§ 111. Analysis of Arminian Methodism
THE SEMI-ANGLICAN DOCTRINES.
The Twenty-five Articles represent the doctrines which Methodism holds in common with other evangelical Churches, especially with the Church of England. They are an abridgment of the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, with a view to simplify and to liberalize them. Wesley omitted the political articles, which apply only to England, and those articles which are strongly Augustinian, especially Article 17, of Predestination (which teaches unconditional election to salvation and the perseverance of the elect), Art. 13, of Works before Justification (which are said to have the nature of sin), and Art. 8 (which indorses the three Creeds). On the other hand, Art. 10, of Free Will, which teaches (with Augustine, Luther, and Calvin) the natural inability of man to do good works without the grace of God, is literally retained (Meth. Art. 8).
Minor doctrinal changes were made in Art 2 (Art. 2), where the clauses 'begotten from everlasting of the Father,' and 'of her [the Virgin's] substance,' are omitted (either as doubtful or lying outside of a creed); [1699] in Art. 9 (7), where the last clauses, which affirm the continuance of original sin in the regenerate, are left out (as inconsistent with Wesley's view of perfection); in Art. 16 (12), where 'sin after justification' is substituted for 'sin after baptism' (to avoid the doctrine of baptismal regeneration); in Art. 25 (16), of the Sacraments, where the words 'sure witnesses and effectual,' before 'signs of grace,' are stricken out (which betrays a lowering of the doctrine of the Sacraments); in Art. 34 (22), where 'traditions of the Church' are changed into 'Rites and Ceremonies.'
These omissions and changes are significant, and entirely consistent with Methodism, but they are negative rather than positive. Wesley eliminated the latent Calvinism from the Thirty-nine Articles, but did not put in his Arminianism, nor his peculiar doctrines of the Witness of the Spirit and Christian Perfection, leaving them to be derived from other documents of his own composition.
THE ARMINIAN DOCTRINES.
The five points in which Arminius differed from the Calvinistic system are clearly and prominently brought out in Wesley's writings, though mostly in the form of popular and practical exposition and exhortation. He put the name of Arminius on his periodical organ, and struck the keynote to the Arminian tone of Methodist preaching. The Arminian features of Methodism are, freedom of the will (taken in the sense of liberum arbitrium, or power of contrary choice) as necessary to responsibility; self-limitation of divine sovereignty in its exercise and dealings with free agents; foreknowledge as preceding and conditioning foreordination; universality of redemption; resistibility of divine grace; possibility of total and final apostasy from the state of regeneration and sanctification.
Calvinism and Methodism agree in teaching man's salvation by God's free grace, in opposition to Pelagianism and Semipelagianism. But Calvinism traces salvation to the eternal purpose of God, and confines it to the elect; Methodism makes it dependent on man's free acceptance of that grace which is offered alike to all and on the same terms. Calvinism emphasizes the divine side, Methodism the human. [1700] Herein Methodism entirely agrees with Arminianism, and is even more emphatically opposed to the doctrines of absolute predestination, limited atonement, and the perseverance of saints than Arminius was, who left the last point undecided.
Wesley began the thunder against the imaginary horrors and blasphemies of Calvinism which has since resounded from innumerable Methodist pulpits. He defines predestination to be 'an eternal, unchangeable, irresistible decree of God, by virtue of which one part of mankind are infallibly saved, and the rest infallibly damned; it being impossible that any of the former should be damned, or that any of the latter should be saved;' and then he goes on to show that this doctrine makes all preaching useless; that it makes void the ordinance of God; that it tends directly to destroy holiness, meekness, and love, the comfort and happiness of religion, zeal for good works, and the whole Christian revelation; that it turns God into a hypocrite and deceiver; that it overturns his justice, mercy, and truth, and represents him 'as worse than the devil, more false, more cruel, and more unjust.' 'This,' he says, 'is the blasphemy clearly contained in the horrible decree of predestination, and for this I abhor it (however I love the persons who assert it).' To this decree he sets over the other decree, 'I will set before the sons of men life and death, blessing and cursing; and the soul that chooseth life shall live, as the soul that chooseth death shall die.' The elect are all those who 'suffer Christ to make them alive.' [1701]
The vehemence of this opposition to the doctrine of predestination must be explained in part from the subjective and emotional nature of Methodist piety, which exposes it much more to an antinomian abuse of this doctrine than is the case with the calm intellectual tendency, of Calvinism.
On the other hand, however, the 'evangelical' Arminianism of Wesley, as it is called, differs from the Dutch Arminianism, as developed by Episcopius and Limborch, and inclines as much towards Augustinianism as Arminianism inclines towards Pelagianism. In this respect it resembles somewhat the Lutheran anthropology of the Formula of Concord, though it differs altogether from its christology and sacramentalism.
1. Methodism holds a much stronger view of original sin than Arminianism, and regards it not simply as a disease or weakness, [1702] but as a total depravity that unfits man altogether for co-operation with the grace of God towards conversion. Wesley, Fletcher, and Watson describe this natural corruption in consequence of Adam's fall in the darkest colors, almost surpassing the descriptions of Augustine, Luther, and Calvin; but they deny the personal responsibility of Adam's posterity for his fall or the doctrine of original guilt; and herein they agree with the Arminians and the Quakers.
2. Methodism teaches the freedom of will as a gift of prevenient grace, which is given to every man as a check and antidote to original sin; while Arminianism, with its milder view of the fall, allows man a certain freedom of will in a weakened state as an inherent and inherited power of nature.
3. Methodism lays greater stress on the subjective experience of conversion and regeneration. Its preaching is essentially radical evangelistic revival preaching, which rouses the sinner to a sense of his danger, and the paramount necessity of an immediate, sudden, and radical change of heart and life.