Wesley's Prayer Book and the First Sunday in Lent

 When Methodism came to America, John Wesley gave to the early American Methodists a very conservative revision of the Church of England's 1662 Book of Common Prayer.  One of the changes that Wesley made was a simplifying of the calendar.  This included simply numbering the collects as Sundays "after Christmas," until "The Sunday next before Easter".  The prayers still follow the collects in the 1662 BCP.  Nevertheless, since Easter is a movable feast, this causes a problem.  

If one wants to use Wesley's Prayer Book (viz., The Sunday Service of the Methodists in North America), either for the Daily Office or the Sunday service, and one wants to follow the larger calendar, including Lent, one will quickly discover the issue.  By following the prayers until one gets to "The Sunday next before Easter", one will find the collects for Lent to be misplaced (Lent not being a part of Wesley's calendar).  -  It is not that one will not pray the collects for Lent, but they will not fit the Lenten season.

This year is a perfect example.  This coming Sunday is the First Sunday in Lent.  However, if one is simply following Wesley's list of collects, one would pray the collect for The Ninth Sunday after Christmas:

O Lord God, who seest that we put not our trust
in any thing that we do; Mercifully grant
that by thy power we may be defended against all
adversity, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

On the other hand, for those who want to use Wesley's Prayer Book, but also want to observe the Lenten season, the thing to do is to skip ahead and pray the collect for The Eleventh Sunday after Christmas during the First Sunday in Lent and continue on from there.  This will lead right into the Easter season.  The collect for The Eleventh Sunday after Christmas will be readily recognized as the collect for the First Sunday in Lent:

O Lord, who for our sake didst fast forty days
and forty nights; give us grace to use such
abstinence, that our flesh being subdued to the Spi-
rit, we may ever obey thy godly motions in righ-
teousness and true holiness, to thy honour and
glory, who livest and reignest with the Father and
the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end.
Amen.

It is my hope that this might prove to be helpful to at least some who read this blog and save them from having to discover this for themselves a couple of Sundays into the Lenten season!

Wesley Wednesday: February 22, 2023

 I have a Charles Wesley mug that says, "8,989 Hymns...Tell me, who is John again? #siblingrivalry".  -  Well, for today's Wesley Wednesday, I am turning to Charles and a hymn that came up in the Our Great Redeemer's Praise hymnal during today's Morning Prayer:

Depth of Mercy! Can There Be

1. Depth of mercy! Can there be
mercy still reserved for me?
Can my God His wrath forbear,
me, the chief of sinners, spare?
I have long withstood His grace,
long provoked Him to His face,
would not hearken to His calls,
grieved Him by a thousand falls.

2. I my Master have denied,
I afresh have crucified,
and profaned His hallow'd name,
put Him to an open shame.
Whence to me this waste of love?
Ask my Advocate above!
See the cause in Jesus' face,
now before the throne of grace.

3. Jesus, answer from above,
is not all Thy nature love?
Will Thou not the wrong forget,
permit me to kiss Thy feet?
If I rightly read Thy heart,
if Thou all compassion art,
bow Thine ear, in mercy bow,
pardon and accept me now.

4. There for me the Savior stands,
shows His wounds and spreads His hands.
God is love! I know, I feel,
Jesus weeps and loves me still.
Now incline me to repent,
let me now my fall lament,
now my foul revolt deplore,
weep, believe, and sin no more.

Wesley Wednesday: February 15, 2023

 This week's quote comes from Sermon 16, The Means of Grace.  This is an especially important sermon for those of us who are "Wesleyan-Anglican" types:

    By 'means of grace' I understand outward signs, words, or actions ordained of God, and appointed for this end - to be the ordinary channels whereby he might convey to men preventing, justifying, or sanctifying grace.

    I use this expression, 'means of grace', because I know none better, and because it has been generally used in the Christian church for many ages: in particular by our own church, which directs us to bless God both for the 'means of grace and hope of glory'; and teaches us that a sacrament is 'an outward sign of inward grace, and a means whereby we receive the same'.

    The chief of these means are prayer, whether in secret or with the great congregation; searching the Scriptures (which implies reading, hearing, and meditating thereon) and receiving the Lord's Supper, eating bread and drinking wine in remembrance of him; and these we believe to be ordained of God as the ordinary channels of conveying his grace to the souls of men.

(Bold type indicates Wesley's own, original emphasis. The picture is of the Wesley statue on the campus of Asbury Theological Seminary.)

Wesley Wednesday: February 8, 2023

 As I was preparing to preach last Sunday, I read through Wesley's Sermon 25: Sermon on the Mount, V, once again.  I found it to be very relevant for my preaching from that section of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount.  The following quotes come from Wesley's sermon:

    From all this we may learn that there is no contrariety at all between the law and the gospel; that there is no need for the law to pass away in order to the establishing of the gospel.  Indeed neither of them supersedes the other, but they agree perfectly well together.  Yea, the very same words, considered in different respects, are parts both of the law and of the gospel.  If they are considered as commandments, they are parts of the law; if as promises, of the gospel.  Thus, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,' when considered as a commandment, is a branch of the law; when regarded as a promise, is an essential part of the gospel - the gospel being no other than the commands of the law proposed by way of promises.  Accordingly poverty of spirit, purity of heart, and whatever else enjoined in the holy law of God, are no other, when viewed in a gospel light, than so many great and precious promises. 

    There is therefore the closest connection that can be conceived between the law and the gospel.  On the one hand the law continually makes way for and points us to the gospel; on the other the gospel continually leads us to a more exact fulfilling of the law.  The law, for instance, requires us to love God, to love our neighbour, to be meek, humble, or holy.  We feel that we are not sufficient for these things, yea, that 'with man this is impossible.'  But we see a promise of God to give us that love, and to make us humble, meek, and holy.  We lay hold of this gospel, of these glad tidings: it is done unto us according to our faith, and 'the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us' through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

    We may yet farther observe that every command in Holy Writ is only a covered promise.  For by that solemn declaration, 'This is the covenant I will make after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws in your minds, and write them in your hearts,' God hath engaged to give whatsoever he commands.

Later, in the same sermon, Wesley says:

    . . . And we must all declare, 'By grace ye are saved through faith: . . . not of works, lest any man should boast.'  We must cry aloud to every penitent sinner, 'Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.'  But at the same time we must take care to let all men know we esteem no faith but that 'which worketh by love'; and that we are not 'saved by faith' unless so far as we are delivered from the power as well as the guilt of sin.  And when we say, 'Believe, and thou shalt be saved,' we do not mean, 'Believe, and thou shalt step from sin to heaven, without any holiness coming between, faith supplying the place of holiness;' but, believe and thou shalt be holy; believe in the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt have peace and power together.  Thou shalt have power from him in whom thou believest to trample sin under thy feet; power to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and to serve him with all thy strength.

Wesley Wednesday: February 1, 2023

 The following Wesley quote comes from Sermon 85: "On Working Out Our Own Salvation":

. . . salvation begins with what is usually termed (and very properly) 'preventing grace''; including the first wish to please God, the first dawn of light concerning his will, and the first slight, transient conviction of having sinned against him. All these imply some tendency toward life, some degree of salvation, the beginning of a deliverance from a blind, unfeeling heart, quite insensible of God and the things of God. Salvation is carried on by 'convincing grace', usually in Scripture termed 'repentance', which brings a larger measure of self-knowledge, and a farther deliverance from the heart of stone. Afterwards we experience the proper Christian salvation, whereby 'through grace' we 'are saved by faith', consisting of those two grand branches, justification and sanctification. By justification we are saved from the guilt of sin, and restored to the favour of God: by sanctification we are saved from the power and root of sin, and restored to the image of God. All experience, as well as Scripture, shows this salvation to be both instantaneous and gradual. It begins the moment we are justified, in the holy, humble, gentle, patient love of God and man. It gradually increases from that moment, as a 'grain of mustard seed, which at first is the least of all seeds, but' gradually 'puts forth large branches', and becomes a great tree; till in another instant the heart is cleansed from all sin, and filled with pure love to God and man. But even that love increases more and more, till we 'grow up in all things into him that is our head', 'till we attain the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ'.