on Wesley on the saints

Those of us who spend any time at all in Church know that the saints are real scoundrels.  We could never venerate a faultless person, though we could fault a blameless person.  We churchy folk tolerate the ignorance of the heathen about the morality of the saints.  We are quite content to let them believe the saints to have been impeccable moral exemplars.  But when someone in the Church misunderstands the sanctity of the saints and demands faultless perfection, then we sharpen our quills.  It is for this reason that John Wesley -- lover of perfection that he was -- found himself appalled upon reading the work of Rev'd Conyers Middleton.

 Middleton presumed that it was meaningful to point out that the saintly fathers of the Church occasionally demonstrated questionable behavior and opinion (and he deplored the accounts of their miracles).  It takes a perfectionist like Wesley to identify someone who does not have a proper appreciation of Christian perfection.

I've been involved lately in discussions about Wesley's understanding of grace and perfection, and surprised by how little even Methodists understand what Wesley thought.

There are those who will argue against the adjectival use of "Christian" -- especially when it's applied to nouns such as "music", "t-shirt", or "weight loss program" (yes, such things actually claim to exist).  However, when applied to "perfection", it's an essential modifier.  The saints, after all, are not a row of flag poles, but a field of trees.  A tree is perfect not because it is rigid and straight and looks like every other tree, but because it's wild.  The perfection of the saints comes not because they are timidly flawless, but because they are wildly Christian.

What amazes me about Wesley's understanding of "perfection" (even if he was too sceptical of the Fathers of the Church than was necessary) is that Wesley saw through Middleton's scepticism to the heart of the matter -- Middleton had no love for the fathers.  Love, the Apostle tells us -- rascal that he was -- covers a multitude of sins.  Christian perfection, Wesley knows all too well, is not faultless performance.  Christian perfection is not "sinless perfection", as he had to remind his critics constantly.  The good Lord, after all, had nothing to do with sinless people.

It's not hard, Wesley observes, to find in the Fathers "many mistakes, many weak suppositions, and many ill-drawn conclusions" if one wants to.  A saint is not untouched by human infirmity, but one who bears their infirmities with Christian fortitude.  "A saint", GK Chesterton once mused, "only means a man who really knows he is a sinner".

Wesley concluded, though:  "And yet I exceedingly reverence them and esteem them very highly in love".  If the saints were flawless, they could be no example to us.  The saints inspire only if they bear the blemishes of human life.  Otherwise they would be horribly glorious gods.

Christian perfection, Wesley teaches, is not sinlessness, but love.  Wesley's prayer is nothing more than to be a Christian like the Fathers, living a life of love in the service of the God of love.  That, he says, would be a perfect life.

It's that perfect loving that marks a Christian more than any other mark -- and, in the best sense, demonstrates the heart of Methodism.