ABSTRACT
This chapter locates resignation in the historical, literary, and spiritual context of the time when Charles was using it. The chapter is divided into four parts. In the first part the term ‘resignation’ is introduced and Charles Wesley’s understanding of the word is described. The second part explores the location of resignation in the eighteenth-century historical and spiritual milieu – including an examination of texts which were significant for the spiritual context – the Book of Common Prayer, Richard Allestree’s The Whole Duty of Man, and Lewis Bayly’s The Practice of Piety. The third part looks at five spiritual writers: Thomas à Kempis, Henry Scougal, Jeremy Taylor, William Law, and John Worthington, who are likely to have influenced Charles Wesley’s thinking in relation to resignation. The final part of the chapter examines the use of resignation in John Wesley’s writings and Charles Wesley’s prose writings, and so compares and notes the differences in the use of the term between the brothers. This work therefore refers back to the first chapter, and is a development of it.
