.Tyson speaks of the reader, in Wesley’s hymns, becoming “actors in the [Scriptural] narrative”. Give two examples (other than no. 226 below), and explain exactly how this is so in each case.

Two important examples of how Charles Wesley allows for readers to be “actors in the scriptural narrative” are found in hymn 227 and hymn 231. Hymn 221 is a paraphrase and extension of Mark 12:24 or where Christ talks about rendering unto Cesar what is Cesar’s. Traditionally this passage is used to maintain a separation of church and state, to allow for taxes to be charged, and in an Anglican context, for the authority of the court to be maintained. The Methodists had a complicated relationship to both the Anglican mainstream, and to the state—they were not dissenters or resisters, like the Quakers, who had trouble rending anything unto Cesar (the Quaker Samuel Allison wrote this about the rending unto Cesar: in 1719 “…the question put to our Savior on the point was with evil intention to ensnare and render him culpable to one of the great parties or sects then existing, who differed about the payment of taxes, his answer, though conclusive, was so wisely framed that it left them still in doubt, what things belonged to Cesar and what to God, thus he avoided giving either of them offence which he must inevitably have done by a determination that tribute indefinitely was due to Cesar. Our first and principle obedience is due to the Almighty, even in contradiction to man, “We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29)” , but they were not wholly convinced of the arguments made about this passage that allowed it to be in favour of capitulating fully to the state.
So as way of finding a middle position between the rejection of the state in Quakers, and the integration of the state found in Anglicans, Charles Wesley shifts the text—shifts t he drama, places his actors further down stage. He argues that instead of finding the meaning in the first sections of that text, we should push back, and connect it to the last few verses—that talk about what matters for these people; namely personal revelation, the relationship between man and Christ, and the implications in communicating with the Holy Ghost.
The second hymn where Charles Wesley does interesting things with the text, and the actor’s relationship with the scripture, is Hymn 231. At the end of a legal and quite dry discussion of the sacrifices needed in Levetical ceremonies, there is a verse about hewing close to the tabernacle. That verse has a tender sweetness, about our relationship with the divine. This one verse: “herefore shall ye abide at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation day and night seven days, and keep the charge of the LORD, that ye die not: for so I am commanded” (KJV) is about the power, and the force, but also the protectiveness of a God who has made a covenant with His people. Charles Wesley talks about how he has renewed this covenant, how he has extended that desire for protection into the age of Christian grace. By using first person pronouns (i.e. A Charge to keep I have” or “arm me with jealous care”), he makes the claim that not only does he sit next to the Holy of Holies—but the Holy of Holies moves wherever the divine is needed. In this case, the first person becomes a way for all readers and all interpreters to feel the same way.
In Hymn no. 226, what is Wesley’s “interpretation” of Matthew 9:20? How would you justify this reading of the Gospel text?

Wesley interprets the physical symptoms of this woman, what would now be called a problematic after effect of menstruation or some kind of hemorrhaging, as a spiritual problem—this is made literal :”th’ infusion of his righteousness/This fountain of corruption dries”. The healing then is not a physical solution—it does not necessarily stop the bleeding—but a spiritual solution. She was broken; her body was failing, because she was full of sin. Desperate to be pure, to be whole, to be well and to be sinless, she begs Christ: “even if I could just touch the hem of your garment, I could be all of these things”
Wesley is then collapsing the split between the spirit, the body, and the mind. He is moving away from the corporeality of his followers, and the bodily dysfunction that centers this gospel (and by extension genders it---this passage is as much a discussion of taboos about the interactions of men and women, and in flattening those taboos, how Christ radically integrates His people; an idea that might be interesting to early Methodists, especially in how they ordained women very early, and there vitality in ending the slave trade) onto an idea of language, and the universality of commitments to being saved. We all “humbly seek to touch (our) Lord”, but that touching does not have the blood, the push of the body.
In one sense—the hiding the body in the woodpile of language is something that Christianity has done since the beginning. To defend this moving of flesh into text is to talk about how other churches have done so. As well, by making the point about the whole church, making metaphorical one woman’s quest, it continues the Methodists openness to many. Those would be the two clearest ways to defend this passage.




Give two examples of Wesley’s “Christological” reading of an Old Testament text: note the hymn and how Christ is spoken of within it.

Two examples where Charles Wesley creates an Christological reading of the Old Testament are Hymns 228 and 233. In Hymn 228, he writes Christ as a new Adam, and also as the lamb in the paschal mystery. In this combining, he uses paradoxical ideas of the sacrificial blood purifying the world, clothing it “in a covering from above”. In Hymn 233, he uses ideas of Numbers which discusses the exile from Egypt and the aching hope for a promised land, as an example of Christ calling him into the wilderness. In this sense, Christ is not the new Adam, but the new Moses, and as Caleb convinced h is people to go into the wilderness for Moses, Wesley will convince his followers to go into the wilderness for Christ. This is made explicit in the last two lines: “the milk sincere of pardoning grace/the honey of his perfect love”
4. Does Wesley teach a particular “evangelical” doctrine in his Scriptural readings? Give one example and explain.
I would argue that Wesley argues for an evangelical doctrine that heavily uses the themes and ideas of wilderness—of the mission of Moses and company. The best example is the Christological example used to answer the last question, but there are others. In Hymn 234, he talks about how his even if he was delivered from Egypt by God, he “provoked thee in the wilderness, and wearied out they patient grace, by adding sin to sin”—in this capacity, the sin that isolates is not only the geographical isolation from England alluded to in the discussions of Wilderness in Hymn 230, but a sort of proto-existential/mystical inner journey that mirrors the outer one. His rebellion and his isolation from home, and his desperate seeking of paradise in the “new world”, where grace will continue to sustain him, make an explicit evangelical doctrine—one that can be seen elsewhere in English readings (This hymn reminds me of Andrew Marvell’s Bermuda, written 40 years earlier, for the similar themes)

John Wesley:
1. John gives some notes to Charles’ Hymn no. 241: what does it show about how John read the Bible, vs. Charles?

I think what it mostly shows, is that John was much less willing to go out on a limb—he is less adventurous, and so where Charles sees parallels everywhere, where he is willing to tie up the testaments into one whole scripture—John is more willing to say, I am not sure that fits, or in his terse way—“no parallel cases”

2. List the elements and steps of salvation, acc. to John Wesley.

The elements and steps of salvation according to John Wesley are: taking the church of Jesus Christ in “its native form” (272), that the way to find that native form is through the bible (273), that one is justified or “pardoned of all our sins” (273) by this faith, although this pardoning frees people, it is a temporary reprieve, because “temptations return and sin revives” (274). One of the ways of moving away from that temptation, he suggests, is born again—a term that he defines as “mortify the evil deeds of the body” (275).
One of the ways of being convinced that being born again, or being saved is worth doing, is to listen to the holy spirit, something that John Wesley defines as “not visible, not perceivable either by sight or by any other of the external senses”.(276) This feeling can be used to develop a personal relationship with God, a relationship where “God was in Christ, reconciling, the world unto himself” and in that reconciling, we can be convinced that “Christ loved me and gave himself to me”. This leads to a faith in God, and by that Faith will be saved. Faith is paramount, while repentance is a fruit of the spirit, it is much less important then believing in the divine (277), as well, though good works should not be neglected, doing good does not mean that one will be saved or justified. (278)
To think that works and repentance are more important then work or hope is to ignore the vital importance of God’s desire for us to have faith, and so it might be argued that to have faith, is to desire to have good works and to repent for ones sin. As well, if we do not have faith, sin “remains in our heart, and cleaving to all our words and actions, as well as the guilt which on account thereof we should include were we not continually sprinkled with the atoning blood” This continual sprinkling, results in a desire to do works of mercy. But this faith and even this desire does not mean that we are forever pure. Though we might still be sinful, we are evil, and the desire to sin is contained well within our hearts.
God can do anything, that he is able to clean of in sin, and that he will sanctify us know, will mean that we can be forgiven. That the sins we commit after we are sanctified are able to be purified by the divine blood of God. That the desire to sin lessening will happen for some gradually, and for some instantly, does not matter as much as the desire that occurs when one has a personal relationship with God.

3. How does how does he use Scripture to argue for these steps?
He argues that the only way to be saved is through the scripture, that “faith and salvation include all the substance of the bible” (272) In this case, he uses both the language of the old and New Testament to make his argument, for example, when discussing how Christ “poured out his soul for the transgressors” (274). He also takes practical solutions from the work of Paul, and more spiritual work from the Gospels (for example—when he suggests that how to be born again is though the mortification of the flesh, he quotes Romans), in fact he tends to quote the epistles much more then he deals with the Gospel or the Old Testament. A good example of this is the personal salvation that he argues is central to our relationships with Christ, and with the church. He quotes the epistles 8 times on two pages, including Ephesians, 1 Corinthians, 1 John, and Romans, but the gospels only twice—and those two times, they are on a more philosophical discussion of the fruits of repentance, where he uses Luke, and one about justification, where he uses Matthew. When he talks about the practical elements that are found in the Gospels, he does not cite the texts (for example in his list of the works of mercy, found on page 280). All of that said, in his conclusions, he makes sure that we know that the foundation of divine love is the Holy Scriptures.