The works of the Rev. John Wesley, Vol. 06 (of 32)

by John Wesley

Part of this I own to be very true, viz. that they are men, and have the wants of human nature which must be supplied; and for proof of this, the Doctor might have appealed to St. Paul, who, tho’ miraculously called to be an apostle, and separated from the world to be merely a messenger and apostle of Jesus Christ; yet, after this high apostleship, worked at his trade, and often spent part of the day and the night in making tents: therefore, if all those whom I have exhorted to consider themselves as set apart for the sole service of God, should shew such a degree of worldly care as St. Paul did, when he worked at his trade, they might yet justly be said to act suitably to their station, as the ministers of God, that are wholly devoted to his service; for who can say that St. Paul departed from his character, as a minister of God, when he laboured with his own hands, that he might gloriously and freely preach the gospel? For it was for the sake of the gospel, to promote and recommend the gospel, to make his preaching the more successful; it was to shew that he had fully renounced the world, and desired nothing from it, but for the glory of God. And thus have all the ministers of the gospel an example in St. Paul, how they may make their care of a livelihood a part of their service to God.

But when the Doctor says, that clergymen are husbands and parents, I must object a little; because no scripture or antiquity shews me, that these characters must belong to a preacher of the gospel; and therefore, when a clergyman excuses himself from any heights of the ministerial service, by saying, he has married a wife and therefore cannot come up to them; it seems to be no better an excuse, than if he had said, he had hired a farm, or bought five yoke of oxen.

I know very well, that the reformation has allowed priests and bishops not only to look out for wives, but to have as many as they please, one after another: but this is only to be considered as a bare allowance, and perhaps granted upon such a motive, as Moses of old made one to the Jews, for the hardness of their hearts, tho’ from the beginning it was not so; and therefore when eulogiums are sometimes made from the pulpit on this matter, I think they had better have been spared; an allowance granted to weakness is but an indifferent subject to be made a matter of glory.

The Doctor should also have observed that my address was made to the young clergy, and such as are only upon entering into holy orders, nine in ten of whom may be supposed to be neither husbands nor fathers. He should also have remembered that our universities are full of clergy, who are obliged to live unmarried, that they may have proper leisure and freedom to attend their studies without impediment from worldly cares. And therefore, if I pointed at such a dedication of the clergy to the service of God, as husbands and fathers cannot enter into, yet the matter is not blameable, because here are so many that have not yet entered into this state, but are at liberty to devote themselves wholly to the service of the gospel. And therefore if to such as these, I can so represent the weight, the duties, the heavenly nature of the priesthood, as to prevent or extinguish in them all thoughts and desires of being thus married to the world, what hurt have I done them, or the married clergy, or the gospel of Jesus Christ?

* Celibacy, when entered into from a principle of divine love, from a heart burning with the desire of living wholly to God, is a state that gives wings to all our endeavours, and fits the soul for the highest growth of every virtue: and if he that is consecrated to the service of the altar, feels not such an ascent of his soul towards heaven, as to have no wish, but that his whole body, soul, and spirit, may be presented to God in its utmost degree of purity, he has his lamp much less kindled, than many of the laity, both men and women have had, in all ages of the church. Custom has too great a power over our judgments, and reconciles us to any thing; but if a Christian, who lived when Christianity was in its glory, when the first apologists for it, appealed to the numbers of both sexes, devoted to a single life, as an invincible proof of the power and divinity of the gospel; if a Christian of those days was now to come into the world, he would be more shocked at Reverend Doctors making love to women, than at seeing a monk in his cell, kissing a wooden crucifix.

* The knowledge and love of the virgin state began with Christianity, when the nature of our corruption, and the nature of our redemption were so fully discovered by the gospel. Then it was, that a new degree of heavenly love was kindled in the human nature, and brought forth a state of life that had not been desired, till the son of the virgin came into the world. John the Baptist was the beginner of the gospel dispensation; this burning and shining light was in his person, the figure of Judaism ending in Christianity. In his outward state he was a Jew, in his inward spirit and character he belonged to the gospel. He came out of the wilderness burning and shining, to preach the kingdom of heaven at hand. This may shew us that heat and light from above, kindled in a state of great self-denial, are necessary to make us able ministers of the gospel; and that if we pretend to the ministry, without these qualifications, and come only burning and shining with the spirit of this world, we are as well fitted to hinder, as the Baptist was to prepare the way to the kingdom of heaven. Look at this great saint, all ye that desire to preach the gospel. He came forth in the highest degrees of mortification and chastity of life. But why did he so come? It was to shew the world that these virtues must form the spirit of every preacher of the gospel. His character does not call you to a wilderness beyond Jordan, or to be cloathed with camel’s hair. Such circumstances are particular to himself; but it calls you to his inward spirit of self-denial, to his death to the world, and all carnal love, if you would not only preach, but prove the perfection of the gospel: For if the Baptist was to be thus dead to the flesh and the world, that he might preach thus much, the kingdom of heaven is at hand; can less self-denial be required of those, who are to preach that which is much more, namely, that the kingdom of heaven is come?

* Now if this holy Baptist, when he had preached awhile upon penitence, and the kingdom of heaven at hand, had made an offering of his heart to some fine young lady of great accomplishments, had not this put an end to all that was burning and shining in his character? And if those clergy who date their mission from Jesus Christ himself, sent by him as he was by his Father, to stand as his representatives, applying the means and mysteries of salvation to all that desire to be born again; if they, whether they be vicars, rectors, arch-deacons, deans, or bishops, should look upon their office to be as sacred, and their station as high in the kingdom of God, as the Baptist’s was; if they should look upon love addresses to the sex, as unbecoming, as foreign, to their character, as to the Baptist’s, could any one say, that they took too much upon them, or paid too great a reverence to the holiness of the priesthood, which they derived from the very person and office of Jesus Christ?

* Our blessed Lord improved upon these two articles of mortification and chastity, and sets them before every preacher of the gospel in a yet fuller light. It is needless to shew how much he speaks of the nature and necessity of a total self-denial; but what he says of the virgin life, as to be chosen by those who are able to chuse it, for the kingdom of heaven’s sake, Matthew xix. 12. is more than a volume of human eloquence in praise of it. What wonder is it, if after this, great numbers both of men and women were found in the first ages of the church, that chose to know no love, but that of God in a single life?

* St. Paul has done every thing to hinder a minister of Jesus Christ from entering into marriage, except calling it a sinful state, when he says, He that is married careth for the things of the world, how he may please his wife; and how could he more powerfully press the virgin life upon the clergy, than when he says, He that is unmarried, careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord.

* I shall conclude this matter with a passage taken from the Serious Call to a devout and Holy Life; it is a quotation from Eusebius, who lived at the time of the first general council, when the faith of our Nicene Creed was established: his words are these, “There have been, saith he, instituted in the church of Christ, two ways or manners of living; the one raised above the ordinary state of nature, and common ways of living, rejects wedlock, possessions, and worldly goods, and being wholly separated and removed from the ordinary conversation of common life, is appropriated and devoted solely to the worship and service of God, through an exceeding degree of heavenly love: they who are of this order of people, seem dead to the life of this world, and having their bodies only upon earth, are in their minds and contemplations dwelling in heaven; from whence, like so many heavenly inhabitants, they look down upon human life, making intercessions and oblations for the whole race of mankind; and this, not with the blood of beasts, or the fat, or smoak and burning of bodies, but with the highest exercises of true piety, with cleansed and purified hearts, and with a whole form of life strictly devoted to virtue: these are their sacrifices, which they are continually offering unto God, and implore his mercy and favour for themselves and their fellow-creatures. Christianity receives this as the perfect manner of life.