John Wesley and the Methodists

A family of faith

John Wesley (1703–1791) was the fifteenth of nineteen children of Samuel Wesley, the rector of Epworth in Lincolnshire, and his remarkable wife Susanna Wesley. Susanna gave each of her surviving children an hour of individual religious instruction every week. When she held prayer meetings in the rectory kitchen during her husband's absence, they attracted over 200 people. When John was five, the rectory burned down, and he was rescued from an upstairs window at the last moment. He saw himself as "a brand plucked from the burning," saved for a purpose.

The Holy Club

At Oxford, where John became a fellow and was ordained in the Church of England, his younger brother Charles Wesley (1707–1788) formed a small group of earnest students in 1729. John soon became its leader. They met to study the Greek New Testament and the classics, took Communion weekly, fasted twice a week, visited prisoners in Oxford jail, and helped the poor. Other students mocked them as the "Holy Club," "Bible moths" and "Methodists" for their methodical rules for living. The name stuck.

Influenced by devotional writers like William Law, whose Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life was widely read, John sought holiness with all his strength. In 1735 the brothers sailed as missionaries to the new colony of Georgia. It was a disaster. John was rigid and tactless. He fell in love with a young woman, failed to propose, and when she married another man he refused her Communion. Facing lawsuits, he fled back to England in 1737. "I went to America to convert the Indians," he wrote, "but, oh, who shall convert me?"

On the voyage out, he had been deeply impressed by the calm faith of Moravians during a storm (see Pietists and Moravians). In London, a Moravian named Peter Böhler told him he needed a living faith that brought assurance of forgiveness. "Preach faith till you have it," Böhler advised, "and then, because you have it, you will preach faith."

Aldersgate, 24 May 1738

Charles found peace first, on Pentecost Sunday 1738. Three days later, John reluctantly went to a meeting of a religious society in Aldersgate Street, London. Someone was reading Luther's preface to Romans. In his Journal he described what happened: about a quarter before nine, while the reader was describing the change God works in the heart through faith in Christ, John felt his heart "strangely warmed." He felt that he did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation, and an assurance was given him that Christ had taken away his sins.

Aldersgate is remembered as the spiritual birthplace of Methodism. Historians note that Wesley's spiritual struggles continued afterward, and that he later qualified some of his early statements. But the experience gave him the message that would drive his life: salvation by faith, with an Assurance of it given by the Holy Spirit.

Into the fields

Wesley's friend from the Holy Club, George Whitefield (1714–1770), was already a sensational preacher, with a voice that could reach tens of thousands without amplification. Barred from many churches, which distrusted his "enthusiasm," Whitefield began preaching outdoors to coal miners at Kingswood near Bristol in 1739. Tears made white channels down their black faces as they listened. He invited Wesley to take over.

Wesley, a proper Oxford clergyman, was horrified at first. He had thought, he wrote, that saving souls was almost a sin if not done in a church. But on 2 April 1739, he "submitted to be more vile" and preached in a brickyard to about 3,000 people. It was the start of over fifty years of itinerant preaching. Wesley traveled perhaps 250,000 miles, mostly on horseback, reading as he rode. He preached over 40,000 sermons, often at 5 a.m. to workers before their shift. "I look upon all the world as my parish," he declared.

He faced violent mobs, stirred up by local gentry or clergy, who threw stones, rotten eggs and even bulls at Methodist preachers. Wesley's calm courage often won them over.

How Wesley organized the Methodists

The genius of organization

Whitefield was the greater preacher. Wesley was the greater organizer. "I am persuaded the devil himself desires nothing more than this," Wesley wrote, "that the people of any place should be half-awakened and then left to themselves to fall asleep again." So he organized converts into a system:

• Societies met in each town for preaching, prayer and hymn-singing. They were meant to supplement, not replace, the parish church.
• Classes of about twelve people met weekly under a class leader, often a working man or woman. Each member reported on their spiritual progress and gave a penny for the poor. The class meeting was the heart of Methodism.
• Bands were smaller, same-sex groups for deeper mutual confession.
• Lay preachers were appointed by Wesley and moved around "circuits." Wesley even allowed a few women, such as Sarah Crosby and Mary Bosanquet, to preach when they had an "extraordinary call."
• The annual Conference of preachers, starting in 1744, decided policy under Wesley's firm control.

Methodism was intensely practical. Wesley founded schools, dispensaries, loan funds and orphanages, and he wrote cheap books on medicine and health. His sermon on money gave the rule: "Gain all you can, save all you can, give all you can." He lived simply and gave away most of his considerable income. In his last letter, written days before his death in 1791, he encouraged William Wilberforce in his campaign against slavery, which Wesley called "that execrable villainy" (see Saving Souls and Society).

Wesley's theology

Wesley was a theologian of the heart but also a learned Anglican. His key teachings:

• Arminian, not Calvinist: Christ died for all, and God's grace is offered to everyone. "Prevenient grace" enables every person to respond. This led to a painful split in 1741 with Whitefield, who held Calvinist views on predestination, though the two remained friends. Wesley preached Whitefield's funeral sermon.
• Assurance: believers can know they are forgiven through the witness of the Spirit.
• Christian perfection ("entire sanctification"): believers can, by grace, be made perfect in love, free from willful sin in this life. This was controversial, and it later inspired the Holiness movement and, through it, Pentecostalism.
• Means of grace: Wesley insisted on frequent Communion, prayer, Bible reading and fasting. He was more sacramental than many of his followers.

Later Methodists summarized Wesley's method of discernment as Scripture, tradition, reason and experience (the "Wesleyan quadrilateral"), with Scripture primary.

Charles Wesley: the sweet singer

If John gave Methodism its structure, Charles gave it its voice. He wrote over 6,000 hymns, teaching theology through song. Many are still sung worldwide:

• "And Can It Be"
• "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing"
• "Christ the Lord Is Risen Today"
• "O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing"
• "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling"

"Methodism was born in song," the first line of the Methodist hymnbook's preface later said. Singing, together with the hymns of Isaac Watts and others, transformed Protestant worship.

Breaking from the Church of England

Wesley lived and died an Anglican priest. He told Methodists to attend their parish churches and receive Communion there. But Anglican bishops largely rejected the movement. After the American Revolution, the Church of England had no bishops in America, and Methodists there had no one to give them the sacraments. In 1784 Wesley took the drastic step of ordaining preachers himself and appointing Thomas Coke as "superintendent" for America. Coke and Francis Asbury founded the Methodist Episcopal Church that Christmas. Charles was furious. After John's death in 1791, British Methodists also separated, effectively by 1795.

The wider evangelical revival

Methodism was part of a broader Evangelical Revival. Whitefield's Calvinist Methodism had its own network, supported by the aristocratic Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, Countess of Huntingdon, who founded chapels and a college. In Wales, Calvinistic Methodism became the dominant form of Christianity. Within the Church of England, an "Evangelical" party arose. It included John Newton, a former slave-ship captain turned clergyman and author of "Amazing Grace," and later the Clapham Sect (see Saving Souls and Society).

Some historians argue that Methodism helped spare England a revolution like France's, by channeling working-class discontent into religion and self-improvement. Others see its democratic organization and lay leadership as a training ground for trade unions and the labor movement. Both may be true.