The Methodist Church in Britain is to have a new collection of hymns next year. This is important, for, ever since the time of the Wesleys, Methodist belief has been expressed in its hymns.
The great surprise is the strength of the Wesleys' idea of sacrifice in the Sacrament of Holy Communion. They were of course reluctant to give credence to what they saw as the Roman Catholic teaching on sacrifice in the Mass. But the hymns they published in 1745 were accompanied by John Wesley's abridgement of a tract by Daniel Brevint called The Christian Sacrament and Sacrifice (published in 1673).
Wesley chose to include sentences such as: "This Sacrament, by our remembrance, becomes a kind of Sacrifice, whereby we present before God the Father that precious Oblation of His Son once offered." It is hard to think that Cranmer would have been happy with this statement....
