MDMD & Faith, Doubt, Charity, but Proof is the bottom line

[Terrance]

Our Savior,  Wicks says, even in the era of the Wesley and
Whitefield, though present, would not have figur'd as
pre-eminantly as with most Sectarians. 

On the transom was what seemed to me a most uncommon and
surprising figure. It turned out to be Captain Bildad who
along with
Captain Peleg was one of the largest owners of the vessel; 

  Now, Bildad, like Peleg, and indeed many other
Nantucketers, was a
Quaker, the island having been originally settled by that
sect; and to
this day its inhabitants in general retain in an uncommon
measure
peculiarities of the Quaker, only variously and anomalously
modified
by things altogether alien and heterogeneous. For some of
these same
Quakers are the most sanguinary of all sailors and
whale-hunters. They
are fighting Quakers; they are Quakers with a vengeance.

 

Like Captain Peleg, Captain Bildad was a well-to-do, retired
whaleman. But unlike Captain Peleg- who cared not a rush for
what
are called serious things, and indeed deemed those self-same
serious
things the veriest of all trifles- Captain Bildad had not
only been
originally educated according to the strictest sect of
Nantucket
Quakerism, but all his subsequent ocean life, and the sight
of many
unclad, lovely island creatures, round the Horn- all that
had not
moved this native born Quaker one single jot, had not so
much as
altered one angle of his vest. Still, for all this
immutableness,
was there some lack of common consistency about worthy
Captain
Peleg. Though refusing, from conscientious scruples, to bear
arms
against land invaders, yet himself had illimitably invaded
the
Atlantic and Pacific; and though a sworn foe to human
bloodshed, yet
had he in his straight-bodied coat, spilled tuns upon tuns
of
leviathan gore. How now in the contemplative evening of his
days,
the pious Bildad reconciled these things in the
reminiscence, I do not
know; but it did not seem to concern him much, and very
probably he
had long since come to the sage and sensible conclusion that
a man's
religion is one thing, and this practical world quite
another. This
world pays dividends. 


  Now, Bildad, I am sorry to say
For a pious man, especially
for a Quaker,
he was certainly rather hard-hearted, to say the least. He
never
used to swear, though, at his men, they said; but somehow he
got an
inordinate quantity of cruel, unmitigated hard work out of
them.
When Bildad was a chief-mate, to have his drab-colored eye
intently
looking at you, made you feel completely nervous, till you
could
clutch something- a hammer or a marrling-spike, and go to
work like
mad, at something or other, never mind what. Indolence and
idleness
perished before him. His own person was the exact embodiment
of his
utilitarian character. On his long, gaunt body, he carried
no spare
flesh, no superfluous beard, his chin having a soft,
economical nap to
it, like that worn nap of his broad-brimmed hat.


>From Weber, on Methodism 

Once and for all it must be remembered that programs of
ethical reform never were at the center of interest for any
of the religious reformers (among whom, for our purposes, we
must include men like Menno, George  Fox, and Wesley). They
were not the founders of societies for ethical culture nor
the proponents of humanitarian projects for social reform of
cultural ideals. The salvation of the soul and that alone
was the center of their life and work. Their ethical ideals
and the practical results of their doctrines were based on
that alone, and were the consequences of purely religious
motives. We shall thus have to admit that the cultural
consequences of the Reformation were to a great extent,
perhaps in the particular aspects with which we are dealing
predominately, unforeseen and even unwished for results of
the labors of the reformers. They were often far removed
from or even in contradiction to all that they themselves
thought to attain. 

As he observed his own conduct, the later Puritan also
observed that of God and saw His finger in all the details
of life. And, contrary to the strict doctrine of Calvin, he
always knew why God took this or that measure. The process
of sanctifying life could thus almost take on the character
of a business enterprise. A thoroughgoing Christianization
of the whole life was the consequence of this methodical
quality of ethical conduct into which Calvinism as distinct
from Lutheranism forced men. That this rationality was
decisive in its influence on practical life must always be
borne in mind in order to rightly understand the influence
of Calvinism. On the one hand we can see that it took this
element to exercise such an influence at all. But other
faiths as well necessarily had a similar influence when
their ethical motives were the same in this decisive point,
the doctrine of proof. 

So far we have considered only Calvinism, and have assumed
the doctrine of predestination as the dogmatic background of
the Puritan morality in the sense of methodically 
rationalized ethical conduct. This could be done because the
influence of that dogma in fact extended far beyond the
single religious group which held in all respects strictly
to the Calvinistic principles, the Presbyterians. Not only
the Independent Savoy Declaration of 1658, but also the
Hanserd Knolly of 1689 contained it, and it had a place
within Methodism. Although John Wesley, the great organizing
genius of the movement, was a believer in the universality
of Grace, one of the great agitators of the first generation
of Methodists and their most consistent thinker, Whitefield,
was an adherent of the doctrine. 

It was this doctrine in its magnificent consistency which,
in the fateful epoch of the seventeenth  century, upheld the
belief of the militant defenders of the holy life that they
were weapons in the hand of God, and executors of His
providential will. Moreover, it prevented a premature
collapse into a purely utilitarian doctrine of good works in
the world which would never have been capable of motivating
such tremendous sacrifices for non-rational ideal ends. 

The combination of an  emotional but still ascetic type of
religion with increasing indifference to or repuiation of
the dogmatic basis of Calvinistic asceticism is
characteristic also of the Anglo-American movement
corresponding to Continental Pietism, namely Methodism. The
name in itself shows what impressed contemporaries as
characteristic of its adherents: the methodical systematic
nature of conduct for the purpose of attaining the CERTITUDO
SALUTIS. This was from the beginning the center of religious
aspiration for this movement also, and remained so. In spite
of all the differences, the undoubted relationship to
certain branches of German Pietism is shown above all by the
fact that the method was used primarily to bring about the
emotional act of conversion. And the emphasis on feeling, in
Wesley awakened by Moravian and Lutheran influences, led
Methodism, which from the beginning saw its mission among
the masses, to take on a strongly emotional character,
especially in America. The attainment of repentance under
certain circumstances involved an emotional struggle of such
intensity as to lead to the most terrible ecstasies, which
in America often place in a public meeting. This formed the
basis of a belief in the undeserved possession of divine
grace and at the same time of an immediate consciousness of
justification and forgiveness. 


Added to this is Wesley's doctrine of sanctification which,
though a decided departure from the orthodox doctrine, is a
logical development of it. According to it, one reborn in
this manner can, by virtue of the divine grace already
working within him, even in this life attain sanctification,
the consciousness of perfection in the sense of freedom from
sin, by a second, generally separate and often sudden
spiritual transformation.  However difficult of attainment
this end is, generally not till toward the end of one's
life, it must inevitably be sought, because it finally
guarantees the certudo salutis and substitutes a serene
confidence for the sullen worry of the Calvinist. And it
distinguishes the true convert in his own eyes and those of
others by the fact that sin at least no longer has power
over him. 


TBC