Geordan Hammond gave me a bit more indepth review of the Wesley and Methodist archives here. They collect all dissertations written on Wesley and 18th century Methodism. Geordan defended his dissertation through NTC at the University of Manchester. I had come upon the work of Jeremy Gregory on the nature of the British Enlightenment in the 18th century before -- very interesting revisionist scholarship that contests a teleology of a progressive secularism in Western culture. It seems that such those participating in the British Enlightenment did not think this meant a complete collapse into immanence, and that even major intellectuals of the day did not see a conflict between the demands of "reason" and God, or a conflict between "reason and faith." Of course Wesley, I will argue, fits into this tradition of "reasonable religion" that did not seek, contra others, to regulate the claims of Christian revelation by "reason," but saw the claim of revelation to establish what was reasonable.

My first task is to study the use of "use" and "enjoy" in the Wesley corpus. These terms are technical terms that originated in St. Augustine, more particularly his work "On Christian Teaching." Aquinas picks up these terms and uses them as well. I have found that Wesley, who did not read Augustine directly, nonetheless framed his thought in such an Augustinian Thomist manner. The task is to show that this type of "catholic Augustinian thought" that belongs to the classic Christian tradition was mediated to Wesley by several thinkers: particularly William Law, and behind him, an Anglican priest named John Norris. I'll share more of this as time goes on.

Tomorrow I have a meeting with Dr. Tom Noble, who is also professor of theology at Nazarene Theological Seminary and then an appointment at John Rylands library at 2:00 to receive access to their collection. I hope to be able to get electronic access to some of their works -- it is not far by bus, but it would make it much easier.

The sun has finally set here at 10:30 pm -- we are north. Tasha leaves for Portugal tomorrow and her European adventure. I will walk her into the village. Then to "work" if it could be called that. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have some primary texts to share with you. I have already discovered that, unlike today, theology was not an "academic enterprise" separated from life, but itself a means of spiritual formation and guidance. If one reads it without completely dissassociating one's "self" from the texts, they are powerful to read.