describes apostles, prophets, and evangelists as “extraordinary officers.” Thus Wesley problematically includes more than the usually identified charismata under “ordinary gifts,” and he makes a distinction in 1 Corinthians 12 between gifts that are “extraordinary” or “miraculous” and others that are not. 13

     Wesley felt the ordinary gifts were for the church in all ages and should appropriately be desired by Christians—though, of course, governed by love. 14 All the gifts, including the extraordinary ones, had been part of the experience of the church during the first three centuries, he believed, but “even in the infancy of the church, God divided them with a sparing hand,” bestowing them principally on those in leadership. 15

     It is important to our discussion to see whether Wesley believed that the extraordinary gifts could be expected in the church in his day. This gives clues as to how he would view the Charismatic renewal of the twentieth century. He writes,

     It does not appear that these extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost were common in the Church for more than two or three centuries. We seldom hear of them after that fatal period when the Emperor Constantine called himself a Christian. . . . From this time they almost totally ceased; very few instances of the kind were found. The cause of this was not,. . ."because there was no more occasion for them.” ... The real cause was, “the love of many,” almost of all Christians, was “waxed cold.” . . . This was the real cause why the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost were no longer to be found in the Christian Church. 16

     The extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, according to Wesley, had nearly vanished in his day because of the fallen state of the church. It was not the ideal situation. In fact, God’s power was still at work, though hindered by the general coldness and deadness of the church.

     Thus Wesley neither encouraged the extraordinary gifts nor disparaged them. He was cautious not to accept too quickly, without significant ethical fruit, but he was also careful not to condemn. Consider what he says about his dealings with the “French Prophets” who had come to England from Cevenne in France.

     Wesley writes that on January 28, 1739, he “went (having been long importuned thereto) to hear one of the French Prophets, a woman who underwent various convulsions and spoke mostly in words of Scripture.” Wesley notes that while some of his companions “believed she spoke by the Spirit of God, this was in no wise clear to me.” He adds, “The motion might be either hysterical or artificial. And the same words any person of a good understanding and well versed in the Scriptures might have spoken. But I let the matter alone; knowing this, that ‘if it be not of God, it will come to naught.’ “ 18

     On other occasions Wesley expressed this same cautious attitude toward glossolalia. He wrote, “It seems ‘the gift of tongues’ was an instantaneous knowledge of a tongue till then unknown, which he that received it could afterwards speak when he thought fit, without any new miracle.” 19 He understood tongues as the miraculous ability to speak an actual language, whether previously known or unknown. Because tongues-speaking is a gift of language, God might well not give it “where it would be of no use; as in a Church where all are of one mind, and all speak the same language.” 20 But if one possesses the gift of tongues he should “not act so absurdly, as to utter in a congregation what can edify none but” himself. Rather he should speak “that tongue, if he find it profitable to himself in his private devotions.” 21

     Is Wesley here referring to a “prayer language” in the modern Pentecostal sense when he makes this rather surprising remark? Probably not, if by this is meant a form of ecstatic utterance bearing no resemblance to known languages. However, he does seem to be allowing for the normal use of a miraculously given ability to use at will, with rational control, a language which the speaker (or pray-er) does not, or previously did not, understand. This comes very close to what many contemporary Charismatics mean by a “prayer language.” Contrary to common caricatures, praying in an unknown tongue does not usually mean surrendering control of one’s rational faculties. Also, it is interesting that Wesley allows for the use of tongues in private prayer, even though in that case no one but the speaker would be edified. 22

     Wesley’s attitude is noteworthy in light of later Pentecostal and Holiness Movement reactions to dramatic behavior. He was an experimentalist, keenly interested in religious experience. His strong emphasis on the rational nature of faith does not mean he would have opposed glossolalia as irrational, for his view of reason was always tempered by experience. He reacted against extreme rationalism as much as against unbiblical “enthusiasm,” or fanaticism. He understood that the Christian faith, though rational, also transcends reason. Albert Outler notes,

     Wesley had a remarkably practical rule for judging extraordinary gifts of the Spirit (ecstasies, miracles, etc.). . . . No profession of an “extraordinary gift” (“tongues” or whatever) is to be rejected out of hand, as if we knew what the Spirit should or should not do. . . . What he did insist on was that such gifts are never ends in themselves, that all of them must always be normed (and judged) by the Spirit’s “ordinary” gifts (“love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, etc., etc.”) Like faith, all spiritual gifts are in order to love, which is the measure of all that is claimed to be from God, since God is love. 23

     While Wesley’s view of spiritual gifts was not developed at length, he was evidently more aware of and more positive toward the charismata than most churchmen of his day. This is indicated by his keen interest in all forms of religious experience and by his departure from his source, the German Pietist scholar J. A. Bengel, in his comments on gifts in the Explanatory Notes. Wesley often adds observations regarding spiritual gifts that are not found in Bengel. For example, in his comment on 1 Peter 4:10 Wesley employs the ordinary/extraordinary distinction, which Bengel doesn’t. 24 Wesley’s distinction between ordinary and extraordinary gifts (and offices) did not originate with him, but he took it over and emphasized it. 25

     Partly because of his nonbiblical distinction between ordinary and extraordinary gifts, Wesley failed to see the full, practical significance and necessity of the charismata for the life and ministry of the Christian community. We could wish that he had connected ministry in the church more closely with gifts. Except for this reservation, however, we may say that Wesley’s theology at this point is charismatic in the New Testament sense.

     3. Wesley’s theology is charismatic in its emphasis on the church as community. Wesley saw that there could be no true church without genuine fellowship. He felt Methodism had a special role to play in encouraging this. Thus he writes in his preface to Hymns and Sacred Poems (first edition, 1739),

     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.” 26

     By Christian fellowship Wesley meant more than merely corporate worship. Fellowship means watching over one another in love; advising, exhorting, admonishing, and praying with the brothers and sisters. “This, and this alone, is Christian fellowship,” he said. And this was part of the mission of Methodism: “We introduce Christian fellowship where it was utterly destroyed. And the fruits of it have been peace, joy, love, and zeal for every good word and work.” 28 Close community, in other words, helps produce effective ministry.

     The great instrument for promoting this quality of community or fellowship was, of course, the Methodist organization: the society, class meeting, and band. For Wesley, the class meeting was an ecclesiological statement, and one integrally linked to Christian perfection. Franklin Littell writes, “Of the various institutions John Wesley introduced to plant and cultivate a living faith, none was so representative of his view of the Christian life as the class meetings.“ 29

     Colin Williams adds, “Wesley’s view of holiness was woven into his ecclesiology. He believed that the gathering together of believers into small voluntary societies for mutual discipline and Christian growth was essential to the Church’s life.” He “insisted that there must be some form of small group fellowship.” 30 In Wesley’s view, if believers were really serious in their quest for holiness, they would band together in small groups to experience that level of community which is the necessary environment for growth in grace. 31

     We conclude that Wesley’s theology is charismatic from this perspective as well. This charismatic strain puts Wesley’s thought in some tension with more recent Wesleyan groups that have wholly abandoned the class meeting or other forms of intimate, accountable group discipleship.

     4. Wesley’s theology is charismatic in its tension with institutional expressions of the church. Here we encounter one of the fundamental tensions in both Wesley’s thought and his career. Wesley affirmed the value of the largely decadent institutional church, but he saw Methodism as more truly exhibiting the essential marks of the church. He worked hard to keep the growing Methodist movement within the bounds of the Church of England. This tension between institutional and charismatic tendencies, and this attempt to hold the two together by the animating power of the Spirit within the institution, goes to the very heart of Wesley’s concept and practice of the church.

     In summary, Wesley’s theology is distinctly and fundamentally charismatic, though perhaps not in a fully biblical way. A more adequate biblical view would require rethinking the distinction between the “ordinary” and “extraordinary” gifts, relating gifts more fully and normatively to the various forms of Christian ministry, and giving fuller treatment to the question of the gift of tongues.

• Both may be described as evangelical movements originating within a largely liturgical-sacramental Catholic tradition;

• Both emphasize personal appropriation and experience of faith in Jesus Christ;

• Both combine the emphases of faith and holiness;

• Both put strong emphasis on singing and praise;

• Both maintain a strong sacramental emphasis, conduct separate meetings for worship and instruction, profess loyalty to the institutional church, claim to be biblical, and stress the role of the Holy Spirit (but not to the detriment of a balanced christological and trinitarian emphasis).

• Both employ a large corps of lay leaders. In fact, early Methodism resembles contemporary Catholic Charismatic Christianity much more than it does Protestant Pentecostal and Charismatic manifestations.

     A final observation can be made. Even though the gifts of the Spirit played a relatively minor part in Wesley’s theological understanding, their exercise played a major role in the growth of Methodism itself. A key to the Wesleyan system was Wesley’s “lay” preachers, whom he considered as exercising a charismatic office. They were people who demonstrated gifts for ministry, and Wesley put them to work, confirming their gifts.

     The early Methodist system, in fact, gave broad opportunity for exercising many spiritual gifts. The Methodist societies needed class leaders, band leaders, assistants, stewards, visitors of the sick, and schoolmasters, among others. 32 While these functions were probably not understood primarily as the exercise of spiritual gifts, the whole Methodist system encouraged the kind of spiritual growth in which useful charisms would spring forth and be put into practical service. Methodism provided considerably more opportunity for the exercise of gifts than did the Church of England, where ministry was severely hedged about by clericalism. In this sense Methodist ministry was much more charismatic than Anglican forms of ministry were.

     Speaking during a Minister’s Week at Emory University, David du Plessis observed,

     While in England recently for a meeting of the Methodist Historical Society, the noted Methodist theologian, Albert Outler, stated that the charismatic movement is not without danger and crudities; but then, neither was early Methodism. “It amazes me a little,” he said, “to hear contemporary English Methodism talking about the charismatic renewal in much the same way as the eighteenth century bishop of London talked about the Wesleys and their enthusiasm. . . ." 33

1. We can’t escape the period of time in which we live. No doubt John Wesley’s beliefs were both influenced and limited by the fact that he lived in the eighteenth century. Even so, how do you think Wesley would react to the Charismatic renewal in the church today?
2. What programs in your church, whether intentionally or not, encourage people to discover and exercise their gifts of grace? What else could be done to encourage and enhance the practice of those gifts?
3. What other similarities or differences do you see in comparing the Methodist Movement with the Charismatic Movement of today?
4. What should be our reaction to unexpected manifestations of spiritual gifts that may occur in our churches? On what basis do we evaluate their legitimacy? 

1 It has occasionally been argued that Wesley himself spoke in tongues, but we have found no solid evidence for this claim.

2 Sermon, “The Good Steward,” The Works of John Wesley, 3rd ed., ed. Thomas Jackson (14 vols; London, 1829—1831; variously reprinted), 6:147. Hereafter cited as Works (Jackson).

3 Colin W. Williams, John Wesley’s Theology Today (New York: Abingdon Press, 1960), p. 44.

4 Sermon, “On Working Out Our Own Salvation,” Works (Jackson), 6:512. Thus it is a distortion of Wesley to say, as some critics have, that Wesley held that a person could turn to God purely on his own, without the operation of the grace of God.

5 Explanatory Notes on the New Testament (London: Epworth Press, 1958), p. 411.

6 Works (Jackson), 10:82.

7 Sermon, “Of the Church,” Works (Jackson), 6:397, By “wrong opinions” Wesley meant even wrong or faulty doctrine,

8 Albert C. Outler in Dow Kirkpatrick, ed., The Doctrine of the Church (New York: Abingdon, 1964), p. 19.

9 Sermon, “Scriptural Christianity,” Works (Jackson), 5:38.

10 Explanatory Notes, p. 625 (1 Cor. 12:31). Note his comment on healing, p. 623. 

11 Ibid., pp. 713, 628 (Eph. 4:12; 1 Cor. 14:5).

12 Ibid, See also Sermon, “The More Excellent Way,” Works (Jackson), 7:27; Explanatory Notes, p. 713 (on Eph. 4:8—11).

13 It has been suggested that Wesley’s use of the term “extraordinary” is to be understood in contradistinction to the eighteenth-century ecclesiastical meaning of “ordinary,” so that it would mean, in effect, “outside the normal ordained ministry” in a more or less technical sense. A search of several dictionaries does not bear this out, however, Even in Wesley’s day “extraordinary” had the common sense meaning of simply “outside of what is ordinary or usual” (Oxford English Dictionary, 3:468,472). Thus a 1706 London dictionary defines extraordinary as “beyond or contrary to common Order and Fashion, unusual, uncommon,” and a dictionary published in London in 1790 has “Different from common order and method; eminent, remarkable, more than common.” It appears that Wesley was using the term in the general and popular sense, not as a technical ecclesiastical designation. (This is underscored by the fact that Wesley seems to use “extraordinary” synonymously with “miraculous” when referring to the gifts.)

14 Works (Jackson), 7:27.

15 Works (Jackson), 5:38. Behind this distinction is a practical issue of ecclesiology: He was seeking to justify biblically his use of “lay” preachers as “extraordinary” ministers parallel to the prophets and evangelists of the New Testament, See Howard A. Snyder, The Radical Wesley and Patterns for Church Renewal (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1980), pp. 90—102.

16 Works (Jackson), 7:26—27,

17 Works (Jackson), 5:38. The idea of the “restitution of all things” (cf. Acts 3:21) is important for Wesley’s theology and ties in with some Charismatic themes.

18 The Journal of John Wesley, A. M., ed. Nehemiah Curnock (London: Epworth Press, 1938), 2:136—37.

19 Explanatory Notes, p. 631 (a comment not found in Bengel).

20 Letter to the Reverend Dr. Conyers Middleton, Works (Jackson), 10:56.

21 Explanatory Notes, pp. 629, 631 (1 Cor. 14:15, 28). Here again Wesley inserts his own comment, not following Bengel.

22 See, among others, Kelsey, pp. 54—55; also George Barton Cutten, Speaking With Tongues Historically and Psychologically Considered (New Haven:  Yale University Press, 1927), pp. 48—66. Both Kelsey and Cutten refer to Wesley in this regard.

23 Albert C. Outler, “John Wesley as Theologian—Then and Now,” Methodist History 12:4 (July 1974): 79.

24 Explanatory Notes, p. 884.

25 See Wesley’s “Farther Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion,” I, Section V, in The Works of John Wesley, ed, Frank Baker, Vol. 11 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), pp. 138—76.

26 Works (Jackson), 14:320—21.

27 Ibid. See also Wesley’s fourth sermon on the Sermon on the Mount, in Works, ed. Baker, 1:533—34, where he speaks of Christianity as “essentially a social religion.”

28 A Plain Account of the People Called Methodists,” Works (Jackson), 8:251—52.

29 Franklin Littell, “Class Meeting,” World Parish 9 (February 1961): 15.

30 Williams, pp. 151, 150.

31 This is discussed in greater length in Howard Snyder’s book The Radical Wesley and Patterns for Church Renewal.

32 A Plain Account of the People Called Methodists,” Works (Jackson), 8:261.

33 David du Plessis in Theodore Runyon, ed., What the Spirit is Saying to the Churches (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1975), p. 99.