John Wesley and the History of Methodism — Unit 5: Charles Wesley, Whitefield, and the Calvinist-Arminian Controversy

Key Verse

"For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." (1 Timothy 2:3-4, NKJV)

Learning Objectives

When you finish this unit, you should be able to:

1. Describe the life of Charles Wesley and explain why his hymns were a teaching tool of Methodism.

2. Describe George Whitefield's life and work, and his place in the early Methodist revival.

3. Explain how the Calvinist and Wesleyan views of salvation differ, stated as Calvinists themselves would state them.

4. Give the Wesleyan answers from Scripture to the Calvinist position, and name the points on which Wesley and the Calvinists agreed.

5. Trace the main stages of the controversy and explain how Wesley and Whitefield remained friends.

The Voice of This Unit

This unit is written from inside the Wesleyan tradition for Wesleyan students. Many faithful, Bible-believing Christians are Calvinists, and we do not doubt that they love the Lord. We state their view as they would state it and then give the Wesleyan answer from Scripture. We hold that the Wesleyan view is closer to the whole witness of the Bible, and we hold it with respect for those who disagree.

Charles Wesley: The Poet of the Revival

Charles Wesley was born in 1707, the youngest son of Samuel and Susanna. He studied at Westminster School and at Christ Church, Oxford, where he began the group that became the Holy Club. He went with John to Georgia in 1735 as secretary to General Oglethorpe, but he was unwell and unhappy there, and he returned to England in 1736.

On 21 May 1738, the day of Pentecost, Charles came to peace and assurance in a house in London, three days before John's experience on Aldersgate Street. From then on he wrote hymns in great numbers. The total is in the thousands. He wrote about the birth of Christ, His cross, His resurrection, the new birth, assurance, holy living and the hope of heaven. Among the best known are "O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing," "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing," "And Can It Be," "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling," "Christ the Lord Is Risen Today" and "Jesus, Lover of My Soul." Many of these are still sung by Christians who have never heard of Methodism.

Why the hymns mattered

In the eighteenth century many of the people who joined the societies could not read well. They learned the faith by singing it. Charles's hymns put the great truths of Scripture into verse that could be remembered: God's love for all, salvation by faith, the witness of the Spirit, and the hope of being made perfect in love. "Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord" (Ephesians 5:19). John Wesley edited and published collections of the hymns, and the 1780 collection became the standard Methodist hymn book. The Methodists were a singing people, and they learned their theology in song. Course 4 treats Wesleyan worship more fully.

Charles married Sarah Gwynne in 1749, and later made his home in Bristol and then in London. He died in 1788. He remained firmly attached to the Church of England, and he was grieved when his brother ordained ministers for America in 1784. Historians sometimes contrast the two brothers: John the organizer, Charles the poet; John willing to move toward a separate church, Charles holding back. There is truth in this. But the two stood together on the gospel they preached, and the Methodist movement needed both.

George Whitefield: The Great Preacher

George Whitefield was born in 1714 in Gloucester, England, the son of an innkeeper. He went to Pembroke College, Oxford, where he joined the Holy Club as a poor student. About 1735 he came to a living faith in Christ, and in 1736 he was ordained in the Church of England. His preaching was dramatic, loud and warm, and crowds followed him.

In 1738 he went to Georgia, where he planned an orphan house that he opened in 1740. In February 1739 he began preaching in the open air at Kingswood, as we saw in Unit 4. He crossed the Atlantic many times and preached in the American colonies to great crowds, in the revival that historians call the Great Awakening. He died in 1770 at Newburyport, Massachusetts, while on his last tour.

Whitefield held Calvinist doctrine. He believed in unconditional election, and he was a sincere friend of the Wesleys. His name is a reminder that the early Methodist revival was wider than the Wesleys alone. Calvinistic Methodists in Wales, led by men such as Howell Harris and Daniel Rowland, had begun their work in the 1730s, and Whitefield's supporters formed their own societies in England. Lady Huntingdon, a noblewoman, later supported Calvinistic Methodist chapels and preachers in the Connexion that bears her name.

What Is the Controversy About?

The disagreement is much older than Wesley. It goes back to the Dutch theologian Jacobus Arminius, who died in 1609 and who questioned the strict form of predestination taught in some Reformed circles. His followers were condemned at the Synod of Dort in 1618-1619, and the Calvinist position was summarized in five points. In England the same debate went on within the Church of England, and Wesley took the side of Arminius, though he said he came to his view by reading Scripture, not by reading Arminius.

The Calvinist position, fairly stated

Calvinists teach that God is sovereign in salvation. Because of the fall every person is spiritually dead, unable to turn to God. Before the world began God chose some persons, not because He foresaw their faith, but by His free mercy. Christ died to secure the salvation of those chosen. The Spirit calls them in a way that does not fail, and they are kept to the end. For Calvinists the purpose of all this is that salvation may be wholly of grace, and God alone may have the glory. They appeal to passages such as Ephesians 1:4-5, Romans 8:29-30 and 9:10-24, and John 6:37 and 6:44.

Where Wesley and the Calvinists agree

The agreement is large. Wesley held with the Reformers that all have sinned and are helpless by nature, that we are justified by faith alone and not by works, that Christ's death is the only ground of forgiveness, and that salvation is wholly the gift of God. Whitefield and Wesley preached the same message of the new birth. Wesley said that on these truths he was within a hair's breadth of the Calvinists. This is why they could work together at first.

Where Wesley differed

Wesley disagreed on four points. He taught that Christ died for all people, not only for the elect. He taught that election is in Christ and is conditioned on faith, which God foresees. He taught that the grace of God can be resisted. And he taught that a true believer who ceases to believe may fall away, though God is ready to restore him if he repents. Course 2 treats each of these at length; this unit gives the heart of the matter.

The Controversy Unfolds

The quarrel broke out in 1739. In April of that year Wesley preached a sermon at Bristol on the text "He who did not spare His own Son" (Romans 8:32), and it appeared in print as Free Grace. In it he argued that the doctrine of unconditional election makes preaching useless, undermines holiness and misrepresents the character of God. Whitefield, then in America, was troubled. In 1741 he answered in an open letter. The two men separated their work. Whitefield's followers formed their own societies, and the Wesleys formed theirs.

The bitter feelings of that time were real, and some of the printed words on both sides were unkind. But the two men were not enemies. They continued to correspond and to meet. When Whitefield died in 1770, he had asked Wesley to preach the sermon at his funeral in London, and Wesley did. He spoke warmly of Whitefield's work and his love.

A second round came in 1770 and 1771. Wesley's Conference of 1770 published minutes on the place of works in the Christian life, and some Calvinists thought the statements had gone back to salvation by works. The controversy that followed, with Walter Shirley, Augustus Toplady and others, was sharp. The most important Wesleyan reply came from John Fletcher of Madeley, a Swiss-born Anglican priest, in his Checks to Antinomianism. Fletcher argued that grace and obedience belong together, and that a doctrine of grace that makes holiness optional is not the gospel. His work remains a standard of Wesleyan theology.

The Wesleyan Answers

We state the main Wesleyan answers briefly.

God desires all to be saved. Scripture says in many places that God's saving will extends to all people. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). "The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9). "For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men" (Titus 2:11). We cannot make the "all" and the "world" of these verses mean only some.

Election is real, and it is in Christ. We do not deny election. Peter writes to those "elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father" (1 Peter 1:2). Wesleyans read election as God's choice of a people in Christ, which every person may enter by faith, and they take God's foreknowledge to include His knowledge of who will respond. Romans 9 deals with God's right to choose how He will bless the nations, and Paul concludes with the question of why Israel did not believe, which he answers by saying they did not seek righteousness by faith (Romans 9:30-32).

Grace is not earned. The Calvinist fear is that if faith is a human act, then the sinner contributes to his own salvation. Wesley answers with prevenient grace. By nature we cannot turn to God. But God restores to every person enough freedom to respond. Jesus said, "And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself" (John 12:32). The sinner who accepts the gift has not earned it; a beggar who takes bread has not paid for it. Both the ability and the faith are God's gift, and the glory remains His.

The character of God. Wesley believed that a doctrine of eternal reprobation, which passes by some and leaves them without hope, cannot be reconciled with the God who is love (1 John 4:8). That was the force of Free Grace.

The Spirit of the Controversy

Wesley did not wish to leave the matter at war. In the sermon "Catholic Spirit," preached in 1750, he taught that those who differ in opinion may still join hand in hand in love, for the sake of the one Lord. He distinguished between essential doctrines that all Christians hold and opinions on which believers may differ. We hold that the Wesleyan view of salvation is the biblical one. But we do not make agreement on it a condition of fellowship. Calvinist pastors, many of them dear servants of Christ, work beside us in the same towns.

Pastoral Application

A young man from your church returns from a conference of Reformed pastors. He tells you excitedly that God has chosen only some people for salvation and that you have been deceived. He is troubled by the thought that his unsaved father may never have been chosen.

First, you do not argue with him on the spot. You thank him for his zeal for the glory of God, which is a good thing.

Second, you take him to 1 Timothy 2:3-4, John 3:16 and 2 Peter 3:9, and ask him how to hear these words in their plain sense.

Third, you remind him that God has not left sinners alone: Jesus is "lifted up," and He draws all to Himself. His father can still be prayed for and won.

Fourth, you tell him that Calvinists are brothers in Christ and that Whitefield and Wesley, who differed on exactly this, loved each other. You keep the door open, and you ask him to keep reading Scripture before any book.

Summary

Charles Wesley (1707-1788) wrote thousands of hymns that taught Methodists the faith by song, and he remained loyal to the Church of England. George Whitefield (1714-1770), a Calvinist and Holy Club member, was a great open-air preacher in Britain and America. Calvinists teach unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace and perseverance of the elect, so that salvation may be wholly of grace. Wesley agreed with them on sin, justification by faith and the glory of God, but taught that Christ died for all, that election is in Christ through faith, that grace can be resisted, and that a believer can fall away. The controversy broke out in 1739 with the sermon Free Grace, separated the two movements, and flared again in 1770 and 1771, when Fletcher answered in Checks to Antinomianism. Wesley preached Whitefield's funeral sermon. In the Wesleyan spirit we hold our view firmly, honor our Calvinist brothers, and keep fellowship in the one Lord.

Further Reading

• Charles Wesley, hymns, in A Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodists (1780).

• John Wesley, Sermon "Free Grace."

• John Wesley, Predestination Calmly Considered (1752).

• John Wesley, Sermon "Catholic Spirit."

• John Fletcher, Checks to Antinomianism.

• George Whitefield, Journals.

• Holiness Through the Ages (Coleman, Danielson and Parry), the CTS textbook.

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