ABSTRACT
The unique feature of eighteenth-century Methodist sermons is generally described as an emotional intensity that deviated from the more restrained Anglican norm. James Downey describes British Methodism as influential in an eighteenth-century shift in homiletics consisting of “a movement away from a style of oratory that is ethical and rational in its content, disciplined and precise in its language, and unimpassioned in its presentation, towards a preaching the content of which is evangelical, the language emotive, and presentation histrionic” (228). Like Downey, Bernd Lenz emphasizes the role of British Methodism in this evolution, noting that “a theological position which stressed inner holiness and spiritualization must inevitably affect the style of sermons and preaching, too, since it favours, perhaps even requires, more intrinsic and extrinsic emotionalism” (115). Although Lenz acknowledges that the level of emotion differs among Methodist preachers and varies from one sermon and audience to the next, he generally characterizes Methodist preaching as a development in homiletics that “parallels the rise of sentimentalism in literature” (124).
