Holiness, Sanctification, and Christian Perfection — Unit 9: Social Holiness: Wesley on the Poor, Slavery, and the World

Key Verse

"He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?" (Micah 6:8, NKJV)

Learning Objectives

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

1. Explain what Wesley meant by "social holiness" and why he said holiness cannot be solitary.

2. Describe Wesley's works of mercy for the poor and his teaching in "The Use of Money."

3. Describe Wesley's opposition to slavery, including his tract of 1774 and his letter of 1791, and state fairly the historians' debates about Methodism and society.

4. Answer the objection that social concern distracts from the gospel, and the opposite objection that the church has no part in public justice.

5. Plan one practical work of mercy and justice for a local church.

The Voice of This Unit

This course is written from inside the Wesleyan tradition for Wesleyan students. We are conservative evangelicals who hold that the Bible is the inspired Word of God and our final authority. We believe in the new birth, in the atoning death of Christ, and in the need of every person to repent and believe. We also believe that this same gospel sends us to the poor and the oppressed. In this unit we state the objections of those who see the matter differently, and we answer them from Scripture and from Wesley.

What "Social Holiness" Means

In the preface to a book of hymns published in 1739, Wesley wrote that the gospel of Christ knows of no religion that is only solitary, and no holiness but social holiness. We give his thought in our own words because we are summarizing, not quoting. He meant that a person cannot become like Christ alone. Holiness grows in fellowship with other believers, and it shows itself in service to neighbors.

Wesley did not say that prayer alone with God is wrong. Jesus Himself went to the mountains to pray alone. His point was that a religion made only of private feeling has left out half of the commandment. The first command is to love God, and the second is "like it": to love our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:37-39). If perfect love is the goal, then it must reach beyond the church door.

"Social" had two meanings for Wesley. It meant fellowship: the class, the band and the society, where believers confess and encourage each other (Unit 7). It also meant service: the works of mercy that carry love into the community. Both are needed.

The Biblical Roots

Wesley did not invent this concern. The prophets called God's people to justice. Micah says that the Lord requires us to do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with God (Micah 6:8). Amos cries, "But let justice run down like water, And righteousness like a mighty stream" (Amos 5:24). Isaiah 58:6-7 says that the fast God chooses is to loose the bonds of wickedness, to share bread with the hungry, and to bring the poor who are cast out into our house.

Jesus began His public ministry by reading Isaiah, that the Spirit of the Lord was upon Him to preach good news to the poor, to heal the broken-hearted and to set at liberty those who are oppressed (Luke 4:18-19). He said that at the last day the nations will be judged by how they treated the hungry, the stranger, the sick and the prisoner, and "inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me" (Matthew 25:40). James says that a faith which sees a brother in need and gives only kind words is dead (James 2:14-17), and he condemns those who keep back the wages of the workers (James 5:4). John asks, "But whoever has this world's goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?" (1 John 3:17).

These passages do not replace the call to repent and believe. They show what faith does when it is alive.

Wesley and the Poor

Wesley's concern for the poor began at Oxford, where the Holy Club visited prisoners and poor families (Course 1, Unit 2). It continued all his life. He preached to the poor in the open air, and many Methodist societies were made up of poor people. His works of mercy were practical. He opened Kingswood School in 1748 near Bristol, for the children of the coal miners. The Methodists also set up ways of helping the sick, including a free medical dispensary, and he published a book of simple home remedies for those who could not pay a doctor, called Primitive Physic. He helped to start a small fund to lend money to the poor, and he organized the societies to collect weekly gifts for the needy, to clothe them, and to visit the sick. In the societies, members gave small weekly amounts, and part of these gifts relieved poor members. His sermon "On Visiting the Sick" urged all Christians to go in person to those who are ill and in need.

Wesley also gave away much of his own income from his books, for the poor and for the work.

"The Use of Money"

Wesley's sermon "The Use of Money" (1744) gives a short rule in three parts: earn all you can, save all you can, and give all you can. Each part has limits.

Earn all you can, but not at the cost of your health, your soul or your neighbor. Wesley warned against trades that harm others, such as those that sell what ruins the body, and against dishonest dealing.

Save all you can, meaning do not waste money on vanity and needless luxury. This is the thrift that makes giving possible.

Give all you can. All we have belongs to God, and we are His stewards. After providing for our household's needs, we owe the rest to the poor and to God's work. Wesley's later sermon "The Danger of Riches" warns that wealth is a great spiritual danger, citing the words of Jesus and Paul that those who desire to be rich fall into temptation (1 Timothy 6:9-10).

Notice that this is a doctrine of holiness. A heart made perfect in love cannot keep its money tight while a neighbor starves.

Wesley and Slavery

Wesley saw the slave trade as one of the greatest evils of his age. In 1774 he published Thoughts upon Slavery, a short tract against the buying and selling of human beings. He drew on the writings of Anthony Benezet, a Quaker who had worked against slavery. Wesley's argument was moral and biblical: every person is made in God's image, and no one may be robbed of liberty. He pressed the point on those who profit by it, including sailors, merchants and buyers, because those who buy share the guilt of those who sell. Scripture itself condemns the man-stealer (Exodus 21:16; 1 Timothy 1:10).

Near the end of his life, on 24 February 1791, Wesley wrote a letter to William Wilberforce, the Member of Parliament who led the fight against the slave trade. He encouraged him to go on in the name of God and not to grow weary in the work. Wesley died a few days later, on 2 March 1791. Parliament abolished the British slave trade in 1807, and slavery itself in the British empire in 1833, results to which many people, including Methodists and Quakers, had given years of work.

The story in America was harder. American Methodists in the 1780s adopted rules against slaveholding, and the Christmas Conference of 1784 took an antislavery position. But the rules met strong resistance from slaveholders in the societies and were not firmly enforced. Francis Asbury spoke against slavery but in time accepted compromises. Black Methodists, who had been welcomed to the societies in the early years, later suffered from unequal treatment and formed their own churches (Course 1, Unit 8). In the next century, the Wesleyan Methodist Connection (1843) and the Free Methodist Church (1860) were formed in part because of their antislavery convictions (Course 1, Unit 7). Our tradition has both honorable pages and shameful ones. We tell both.

Wesley and the World

Wesley once said that he looked upon the whole world as his parish. He did not mean that he had no church; he meant that he could not be limited by borders when souls needed the gospel. In Scripture "the world" can mean the people God loves (John 3:16) or the system of life that stands against God (1 John 2:15-17). Wesley taught Methodists to love the first and to refuse the second. This protects us from two errors: withdrawing from the world in fear, and being swallowed up in it.

Wesley was not a political revolutionary. His writing against the American colonists' independence, A Calm Address to Our American Colonies (1775), shows that on some political questions he took the side of the Crown. We should not claim that every opinion of Wesley's was wise. The church's duty is to teach the whole counsel of God and to act in mercy, and it can do that under many kinds of government.

The Historians' Debate

Historians have asked what difference Methodism made to society. We state three views fairly.

One view is associated with the French historian Élie Halévy, who argued in the early twentieth century that the Methodist revival helped to keep England from the kind of revolution that occurred in France. Methodism, he said, gave working people a moral discipline and a religious outlet, so that they turned to prayer and self-improvement and not to violence.

A second view is given by E. P. Thompson in The Making of the English Working Class (1963). He criticized Methodism for teaching obedience and for turning the energy of working people toward the next world, so that it served the interests of the powerful.

A third view holds that both are too simple. Methodist people also built schools, trained lay leaders, spread reading, and helped the poor to organize themselves in small groups. Later reformers, such as many of the antislavery campaigners, drew strength from evangelical faith.

We do not need to settle the argument to learn from it. The critics remind us that a church can make itself comfortable and quiet in the face of injustice. We answer that Wesley's own writings on slavery and on the use of money show that he did not intend this, and that a gospel which changes hearts should also disturb unjust systems.

Objections and Answers

Objection 1: Social concern distracts from the gospel. Some evangelicals, fearing the "social gospel" of liberal Protestantism, say that the church's only work is to save souls. They point out that liberal churches often gave up the new birth and the cross while talking only about society.

Our answer. We share the fear of a gospel without Christ crucified. Wesley told his preachers that their work was to save souls. But he also taught that love for the lost and love for the hungry come from the same heart. Historians such as Timothy L. Smith and Donald Dayton have argued that in the nineteenth century evangelicals and Holiness people were often leaders of reform, before the two ideas were pulled apart in later disputes. We hold both: the new birth and the works of mercy. Good works do not save, but they are the fruit of faith (James 2:17), and they open doors for the gospel.

Objection 2: Justice is the work of the state, not the church. Others say the church should preach and leave public questions to government.

Our answer. The state has its place (Romans 13:1-7), but the prophets spoke to God's people about injustice, and Proverbs 31:8-9 tells us to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves. The church does not take over government, nor does it back a political party. It does tell the truth, care for the victim, and refuse to take part in oppression. The right action depends on local conditions, and pastors must be wise.

Objection 3: Concern for the poor leads to a "prosperity" or "poverty" gospel. Some in our regions hear teachers who promise riches to those who give, and others who call all wealth evil.

Our answer. Wesley's rule steers between the two. Wealth is not a sign of God's favor, and it is not a sin in itself. It is a trust to be used for God and neighbor. Earn honestly, live simply, and give generously.

Pastoral Application

Pastor Esperanza serves a church in a coastal town. Many of her members are fishermen's families. The church has a widow with four children who often go to bed hungry, and a member who lends money to other members at heavy interest and takes their boats when they cannot pay.

She does three things. First, she begins with the hungry family. She asks the class meeting to give weekly, however small, and to take turns bringing food and visiting the widow. She asks whether the older child can be helped to stay in school. Second, she preaches on Micah 6:8 and Wesley's rule of earning, saving and giving, without naming the lender. Then she visits him privately and gently, with an older deacon, and asks him to deal justly and to forgive what cannot be repaid, reminding him of the Lord who forgave him much. Third, she tells the whole church that this work is not a replacement for evangelism: when the church feeds the widow, the neighborhood hears the gospel with more trust. She keeps the work simple, with open accounts, so that the church can repeat it.

Summary

Wesley taught that there is no holiness but social holiness. Holiness grows in fellowship and shows itself in service, and the call comes from the prophets, Jesus, James and John. Wesley's works of mercy included prisons, a school for miners' children at Kingswood (1748), medical help, collections for the poor, and his own giving. His sermon "The Use of Money" (1744) says to earn all you can, save all you can and give all you can, within limits. He opposed slavery in Thoughts upon Slavery (1774) and in his letter to Wilberforce (1791). American Methodist history on slavery has both honorable and shameful parts. Historians such as Halévy and Thompson disagree about Methodism's effect on society, and a third view finds both too simple. We answer those who say social concern distracts from the gospel by joining the new birth to the works of mercy, and we answer those who say justice belongs only to the state by pointing to the prophets and to the call to truth and mercy, without partisanship.

Further Reading

• John Wesley, preface to Hymns and Sacred Poems (1739).

• John Wesley, sermons "The Use of Money" (1744), "The Danger of Riches," and "On Visiting the Sick."

• John Wesley, Thoughts upon Slavery (1774), and his letter to William Wilberforce (24 February 1791).

• John Wesley, Journal, on the work among the poor and on Kingswood School.

• Francis Asbury, Journal, on the early American Methodist struggle with slavery.

• Holiness Through the Ages, the Master's textbook for this course.

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