A trap for the right
On Thursday 16 August 1739, the young John Wesley met and for an hour argued with the middle-aged Bishop of Bristol, Joseph Butler. It was an ill-tempered encounter. Wesley believed that God communicated directly with individuals, invested his promises and purposes in them personally, and charged them with missions to reveal and explain the divine will. Butler, famous for his rationalism, reacted with cold indignation. ‘Sir,’ he told Wesley, ‘the pretending to extraordinary revelations and gifts of the Holy Ghost is a horrid thing, a very horrid thing.’ The Bishop spoke for England. We do not ‘do’ God – not even the 49 per cent of us who actually believe
