Women Methodism, Mcinelly

Raising the Roof: Hymn Singing, the Anti-Methodist Response,
and Early Methodist Religiosity

Brett C. McInelly
Eighteenth-Century Life, Volume 36, Number 2, Spring 2012, pp. 80-110

(Article)
Published by Duke University Press
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Raising the Roof:

Hymn Singing, the Anti-Methodist Response,
and Early Methodist Religiosity
Brett C. McInelly
Brigham Young University
To introduce what I call the problem of the Methodist hymnal, I begin

with three episodes from eighteenth-century Methodist history. The first
involves the conversion, backsliding, and reconversion of Sarah Colston, a
member of the Methodist societies in Bristol. After experiencing a spiritual awakening, Colston states, I felt such a change in my soul which
was unspeakable. The euphoria of Colstons experience, however, was
short-l ived, as Colston endured several months of self-doubt and backsliding, until, finally, she experienced the New Birth at a meeting where
she heard the following words sung in a hymn: Jesus come thou serpent
bruser:/ Bruse his head womans seed: / Cast down the accuser. She goes
on to write, I felt such a power and love of god in my soul that I did not
know how to live. When I came home I was praying and singing all day
long. She eventually concludes the account of her spiritual rebirth with
words from another hymn: Fulfill fulfill my large desires, / Large as infinity; / Give give me all my soul requires, / All all that is in thee.1
The second and third episodes come from the journals of John Wesley.
He was sometimes amazed by the power of spiritual feelings in individuals
who understood neither the manner in which the spiritual experience came
Eighteenth-Century Life
Volume 36, Number 2, Spring 2012 doi 10.1215/00982601-1548045
Copyright 2012 by Duke University Press
80
8 1
to them nor the basic tenets of religion to which the experience supposedly
gave evidence. He records: A young Woman, till then quite unawakened,
was cut to the Heart and sunk to the Ground: Tho she could not give a
clear, rational Account of the Manner how the Conviction seized upon
her.2 Writing of another group of followers, he states, The more I converse with this People, the more I am amazed. That God hath wrought a
great Work among them is manifest. And yet the Main of them, Believers and Unbelievers, are not able to give a rational Account of the plainest
Principles of Religion. Tis plain, God begins his Work at the heart; then
the Inspiration of the Highest giveth Understanding (121).
These passages convey just a few of the needs early Methodism had
to fulfill; it had to stress unusual and often unprecedented spiritual emotion; to sustain that emotion after initial conversion; to determine affective
content (that is, of what precise belief does a strong feeling give evidence);
and to educate people in the basic beliefs they adopted when they underwent conversion. And Methodists had to determine the role hymns played
in triggering and reconfirming conversion feelings, as well as the role they
played in teaching content. But in sparking and reassuring converts of their
spiritual feelings, the Methodist hymns, which were often set to popular
tunes and sung in a spirited way, also invited ridicule and criticism from
a society that, although somewhat supportive of sensibility and sentimentalism, viewed religious enthusiasm as dangerous. In recounting his own
conversion, the ex-Methodist James Lackington echoes anti-Methodist critiques as he sardonically describes the ways hymn singing stirred his passions and moved him toward a misguided faith: At last, by singing and
repeating enthusiastic amorous hymns,... I got my imagination to the
proper pitch, was born again in an instant, became a very great favourite of
heaven, and was as familiar with the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, as any
old woman in Mr. Wesleys connection.3
In this paper I explore some of the ways hymns informed the Methodist revival. I will show that the hymns can be better understood as the site
of a complex negotiation between John and Charles Wesley and their followers, as the brothers attempted to steer the movement away from charges
of religious enthusiasm and emotional excess. The emotional power the
hymns unleashed required various kinds of control and constraint so that
hymn singing fed the intense feelings of conversion in coordinated ways
while providing the feelings with content. In addition, the hymns functioned, though not always successfully, to challenge the grounds on which
8 2 Eighteenth-Centur y Life
the anti-Methodists mounted their campaign against Methodism by calling into question the rationality of mainstream Enlightenment religion.
Like other features of the revival, such as open-air preaching and lay ministry, hymn singing generated controversy; paradoxically, this controversy
provided much of the energy that ultimately sustained the Methodist
movement.
For participants in the burgeoning Methodist movement, no form of
discourse shaped their experience more than the hymnal. As Teresa Berger
observes, The hymns... appear to have had a much greater influence
on the sense of community and self-understanding of Methodist churches
than... Johns sermons or Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament which
constitute, in part, the doctrinal standards of Methodism.4 The Wesley brothers printed a number of hymnbooks for their religious societies,
both jointly and individually, and they included their own hymns as well
as hymns by other composers in these collections. This sacred verse was
consumed in private and as part of congregational worship services, which
began and ended with song.5 The hymns, or at least parts of them, were
also reproduced in both published and unpublished diaries and letters, and
became a regular feature of conversion and deathbed narratives as individuals regularly drew upon hymn lyrics in describing their experiences
and feelings.
Numerous scholars have noted the pervasiveness of hymns within
Methodist circles and the role of the hymnal in shaping religious experience.6 David Hempton states, Methodists absorbed their faith through
the words of their hymns and sacred verse.7 Carlton R. Young argues that
a benefit of what he calls lyrical religion... is the reinforcement of belief
through the experience of recall, and Thomas A. Langford suggests that
Methodist hymns functioned as a medium for teaching the way stained
glass did for Medieval churchgoers.8 Phyllis Mack, in Heart Religion in the
British Enlightenment (2008), claims that the Wesleys hymns constituted
an immense effort to convey theological principles to the ordinary worshipper, to create a sense of communal solidarity, and to generate certain affective states.9 Langford and Berger further suggest that Methodist hymns,
and particularly those composed by Charles Wesley, gave expression to
the revival by providing a language by which believers could describe their
experiences.10 Most recently, Joanna Cruickshank examines the theme of
suffering in Charles Wesleys hymns, noting the centrality of this theme in
R a ising the Roof 8 3
the hymns and in Methodist culture. According to Cruickshank, the hymns

put words to experiences like childbirth, physical and spiritual ailments,
and even execution; perhaps more importantly, the hymns helped people
interpret their suffering as part of a divine plan of final redemption.11
All of these studies generally agree that Methodist hymns, as Cruickshank states, served as tools for producing and managing experience. They
were designed to draw people into the narrative culture of Methodism, by
engaging their singers or readers in stories of personal transformation that
linked to an overarching narrative of conviction, conversion, sanctification,
and eternal glory (170). This article builds on the work of Cruickshank
and these other scholars by situating the Methodist hymnal in the context
of the anti-Methodist critique and Methodisms response to that critique.
The problem of the hymnal, as I mentioned at the outset of this essay, was
largely a rhetorical problem. Most obviously, the hymns aimed at persuading would-be converts to a particular way of believing and at sustaining
believers in their faith once converted. In addition, by reassuring believers that what they could feel but not always explain was validI felt such
a change in my soul which was unspeakable (my emphasis)the hymns
indirectly respond to anti-Methodist accusations that that experience was
mere enthusiasma vain belief of private revelation.12 This response was
intended not so much for the benefit of the anti-Methodists as for the
Methodists themselves, who were acutely aware of the ways their beliefs
flew in the face of social and cultural sensibilities. Situating the hymns in
this wider context demonstrates the ways the Methodist hymnal, and even
the revival, were conditioned by the controversy they created.
G
Before turning our attention to the hymns, we should first consider the
challenges secular scholars face in assessing the emotionalism of the Methodist revival, which is part of what I attempt to do in this essay. There can
be no doubt that, as Mack observes, Emotion, not intellect, was the main
touchstone of religious and philosophical truth in Methodism (15). Secular scholars are often as puzzled by this fact as eighteenth-century antiMethodist writers and, like their eighteenth-century counterparts, tend
to distill Methodism into mere religious enthusiasm. The problem, Mack
explains, is that some modern scholars are tone-deaf to religious sensibili-
ties (11), which results in accounts like E. P. Thompsons, in The Making of
the English Working Class (1980), wherein early Methodists are portrayed as
socially and sexually repressed individuals who find relief in the emotional
outbursts occasioned by Methodist forms of worship. Mack explains that,
since the publication of Thompsons seminal work, the Methodist revival
is generally seen as
either the manipulation of emotionally needy followers by the Methodist
leadership or... a mob of hysterical worshippers run amok. In short,
Methodists have rarely been viewed as thinkers and actors, as participants
in the cultural discourse about the nature of feeling and sensibility that
preoccupied so many of their contemporaries. On the contrary, they
wereand aremore commonly viewed as specimens of undiluted
or repressed emotion, as part of the problem that more reflective
philosophers, novelists, and theologians were seeking to address. (5)
Mack painstakingly documents how ordinary Methodists struggled to

make sense of their feelings and were not merely carried away by enthusiastic flights of fancy.13 Secular historians, she insists, need an angle of
vision that allows them... to accept these spiritual concerns as sincere and
legitimate (7).
The challenge in granting sincerity is not unlike the one antiMethodists faced in the eighteenth century. Methodism embodied a host
of seemingly irreconcilable contradictions, the most notable of which centered on probably the most common charge leveled against the Methodists: enthusiasm. As Mack points out, John Wesley condemned enthusiasm
while leading the most successful movement of religious enthusiasm of the
century (26). John accepted that God communicates with individuals via
their emotions. He also allowed that people experienced that influence in
radically different ways. Regarding his own conversion, John explained that
his heart [was] strangely warmd, but he accepted and was fascinated by
more dramatic conversion accounts at the same time he demanded evidence
supporting spiritual claims by his followers.14 He acknowledged that individuals could mistake a purely emotional response for a spiritual prompting. Mack explains, Wesley tried to walk a fine line between the scientific
skepticism of a citizen of the Enlightenment and a fascination with forms
of spiritual expression of which he himself was apparently incapable (37).15
John was equally critical of skepticism and of enthusiasm, as the title of
Henry Racks biography of Wesley, Reasonable Enthusiast (2002), attests.
Johns enthusiasm, Rack explains, was clothed in the garments of reason.16 Thus, we could say that John brought together a heightened emotionalism and an emphasis on self-control and reasonable behavior, a point
Hempton has persuasively argued: Wesley, and this is equally true of the
movement he founded, generally tempered enthusiasm with discipline, and
rugged individualism with communal accountability (34).
Though Methodism clearly ran counter to much of what we associate
with the Enlightenment, its emphasis on feeling as a conduit to a higher
reality situates it squarely in the culture of sensibility. As G. J. BarkerBenfield points out, It was Methodism that seems most to have resembled
the cult of sensibility, a resemblance noted by contemporaries. Wesley himself encouraged the convergency by his publication of sentimental novels
and poems.17 Curiously, the leading candidate for the title of Methodist
in Tobias Smolletts Humphry Clinker (1771) is not the title character, a selfproclaimed Methodist, but Matthew Bramble, described as a man without a skin and, in many ways, a prototype of the literary man of feeling,
whose sensitivity to the misery of others and practical charity parallel the
behavior of Methodists.18 The scope and purpose of the Methodist hymnal
further align the revival with the sentimentalism of the age. As Janet Todd
suggests, the hymns are a kind of sentimental dramatic poetry.... Like
sentimental fiction and drama, they teach and provoke emotion.19 Much as
the culture of sensibility was moving away from Enlightenment rationalism
by insisting on feelings and not just reason as a guide to truth and human
conduct, Methodism emerged when many individuals conceived of Christianity as a wholly rational religious system. As Joseph Trapp argues in one
of the more well-k nown anti-Methodist publications produced during the
period, The Nature, Folly, Sin, and Danger of Being Righteous Over-Much
(1739), The true and judicious Professors of our Religion, say of Reason and
Christianity what St. Paul says of the Law and Faith.... Do we then make
void Reason through Christianity God forbid; yea we establish Reason.20
But while Methodism had much in common with the culture of sensibilityBarker-Benfield argues that Methodism... and the cult of sensibility were two branches of the same culture (273)Methodism did not
garner the same kind of cultural cachet as other expressions associated with
sentimentalism.21 Of course, the sentimental novel had its critics, but it did
not attract the kind of hostility Methodism did throughout the eighteenth
century, a point Barker-Benfield does not fully consider in situating Meth-
odism in the culture of sensibility. The sighs, groans, and tears that became
badges of honor for the heroes and heroines of sentimental fiction marked
the Methodists as enthusiasts and madmen. No doubt memories of the
religious fanaticism associated with the civil wars of the previous century
loomed large, and the Methodists were regularly compared to Cromwellian
Puritans. The leveling of social hierarchies in the Methodist societies as
both men and women served as lay ministers and preachersjustified by
Johns belief in an extraordinary callfurther bothered outside observers. In sum, the anti-Methodists refused to grant primacy to Methodist
religious experience not because they distrusted human emotion generally,
but because they distrusted it, in large part, as a justification for religiously
motivated behavior in the public realm, which potentially unsettled the
ecclesiastical and social order. Enthusiasm, Rack explains, implied not
only religious excess but also social subversion (275). Critics and observers were willing to allow sentiment as a guide to virtuous conduct and as a
means of reconstituting ideas of human nature and of God, but they were
much less willing to accept feeling as proof of a spiritual witness that might
justify social or political insubordination.
Not unlike the anti-Methodists of the eighteenth century, todays
scholars grant emotional experience a certain authority in such realms as
aesthetics but often dismiss the emotional claims and displays characteristic of the Wesleyan revival as mere enthusiasm. But as Mack convincingly argues, Methodists were conscientious participants in the revival;
they purposefully pushed the boundaries of acceptable religious practice
while enacting a deep-seated desire for heartfelt experience. This desire
compelled the Wesleys and their followers to navigate, often unsuccessfully,
between disciplined sobriety and enthusiasm, a problem illustrated in the
Methodist hymnal and in the role the hymnal played in the religious lives
of early Methodists.
G
Membership in the Methodist societies ensured that an individuals experience was strongly informed by and filtered through hymn. Spiritual rebirth
or conversion was often precipitated by hymn singing. Charles records
many such instances in his journal: We sung the hymn to Christ. At the
words, Who for me, for me hath died, [Mrs. Harper] burst out into tears
and outcries, I believe, I believe! and sunk down.... We sang and prayed
again.22 In another case, Charles writes, Sarah Townsend informed me,

that on Sunday evening, while we were singing Come to judgment, come
away, she found and felt in herself that she durst come. The Spirit in that
instant sealing her pardon upon her heart (Manuscript, 210). Even unsuspecting and potentially hostile observers could be overcome by the power
of the Methodist hymnal. After collapsing during a hymn, one woman
explains that she came on purpose to persecute, and laugh at the people
that were weeping for their sins, but while the hymn was singing, divine
conviction powerfully fastened upon her mind: and that she could now
praise a sin-pardoning God.23 Some accounts illustrate how hymn singing
was a more formidable force in winning converts than preaching. Charles
explains, Sarah Church informed me she had received forgiveness the
night Mr. Simpson expounded at Rag-fair; not under his preaching, which
was quite dead to her, but in singing a hymn which I gave out. So did Anne
Roberts, after hearing the work, in the same carnal ordinance of singing
(Manuscript, 231).
Such accounts demonstrate some of the ways Methodist hymns signified in Wesleyan circlesas a powerful vehicle for conversion and as
a primary fixture in the spiritual lives of believers. Indeed, the hymnal
continued to factor significantly into the religious lives of early Methodists well after their initial conversions. As Franz Hilderbrandt and Oliver
Beckerlegge explain of Methodist hymnbooks, These volumes were read
to destruction, and memorized. In relating their spiritual experiences, their
trials and tribulations, their victories and joys, Methodists would as readily
quote [Charles] Wesleys hymns as they would quote Scriptures.24 A letter
from the Methodist Samuel Bardsley to a Methodist couple demonstrates
the expressive power hymns held for early Methodists. In a page and a half,
Bardsley cites three different hymns, two by Charles Wesley and one by
Isaac Watts. The first hymn cited describes Bardsleys regret regarding his
conversionAh why did I so late thee knowwhile the second hymn
cited expresses his faith in saving grace: A feeble Saint shall win the day/
Though Death or Hell obstruct the way. He offers the final citation as
an exhortation to his correspondents: His Bleeding heart shall make you
Room / His open Side shall take you in.25
The expressive capacity of the hymns proved vital as individuals participated in the Wesleys religious societies. These societies were generally
divided into classes and bands, usually consisting of five to twelve or so
individuals who met regularly for exhortation and prayer. Individuals also
confessed their shortcomings and spiritual struggles during these meetings and discussed their religious experiences. Thus, membership in the
societies required individuals to share their experiences with others, and
early Methodists anxiously explored their religious feelings in conversation
and testimonials.26 This sharing also spilled over into writing. Besides the
countless letters that circulated between believers, Methodists produced a
rich, voluminous archive of spiritual autobiography full of expressive language relating to a host of spiritual emotions. As was the case with the
letters, diaries and journals often invoke hymn lyrics to help describe the
authors heartfelt experiences.27 Hannah Harrison writes in her memoir,
originally published in the Arminian Magazine, The Thursday morning
following, when at private prayer, I was so overwhelmed with the divine
presence, that I cried out, Lord, can what I feel proceed from any but
thee? and the language of my heart was,Nay, butI yield, I yield, / I
can hold out no more, / I sink,by dying love compelld, / And own Thee
Conqueror.28 One woman described these hymns as strikingly expressive
of her own experience, which was what many of Wesleys followers found
in Methodist hymns.29
The scope of the hymns themselves partly explains why devotees drew
upon the corpus of Methodist hymnals as a means of vocalizing spiritual
experience. Hempton observes that the hymns generally focus less on doctrine and more on the Christian life as pilgrimage, a journey from earthly
despair to heavenly blessing (70), which is the trajectory of most Methodist conversion narratives, usually beginning with an initial awakening of
ones sinful state, a brief retreat into despondency, and ending with a joyful
acknowledgement of Gods saving grace, as in the Colston account cited at
the outset of this essay.30
The fact that the hymns address the most fundamental attributes of
Christian experience, at least according to Wesleyan teachings, is particularly true of the 1780 Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People Called
Methodists, the most important of the Wesleys hymnbooks. John explains
in the preface, The hymns are not carelessly jumbled together, but carefully ranged under proper heads, according to the experience of real Christians. So that this book is in effect a little body of experimental and practical divinity.31 Bernard L. Manning refers to the collection as a Christian
spiritual biography.32 Berger similarly observes that the structure behind
the collection is that of Pilgrims Progresst he poetical biography of a
Christian. Unlike other eighteenth-century hymnbooks, which were randomly structured or organized doctrinally or according to the church year,
the 1780 Collection traces the path of believers from the turning of sin, to
conversion, to the life of faith (Theology, 7172). When combined with
Charless capacity as a composer to write feelingly of Christian experience (Hildebrandt and Beckerlegge, 43), the design of the 1780 Collection
encouraged the Wesleys followers to experience the hymns as a reflection
and articulation of their own spiritual journeys.
The first hymn in the 1780 Collection illustrates this point. As Berger
notes, the hymn originally included the heading For the Anniversary Day
of Ones Conversion and recounts Charless own conversion as a universal model. The hymn, she claims, provides all participants in this nascent
renewal movement with a tool for the expression of their individual (and
corporate) fundamental experience of conversion (Theology, 74). The lyrics provide a medium for articulating a kind of experience that is at once
deeply personal and at the same time profoundly mysterious. And in naming or defining that experience, Charles, as well as John, who vigorously
edited this particular hymn as well as the entire collection, could, at least
theoretically, control the ways their followers experienced and made sense
of the New Birth. I do not mean to suggest that their intentions were in
any way devious or self-serving. Rather, they were acutely aware of how
easily spiritual conviction could slide into religious enthusiasm; they recognized that Methodism operated on the fringe of what many considered
acceptable religious practice, and consequently they policed the boundary
themselves. By controlling the discourse by which believers made sense of
their experience, the Wesley brothers attempted to regulate the spiritual
lives of their followers, protecting them from enthusiastic fits and charges
of religious enthusiasm.
G
A key concept in understanding the rhetorical role the hymns played for
early Methodists spiritual lives is identification, a concept often observed
in Methodism, but one that has not been adequately analyzed or theorized.
Cruickshank considers the ways early Methodists identified their own sorrows and pains with Christs, thereby solidifying their status as Christians. She writes, In using the imagery of cross and cup to describe their
t rials,... Methodists gave their physical and emotional pains powerful
meanings that identified them with the sufferings of Christ (82, my emphasis). In his examination of the evangelical conversion narrative, D.Bruce
Hindmarsh similarly notes the power of identification in the conversion
process. He explains that converts often identified with Methodist preachers, feeling as if the preachers described, quite precisely, their own experiences and feelings: This sense of personal, individual address was so
strong that many converts thought the preacher was singling them out
even reading their minds (144). Not surprisingly, Methodist preaching
was most effective among those who already saw themselves as religiously
minded, and the preachers goal was to get the members of the audience
to recognize in themselves the states of Christian experiencef rom a
state of apathy or even degeneracy, to a state of recognition of the need for
Christ, and finally to a sense of saving grace (137). Converts identified with
these states and consequently experienced conversion.
Clearly, then, early Methodists were affected by particular hymns and
sermons, but how exactly does this move individuals to belief or action?
The rhetorical theorist Kenneth Burke helps answer this question. Burke
defines rhetoric rather traditionally as the use of words by human agents to
form attitudes or to induce actions in other human agents, but he amplifies
his definition, suggesting how and why persuasion occurs: You persuade
a man only insofar as you can talk his language by speech, gesture, tonality, order, image, attitude, idea, identifying your ways with his (Burkes
emphasis).33 Burke goes so far as to posit identification as an alternative to
persuasion: The key term for the old rhetoric was persuasion and its stress
was upon deliberate design. The key term for the new rhetoric would be
identification, which can include a partially unconscious factor in appeal.
In other words, identification may involve a deliberate attempt by an agent
to persuade an audience, but it can work at an unconscious level, as when
an individual wants to identify with another person or group; that is, an
individual inf luences himself via a desire for identification (which further explains the force of the hymnal in shaping early Methodist religious
experience). 34 Because individuals, obviously, occupy their own physical
bodies, people are naturally divided or alienated from each other and are,
therefore, autonomous agents: The bodys pleasures and pains are exclusively its own pleasures and pains (Rhetoric, 130). In Burkes view, the
aim of rhetoric is to reduce that division or sense of alienation, and this is
achieved, in part, through identification, which results in what Burke refers
to as an experience of consubstantiality. Burke states, In being identified with B, A is substantially one with a person other than himself. Yet
at the same time he remains unique, an individual locus of motives. Thus
he is both joined and separate, at once a distinct substance and consubstantial with another. Burkes point is that identification occurs when an
individual perceives that he shares at least the substance of an experience
with another person, and that experience can include common sensations,
concepts, images, ideas, [or] attitudes (Rhetoric, 21).
It is, of course, difficult, when dealing with something as mysterious
as religious experience, to know for sure if individuals actually experience
or feel the same thing. But according to Burke, identification is a perception created through the symbolic means of discourse. Early Methodists
shared the experience of earthly despair and heavenly joy, thereby identifying with each other as they disclosed what they perceived as similar experiences in testimonials, in writing, and in song. To be sure, Methodists acted
as individual agents, but they did so in close relation to and in communication with other Methodists. These relations were particularly important
as many early Methodists felt alienated from the larger society and even
from their own families, who neither understood nor accepted claims of a
personal, spiritual witness. Believers found refuge among other believers
who described sensations associated with the New Birth in language that
reflected their own experience.35
One reason Charless hymns were so successful in forging a sense of
spiritual community may well be found in his capacity for empathy, or
identification. As Baker explains, So powerful was the sympathetic link
between Charles Wesley and others that it is sometimes exceedingly difficult to be sure whether in his verse he is describing his own experience
or identifying himself with that of someone else. In many of his lyrics, It
is... clear that he is thinking and feeling himself into the personality of
another, as, for example, in those hymns written for widows and convicted
felons (19). Even his use of pronouns promoted identification by helping
devotees feel that they were not isolated in their spiritual struggles and triumphs. Donald Davie observes that Charles breaks down distinctions...
between the devotee and his Saviour... and, consequently, the distinction
between one devotee and the next by eradicating the distinction between
first and second persons singular. As Davie points out, we cannot always
determine whether Charless use of a particular pronoun refers to himself,
other believers, or even to God. In the lines See the Travail of thy Soul,/
Savior, and be satisfied, the oddity of the speaker or singer giving a command to God is reconciled by the theological tenet that conversion requires
that the believer surrender his soul to his savior; hence, the Soul referred
to in the lines is both the devotees and Gods (65). The important point
to be made here is not just that Charles had a capacity for empathy, as
Baker suggests, or did violence to language, as is evident in Charless
verse, as Davie implies (67), but that Charles put his talents to rhetorical
work, forging a sense of identification and thus moving individuals toward
God and salvation.
Burkes discussion is particularly relevant to the Methodist hymnal
because, for Burke, identification is promoted, in part, by an experience of
aesthetic form. According to Burke, a well-constructed aesthetic artifact
invites the audience to experience its form. Even in the case of a proposition
with which the listeners may disagree, they may find themselves yielding
to the formal development [of the argument], surrendering to its symmetry
as such, which prepares for assent to the matter identified with it (Rhetoric, 58). In fact, Gregory Clark has suggested that Burkes theory of form is
implicitly founded upon the experience of music, inasmuch as music coordinates the emotional responses of singers and listeners who, though residing in different bodies, experience within those bodies the same cycles of
emotions simultaneously, the consequence of which is a sense of identification with each other.36 Coordinating the emotional responses of his followers is part of the reason Wesley encouraged congregational singing, which I
will discuss in the next section. The formal patterns of the hymnsrepetition of key phrases and words, rhythm and meter, etc.certainly made it
easy for early Methodists to memorize the hymns, evidenced by how often
the hymns are cited, presumably from memory, in letters and diaries. And
by internalizing the form of the hymns, Methodists would, according to
Burkes logic, internalize the doctrines articulated in the hymns.
The first hymn in the 1780 Collection is a case in point. Charles composed this hymn in common meter, a literary form he utilized regularly,
as did other hymn writers, including Isaac Watts. Common meter is also
standard in English ballads and consists of four-line stanzas, the first and
third lines written in iambic tetrameter and the second and fourth lines
in iambic trimeter, with a rhyme scheme, in most cases, of abab. The first
stanza of Charless conversion hymn reads,

O for a thousand tongues to sing
My dear Redeemers praise!
The glories of my God and King,
The triumphs of his grace! (John Wesley, Collection, 79)
The sixth stanza delivers the central tenet of Wesleyan Methodism in the
same meter and rhyme:
Look unto him, ye nations, own
Your God, ye fallen race;
Look, and be saved through faith alone,
Be justified by grace! (80)
Charles utilized a variety of metrical and rhyme schemes in composing his

hymns, but his hymns generally follow a similarly consistent pattern. In
addition, he regularly set his hymns to popular tunes with which Methodists were already familiar, and this familiarity, in theory, assisted devotees
in remembering the message. At least one of the Wesleys contemporaries
observed this possibility. In what Charles Jarvis Hill refers to as the literary monument of anti-Methodism, Richard Gravess The Spiritual Quixote
(1773), Graves writes of the attractions which were found in [the Methodists] Psalms and Hymns, which, being chiefly set to popular tunes, had the
same effect in recommending their doctrines, as the like cause had formerly
in establishing the fame of the Beggars Opera.37
But examining the message of the hymns reveals the liabilities as well
as the advantages of the hymnal in responding to the anti-Methodist critique. Regarding some topics, the hymns include vivid and descriptive language. As Cruickshanks close reading of Charless hymns demonstrates,
the hymns pointedly describe physical, emotional, and spiritual pain. The
Passion hymns are particularly poignant: See, how his [Christs] back the
scourges tear, / While to the bloody pillar bound! / The ploughers make
long furrows there, / Till all his body is one wound (John Wesley, Collection, 109). But when conveying the experience of the New Birth and the joy
of the justified sinner, the language of the hymns tends to rely less on such
concrete imagery and more on relatively abstract phrasing.
For example, the word unspeakable (or some derivative or synonymous
expression), which is scriptural in origin, appears regularly throughout the
hymns and most often refers to the unspeakable nature of Gods love and
the joy of saving grace.38 Charles writes,
Our Hearts we open wide
To make the Saviour room:
And lo! The Lamb, the Crucified,
The Sinners Friend is come!
His Presence makes the Feast,
And now our Bosoms feel
The Glory not to be exprest,
The Joy unspeakable. (my emphasis)39
Charles regularly refers to saving grace as the gift unspeakable, emphasizing both the profundity and the enigmatic nature of the experience of justification by faith.40 Such language intimates that saving grace, while real
enough in the mind of the believer, could not be easily explained. Nonetheless, the word unspeakable signified in meaningful ways for the Wesleys
followers; it was deployed and understood in a specific context of a personal
yet communal experience, bringing to mind feelings that were thought
to be typical in the conversion process. Moreover, in arousing a rich and
pointed narrative context, the word unspeakable validated what the believer
felt but could not always explain.
Of course, that the hymns speak the unspeakable is not peculiarly
Methodist; such phrasing is what might be termed routine God-talk and
is as old as the Bible. But when assessed in relation to a wider social and
cultural milieu wherein rationality trumped less empirical ways of knowing, such language rings hollow and devolves into tautological arguments
speaking the unspeakable. As John himself acknowledged, Whatever is
spoke of the Religion of the Heart, and of the inward Workings of the
Spirit of God, must appear Enthusiasm to those who have not felt them.41
The crux here is identification. Defining the unspeakable as unspeakable
resonates only insofar as such language can be associated with what the
devotee perceives as a unique but shared experience with other devotees.
Methodists could never know for sure if their experience of the New Birth
was the same as that of other Methodists, but the ambiguous nature of
such language encompassed a full range of experiences, thus galvanizing
individual faith and promoting a strong sense of community in the face of
opposition.
Speaking the unspeakable, then, can be seen as a paradigmatic case for
the facility and limits of the hymns in sustaining Methodists in their faith
and answering the anti-Methodist charge of enthusiasm. The frequent references to hymns in letters and diaries indicate that the hymns served the
devotional needs of early Methodists by helping them articulate faith-based

experience, but Charless attempts to put into words the nature of the New
Birth often boil down to tautological and truncated statements. Thus, the
language of the hymns did not always resonate outside the narrative community for which they were primarily composed.
Of course, we would be expecting too much of the hymns if we
assumed that they were composed with the anti-Methodists in mind, even
as a secondary audience (though in some cases, they were, as I will discuss shortly). Usually, they were not, and to suggest that the hymns failed
to persuade opponents is a point that seems hardly worth making. But
we should remember that the Methodists, not just their opponents, made
Methodism an ongoing concern in the eighteenth century; their proselytizing zeal, manifested in activities like field preaching and extensive publishing, brought Methodist theology and practice into the public fray.42 In
addition, the Methodists did not shy away from their critics; indeed, they
responded directly in theological polemic and apologiae.43 Even though the
hymns may not have been composed as public retorts, they certainly participated in the discourse by which the Methodists mounted their counter
attacks against their critics, inasmuch as Methodists could just as easily
draw on hymns as sermons or printed apologiae in responding to their
opponents, if not for their own peace of mind. Not only was the hymnal
instrumental in helping believers internalize their faith, but a number of the
hymns in the Methodist collections engage the anti-Methodist critique.
A cluster of hymns in the 1780 Collection, organized under the heading
Describing Inward Religion, demonstrate this point. The second hymn
in this section begins with a fundamental question, one individual believers repeatedly struggled with as they navigated between conviction and
doubt: How can a sinner know / His sins on earth forgiven? / How can
my gracious Saviour show / My name inscribed in heaven? The answer
comes later in the hymn: We by his Spirit prove / And know the things of
God (John Wesley, Collection, 195 and 197). As Berger notes, In the end,
the foundation for the experience and assurance of salvation was not to be
found in the subjective experience of the individual believer but in the testimonium spiritus sancti internum, or the inward witness of the Holy Spirit
(Berger, Theology, 127). Such knowledge, then, becomes a matter of faith, or
what the first hymn in this section refers to as faiths realizing light. This
first hymn insists that spiritual conviction is unknown to feeble sense, /
Unseen by reasons glimmering ray, / With strong commanding evidence /
Their heavenly origin display (195). In these few, short lines, Charles critiques two standards of knowing valued during the Enlightenment: sensory
experience and reason. Notably, he depicts both as weak and unreliable. In
asserting the primacy of spiritual evidence, Charles indicates that sense
perception and reason are neither full proof nor the only means by which
truth might be discerned.
The hymns Describing Inward Religion thus articulate the underlying epistemology of Wesleyan theology. As Isabel Rivers demonstrates
in Reason, Grace, and Sentiment: A Study of the Language of Religion and
Ethics in England, 16601780 (1991), John believed that reason could assist
individuals in making sense of scripture and analyzing feelings, but reason
cannot produce faith, because it cannot provide evidence of the invisible
world (233). According to John, Feeling is our basic source of knowledge
(239). In Lockean fashion, John insists on experience as foundational to
how and what human beings know; he also did not believe in innate ideas,
even in spiritual matters. But unlike Locke, John thought of spiritual experience in terms similar to physical experience. Thus, knowledge of the spiritual world was acquired through what Wesley referred to as the Spiritual
Senses, a view not without precedent in the eighteenth century.44 Frances
Hutcheson argued in 1725 that we recognize what is beautiful and good
through our Internal Senses.45 We should not be surprised, then, that
John refers to Methodist religiosity as experimental... divinity, and that
Charles speaks of spiritual conviction in empirical terms: as strong commanding evidence and signs infallible (John Wesley, Collection, 195). As
Charles describes in another hymn, the Wesleys and their followers eagerly
sought after such evidence:
Come, Holy Ghost, all-quickning fire,
Come, and in me delight to rest!
...........................
With clearer light thy witness bear;
More sensibly within me live:
Let all my powers thine entrance feel,
And deeper stamp thyself the seal.46
Such a view was certainly not theologically innovative and is not without
biblical precedent.47 The Wesleys just emphasized this view at a historical
moment when many of their contemporaries were prone to question the
authenticity of spiritual witnessing.
Joseph Trapp is one of many critics who questioned the Methodists

claims of divine influence: What Proof have [Methodists] of such [spiritual] Motions or Impulses? (The Nature, 41). The obvious response to
Trapps question is the same the Wesleys friend and colleague, George
Whitefield, raises in his well-publicized rejoinder, The Folly and Danger of
not being Righteous Enough (1739): What Proof do they give? Says the Writer
[Trapp]: What Sign would they have?48 In other words, other-worldly
experience cannot be substantiated with a worldly sign. The third hymn
under the heading Describing Inward Religion, which was likely composed in the decade following Trapps attack, offers a similar response:
Ah, foolish world, forbear
......................
Nor idly, needlessly declare
Our hope and labour vain;
Say not, we cannot know
On earth, the heavenly powers,
Or taste the glorious bliss below,
Or feel that God is ours.49
The following stanza is even more defiant:

Ye prudent fools, be not so proud,
Suspend your idle scorn;
Ye fain would judges be,
And make us think there is no light
Because you cannot see. (John Wesley, A Collection, 198)
Charles undoubtedly had Trapp and those who leveled similar charges
against the Methodists in mind while composing this hymn, but the hymn
itself functions primarily as an expression and means of reinforcing faith
among believers. The hymn, then, articulates a collective response for early
Methodists: You may beguile and cheat; / But us you never can persuade/
That honey is not sweet (John Wesley, A Collection, 199). While Trapp
certainly would not have been satisfied with this response, lyrics like these
helped build a firewall between Methodism and its critics, at least for participants in the movement. Such lyrics cast Methodists as insiders who are
privy to a kind of experience and knowledge denied to less faithful individuals. But in forging a sense of community among Methodists, the language
further alienated the Wesleys and their followers from the larger society.
While Charless sensitivity to charges of enthusiasm is evident in such
lyrics, Johns sensitivity can be seen in the ways he edited Charless lyrics.
While a detailed study of Johns editorial decisions is beyond the scope
of this essay, we can draw a few conclusions to demonstrate the point. By
all accounts, John appears to have been less emotional than Charles, who
often exhibited a melancholy cast. Johns own hymns have been described
as severe and sober, while Charless have been called exuberant and
unrestrained (Baker, 105). John, in fact, criticized what he considered the
mawkish tone of Charless verse, and he did not approve of the inordinate
attention Charles gave to the theme of suffering.50 John also had what Hilderbrandt and Beckerlegge refer to as an aversion to sentimental phraseology, and he championed the simplicity and plainness of the language
exhibited in the hymns in the preface to the 1780 Collection (59): We talk
common sense... both in verse and prose, and use no word but in a fixed
and determinate sense (John Wesley, preface, 74). Charless more sentimental verse may have confirmed anti-Methodist suspicions that Methodism promoted emotionalism and encouraged a gloomy disposition in its
adherents. Take, for example, a few lines from a hymn in Hymns and Sacred
Poems, a collection Charles published by himself in 1749:
Saviour, see my troubled Breast,
Heaving, panting after Rest,
Jesu, mark my hollow Eye,
Never closd, and never dry.
Listen to my plaintive Moans,
Deep uninterrupted Groans,
Keep not Silence at my Tears,
Quiet all my Griefs and Fears. (1:75)
This particular hymn did not make it into the 1780 Collection, nor should
we be surprised that John, who clearly did not approve of what he perceived
as excessive sentimentality, assumed the role of editor when the brothers
compiled their hymnbooks.51
G
When considering the facility and limits of the hymns in helping early
Methodists express their experience of God, we need to attend to the musical qualities of the hymns as well as the lyrical qualities.52 The Wesleys
encouraged hymn singing, in part, to stimulate the emotions of their followers, and to this end, they purposefully adapted their lyrics to popular
tunes. Lamenting the slow, drawling Manner in which hymns and psalms
were traditionally sung, John states, We sing swift, both because it saves
time, and because it tends to awake and enliven the Soul.53 In Thoughts
on the Power of Music (1779), John comments, By the Power of Music, I
mean its power to affect the hearers, to raise various passions in the human
mind.54 John believed this power extended to the spiritual faculties, and
he recommends the 1780 Collection as a means of raising or quickening
the spirit of devotion, of confirming his faith, of enlivening his hope, and
of kindling or increasing his love of God and man (preface, 75). Finally,
John instructed his followers to Sing lustily and with a good courage....
Beware of singing as if you were half dead, or half asleep, he cautions, but
lift up your voice with strength.55 Accounts suggest that the Wesleys followers took these instructions to heart, raising their voices to God and, at
times, to their antagonists: I dined at Studley, Charles records in his journal, where some poor drunkards, offended at our singing, endeavoured a
while to silence us; but we fairly outsung them.56
Both the practice of setting religious lyrics to popular tunes and
the Methodists energetic way of singing accounts for much of the antiMethodist hostility. As Thomas Chatterton satirically writes,
Jack, or to write more gravely, John
Thro Hills of Wesleys Works had gone;
Could sing one hundred Hymns by rote;
Hymns which will sanctify the throte:
But some indeed composd so oddly,
Youd swear twas bawdy Songs made Godly.57
Citing the composer Charles Avison (170970), William Riley, in Parochial

Music Corrected (1762), stresses the effect of music on its listeners: The
Force of Sound in alarming the Passions is prodigious.... By the Musicians Art, we are often carried into the Fury of a Battle, or a Tempest; we
are by turns elated with Joy, or sunk in pleasing Sorrow; roused to Courage or quelled by grateful Terrors; melted into Pity, Tenderness and Love;
or transported to the Regions of Bliss, in an extasy of divine Praise. For
People of weak Minds, Riley asserts, the Methodists frothy Way of
singing actually can call the Mind off from the solemn Praises of God, to
attend on a Variety of ludicrous Sounds.58 Riley implies that the Method-
1 0 0 Eighteenth-Centur y Life
ists are, in fact, transported during their singing, not to a place where the
soul encounters the divine, but to a state of mere delusion.
Dr. John Scott levels similar charges in A Fine Picture of Enthusiasm
(1744). After conceding that the Methodists have got some of the most
melodious Tunes that ever were composed for Church Music, he states that
their singing is very inchanting:
I say very inchanting; because the Hymns they Sing, i.e. all I have seen or
heard of, are not rational Compositions, nor do they accord with the first
Principles of all Religion, but... dwell upon a Word, or are immediate
Addresses to the Son of God,... So that their Singing is calculated to
engage the Passions by nothing more than Words, and the Melody of the
Sounds, or Voices; but, if you would sing with Understanding, or have a
Reason of Praise,... you must have other Sorts of Compositions... for
Psalmody... than what the Foundery or the Tabernacle do afford you.59
The initial sense with which Scott uses the term inchanting could potentially accord with one of Samuel Johnsons definitions for enchant To
delight in a high degreebut Scott quickly demonstrates that he implies
something else entirely and more in line with Johnsons negative definition
for the word: To give efficacy to any thing by songs of sorcery and To
subdue by charms or spells.60 Thus, Scott, if only indirectly, associates
Methodism and Methodist hymn singing with witchcraft and characterizes Methodists as victims of magical spells induced by singing. Methodists, Scott suggests, sing themselves out of their senses.
Methodist conversion accounts could certainly invite such criticism
by stressing the emotional impact hymns had on the converted. As one
man explains, At midnight, while I was giving out the hymn, Blow ye
the trumpet, blow,I was so affected that I knew not how to proceed. So
clearly did I see the willingness of God to save sinners, that many times,
on the concluding prayer, I was obliged to stop, and almost the whole congregation were overwhelmed in tears (A Selection, 52). Robert Mackie was
likewise strongly affected by the power of hymn: He so felt the force of the
words, that he had no small struggle to contain himself while the hymn was
singing.... He then broke out in a rapturous declaration of what the Lord
had done for his soul; and such an energy attended his word, that every
person present was remarkably affected.61 While such accounts take for
granted the spiritual nature of the experiences they describe, those experiences were largely defined by the emotional effects on believers, a fact that
certainly concerned John.
R a ising the Roof 1 0 1
The problem for John was that he encouraged a spirited way of singing
at the same time he acknowledged that music can, in fact, exercise considerable, even dangerous, influence over the mind and emotions, to say nothing of the spiritual senses. In at least one sermon, John identified music
and the pleasure individuals derive from it as an amusement that can
potentially detour people from their duty and devotion to God. He referred
to such amusements as idols, which he defined as whatever takes our
heart from [God].62 The challenge for John involved helping his followers
navigate between spiritual enlightenment and the more harmful effects of
music. He exploited the power of music to move his followers emotionally,
but he also knew they could be carried too far, if not restrained by themselves or someone else. Methodism, Hempton states, was a movement
that thrived on the boundary lines of rationality and emotional ecstasy, a
paradox we see played out in Johns writings on music and one he repeatedly set out to manage (131).
In Thoughts on the Power of Music, John discusses the emotional
force of music while condemning the emphasis modern composers place on
counterpoint: Ever since counterpoint has been invented, as it has altered
the grand design of music, so it has wellnigh destroyed its effects. John
condemns counterpoint on the basis that combining two or more melodies into a single harmonic texture produces unmeaning sound and runs
counter to judgment, reason, [and] common sense. If not rationally structured, John insists, music proves distracting and cannot engage the passions
in an appropriate manner. Counterpoint is glaringly, undeniably contrary
to common sense, namely, in allowing... different words to be sung by
different persons at the same time! What can be more shocking to a man
of understanding than this? Pray, which of those sentences am I to attend
to? (76768). John records in his journal on several occasions encountering
such singing among church congregations: I began reading prayers at six,
but was greatly disgusted at the manner of singing.... According to the
shocking custom of modern music, different persons sung different words
at one and the same moment: an intolerable insult on common sense, and
utterly incompatible with any devotion.63
The underlying logic of Johns thoughts on music, then, is that a passionate reaction to music is actually a reasoned response to a relatively rational musical arrangement, and he even cites Alexander Popethat The
sound must seem an echo to the senseto promote this idea further.
Music exerts a powerful influence, one that could play an important role in
the religious lives of his followers, but it could also move individuals and
congregations into irrational and enthusiastic states, as the anti-Methodists
charged. By invoking Popes precept, John suggests that relative simplicity in composing and arranging music serves as a partial remedy to the
problem.
John further attended to his conflicted ideas about music by strictly
regulating hymn singing, just as he did nearly every feature of the revival.
He was particularly fond of publishing rulesrules for preaching, rules for
his religious societies, and rules for singing. Several of his rules for singing were intended to ensure that Methodist singing was a congregational
activity: See that you join with the congregation as frequently as you can
and do not bawl, so as to be heard above or distinct from the rest of the
congregation... but strive to unite your voices together (John Wesley,
Directions, 765). And he was disturbed when singing was not a communal activity. In the evening, John writes in his journal, I preached at
Pebworth Church; but I seemed out of my element. A long Anthem was
sung; but I suppose none beside the singers could understand one word of
it. Is not that praying in an unknown tongue? I could no more bear it in any
Church of mine than Latin Prayers.6 4 In contrast, the Methodist hymnal was a form of joint worship designed to synchronize the emotional
responses of the singers, thereby creating a shared experience.
But even in prescribing rules, John requires Methodists to sing with
enthusiasm. While he insists that his followers sing lustily and with a good
courage, he also states, Above all sing spiritually. Have an eye to God in
every word you sing. Aim at pleasing him more than yourself, or any other
creature. In order to this attend strictly to the sense of what you sing, and
see that your heart is not carried away with the sound (Directions, 765).
Charles echoes this same sentence in one of his hymns:
Still let us on our guard be found,
And watch against the power of sound
With sacred jealousy;
Lest haply sense should damp our zeal,
And musics charms bewitch and steal
Our heart away from thee. (John Wesley, A Collection, 327)
Both Johns and Charless own words resonate with those critics who insist
on the inchanting nature of Methodist hymns, and both seem to agree
that even their songs, if not properly sung and attended to, can detract from
their intended aim. Ironically, their attempts to steer their congregations

clear of anti-Methodist charges of enthusiasm duplicate the discourse their
critics used to condemn Methodism. Moreover, some Methodists may have
fallen prey to the power of sound, in spite of the Wesleys efforts. As one
of their followers explains, Hymns are the chief of my Reading, for they
may be felt without Study.65 The Wesleys certainly wanted to encourage
an emotional response, but they also wanted their followers to reflect on
and understand the significance of emotional impulses.
G
Johns attempt to navigate the space between religious conviction and
enthusiasm thus indicates his sensitivity to anti-Methodist attacks as well
as a reluctance to concede a more alarming pointMethodism necessarily relied on enthusiasm, at least when defined as emotional indulgence
or excess. Any religious movement that relied so heavily on emotional
response, even communal emotional response, invited criticism, no matter
how sincere the protestations on the part of the believer. This reliance also
ensured that John, despite his best efforts, would never wrestle Methodism free from charges of enthusiasm. If anything, the more he engaged his
critics or expounded on and exploited the power of music, the more he confirmed what the anti-Methodists were saying about Methodism. Of course,
John naturally resisted the idea that Methodist faith was founded on a vain
belief of private revelation, and he seems to have accepted that he would
never convince his critics of the authenticity of the New BirthWhatever
is spoke of the Religion of the Heart... must appear Enthusiasm to those
who have not felt them. As much as John may have wanted to dissociate
Methodism from extreme emotional displays and charges of enthusiasm,
his interest in and reliance on hymns attest to his commitment to emotional
experience as a primary means of accessing the divine.
To some extent, John wanted it both ways: he insisted on the reasonableness of Methodism while promoting a kind of religious experience that
required devotees to surrender, arguably to varying degrees, their rational
faculties and to trust to their emotions as a guide to spiritual enlightenment. Mr. Wesley would have been an enthusiast if he could, Alexander
Knox explained (Remarks, 2:357). But we would be wrong to conclude, as
did the anti-Methodist writers, that the Wesleys and their followers were
mere enthusiasts. In at least some senses of the term, they probably were.
Whether they were or not, the kind of emotionalism that became the hallmark of Methodist religious experience has been carefully scrutinized and
roundly dismissed by skeptics. While Wordsworth would speak unapologetically (and, we might add, enthusiastically) at the end of the century of
poetry as the spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling, relying on poetic
verse to speak the unspeakable, such a celebration of feeling has continued
to have its critics in the area of religion proper; at the same time, religious
revivals have continued to attract devotees. Indeed, Methodism seems to
have thrived not in spite of the opposition it encountered, but partly because
of that opposition. Most Methodists relished being persecuted for Christs
sake, interpreting such persecution as a sign of divine favor. Grant, Dearest Redeemer, a Methodist proclaimed to a fellow believer, that we may
rejoice when we are counted worthy to suffer shame for thy sake.66 Lackington expresses a common view in his memoirs when he writes, I always
comforted myself [when persecuted] with the thoughts of my being a child
of God; and as such, that it was impossible for me to escape persecution
from the children of the devil (50). Like Christians from previous historical epochs, Methodists saw themselves locked in a battle between good and
evil, and they expected, perhaps even wanted, to encounter opposition.
Methodism would eventually acquire cultural and social respectability
in the nineteenth century, but not until it distanced itself from the kind of
spirituality that gave it its unique character in the eighteenth century. As
Methodism established itself as an independent denomination, it lost something of its original identity. Hempton explains that
the churchs nineteenth-century investments in property, education,
publishing, and ecclesiastical organization along with its inculcation
ofpersonal qualities of work discipline, sobriety, self-improvement, and
civic responsibility among its members allowed Methodists to achieve
a more central position in the cultures of most of the countries in the
North Atlantic region. But with respectability and cultural acceptance
came an inevitable decline in the otherworldly zeal of its earlier
manifestations.(199)
Hempton goes on to suggest that this accounts for Methodisms decline in

the twentieth century: Methodism at its heart and center had always been
a profoundly countercultural movement. It drew energy and personal commitment from the dialectics arising from its challenge to accepted norms in
religion and society. It thrived on opposition, but it could not long survive
equipoise (201). Writing in 1859, George Eliot similarly observed a shift

in Methodist religious practice, in Adam Bede, set in the late eighteenth
century: I cannot pretend that Seth and Dinah were anything else than
Methodistsnot indeed of that modern type which reads quarterly reviews
and attends in chapels with pillared porticoes; but of a very old fashioned
kind. They believed in present miracles, in instantaneous conversions, in
revelations by dreams and visions.67 It would seem from Eliots commentary that, within seventy years of John Wesleys death, Methodism signified
in radically different ways to nineteenth-century observers and participants
than it had to those in the previous century.
Methodisms move away from the emotionalism that had been the
touchstone of early Methodist religious experience would have disappointed
John. Although he devoted considerable energy to defending the religion
from its critics and working to establish respectability for it, Johns decision
to make hymn singing a defining feature of the evangelical revival indicates a concession on his part, an acknowledgment that religious conviction of the Methodist variety necessarily requires enthusiastic engagement
and a willingness to risk mistaking an emotional response for a spiritual
one. Religious conviction requires faith, the substance of things hoped
for, the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1), and no form of discourse enabled Methodists to express their faith more, at times in the face
of intense opposition, than the hymnal.
Notes
1.Sarah Colston, Manuscript Account of Sarah Colston, in In Her Own
Story: Autobiographical Portraits of Early Methodist Women, ed. Paul Wesley Chilcote
(Nashville: Kingswood Books, 2001), 4445.
2.John Wesley, An Extract from the Reverend Mr. John Wesleys Journal, from
November 25, 1746, to July 20, 1749 (London: H. Cock, 1754), 97.
3.James Lackington, Memoirs of the First Forty-Five Years of the Life of James
Lackington (London, 1791), 48.
4.Teresa Berger, Charles Wesley: A Literary Overview, in Charles Wesley: Poet
and Theologian, ed. S. T. Kimbrough (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1991), 21. Frank
Baker, in Charles Wesleys Verse: An Introduction, 2nd ed. (1964; London: Epworth,
1988), similarly argues that Charless hymns were more instrumental in propagating
Methodist theology than Johns sermons (17).
5.When working collaboratively, John generally served as chief compiler and
editor and Charles as primary composer. The publication of hymnbooks appears
to have been a lucrative endeavor, further attesting to the popularity of the hymns
in Methodist circles, and enabled John to settle on Charles an annual income of a
hundred pounds a year, which did not sit well with Johns wife. In a letter to her
justifying his actions, John claimed, But I observe it was no more than his due.
For so much comes from the sale of his Hymns. See John Wesley to Mrs. Wesley,
9 December 1771, in Yours Affectionately, John Wesley: The Rev. John Wesley and his
Correspondents: A Catalogue of the Collection of Letters Written by John Wesley Held at
the Museum of Methodism Wesleys Chapel, London, ed. Jill Carr and Jonathan Lennie
(London: Museum of Methodism, 2003), 20. Lackington, in Memoirs, reports not
only singing hymns in Methodist meetings, but reading and memorizing hymns as
part of his personal studies (4950, 70).
6.In addition to the studies cited here, there are several examinations of
the literary or poetic qualities of Charless verse. Baker, in Charles Wesleys Verse,
examines Charless use of vocabulary, literary allusions, rhetorical tropes and
figures, meter, and rhyme, among other features of the hymns. Donald Davie, in
The Eighteenth-Century Hymn in England (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ., 1993),
similarly sets out to establish the poetic merits of the eighteenth-century hymnal,
including those hymns composed by Charles, in the wake of literary trends and
sensibilities that have marginalized the hymnal and dismissed it as an inferior poetic
form. While both Baker and Davie hint at the ways hymns informed the revival
and Methodist experience, which I discuss later in this essay, their focus is on more
formal features of the hymns, and they do not consider the ways the hymns were
shaped by and responded to the anti-Methodist critique.
7.David Hempton, Methodism: Empire of the Spirit (New Haven: Yale Univ.,
2005), 71.
8.Carlton R. Young, Music of the Heart: John and Charles Wesley on Music and
Musicians (Carol Stream: Hope, 1995), 28, and Thomas A. Langford, Charles
Wesley as Theologian, in Charles Wesley: Poet and Theologian, ed. S. T. Kimbrough
9.Phyllis Mack, Heart Religion in the British Enlightenment: Gender and
Emotion in Early Methodism (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ., 2008), 41.
10.Langford, Charles Wesley, 99. See also Teresa Berger, Theology in Hymns?
A Study of the Relationship of Doxology and Theology According to A Collection of Hymns
for the Use of the People Called Methodists, trans. Timothy E. Kimbrough (Nashville:
Kingswood Books, 1995), 74.
11.Joanna Cruickshank, Pain, Passion, and Faith: Revisiting the Place of Charles
Wesley in Early Methodism (Lanham: Scarecrow, 2009).
12.Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language, 2 vols. (London:
W.Strahan, 1755), s.v. enthusiasm. Enthusiasm was the most common charge leveled
against the Methodists, and Wesley vigorously guarded against it his entire life,
submitting his lay ministers and followers to rigorous examination when testing
their claims of divine influence and instituting guidelines for all facets of the revival.
13.Wesley provides a dramatic example of the soul-searching that typified the
experiences of many Methodists. Despite his public image as a man assured of his

faith, Wesley was often anxious regarding his standing with God, an emotional state
he explored in his journal and private letters. See Richard P. Heitzenrater, Wesley and
the People Called Methodists (Nashville: Abingdon, 1995), 22425.
14.John Wesley, An Extract of the Rev. John Wesleys Journal, from February 1,
17378 (London: W. Strahan, 1740), 34.
15.Hempton, in Methodism, has similarly observed the seemingly contradictory
nature of Johns personality. John, as Hempton points out, was both accepting
and critical of supernatural phenomena, and he stirred up religious zeal at the
same time he set out to temper it. Hempton, like Mack, discusses the tensions in
Methodism between rationalism and enthusiasm, concluding that the relationship
between Enlightenment ways of knowing and enthusiasm was more complicated
than is generally acknowledged, and that Methodism was as much a product of
Enlightenment ideals (e.g., the desire for self-discipline and improvement) as it was
religious enthusiasm (3254).
16.Henry D. Rack, Reasonable Enthusiast: John Wesley and the Rise of Methodism,
3rd ed. (1989; London: Epworth, 2002), 10.
17.G. J. Barker-Benfield, The Culture of Sensibility: Sex and Society in
Eighteenth-Century Britain (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago, 1992), 267.
18.Tobias Smollett, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker, ed. Angus Ross
(London: Penguin, 1985), 79. Claude Jean Bertrand actually suggests similarities
between John Wesley and Matt Bramble in Humphry Clinker, a So-Called
Methodist, Recherches Anglaises et Amricaines 47 (1969): 19899. See also Brett C.
McInelly, Redeeming Religion: Wesleyan and Calvinistic Methodism in Humphry
Clinker, Bulletin of the John Rylands Univeristy Library of Manchester 85 (2003): 28596.
19.Janet Todd, Sensibility: An Introduction (London: Methuen, 1986), 23.
20.Joseph Trapp, The Nature, Folly, Sin, and Danger of being Righteous overmuch (London: S. Austen, 1739), 1718.
21.In addition to its literary manifestations, the culture of feeling influenced
the field of ethics in the writings of such figures as Shaftsbury, who posited that
virtue derived from an emotional impulse. In religion generally, Barker-Benfield,
in Culture, notes that, beginning in about 1660, reformers and preachers set out to
counter libertinism by encouraging men to develop their softer feelings of piety,
and they rejected the relatively pessimistic views of Calvin and Hobbes, both of
whom saw humanity as fallen and depraved, in favor of a belief in innate goodness.
In short, what Barker-Benfield refers to as the aggrandizement of feeling enjoyed
wide play and acceptance within various areas of eighteenth-century culture,
including religion (273, 6667, and xix).
22.Charles Wesley, The Manuscript Journal of the Reverend Charles Wesley, vol.
1, ed. S. T. Kimbrough and Kenneth G. C. Newport (Nashville: Kingswood Books,
2007), 13031.
23.A Selection of Letters Upon the Late Extraordinary Revival of the Work of God;
Chiefly Collected from The Arminian Magazine (Manchester: Shelmerdine, 1800),
4950.
24.Franz Hildebrandt and Oliver Beckerlegge, introduction to The Works of
John Wesley, vol. 7: A Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodists
(Nashville: Abingdon, 1983), 6667.
25.Samuel Bardsley to Mr. and Mrs. Penford, 16 June 1781, from the John
Rylands University Library, Personal Papers of Samuel Bardsley, PLP 5/6.36. It is not
surprising that Bardsley includes a hymn by Isaac Watts with those by Charles Wesley,
since John and Charles often reprinted Wattss hymns in their own collections.
26.Hempton, in Methodism, claims that recounting spiritual experience was
the heart and center of the Methodist movement (52).
27.See D. Bruce Hindmarsh, The Evangelical Conversion Narrative: Spiritual
Autobiography in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford Univ., 2005), 152.
28.Hannah Harrison, An Account of Hannah Harrison, in In Her Own
Story: Autobiographical Portraits of Early Methodist Women, ed. Paul Wesley Chilcote
29.The Methodist Magazine for the Year 1798, vol. 21 (London: G. Whitfield,
1798), 84.
30.When the hymns do explicate doctrine, they tend to focus on the doctrine
of grace. This is particularly true of Charles Wesleys hymns, which constitute the
majority of hymns in the Methodist collections. As Young, in Music, observes,
Charless hymns embody the three-fold doctrine of graceprevenient, justifying,
and sanctifying grace. The first refers to the individuals capacity to recognize his
sinful state and need for God, the second the individuals reconciliation to God
through Christ, and the third the process by which the individual experiences a
change of heart and a desire to do Gods will (15759).
31.John Wesley, preface to A Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People Called
Methodists, in vol. 7 of The Works of John Wesley, ed. Franz Hilderbrandt and Oliver
A. Beckerlegge (Nashville: Abingdon, 1983), 74, hereafter cited as Works.
32.Bernard Lord Manning, The Hymns of Wesley and Watts (London: Epworth,
1960), 11.
33.Kenneth Burke, A Rhetoric of Motives (Berkeley: Univ. of California, 1969),
41, 55.
34.Kenneth Burke, RhetoricOld and New, The Journal of General
Education 5 (1995): 203.
35.Mary Bosanquet-F letcher is a case in point. After being estranged from her
family for her Methodist leanings, Bosanquet-F letcher eventually took up residence
with a small group of Methodist women before marrying John Fletcher in 1781.
Her association with these women and other members of the Methodist societies
sustained Bosanquet-F letcher in her spiritual life.
36.See Gregory Clark, Aesthetic Power and Rhetorical Experience, in
Kenneth Burke and His Circles, ed. Jack Selzer and Robert Wess (West Lafayette:
Pareolor, 2008), 96108.
37.Charles Jarvis Hill, The Literary Career of Richard Graves (Northhampton:
Smith College, 1935), 16, and Richard Graves, The Spiritual Quixote, ed. Clarence
Tracy (London: Oxford Univ., 1967), 23536.

38.See 1 Peter 1:8. Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye
see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.
39.While this particular hymn appears in John and Charles Wesleys Hymns
on the Lords Supper (Bristol: Felix Farley, 1745), 6970, the 1780 Collection contains at
least a dozen hymns that include the word unspeakable.
40.See John Wesley, A Collection, 97, 194, and 259.
41.John Wesley, An Extract of the Reverend Mr. John Wesleys Journal, from
November 1, 1739, to September 3, 1741, 2nd ed. (Bristol: Felix Farley, 1749), 10.
42.Wesley owned and operated his own press, and he churned out dozens
of titles for the benefit of the members of his religious societies, in addition to
hymnbooks. For a list of Wesleys book inventory, which included about 350 titles
at the time of his death in 1791, see Vicki Tolar Burton, Spiritual Literacy in John
Wesleys Methodism: Reading, Writing, and Speaking to Believe (Waco: Baylor Univ.,
2008), 31539.
43.There is not enough room here to provide a complete list of the published
responses by Methodists to their critics. Suffice it to say that, of the twenty-seven
letters John published in his lifetime, the most were addressed to his critics. See
Burton, Spiritual Literacy, 176. I have also discussed the Methodist response to
Samuel Footes satirical attack in The Minor elsewhere: see Brett C. McInelly,
Ludere Cum Sacris: Methodism, Mimicry, and Samuel Footes The Minor,
Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Theatre Research 24 (2009): 524.
44.John Wesley, An Earnest Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion, 2nd ed.
(Bristol: Felix Farley, 1743), 24.
45.Frances Hutcheson, An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and
Virtue, ed. Wolfgang Leidhold (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2004), 23.
46.John Wesley, Collection, 53233. These lines refer to Ephesians 1:13: In
whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your
salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with the holy Spirit of
promise.
47.See Ephesians 1:13: In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word
of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were
sealed with that holy Spirit of promise.
48.George Whitefield, The Folly and Danger of being not Righteous Enough
(London: C. Whitefield, 1739), 9.
49.The hymn first appears in Charles Wesley, Hymns and Sacred Poem, vol. 2
(Bristol: Felix Farley, 1749), 22425.
50.See Cruickshank, Pain, 23.
51.Johns distaste for sentimentality might be explained by his own lack of
emotional engagement. John was, in fact, frustrated by his inability to feel as deeply
and with the kind of intensity manifested in many of his followers, especially
women. John, in fact, gravitated toward women converts, in part, because they
experienced their convictions on an emotive level he both admired and envied, and
he looked to them as exemplars of the kind of religious experience he advocated.
See Mack, Heart Religion, 140. As one contemporary observed, It is certain that
Mr. Wesley had a predilection for the female character; partly, because he had a
mind ever alive to amiability, and, partly, from his generally finding in females a
quicker and fuller responsiveness to his own ideas of interior piety and affectionate
devotion. See Alexander Knox, Remarks on the Life and Character of John
Wesley, in Robert Southey, The Life of Wesley and the Rise and Progress of Methodism,
2 vols. (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1847), 2:340.
52.The musical qualities of the hymns, including the popular tunes to which
Charles adapted his lyrics, certainly deserve more attention than I give in this essay.
I avoid it here partly because such an examination is outside my own expertise,
and because I do not believe it necessary to my argument. I merely want to draw
attention to the crucial role the musical component of the hymns played in the
spiritual lives of early Methodists by heightening their emotions, a point readily
accepted by the Wesleys and their critics.
53.John Wesley, Reasons Against a Separation from the Church of England
(London: W. Strahan, 1758), 10.
54.John Wesley, Thoughts on the Power of Music, in Works, 7:766.
55.John Wesley, Directions for Singing, in Works, 7:765.
56.Charles Wesley, The Journal of Charles Wesley, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids: Baker
Book House, 1980), 430.
57.Thomas Chatterton, A Supplement to the Miscellanies of Thomas Chatterton
(London: T. Becket, 1784), 73.
58.William Riley, Parochial Music Corrected (London, 1762), 78.
59.John Scott, A Fine Picture of Enthusiasm (London: J. Noon, 1744), 24.
60.Johnson, Dictionary, s.v. to enchant.
61.The Methodist Magazine for the Year 1800, vol. 23 (London: G. Whitfield,
1800), 301.
62.John Wesley, Sermons on Several Occasions, vol. 6 (London, 1788), 270
and266.
63.John Wesley, An Extract of the Rev. Mr. John Wesleys Journal, from May 14,
1768, to Sept. 1, 1770, vol. 15 (London, 1790), 24.
64.John Wesley, An Extract from the Rev. Mr. John Wesleys Journal, from
January1, 1776, to August 8, 1779, vol. 28 (London: J. Paramore, 1783), 6566.
65.Quoted in Hindmarsh, Evangelical, 152.
66.T. Mitchel to William Seward, 26 April 1739, The John Rylands University
Library, Letters of William Seward, DDSe 40.
67.George Eliot, Adam Bede [1859], ed. Valentine Cunningham (Oxford:
Oxford Univ., 1996), 38.

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Raising the Roof: Hymn Singing, the Anti-Methodist Response,

and Early Methodist Religiosity

Eighteenth-Century Life, Volume 36, Number 2, Spring 2012, pp. 80-110

For additional information about this article

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Raising the Roof:

Brigham Young University

To introduce what I call the problem of the Methodist hymnal, I begin

R a ising the Roof 8 3

the hymns and in Methodist culture. According to Cruickshank, the hymns

Mack painstakingly documents how ordinary Methodists struggled to

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R a ising the Roof 8 7

again.22 In another case, Charles writes, Sarah Townsend informed me,

R a ising the Roof 8 9

R a ising the Roof 9 1

R a ising the Roof 9 3

Charles utilized a variety of metrical and rhyme schemes in composing his

R a ising the Roof 9 5

devotional needs of early Methodists by helping them articulate faith-based

R a ising the Roof 9 7

Joseph Trapp is one of many critics who questioned the Methodists

The following stanza is even more defiant:

R a ising the Roof 9 9

Citing the composer Charles Avison (170970), William Riley, in Parochial

R a ising the Roof 1 0 1

R a ising the Roof 1 0 3

their intended aim. Ironically, their attempts to steer their congregations

Hempton goes on to suggest that this accounts for Methodisms decline in

R a ising the Roof 1 0 5

equipoise (201). Writing in 1859, George Eliot similarly observed a shift

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R a ising the Roof 1 0 9

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