A Retreat with John Wesley
Going on to perfection in love, for those who are renewed in love
Some retreats are entered into in order to gain a “mountaintop experience,” with the expectation that the energy and renewal gained in this experience will help us make it through life – or at least until the next retreat. These retreats usually involve the formation of an intentional, though temporary, Christian community where we can model and enjoy life in the reign of Jesus Christ as the people we may become as we are enabled by the Holy Spirit. These retreats are primarily event-oriented, and emphasize renewal as its primary benefit. Persons who attend these retreats often express a desire to repeat the experience.
Other retreats are set up as intentional time away from our schedule in order to do the hard work of self-examination and reflection that hopefully will provide us with a basis for living more fully as Christian disciples upon our return to the neighbors that God has given to us to love. These retreats usually involve the separation of the individual from their normal community so that one may approach God humbly and have revealed to them the person they are now, so that their need for Christ and their need for the direction of the Holy Spirit can be sought apart from the competing claims of the world. These retreats are primarily process-oriented, with transformation as the hoped-for primary benefit. Persons who attend these retreats hope “to emerge out of the experience with a new sense of awareness, vision, mission and commitment.”
This retreat experience follows the second pattern. The highlight of this retreat will more likely come after the retreat is over, when there is further time to reflect and respond to the experience of the retreat, and to incorporate into daily living the lessons and insights gained from time apart.
(Information for this section came from Steve D. B. Blazina, an ordained deacon in the UnitedMethodistChurch, writing for the General Board of Discipleship website concerning camping and retreat ministry models.)
The hope for this retreat plan is that you will “work out your salvation” (Philippians 2:12) by addressing those manifestations of sin that concerned John Wesley most about those who were part of the Methodist movement. These particular “manifestations” may not be of great concern to the new Christian, or even the average Christian; yet, Wesley knew these to be the very sins that would cause an earnest Christian to lose their hope of salvation. These sins were listed in a short tract titled “Caution and Direction for the Greatest Professors of Methodism” in 1762, in response to a controversy that erupted after the publication of Wesley’s “Thoughts on Christian Perfection” three years earlier. The main points of the “Cautions and Directions” tract were incorporated into his later tracts, “Farther Thoughts on Christian Perfection” and “A Plain Account of Christian Perfection.”
John Wesley will be represented in this retreat by his writings “Cautions and Directions,” “A Plain Account of Christian Perfection,” and “A Collection of Forms of Prayers for Every Day in the Week.” These are available in several places and formats; I will primarily be relying on “John Wesley,” edited by Albert Outler, and my own “translation” of Wesley’s prayers based on his 1738 edition. I have also “sprinkled” other Wesley snippets at the end of each session.
Dr. Nick Campbell
Table of Contents
Session 1: The Retreat Theme – “Going On To Perfection”
Session Two: Pride and Calmness
Session Three: Enthusiasm and Confidence
Session Four: Antinomianism and Conformity
Session Five: Sins of Omission and Compassion
Session Six: Desiring Any Thing Other Than God
and Commitment
Session Seven: Schism and Community
Each session begins and ends with a selection from “A Collection of Forms of Prayers.” There will be Wesley’s concern about one of the deadly sins, scripture for reflection, and Wesley’s proposed “cure” for the deadly sin. The first session contains other supporting materials. These resources are beginning points for your own reflection and self-examination, so there are no suggested “uses” or directions for the readings.
The timeline for the retreat is your own to set. If you have a full week for retreat, you may spend one day on each session, with generous time allotted for prayer and reflection, interspersed with walks, meals, and spiritual reading. If you have only 24 hours, you may spend one or two hours per session, with short breaks for your body and soul in between, as the Spirit leads you.
God's command to "pray without ceasing" is founded on the necessity we have of his grace to preserve the life of God in the soul, which can no more subsist one moment without it, than the body can without air.
Whether we think of, or speak to, God; whether we act or suffer for him, all is prayer, when we have no other object than his love, and the desire of pleasing him.
All that a Christian does, even in eating and sleeping, is prayer, when it is done in simplicity, according to the order of God, without either adding to or diminishing from it by his own choice.
Prayer continues in the desire of the heart, though the understanding be employed on outward things.
In souls filled with love, the desire to please God is a continual prayer.
As the furious hate which the devil bears us is termed the roaring of a lion, so our vehement love may be termed crying after God.
God only requires of his adult children, that their hearts be truly purified, and that they offer him continually the wishes and vows that naturally spring from perfect love. For these desires, being the genuine fruits of love, are the most perfect prayers that can spring from it.
From A Plain Account of Christian Perfection as believed and taught by the Reverend Mr. John Wesley, from the year 1725, to the year 1777.
Session 1: The Retreat Theme
Prayerfrom Sunday Morning Prayer
Almighty God, Father of all mercies,
it is my desire to come before you with all humility
to offer to you my love and thanksgiving
even though I know I am unworthy to serve you in even this small way.
Glory to thee, O most adorable Father,
who did not only create everything that is good
but rested in order to enjoy its goodness.
Glory be to thee, O holy Jesus, who by the eternal Spirit
offered a full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world
rose again the third day from the dead
and then received all power to rule heaven and earth.
Glory be to thee, O blessed Spirit, who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who came in fiery tongues on the apostles
so that they could proclaim Good News,
who moves in our hearts as at the creation,
bring us out of chaos and into life.
Glory be to thee, O holy undivided Trinity,
for your unifying work for our redemption,
and for restoring us again as your children.
Glory be to thee, O compassionate God,
for providing us in our weakness and sin a day set aside
for the remembrance of your grace,
a day when we may be joined at the heart with you.
May this become a day of privilege and happiness set apart for the concerns of my soul
free from worldly distractions and engagements
with nothing to do but to praise and love you.
May this day ever be sacred to divine love, rest and your creative renewal.
Let the Holy Spirit descend on me, that I may be in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day,
as were your apostles.
Let the Spirit’s inspiration guide me and assist me
in all that you would have me do this day
that my wandering thoughts may be fixed only on you
that my tumultuous affections may know your peace
that my apathy may become fervent desire for you.
Let me approach your altar expecting to be filled
with humility, faith, hope, love and all holiness
receiving these gifts in remembrance of my crucified Savior.
Your time at this retreat
This time is yours to be with God. Based on your own faith journey and spiritual formation, you are free to choose one, two, or all of the sessions that are available. You may read a session and feel comfortable (or at least not called to struggle with) this particular area at this time, and then move on to the next. You may read a session, and decide to spend all your time on retreat deeply exploring a particular sin and cure. You may adapt each session as best challenges you to an honest self-examination before God – what is written here is one way, but certainly not the only way. Something in one of the sessions may trigger a memory of another retreat experience that you found fruitful for your spiritual growth; after testing that memory/spirit to see if it is truly from God or whether it is a means for avoiding the hard work of coming humbly before God, you may then follow that path or choose another session to pursue and explore. Again, this time is yours to be with God – and already God loves you, so there should be no pressure to try and earn God’s acceptance. This may even be for you a time to “be laid aside for thee” (Wesleyan Covenant Prayer) and do nothing at all! The point of this retreat is not for you to seek to change yourself according to your plan, but rather to seek God and in the process to be changed by God according to God’s plan.
It is expected that we all have work to do in receiving the sanctifying grace of Jesus Christ. The spiritual disciplines may form us; yet, it is still the gift of the Spirit to fill us. To consider what our “true form” will look like, consider the following words from John Wesley, which were presented in a “question and answer” format.
From Wesley's "Farther Thoughts on Christian Perfection"
By what 'fruit of the Spirit' may we 'know that we are of God,' even in the highest sense?
By love, joy, peace, always abiding; by invariable long-suffering, patience, resignation; by gentleness, triumphing over all provocation; by goodness, mildness, sweetness, tenderness of spirit; by fidelity, simplicity, godly sincerity; by meekness, calmness, evenness of spirit; by temperance, not only in food and sleep, but in all things natural and spiritual.
But what great matter is there in this? Have we not all this when we are justified?
What, total resignation to the will of God, without any mixture of self-will? gentleness, without any touch of anger, even the moment we are provoked? love to God, without the least love to the creature, but in and for God, excluding all pride? love to man, excluding all envy, all jealousy, and rash judging? meekness, keeping the whole soul inviolably calm? and temperance in all things? Deny that any ever came up to this, if you please; but do not say, all who are justified do.
But some who are newly justified do. What then will you say to these?
If they really do, I will say they are sanctified; saved from sin in that moment; and that they never need lose what God has given, or feel sin any more.
But certainly this is an exempt case. It is otherwise with the generality of those that are justified: They feel in themselves more or less pride, anger, self-will, a heart bent to backsliding. And, till they have gradually mortified these, they are not fully renewed in love.
But is not this the case of all that are justified? Do they not gradually die to sin and grow in grace, till at, or perhaps a little before, death God perfects them in love?
I believe this is the case of most, but not all. God usually gives a considerable time for men to receive light, to grow in grace, to do and suffer his will, before they are either justified or sanctified; but he does not invariably adhere to this; sometimes he 'cuts short his work:' he does the work of many years in a few weeks; perhaps in a week, a day, an hour. He justifies or sanctifies both those who have done or suffered nothing, and who have not had time for a gradual growth either in light or grace. And 'may he not do what he will with his own? Is thine eye evil, because he is good?'
It need not, therefore, be affirmed over and over, and proved by forty texts of Scripture, either that most men are perfected in love at last, that there is a gradual work of God in the soul, or that, generally speaking, it is a long time, even many years, before sin is destroyed. All this we know: But we know likewise, that God may, with man's good leave, 'cut short his work,' in whatever degree he pleases, and do the usual work of many years in a moment. He does so in many instances; and yet there is a gradual work, both before and after that moment: So that one may affirm the work is gradual, another, it is instantaneous, without any manner of contradiction.
Vows and Covenants
Every ordained minister in the Methodist tradition has been asked these historic questions which are at the root of who we are called to be as United Methodists: “Are you going on to perfection? Do you expect to be made perfect in love in this life? Are you earnestly striving after perfection in love? Are you resolved to devote yourself wholly to God and God’s work?”
In contrast, the world asks, “Are you getting better? Are you ‘good enough’ in the skill sets you need to be successful? Are you at least better than the next person? Are you constantly adapting to the culture’s desires in order to be successful?”
Which set of questions defines your purpose?
Which set of promises binds your heart?
Wesleyan Covenant
I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed by thee or laid aside for thee,
exalted for thee or brought low for thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things
to thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
thou art mine, and I am thine. So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,
let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.
“Cautions and Directions,” or “The Six Deadly Sins of Methodism”
In his tract “Cautions and Directions to the Greatest Professors of Methodism” Wesley listed advice concerning six temptations that could attack the Christian’s faith. Since before I completed my own doctoral project at Saint Paul School of Theology (Going on to perfection: implications for pastors and congregations, 1994), I have referred to this list as “the six deadly sins of Methodism,” for they have the potential to “kill” a person’s faith, a congregation’s life, and a denomination’s vision if they are left unchecked and unexamined as passions that do violence to the reign of Christ.
The “six deadly sins” are: pride, enthusiasm, antinomianism, sins of omission, desiring any thing but God, and schism. Wesley expanded on this listing in his tract “A Plain Account of Christian Perfection,” and from that tract we can discern that he offered the “cure” for each of these sins by his more affirmative approach in presenting what Christian perfection can be. For the purpose of this retreat, and to help make it easier to remember these six “cures” (or values), I have used a mnemonic device to summarize Wesley’s points. These cures are: calmness (based in dependence on God), confidence (in God), conformity (to Christ), compassion, commitment, and community.
Prayerfrom Sunday Evening Prayer
O my Father, my God, I am in your hand;
May I rejoice above all things that I am there!
Do with me what seems good in your sight,
only let me love you completely.
O my Father, my God, deliver me from all violent passions!
I know how much they keep me away from both knowledge and love of you.
O let none of them find a way in my heart,
but let me ever possess my soul in meekness.
O my God, I desire to fear these passions more than death!
Let me not serve these passions, but only you,
Let me be your servant, loving you will all my heart.
Deliver me, O God, from the love of company and diversions.
I know that these can be pleasant snares
which ask me to pursue them for their own sakes,
and not for your glory.
Give me that true wisdom which allows me to seek out company