The Love-Feast

The Christian fellowship meal which heightened the concept of love among believers was from its foundation closely related to the Eucharist. Precisely how and in what form is a matter of some historical dispute, but the coupling of the two is beyond question.¹ That it degenerated into squabbles over food allocation and took on the status of something of a charitable deed towards the poor cannot be denied. Its spiritual content was never entirely extinguished, however, as vestiges of the Agape still appear in the rituals of the Eastern Orthodox churches. As late as 407, Chrysostom recalled "a custom most beautiful and most beneficial; for it was a supporter of love, a solace of poverty, and a discipline of humility."² Frank Baker sees a faint survival in England in the granting of especially minted coins to the "worthy poor" by the sovereign on Maundy Thursday. Since this once included foot-washing as a symbol of the humility that should ideally be a mark of regal power, the origins of the Maundy distribution probably belong elsewhere, largely in the traditions of early English Christianity.³

John Wesley was well aware of primitive practice, but made no claim to being a full restorationist. He first encountered the meal of celebration in Savannah, Georgia, on Monday, August 8, 1737. This was only ten years after its re-introduction by Zinzendorf among the Brethren in Herrnhut. Following Anglican prayers that evening:

. . .we joined with the Germans in one of their love-feasts. It was begun and ended with thanksgiving and prayer, and celebrated in so decent and solemn a manner as a Christian of the apostolic age would have allowed to be worthy of Christ.⁴

It was the apostolicity of the practice that made a distinctive appeal to Wesley at this stage of his spiritual pilgrimage. The form existing among the Moravians in Georgia was ultimately to bear only a partial resemblance to the later normative Methodist pattern. Following his evangelical awakening Wesley visited the Moravians in Germany for three months in the summer of 1738. Here he formed somewhat mixed impressions, but remained totally convinced of the value of the Love-feast.

On his return to England and again taking up some responsible leadership in the Fetter Lane Society, it is hardly surprising that this largely but not entirely Moravian group should have adopted Rules which included the provision once a month of an evening ". . .general Love-feast, from seven till ten."⁵ The simple and quietly devout feasts that he had encountered in America and Germany began to radically change. Whether it was by design or under the powerful leading and aegis of the Holy Spirit aiding the glow and fervor of people recently renewed, remains beyond present historical knowledge. The Rules became well nigh meaningless when on new year's day, 1738:

Mr. Hall, Kinchin, Ingham, Whitefield, Hutchins, and my brother Charles were present at our love-feast at Fetter Lane, with about sixty of our brethren. About three in the morning, as we were continuing instant in prayer, the power God came mightily upon us, inasmuch that many cried out for exceeding joy, and many fell to the ground. As soon as we were recovered a little from that awe and amazement at the presence of His majesty we broke out with one voice: "We praise Thee, O God; we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord."⁶

This record of an all-male assembly reads almost like the reunion of a large segment of the Holy Club. Something touched so vitally by God could not be restricted, and a Love-feast for women took place at Fetter Lane on February 18, 1739. Thereafter there were alternative feasts for men and women every two weeks in London. Bristol then followed where the first was for the women of the Society on April 9. The separation of the sexes had been a common practice among the Moravians, but this broke down quite early among the Methodists. "General" feasts became the norm even though that there was no mixed seating for several years. When this became common knowledge outside the Societies, it provided a platform for the salacious to accuse Wesley's people of carnality of the worst kind. The name Love-feast was alone sufficient to trigger wild imaginations and produce disgustingly scurrilous broadsides.⁷ Well before 1740 came to a close the Love-feast had become an established feature on the calendar of all the major Societies. James Hutton, the Moravian book-seller, would occasionally lead the London gatherings, and this was a recognition that presidency at the Love-feast could differ from that demanded at the Eucharist.

Disputations over the stillness controversy broke out at a general Love-feast on April 13, 1740, at Fetter Lane. Charles Wesley was broken-hearted at "finding so little love, and so much dispute.... Our brother Hodges next began talking at random.... The women stopped his mouth."⁸ The contention came to a crucial head on July 20, and John Wesley's chosen stage was a Love-feast. He presented his views with conviction, making it perfectly plain that it was strictly a "choose you this day" ultimatum. The quietists denial of the need for any of the ordinances, or even the reading of the scriptures before the full enlightenment of faith as they understood it, was declared an affront and "flatly contrary to the word of God." The atmosphere must have been electric as Wesley asked all those of the same judgment to "follow me." Only eighteen or nineteen did so, the majority of them women.⁹ On Wednesday of that week, Wesley's "little company" met at the Foundry, and the first distinctly Methodist Society was born.

The popularity of the Love-feast was enhanced by the absence of the Lord's Supper, except in the larger Societies where the few ordained associates of the Wesley's were able to make a modicum of provision. This led to monthly celebrations in many places, but the more usual and later settled practice was to hold them quarterly.¹⁰ John Wesley's own vivid description in his Plain Account of the People Called Methodists is strong on background but frail on detail:

In order to increase. . .a grateful sense of all his mercies, I desired that, one evening in a quarter, all the men in band, on a second, all the women, would meet; and on a third, both men and women together; that we might together "eat bread" as the ancient Christians did, "with gladness and singleness of heart." At these love-feasts (so we termed them, retaining the name, as well as the thing, which was in use from the beginning) our food is only a little plain cake and water. But we seldom return from them without being fed, not only with the "meat which perisheth," but with "that which endureth to eternal life." ¹¹

The food was no more than symbolic, a small portion of cake or bread. Cake was preferred so that there could be no confusion with the elements in the Eucharist. Water, or occasionally tea, was the chosen drink. Wine was never used for the same reason as bread, but there are accounts of it being introduced in some places by non-Wesleyans in the following century. It thus differed from the much fuller meals at Love-feasts served from time to time by the Moravians, the Dunkers (Church of the Brethren), and some other Anabaptist bodies. Large and often individually produced loving cups, with texts, figures, or the name of the Society on them, were passed from hand to hand rather than personally handled by the presiding preacher. The imagery of a common servanthood was thus allied to that of a common meal. Vital as this time of sharing was, most participants would consider it peripheral to the heart of the feast. By far the greater part of any Methodist celebration was occupied with open praise, singing, testimony, prayer, preaching, and calls for deeper discipleship. Brief reports on the Lord's work in other places might be given by visitors from other Societies. No set form was demanded and it was never circumscribed by the boundaries of liturgy. At the same time, it possessed all the necessary elements of a dynamic liturgy for it was truly "lay-work."

The hymnody associated with the feasts was carefully selected. Charles Wesley's Love-feast, first published in the 1740 edition of Hymns and Sacred Poems, has invariably been sung in some version to the present time. In the original form it had four distinct parts, each with four eight-line verses and a further part containing six.¹² Countless thousands in the first eighty years of British Methodism would know the thrill of waiting for the opening of a Love-feast, always marked by the lining out of:

Come and let us sweetly join

Christ to praise in hymns divine;

Give we all, with one accord.

Glory to our common Lord.

Hands and hearts and voices raise;

Sing as in the ancient days;

Antedate the joys above,

Celebrate the feast of love.

Other Wesley hymns commonly associated with the occasion included "All thanks to the Lamb who gave us to meet..." and the still very familiar "All praise to our redeeming Lord, who joins us by his grace." Doddridge's "O Happy day that fixed my choice..." (from a non-Methodist source) was also popular, but the roof-lifting refrain was a later addition.¹³ Testimonies were expected to be lively and current. It was said that men and women who could barely speak a sentence of reasonable English in their common speech would often find a fluent "prayer language" in Love-feasts. John Wesley's lines (adapted from Zinzendorf), "Unloose our stammering tongues to tell..." became a common reality.

The discipline imposed upon entry to Love-feasts remained in place for most of the first hundred years of Methodism. For a short period, only members of the select bands, the inner core of the Society who could testify to salvation and the attainment of or serious pursuit of perfect love, could be present. This very soon gave way to the admittance of all who were members of a Society, those who "desired to be saved from their sins...." Stewards were appointed to ensure that an offering was taken for the poor fund and that none attended without producing a band or class ticket, or a written note by the itinerant. They were issued quarterly and had to be current. This practice was observed by all the branches of British Methodism, although only the Wesleyans retained the bands. The security notwithstanding, many slipped into feasts, sometimes on "borrowed" tickets, and found themselves under conviction. Two such became towering figures. William Clowes, powerful evangelist and co-founder with Hugh Bourne of Primitive Methodism, was told to "cover the name written on it with my thumb" at a feast in Burslem in 1805. The steward was of the zealous kind and:

examined them minutely.... A puff of wind came and blew the door-keeper's candle out. I presented him my ticket. . .he called for another light, just as he was going to read my ticket, another puff came, and away went his light.... The man. . . hastily pushed back the ticket into my hand saying: "Move on." So I passed into the gallery of the chapel.¹⁴

Jabez Bunting, the imperiously magisterial power broker of the Wesleyan connection for so much of the nineteenth century, often repeated: "Many attribute their conversion to their having attended a love-feast; I owe mine to having been shut out of one."¹⁵ When the great Joseph Benson was the Superintendent preacher in Manchester, he was happy to relax the requirement of a ticket for those young people who might be won for the Lord. The youthful Bunting had attended feasts several times, sharing his mother's class ticket. When Alexander Mather succeeded Benson, traditional discipline was restored. Now shut out, Bunting was brought to the point of deep inner searching and "once for all renounced sin."

Revivals, both local and spreading over a wide area, frequently began and continued through Love-feasts.¹⁶ Greatly used in these outpourings were figures on the revivalist wing of Wesleyanism, both lay and itinerant. Among the former were those who could be described as specialist practioners of the Love-feast, such as "Praying Nanny" Cutler, whom William Bramwell, the key man among the revivalists, believed was the main instrument in the great Yorkshire revival that began shortly after the death of Wesley.¹⁷ Quaint Sammy Hick and William Dawson were also mightily used. All the leading ministerial figures who stood for revivals against the increasing opposition of the Wesleyan Conference to "exciteable religion" fervently believed in Love-feasts as instruments for the promotion of heart faith. Bramwell, a man as mighty in prayer as preaching, John Smith, David Stoner, Hodgson Casson, and Thomas Collins constantly called for them.¹⁸ Expressions such as "irresistible," "the power of the grace of entire sanctification," "the power of God so fell," "with reluctance they departed," "voices could scarce be heard," and "I have got it!," abound in magazine accounts and biographies. Long after regular Love-feasts had given way to straight prayer meetings and "tea gatherings" in the major Wesleyan body and most of the smaller offshoots, the Primitive Methodists retained the circuit quarterly celebrations.¹⁹ With the exception of some isolated reports from Ireland, they were never associated in British Methodism with Quarterly Meetings.²⁰

A barn Love-feast at Alport, set in a remote part of the Derbyshire Dales has been held regularly under Methodist auspices for at least two hundred and forty years. Long before that the building was used by a Puritan conventicle. Frank Baker, Methodism and the Love-Feast  (London: Epworth, 1957), 57; Leslie F. Church, More About the Early Methodist People, (London: Epworth, 1949), 238-9.    

 

^Footnotes

            ¹The most thorough study of the Love-feast remains that of R. Lee Cole, Love-Feasts: A History of the Christian Agape (London: Epworth, 1916), but it contains little on Wesleyan usage. Frank Baker's comparatively short study of 1957 is helpful, both historically and as a practical guide. See also Church, 237-42.           

            ²Cited by Baker, 9.

            ³Ibid.

            ⁴The Journal of the Rev. John Wesley, A.M., Ed. Nehemiah Curnock (London: Epworth, 1909), I:377.

            ⁵The Works of John Wesley (Jackson), reprint ed. (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press, 1979), I:93.

            ⁶Ibid., 170.

            ⁷The unknown writer of The Love-Feast: A Poem (London: n.p., 1778) waxed lyrical on the supposed sexual orgies taking place in the Love-feasts:

                        There Saints, new born, lascivious Orgies hold,

                        Meek Lambs by Day, at Night no Wolves so bold,

                        There the new Adam tries the old one's Fort,

                        And Children of the Light in Darkness sport...

            Revealing his ignorance, the author confuses the chalice used in the Eucharist with the Love-feast, and his lampoon does not stop at accusing the Methodists of incest:

                        Together wanton pairs promiscuous run,

                        Brothers with Sisters, Mothers with a Son:

                        Fathers, perhaps with yielding Daughters meet,

                        And Converts find their Pastor's Doctrines sweet;

                        Pure Souls are fir'd with Love's divinest Spark

                        And Paradise is open'd in the Dark. (p. 28)

            For satirical attacks on Methodism, see Albert M. Lyles, Methodism Mocked (London: Epworth, 1960), especially chap. 5, "Satire of Methodist Practices," 82-95.

            ⁸The Journal of The Rev. Charles Wesley, M.A. (Jackson), reprint ed. (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press, 1980), I:216-17.

            ⁹Works (Jackson), I:282.

            ¹⁰Frank Baker, A Charge to Keep (London: Epworth, 1947), 120.

            ¹¹Works (Jackson), VIII:258-9.

            ¹²The Works of John Wesley (Bicentenial Edition), vol. 7, A Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodists, ed. Franz Hildebrandt and Oliver A. Beckerlegge, with James Dale (Nashville: Abingdon, 1983), 695-700 for textual and historical analysis of the hymn. This was Wesley's definitive hymn book of 1780. The 1875 edition, with the supplement generally known as Wesley's Hymns, retained the whole text but divided it into four distinct hymns (519, 520, 521, and 522). In the Methodist Hymn Book of 1933 the first verse was divided into eight four-line stanzas (748) and the third part of the original, "Let us join 'tis God commands," is set as a separate hymn (713). In the current British Methodist hymnal, Hymns and Psalms, the form is much nearer the original, being retained as a single hymn, but in two parts with a total of twelve four-line verses (756).

            ¹³Frank Baker, Methodism and the Love-Feast, 17-24, for hymns associated with the Love-feast. He points out the link between these hymns and the singing of grace before food. It cannot be claimed that the practice entirely owes its genesis to the Love-feast, but there is certainly an association.

            ¹⁴John T. Wilkinson, William Clowes 1780-1851 (London: Epworth, 1951), 18, citing the Journals of William Clowes (London: Primitive Methodist Book-Room, 1844).

            ¹⁵T. Percival Bunting and G. Stringer Rowe, The Life of Jabez Bunting, D.D. (London: T. Woolmer, 1887), 34.

            ¹⁶This was especially true of the great Yorkshire revivals which began in the 1790s and had an increasing influence well into the 1820s under men such as William Bramwell and others. Cornwall witnessed many revivals where Love-feasts played a highly prominent and frequently emotional role. Adam Clarke recorded several cases of divine healing in Love-feasts associated with a powerful revival in the the Channel Islands (Adam Clarke to John Wesley, July, 1789, cited in R. D. Moore, Methodism in the Channel Islands, London: Epworth, 1952, 55-56).

            ¹⁷For the work of Bramwell and Ann Cutler, and the effect both spiritually and bodily of Yorkshire Love-feasts, see Michael R. Watts, The Dissenters, vol.II, The Expansion of Evan-gelical Nonconformity 1791-1859 (Oxford: OUP, 1995), 65-67.

            ¹⁸The "Primitive Wesleyan" or Revivalist band of preachers, itinerant and lay, were totally convinced of the value of Love-feasts in the work of revivals, long after the rite had settled down in many places as a testimony meeting with bread or cake and water. This raised disciplinary questions because of regulations limiting attendance to those in Society, and the     revivalists' conviction that Love-feasts, like the Supper of our Lord, could be a "saving ordinance."

            ¹⁹The Methodist Recorder, Winter Number, 1896, 49-50.

            ²⁰Frank Baker, Methodism and the Love-Feast, 54, 62.