Notes:
Sermon 94: On Family Religion
On May 25, 1783, Wesley was in Nottingham where, as he reports in the Journal, ‘I had an easy day’s work, as Mr. Bayley assisted me by reading prayers and delivering the wine at the Lord’s Table.’ He remained there over the following Monday and wrote out this sermon on Josh. 24:15, a text used sparingly heretofore in his oral preaching (three times up to mid-1783). The theme of ‘family religion’, however, was an old favourite with the Puritans; Wesley had already collected many extracts on the subject; see Christian Library 2nd edn. (1819-27); e.g., VIII.72-85, Isaac Ambrose on ‘Family Duties’, ‘Duties of Parents’, ‘Duties of Children’ (Prima, Media, & Ultima [1674], Treatise II, ch. 10, sects. 1, 2, 4, 7, pp. 228-29, 231-33, 236-37); XXVIII.292-306, ‘Life of Philip Henry’; XXIX.399-400, ‘Bishop Hopkins’ Exposition of the Ten Commandments’; XXX.193 ff.; Jonathan Edwards, ‘Faithful Narrative…’; see also John Shower (a schoolmate of Samuel Wesley, Sen.), Family Religion… (1694). Indeed, four of the seven essays added to the sermons in SOSO, IV (1760)—viz., ‘The Duties of Husbands and Wives’, ‘Directions to Children’, ‘Directions to Servants’, and ‘Christian Instructions’—had been focused on ‘family religion’. Now in 1783, however, Wesley was aware that the Methodist Revival had already outlasted the normal life span of such movements, and that its future depended quite crucially on ‘family religion’, ‘the education of children’, ‘obedience to parents’, ‘obedience to pastors’, etc. Hence the sequence of Nos. 94-97.
This particular sermon first appeared in the Arminian Magazine (September and October 1783), VI.452-58, 508-14, without a title but numbered as ‘Sermon XVII’. It was then included as the last sermon in SOSO, VII.295-315, and not printed elsewhere in Wesley’s lifetime.
03:334 On Family ReligionJoshua 24:15
As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
11. In the foregoing verses we read that Joshua, now grown old, ‘gathered
the tribes of Israel to Shechem, and called for the elders of Israel, for their
heads, for their judges, and officers, and they presented themselves before the
Lord.’
Ver. 1. Ver. 2-13. Ver. 14 [AV reads, ‘on the other side
of the flood, and in Egypt’; Wesley inserts ‘Jordan’ without the
parentheses supplied].
22. A resolution this worthy of a hoary-headed saint, who had had large experience from his youth up of the goodness of the Master to whom he had devoted himself, and the advantages of his service. How much is it to be wished that all who have tasted that the Lord is gracious,
1 Pet. 2:3.
Cf. Hab. 2:14.
33. On the contrary, what will the consequence be if they do not adopt this resolution? If family religion be neglected? If care be not taken of the rising generation? Will not the present revival of religion in a short time die away? Will it not be, as the historian speaks of the Roman state in its infancy, res unius aetatis, an event that has its beginning and end within the space of one generation?
Cf. Minutes, Aug. 16, 1768, Q. 23, A. 10: ‘Unless we take care…, the present revival will be res unius aetatis [‘a matter of a single generation’]; it will last only the age of a man.’ Cf. Cicero, De Re Publica (The Republic), I.viii, unius aetatis (‘a single short period…’).
Cf. No. 63, ‘The General Spread of the Gospel’, §16 and n. For other references to Luther, cf. No. 14, The Repentance of Believers, I.9 and n.
This dating reflects several conflations of Wesley’s memories. ‘Above fifty years’ before 1783 would mean ‘before 1733’; the year 1729 was the origin of the Holy Club, and Wesley has other places where he dates the Revival from 1729 (cf. No. 107, ‘On God’s Vineyard’, proem, I.1; and his letter to William Black, Nov. 26, 1786). This conflicts with the Journal evidence, the preface to the General Rules, etc., that the Revival, as a popular movement, was not really active before 1739. Cf. Wesley’s Plain Account of the People called Methodists (written in 1748; published in 1749) and his Short History of Methodism (1765).
44. Have we not already seen some of the unhappy consequences of good men’s not adopting this resolution? Is there not a generation arisen, even within this period, yea, and from pious parents, that know not the Lord? That have neither his love in their hearts, nor his fear before their eyes?
See Rom. 3:18.
Cf. Prov. 30:17.
Prov. 22:6.
55. But what is the purport of this resolution, ‘I and my house will serve the Lord’? In order to understand and practise this, let us first inquire what it is to ‘serve the Lord’; secondly, who are included in that expression, ‘my house’; and thirdly, what can we do, that ‘we and our house’ may ‘serve the Lord’.
11I. 1. We may inquire, first, what it is to ‘serve the Lord’, not as a Jew, but as a Christian. Not only with an outward service (though some of the Jews undoubtedly went farther than this) but with inward; with the service of the heart, ‘worshipping him in spirit and in truth’.
Cf. John 4:24.
See 1 John 5:13.
See John 17:3.
Cf. Gal. 2:20.
22. As soon as he believes, he loves God, which is another thing implied in ‘serving the Lord’. ‘We love him, because he first loved us’
1 John 4:19.
Rom. 5:5.
John 21:15, 16, 17.
Cf. Isa. 26:8.
33. And if any man truly love God he cannot but love his brother also. Gratitude to our Creator will surely produce benevolence to our fellow-creatures.
Note that Wesley has a place for benevolence in Christian ethics as a consequence of Christian gratitude to God (cf. No. 91, ‘On Charity’, I.2 and n.). His quarrel with Hutcheson and others was their thesis that benevolence was a primal human disposition independent of divine endowment and grace; see No. 12, ‘The Witness of Our Own Spirit’, §5 and n.
Cf. Col. 3:12, 13.
Cf. Eph. 4:32.
44. One thing more is implied in ‘serving the Lord’, namely, the obeying him; the steadily walking in all his ways, the doing his will from the heart. Like those ‘his servants’ above ‘who do his pleasure’, who ‘keep his commandments, and hearken unto the voice of his words’,
Cf. Ps. 103:21, 20 (BCP).
See Acts 24:16.
II. ‘I and my house will serve the Lord,’ will every real Christian say. But who are included in that expression, ‘my house’? This is the next point to be considered.
11. The person in your house that claims your first and nearest attention is undoubtedly your wife; seeing you are to love her even as Christ loved the Church,
See Eph. 5:25.
Cf. Titus 2:14.
Eph. 5:27.
22. Next to your wife are your children: immortal spirits whom God hath for a time entrusted to your care, that you may train them up in all holiness, and fit them for the enjoyment of God in eternity. This is a glorious and important trust; seeing one soul is of more value than all the world beside.
See Young, Night Thoughts, vii. 994-97:
See also Charles Wesley, ‘As all the world were but one soul’, several times quoted by Wesley, as in No. 54, ‘On Eternity’, §20.
33. Your servants of whatever kind you are to look upon as a kind of secondary children;
Cf. OED (usage ‘c’), citing John Brown, Minister of the Gospel at Haddington, Compendious View of Natural and Revealed Religion (1782), I.i.24: ‘Servants in families ought to be considered as secondary children and have due instruction….’ See also Law, Christian Perfection (Works, III.223). The same point is made by J. H. Plumb in The First Four Georges, p. 31; see No. 50, ‘The Use of Money’, III.3 and n
An archaic form of ‘indentured’.
Cf. Exod. 20:10; Deut. 5:14; 31:12.
Exod. 12:16; Lev. 23:31.
III. Let us inquire, in the third place, what can we do that all these may ‘serve the Lord’?
11. May we not endeavour, first, to restrain them from all outward sin? From profane swearing; from taking the name of God in vain; from doing any needless work, or taking any pastime on the Lord’s day? This labour of love you owe even to your visitants; much more to your wife, children, and servants. The former, over whom you have the least influence, you may restrain by argument or mild persuasion. If you find that after repeated trials they will not yield, either to one or the other, it is your bounden duty to set ceremony aside, and to dismiss them from your house. Servants also, whether by the day or for a longer space, if you cannot reclaim either by reasoning added to your example, or by gentle or severe reproofs, though frequently repeated, you must in anywise dismiss from your family, though it should be ever so inconvenient.
03:33922. But you cannot dismiss your wife unless for the cause of fornication,
See Matt. 19:9.
Note that, for Wesley, the logic of empirical evidence cuts both ways; cf. JWJ, May 25, 1768, where the question is whether Wesley had ever seen an apparition himself. ‘No’, says he, ‘nor did I ever see a murder; yet I believe there is such a thing…. The testimony of unexceptional witnesses fully convinces me both of the one and the other.’
Cf. Rom. 12:21.
1 Sam. 3:18.
Luke 22:42.
33. Your children, while they are young, you may restrain from evil not only by advice, persuasion, and reproof, but also by correction; only remembering that this means is to be used last—not till all other have been tried, and found to be ineffectual. And even then you should take the utmost care to avoid the very appearance of passion. Whatever is done should be done with mildness; nay, indeed, with kindness too. Otherwise your own spirit will suffer loss, and the child will reap little advantage.
44. But some will tell you: ‘All this is lost labour; a child need not be
corrected at all. Instruction, persuasion, and advice will be sufficient for any
child, without correction; especially if gentle reproof be added, as occasion
may require.’ I answer, there may be particular instances wherein this method
may be successful. But you must not in any wise lay this down as an universal
rule; unless you suppose yourself wiser than Solomon, or, to speak 03:340more properly, wiser than God. For it is God himself, who best
knoweth his own creatures, that has told us expressly, ‘He that spareth the rod
hateth the child; but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.’
Prov.
13:24. Chap.
19:18.
55. May we not endeavour, secondly, to instruct them? To take care that every person who is under our roof have all such knowledge as is necessary to salvation? To see that our wife, servants, and children be taught all those things which belong to their eternal peace? In order to this, you should provide that not only your wife, but your servants also may enjoy all the public means of instruction. On the Lord’s day, in particular, you should so forecast what is necessary to be done at home that they may have an opportunity of attending all the ordinances of God. Yea, and you should take care that they have some time every day for reading, meditation, and prayer. And you should inquire whether they do actually employ that time in the exercises for which it is allowed. Neither should any day pass without family prayer, seriously and solemnly performed.
66. You should particularly endeavour to instruct your children, early, plainly, frequently, and patiently. Instruct them early, from the first hour that you perceive reason begins to dawn. Truth may then begin to shine upon the mind, far earlier than we are apt to suppose. And whoever watches the first openings of the understanding may by little and little supply fit matter for it to work upon, and may turn the eye of the soul toward good things, as well as toward bad or trifling ones. Whenever a child begins to speak, you may be assured reason begins to work. I know no cause why a parent should not just then begin to speak of the best things, the things of God. And from that time no opportunity should be lost of instilling all such truths as they are capable of receiving.
77. But the speaking to them early will not avail, unless you likewise speak to them plainly. Use such words as little children may understand, just such as they use themselves. Carefully observe the few ideas which they have already, and endeavour to graft what you say upon them. To take a little example: bid the 03:341child look up, and ask, ‘What do you see there?’ ‘The sun.’ ‘See, how bright it is! Feel how warm it shines upon your hand! Look, how it makes the grass and the flowers grow, and the trees and everything look green! But God (though you cannot see him) is above the sky, and is a deal brighter than the sun! It is he, it is God, that made the sun, and you and me, and everything. It is he that makes the grass and the flowers grow; that makes the trees green, and the fruit to come upon them! Think what he can do! He can do whatever he pleases. He can strike me or you dead in a moment. But he loves you; he loves to do you good. He loves to make you happy. Should not you then love him! You love me, because I love you and do you good. But it is God that makes me love you. Therefore you should love him. And he will teach you how to love him.’
Cf. No. 95, ‘On the Education of Children’, §14. See also Samuel Lee, ‘What Means May be Used Towards the Conversion of Our Carnal Relations’, Sermon 8 in The Morning-Exercise at Cripplegate (1661), pp. 193 ff.
88. While you are speaking in this, or some such manner, you should be continually lifting up your heart to God, beseeching him to open the eyes of their understanding, and to pour his light upon them. He and he alone can make them to differ herein from the beasts that perish. He alone can apply your words to their hearts; without which all your labour will be in vain. But whenever the Holy Ghost teaches, there is no delay in learning.
Cf. the Elizabethan ‘Homily for Whitsunday’, Pt. I, p. 412: ‘So true is the saying of Bede: “Where the Holy Ghost doth instruct and teach, there is no delay at all in learning.”’ The marginal note here reads ‘Hom. 9 sup. Lucam’, but the quotation itself has not been located in any of the homilies of Bede numbered nine in Migne, PL, XCIV, Sectio Prima—Homiliae. But cf. Homilia II (‘In Festo Visitationis Beatae Mariae’) [on Luke 1:44], Migne, PL, XCIV, col. 17: ‘Et quam miranda, quam cita sancti Spiritus operatio! Nulla quippe in discendo mora est, ubi Spiritus sanctus doctor adest.’ See A Farther Appeal, Pt. I, V.25 (11:168 in this edn.).
99. But if you would see the fruit of your labour, you must teach them not only early and plainly, but frequently too. It would be of little or no service to do it only once or twice a week. How often do you feed their bodies? Not less than three times a day. And is the soul of less value than the body? Will you not then feed this as often? If you find this a tiresome task, there is certainly something wrong in your own mind. You do not love them enough; or you do not love him who is your Father and their Father. Humble yourself before him! Beg that he would give you more love; and love will make the labour light.
03:3421010. But it will not avail to teach them both early, plainly, and frequently, unless you persevere therein. Never leave off, never intermit your labour of love, till you see the fruit of it. But in order to this you will find the absolute need of being endued with power from on high; without which, I am persuaded, none ever had or will have patience sufficient for the work. Otherwise the inconceivable dullness of some children, and the giddiness or perverseness of others, would induce them to give up the irksome task, and let them follow their own imagination.
1111. And suppose after you have done this—after you have taught your children from their early infancy, in the plainest manner you could, omitting no opportunity, and persevering therein—you did not presently see any fruit of your labour, you must not conclude that there will be none. Possibly the ‘bread which you have cast upon the waters’ may be ‘found after many days’.
Cf. Eccles. 11:1.
1212. Many parents, on the other hand, presently see the fruit of the seed they have sown, and have the comfort of observing that their children grow in grace in the same proportion as they grow in years. Yet they have not done all. They have still upon their hands another task, sometimes of no small difficulty. Their children are now old enough to go to school. But to what school is it advisable to send them?
1313. Let it be remembered that I do not speak to the wild, giddy, thoughtless world, but to those that fear God. I ask, then, ‘For what end do you send your children to school?’ ‘Why, that they may be fit to live in the world.’ In which world do you mean? This or the next? Perhaps you thought of this world only; and had forgot that there is a world to come—yea, and one that will last for ever! Pray take this into your account, and send them to such masters as will keep it always before their eyes. Otherwise to send them to school (permit me to speak plainly) is little better than sending them to the devil. At all events, then, send your boys, if you have any concern for their souls, not to any of the large public 03:343schools (for they are nurseries of all manner of wickedness)
Steele in The Guardian, No. 94 (June 29, 1713), had spoken of the universities as ‘public nurseries’, and Bishop Edward Stillingfleet in Sermons on Several Occasions (1696), I.31, had characterized ‘the houses of great men in too many places’ as ‘public schools of debauchery…’. Cf. also Charles Wesley’s ‘Commemorative Hymn’ (Poet. Wks., VIII.393): ‘The public schools of sin’.
1414. ‘But what shall I do with my girls?’ By no means send them to a large boarding-school. In these seminaries, too, the children teach one another pride, vanity, affectation, intrigue, artifice, and in short everything which a Christian woman ought not to learn. Suppose a girl were well inclined, yet what would she do in a crowd of children not one of whom has any thought of God, or the least concern for her soul? Is it likely, is it possible, she should retain any fear of God or any thought of saving her soul in such company? Especially as their whole conversation points another way, and turns upon things which one would wish she should never think of. I never yet knew a pious, sensible woman that had been bred at a large boarding-school who did not aver one might as well send a young maid to be bred in Drury Lane.
The then centre of the London theatre district (with the Theatre Royal and Covent Garden). Wesley’s low opinion of theatres and theatrical people was widely shared; see No. 89, ‘The More Excellent Way’, V.4 and n.
1515. ‘But where then shall I send my girls?’ If you cannot breed them up yourself (as my mother did, who bred up seven daughters to years of maturity), send them to some mistress that truly fears God, one whose life is a pattern to her scholars, and who has only so many that she can watch over each as one that must give account to God. Forty years ago I did not know such a mistress in England; but you may now find several.
On May 22, 1781, in a letter to Mary Bishop, he could think of only two.
Linden House, Hornsey Lane; its headmistress was Mary Teulon, daughter of Melchior Teulon (1734-1806), a prominent Methodist class-leader for twenty-four years.
No such reference to Deptford in JWJ, Letters, or in the autobiography of Sampson Staniforth, ‘the father of Deptford Methodism’, in AM (1783). There are, however, references to a boarding-school presided over by a Mrs. Edwards in Lambeth; cf. JWJ, Dec. 11, 1778; and Dec. 29, 1787.
Mary Bishop’s school near Keynsham.
No other references to this in JWJ, Letters, or in F. F. Bretherton, Early Methodism in and Around Chester (Chester, Phillipson, and Golder, 1903), pp. 225-33.
Cross Hall, where Mary Bosanquet, who later married John Fletcher, had been headmistress; cf. No. 114, On the Death of John Fletcher, III.11.
1616. We may suppose your sons have now been long enough at school, and you are thinking of some business for them. Before you determine anything on this head, see that your eye be single.
See Matt. 6:22; Luke 11:34.
Cf. No. 50, ‘The Use of Money’, intro.
See 2 Tim. 3:15.
‘But what shall I do?’ Set God before your eyes, and do all things with a view to please him. Then you will find a master, of whatever profession, that loves, or at least fears God; and you will find a family wherein is the form of religion, if not the power also.
Ibid.
1717. There is one circumstance more wherein you will have great need of the wisdom from above. Your son or your daughter is now of age to marry, and desires your advice relative to it. Now you know what the world calls a ‘good match’
Cf. Johnson, The Rambler, No. 182, p. 4: ‘a wealthy match’. See also the Epilogue to James Thomson’s Edward and Eleonora (‘written by a friend’), ll. 9-14:
Cf. Nos. 125, ‘On a Single Eye’, III.4; and 131, ‘The Danger of Increasing Riches’, I.6 and n.
Repeated in No. 95, ‘On the Education of Children’, §21 (‘riches cannot give happiness’).
Cf. Matt. 6:33.
1818. It is undoubtedly true that if you are steadily determined to walk in this path; to endeavour by every possible means that you and your house may thus serve the Lord; that every member of your family may worship him, not only in form, but in spirit, and in truth; you will have need to use all the grace, all the courage, all the wisdom which God has given you. For you will find such hindrances in the way as only the mighty power of God can enable you to break through. You will have all the ‘saints of the world’
Juán de Valdés; see No. 4, Scriptural Christianity, II.5 and n.
Eph. 6:10.
Cf. No. 5, ‘Justification by Faith’, §2 and n.
Cf. No. 25, ‘Sermon on the Mount, V’, IV.3 and n.
1 Tim. 5:22.
Titus 2:10.
See Luke 1:6.
1 Cor. 3:8.
Nottingham, May 26, 1783
Place and date as in AM.
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Entry Title: Sermon 94: On Family Religion