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152.). He describes Methodism as the 'old religion' (ibid.), the one that closest linked itself to the early Christian Church. The Holy Spirit infused tradition as it did the writers of the Scripture, and therefore, discovery of true understanding could of the work of the Holy Spirit could be reinforced by linking oneself to tradition, specifically to tradition that wound its way back to Christianity's earliest beginnings.
Reason
Reason was an integral component to Wesley's philosophy. It could expand religion and could convert man from robotic theological follower to enthusiastic and rational theological follower. Reason, however, had to be the handmaiden of religion (i.e. Of Scripture in this case). Again, true reason is that which is infused by and follows the Holy Spirit for guidance. The Holy Spirit, in other words (or the words of the Scripture that is infused with Holy Spirit) is supposed to ct as guide for Reason. Only then can Reason provide utmost benefit for developing the religious individual. Neither intuition nor inductive reason can lead the follower to God. It is the Holy Spirit that must be present and direct the believer in first a prevenient manner and then ontologically so that the believer accurately grasp and feel his Master.
Experience
Wesley saw Christian experience somewhat in the way that William James was to later see it as a mystical immediate experience / encounter with God (or a Godly presence). This is a synergism that involves feelings and intuition and again, as Wesley believed was peculiarly marked by its suffusion of the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit that awakens, purifies, stimulates, inspires, and reinforces man to follow His creator; it is, in other words, the primary agent in religious experience in general and Christian...
Stated in other ways, the Spirit represents an experiential relationship where man through Jesus Christ or thoguh the Divine can enter into an immediate encounter with God and experience the Divine.
The four methods serve as one heuristic for obtaining holiness in spirit and mind. Each circle or orbit is infused with the Holy Spirit, but the sense of the Holy Spirit is strongest and most objective in its source, i.e. In the Scriptures, and it was, therefore, that Wesley recommended that individuals adopt that as their primary means of gaining comprehension of and closeness to God, and use the other three strategies as tools for reinforcing and vivifying that commitment. It is in this way, too, that Wesley refrained from offering a creed or catechism for he felt that practical relevant and applicable theology was more important (Thorsten, p. 16.).
Wesley's quadrilateral, when used within that understanding, leads to greater faithfulness to the Scriptures, greater mergence with the traditions of the early Church Fathers, and to a Christian experience that is infused by enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, and responsible use of reason. When interpreted by Thorsen's understanding it gives a more ecumenical drift to the theological conversation joining liberal with evangelical perspectives in the argument that reason, experience, and tradition are not contradictory to one another but, rather, serve as assistance to scriptural understanding -- which is foremost - in explicating and endeavoring to understand the Word of God.
Reference
Thorsten, D. The Wesleyan Quadrilateral: Scripture, Reason, Tradition, and Experience as a Model of Evangelical Theology. Nappanee, IN: Francis Asbury Press, 1990.
Reference
Thorsten, D. The Wesleyan Quadrilateral: Scripture, Reason, Tradition, and Experience as a Model of Evangelical Theology. Nappanee, IN: Francis Asbury Press, 1990.
Wesley comes and underlines this fact by connecting the humanly actions, registered by the good deeds and the honest and austere way of life, with the state of perfect. Thus, the Christian becomes perfect when he has attained the complete love for God. This is due, in his belief, to the absolution of sins and thus returns to the original state at birth. This final aspect is significant particularly because
For those who have achieved or been granted certain comforts, I would impress upon the congregation, such fortune has been accompanied by God's desire to see that this good fortune is shared. I would use my role in the Church to find ways to engage with poorer communities outside of our own, to create and empower an internal volunteer corps through which congregants can reach these communities and to establish
67). Of all of the events that chronicled in the book, the fire stands out as the most poignant force that helped to shape John Wesley's life. After this, Wesley developed the idea that god had saved him because he had a purpose for his life. Thinking all was lost, Wesley's father knelt in prayer when John was rescued just before the building collapsed (Collins, p. 14). Samuel Wesley prayed
It is never something we are meant to earn; it is a gift from God. Faith is necessary as a condition of justification by faith, and salvation is for the penalty and the plague of sin (Maddox 144). Maddox writes that argues that Wesley's view of salvation is best expressed as a via salutis, a way to salvation" rather than a more reformed or scholastic expression of ordo salutis, a
70). The emphasis that Wesley placed on Christians having a conscience set a standard and a tone for what Methodists would do many decades later in the United States. Some may argue that prominent Methodists taking positions on social issues (like terrible workers' conditions in factories; the slaughter of Native Americans; etc.) was out of the purview of a Christian organization, nonetheless "human morality" was on the line for
Section A 1. Each edition of The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church since 1972 has contained the formulation that has come to be widely known as the “Wesleyan [or Methodist] Quadrilateral”— the claim that “the living core of the Christian faith is revealed in Scripture, illumined by tradition, vivified in personal experience, and confirmed by reason.” At the conclusion of their “conference” about the Quadrilateral, published as