"But while he is steadily fixed in his religious principles in what he believes to be the truth as it is in Jesus; while he firmly adheres to that worship of God which he judges to be most acceptable in his sight; and while he is united by the tenderest and closest ties to one particular congregation, --his heart is enlarged toward all mankind, those he knows and those he does not; he embraces with strong and cordial affection neighbours and strangers, friends and enemies. This is catholic or universal love. And he that has this is of a catholic spirit. For love alone gives the title to this character: catholic love is a catholic spirit."
That quotation needs a context. It's from a sermon entitled The Catholic Spirit. It was preached by John Wesley probably in 1749, on the text 2 Kings 10.15. That text reads,
"And when he was departed thence, he lighted on Jehonadab the son of Rechab coming to meet him: and he saluted him, and said to him, Is thine heart right, as my heart is with thy heart? And Jehonadab answered, 'It is.' If it be, give me thine hand. And he gave him his hand; and he took him up to him into the chariot."
John Wesley could be a pain. Dogmatic, opinionated, partisan, stubbornly hard to shift from what he believed was the central ground of Christian faith. But that made him neither an exclusive nor a separatist from other Christians. This sermon is about the spirit of welcome, the formation of a settled and consistent predisposition to love and a commitment divinely maintained to make peace, developing a Spirit inspired instinct for unity of heart and practical goodwill towards others.
When John Wesley talked about the Christian calling to live and think and exhibit a catholic spirit he was unmistakable and explicit in his demand that those who professed faith in the God of universal love are called to mirror that love to other Christians, and even to those who make no such claims to faith. Universal love cannot be selective, a catholic spirit refuses to reject, the "ingrasping love of God" does not exclude or disqualify. The love of God, poured into the heart by the Holy Spirit overflows in goodwill, mercy, kindness, forgiveness, conciliation to those who are friends and those who are opponents, even to enemies, and therefore the love of Christ loves without exception and without excusing.
John Wesley got into trouble for his views on Christian Perfection, and for using phrases like universal love, and yes, for encouraging a catholic spirit in a fractious age. The second half of the 18th Century was a time of denominational jealousies, cultural upheavals, theological realignments, and social unrest. But beneath the surface there were also the subterranean disturbances of established authorities, threatened privileges, competivie religiosity, and these inevitably promoted power games as the Established Church felt the threat and impetus of a rising Dissenting churches, of which the rapidly growing Methodists was one of the more worrying examples.
Wesley's Sermon is a defining document of the classic Methodist commitment to unity and fellowship with other churches. The word ecumenical for Wesley was synonymous with catholic, and both required a disposition of openness and vulnerability to the presence and reality of those with whom he, or his Methodist societies, disagreed. And by the way, this isn't your soft, mushy, marshmallow ecumenism where no matter what somebody believes it's ok. The catholic spirit tries to hold the ground between an exclusive dogmatism and an all inclusive indifferentism, and it is a place where those of different Christian traditions, acknowledging the integrity each of the other, exchange the hand of fellowship and mutual gladness in their shared faith in Christ.
"That we may all love one another as Christ loved us", says Wesley. The past tense is crucial, is a crux point; it points to the supreme evidence of Christ's love on the cross. There, beneath the cross of Jesus, Christians from whatever denomination, tradition, culture or time, stand in the place where all hearts are equal in their need of grace and their sense of gratitude.
From my earliest days as a Christian I have been passionately ecumenical. From my first serious reading of John Wesley now over 30 years ago I have sensed a kindred spirit. This sermon is one of the core documents of Wesleyan spirituality, and of the Methodist way of being the church. I've gone back to it repeatedly, and I recall it frequently when I encounter those whose primary calling seems to be telling every other Christian tradition how wrong it is, or where its deficits lie, or why they could never be the kind of Christian those other people are pretending to be. And I guess it's kind of quaint to want to answer that spirit of "see me, I'm right" by quoting some words about a guy with the weird name Jehonadad son of Rechab!
But Wesley uses that text to dare his hearers into an act of trust, the shaking of hands between strangers, the measuring of the heart of the other, and therefore the risk of that middle ground where mutual respect and shared grace enable gratitude in duplicate, or in multiples of voices. When this sermon was later published in 1770, appended to it was one of Charles Wesley's hymns, "Catholic Love". Here is one of the verses.
Weary of all this wordy strife,
These notions, forms, and modes, and names,
To Thee, the Way, the Truth, the Life,
Whose love my simple heart inflames,
Divinely taught, at last I fly,
With thee and thine to live and die.
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