The poor his body are:
All the goods he had below,
They should his garments share:
But the greedy soldiers seize
What should supply his people’s need,
Leave the members in distress
And neither clothe nor feed.20
The poor are seen as members of Christ’s body, the church. This is a perspective often ignored in discussions of ecclesiology, but for Wesley, such an understanding is fundamental to the nature of the church and to Christian ethical posture. It is at the heart of radical grace, for it claims for the church what the church often does not claim for itself. Historically, the church has set its own boundaries and requirements for membership, which often have excluded the poor.
The Sermon Based on John 4:41
But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water, springing up into everlasting life.
Wesley preached this sermon based on a text from John’s Gospel in 1739, 1740, and 1742. It includes two important passages for this discussion:
if [the Christian] employ himself in any external acts of moral or instituted duty, he does it freely, not of necessity. In acts of charity, he gives from a principle of love to God, and man for God’s sake, and so cheerfully, not grudgingly. His alms are not wrung out of him, but proceed from him, as a stream from its fountain.21
In this first quotation, Wesley emphasizes the importance of free will in all “acts of moral or instituted duty.” No one is forced to act beneficently toward others. One is not required to aid others. Wesley says the determining factor is “a principle of love to God, and man for God’s sake.” This “principle of love” is central to Charles Wesley’s theology and all human action. If we do what we do for others merely out of a sense of duty, our actions may be well meaning but fraught with wrong intention. Furthermore, one does acts of charity with a joyous spirit, or “cheerfully,” and by no means “grudgingly.” Such acts are done out of free volition; they are not “wrung out” of someone. Wesley uses a wonderful metaphor to describe how acts of charity should proceed from everyone: “they proceed [from us], as a stream from its fountain.” Just as water freely emerges from a fountain, so good deeds toward others flow unendingly from Christ’s followers, who are filled, first and foremost, with a sense of love for God, all humankind, and all creation.
This “principle of love to God and man for God’s sake” is for Wesley the key to all human behavior. God is the author of this principle, and through it God has made all humankind partakers of the divine nature.
The author of this free principle is God himself, the free agent, the fountain of his own acts, who hath made it a partaker of his own nature. The uncreated life and liberty hath given this privilege to the religious soul, in some sense to have life and liberty in itself. In nothing does the soul more resemble the divine essence than in this noble freedom, which may therefore justly claim the free spirit for its author, (Ps 51:12; 2 Cor 3:17) or the Son of God for its original [sic], according wto that of S. Joh (8:36 ‘If the Son shall make you free, then shall you be free indeed’).22
It is interesting that Charles connects the function of this “principle of love of God and man” with the concept of theosis. He avers that God “hath made it a partaker of his own nature.” Through the fulfillment of the “principle of love,” one becomes a partaker in God’s own nature. In other words, there is an integration of faith and works inspired by love through which participation in God’s nature is enabled. This is a fulcrum of Wesley’s theology of outreach to the poor and marginalized. We are totally free to act on behalf of others, and we do so emboldened and enabled by the “principle of love.”
1. See Kimbrough, Lyrical Theology of Charles Wesley.
2. Newport, Sermons of Charles Wesley.
3. “Charles Wesley Theologos,” 264–65.
4. See Rattenbury, Evangelical Doctrines of Charles Wesley’s Hymns, 85–107.
5. Newport, Sermons of Charles Wesley, 52.
6. Ibid.
7. Charles Wesley, Evangelist and Poet, 111–54.
8. Hildebrandt and Beckerlegge, Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodists, 7:1–22.
9. Charles Wesley on Sanctification.
10. Charles’s hymn “Christ, the Friend of Sinners,” in HSP (1939), 102.
11. Stanzas 15 and 16 from the eighteen-stanza hymn, “For the Anniversary Day of One’s Conversion,” from which the hymn “O for a thousand tongues to sing” comes. HSP (1740), 122.
12. “Charles Wesley and Contemporary Theology,” 523.
13. HSP (1749), 1:38, lines 113–14 of a 162–line poem titled “The Beatitudes.”
14. The sermon on this text was preached by Charles on Dec. 21, 1738; Jan. 14, 1739; Mar. 4, 1739.
15. Newport, Sermons of Charles Wesley, 164–65.
16. Ibid., 164–66.
17. Funeral Hymns (1759), 53.
18. AV: Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
19. AV: And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward.
20. Unpub. Poetry, 2:67; stanza one of a hitherto unpublished poem based on Mark 15:24, “When they had crucified him, they parted his garments . . .”
21. Newport, Sermons of Charles Wesley, 262.
22. Ibid., 263.