Boston University OpenBU http://open.bu.edu Theses & Dissertations STH Theses and Dissertations 2012-05-11 Constrained to Deviate: John Wesley and the Evangelical Anglicans Danker, Ryan https://hdl.handle.net/2144/3756 Boston University BOSTON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY Dissertation CONSTRAINED TO DEVIATE: JOHN WESLEY AND THE EVANGELICAL ANGLICANS By Ryan N. Danker (B.A. Northwest Nazarene University, 2001; M.Div. Duke University, 2004) Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree Doctor of Theology 2012 Copyright © 2012 by Ryan N. Danker All rights reserved CONTENTS Chapter I. INTRODUCTION . 1 II. EARLY EVANGELICAL ANGLICANISM DEFINED: IDENTITY AND CHALLENGE IN THE MID-EIGHTEENTH CENTURY . 11 Defining “Evangelicalism” Revivalists for the Church III. JOHN WESLEY: EVANGELICAL ANGLICAN . 38 The Evangelical Sweep Movement and Fervor Caught Up in the Sweep The Aldersgate Experience A Religious Pollen Factory Wesley the Evangelical IV. PROPAGANDA AND POWER: EVANGELICALISM UNDER FIRE . 70 Methodism and its Detractors A Climate of Fear Evangelicalism as Cromwell Reborn Wesley and the Evangelicals Under Fire The Revival and Episcopal Power Pressing Issues V. THE POLITICS OF MAVERICK POLITY . 101 Methodist Conventicles Wesley and the Question of Dissent Fletcher and Walker: Evangelical Societies Staying the Course VI. EVANGELICAL ENCLAVES AND METHODIST INCURSIONS . 141 Geography and a Maturing Movement within the Church Evangelical Attempts to Curtail the Preachers The Huddersfield Compromise and the Conference of 1764 iii VII. THE EUCHARIST AND METHODIST ETHOS . 174 Methodist Identity and the 1755 Conference The 1760 Conference and Sacramental Administration Wesley’s High Churchmanship and Methodism’s Distinct Ethos Continuing Struggles VIII. POLITICAL CONVERGENCES, PREDESTINARIAN OXONIAMS, ANGLICAN HEGEMONY, AND IRREGULAR CASUALTIES . 209 Evangelical Entanglement The Context The Trial The Students The Aftermath Irregular Casualties IX. THE CALVINIST CONTROVERSY: A NEW HISTORIOGRAPHY . 240 Wesley the Tory The Old Divinity Restorationists of a Different Sort Divergent Visions X. CONCLUSION: CONSTRAINED TO DEVIATE: . 275 APPENDIX . 286 BIBLIOGRAPHY . 313 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The writings of Dr. Richard Heitzenrater ignited my interest in Wesley Studies. I want to thank him for his continued interest in my own efforts both while I was a student at Duke and beyond. He introduced me to the work of Dr. David Hempton, and thus to the idea of doing my doctoral work in Boston. When I came to Boston, Dr. Hempton noted that I knew all things “methodistical,” but quickly forced me out of my ecclesiastical bubble. I owe him a major debt of gratitude and thanks. Also, I want to thank Dr. Karen Westerfield Tucker for her guidance both at Duke and at Boston, and for her tireless efforts to improve the text of this work. There are too many people to mention who I would like to thank, but I do want to list some who have been especially supportive and helpful. These would include: Dr. Randy Maddox, Dr. Peter Forsaith, Dr. William Gibson, Dr. Glen Messer, Dr. John Walsh, Dr. Russell Richey, and Dr. Stephanie Budwey. I must mention Dr. Larry Czarda, President of Greensboro College, who gave me the time to finish the project. Special thanks to the Wesley Seminar at Duke University, where I was a participant in 2008, and to Oxford Brookes University where I was granted status as a Visiting Research Fellow in Fall 2011. Also, to Dr. Richard Turnbull and Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, where I was allowed to stay for a month, and whose library proved invaluable. Thanks also to the research librarians of both Boston University School of Theology and Duke Divinity School for their efforts to help me find random and esoteric texts. Also, to Ms. Peggy Joyner, librarian at West Market Street United Methodist Church, whose avid interest in my work made it all the better. On a personal note, I want to thank Rev. Bill Ellison for his support. Bill read nearly every chapter as they slowly came to fruition. Also, to Don Chase, whose gift of a scholarly work on predestination gave rise to what is now Chapter Nine. I must mention the love of my life, Dr. Carole Ott, who married me in the midst of writing this work, and although she has very little interest in history, has had to welcome Wesley and friends into our home regardless. Finally, I want to thank my parents, Terry and Carol Danker. Their love and support throughout has been, and continues to be, foundational. This work is dedicated to them. CONSTRAINED TO DEVIATE: JOHN WESLEY AND THE EVANGELICAL ANGLICANS Ryan N. Danker Doctor of Theology Boston University School of Theology, 2012 Major Professor: Dr. David N. Hempton, Alonzo L. MacDonald Family Professor of Evangelical Theological Studies, Harvard University ABSTRACT Although the dominant theory in Evangelical and Methodist studies has been that John Wesley and the Evangelical Anglican clergy separated over theological issues related to Christian perfection and predestination, essentially outlined as an Arminian/Calvinist split, it is the argument of this work that the gradual split between these two “parties” was much more multifaceted. Looking at the broader political, social, and religious context in which the Evangelical Revival arose, the divide between Wesley and the Evangelicals can be seen as much as an outgrowth of ecclesiastical pressures caused by maverick use of church polity, political memory in the wake of the English Civil War and the Restoration, the creation of a distinctly “Methodist” ethos, and even the rise of High Church and Tory political power in the latter part of the eighteenth century in the face of outside challenges. These larger influences, together with personal issues among what amounts to a small group of men, created the impetus for a divide between these two parties. While theological issues remain essential to the overall picture, they are treated within larger historical contexts. Wesley’s divide from his closest Anglican associates remains a complex issue within the tumultuous early period of the Evangelical Revival. vii CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION John Wesley’s relationship with the Evangelical clergymen of the eighteenth-century Church of England is an historical topic that has been too little studied in its fuller context.1 The standard line, if such a designation can be used, has been to claim that Wesley’s Arminianism clashed with the dominant Calvinism of the Evangelicals of the early Revival period and caused an ultimate rift in the Evangelical Revival in England. Such an assertion assumes many things that this dissertation will attempt to debunk in an attempt to formulate a cogent description of the events and issues that led some of the Evangelical clergy to disassociate with Wesley and Wesleyan Methodism.2 The Evangelical Revival, and Methodism as a subset of that larger movement, was varied and should be understood in terms of broader movements or a conglomeration of movements 1 There are various ways to use the term “Evangelical.” Henry Rack argues for the use of the capitalized form to distinguish those “Evangelicals” within the Church of England from their dissenting colleagues in the larger Revival in his biography of John Wesley (Reasonable Enthusiast: John Wesley and the Rise of Methodism [Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1989], xvi). David Bebbington uses the capitalized form to designate “any aspect of the movement beginning in the 1730s” (Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s [Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989], 1). D. Bruce Hindmarsh (John Newton and the English Evangelical Tradition: Between the Conversions of Wesley and Wilberforce [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001]) argues that the use of capitalization in order to differentiate churchman from dissenter encourages an all-too clean demarcation that was not so easily identifiable in the tumultuous milieu of this early period. I have chosen to follow Rack’s usage as a means of providing clarity to a picture that is undoubtedly disheveled, yet still capable of cautious categorization. The use of the capitalized form to deny the common heritage of both ends of the evangelical spectrum is a historiographical tool that should be opposed as partisanship masked as history. 2 The use of the term “Wesleyan Methodism” is meant to delineate that portion of the larger Revival specifically under the oversight of the Wesley brothers and especially John Wesley. This should be seen as a fluid designation. Readers with an understanding of British Methodist history are cautioned to avoid linking this group with the later Wesleyan Methodist denomination of the nineteenth century, although there are historical connections. My use of the term here is an attempt to classify one relational group within a larger and fluid Revival, not to designate a denomination. 1 2 together responding to larger societal realities. 3 Given this larger context, any discussion of Methodism cannot assume that it was in these early days an organizational structure tightly knit to the wish and whim of John Wesley. Wesleyan Methodism was itself simply those clergy, lay preachers, and laity in association, or relationship with John Wesley, and thus in many ways lacked a formal structure. Despite the establishment of the Methodist Conference in 1744, Methodism would remain a fluid association so long as it was personally and relationally attached to Wesley.4 Henry Rack has described the Methodist movement in the eighteenth century as comprised of various revivals with many different wings, some under Wesley’s direct influence and others not.5 This broad Revival included Arminians and Calvinists, Anglicans and Dissenters, enthusiasts and rationalists. At the same time, Methodism should not be seen, in these early days, apart from Wesley’s influence or Wesley apart from Methodism and its various representatives. Thus, for instance, in regard to the current question, Wesley’s relationship to various Evangelical clergy should not be seen apart from the work of these various wings and their varied controversies.