Archive: Wesley on Baptism
By E. Hebert Nygren
The problem which confronts every United Methodist scholar is the fact that the teachings of John Wesley on any given subject often vary considerably, depending upon the time in his life. This is especially true in regard to his position on the meaning and significance of the sacrament of baptism.
At the time of Wesley’s ordination into the Church of England, great emphasis was placed upon the ministering of the sacrament. This was considered by many to be the prime responsibility of the priesthood. Baptism, declared the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, was an “instrument” whereby one received “forgiveness of” sin as well as “adoption to be the sons of God by the Holy Ghost.” The Church of England taught that by baptism one is released from one’s sin through regeneration, was sanctified by the coming of the Holy Ghost, and given everlasting life.
When Wesley began his ministry there can be little question but that he was in full accord with the teachings of the Book of Common Prayer. In fact, his father, Samuel Wesley had taught him at home that: “the first of the benefit we receive by baptism, is the washing away of the damning guilt of original sin.” Wesley himself in his Journal for May 24, 1738, declared his belief that the “washing” he had received in baptism had not been sinned away.
During the year following John Wesley’s Aldersgate experience, however, he made a surprising notation in his Journal: “I expounded again at Islington … and showed them how vainly they trusted in baptism for salvation unless they were holy of heart…” September 14, 1739).
A change from his past belief in baptismal regeneration is further indicated in his tract, “A Farther Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion,” prepared in 1745. If you die without the new birth “your baptism will be far from profiting you.” The following year, he wrote, “It must be allowed that the people of England, generally speaking, have been christened or baptized. But neither can we infer, these were once baptized; therefore they are Christians now” (Letters, June 17, 1746).
Wesley’s reason for such a statement stemmed from his observations during his travels in England. In his sermon on “Marks of the New Birth,” Wesley asked: “How many are the baptized railers and evil speakers, the baptized whoremongers, thieves, extortioners?” He concluded that many of those who were once baptized “live in open sin” and are “utter strangers to the religion of the heart” (Letters, November 26, 1762).
To be sure, John Wesley still considered baptism to be a real “means of grace,” but he insisted that one ought never to forget that it is just that—a means. In fact, it is only a possible means. In his later years, Wesley became more adamant and pointed in his remarks on baptism. In his sermon, “The New Birth,” he declared unequivocally: “Baptism is not the new birth; they are not one and the same thing.” In his notes on the New Testament, commenting on St. Mark’s words, “every one that believed was baptized,” Wesley wrote in italics; “But he that believeth not—whether baptized or unbaptized, shall perish everlastingly.” Further, in commenting on Acts 10:47, he affirmed his belief that the Holy Spirit does not come upon one directly as the result of baptism.
From such a position it would not be far for Wesley ultimately to declare that the mode of baptism is not important. “I wish your zeal was better employed,” he wrote in 1750, “than in persuading men to be either dipped or sprinkled. I will employ mine by the grace of God in persuading them to love God with all their hearts and their neighbors as themselves” (Letters, May 22, 1750). He even went so far as to declare, in a startling note, that he no longer believed baptism to be essential to salvation. “You think the mode of baptism is ‘necessary to salvation’? I deny that even baptism itself is so…” (Letters, May 27, 1750).
In 1784, when John Wesley prepared the Sunday Service for the Methodists in America, the most overt instances of baptism were deleted from the Book of Common Prayer. The prayer of the priest following the sacrament contains these words: “We yield thee hearty thanks, most merciful Father, that it hath pleased thee to regenerate this Want with thy Holy Spirit.” Wesley excised the words, “regenerate this Want with thy Holy Spirit.” When the Articles of Religion in Wesley’s Sunday Service are examined, not a word is to be found as to the effects of baptism.
Reviewing the many statements made by Wesley as he grew in wisdom and knowledge of the Lord, we must conclude, then, that the mature Wesley dated the anniversary of the new birth not from the date of one’s baptism but from the date of one’s conversion experience.
E. Herbert Nygren is professor emeritus at Taylor University, and a retired member of the New York Annual Conference.
0 Comments