Sermon 79: On Dissipation

This sermon is yet another variation on the same theme as its two predecessors: that life centred in God is valid and secure, whereas life that is uncentred from God generates ‘every possible evil temper, evil word, or evil action’. The interesting thing here about Wesley’s sensitivity to current rhetorical fashion is his deliberate borrowing of what he knows to be ‘a cant word of the day’ and turning its newly acquired pejorative connotation into a theological definition, ‘the uncentring of the soul from God’.

He was well aware that the word ‘dissipation’ had not appeared in any of the English translations of ἀπερισπάστως (itself a singular usage in 1 Cor. 7:35), so that it takes some straining to get from its common interpretation, ‘distraction’, with its traditionally neutral connotation of ‘scattered attention’ or ‘overburden’ (impedimenta in the Vulgate), to his desired meaning for it of self-centredness and, therefore, self-indulgence. Such a shift, however, had already begun to happen in then current English usage (see below, §1 and n.), and it is typical that Wesley pitches on that for his own homiletical purposes. Indeed, his first recorded use of 1 Cor. 7:35 for oral preaching does not come until 1751 (once); then he uses it twice in 1760 and six times in 1783. There is a clear connection here with his discovery of a recent SPCK pamphlet (1772) by Sir James Stonhouse, M.D., physician and rector of Little and Great Cheverell near Devizes, in which the doctor denounced ‘drunkenness, swearing etc.’ under the pejorative label of ‘dissipation’.

He also wrote out this sermon on 1 Cor. 7:35 as a sort of expansion of that tract. But he then published the sermon before the tract, in the Arminian Magazine (Vol. VII), with its biblical text but no title, in the instalments for January and February 1784, pp. 7-13, 66-70, 116numbered as ‘Sermon XIX’. Later, he would place it in a different sequence in SOSO, VI.281-97, where it appeared, now with a title, as a sequel to ‘Spiritual Worship’ and ‘Spiritual Idolatry’. Although it was not reprinted elsewhere in Wesley’s lifetime, the topic reappears again and again in his last years, as in his 1788 definition of ‘dissipation’ as ‘the art of forgetting God…; a total studied inattention to the whole invisible and eternal world’.

On Dissipation

1 Corinthians 7:35

This I speak…that ye may attend upon the Lord without distraction.

11. Almost in every part of our nation, more especially in the large and populous towns, we hear a general complaint among sensible persons of the still increasing ‘dissipation’. It is observed to diffuse itself more and more in the court, the city, and the country. From the continual mention which is made of this, and the continual declamations against it, one would naturally imagine that a word so commonly used was perfectly understood. Yet it may be doubted whether it be or no. Nay, we may very safely affirm that few of those who frequently use the term understand what it means. One reason of this is that although the thing has been long among us, especially since the time of King Charles II (one of the most dissipated mortals that ever breathed)

22. Another reason why it is so little understood may be that among the numberless writers that swarm about us there is not one (at least whom I have seen) that has published so much as a sixpenny pamphlet concerning it. We have indeed one short essay upon the subject; but exceeding few have seen it, as it stands in the midst of a volume of essays, the author of which is little known in the world.

33. We are accustomed to speak of dissipation as having respect chiefly, if not wholly, to the outward behaviour—to the manner of life. But it is within before it appears without: it is in the heart before it is seen in the outward conversation. There must be a dissipated spirit before there is a dissipated manner of life. But what is dissipation of spirit? This is the first and the grand inquiry.

44. God created all things for himself; more especially all intelligent spirits. (And indeed it seems that intelligence, in some kind or degree, is inseparable from spiritual beings, that intelligence is as essential to spirits as extension is to matter.)

503:1185. This expression of the Apostle (not to encumber ourselves at present with the particular occasion of his speaking) is exceeding peculiar: πρὸς τὸ εὐπρόσεδρον τῷ κυρίῳ.

66. And even as much serving dissipated the thoughts of Martha, and distracted her from attending to her Lord’s words, so a thousand things which daily occur are apt to dissipate our thoughts, and distract us from attending to his voice who is continually speaking to our hearts—I mean, to all that listen to his voice. We are encompassed on all sides with persons and things that tend to draw us from our centre.

77. This is the more easily done because we are all by nature ‘atheists in the world’;

88. But who is he that is thus renewed? He that believeth in the name of the Son of God. He alone that believeth on the Lord Jesus Christ is thus ‘born of God’.

99. But nothing is more certain than this, that though he may tempt the strongest believer to give up his ‘simplicity toward Christ’, and scatter his thoughts and desires among worldly objects; yet he cannot force even the weakest, for the grace of God is still sufficient for him. The same grace which at first united him to God is able to continue that happy union, in spite of all the rage, and all the strength, and all the subtlety of the enemy. God has never left himself without witness that he has power to deliver them that trust in him, as out of every temptation that can assault them, so out of this in particular. He has still a little flock who do in fact ‘attend upon him without distraction’; who, cleaving to him with full purpose, are not dissipated from him; no, not for a moment, but ‘rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing, and in everything give thanks’.

1003:12010. But so far as anyone yields to this temptation, so far he is ‘dissipated’. The original word properly signifies to ‘disperse’ or ‘scatter’. So the sun dissipates, that is, scatters, the clouds; the wind dissipates or scatters the dust. And by an easy metaphor our thoughts are said to be dissipated when they are irregularly scattered up and down. In like manner our desires are dissipated when they are unhinged from God, their proper centre, and scattered to and fro among the poor, perishing, unsatisfying things of the world. And indeed it may be said of every man that is a stranger to the grace of God, that all his passions are dissipated.

1111. ‘Distraction’, in St. Paul’s sense, is nearly allied to, or rather the same with, dissipation; consequently, to attend upon the Lord ‘without distraction’ is the same as to attend upon the Lord ‘without dissipation’. But whenever the mind is unhinged from God it is so far dissipated or distracted. Dissipation then, in general, may be defined, the uncentring the soul from God. And whatever uncentres the mind from God does properly dissipate us.

1212. Hence we may easily learn what is the proper, direct meaning of that common expression, a ‘dissipated man’. He is a man that is separated from God, that is disunited from his centre, whether this be occasioned by hurry of business, by seeking honour or preferment, or by fondness for diversions, for silly pleasures, so called, or for any trifle under the sun. The vulgar, it is true, commonly confine this character to those who are violently attached to women, gaming, drinking; to dancing, balls, races, or the poor, childish diversion of ‘running foxes and hares out of breath’.

1303:12113. Hence we may likewise learn that a ‘dissipated life’ is not barely that of a powdered beau, of a petit-maître, a gamester, a woman-hunter, a playhouse-hunter, a fox-hunter, or a shatter-brain

1414. A plain consequence of these observations is (what some may esteem a paradox) that ‘dissipation’, in the full, general meaning of the word, is the very same thing with ungodliness. The name is new, but the thing is undoubtedly almost as old as the creation. And this is at present the peculiar glory of England, wherein it is not equalled by any nation under heaven. We therefore speak an unquestionable truth when we say, there is not on the face of the earth another nation (at least that we ever heard of) so perfectly dissipated and ungodly; not only so totally without God in the world, but so openly setting him at defiance. There never was an age that we read of in history, since Julius Caesar, since Noah, since Adam, wherein dissipation or ungodliness did so generally prevail, both among high and low, rich and poor.

1515. But still, blessed be God!

There are some, I trust more than ‘seven thousand’, yea, or ten times that number, in England, ‘who have not’ yet ‘bowed’ either ‘their knee’

‘who never attempted to swim against the stream’. They dare swim against the stream. Each of them can truly say,

If they cannot turn the tide back, they can at least bear an open testimony against it. They are therefore free from the blood of their ungodly countrymen: it must be upon their own head.

1616. But by what means may we avoid the being carried away by the overflowing stream of dissipation? It is not difficult for those who believe the Scripture to give an answer to this question. Now I really believe the Bible to be the Word of God; and on that supposition I answer: the radical cure of all dissipation is the ‘faith that worketh by love’.

1717. How exactly does this agree (though there is a difference in the expression) with that observation of pious Kempis: ‘Simplicity and purity are the two wings which lift the soul up to heaven. Simplicity is in the intention, purity in the affection’!

1818. It is with great judgment, therefore, that great and good Bishop Taylor, in his Rules of Holy Living and Dying (of whom Bishop Warburton, a person not very prone to commend, used to say, ‘I have no conception of a greater genius on earth than Dr. Jeremy Taylor’

1919. Can anything be a greater help to universal holiness than the continually seeing the light of his glory? It is no wonder, then, that so many wise and good men have recommended, to all who desire to be truly religious, the exercise of the presence of God. But in doing this some of those holy men seem to have fallen into one mistake (particularly an excellent writer of our own country, in his letters concerning The Spirit of Prayer).

2020. It was from a full conviction of the absolute necessity there is of a Christian’s setting the Lord always before him that a set of young gentlemen in Oxford,

2121. The same thing seems to be intended by two uncommon words which are frequently found in the writings of those pious men who are usually styled mystics. I mean ‘introversion’ and ‘extroversion’.

2222. We may, lastly, learn hence, what judgment to form of what is frequently urged in favour of the English nation, and of the present age; namely, that in other respects England stands on a level with other nations, and the present age stands upon a level with any of the preceding. Only it is allowed we are more ‘dissipated’ than our neighbours, and this age is more dissipated than the preceding ages. Nay, if this is allowed, all is allowed. It is allowed that this nation is worse than any of the neighbouring nations; and that this age is worse, essentially worse, than any of the preceding ages. For as dissipation or ungodliness is the parent of all sin, of all unrighteousness; of unmercifulness, injustice, fraud, perfidy; of every possible evil temper, evil word, or evil action; so it in effect comprises them all. Whatsoever things are impure, whatsoever things are of evil report, whatsoever things are unholy; if there be any vice, all these are included in ungodliness, usually termed dissipation.