Notes:
Sermon 103: What is Man?
Here is yet another essay on Wesley’s theology of culture, in which he seeks to correlate man’s relative insignificance in creation as a whole with God’s special interest in his role and worth. In the following year he will write another sermon, on Ps. 8:4, in which his stress is on man’s unique place in God’s creation (see No. 116, ‘What is Man? Ps. 8:4’). Neither of these sermons has a history in Wesley’s oral preaching; no use of Ps. 8:3-4 has been reported. This first discourse is therefore more of an essay than a sermon; its ending lacks Wesley’s usual stress on ‘application’, and there is no proper rhetorical climax.
But the problem of man’s unique place in creation had fascinated Wesley since his youth; see Vol. 4, the early unpublished sermon (No. 141) on Gen. 1:27. In those early days he would have read Joseph Addison’s beautiful essay in The Spectator, No. 565 (July 9, 1714) on Psalm 8:3-4, and most of what Wesley has to say thereafter on this question echoes Addison (e.g., the references to Huygens and Pascal, to the great chain of being, space as the sensorium of the Deity, etc.). It is interesting, therefore, that ‘the late Wesley’ should have returned, in these two complementary discourses, to the issue of an adequate theological anthropology after having neglected it in his oral preaching during the years between.
This present essay was finished in Manchester on Monday, July 23, 1787, shortly after Wesley’s return from an extended visit to Ireland. He reports that on the previous Wednesday he had ‘retired to a little house of Mr. Brocklehurst’s, two miles beyond Manchester…,’ and had spent the rest of that week ‘in writing’. On Monday he ‘preached morning and afternoon’ in Manchester and ‘in the evening met the bands and admired their liveliness and simplicity’ (cf. JWJ, loc. cit.). The diary for the day refers to a sermon but gives no other detail. The result did not appear in the Arminian Magazine until May and June 1788, which means it was published twice in the same year, since Wesley had already decided to include it in SOSO, VIII (1788). In its Magazine version (XI.228-32, 285-89) it had no title but was numbered ‘Sermon XLV’. In SOSO, VIII.173-88, it has been given its present title, drawn from the Psalmist’s query in verse 4.
03:455 What is Man?Psalm 8:3-4
When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and [the] stars, which thou hast ordained: What is man?
How often has it been observed that the book of Psalms is a rich treasury of devotion, which the wisdom of God has provided to supply the wants of his children in all generations! In all ages the Psalms have been of singular use to those that loved or feared God: not only to the pious Israelites, but to the children of God in all nations. And this book has been of sovereign use to the church of God, not only while it was in its state of infancy (so beautifully described by St. Paul in the former part of the fourth chapter to the Galatians) but also since, in the fullness of time, ‘life and immortality were brought to light by the gospel’.
Cf. 2 Tim. 1:10.
1 Cor. 3:1.
Eph. 4:13.
The subject of this psalm is beautifully proposed in the beginning of it: ‘O Lord, our Governor, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens!’
Cf. Ps. 8:1, and note Wesley’s reversion here to the BCP after having announced his text from the AV Psalter.
Cf. Job 31:26.
Prior, Solomon, i.638-40; cf. No. 78, ‘Spiritual Idolatry’, I.7 and n.
he broke out from the fullness of his heart into that natural exultation, ‘When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained: What is man?’ How is it possible that the Creator of these, the innumerable armies of heaven and earth, should have any regard to this speck of creation
See Young, The Last Day, ii.221; and see No. 54, ‘On Eternity’, §18 and n.
Ps. 144:4 (BCP).
Cf. Prior, Solomon, i.551-52; see also Wesley, A Collection of Moral and Sacred Poems (1744), I.113.
‘What is man?’ I would consider this, first, with regard to his magnitude, and secondly, with regard to his duration.
11I. 1. Consider we, first, What is man with regard to his magnitude? And in this respect, what is any one individual compared to all the inhabitants of Great Britain? He shrinks into nothing in the comparison. How inconceivably little is one compared to eight or ten millions of people?
Cf. JWJ, Sept. 9, 1776, where Wesley reports Dr. Richard Price’s estimate that ‘the people of England are between four and five million…’; cf. Price’s Observations on the Expectations of Lives, the Increase of Mankind… (1769), and An Essay on the Population of England (1780).
Cf. Young, The Last Day, ii. 196; see also No. 15, The Great Assize, II.4 and n.
22. But what are all the inhabitants of Great Britain compared to all the inhabitants of the earth? These have frequently been supposed to amount to about four hundred millions. But will this computation be allowed to be just by those who maintain China alone to contain fifty-eight millions?
Cf. Jean Baptiste Du Halde, General History of China, translated from the French by R. Brookes (1736); see also Robert Wallace, A Dissertation on the Numbers of Mankind in Ancient and Modern Times (1753), pp. 3-13. For another reference to China, cf. No. 113, The Late Work of God in North America, I.14.
Cf. No. 15, The Great Assize, I.1 and n.
Ibid., I.4 and n.; cf. also Wallace, op. cit., pp. 10-11.
3. But what is the magnitude of the earth itself compared to that of the solar system!
See below, II.9-12; cf. also No. 55, On the Trinity, §7 and n.
44. And yet what is the whole quantity of matter contained in the sun and all these primary and secondary planets, with all the spaces comprised in the solar system, in comparison of that which is pervaded by those amazing bodies, the comets? Who but the Creator himself can ‘tell the number of’ these, and ‘call them all by their names’?
Cf. Ps. 147:4.
Cf. No. 56, ‘God’s Approbation of His Works’, I.10 and n.
55. Whether the bounds of the creation do or do not extend beyond the region of the fixed stars who can tell? Only ‘the morning stars’ who ‘sang together’ when the foundations thereof were laid.
Job 38:4, 7.
Cf. Milton, Paradise Lost, vii.230-31:
See No. 69, ‘The Imperfection of Human Knowledge’, I.5 and n.
But what is man to this?
66. We may take one step, and only one step, farther still. What is the space of the whole creation, what is all finite space that is or can be conceived, in comparison of infinite?
Cf. No. 67, ‘On Divine Providence’, §13 and n.
703:4587. What is man, that the great God who filleth heaven and earth, ‘the high and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity’,
Isa. 57:15.
Ps. 8:4.
II. Secondly, What is man with regard to his duration?
11. ‘The days of man’, since the last reduction of human life, which seems to have taken place in the time of Moses (and not improbably was revealed to the man of God at the time that he made this declaration) ‘are threescore years and ten.’
Cf. Ps. 90:10.
Ibid. (BCP).
22. Now what a poor pittance of duration is this compared to the life of Methuselah! ‘And Methuselah lived nine hundred and sixty and nine years.’
Cf. Gen. 5:25, 27.
Cf. Ps. 90:2.
33. Indeed what proportion can there possibly be between any finite and infinite duration? What proportion is there between a thousand or ten thousand years, or ten thousand times ten thousand ages, to eternity? I know not that the inexpressible disproportion between any conceivable part of time and eternity can be illustrated in a more striking manner than it is in the well-known passage of St. Cyprian: ‘Suppose there was a ball of sand as large as the globe of earth; and suppose one grain of this were to be annihilated in a thousand years; yet that whole space of time wherein this ball would be annihilating, at the rate of one grain in a thousand years, would bear less, yea, unspeakably, infinitely less proportion to eternity than a single grain of sand 03:459would bear to that whole mass.’
Cf. No. 54, ‘On Eternity’, §10 and n.
44. If then we add to the littleness of man the inexpressible shortness of his duration, is it any wonder that a man of reflection should sometimes feel a kind of fear, lest the great, eternal, infinite Governor of the universe should disregard so diminutive a creature as man? A creature so every way inconsiderable when compared either with immensity or eternity! Did not both these reflections glance through, if not dwell upon, the mind of the royal psalmist? Thus, in contemplation of the former, he breaks out into the strong words of the text, ‘When I consider the heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained, What is man, that thou shouldst be mindful of him? Or the son of man, that thou shouldst regard him?’ He is indeed (to use St. Augustine’s words), aliqua portio creaturae tuae:
The exact quotation of a twice-repeated phrase from The Confessions, I.1. Quantula portio (lit., ‘so small a portion’) is, however, an annotation of Wesley’s.
Cf. Ps. 144:3-4 (BCP).
Ibid. (AV); cf. No. 54, ‘On Eternity’, §20 and n.
55. And it is natural for us to make the same reflection, and to 03:460entertain the same fear. But how may we prevent this uneasy reflection, and effectually cure this fear? First, by considering what David does not appear to have taken at all into his account, namely, that the body is not the man; that man is not only a house of clay,
See Job 4:19; also No. 28, ‘Sermon on the Mount, VIII’, §21 and n.
2 Cor. 4:18.
Heb. 1:11.
Cf. ibid.
66. Consider, secondly, that declaration which the Father of spirits hath made to us by the prophet Hosea: ‘I am God, and not man:’
Hos. 11:9.
Cf. Lam. 3:22.
Cf. Isa. 55:9.
77. That no shadow of fear might remain, no possibility of doubting; to show what manner of regard the great eternal God bears to little, short-lived man, but especially to his immortal part, God gave his Son, ‘his only Son, to the end that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life’.
Cf. John 3:16.
BCP, Communion, Nicene Creed.
BCP, Athanasian Creed.
Cf. Phil. 2:7-8.
BCP, Communion, Nicene Creed.
Cf. 1 Pet. 2:24.
Eph. 2:1.
Rom. 8:32.
88. ‘Nay’, says the philosopher, ‘if God so loved the world, did he not love a thousand other worlds as well as he did this?
An echo of an old problem (cf. Augustine, De Civ. Dei, xii.18-19) and a current controversy (cf. the London Magazine, 1764-65). In his Survey (1763), II.143, Wesley had commented: ‘It is now almost universally supposed that the moon is just like the earth…. And hence it is generally inferred that she is inhabited like the earth, and by parity of reason that all the other planets, as well as the earth and the moon, have their respective inhabitants.’ He had then observed that Huygens (see n. to II.10) ‘brings strong reasons why the moon is not and cannot be inhabited’, adding, ‘and so the whole ingenious hypothesis of innumerable suns and worlds moving round them vanishes into air.’ A correspondent in the London Magazine for Nov. 1764 (pp. 570-73), had disputed this interpretation. In his reply, Jan. 1765 (pp. 26-29, reprinted in subsequent edns. of the Survey), Wesley holds to the point that such hypotheses are no more than probable at best.
99. I speak this even upon the common supposition of the plurality of worlds,
Put forward by such men as Louis Omens and Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle whose Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds turns up in the 3rd edn. of the Survey (1777), V.114. Wesley may have read The Plurality of Worlds in Jan. 1727 (there is a bare listing in the diary, ‘Fontenelle’). Cf. Nos. 64, ‘The New Creation’, §8; and 102, ‘Of Former Times’, intro.
1010. ‘Nay, but is not the argument of the great Huygens
Christiaan Huygens (1629-95); Wesley, in JWJ, Sept. 21, 1759, mentions having read his Celestial Worlds Discovered, Or Conjectures on the Planetary Worlds (Eng. trans. 1689, 1698, 1722, 1757): ‘He surprised me. I think he clearly proves that the moon is not habitable…. Hence he very rationally infers that “neither are any of the secondary planets inhabited”. And who can prove that the primary are? I know the earth is. Of the rest I know nothing.’
Cf. Milton, Paradise Lost, i.291; see No. 69, ‘The Imperfection of Human Knowledge’, I.5 and n.
Now where rivers are, there are doubtless plants and vegetables of various kinds. And where vegetables are, there are undoubtedly animals, yea, rational ones as on earth. It follows then that the moon has its inhabitants, and probably near akin to ours. But if our moon is inhabited, we may easily suppose, so are all the secondary planets; and in particular all the satellites or moons of Jupiter and Saturn. And if the secondary planets are inhabited, why not the primary? Why should we doubt it of Jupiter and Saturn themselves, as well as Mars, Venus, and Mercury.’
1111. But do not you know that Mr. Huygens himself, before he died, doubted of this whole hypothesis? For upon farther observation he found reason to believe that the moon has no atmosphere. He observed that in a total eclipse of the sun, on the removal of the shade from any part of the earth, the sun immediately shines bright upon it; whereas if the moon had an atmosphere the solar light, while it shone through that atmosphere, would appear dim and dusky. Thus after an eclipse of the moon, first a dusky light appears on that part of it from which the shadow of the earth removes, while that light passes through the atmosphere of the earth. Hence it appears that the moon has no atmosphere. Consequently it has no clouds, no rain, no springs, no rivers; and therefore no plants or animals. But there is no proof or probability that the moon is inhabited; neither have we any proof that the other planets are. Consequently, the foundation being removed, the whole fabric falls to the ground.
03:4631212. ‘But’, you will say, ‘suppose this argument fails, we may infer the same conclusion, the plurality of worlds, from the unbounded wisdom, and power, and goodness of the Creator. It was full as easy to him to create thousands or millions of worlds as one. Can anyone then believe that he would exert all his power and wisdom in creating a single world? What proportion is there between this speck of creation and the great God that filleth heaven and earth! While
Cf. William Broome (1689-1745), ‘The Forty-third Chapter of Ecclesiasticus Paraphrased’, the closing couplet:
See Wesley, A Collection of Moral and Sacred Poems (1744), II.99.
1313. To this boasted proof, this argumentum palmarium
A ‘knockdown argument’, supposedly unanswerable; ‘palmarium’ means ‘a masterpiece’ or ‘prizewinner’, as in Terence, The Eunuch, V.iv.8. Wesley had used this same phrase in No. 90, ‘An Israelite Indeed’, II.7 (see n.), and again in a letter to his brother Charles, Nov. 3, 1775.
Rom. 11:34.
1414. Suffice it then for us to know this plain and comfortable truth—that the almighty Creator hath shown that regard to these poor little creatures of a day which he hath not shown even to the inhabitants of heaven, ‘who kept not their first estate’.
Cf. Jude 6.
Manchester, July 23, 1787
Place and date as in AM.
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