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presented by

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A CRITICAL STUDY OF JOHN WESLEY AS PRACTIClL THINKER AND REFORMER

By

William Ernest Sweetland
fl

AN ABSTRACT

Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies of Michigan
State College of Agriculture and Applied Science
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Division of Social Science

Year 1955

Approved i A/ Q11 L

fl )

T HESIS

 

Mme?“

ABSTRACT

The major purpose of John wesley's ministry was to promote a vital,
practical, dynamic Christianity which would lead ultimately to salvation,
and would in the meantime make life on earth a fuller, richer experience.
The three basic doctrines advocated by him to carry out his purpose were
justification by faith, the new birth, and Christian perfection. True
freedom for man, the primary goal of the eighteenth century, would begin
with his release from the bondage of sin, and the restoration of the soul
to its original purity-~its natural state-~would be accomplished gradually
through following the doctrine of Christian perfection. The person experi-
encing such a change would show his love for God and man by taking an
active part in the religious, social, economic, and political life of his
community.

Wesley's intense interest in practical considerations lead to a failure
on his part to give adequate attention to the more theoretical aspects of
Christianity, and made him impatient with theories of any kind. He was un-
able to appreciate the educational theories of Rousseau, the political
theories of Priestley and Price, and the writings of Montesquieu and
Voltaire, since they did not meet the standards of Scripture, reason, and
experience which were applied by wesley to every problem or activity.

For John wesley individual character and intellect were the prime
movers in human progress, with the desired character and intellect result—

ing from an adherence to wesley‘s basic doctrines and the application of

I

368962

 

his standards to every problem. He felt that involved theology was not
necessary to a proper understanding of Christianity, and might prove to
be a handicap to those attempting to follow his doctrines. The core of
his teachings was his insistence upon a life of purposive activity in
which the individual was the key to a better future both for himself and
his community.

The wesleyan emphasis upon personal experience had a strong appeal,
as the rapid growth of the movement shows. hot so readily apparent, but
equally important, are the inconsistencies in wesley's thought. The most
glaring inconsistency lay in his insistence upon the primary importance
of individual thought and experience, while at the same time he was equally
concerned with conformity to the demands of certain groups. The Church of
England, fer example, was considered by wesley to have means of grace
which were indispensable to salvation. The government of England was, he
thought, the best then in existence, since it gave every individual civil
and religious freedom. Under the wesleyan concept, however, that freedom
was restricted. The freedom desired by wesley was not what the individual's
reason and experience might lead him to expect, but rather freedom to do
what he should want to do, and what they should want was freedom under
the laws of England.

The greatest strength of Wesley's teachings was identical with their
greatest weakness—-his emphasis upon the practical aSpects of Christianity.
His doctrine of Christian perfection was admirably suited to the times,
particularly to the peeple to whom Wesley preached. The decision made

very early in his career that he was going to preach to the poor determined

the level and approach of his teachings. The level was dictated by

the limited understanding of his followers; the approach by their needs.
His greatest strength lay in his ability to satisfy those needs through
an appeal the peOple could understand. His greatest weakness lay in his
belief that actions or knowledge not based upon what he understood to be

reason, experience, and Scripture were not worthy of attention.

A CHITICiL STUDY OF JOHN WESLEY AS PRtCTICAL‘THINKEH AND REFORMER

By

dilliam Ernest Sweetland

i'THESIS

Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies of Michigan
State College of Agriculture and Applied Science
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Division of Social Science

1955

PREFLCH

The mature thought and practice of John Keeley resulted from the
interplay of many influences. The first major influence was that of
his mother, whose teachings served as the basis for much of his thinking
in later life. Charterhouse, Oxford, a Kempis, Taylor, Law, the Hbly
Club, Georgia, and the Moravians all played a part in shaping the in-
tellectual pattern that was to be typical of his mature thought. Wesley's
experience at lldersgate, in which his heart was "strangely warmed",
marked the end of the formative period of his life, for after that time
his major beliefs did not change. For that reason we shall treat the de-
velOpment of his beliefs chronologically from his childhood to 1738, then
discuss his mature thought under the general headings of religion, social
and economic teachings, and his attitude toward political life.

A critical study of John Hesley's major beliefs is long overdue.
Those who have written about fiesley tend to fall into one of two groups:
one is loud in its praise of the practical nature of John Hesley's teach-
ings, which made possible the rebirth of deep religious feeling in an
England that was desperately in need of such a renewal of Spirit; the
other group, while admitting the importance of Wesley's achievements as
an organizer, administrator, and preacher, criticizes the intellectual
sterility and other—worldly emphasis of his teachings. l re-examination
of his major beliefs with the purpose of attempting to show their strengths
and weaknesses is amply justified by the divergent opinions held regarding
them. That is the purpose of this work.

w 5.8.

.“t.“ "J. .‘L‘LJL
A I\"7\ A h A n

ii

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

C HAPTER Page

II A RELIGIOUS LEADER flmrtGmS 26
III "JESLEY'S I-‘IATURE THEOLOGY. . .. ............................. .. 57
IV Tm; soc LIL mu scorch c neLIcnIOI s. or ’xIESLEYlN neomcr. 9h

V JOHN WESLEY AND POLITICAL LIFE. ...... . ..... . ......... . . . 1140

VI JO m: *a’nSLEY as PRACTICAL "I‘HIhth AND REFOM-lhlft — i surmnzr. 17L
APPENDIX:‘s...................... .............. . ........... ..... 185
APPENDIX B ........... . ...................................... . ..... 188

BIBLIOGIGPHY.... ....... . .............. . ...... . ........ .. ........ .. 190

iii

CHAPTER I
THE BRAND PLUCKED FROM THE BURNING

John wesley, the sixteenth child of Samuel and Susanna wesley,
was born June 17, 1703, at Epworth, Lincolnshire, England. He lived
at Epworth only ten and one-half years, yet the influence of his
childhood training there was so strong that it remained with him until
his death in 1791. The tremendous impressions made upon Tesley during
his early childhood were largely the result of two factors; the iso-
lation of Epworth, and the moral and intellectual strength of his
parents.

Epworth.was a town of about two thousand inhabitants when John
wesley was born. It was one of the principal villages on the Isle of
Axholme, an island formed by three rivers; the Trent, the Don, and the
Idle, and their connecting canals. Because of periodic floods the
Isle was inaccessible from the outside world, except by boat, for most
of the year. Travel, consequently, was very slow, difficult, and
uncomfortable. Those who lived on the Isle, including the Hbsleys, had
little contact with the outside world. Except for the three trips made
by Samuel wesley to Convocation in London there is no record of any
extensive travel by either of John Wesley's parents.

The geographic isolation of Epworth parish was in itself a serious

handicap to the proper develOpment of the numerous Wesley children,

 

but there was another and more serious problem. The Wesleys found
themselves isolated socially as a result of the hostility of most of
the local inhabitants.

The enmity of the Islanders had a long and interesting background.
Most of them had for a long time made their living by hunting, fishing,
and working the land that lay above the level of the periodic floods.l
In 1626 Charles I signed an agreement with a Dutch engineer which
threatened their whole way of life. Under the terms of the agreement
the swamps were to be drained, with one-third of the reclaimed land
going to the crown, one-third to the engineer and his friends, who
were French and Dutch Protestants, and one-third to the local inhabi-

2 To the natives it meant losing two—thirds of their land,

tants.
their means of livelihood, and what seemed to them a very satisfactory
way of life. They were convinced that no possible future benefits
could replace their immediate losses, so they determined to fight the
usurpation of their rights and privileges. Every effort made by the
engineers to carry out the project met with fierce resistance. As soon
as a dam was constructed it was destroyed, workers were killed, tools
and equipment stolen or ruined, and ditches filled. Their efforts to

sabotage the work were successful, as shown by the fact that the

project was not completed until after the beginning of the eighteenth

 

*—

1 U. Lee, The Lord's Horsemen (New York: The Century 00., 1928),
p. 3.

 

2 M. Piette, John Wesley in the Evolution of Protestantism
(New York: Sheed and ward, 1937), p. 21h.

 

century. During most of the seventeenth century the inhabitants of

the Isle were at war with the authorities, their hatred being broad
enough to encompass all representatives of the kings who supported

the proposal, as well as those of Cromwell. They fought the engineers,
and the tax-collectors sent by the government officials.1 They seem

to have had an intense hatred for anyone connected with the government,
even though that connection might involve nothing more active than
support of existing governmental policies. In this category were such
peeple as Tory politicians and churchmen.

Samuel Wesley was both a Tory and a churchmen, so the peOple of
Epworth showed their dislike for him and his family frequently and
violently. Twice, in 1702 and 1709, the rectory was set on fire. On
several occasions his crOps were burned, and his three cows were killed
while he was in prison for debt. The only person held in lower esteem
by the people of the Island of ixholme was Nicholas Reading, the tax-
collector, who was forced to fight thirty-one different battles with
the native pOpulation, only to have his house burned down in spite of
all his efforts.2 In such an environment the Wesleys had no alternative
but to make the family as completely self-sufficient as possible.

If the peOple outside the rectory were to remain hostile it meant that

 

1 Ibid., p. 215.

2 Reading and his family were among the few friends the Nesleys
had at Epworth, perhaps because Samuel Wesley may have indicated to
most of his parishioners that they were not his social equals. See
In Tyerman, The Life and Times of Samuel wesley (London: Simpkin,
Marshall and C0,, 1886}, pp. 363-75}

 

the family would have to carry out all the functions now shared jointly
by the home, church, and school. This placed a tremendous burden upon
the parents, so we must look briefly at the backgrounds of the two
people who were to exert so much influence on John wesley.

The Wesleys and the Annesleys, the family of John wesley‘s mother,
had been in England since the time of William the Conqueror,1 and both
families were proud of their heritage. A great deal of that pride was
shown in John wesley's statement that if he were to write the story of
his life he would begin it before he was born.2 He had good reason to
be proud of his ancestry, for, as Fitchett says, "His ancestors for
three generations were gentlefolk by birth, scholars by training, clergyb
men by choice, and martyrs, in a sense, by roughness of fortune."3
His great-grandfather, the Puritan Bartholomew Wesley, studied medicine
and divinity at Oxford, was ordained, then ejected from his parish in
1662 for nonconformity and forced to make his living from the practice
of medicine. Bartholomew's son, the first John wesley, studied
languages at Oxford, but, unlike his father, did not request ordination.
He became the leader of a small group of Christians known as a"gathered
church," and did much work among the fishermen at Hbymouth. In 1658

Cromwell's Triers approved him as pastor of a larger church, and a

 

1 J. H. Overton, John wesleyf(New York: Hbughton Miflin and Co.,
1891), p. 1.

 

2 G. E. Harrison, Son to Susanna (Nashville: Cokesbury Press,

1938), p. 2b.
3

 

4. H. Fitchett, Wesley and His Century (New York: Eaton and
Mains, 1908), p. 13.

 

successful career seemed to be assured. In 1662, however, he was also
ejected for nonconformity. From that time until his death in 1678 he
was almost completely dependent upon his friends for support. Several
times arrested, in hiding for long periods to escape persecution, un-
able to provide properly for his family, he died at the age of forty;
two.1

Samuel Wesley, son of one John Wesley and father of another, was
sixteen years old when his father died. His childhood had been spent
under circumstances which should have made a confirmed dissenter of
him. His grandparents on both sides had been Puritan leaders. He had
been brought up in a dissenting home and had been educated in a dissent-
ing academy. He had seen his father arrested and imprisoned for the
sake of his religious principles. Along with strong religious con-
victions, however, his heritage also included a strong will. While a
student at a Nonconformist academy in London, Samuel Wesley began to
question his beliefs. The reasons for the period of indecision through
which he went are not known. Southey says it was because he fell in
with "bigotted and ferocious men," and saw the worst side of the dis-
senting character.2 A different reason is given by Snell, who says
that Wesley was chosen by the officials of the academy to answer some

bitter attacks against the dissenters, and while writing his reply saw

1
J. Telford, The Life of John Hesley (London: Epworth Press,
192a), pp. 3-6.

 

2 R. Southey, Life of Wesley (London: Oxford University Press,
1925), I, p. 5.

 

the errors in his beliefs.1 Whatever his reasons may have been, Wesley
made up his mind that he preferred the Church of England. With the
quick decision that was typical of him all his life he went to Oxford,
enrolled at Exeter College as a poor scholar, and began his work there
with only two pounds sixteen shillings, and with nothing but his own
ability and ingenuity to count on for any future support.2

Samuel Wesley‘s must be one of the most unique university careers
on record, since upon his graduation he left Oxford with more money
than when he entered, and he had made all but five shillings of it
himself. He must have had a stern sense of duty and an overpowering
will to succeed. A lesser man could not have survived the work schedule
by which he supported himself. In addition to taking care of his own
academic requirements he wrote papers for other students, took care of
his duties as a servitor, acted as a paid tutor for the less able and
ambitious students, and wrote poetry which was published under the
title "Maggotts, or Poems on several subjects never before handled."
In 1688 Samuel Wesley was graduated from Oxford and ordained in the
Church of England.

Susanna Annesley became the bride of Samuel Nesley in 1689. The
Annesleys, like the Wesleys, were prominent Nonconformists, and Susanna,

like Samuel, renounced the religion of her father in favor of the

 

1
F. J. Snell, Wesley and Methodism (New York: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1900), p. 6.

 

2 Southey, Life of Wesley, 1, 6-7.

 

a
Telford, John thley, pp. 7-8.

 

 

Established Church. She was the twenty-fourth child in a family that
was near the center of the controversy between the Nonconformists and
the Church of England. Her father, Dr. Annesley, had been a prominent
man among the Puritans for some years, at one time holding an appoint-
ment to the board of commissioners wtose responsibility was to approve
and admit ministers. The return to power of the Stuarts and the
passage of the Act of Uniformity resulted in his ejection from his
parish on St. Bartholomew's Day in 1662. He then went to London, where
he preached to a dissenting congregation. Susanna Annesley was born
in London in a home where religious problems were discussed freely.
She was reading religious literature and listening to religious argu-
ments at a time when she might better have been playing, or at least
reading something of a lighter nature. at the age of thirteen she very
solemnly considered the merits of Nonconformity and those of the Church
of England, and decided in favor of the latter!1

Samuel and Susanna Wesley were similar in many ways. is Overton
points out, "Both were people of real piety and considerable abilities,
which had been improved by culture; both felt keenly their responsi-
bility in bringing up their numerous offspring in the fear and love of
God; both had thought out the great problem of religion for themselves,
and both had come over to the Church of England at an early age from a

deliberate conviction that it was the more excellent way."2 In 1697

 

1 E. Clarke, Susanna Hesley (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1886),
pp. 16-22.

 

2 Overton, John Tdesley, pp. 1-2.

 

 

they came to the village of Epworth, where they were to remain until
Samuel's death in 1735. It was here that John Hesley was born and
reared, and the groundwork laid for the develOpment of the future
evangelist.

The greatest single influence on the life of John Wesley was with-
out any doubt that of his mother. His letters to her continued from
the time he left home to go to school until her death, and each of them
shows very clearly his affection for her and the high regard he had
for her Opinions. This very remarkable woman bore nineteen children
in twenty-one years, took care of the management of the household, kept
the family and glebe accounts, and yet had time to devote six hours a
day to the education of her children. The only conceivable manner in
which her manifold duties could be carried out was through a strict
scheduling of her time, and Susanne ~esley had a system which she
followed very rigorously. The title, "Mother of Methodism" which has
been given her by her admirers is well-deserved, as shown by the letter
quoted below. The key phrase in the letter is "put into a regular
method of living". The guiding principle in the Operation of the Wesley
household was method, and its importance is readily seen in our com-
paratively brief extract from a very extensive letter. It is one of
the few documentary sources of information on'Wesley's childhood, and
certainly one of the most influential of all his mother's letters on

1
the formation of his ideas. Mrs. Vesley wrote:

 

1 The major points of Jesley's sermon On Educatign are simply
elaborations of the principles set forth by his mother—in this letter.
See J. Hesle , Works of the Rev. John Wesleyj(New York: J. and J.
Harper, 1827 , VIII, 122-32.

 

 

 

Dear Son:

According to your desires, I have collected the principal
rules I observed in educating my family....

The children were always put into a regular method of
living....from their birth; as in dressing, undressing, chang-
ing their linen, &c . . . .

‘When turned a year old (and some before), they were taught
to fear the rod, and to cry softly; by means of which they
escaped an abundance of correction they might otherwise have
had. . . .

In order to form the minds of children, the first thing to
be done is to conquer their will, and bring them to an obedient
temper. To inform the understanding is a work of time, and must
with children proceed with slow degree as they are able to bear
it; but the subjecting a will is a thing that must be done at
once, and the sooner the better....

I insist upon conquering the will of children betimes,
because this is the only strong and rational foundation of a
religious education, without which both precept and example will
be ineffectual. But when this is thoroughly done, then a child
is capable of being governed by the reason and piety of its
parents, till its own understanding comes to maturity, and the
principles of religion have taken root in the mind.

The letter continues with a discussion of some of the methods used
to educate her children.

The children of this family were taught, as soon as they
could speak, the Lord's Prayer....to which, as they grew bigger,
were added a short prayer for their parents, and some collects;

a short catechism, and some portions of Scripture, as their
memories could bear....

None of them were taught to read till they were five years
old....The way of teaching was this: the day before a child
began to learn, the house was set in order, every one‘s work
appointed them, and a charge given that none should come into the
room from nine till twelve, or from two to five; which, you know,
were our school hours. One day was allowed the child wherein to
learn its letters; and each of them did it in that time, he knew
all the letters great and small, except Molly and Nancy, who were
a day and a half before they knew them perfectly....

is soon as they knew the letters, they were first put to
spell, and read one line, then a verse; never leaving till perfect
in their lesson, were it shorter or longer....

 

1 J. Wesley, The Journal of John wesley, ed. N. Curnock (London:
Epworth Press, 19387: III, 3546.

o...

 

10

There was no such thing as loud talking or playing allowed
of, but everyone was kept close to their business for the six
hours of school; and it is almost incredible what a child may
be taught in a quarter of a year, by-a vigorous lapplication, if
it have but tolerable capacity and good health.

The flesley children, especially the three boys, John, Samuel, and
Charles, must have had much more than tolerable capacity, since all
three became very well-known men in England. If the effectiveness of
an educational system is to be measured by the quality of its products
it must be admitted that Susanna flesley did a remarkable job. One might
well disagree with the severity of her methods, but it must be kept in
mind that the wesleys were living under very adverse conditions. There
were nineteen births in twenty-one years, poverty was always near, and
the family was being reared in a hostile environment. Even had the
conditions under which the family was being brought up been different
Mrs. Hesley'probably would have subjected her children to the same sort
of training, since she had a firm conviction that any demonstration of
softness or indulgence toward her children was actually an injustice
to them. She believed that the greatest impediment to temporal and
eternal happiness was self-will, and that the parent who attempted to
master it in his children worked with God in "renewing and saving a
soul."2

Susanna Tfesley's letter to John indicates that she was not interested

in the complete subjection of the will of the child to her own, but

 

 

 

11

rather in teaching them respect for authority, whether that authority
be divine, political, or parental. It is true that there is no indi-
cation of love for her children in the ordinary sense of the term, but
there is another sense in which we may look at her affection for her
children. Being convinced that her obligation was to train her children
not only for life, but also for life hereafter, she bent every effort
toward making them "Christians, scholars, and gentlefolk."1 To her
life was real, and life was earnest, and she could best show her love
for her family by preparing the children as well as possible for the
trials that lay ahead. Their happiness would depend to a great extent
upon whether or not they were able to discipline themselves, and her
educational program was aimed at helping them learn how to do so.

John wesley's childhood was dominated by two ideas concerning his
future: the strong Puritan and Anglican tradition of his ancestors
was thoroughly ingrained into his life and thought by his mother's
system, never to be out of his thinking on any subject, and he was
taught to regard himself as set apart for some divinely appointed task.2
The second of these two ideas had its origin in an almost fatal fire.

Fire played an important part in Wesley's childhood. The year
before his birth his parents had a bitter argument over the succession
to the throne of England. As a result of the argument Samuel called

down a curse upon his wife and children, and left the rectory swearing

1 Fitchett, wesley'and His Century, p. 20.

2 S. G. Dimond, The Psychology of the Methodist Revival (London:
Oxford University Press, 1926), p. Sh.

 

12

that he would never return. For some unknown reason he returned for

a few days, during which the rectory was set on fire, and about two—
thirds of it burned. His curse had come too close to being realized,
so a thoroughly chastened Samuel wesley settled down to another thirty-
three stormy years of married life. The first fruit of the reconcili-
ation was John'Wesley.l Had there been no fire it is possible that
there would have been no John Wesley. On the night of February 9, 1709,
Epworth rectory was burned down. The two previous attempts by fire had
been only partially successful; this time the destruction was complete.
The best description of what happened that night is given in a letter
written by Susanna Wesley to her son Samuel:

The fire broke out about eleven or twelve o'clock at night,
we being all in bed, nor did we perceive it till the roof of
the corn-chamber was burnt through, and the fire fell down on
your sister Hetty's bed....

we had no time to take our clothes, but ran out all naked.
I called to Betty [a servant] to bring the children out of the
nursery: she took up Patty and left Jacky to follow her, but
he, going back to the door and seeing all on fire, ran back
again....Your father carried sister Emily, Sukey, and Patty into
the garden; then missing Jacky, he ran back into the house to
see if he could save him....[he] attempted several times to get
upstairs, but was beat back:by the flames; then he thought him
lost, and commended his soul to God....The child climbed up to a
window and called out to them in the yard; they got up to the
casement and pulled him out just as the roof fell into the
chamber.2

This miraculous escape from death had a marked effect upon both
the mother and the child. The mother wrote in her private meditations,

"I do intend to be more particularly careful of the soul of this child,

 

1”Manchester Guardian Weekly, July 23, 1953, p. 11.

2
Clarke, Susanna Wesley, pp. 96-7.

 

13

that Thou hast so mercifully provided for, than ever I have been, that
I may do my endeavour to instill into his mind the principles of thy
true religion and virtue."1 John later referred to himself as the
"brand plucked from the burning," and regarded his rescue as an indi-
cation that he was the object of a very special providence of God.2
His firm conviction that he had been saved for some divine mission, a
conviction strengthened by his mother, was strong enough to carry him
through many stormy periods of his life, as we shall see.

As a child John Wesley seems to have been an unusually serious-
minded individual. He would do nothing without having first given it
serious consideration, many times arguing with those who had made some
request of him. This habit of arguing so exasperated his father that
on one occasion he said to John, "Child, you think to carry everything
by dint of argument; but you will find how little is ever done in the
world by close reasoning." In another moment of disgust with his son,
Samuel, in a frequently—quoted statement to his wife, said, "I profess,
sweetheart, I think our Jack would not attend to the most pressing
necessities of nature unless he could give a reason for it."3

John's father attempted to check what he considered to be excessive
gravity and serious-mindedness in his son, but his mother encouraged it

in every way. The burning of the rectory interrupted her plans by

 

1 Telford, John Hesley, pp. 19-20.

 

2 See Hesley, Journal, I, 328; and IV, 90.

3 L. Tyerman, Life and Times of John wesley (hth ed; London:
Hodder and Stoughton, 1878), I, 18.

 

1h

making it necessary to place the children in different homes until it
could be rebuilt. In their strange environments the children acquired
language and habits which to the mother were totally undesirable. As
soon as the new rectory was inhabitable she moved the children back
home, and started an even more vigorous program of mental and spiritual
education. Susanna wrote of the new features of the educational
program:
....then was begun the custom of singing psalms at beginning and
leaving school, morning and evening. Then also that of a general
retirement at five o'clock was entered upon, when the oldest took
the youngest that could Speak, and the second the next, to whom
they read the Psalms for the day, and a chapter in the New Testa-
ment; as, in the morning, they were directed to read the Psalms
and a chapter in the Old; after which they went to their private 1
prayers, before they got their breakfast or came into the family.
Every child was taken individually for a talk with his mother each
week, usually in the evening. The effect of these conferences on John
was to encourage his deliberative nature. Many years later he wrote
to his mother, "If you can spare me only that little part of Thursday
evening which you formerly bestowed upon me in another manner. I doubt
not but it would be as useful now for correcting my heart as it was
2
then for forming my judgment."
Any comment on what was discussed at the conferences must be based
upon conjecture, since no records of the conversations exist. It seems

logical to assume, however, that thevaere of a rather serious theo-

logical nature. Susanna wesley had neither the time nor the inclination

 

l desley, Journal, III, 38.

2 J. Wesley, The Letters of John Wesley, 2.. 14., ed.J. Telford

(London: Epworth Press, 1931), I, 119-20.

 

15

to indulge in idle conversation, and there is serious doubt as to
whether John would have listened even had she felt differently about
it. Some indication of the sort of thinking that took up much of her
time was given in her private meditations, of which we do have a
record. There we find such tOpics as these: the twofold and contra-
dictory nature of man; the supreme reality of the unseen and spiritual
world; and the mysterious nature and immeasurable happiness of Infinite
Love.1 It does not seem likely that one who dwelt upon such weighty
matters as these in her private reflections would be any less serious
in discussing religion with her children, particularly John. Both were
conscious of the serious purpose of life, and both considered John to
have been saved from death for some divine mission. was he not, after
all, a brand plucked from the burning? To fulfill her self-imposed
obligation of training her children was Mrs. Wesley's only earthly
ambition, and John was her favorite and most apt student.

There is little disagreement among those who have written on John
wesley as to the importance of his mother in shaping his thinking, but
there is little or no agreement regarding the importance of his father.
The lack of records of desley‘s early years makes the problem of evalu-
ating the father's place in the development of the child extremely
difficult. The available information is capable of widely varying
interpretations. Tyerman, for example, gives a very sympathetic picture

of Samuel Wesley, looking upon him as a great poet, a kind father, and

 

1 Piette, John wesley, p. Sal.

 

 

16

a near-saint.l Harrison goes to the other extreme, characterizing him
as a tyrant who ruined his daughters' lives; a father more concerned
with developing his almost non—existent literary talents than with
trying to help rear his family; a man ambitious for preferment, using
friends only as a means to that end, and discarding them when they
were no longer useful.2

The truth probably lies somewhere between these extreme views.
The man who published Samuel Wesley's early work may have done him a
disservice by encouraging him to continue his literary efforts in spite
I of his lack of skill, still Wesley became important enough among
English writers to be mentioned by Swift and POpe.3 Perhaps his major
claim to fame as a poet lay in the quantity rather than in the quality
of what he produced. He wrote on a great variety of tOpics; elegies
to the queen and the archbishop, the story of the Old and New Testaments
in verse, a Life of Our Lord, Marlborough and his victories at Blenheim,

and his magnus gpus, a work on Job. The last has been called a per—

 

formance which would have supplied a new exercise in patience to that

4
patriarch, had he been required to read it! in even more pointed

 

1 Tyerman, Samuel weslgy, passim. Tyerman is still the standard
biographer of both Samuel and John Wesley, in spite of the fact that
his work is more than seventy-five years old.

 

2 Harrison, Son to Susanna, passim.

 

3 He was sufficiently a minor poet to be worthy of a fatal kick
from Homer's horse in Swift's Battle of the Books. Later, POpe, writing
to Swift, says, "I call him what he is, a learned.man, and I engage you
will approve his prose more than his poetry." W. J. Townsend, H; B.
Wbrkman, and G. anrs, A New History of Methodism (London: Hbdder and
Stoughton, 1909) I, 167.

4 Fitchett, Wesley and His Century, p. 15.

 

 

 

 

17

remark concerning the work was that of BishOp Whrburton, who said,
"Poor Job, it was always his lot to be punished by his friends."1
Along with his literary endeavors Samuel wesley had a great deal
of interest in his parish work, local and national politics, and the
national interests of the Established Church. He was a confirmed High
Churchman who refused to alter his views, even though to do so would
have made his life at Epworth easier. Strict enforcement of canon law
was typical of his parish work. Adulterers, for example, were punished
by making them stand barefooted and wrapped in a white sheet in the
churches of the parish.2 He visited the homes of his parishioners and
inquired into their private affairs.3 He found that the peOple of his
parish were neglecting the christening of their children until the
infants had grown into "big lubberly boys", and attempted to correct
the situation.4 Although wesley felt that he was doing only what any
conscientious priest should do the villagers interpreted his interest
in their Spiritual welfare as unwarranted prying into their private
affairs, and consequently their hatred of him became increasingly

intense.

 

1 Tyerman, Samuel Wesley, p. 380.

 

2 U. Lee, John aesley and Modern Religion (Nashville: Cokesbury
Press, 1936), p. HQ.

 

3 Lee, Lord's Hbrsemen, pp. 9-10.

 

4 F. J. McConnell, Jphn Wesley (New York: Abingdon Press, 1939),
p. lb. Samuel wesley's concept of parish work was the pattern for
that held by John in Georgia. See p. h8.

 

 

18

Politically Samuel Wesley was a Tory, while most of his parishioners
were Whigs. He did nothing to ease the inevitable tension caused by
political differences, but rather worked diligently in behalf of his
party. In the election of 1705 he played a prominent role in the
campaign for the Tory candidate, though he knew that to do so was asking
for retaliation of a violent sort from the peOple of Epworth. His
enemies acted swiftly. They had him imprisoned for debt, and killed
his three cows, after having already burned his flax cr0p the preceding
winter. As though this were not enough, they serenaded the rectory
with "ram's horns and yokel hilarity." Shouting, singing, profanity,
drunkenness - all the aspects of a typical village celebration were
there, but this was no celebration. The Wesleys were hated, and the
villagers wanted them to know it. This unfortunate incident contributed
to the death of the latest lbsley'infant, thus bringing more grief to
an already overburdened rectory.1

High Churchman, poet, active Tory politician, relentless and
conscientious visitor of his parishioners, member of Convocation2 - how
could Samuel Wesley possibly have played an important part in the
educational deveIOpment of his children? The influence he exerted on
his children.was a natural outgrowth of the activities noted above.

He made little effort to take any part in the somewhat formal educational

 

1 Harrison, Son to Susanna, p. 39.

 

2 The Church.Convocation consisted of an Upper House, composed of
the bishops, and a Lower Hbuse, to which'Wesley was elected proctor by
his fellowaclergymen in 1701, 1711, and again some time later. Lee,
John wesley, p. ho.

 

 

19

program of his wife, but rather concentrated on bringing up his
children in his own principles and practices. His hOpe was that he
had trained his children "to a steady Opposition and confederacy against
all,such as are avowed and declared enemies to God and his clergy, and
who deny or disbelieve any articles of natural or revealed religion....
so that he hOpeS they are all staunch High-Church, and for inviolable
passive obedience."l

John Hesley acknowledged his debt to his father for his training
in words that are strikingly similar to those of his father. He said
that he was "an High Churchmen, the son of a High.Churchman, bred up
from my childhood in the highest notions of passive Obedience and non-
resistance."2 The religious training given to the children by the
father was accomplished through influence rather than through any
specific method, but it seems to have been very effective. The rector's
High Church views, which he refused to compromise, were those of John
wesley,'who also refused to alter his views, in Georgia. His Tory
politics were those of John when he condemned the American revolution-
ists. His courage in the face of danger was passed on to his son, as
fully shown by John's long and eventful ministry. The prodigious
amount of writing done by John Wesley is ample evidence of the influence

of the father in that respect.

 

l Tyerman, Samuel wesley, p. h39.

 

2Wesley, Letters, VI, 156.

 

20

The letters written by the father and son to each other are
notable for the mutual affection and respect they show.1 There is no
indication that John considered his father to be either a tyrant or
an inordinately ambitious man.

John Hesley left Epworth when he was about ten and one-half years
of age to attend Charterhouse, one of the public schools. His father
had secured his nomination from the Duke of Buckingham, a long-time
friend of the wesley family. Before following his course there, however,
it would be wise to see just what mental, moral, and religious equipment
the little scholar took with him. ‘What had living in an almost entirely
self-sufficient family environment done for him?

The preparation for life given John wesley by his parents was
exceptionally good. From his father he inherited his love of writing;
from his mother the clearness, directness, and force which characterized
his writing for the rest of his life.2 His mother taught him to live
a systematic and methodical life in which there was a certain period
alloted to each activity, and only the specified time was spent on it.
John'Wesley was a l"methodist" in habit before he left Epworth. The
home in which there was a highly educated mother, father, and elder

brother gave wesley an appreciation for education which never left him.

 

1 See eSpecially Letters, I, pp. 125-8, for a series of letters
between father and son written while John was a student at Oxford.
Samuel wesley gave his son the encouragement he needed to continue his
activities among prisoners, and the assurance that what he was doing
was acceptable to him both.as a father and as a priest of the Church
of England.

2 McConnell, John wesley, 23gb.

 

21

He left Epworth with a deep and abiding respect for his parents and
their principles. High Church religious views and Tory political
views were impressed upon him by both his father and mother. The
determination shown by Wesley's parents in their refusal to compromise
either their religious or political views in order to ingratiate them-
selves with their parishioners was passed on to the son. The major
ambitions of both parents for him - that of Susanna to instill in his
mind the principles of true religion, and that of Samuel to make him

a High Churchman - seemed to be realized.

But the isolation of Epworth parish left its mark on John wesley
in spite of the excellent training of his parents. Dominated by his
mother during most of the formative years of his life, and brought up
with only his sisters for company,1 Hesley was more at ease with women
than with men for the rest of his life. The almost incredible esteem
in which'Wesley held his mother made it impossible for any other women
to gain a strong hold on him, so Wesley's emotional relationships with
women were foredoomed to failure. is long as the attraction was
intellectual, religious, or both, Wesley got along with them very well,
but every time he felt drawn to one for any other reason trouble re-
sulted.

Perhaps the best summary of the effects, both good and bad, of

Epworth on the Hesley children is the following:

 

1 His brother Samuel left home for school when John was about a
year old. Charles was more than four years younger than John.

 

22

A family so able, so thrown on its own resources, so out of
contact with the world, of so imperious a spirit, was almost
bound to deveIOp on exceptional lines. Their virtues and their
strength were as abnormal as their weakness, their singularly
active minds were equally capable of the greatest deeds and the
most surprising mistakes....John, the most gifted of all this
gifted household, was able to transform England by his preaching;
yet made the most astonishing blunders in the conduct of his
private life, though showing a talent for administration worthy
of his celebrated namesake, lrthur Wesley, or Wellesley, Duke of
wellington. In studying the movement [Methodism] we must always
keep Epworth in the background.1

Little is known of John'Wesley during his six years at Charterhouse.
The only specific information of any importance on this period of his
life comes from wesley himself. Writing in 1738, after his conversion,
he says:

The next six or seven years were spent at school: where
outward restraints being removed, I was much more negligent than
ever before, even of outward duties, and almost continually
guilty of outward sins, which I knew to be such, though they were
not scandalous in the eyes of the world. However, I still read
the Scriptures, and said my prayers morning and evening. And
what I hoped now to be saved by, was (1) not being so bad as
other peOple; (2) having still a kindness for religion; and (3)
reading the Bible, going to Church, and saying my prayers.2
Tyerman, in an obvious attempt to highlight wesley's conversion,

interprets this statement as meaning that Wesley, the teen-age boy, was
living in the deepest sin. "Terrible is the danger," he wrote, "when

a child leaves a pious home for a public school. John wesley entered

the Charterhouse a saint, and left it a sinner."3

 

1
F. J. Foakes-Jackson, Social Life in England, 1750-1850
(New York: Macmillan C0,, 1916), pp. 11-12.

 

2Wesley, Journal, I, h6S-6.

3 Tyerman, John Hesley, I, 22.

 

 

. o
I
I Z I
. - y ‘
n
. .

....

 

23

Hesleyg the mature man, was writing, almost twenty years after he
had left Charterhouse, about the boy Wesley who left home at the age
of ten and one-half to go to Charterhouse. it the time he wrote he
undoubtedly had a strong feeling of guilt over his transgressions, but
how serious were they? There is no way of knowing, since Wesley's
statement that he was "almost continually guilty of outward sins" dur-
ing his experience at Charterhouse is the only evidence available. It
seems likely that he went through a period of mild reaction against
the very stern atmosphere under which he had been reared at Epworth.

i teen-age boy, away from home for the first time, who still read his
Bible, went to Church, and said his prayers could hardly be classified
as a sinner to the degree that Tyerman implies.

While at Charterhouse Wesley'studied "grammar, composition, the
reading of Greek and Latin authors, and enough history and geography
to understand what those authors wrote. Latin themes and Latin verses,
Greek iambics, repetitions from Virgil, Horace, and the Greek grammar,
declamations and speeches and map-drawing"1 occupied much of his time.
He seems to have done well academically, in spite of the bullying,
drinking, and misconduct that were prevalent in the schools,2 includ-
ing Charterhouse, at that time. Upon completion of his preparatory
work there he was elected a scholar to Christ Church College, Oxford,

with a grant of about forty pounds a year.

 

1 a. S. Turberville, ed., Johnson's England (Oxford: Clarendon

Press, 1933), II, 220.

 

2 Ibid., 219-20.

 

2b

John Wesley's educational experience up to the time of his gradu-
ation from Charterhouse had been very similar to that of most other
students who had the Opportunity to go to an English public school.
The strong emphasis upon classical education at Charterhouse was typi-
cal of the century, and its influence upon Wesley is clearly shown in
the curriculum he devised for his own schools.l Aside from this
interest in classical works Charterhouse seems not to have had any
marked influence on wesley.

As an undergraduate at Oxford wesley was described by one of his
contemporaries as a "very sensible and acute collegian, baffling every
man by the subtleties of logic; a young fellow of the finest classical
taste; gay and sprightly, with a turn for wit and humour".2 Wesley
wrote of his undergraduate days in an entirely different vein;

I still said my prayers in public and in private, and read,

with the Scriptures, several other books of religion....Yet I

had not all this while so much as a notion of inward holiness;

nay, went on habitually, and for the most part contentedly, in

some or other known sin.3

Once again it must be noted that Wesley was writing after his
conversion, and that he was certainly more conscious of his shortcomings

in 1738 than he had been in l72h. He was actually a hard-working,

4
scholarly student, who planned his time with a thoroughness that would

 

1 See Appendisz.

2 Overton, John Mosley, pp. 11-12.

 

3 Wesley, Journal, I, hbé.

4 C. E. Mallet, A History of the University of Oxford (London:
Methuen and C0,, Ltd., 19271, III, 111.

25

have delighted his mother. There is no evidence of any spiritual growth
during his stay at Charterhouse, or in his first years at Oxford, but

it seems unreasonable to expect that such growth should have taken
place.. He had left Epworth with religious training far more intensive
than should have been given such a youngster; that his training stood

up as well as it did was a tribute to the intelligence and perseverance
of his parents.

Although John Wesley felt that his early years at Oxford had not
been profitably spent they marked the beginning of his deveIOpment into
one of the most important religious leaders of his century. The founda-
tion for that development had been laid at Epworth, and Charterhouse
had broadened its scope by bringing Wesley into contact with the finest
classical writers. we must now turn to a study of the influences that

were brought to bear upon him during his long career at Oxford.

CHAPTER II
A RELIGIOUS LEADER EMERGES

John Wesley‘s activities as an undergraduate at Oxford gave no
indication that he was to become one of the outstanding religious
leaders of eighteenth century England. Even tknugh he did not fall
victim to the vices that were prevalent in the universities of his day,1
neither did he show unusual interest in religious affairs. Much of his
time was spent in playing tennis, reading light literature, walking,
acting, seeing his tutors, reading in the coffee-house, and other
normal pursuits of a young university student.2

wesley had not completely forgotten his home training, however.

His first diary, which he began to keep with regularity in 1721, con-
tains a strong reminder of the methodicity of his childhood. In it he
drew up a strict plan by which his life was to be ordered. The subjects
he wanted to study, a daily schedule of activities, and the order in
which he planned to write to his relatives were included in his plan.3

Also included in the diary were "collections" of all the Odes,

4 sufficient evidence of both

Epodes, Satires, and Epistles of Horace,

 

1 See Mallet, Oxford, III, 22-32 and h7-9, and G. M. Trevelyan,
En lish Social History (London: Longmans, Green and Co., l9h2), pp.
3 -

2 Wesley, Journal, I, 20.
3 Ibid., 115—6.
4 Ibid., in.

 

27

his love for scholarly work and the influence of Charterhouse upon him.
Unfortunately, however,‘Wesley was never able to discipline himself,
either at Oxford or in later life, to stick to one subject long enough
to master it. His intelligence must therefore be measured in terms of
breadth rather than depth. His diaries and journals tell of much read-
ing in a wide variety of fields,1 but nowhere is there any evidence of
detailed study in a restricted area. He was content to read and
"collect" books, which meant taking notes and extracts from them, and
writing an analysis of each of them.

Perhaps the most significant aspect of Wesley's training at Oxford
was that there was no aim or purpose beyond that Of graduation. His
interest in the classics resulting from his experience at Charterhouse,
and his methodical nature, interest in reading, and love for argumen-
tation resulting from his training at home were interests that were
intensified at Oxford, but which failed to give any direction to his
life. The year following his graduation from Oxford, 1725, was the
first in which any great change is evident in his attitudes or habits,
and none of the factors involved in the change is traceable to either
of the schools he had attended. In that year heeley read a Kempis and
Jeremy Taylor. In the following year he was elected Fellow of Lincoln
College, Oxford. These three events mark the beginning of what might
be called the period Of‘wesley's awakening, a period of thirteen years

of inner conflict which was finally resolved by his experience at

 

1 Ibid., 65-6.

 

28

Aldersgate in 1738. It is that period with which we are concerned in
this chapter.

One might assume that, because of the home training he had received,
John Wesley was interested in becoming a clergyman from his very early
childhood, but there is no evidence to support such an assumption. is
we have seen, his undergraduate days at Oxford were days of drifting
along with no set purpose or goal. The idea of taking holy-Orders does
not seem to have occurred to him until 1725, and, being a dutiful son,
he wrote of his intentions to his parents. Samuel Wesley at first dis-
couraged his son, fearing that he was looking for an easy life. He told
John that his motive for entering the ministry must not be merely to
gain a livelihood, but to "work for the glory of God and the good of
man." In order to carry out these purposes it would be necessary for
him to apply himself to the study of the Scripture in the original
languages.1

a letter from his mother strongly endorsed John's choice of vo-
cation, a choice she had already indicated in a letter to him five
months earlier.2 In response to his letter she wrote, "I approve the
disposition of your mind, and think the sooner you are a deacon the
better; because it may be an inducement to greater application in the

study of practical divinity, which I humbly conceive is the best study

1 Piette, John Wesley, p. 2h6.

 

2 In her earlier letter she had written, "I heartily wish you
were in orders, and could come and serve as one of your father's
curates. Then I could see you often, and could be more helpful to you
than it is possible to be at this distance," Tyerman, John Wesley,

I, 27. -

 

29

for candidates for orders".1 Hesley followed his mother's advice, as
usual, and concentrated on the study of practical divinity.

John wesley was ordained deacon by Bishop Potter of Oxford in
September, 1725, and three years later received his priestly orders,
thus beginning an affiliation with the Church of England that was not
to be broken until his death in 1791. Under his parents' influence,
he was at this time a High Churchman, a position described by Hallam
as being "distinguished by great pretensions to sacerdotal power, both
temporal and spiritual, by a repugnance to toleration, and by a firm
adherence to the Tory principle in the state."2 His political High
Churchmanship remained firm, with one brief exception, during his long
preaching career;3 his religious convictions were to go through a
gradual transformation which had already started before he became a
priest.

The primary reason for the first change in.wesley's religious
thinking was his friendship with Betty Kirkham, the sister of one of
his college friends. She introduced him to two authors whose works were
to make a profound impression upon him. wesley, writing in 1738, said
of the first, Thomas a Kempis,

When I was about twenty-two my father pressed me to enter

into holy orders. it the same time, the providence of God
directing me to Kempis's Christian Pattern, I began to see that /

 

1 Ibid., 32.

2 Quoted by J. 3. Simon, John wesley and the Religious Societies
(London: Epworth Press, 1921), p. h9.

 

3 See pp. 15h-7.

3O

true religion was seated in the heart, and that God's law ex-
tended to all our thoughts as well as words and actions. I was,
however, very angry at Kempis for being too strict.,..Yet I had
frequently much sensible comfort in reading him, such as I was
an utter stranger to before; and meeting likewise with a religi-
ous friend, which I never had till now, I began to alter the
whole form of my conversation and to set in earnest upon a new
life. I set apart an hour or two a day for religious retire-
ment. I communicated every week. I watched against all sin,
whether in word or deed. I began to aim at, and pray for, inward
holiness. So that now, doing so much, and living so good a life,
I doubted not but I was a good Christian.1
This more serious attitude taken by Hesley resulted in a period
of inner conflict. The young collegian found it difficult to accept
a Kempis' teachings in regard to humility, and conversations with
Miss Kirkham failed to resolve his problem. He finally wrote to his
parents, stating his objections to a Kempis, and asking them to give
him their opinions. In this case it was the father who made the sounder
observation, saying, "Notwithstanding all his superstition and enthusiasm
(Samuel Wesley was truly a High Churchmanl), it is almost impossible to
peruse him seriously, without admiring, and in some measure imitating,
2
his heroic strains of humility and piety and devotion." John must
have accepted his father's evaluation, for in writing many years later
of the religious influences that had shaped his thinking he gave
a Kempis credit for having taught him "inward religion, simplicity of

a
religion, and purity of affection."

 

1 Wesley, Journal, I, b66-7.
2 Tyerman, fighn Wesle , I, 35.

3 Wesley, Works, VI, 385.

 

31

The major points of difference between himself and a Kempis were
described by wesley in a letter to his mother:

I can't think that when God sent us into the world He had
irreversibly decreed that we should be perpetually miserable in
it. If it be so, the very endeavour after happiness in this
life is a sin; as it is acting in direct contradiction to the
very design of our creation. What are become of all the inno-
cent comforts and pleasures of life, if it is the intent of our
Creator that we should never taste them?...

Another of his tenets, which is indeed a natural consequence
of this, is that all mirth is vain and useless, if not sinful.

But why, then, does the Psalmist so often exhort us to rejoice in

the Lord and tell us that it becomes the just to be joyful?1

Mrs. wesley's reply reveals that she was also guilty of misinter-
preting a Kempis. She wrote, "I have a Kempis by me; but have not read
him lately. I cannot recollect the passages you mention; but, believing
you do him justice, I do positively aver that he is extremely in the
wrong in that impious...suggestion that God...has determined any man to
be miserable, even in this world."2 It may have been that both wesley
and his mother misunderstood what they read, but it is more likely that
Mrs. Wesley was not sufficiently familiar with the work to make critical
judgments, and that'wesley was reluctant to accept the full responsi-
bilities of Christianity as outlined by a Kempis. For that reason he
drew an unnecessarily harsh interpretation from his study. It should
be remembered that John wesley was a nyoung Oxford graduate, in love

with life, adjusting his religious outlook, and reluctant to surrender

his own belief that happiness was completely compatible with Christian

 

1 Hesley, Letters, I, 16.

2 wesley, Journal, I, 16.

32

‘ duty."l It should also be noted that this was the first major distrac-

tion wesley's home training in religion had faced. There had been a
relaxation in the rigidity with which he had carried out his mother's
teachings, but there had not been, up to 1725, any major modification
of the tone of his religious life. His piety had been what might be
called child piety, a "purely imitative thing, impressed on the life
from without by force of discipline, the result of domestic training,
but without any vital and spiritual root."2 Wesley's study of the
Imitation was the first major step in the transition from his childhood
religion to his mature theology.

Shortly after he had read the Imitation Wesley's attention was

 

directed toward Jeremy Taylor's Holy Living and Dying. One immediate
reaction produced by the work was flesley's resolution to "take a more
exact account than I had done before of the manner wherein I spent every
hour."3 In his Diary there are three sets of Rules and Resolutions,
which are simply condensations of some of Taylor's rules.4 wesley‘s

Twelve Rules of a Helper, drawn up for the guidance of his willing but

 

United Societies show very clearly the lasting influence of Taylor

 

1 1 J. B. Green, John Wesley and William Law (London: Epworth
1 Press, 1915), p. 27.

 

2 Fitchett, wesley and His Century, p. 5h.
3 wesley, Journal, I, h2.

4 Ibid., u7-50.

ignorant converts in the early days of Methodism, and his Rules of the
\
\
\
\

33

on Methodism . 1

As was the case with a Kempis, however, there was one element of
Taylor's teaching which Wesley could not accept. The letter in which
he explained his reasons for not accepting Taylor's view of humility
will be quoted at length, since it illustrates‘wesley's Arminianism,
a belief which made it impossible for him to follow Taylor in this
case. His letter, written to his mother, said, in part,

....where he treats of humility, these, among others, he
makes necessary parts of that virtue:

Love to be little esteemed, and be content to be slighted

or undervalued .

Take no content in praise when it is offered thee....

we must be sure in some sense or other to think ourselves

the worst in every company where we come....

A true penitent must all the days of his life pray for

pardon and never think the work completed till he dies.

Whether God has forgiven us or no we know not, therefore

still be sorrowful for ever having sinned.

I take the more notice of the last sentence, because it
seems to contradict his own words....where he says, that by the
Lord's Supper all members are united one to another, and to
Christ the head: the Holy Ghost confers on us the graces we pray
for....Now, surely these graces are not of so little force that
we can't perceive whether we have them or not: if we dwell in
Christ and Christ in us, certainly we must be sensible of it.
If we can never have any certainty of our being in a state of
Asalvation, good reason it is that every moment should be Spent
not in joy but fear and trembling; and then undoubtedly in this
life WE ARE of all men most miserable!

Humility is undoubtedly necessary to salvation; and if all
these things are necessary to humility, who can be humble, who
can be saved?2

 

 

1 Ibid., 51. For his Rules of the United Societies see irvbrks, IV,
3h5-7, in which a society is defined as r'a company of men, having the
form, and seeking the power of godliness: united, in order to pray to-
gether, to receive the word of exhortation, and to watch over one
another in love, that they may help each other to work out their salva-
tion." The implication here, and one that is clear throughout Wesleyan
theology, is that every man can be saved.

2 wesley, Letters, I, 19-20. Underlining mine.

3h

is this letter indicates, hbsley was beginning to find his way
toward his doctrine of justification, but as yet he had only a vague
notion of the faith by which a sinner is justified. Wésley was sure,
even at this early stage in his religious development, that man knows’
when he is justified - that man through experience is aware of being
saved through faith in Christ - but the nature of the faith which made
it possible was the problem that Wesley was attempting to solve from
1725 to 1738.

The correSpondence between wesley and his mother concerning Taylor
is too lengthy to be quoted here, but its importance to the development
of his mature theology cannot be overestimated.1 Her views on hwmility
and predestination, expressed during this time in opposition to the
views of Taylor, were to be those of John Wesley during his entire
career.

In 1726 Hesley was elected Fellow of Lincoln College, thus becoming
free for the first time in his life from financial worries. The future
looked bright to him at that time. He had plenty of leisure to do the
reading he liked so well,2 to indulge his inclinations toward religious
meditation, and to mingle socially with the other Fellows, whom he had

found to be "both well—natured and wellabred."3

 

1 See wesley, Letters, I, 18-23, Tyerman, John weslgy, I, 35-hl,
and Piette, John Wesley, pp. 253-61 for valuable information on this
correspondence.

 

 

2 In the simeonth period following his ordination Wesley read
incessantly; He read extensively from Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and
French works, and works on theolOgy, church history, and devotional
literature. In secular fields he read from such authors as Locke,
Horace, Virgil, Berkeley, and.Milton, wesley, Journal, I, 65-6.

3‘Wesley, Letters, I, 30.

35

The new Fellow was appointed Greek Lecturer and.Moderator of the
Classes. The primary purpose of the Greek lectures, given weekly,
was to give religious instruction to tie students. The only subject
discussed was the Greek Testament, and the lectures were delivered in ’
Greek. His duty as moderator was to preside over the disputations,
which.were held every day except Sunday. The disputations were designed
to give the participants practice in the use of logic. A thesis was
proposed, then arguments were made either supporting or attacking the
thesis. The moderator was to listen to the arguments, choose the
victor, and make a critical analysis of the disputation. wesley‘s love
for argumentation, encouraged by his mother, and sharpened at Charter-
house and Oxford, became even stronger as a result of his experience
as a moderator.

The extensive reading done by Wesley in 1726 included the newly-
published works of William Law, the third and last of the authors whose
works were influential in shaping his theology. Wesley said of Law's
influence,

....Mr. Law's Christian Perfection and Serious Call con-
vinced me more than ever of the exceeding height and breadth

and depth of the law of God. The light flowed in so mightily

upon my soul, that everything appeared in a neW'view....and by

my continued endeavour to keep His whole law, inward and out-

ward, to the utmost of my power, I was persuaded that I should

be accepted of Him, and that I was even then in a state of sal-

vation.1

Keeping the whole of God's law and trying to be a whole Christian «

were virtually synonymous terms for John Hesley in 1726. The works of

 

1 wesley, Journal, I, h67.

 

36

a Kempis, Taylor, and Law had convinced him that his earlier concept of
a joyful religion was wrong. He set up a rigid program which included

a certain amount of time for prayer and meditation, study periods, and
some time for recreation. Under the influence of Taylor he was attempt-
ing to follow very rigid sets of rules and resolutions. Both a Kempis
and Law had led him to examine his inner self. His introspection during
this period verged upon mysticism. Every Saturday night he read his
rules and resolutions, reviewed all the activities of the preceding
week, and subjected himself to an almost merciless self-examination.l
The only remedy he could find when he failed to carry out one of his
rules was to make another.2 Religion to John Wesley in the period from
1726 to 1729 was a fearful thing.

From 1727 to 1729 wesley was his father's curate at Wroot, a liv-
ing which had been given to Samuel Wesley in 1722., It was an unattrac-
tive place, wesley's sister regarding the peOple as "dull as asses and
impervious as stones",3 but wesley found leisure to do the things he
liked. His work there was threefold: he preached, read prayers, and
attended to the duties of the two parishes; he wrote new sermons for
his father; he assisted his father in preparing his work on Job for
publication.4 His ministry during this period is well summarized by

Piette:

 

1933., 3u-5.

2 mag, 51.

3 Mallet, szgrd, III, 113.
4 wesley, Journal, I, 70.

37

He performed his duties with.punctiliousness which distin-

guished him in all his pastoral charges; he preached a sermon

twice every Sunday, said the prayers, visited the sick and buried

the dead. He spared neither his parishioners or his own efforts.

He faithfully followed the path which his father had trod for

thirty years with unswerving zeal and with as constant a lack of

success. To sum up: the center of John's religious life, up to

the present, is much more himself than his neighbor. During

these two solitary years in the marshy stretches of Lincolnshire,

and in company with his favorite spiritual authors, his thoughts

were more particularly and especially concentrated upon his own

spiritual and inner life.1

Wesley's concern for his spiritual welfare was so intense that it
seems likely he would have been content to remain in his isolated parish
indefinitely, at least until he had thought his way through his religious
problems. Some credit for turning him away from his excessive intro-
spection must be given to a life-long friend of the family, Mr. Hoole,
who told'wesley, "Sir, you wish to serve God and go to heaven? Remember
that you cannot serve him alone. You.must therefore find companions
or make them; the Bible knows nothing of solitary religion."2 This is
probably the first time John Wesley had heard of the idea of Christian
fellowship as an essential part of religious experience. He makes no
reference to it in listing the influence of the teachings of his mother,

a Kempis, Taylor, or Law, and prior to this time had not considered its

importance.3

1 Piette, John wesley, p. 271.
2 wesley, Journal, I, h69.

3 He had, in fact, gone to the other extreme. He wrote in 1727
that he was "so little at present in love with even.companyy...that
unless they have a peculiar turn of thought I am much better pleased
without them. I think 'tis the settled temper of my soul that I should
prefer such a retirement as would seclude me from all the world."
wesley, Letters, I, h2.

38

In 1729 wesley was recalled to Oxford. Upon his return he found
that his brother Charles and several other students had formed a club
which met for study and devotions. John joined the group, and because
of his age, learning, and experience soon became its leader. The
activities of the group were described by Wesley in a letter written
in 1732:

In November 1729, your son, my brother, myself, and one more
agreed to Spend three or four evenings in a week together. Our
design was to read over the classics, which we had read before in
private, on common nights, and on Sunday some book in divinity.

In the summer following, Mr. Morgan told me he had called at the
jail....and that from the talk he had with one of the debtors, he
verily believed it would do much good if anyone would be at the
pains of now and then speaking with them....on the 2hth of August,
1730, my brother and I walked with him to the Castle. We were so
well satisfied with our conversations there, that we decided to

go thither once or twice a week; which we had not done long, before
he desired me to go with him to see a poor woman in the town who
was sick. In this employment we believed it would be worth while
to spend an hour or two in the week....1

In spite of the opposition encountered by the club in its efforts

to carry out its purposes the members

....still continued to sit together as usual; and to confirm
one another, as well as we could, in our resolutions, to communi-
cate as often as we Led.opportunity (which is here once a week);
and do what service we could to our acquaintances, the prisoners,
and two or three poor families in town.2

 

1 This marks the actual beginning of Wesley's charitable and
evangelistic work. Two influences brought it about: the friend who
warned him against a solitary religion, and the example set by William
Morgan“ A letter from his father in September, 1730, encouraged hhm
to continue the work of the Holy Club, for, "when I was an undergraduate
at Oxford I visited those in the castle there, and reflect on it with
great satisfaction to this day." This was several months after Morgan
had started the Keeleys on this work. Ibid., l2h-S.

2 Ibid., 127-8.

39

In addition to the activities outlined above the club regularly
observed the "fasts of the Church, the general neglect of which we can
by no means apprehend to be a lawful excuse for neglecting them."

Their methodical Observance of the rituals and laws of the Church
and the University made the members of the little group the objects of
ridicule.2 Their detractors called them the Holy Club, Godly Club, The
Enthusiasts, The Reforming Club, The Sacramentarians:3 and the name
that rapidly became the most pOpular, the Methodists. Oxford in the
early eighteenth century was no place to show unusual interest in any-
thing of a serious nature!

wesley and his friends decided to draw up a list of questions
which they would ask their critics, in the belief that anyone thinking
seriously about the questions would be led to see the good in what the
group was trying to do. we shall quote from the questions at length,
since they illustrate very clearly the influences which had been brought
to bear on Wesley, and the line of thought that was later to bring about
the formation of the Methodist Societies. Among the questions were
these:

Whether it does not concern all men of all conditions to
imitate Him who went about doing good?

 

1 Ibid., 132.

2 Hesley wrote that the Methodists were at this time "all tenacious
of order to the last degree, and observant, for conscience' sake, of
every rule of the Church, and every statute, both of the university, and
of their respective colleges. They were all orthodox at every point;
firmly believing, not only the three creeds, but whatsoever they judged
to be the doctrine of the Church of England, as contained in her Articles
and Homilies." Wesley, Works, VI, 108.

3 wesley, Letters, I, 126-7.

hO

whether we shall not be more happy hereafter, the more good
we do now?

Whether we can be happy at all hereafter, unless we have fed
the hungry, clothed the naked, visited those that are sick and in
prison; and made all those actions subservient to a higher purpose,
even the saving of souls from death?

Whether we may not try to convince our acquaintances of the
necessity of being Christians?...Scholars?

Whether of the necessity of method.and industry, in order to
either learning or virtue?

Whether if we know of any necessitous family, we may not give
them a little food, clothes, or physio, as they want?

Whether we may not enforce upon them more especially the
necessity of private prayer and of frequenting the church and the
sacrament?

dhether we may not take care that they be taught.their cate-
chism and short prayers for morning and evening?1

Their work was given the approval of the Bishop of Oxford in 1730,2
but student opposition to them was undiminished. A marked difference
of opinion regarding the activities of the group is still in existence,
one modern authority believing that

The means they employed were what most ages would have called
purely beneficient; never, one might have supposed, did any revival
lay itself so little open to adverse criticism. There was no vul-
garity, no sensational appeal to the emotions of large and excit-
able audiences — in Oxford, at any rate....They were diligent in
religious observance; they fasted with the over-asceticism of a
new enthusiasm; they started schools for the poor, they relieved
the sick, they visited prisoners in jail. And they were consist-
ently and uninterruptedly derided, abused, even punished. The
mass of undergraduate opinion would have none of Methodism....

The hostility of Oxford to the mhsleyan movement, in its fully
develOped activity, is easy enough to understand. It is less easy
at first sight to account for the intolerance of 1730; yet it was
not out of keeping with the formalism and party bitterness of that
rather inexcusable period.3

 

1 Ibid., 128-9

2 Ibid., 126.

3 1, D. Godley, Oxford in the Eighteenth Century (New York:

G. P. Putnam's Sons, 19087: pp. 356-9.

111

a radically different picture of the activities of the Oxford
club, or Methodists, is given by another writer:

In this club they practised austerities of outrageous pro-
portions, which resulted in one member's death. They denied
themselves food and sleep, and at night they prostrated themselves
for hours in the winter frost. They spent their days in prisons
and pest houses. This~way of life attracted great notoriety, but
it brought wesley no sense of salvation.1

The most famous member of the group, next to the Wesleys, was
George Whitefield, who joined them in 1733. In his Jgurnal Whitefield
records his actions shortly after having joined the Methodists as

follows:

Whole days and weeks have I spent lying prostrate on the
ground and begging freedom from those proud hellish thoughts....
Having no one to show me a better way, I thought to get peace and
purity by outward austerities....I began to leave off eating
fruits and such like, and gave the money I usually spent in that
way to the poor....I fasted twice a week. My apparel was mean.

I thought it unbecoming for a penitent to have his hair powdered.
I wore woollen gloves, a patched gown and dirty shoes, and there-
fore looked upon myself as very humble.2

Whitefield's excesses were not characteristic of the group as a
whole, however. He seems to have lacked restraint, particularly at this
time, and Spent much of his time trying to attain personal salvation.
Although the other members of the group fasted, gave much of their
income to the poor, and spent much time visiting those who were sick

1 J. H. Plumb, England in the Eighteenth Century (Harmondsworth:
Penguin, 1950), p. 92. Plumb has reference to the death of William
Morgan, one of the original members of the Holy Club. wesley denied
the charge that fasting brought on his death, since Morgan had "left
off fasting about a year and an half since" wesley, Letters, I, 123.

2 Quoted by i. D. Belden, George Whitefield the Awakener (New York:
The Macmillan Co., 1953), p. 21.

h2

and in prison,1 there is no record of any member except Whitefield in-
dulging in outrageous austerities. It would seem that the severe critic
of the group had particular reference to Whitefield.

although w'esley was busily trying to follow Taylor's rules, the
High Church tendencies he had learned at Epworth, his mother's
methodical life, a Kempis' and Law's concepts of holiness, and the Holy
Club's charitable efforts, he was not happy. His major difficulty lay
in the fact that he was trying to follow two paths to salvation -
mysticism and ritualism - and from neither of them, or both, could he
gain any assurance of salvation. Religion to him, in l73h, was "not the
bare saying over so many prayers, morning and evening, in public or in
private; not anything superadded now and then to a careless or worldly
life; but a constant ruling habit of soul, a renewal of our minds in
the image of God, a recovery of the divine likeness, a still-increasing
conformity of heart and life to the pattern of our most holy Redeemer."2

The religion thus described by Wesley would lead to hate for the
person following it by those who did not. "The hated are all that are
not of this world, that are born again in the knowledge and love of God:
the haters are all that are of this world, that know not God so as to
love Him with all their strength." It was necessary that a man be hated,
since "until he be thus contemned, no man is in a state of salvation."

The contempt of the world would help the believer by cleansing him of

 

1 Wesley, Letters, I, 129.

2 Ibid., 152,

b3

pride, serving as an antidote against vanity, healing the anger and
impatience of spirit, and purifying his soul for heaven.1 This reaction
to the influences of a Kempis and Law was intensified by the contempt
in which the Methodists were held by their fellow-students at Oxford,
and it made Wesley's problem of arriving at a solution to his religious
difficulties a very serious one. He was trying to live out of the
world in that he felt all true Christians must be hated by the worldly
majority, while at the same time he was trying to live in the world in
that he was spending much of his time in charitable activities and in
active participation in the affairs of the University and the Church.
The tension brought on by these conflicts in his thinking needed to be
released, and there was little chance that the opportunity to do so
would come at Oxford. Fortunately, it was at this time that Oglethorpe
invited Wesley'to accompany him to Georgia, where Wesley'was to minister
to the colonists and the Indians in their immediate neighborhood.
wesley joined the fifth company of colonists to settle in Georgia.
The first settlers had been men imprisoned for debt whose release had
been secured by Oglethorpe during his vigorous campaign for prison
reform. He felt that they should have a chance for rehabilitation in
a new setting, and that a colony established in Georgia in which the
debtors would be subject to strong religious influences and strict dis-
cipline would help both England and the colonists. Financial support

for the scheme came from Parliament and private sources, making it

 

1 Ibid., 176-7.

bb

possible to begin colonization in 1732, when about 120 peOple, mostly
debtors, sailed for Georgia. In 1733 some refugee Protestants from
Salzburg went to join them, to be followed a year later by more
Salzburgers and a number of Scotch Presbyterian Highlanders. The spirit—
ual care of the Germans and Scotsmen was in the hands of their own
ministers, while that of the English colonists was undertaken by a clergy-
man who proved unequal to the task. Oglethorpe's invitation to wesley
l

was the result of the incapacity of this clergyman.

Strong spiritual leadership was a vital necessity if the purposes
for which Georgia had been settled were to be carried out, but why did
John Hesley'undertake to provide that leadership? Why should one who
was by temperament and training not suited to the task choose to go to
the frontier colony? wesley provides the answer in a letter written in
October, 1735:

My chief motive, to which all the rest are subordinate, is

the hepe of saving my own soul. I hOpe to learn the true sense

of the gospel of Christ by preaching it to the heathen. They

have no comments to construe away the text; no vain philOSOphy to

corrupt it; no luxurious, sensual, covetous, ambitious expounders

to soften its unpleasing truths, to reconcile earthly-mindedness

and faith, the spirit of Christ and the spirit of the world.

They have no party, no interest to serve, and are therefore fit

to receive the Gospel in its simplicity. They are as little

children, humble, willing to learn, and eager to do the will of

God....By these, therefore, I hope to learn the purity of that

faith which was once delivered to the saints.2

Oxford, which only ten months earlier had been so attractive to

Mesley that he had turned down his father's plea that he succeed him

 

1 Simon, Religious Societies, p. 109.

 

2 Wesley, Letters, I, 188.

hS

1
at Epworth, had lost its appeal. He had evidently lost hope that he

would be able to find salvation there, for he said, "I cannot hope to
attain to the same degree of holiness here which I may find there
(Georgia)."2

The prospect of going to Georgia became even more inviting when
it seemed to offer an opportunity to keep at least part of the Method-
ists together. They could, perhaps, even found a truly primitive
church in a new country far removed from their enemies.3 The primary
consideration in wesley's decision to go to Georgia was his own salva-
tion, however. He had tried many other methods of gaining salvation
without success, and was now ready to try a completely new approach to
his problem.

wesley's trip to Georgia was under the Sponsorship of the Society
for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. The Society was
chartered in 1701, largely as a result of a trip to America made by

Thomas Bray, who had already played a major part in the formation of

 

1 it Oxford Wesley had "the continual presence of useful and un-
interrupted freedom from trifling acquaintance....freedom from care....
From all this I conclude that where I am most holy myself, there I
could most promote holiness in others; and consequently that I could
more promote it here than in any other place under heaven....Here is
room for charity in all its forms....here are tender minds to be formed
and strengthened, and babes in Christ to be instructed and perfected in
all useful learning. Of these in particular we must observe that he
who gains only one does thereby as much service to the world as he
could do in a parish in a lifetime, for his name is legion; in him are
contained all those who shall be converted by him." Ibid., 169-73.

2 Ibid., 190.
3 Six.members of the group planned to go, and four, John and

Charles Nesley, Ingham, and Delamotte, actually went. Mesley, Journal,
I, 106.

b6

the Society for the Preservation of Christian Knowledge. Bray found
that there was an insufficient number of ministers in America, and
that some colonies had been "in a manner abandoned to atheism." He
urged the necessity "of sending out to America at least forty mission-
aries, good, experienced, active, and well-informed men." His report
brought about the formation of the Society, which was supported by the
gifts of private subscribers.1
Having been appointed a missionary by the trustees of the Society,
Hesley was under the requirement of acting in accordance with the in-
structions given to its missionaries. These instructions help to
explain his actions in Georgia, but they were such that they would be
readily and whole-heartedly supported by him. Had wesley written them
he could not have come closer to putting in writing the manner in which
he would have proceeded. They required, in part, that on shipboard the
missionaries
....demean themselves not only inoffensively and prudently
but so as to become remarkable examples of piety and virtue to
the ships company. They were to prevail with the captain or
commander to have morning and evening prayer said daily; as also
preaching and catechizing every Lord's day, and to instruct,
exhort, admonish, and reprove as they have occasion and Oppor-
tunity, with such seriousness and prudence as may gain them
reputation and authority....The Society directed them to acquaint
themselves thoroughly with the doctrine of the Church of England,
as contained in the articles and homilies; its worship and dis-
cipline, and rules for the behaviour of the clergy as contained

in the liturgy and canons....The missionaries were expressly
directed to duly consider the qualifications of those adult

 

1 c. J. Abbey, The English Church and Its Bishops, 1700-1800,
(London: Longmans, Green.& 00., 1887) I, 8h-S. Mr. Bray later helped
in the education of the Georgia colonists by sending books for use in
the schools there.

h?

persons to whom they administer baptism, and of those likewise
whom they admit to the Lord's Supper.1

Armed with his conviction that the trip to Georgia would help
to solve his religious problems, and with the belief that the instruc-
tions of the Society were the only rules he needed to govern his re-
lationships with his new parishioners, John Wesley left England
December 10, 1735, and returned February 1, 1738. Probably no mission—
ary ever set sail for foreign shores with a less realistic attitude
toward the problems that lay ahead, and certainly few have returned
from their chosen area of work more bitterly frustrated. Much of this
frustration was due to his interference in the private affairs of those
with whom he came into contact. One incident is especially illuminat-
ing:

I endeavored to reconcile Mrs. Moore and Mrs. Lawley with

Mrs. Hawkins, with whom they had had a sharp quarrel. I thought

it was effected; but the next day showed the contrary, both

Mrs. Moore, Mrs. Lawley, and their husbands being so angry at

me, that they resolved....never to be at prayers more.2

He openly discussed one person's affairs with others, thus causing
more dissension.3 The heretofore sheltered Oxford don had a great deal
to learn, and circumstances rapidly presented him the opportunity to
learn through bitter experience.

wesley's aims in Georgia, aside from that of attaining holiness,

were to bring about a "spiritual awakening, to see persons open,

 

1 Simon, Religious Societies, p. 11h.

2 wesley, Journal, I, 33.

3 Ibid. , 135-6.

LB

seriously affected, convinced, zealous concerning inward and outward
holiness. He desired the orderly observance of worship, the continuous
nurture of Christian life, and the practice of religion according to
the example of the ancient Church and the rubrics of the Edw. VI Book
of Common Prayer."1 It was extremely unfortunate that wesley had not
learned that even the noblest of aims must be adjusted to the situation
in which one is trying to achieve them. The rough colonists in Georgia
were not prepared for the sort of religious guidance he brought them,
and he was neither willing nor able to change his methods of religious
instruction. His insistence upon observing the rubrics of the Edw. VI
l5h9 Book of Common Prayer, even to the triple immersion in baptism
which had been omitted in the 1552 revision,2 led him to refuse to
perform any other kind of baptismal ceremony, and created much hostility
against him.

The failure of his parishioners to react favorably to his ministry
was a great disappointment to John Wesley, but an even greater blOW'WaS
his experience with the Indians. He found that they were not the child-
like searchers for Christianity he had thought them to be.

They are likewise all, except perhaps the Choctaws, gluttons,
drunkards, thieves, dissemblers, liars. They are implacable, un-
merciful; murderers of their own children - it being a common
thing for a son to shoot his father or mother because they are old

and past labour, and for a women to procure abortion, or to throw
her child in the next river....Indeed, husbands, strictly speaking,

 

1 Ibid., 213n.

2 For changes in baptism in the 1552 revision see W. K. Lowther
Clarke, ed., Liturg and Worship (London: Society for Promoting
Christian Knowledge, 1950), pp._h22-h.

 

b9

they have none; for any man leaves his wife (so-called) at pleasure,
who frequently, in return, cuts the throats of all the children
she has had by him.1

In spite of all the adversities he encountered wesley learned a
gpreat deal that was to be of practical value to him in his evangelistic
career. For the first time he was closely associated with peOple of a
ctifferent class, and he learned something of their likes and dislikes.
lie was no more successful than his father in his parish work, and for
1nsry'nearly the same reasons, but at least he learned that, to be ef-
fective, a religious appeal to the poor must be based upon something
nuxre than intellect and method.2 In an effort to overcome the sterility
(If his ministry wesley resorted to methods which were reminiscent of
lIis Epworth and Oxford days, and he unwittingly used Georgia as a proving-
ground for much that was typical of early Methodism. Curnock, editor
of Hesley‘s Journal, says of the Georgia experience,

The crowning achievement was the slow'moulding of the

Methodist system. The circuit, the society, the itinerant minis-

try, the class-meeting, the band-meeting, the lovefeast; leaders

and lay assistants; extempore preaching and prayer; and even the
building of a meeting house, - all this, and much else in the

form and spirit of early Methodism, came to John wesley in
Georgia.3

1 Wbsley, Journal, I, h07. Compare this description with that on
pp.hh-5, written before he left England.

2 The reaction of one parishioner to vesley's methods is interest-
ing. He said, "we are Protestants; but as for you, we cannot tell what
religion you are of. we never heard of such a.religion before; we know
not what to make of it." Overton, John :esley, p. 51. is Overton
points out, the peeple could have found "what religion he was of" by

looking in their Prayer Books, but most of them seem not to have been
interested in doing so.

 

3 wesley, Journal, I, h26.

50

For a time Mesley worked as secretary to Oglethorpe, and, in this
capacity, had an opportunity to observe the methods of a man who was
able to use the sound, common-sense approach to everybday'problems
which Wesley needed. is a result of watching Oglethorpe, a man of very
high ideals, work with and for peOple of all economic and social levels
wesley gained a valuable insight into how a Christian could work in the
world.

The theolOgy of John Wesley was most influenced in Georgia by a
group he had not expected to meet - the Moravians. A number of them
were on the ship on which he left England, and the impression they made
on him is shown by the number of times they appear in his Journal and
Diaries. An entry dated January 25, 1736, is most significant, for it
illustrates what wesley from this time on considered to have been his
greatest weakness up to the time of his conversion in 1738 - his lack
of faith. 0n the day this entry was made the ship was in the midst of
the third storm it had encountered in ten days. The Moravians were just
beginning their service, when

....the sea broke over, split the mainsail in pieces, covered
the ship, and poured in between decks, as if the great deep had
already swallowed us up. A terrible screaming began among the

English. The Genmans calmly sang on. I asked one of them after-

wards, "Was you not afraid?" He answered, "I thank God, no."

I asked, "But were not your women and children afraid?" He replied

mildly, "No, our women and children are not afraid to die."

From them I went to their crying, trembling neighbours, and
found myself enabled to speak with them in boldness and to point
out to them the difference in the hour of trial between him that

feareth God and him that feareth him not....This was the most glori-
our day which I have hitherto seen.

 

Ibid., lh2-3. Curnock, editor of the Journal, believes that
"the student who traces the sequence of events will see that the storm
was one of the crucial facts in the history of early'Methodism. "

51

The contrast between the Moravians and the English convinced
1
wesley, who had been badly frightened by the storms, that the Moravians
had faith which he lacked. He was so attracted to them that he learned
German in order to converse with them, and only four days after landing
in America went to see Mr. Spangenburg, the leader of the Moravians.
The conversation, though short, was disturbing to Wesley. He had gone
to get some advice as to his own conduct, but Spangenburg told him that
he could not give him any advice until he had asked him some questions.
Spangenburg asked,
"Do you know yourself? Have you the witness within yourself?
Does the Spirit of God bear witness with your spirit that you are
a child of God?"
I was surprised and knew not what to answer. He observed it
and asked,
"Do you know Jesus Christ?"
I paused and said, "I know He is the Savior of the world."
"True," replied he, "but do you know He has saved you?"
I answered, "I hope He has died to save me."
He only added, "Do you know yourself?"
I said, "I do." But I fear they were vain words.2
Both men were left in a state of confusion by this strange conver-
sation, with Spangenburg wondering how deep the Christianity of wesley
was, and with wesley trying to understand a doctrine which would not
become clear to him until about two years later. Wesley's doctrine of
assurance was in the making, although he was not yet aware of it.

One other incident involving the.Moravians deserves attention.

wesley and his friends seem to have had the idea of founding a primitive

 

1 Ibid., 138, lhO, 1L1.

2 Ibid., 151.

52

church in Georgia, a hope soon shattered by conditions in the colony,
but the Moravians furnished them with an example of what'wesley thought
such a church should be. Shortly after his arrival in Georgia he was
invited to attend a service in which the Moravian church in Georgia was
to be established officially through the election and ordination of a
bishop. In the meeting the Moravians,
After several hours Spent in conference and prayer, proceeded
to the election and ordination of a bishop. The great simplicity,
as well as the solemnity, of the whole, almost made me forget the
seventeen hundred years between, and imagine myself in one of
those assemblies where form and state were not, but Paul the tent-
maker or Peter the fisherman presided, yet with the demonstration
of the Spirit and of power.1
Wesley had now seen three "demonstrations of the Spirit" by the
Moravians, and from this time on the desire for an intimate personal
relationship with God through Christ, a direct witness of the spirit,
became almost an obsession with him.

wesley's return to England, hastened by charges brought against
him in Savannah as a result of his strict application of the instructions
of the Society, was that of a frustrated man. Everything that he had
set out to accomplish seemed to have ended in failure. The brightest
spots during his two year trip had been his contacts with.the Moravians,
so it was natural that he should turn to them for aid and comfort as
soon as he got to London.

On February 7, 1738, only six days after he landed in England,

wesley'met Peter Bohler, a Moravian who was to exert the last major

 

’- Ibid., 170.

 

53

influence upon him. Bohler was on his way to Georgia and Carolina,

where he was to serve as a missionary. Wesley, still convinced that

he lacked faith, and that the Moravians could help him find it, "did
1

not willingly lose an opportunity of conversing with him." wesley‘s

Journal records a very significant meeting at Oxford, when

....Peter Bohler, by whom (in the hand of the great God) I
was, on Sunday the 5th, clearly convinced of unbelief, of the
want of that faith.whereby alone we are saved.2

Immediately it struck:my mind, "Lay off preaching. wa
can you preach to others, who have not faith yourself?"

I asked Bohler....He answered, "By no means....Preach faith
till you have it; and then because you have it, you will preach
faith."3
But wesley'was not yet ready to go all the way with.Bohler's con-

cept of faith. He needed proof - something more than Bohler's word.
He agreed that the nature of faith was "a sure trust and confidence
which man hath in God, that through the merits of Christ his sins are
forgiven and he reconciled to the favor of God," and in the "happiness

4
and holiness" that resulted from this faith. The major point of
difference between wesley and Bohler was concerned with the instantaneous

nature of conversion. Wesley could not accept the idea that a person

could "at once be changed from darkness to light." His recourse was

 

1 Ibid., b37.

2 wesley did not mean to imply here that he had not been aware of
his lack of faith. He had expressed this lack:many times before, no
where more forcibly than in a review of his spiritual growth.up to the
time he returned from Georgia. See Ibid., h2h.

3 Ibid., M2.

4 _I_b__1__c_1_.,h5h.

Sh

to search the Bible, which to his "utter astonishment" showed that
there were few evidences of any other kind of conversion than what
might be called instantaneous. Still unwilling to accept Bohler's
idea, wesley claimed that times had changed, and that he had no way
of knowing that God still worked in the same way. Bohler's answer was~
to bring four of his Moravian brethren to wesley, and they convinced
him that they had experienced such a change.1 The effect of this
revelation on Wesley was tremendous. He wrote that he was
....now thoroughly convinced; and I resolved to seek it
[faith] unto the end, (1) By absolutely renouncing all dependence,
in whole or in part, upon my own works or righteousness; on which
I had really grounded my hape of salvation, though I knew it not,
from my youth up; (2) by adding to the constant use of all the

other means of graceé continual prayer for this very thing, justi-
fying, saving faith.

 

From this time on wesley-was free of the mysticism which had been

encouraged by his study of a Kempis and Law.3 The incompatibility of

1 Wesley, works, VIII, 181.
2 wesley, Journal, I, h72. Underlining mine.

3 Mysticism is used here in the sense in which'wesley understood
it. He wrote of a contemplative man who "in several conversations in—
structed me how to pursue inward holiness, or a union of the soul with
God....I cannot but now observe (1) that he spoke so incautiously
against trustin in outward works that he discouraged me from doing
them at all; (2% that he recommended mental prayer, and the like exer-
cises, as the most effectual means of purifying the soul and uniting it
with God....

In this refined way of trusting to my own works and my own right-
eousness (so zealously inculcated by the Mystic writers), I dragged on
heavily...." Wbsley, Journal, I, h67-8.

The essence of mysticism for wesley'was a dependence upon a per-
sonal union with God which made unnecessary any means of grace beside
faith. The emphasis of the mystic writers upon inward holiness at the
expense of outward holiness seemed to him to leave out the necessity
for the Church, and to rob Christianity of its vitality by denying the
necessity for the love of man.

55

mystic beliefs and his attachment to the Church of England became
apparent to him, and even though the mystics seemed to offer a way of
attaining an intimate personal relationship with God they left out some
of the essentials of religion. He criticized

....the Mystic writers, whose noble descriptions of union
with God and internal religion made everything else appear mean,
flat, and insipid. But in truth they made good works appear so
too; yea, and faith itself, and what not? These gave me an
entirely new view of religion....But alas, it was nothing like
that religion which Christ and His apostles lived and taught.

.,..all the other enemies of Christianity are triflers; the
mystics are the most dangerous of its enemies. They stab it in
the vitals; and its most serious professors are most likely to
fall by them.1

All that remained to prepare Wesley for the role he was to play

in eighteenth century English life was for him to experience the thing

 

for which he had been seeking - the assurance that he was a son of God. . i
On May 1h, 1738, at Aldersgate in London,
About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the
change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I ‘
felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, \
Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that
he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law
of sin and death.2
we have attempted to trace the major influences on the thought of
John Wesley up to the time his career as a religious leader may be said
to have started. The product of the isolated parish at Epworth had

become a mature individual with fixed beliefs which were the result of

a thirteen year period of physical, intellectual, and emotional turmoil.

 

1 Ibid., Mo.

2 Ibido , 11:75-60

 

56

lb had been exposed to influences which were in some cases diametrically
opposed to each other, and had found it necessary to arrive at some

sort of compromise between them. He had entered the period of stress

in 1725 with a completely unrealistic idea of how religion should be
taught, and had seen his idea changed by his experiences. At the end

of the period, marked by his conversion in 1738, he had, through experi-
ence, arrived at a clear concept of what his fundamental religious

beliefs should be, and he was ready to preach these beliefs.

 

C HAPTER III

WESLEY'S MATURE THEOLOGY

The theology of John Wesley was a reflection of all the major
influences that had been brought to bear on him up to the time of his
experience at Aldersgate in 1738. There were revisions of a minor
character after that time, but Wesley consistently refused to alter
what he considered to be his most basic beliefs. The purpose of this
chapter is to discuss those basic beliefs, their sources, and the
background in which they evolved.

John Wesley made no attempt to build a systematic theological
structure, since he had no need to do so. Reared in an Anglican home,
educated in Anglican schools, and ordained in the Anglican Church, he
had available a system of theology which he greatly admired. As we
shall see, his teachings were based upon his concept of what the Book
of Common Prayer, the Articles, and the Homilies of the Church of
England implied. The primary difference between his ministry and that
current in the pulpits of the time was one of emphasis.

The major emphasis in'Wesley4s theology was the result of the
need he saw for the revival of true religion in England, a need for a
religion the people could live rather than one which was primarily
concerned with the observance of ritual. The aim of his life was

clearly stated in a letter to a friend, in which he said, "I have one

 

 

58

point in view ~ to promote, so far as I am able, vital, practical
religion; and by the grace of God to beget, preserve, and increase the
life of God in the souls of men."1 But wesley‘s conviction that it
was necessary to salvation to remain in the Church of England never
changed. In 1789, just two years before his death, he wrote, "Unless
I see more reason for it than I ever yet saw, I will not leave the
Church of England as by law established while the breath of God is
still in.my nostrils."2 The vital, practical religion he sought to
promote was to be attained within the framework of the Established
Church - a clear indication that wesley considered the clergy to be
remiss in its duties to the Church and its members. This feeling of
Wesley's was so strong that in 1733, five years before his so~called
conversion, he preached a sermon at Oxford in which he characterized
those who followed the prevailing type of orthodoxy as "almost
Christians."a

Religious thought in England during the formative stages of John
‘Wesley's career was dominated by the influence of John Locke, whose

....Reasonableness of Christianity was the starting point

of two movements, the latitudinarianism that became for a while
the prevalent tone of the Established Church, though not of

 

1 wesley, Letters, III, 192
2 Ibid., VIII, 1h3.

3 The almost Christians were guilty of leaving love of God, love
of man, and faith out of their lives. It is very significant that in
defining faith in this sermon Wesley quoted the Hbmily on the Salvation
of Mankind. J. wesley, The Standard Sermons of John'wesley, ed. E. H.
Sugden (London: Epworth Press, 1951), I, 53-67.

 

59

Methodism; and the English Deistic movement, which all respect-
able peOple regarded askance.1

The Latitudinarian concept of religion is best illustrated by the
attitude of Archbishop Tillotson, the dominant influence in the Anglican
church of the eighteenth century, for whom Christianity was "the best
and holiest, the wisest and most reasonable religion in the world; all
the precepts of it are reasonable and wise, requiring such duties of us
as are suitable to the light of nature, and do approve themselves to
the best reason of mankind." His answer to the infidelity of the period
was "to slow the unreasonableness of atheism and scoffing at religion."2
His preaching was ”little more than a prudential morality, based rather
on reason than on revelation, and appealing directly to sober common
sense."3 ArchbishOp Sharp, who became Archbishop of York in the year
Tillotson died, echoed the attitude of his contemporary in his statement
that "the Church of England is undoubtedly both as to doctrine and
worship the purest church that is at this day in the world: the most
orthodox in faith, the freest on the one hand from idolatry and super-
stition, and on the other hand from freakishness and enthusiasm, of any

4
now extant."

 

1 Trevelyan, English Social History, p. 35b.

 

3 c. J. Abbey and J. H. Overton, The English Church in the
Eighteenth.Century (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1907), pp. 118-9.

 

 

3 Trevelyan, English Social History, p. 357.

 

4 Turberville, Johnson‘s England, I, 15.

 

Rationalist orthodoxy, under the influence of Locke and Tillotson,
was, in the first half of the eighteenth century, engaged in a struggle
with English deism. Since deism also had its origins in the teachings
of Locke it was almost inevitable that there should be some similarities
in the beliefs of the opposing groups, and that the controversy should
lame "a line of demarcation which was shifting and uncertain."1 There
existed between them a kinship which was more significant than any
differences. The hostility they felt for each other was not the re-
sult of disagreement over religious belief or ethical ideas, but the
difference in their concepts of the place of the church organization and
its authorities.2

English deism began, late in the seventeenth century, as an
intellectual system, with the aim of removing all the supernatural
aspects from religion. The early deists attempted to banish the
mysteries, miracles, and secrets from religion by exposing Christianity
to the "light of knowledge," but as they were succeeded by later deists
there was a definite change in the attitudes and aims of the group.

The intellectual approach was replaced by one emphasizing the use of
practical reason, with its corollary emphasis upon finding answers to

existing moral problems.3 The deists, whether of the earlier or later

 

1 L. Stephen, History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century
(New York: Peter Smith, 1939), I, 89.

 

2 A. c. M'Giffert, Protestant Thought Before Kant (New York:
C. Scribner's Sons, l9h2), p. 229.

 

a E. Cassirer, The Philosophy of the Enlightenment (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1951), pp. l7léh.

 

61

type, were severely handicapped in their struggle with rational ortho-
doxy in that they were opposed by the strongest intellects in England,
while they had little effective support for their own views.1

The English deists, faced by an orthodoxy in which there was a
strong admixture of rationalism, found that their opposition was much
more formidable than the persecution by church and state faced by deists
on the continent. In England the rational Protestant - rational ortho-
doxy - could meet the deist halfway, "and, forced to defend themselves
by reason, the orthodox party won a triumph in argument as conclusive
as might be expected from their learning and ability."2

The triumph of rational orthodoxy over the deists was followed by

a new danger, represented by the sceptics, of whom Hume was the most

 

important figure. Hume's attack on the concept of human nature held by
the deists - that there is a human nature which is everywhere the same -
was successful in driving deism from its remaining hold on English
thought, but at the same time it broke down, to a considerable extent,
the authority of the entire rational school, including rational ortho—
doxy. The vitality of religious life in the last half of the eighteenth
century was the result of the activity of an entirely different group,

the evangelicals.3

 

1 Stephen includes among the champions of orthodoxy such varied
intellects as Locke, Berkeley, Clarke, Butler, Warburton, Law, Addison,
and Swift, while deism gained support from only a few lesser lights
such as Collins, Toland, and Tindal. Stephen, English Thought, I, 86-7.

2 Ibid., 89-90.

3 M'Giffert, Protestant Thought, pp. 231—2, ;

62

Wesley had little use for rational orthodoxy, deism, or the
sceptics. His attitude toward rational orthodoxy is well illustrated
in his plea to the deists to 'Go on, gentlemen, and prosper. Shame
these nominal Christians out of that poor superstition which they call ’
Christianity. Reason, rally, laugh them out of their dead empty forms,
void of spirit, of faith, of love. Convince them that such mean
pageantry is absolutely unworthy...."1 But the deists were equally
guilty of leaving something vital out of religion. Their natural
religion was not enough, since it offered man no means of escape from
sin. Such beliefs as Tindal's, that "religious duties neither need
nor can receive any stronger proof than what they have already from

the evidence of right reason," and that "miracles and prophecies, and

 

all particular religious rites and beliefs are mere superstitions,"
were enough to make him feel that the deists were "assured heirs of
damnation."2 Hume, the most outstanding of the sceptics, was dismissed
as the "most insolent despiser of truth and virtue that ever appeared
in the world."3

The religious beliefs of John Wesley matured against this back-
ground of rationalism, both deistic and orthodox, in religion, and it
was against the rationalism in the Church of England that he spent
much of his time preaching. The origins of his dissatisfaction with

the prevailing religious tone of the period are somewhat difficult to

 

1 wesley, Letters, II, 386.

w
\
l
2 Wesley, gournal, I, 356. 1
3 Ibid., v, hSB.

 

63

trace. The religious training he received at Epworth was notable for
the emphasis placed upon reason, and Wesley seems to have been a boy
who was unusually concerned about thinking things through before taking
any action. His father's interest in research and writing encouraged
him to work along the same lines. His conviction that reason without

a strong personal belief in the Atonement was not enough does not ap-
pear until after he had come into contact with the writings of a Kempis,
Law, and Taylor. They convinced him that religion must be a vital,

personal thing which must be experienced by each believer, This belief

 

was joined by Wesley to his strong affection for the Church of England
and her rites and sacraments, and remained the basis for his thinking
for the rest of his career.

There was as yet, however, nothing unique in the beliefs or teach-
ings of John Wesley. Other Anglican clergymen who believed as he did
were able to remain within the Church, take care of their parish duties,
and help to bring about the Spread of the evangelical movement by their
example and writings.

John wesley differed from the Anglican Evangelicals primarily in
his concept of the scope of his work. While they were content to work
within the boundaries of a parish he found it necessary to take the
whole world for his parish. There were several reasons for his attitude
toward parochial work, the most significant of which was the unfortunate
example set by his father. Wesley wrote somewhat bitterly of his father's
lack of success, illustrating his account with a story of a parishioner

at Epworth;

 

6b

My father, visiting one of his parishioners, who had never
missed going to church for forty years, then lying on his death-
bed, asked hhm, "Thomas, where do you think your soul will go?"
"Soul, Soul," said Thomas. "Yes, do you not know where your
soul is?" "Aye, surely," said he: "Why, it is a little bone
in the back, that lives longer than the rest of his body." So
much.Thomas had learned by constantly hearing sermons, yea, and
exceedingly good sermons, for forty'years.1
By far the most important reasons for wesley's attitude toward

the restrictions of parish work were the reaction to his preaching by

the orthodox clergy and laity, and the failure of the Established Church
to readjust to the rapidly changing social and economic conditions of

the eighteenth century. Before discussing these very significant reasons
for the character of wesley's ministry we must examine the major emphases
of his teachings.

The central theme of Wesley's teachings was salvation, which he
considered to be the only valid goal for man. The three primary doc-
trines he advocated to enable man to attain this salvation were justifi-
cation by faith, the new birth, and Christian perfection. Each was an
essential step in the path to salvation, and all were directed toward
carrying out his aim of promoting a vital, practical religion.

wesley‘s doctrine of justification by faith was the result of a
fusion of the High Church Arminianism of Epworth rectory and the influ-
ence of the Moravians. Samuel wesley believed that no man could perform
an "action properly and perfectly acceptable to God by his own natural

abilities, abstracted from the assistance of God's spirit, but by His

common assistance he may pray, abstain from sin, and practice duty;

 

1 wesley, WOrks, IV, 370.

65

and, if he continues in these good actions, he will have still more aid,
and go on to perfection."1 Every man had within him the prevenient
grace which made it possible for him to go on and gain more grace, if
only he would take advantage of all the means of attaining that addi-
tional grace. This, for Samuel and John wesley, meant that the believer
must take a full part in the rites and sacraments of the Church of
England.

Susanna wesley's views on justification appear in a letter written
in response to a request by John for her advice. She wrote,

Since I find you have some scruples concerning our article,
Of Predestination, I will tell you my thoughts of the matter.

The doctrine of predestination, as held by the rigid Calvin-
ists, is very shocking, and ought to be abhorred, because it
directly charges the most high God with being the author of sin....
It is certainly inconsistent with the justice and goodness of God
to lay any man under either a physical or moral necessity of commit-
ting sin, and then to punish him for doing it.

I firmly believe that God, from eternity, has elected some to
eternal life; but then I humbly conceive that this election is
founded on his foreknowledge....He justifies them, absolves them
from the guilt of all their sins, and acknowledged them as just and
righteous persons, through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ.

The contribution of the Moravians to Wesley's doctrine of justifi-
cation by faith was to convince him of the necessity for each believer
actually to experience justification, that is, for each believer to be

intensely conscious of Christ's saving power working within him.

1 Lee, John sealey, pp. 126-7. Samuel wesley's statement is taken
from the article 6f Freewill, which states that "The condition of man
after the fall of Adam is such, that he cannot turn and prepare himself,
by his own natural strength and good works, to faith, and calling upon
God: 'Wherefore we have no power to do good works pleasant and accept-
able to God, without the grace of God by Christ preventing us, that we
may have a good will, and working with us, when we have that good will."
E. c. 3. Gibson, The Thirty-Nine articles (London: Methuen and 00.,
1897), p. 378.

2 Tyerman, John Wesley, I, ho.

 

 

 

66

One other influence on the formation of the Wesleyan concept of
justification should be noted. ‘Wesley'wrote that

The book which, next to the Holy Scripture, was of the great-
est use to them [the Methodists], in settling their judgment as
to the grand point of justification by faith, was the book of
Homilies. They were never clearly convinced, that we are justified
by faith alone, till they carefully consulted these, and compared
them-with the Sacred Writings...particularlyRomans.1

The Hemily to which wesley referred was probably the Homily of
Salvation, since there is a great similarity between it and the wesleyan
doctrine of justification.

Faith doth not shut out repentance, hope, love, dread, and
the fear of God, to be joined with faith in every man that is
justified; but it shutteth them out from the office of justifying.
So that, although they be all present together in him that is
justified, yet they justify not all together. Nor that faith also
doth not shut out the_justice of our good works, necessarily to be
done afterward of duty towards God (for we are most bounded to
serve God in doing good deeds commanded by him in his holy Scripture
all the days of our life7; but it excludeth them so that we may not
do them to this intent, to be made good by doing of them. For all
the good works that we can do be imperfect, and therefore not able
to deserve our justification; but our justification doth come freely,
by the mere mercy of God....2

 

The inability of man to merit justification by his own actions was
the basis of Anglican articles concerning justification, and, conse-
quently, the basis for Wesley's belief.

The Wesleyan doctrine of justification was dependent upon the

acceptance of a belief in original sin, and it was at this point that

 

1 Tp’esley’ 1ficl‘kS, VII, 216.

2 Gibson, Thirty-Nine Articles, p. hOY, Underlining mine. It was
the lack of emphasis on good works by the Moravians that led to wesley‘s
break with them. One of the strongest features of wesley's societies
was their interest in good works of all kinds.

 

67

Hesley went well beyond the articles of the Church. The article 0f
Original or Birth Sin holds that original sin

....is the fault and corruption of the nature of every man,
that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam, whereby
man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his
own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth always
contrary to the spirit, and therefore in every person born into
this world, it deserveth God's wrath and damnation.1

The article speaks of original righteousness, but there is no
attempt to define it. Wesley, however, gave a detailed description of
man in his original state. He was

....after the likeness of his Creator, endued with under-
standing,2 a capacity of apprehending whatever objects were brought
before it, and of judging concerning them. He was endued with a
will, exerting itself in various affections and passions: and
lastly, with liberty, or freedom of choice, without which endowment
all the rest would have been in vain.

His understanding was perfect in its kind: capable of appre-
hending all things clearly, and judging concerning them according
to truth, without any mixture of error. His will had no wrong bias
of any sort, but all his passions and affections were regular,
being steadily and uniformly guided by the dictates of his unerring
understanding....His liberty likewise was guided wholly by his
understanding: he chose or refused, according to its direction.
Above all....he was a creature capable of God; capable of knowing,
loving, and obeying his Creator....This was the supreme perfection
of man....From this right state and right use of all his faculties,
his happiness naturally flowed.é

From this perfect state man fell, but Wesley, in keeping with the
wording of the article, said, "That all men are liable to these penalties

for Adam's sin alone I do not assert; but they are so, for their own

 

1 Ibid., p. 357.

2 wesley used the terms reason and understanding synonymously. At
one time he advised his readers to "Set aside that ambiguous term (reason):
exchange it for the plain word understanding." Wesley, hbrks, VI, 25b.

3 Ibid., 253.

68

outward and inward sins, which, through their own fault, spring from
the infection of their nature."1 Once again, however, Wesley went
beyond the spirit of the article. In its statement that man is "inclined
to evil" the article follows a moderate course, but Wesley went to the
extreme in picturing the depravity of man. In a sermon on original sin
wesley said that
....all men are conceived in sin and shapen in wickedness -

that hence there is in every man a carnal mind, which is enmity

against God; which is not, cannot be, subject to His law; and

which so infects the whole soul, that there dwelleth in him, in

his flesh, in his natural state, no good thing; but every imagi-

nation of the thoughts of his heart is evil, only evil, and that

continually,2

This Calvinistic concept of the evil nature of man seems to have
been used by wesley primarily as a means of awakening men to their hOpe-
less condition regarding salvation, since it always serves as an intro-
duction to the possibility of salvation for all men through faith in the
sacrifice of Christ. In his Short History of Methodism Wesley emphasized
the fact that justification by faith always implies three things: that
men are all, by nature, dead in sin, and consequently, children of wrath;

that they are justified by faith alone; and that faith produces inward

s
and outward holiness.

 

1 Wesley, Sermons, I, lit.

2 Ibid., II, 222-3. Wesley is guilty of the same overemphasis upon
the evil nature of man in one of his sermons, where, after having quoted
the article Of Original or Birth Sin, he goes on to speak of man's will
as "no longer the will of God, but is utterly perverted and distorted,
averse from all good, from all which God loves, and prone to all evil,
to every abomination which God hateth....so there is no soundeness in
his soul." Ibid., I, 155-6.

3 wesley, Works, IV, hlh.

69

In a sermon on justification by faith Wésley described the meaning
of justification in these words:

The plain scriptural notion of justification is pardon, the
forgiveness of sins. It is that act of God the Father, whereby,
for the sake of the propitiation made by the blood of His Son,

He showeth forth His righteousness (or mercy) by the remission of

sins that are past....To him that is justified....his sins, all

his past sins, in thought, word and deed, are blotted out, shall

not be remembered or mentioned against him, any more than if they

had not been.1

The positive effects of justification were stated even more expli—
citly by Wesley as

....a present deliverance from sin; a restoration of the soul
to its primitive health, its original purity; a recovery of the
divine nature; the renewal of our souls after the image of God in
righteousness and true holiness, in justice, mercy, and truth.
Therefore holiness is not only a condition of a present salvation
from sin; it is the thing itself. Faith is the only condition.2
The faith which was the only condition of salvation was, in general,

"a divine, supernatural....evidence or conviction, 'of things not seen ,'
nor discoverable by our bodily senses, as being either past, future, or
spiritual. Justifying faith implies, not only a divine evidence or con-
viction that 'God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself,‘
but a sure trust and confidence that Christ died for my sins, that He
loved mg, and gave Himself for mg."3

The nature of the faith that justifies was found by Wesley in the

Homilies on the Passion and on the Sacrement, which he quoted as follows:

 

1 wesley, Sermgns, I, 120-1.
2 Wesley, Works, VIII, 26b.

3 Wesley, Sermons, I, 125.

 

70

I cannot describe the nature of this faith better than in the
words of our own Church: 'The only instrument of salvation'
(whereof justification is one branch) 'is faith; that is, a sure
trust and confidence that God both hath and will forgive our sins,
that He hath accepted us again into The favour, for the merits of
Christ's death and passion....

Therefore, have a sure and constant faith, not only that the
death of Christ is available for all the world, but that He hath
made a full and sufficient sacrifice for thee, a perfect cleansing
of thy sins, so that thou mayest say with the Apostle, He loved
thee, and gave Himself for thee. For this is to make Christ thine
233, and to apply His merits unto thyself.1

 

 

A believer justified through the faith wesley thus described experi-
enced what is normally called a conversion, but which Wesley preferred
to call a "new birth."2 Its importance to Wesleyan teachings was indi-
cated in a sermon on the new birth, in which he said,

If any doctrines within the whole compass of Christianity may
prOperly be termed fundamental, they are doubtless these two, -
the doctrine of justification, and that of the new birth: the
former relating to that great work which God does for us, in for-
giving our sins; the latter, to the great work which God does in
us, in renewing our fallen nature. In order of time, neither of
these is before the other; in the moment we are justified by the
grace of God....we are also born of the Spirit.
wesley continued by showing the similarity between a natural birth

and this spiritual birth. In each case the child has ears, but he does
not hear, and he has eyes, but he does not see. All his senses are

4
I'locked up; he is in the same condition as if he had them not." But

with the new birth, and the faith which made it possible,

 

1 Ibid., 125-6.

2 Hesley preferred not to use the term conversion, since it "rarely
appears in the New Testament." wesley, Letters, III, 266.

3 wesley, Sermons, II, 226-7.

4 Ibid., 233.

71

....you have a new class of senses opened in your soul, not
depending on organs of flesh and blood, to be the evidence of things
not seen....And till you have these internal senses you can have no
proper apprehension of divine things. Nor consequently till then
can you either judge truly, or reason justly concerning them; seeing
your reason has no ground whereon to stand, no materials to work
upon.1
When one experiences the new birth, and is able to reason justly

concerning divine things, there comes ”that great change which God works
in the soul when He brings it into life....when the love of the world is
changed into the love of God; pride into humility; passion into meekness;
hatred, envy, malice, into a sincere, tender, disinterested love for all
2
mankind."
There were those among Wesley's listeners who felt that they had no
need of the new birth, since they had been baptized. His advice to them 1
was to "say not then in your heart, 'I was once baptized, therefore I
gm now a child of God.‘ Alas, that consequence will by no means hold.
How many are the baptized gluttons and drunkards, the baptized liars and
common swearers, the baptized railers and evil-speakers, the baptized
s
whoremongers, thieves, extortioners?" Had hbsley merely pointed out
what his Anglican background made it logical for him to indicate, that
his listeners had need to take advantage of every means of grace, and to

warn them against their manner of living, he would have been on sound

footing. Unfortunately, however, in his intense desire to convince his

 

1 wesley, Wbrks, VIII, 195.
2 wesley, Sermons, II, 233.

3 Ibid., I, 295.

72

listeners that they must experience a new birth, or conversion, he tried
to show that baptism does not always involve a new birth, "they do not
constantly go together." This was not true of infant baptism, since
"it is certain our Church supposes that all who are baptized in their
infancy are at the same time born again; and it is allowed that the
whole Office for the Baptism of Infants proceeds upon this supposition....
But whatever be the case with infants, it is sure all of riper years who

i
are baptized are not at the same time born again."

There is nothing in the articles to substantiate 1v‘fesley's interpre-
tation of the efficacy of adult baptism. The article or Baptism states,
in part, that "Baptism is not only a sign of profession, and mark of
difference,...but is also a sign of regeneration or new birth...."

In considering what is implied here

....it must be remembered that sacraments have been already
defined in Article XXV as "effectual signs of grace," and there-
fore, since "Regeneration" is the word which the Church has ever
used to describe the grace of baptism, and to sum up the blessings
conveyed in it, we must interpret sign in this clause as an ef-
fectual sign; and thus the whole expression will mean that in
baptism the blessings of regeneration are not only represented,

but are also conveyed to the recipient.3

It is strange that one who placed as much emphasis on the sacraments
as John Wesley should have failed to understand the sacramental character

of baptism. After having defined a sacrament as it is defined in the

Church Catechism, as "an outward and visible sign of an inward and

1 Ibid., II, 238.
2 Gibson, ThirtyaNine Articles, p. 620.

3 Ibid., p. 623.

73

spiritual grace," he goes on to make an arbitrary distinction:

. For what can be more plain, than that the one is an external,

the other an internal work; that the one is a visible, the other

an invisible thing, and therefore wholly different from each other?

- the one being an act of man, purifying the body; the other a

change wrought by God in the soul.1

Hesley's attempts to show that baptism and the new birth were, or
could be, entirely different things, led him into inconsistencies which
it is not possible to resolve. It is significant that the problems he
encountered in trying to arrive at some consistent answer to the problem
of the relationship of baptism and the new birth were one of his legacies
to Methodism, and that the solution finally arrived at was to leave out
any references to rebirth in the baptismal service, although the minister
might assume that it took place if he cared to do so.2 In fairness to
wesley it must be said that his reason for trying to prove that they were
not the same was that there were many who had been baptized, and yet had
shown no evidence of the great change which should come with their being
born again. This, for him, could mean only that the new birth had not
occurred, or, as in his own case, the grace received at baptism had been
washed away through constant sinning. In either case it was necessary
that the sinner go through the process of being reborn, or converted.

The justification and new birth of the believer was followed by

sanctification, or Christian perfection, a belief which Wesley thought

to be the most distinctively Methodist element in his teachings. "This

1 wesley, Sermons, II, 238.

3 Ibid., I, 282n.

I W

7h

doctrine," he wrote in 1790, "is the grand depositum which God has
lodged with the people called Methodists; and for the sake of prepagat-
ing this chiefly He appears to have raised us up."1

The student of Hesleyan theology has a comparatively easy time
when he undertakes his research on Wesley's concept of Christian per-
fection. In 1766 Wesley published a pamphlet with the very descriptive
title, A Plain Acconnt of Christian Perfection as believed and taught

by the Rev. John Wesley from the year 1725 to the year 1765. Later

 

editions extended the work to the year 1777. In this work he traced
the development of the doctrine from its origins, which he found to be
in the teachings of Jeremy Taylor, Thomas a Kempis, and William Law.2
wesley made a clear distinction between justification and sanctifi- -‘
cation, and was caustically critical of those who did not. "Who has
written more ably than Martin Luther on justification by faith alone?
And who has been more ignorant of the doctrine of sanctification, or more
confused in his conception of it?...The whole body of (Romish) divines
at the Council of Trent....totally confounded sanctification and justifi—
cation together."3
For Wesley justification was "another word for pardon. It is the

forgiveness of all our sins; and, what is necessarily implied therein,

 

1 wesley, Letters, VIII, 238.

2 wesley, works, VIII, 5-66. It is interesting to note the back-
grounds of these three individuals; Taylor was a rich bishop, a Kempis
a monk, and Law an English Nonjuror and later a mystic.

 

3 Ibid., VII, 217.

75

our acceptance with God....ind at the same time that we are justified,
yea, in that very moment, sanctification begins. In that instant we are
born again, born from above, born of the Spirit....we are inwardly re-
newed by God ." 1

This distinction between justification and sanctification follows
the teaching of Luther, according to whom justification was the "initial
blessing, when God receives the repentant sinner, pardons, and accepts
him." Justification was the work:of "the Son of God for us," while
sanctification was the work of "the Holy Spirit within us." This view
was held in opposition to the decree of the Council of Trent that justi-
fication was "not merely the remission of sins, but also the sanctifi-
cation and renewal of the inner man."2

The first sermon in which Wesley discussed perfection was first
preached in 1733 and repeated many times. He wrote in 1765 that this
sermon contained "all that I now teach concerning salvation from
all sin, and loving God with an undivided heart."3 There were, however,
substantial changes in his thinking between 1733 and l7h0 on the subject
of sanctification. In his earlier sermon he taught that man was freed

4

from sin upon his conversion, and that it was possible for a man to

attain perfection by his own efforts, that is, by keeping all the laws

 

1 wesley, Sermons, II, hhS-6.

2 Gibson, Thirty-Nine Articles, pp. 39h-6.

 

3 wesley, Letterg, IV, 299.

4 fihsley, Sermons, II, lh8n.

 

 

76

of God,1 while the latter emphasized man's complete dependence upon the
grace of God, and the gradual nature of his sanctification. He also
came very slowly to the realization that perfection is an ideal which
the believer may never attain, but that it is valuable as a goal toward
which he may work.2 It was in the latter sense that Wesley spoke of
perfection during most of his career.

wesley defined his concept of Christian perfection in a number of
ways, but in all of them love was the most important element. For
example, perfection was

....that habitual disposition of soul which, in the sacred
writings, is termed holiness; and which directly implies, the
being cleansed from sin, from all filthiness both of flesh and
spirit....

It implies humility, faith, hope, and charity....add love
which is the fulfilling of the law, the end of the commandment.
It is not only the first and great command, but it is all the
commandments in one....In this is perfection, and glory, and
happiness. The royal law of heaven and earth is this, 'Thou l
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy ‘
soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.‘

Not that this forbids us to love anything beside God: it
implies that we love our brother also.a

 

Every follower of John Wesley could aspire to this ideal, with
the firm conviction that divine grace was available to help him, if only
he had faith. But could he attain a sinless state? Wesley was not
consistent in his answers to this question. He did not claim to have

attained perfection himself, but he hesitated to rule out the

 

1 Ibid., I, 277.
2 Ibid., II, 150.

3 Ibid., I, 267-73.

77

possibility of success for someone else. Generally, however, he was
extremely cautious about accepting the word of any of his followers
when they claimed perfection in their religious lives. Their claims
sounded "enthusiastic" to him, and he was fearful that they would for-
get that perfection implied certain responsibilities toward onets
fellow-man. wesley's desire to have his followers remain conscious of
all the demands made upon them by his doctrine of Christian perfection
led him to describe his concept of the perfect Christian. Certainly
the person who could live up to the ideal he portrayed was rare, but
the importance of the ideal in giving some direction to the somewhat
unstable religious sentiments of the early Methodist converts cannot be
overestimated. The perfect Christian

Loves the Lord his God with all his heart, with all his soul,
with all his mind, and with all his strength. God is the joy of
his heart, and the desire of his soul....

He 'in everything giveth thanks,‘ as knowing this (whatsoever
it is) is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning him....

He prays without ceasing....His heart is lifted up to God at
all times and in all places. In this he is never hindered, much
less interrupted, by any person or thing. In retirement or company,
in leisure, business, or conversation, his heart is ever with the
lord....

And loving God, he 'loves his neighbour as himself;‘ he loves
every man as his own soul. He loves his enemies, yea, and the
enemies of God....

For he is pure in heart. Love has purified his heart from
envy, malice, wrath, and every unkind temper....

For, as he loves God, so he 'keeps his commandments'....What-
ever God has forbidden, he avoids; whatever God has enjoined, he
does....

By consequence, Iwhatsoever he doeth, it is all to the glory
of God.‘ In all his employments of every kind, he not only aims
at this,...his business and his refreshments, as well as his prayers,
all serve to this great and....whether he put on his apparel, or
labour, or eat and drink, or divert himself from too wasting labour,
it all tends to advance the glory of God, by peace and good will
among men....

 

. 1 _
‘ I I
' i
I
_ 1
r

78

Nor do the customs of the world at all hinder him 'running
the race which is set before him.‘ He cannot therefore 'lay up
treasures on earth'....He cannot speak evil of his neighbour....
He cannot utter an unkind word of anyone....He cannot speak idle
words....But 'whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are
lovely, whatsoever things are justly of good report,” he thinks,
speaks, and acts, 'adorning the doctrine of God our Saviour in all
things.’

Lastly, as he has time, he does good unto all men.

1

If a believer lived according to the complete inward and outward
holiness Wesley described he would not only attain Christian perfection,
but would at the same time become a valuable member of society. The
positive, experiential nature of Wesley's teachings did not allow a
solitary religion. The Christian must live in a world of sin, where he
would demonstrate his faith by word and deed.

The doctrines of justification by faith, the new birth, and Christian
perfection were the principal themes in wesley's long ministry, and they
represented his attempt to carry out his aim of a vital, practical re-
ligion. Late in life wesley wrote that

2
Near fifty years ago, a great and good man, Dr. Potter, gave
me an advice, for which I have ever since had occasion to bless

God: "If you desire to be extensively useful, do not spend your

time and strength, in contending for or against things of a dis-

putable nature; but in testifying against Open, notorious vice,

and in promoting real, essential holiness."

In the preface to his Standard Sermons Mesley explained his purpose

in.writing than:

 

1 Wesley, Works, IV, 108.

2 Bishop of Oxford during wesley's student days, and the man who
ordained Wesley deacon and priest.

3 Tafesley, IISIOFKS, VII, 201'

79

I design plain truth for plain people: therefore, of set
purpose, I abstain from all nice and phi1030phical speculations;
from all perplexed and intricate reasonings....

I have accordingly set down in the following sermons what I
find in the Bible concerning the way to heaven; with a view to
distinguish this way of God from all those which are the inven-
tions of men. I have endeavoured to describe the true, the
scriptural, experimental religion.1
He hOped that his thoughts were agreeable to "Scripture, reason,

2 J . w...
and Christian antiquity," and that they would lead the way to the real,
essential holiness advised by BishOp Potter at Oxford. He attempted to
steer a middle course between enthusiasm and rationalism, pointing out
the dangers of each to his followers.

The charge of enthusiasm was brought against the Methodists many
times, and'wesley spoke very strongly against allowing it to grow among
them. He was in sympathy with the attitude of the educated men of the
eighteenth century toward it, and attempted to combat it as being con-
trary to reason.

Among them that despise and vilify reason, you may always
expect to find those enthusiasts, who suppose the dreams of their
own imaginations to be revelations from God. We cannot expect,
that, men of this turn will pay-much regard to reason. Having an
infallible guide, they are very little moved by the reasonings of
fallible men.3
Certain of the practices of the followers of Wesley were such as to

justify the charge of enthusiasm, and it became necessary for him to

warn them against dangerous excesses.

1 vesley, Sermons, I, 30-2.

2 Ibid., 31m.

3 Wesley, werks, VI, 3h0.

80

Beware of that daughter of pride, enthusiasm. Oh keep at the
utmost distance from it. Give no place to a heated imagination.
Do not hastily ascribe things to God. Do not easily suppose dreams,
voices, impressions, visions, or revelations to be from God. They
may be from Him. They may be from nature. They may be from the
devil. You are in danger of enthusiasm if you despise or lightly
esteem reason, knowledge or human learning; every one of which is
an excellent gift from God, and may serve the noblest purposes.

I advise you never to use the words wisdom, reason or knowledge‘
py way of reproach. On the contrary pray that you may abound in
them more and more.l

 

The dangers to the true believer from enthusiasm were great, but
equally precarious was the position of those who placed too much emphasis
2
upon reason.

We are surrounded with persons who lay it down as an undoubted
principle, that reason is the highest gift of God....They are fond
of expatiating in its praise; they make it little less than divine.
They are wont to describe it, as very near, if not quite infallible.
They look upon it as the all-sufficient director of all the children
of men; able, by its native light, to guide them into all truth,
and lead them into all virtue.3
Wesley expressed his belief in the prominent place.reason must have

in any sound religious belief on many occasions, usually in connection
with the equally important place which.must be given to Scripture and

experience. Reason by itself was not enough, since human knowledge is,

by virtue of the fact that it is human, imperfect. In a sermon on the

 

1 Ibid., VIII, 16. Underlining mine.

2 wesley defined reason as "much the same with understanding: it
means a faculty of the human soul: that faculty which exerts itself in
three ways, by simple apprehension, by judgment, and by discourse.
Simple apprehension is barely conceiving a thing in the mind; the first
and most simple act of the understanding. Judgment is the determining
that the things before conceived either agree with, or differ from each
other. Discourse, strictly speaking, is the motion or progress of the
mind, from one judgment to another." Ibid., VI, 3h2.

 

 

3 Ibid., 3L1.

81

imperfection of human knowledge Wesley discussed its limitations, saying,
"we know just as much as is conducive to our living comfortably in this
world. But of innumerable things above, below, and round about us, we
know little more than that they exist." To illustrate his point he
mentioned such fields as animal life, insects, electricity, the earth,
of which only the surface was known, and the attributes of God.1 Since
reason was limited by human capacity it was not a sufficient guide for
religious life, and anyone placing his whole reliance on it to the exclu-
sion of Scripture and experience was missing what for Wesley was the
essence of religion. he was aware of the fact that his emphasis upon
the witness of the Spirit would be unpopular: l'he who now preaches the
most essential duties of Christianity runs the hazard of being esteemed,

by a great part of his hearers, 'a setter forth of new doctrines.’ Most

men have so lived away the substance of that religion, the profession

 

whereof they still retain"2 that such teachings as justification by
faith, the new birth, and Christian perfection were as strange things
to their ears.

wesley's basic doctrines put him in an untenable position regarding

his status in the Church of England. On the one hand he had a tremendous

 

1 Ibid., 329. Leslie Stephen believes that hbsley'carried his dis-

. trust of human knowledge so far that he left no connection between
Methodism and the speculative movement of the century, and condemned
Methodism to barrenness. "The want of a sound foundation in phi1030phy
prevented the growth of an elevated theology....Wesleyanism in the
eighteenth century represents heat without light - a blind protest of the
masses, and a vague feeling after some satisfaction to the instinct which
endshoEly in a recrudescence of obsolete ideas." Stephen, English Thought,
II, 2 .

2 wesley, Sermons, I, 266.

82

love for the Church, while on the other hand he felt that he had a divine
mission to preach his doctrines. He knew that what he preached would
lead to exclusion from Opportunities to preach again, even though he was
convinced that what he was saying was provided for in the Articles and
Homilies. The problem was never completely solved during his career,
even though relations with the Church were considerably improved before
his death.

Since Nesley's primary purpose was to promote a vital, practical
religion, with more emphasis upon practice than upon creed,l yet one
that would encourage its followers to take advantage of every means of
grace, it was necessary that something be added to the regular ministry
of the Anglican Church. The solution was found in the organization of
religious societies. The story of the deve10pment of the Methodist
societies and their relationship is beyond the scope of this discussion,2
but it should be noted that they were the principal means through which

the teachings of John Mosley were Spread throughout England.

 

1 This attitude was well expressed by Mesley in a sermon. "I be-
lieve the merciful God regards the lives and tempers of men more than
their ideas. I believe He respects the goodness of the heart rather than
the clearness of the head; and that if the heart of a man be filled with
the humble, gentle, patient love of God and man, God will not cast him
into everlasting fire because his ideas are not clear or because his con-
ceptions are confused." wesley, Sermons, I, 22.

Wesley's works show that he was familiar with the writings of Hobbes,
Locke, Shaftesbury, Hartley, and Butler, and it seems logical to assume
that their primary interest in the conduct of the individual was influen-
tial in the formation of his ideas. It is certain that Locke's Essay,
with its emphasis upon restricting the efforts of human understanding to
questions it is qualified to answer discouraged metaphysical speculation
in England, and that it helped to promote the growing preference for
moralization over speculation, and further, that wesleyan teachings
followed the spirit of txis preference.

2 The best source is J. 3. Simon, John Wesley and the Methodist
Societies (London: Epworth Press, 1922).

 

 

83

It was perhaps inevitable that the sermons Nesley preached should
have sounded enthusiastic to a church which considered it fashionable
to preach religion "as morality, with a little dogma apologetically
attached," and in which the "parson was more often a typical Englishman,
kindly, sensible, mildly pious."l Early in the eighteenth century
"sermons had very generally become mere moral essays, characterized
chiefly by a cold good sense, and appealing almost exclusively to
prudential motives."2 Many writers have treated the reception given to
Wesley's teachings by the Anglican clergy, and there has been general
agreement that it was about what should have been expected of a rational-
ist clergy, but the rationalism of the clergy is not in itself sufficient
to explain their attitude. While it is true that there were many bishOps
and priests who felt, with Bishop Warburton, that "all forms of enthusi-
asm were a viperous brood, which a champion of sober reason should feel
bound at once to crush," there were also many who would have agreed
with him when he said that "since the middle of the preceding century
a reaction which rested religion too entirely on bare reason had thrown
into the background some of the most distinctive doctrines of
Christianity."3 But enthusiasm was not the answer to the problem of
extreme rationalism, since it was itself a dangerous extreme. hhmburton

was closer to the Wesleyan brand of enthusiasm than he realized, however.

 

1 Trevelyan, English Social History, pp. 357-8.

 

2 v. E. H. Lecky, A History of England in the Eighteenth Century
(New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1882), I, 8h.

 

3 Abbey, English Church and Its Bishops, I, 393.

 

8b

It is remarkable that marburton fully grants that a work far
transcending what mere reason could do was effected in the first
conversions to Christianity by the direct operation of the fbly
Spirit. 'When, therefore,‘ he concludes, 'we see the deepest im-
pressions of evil custOm, and the darkest stains of corrupted
nature thus suddenly wiped out and effaced, to what must we ascribe
such a total reform but to the all-powerful Operations of grace.’1
Recent scholarship has shown that the earlier view of the eighteenth

as a century of barren rationalism with little or no deep religious feel-
ing was wrong, and that there were many clergyman, both priests and
bishops, who were as concerned as was Wesley with the spiritual welfare
of their parishioners.2 It seems logical to assume, therefore, that

John Wesley's efforts to bring about a more vital religion might have
met with a more friendly reception from his fellow clergymen had he been
content to proceed somewhat more slowly than was his desire. But once
wesley had "consented to be more vile," and to "proclaim in the highways
the glad tidings of salvation,"3 there was little chance that there would
be any cooperation between the bulk of the clergy and the Methodists.
Wesley went even further, flatly declaring that he did not recognize
parish'boundaries.

God in Scripture commands me, according to my power, to in-
struct the ignorant, reform the wicked, confirm the virtuous.

Man forbids me to do this in another's parish: that is, in effect,
to do it at all; seeing now I have no parish of my own, nor probably

 

1 Ibid., 393-h.

2 See J. W. Legg, English Church Life from the Restoration to the
Tractarian Movement (London: Longmans, Green and Co.:‘l9lh), pp. 1-280;
W, K. Lowther Clarke, Eighteenth Century Piety (London: Society for
Promoting Christian Knowledge, l9hh), pp. 1-29; and R. N. Stromberg,
Religious Liberalism in Eighteenth Century England (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, l95h).

3 Wesley, Journal, II, 172.

 

 

 

 

 

85

ever shall....A dispensation of the gospel is committed to me; and
woe is me if I preach not the gospel....
...I look upon the whole world as my parish; thus far I mean,
that, in whatever part of it I am, I judge it meet, right, and my
bounden duty to declare unto all that are willing to hear the glad
tidings of salvation.1
The virtually complete disregard shown by wesley and his followers
for the prerogatives of the parish priests could lead only to resentment,
particularly when the sermons preached by them tended to arouse religious
feelings whose effects were felt after long after wesley had departed.
Severe emotional disturbances were experienced by many of wesley's
hearers - results which to wesley meant that the person was going
through an inner struggle between good and evil, but which to the parish
priests were proof of enthusiasm, which could serve no desirable end.2
Small wonder that there are numerous references in.wesley's Journal to
unpleasant encounters with parish priests!

Another charge made against the Methodists was that they refused
to be classified as dissenters, in spite of such activities as their

field-preaching. The movement "pretending to be of the Church disdains
9 3

to shelter itself under the peaceable shade of a legal toleration,"a

 

1 Ibid., 217-8.

2 In l7b2 Wesley, having been refused the privilege of preaching in
the church at Epworth, preached for a week from his father‘s tombstone
in the churchyard. The curate had warned the parishioners of the dangers
of enthusiasm in a sermon delivered after he had turned down wesley's
request, but a huge crowd turned out to hear wesley in spite of his warn-
ings. During wesley's sermons there "great indeed was the shaking among
them: lamentation and great mourning were heard....on every side, as
with one accord, they lift up their voice and wept aloud." Some of his
hearers 'drOpped down as dead, and among the rest such a cry was heard
of sinners groaning for the righteousness of faith as almost drowned my
voice." Ibid., III, 18-23.

3 Abbey, English Church and Its Bishops, I, 393.

 

 

 

86

wesley refused to abide by parochial or episc0pal rules, and yet claimed
to be loyal to the Church. Few clergymen could believe that he was
sincere in his stated desire to have his societies serve only as a means
for increasing the depth of religious feeling within the Church of
England.

The reaction of the clergy to wesley's teachings, his exclusion from
their churches, and his decision to carry his message to the people
through field-preaching were circumstances that by unconscious design
made it possible for wesley to reach those who were most in need of, and
most receptive to, his preaching - the miners, workers, and people of
the lower middle class.1 The Church of England had failed to take steps
to keep up with the rapid changes in population brought on by the enclos-
ures and the Industrial Revolution, and it was in the areas where there
had been the greatest increases of p0pulation that wesley was most success-
ful. As Skyes has said,

The cumbrous machinery of the Church of England was no more
able to adapt itself to the changes of the Industrial Revolution
than the antiquated unreformed parliamentary system, and the
creation of new parishes lagged as far behind the needs of the
times as the formation of new parliamentary constituencies. The
ultimate severance of the Methodist societies from the formal
communion of the Church was the natural consequence of wesley's
discharge of the apostolate of the mining and industrial classes
who had scarcely come within the ambit of Anglican ministrations.2

In London "in 1711 a Hbuse of Commons Committee reported that

English Dissenters and French Huguenots tOgether made up a fifth of the

 

1 See L. F. Church, The Early Methodist People (New York:
Philosophical Library, l9h9), pp. 1-8, and 27-88 for an excellent account
of the vocations of the peeple who were among‘wesley's earliest followers.

2 In Turberville, Johnson's England, I, 36.

 

 

87

halfemillion inhabitants of the London suburbs, exclusive of the City,
and that they had built themselves 88 chapels; the remaining hO0,000
potential Churchmen of the suburbs had only 28 parish churches among
them."1 in Act of Parliament was passed in the same year providing for
building fifty churches in the suburbs to take care of these "several
hundred thousand persons unprovided for by the Established Church,"2
but only eleven of them were actually built.3
The situation in the north was just as bad.

Formerly but half the province of York had been inhabited;
now great centres of industry were being rapidly multiplied. But
it still counted only six bishops as against twenty in the province
of Canterbury, and 2,000 parishes for 10,000 in the Southern
Province. Bath, Chichester, Ely and Hereford possessed their
bishOps; Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, and Liverpool had none.
The total church accommodation in Liverpool amounted to but 21,000
seats. The population was 9b,000. In Manchester there was
accommodation for 11,000 of the 79,000 inhabitants.4
The great mass of unchurched poor was the main target of wesley's

ministry, which had its real origins in his first sermon at Kingswood.
The peeple of Kingswood, just outside Bristol, were for the most part
colliers - men whose level of existence was only slightly above the animal

level. A few years before this time (1739) Kingewood had been a royal

preserve, with no need for a church. However, after it had been given

 

1 G. M. Trevel an, The England of Queen Anne (London: Longmans,
Green and Co., l93h , p. 120.

 

2 Ibid., p. 126.

3 M. D. George, London Life in the 18th Century (New York: Alfred
A. Knopf, 1926), p. hll.

 

4E. HaléVy, A History of the English People in 1815 (New York:
Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1925), p. 350.

 

up by the crown, and opened for settlement, the Church had failed to
create a parish there. As a result the miners were without any sort of
spiritual guidance. It was to fill that void that Whitefield started
his field-preaching there. Feeling that he must move on to other fields
'Whitefield invited'Wesley to succeed him at Kingswood, Wesley finally
deciding to do so after much inner torment.l For the next few years
London and Bristol, including Kingswood, were the centers of Nesley's
major activities, with much of his attention being given to the organi-
zation of societies in and around those cities.2
It has frequently been noted that Wesley was an extremely able
organizer and administrator, but considerably less attention has been
given to his ability to speak to the poor in language they could under-
stand. Without this aptitude there would have been nothing to organize,
and there is reason to believe that had Wesley'been without it he would
not have lived beyond the first year or two of his itinerant career.3
His desire for "plain truth for plain peOple," and his set purpose of
abstaining from "all nice and phiIOSOphical Speculations; from all per-

plexed and intricate reasonings"4 made it possible for him to appeal to

 

1 He delayed his decision for about a month because he "could scarce
reconcile myself at first to this strange way of preaching in the fields.
...having been all my life so tenacious of every point relating to decency
and order, that I should have thought the saving of souls almost a sin
if it had not been done in a church." wesley, Journal, II, 167.

2 Ibid., 172-h98.
3 Ibid., III, 98-100, has a striking example of his ability to
handle peOple even when they were part of mobs formed for the express

purpose of disposing of him.

4 See p. 79.

89

the poor in a way that the great majority of the clergy found to be
impossible. Even so stout an Anglican as Johnson admitted this defect
in the Anglican.ministry. He observed that in England
The established clergy in general did not preach plain enough;
and that polished periods and glittering sentences flew over the
heads of the common peOple, without any'impression on their hearts.
Something might be necessary to excite the affections of the common
peOple, who were sunk in languor and lethargy, and therefore he
supposed that the new concomitants of Methodism might probably pro-
duce so desirable an effect.1
The success of the Methodists, following Wesley's advice to use
plain words, in getting their simple messages of justification, new
birth, and Christian perfection across to their hearers was shown not
only by the large numbers of peOple who attended their meetings but also
‘by the stated preference of those who heard them for the simple sermon.
One of Bishop Hurd‘s members, a man who had been at church regularly and
attentively, was no longer there. Upon being asked why he replied, "I
went the other day to hear the Methodists, and I understand their plain
words so much better, that I have gone there ever since."2 It was with
this type of preaching that wesley appealed to those who were not being
reached by the Church, including both those who attended services and
could not understand the sermons and those who lived in areas which had
not been provided with sufficient churches. The tremendous reaction to
Ebsley's preaching continued to draw the charge that he was not following

the doctrines of the Church of England, and it was necessary for him to

reiterate constantly his devotion to the Church and her beliefs. One of

 

1 Turberville, Johnson's England, I, 35.

2 Abbey, English Church and Its BishOps, I, 392.

 

90

the clearest statements made by wesley in his attempts to convince
others that he was preaching the true Anglican beliefs was the result
of a question from a clergyman whom he greatly admired.

A serious clergyman desired to know in what points we differed
from the Church of England. I answered, 'To the best of my knowl-
edge, in none. The doctrines we preach are the doctrines of the
Church of England; indeed, the fundamental doctrines of the Church,
clearly laid down, both in her Prayers, Articles, and Hdmilies.‘

He asked, 'In what points, then, do you differ from the other
clergy of the Church of England?‘ I answered, 'In none from that
part of the clergy who adhere to the doctrines of the Church....'1

wesley's attitude toward deism and rational orthodoxy was consist-
ent, as was also his attitude toward the dissenting groups. He had no
love for those who deliberately forsook the Church of England, and said
some rather harsh things about them. The objects of his attacks were
the Baptists, whom be consistently called the Anabaptists, the Presby~
terians, and the Independents. His hostility toward them was obvious,
and they returned his dislike with interest.

Most of the Dissenters of the old type were somewhat suspicious
of Wesley, and he of them....they had become infected with the spirit
of the age and shared the general mistrust of enthusiasm. Wesley
was an Anglican clergyman, and to the very end repudiated connections
with the Dissenters as such. He was an Arminian; most of them were
Calvinists of one sort or another. He was a Tory; most of them were
Whigs....0ccasionally, a Nonconformist minister would open his meet-
ing-house for wesley to preach in, but it did not happen often, and
in the main the term "Methodist" was one of abuse on the lips of the
Dissenters.2

The differences between wesley's teachings and those of the Dissent-

ers were emphasized in his Reasons Against a Separation from the Church

 

 

1 wesley, Journal, II, 27h-5.

3 E. A. Payne, The Free Church Tradition in the Life of England
(London: SCM Press Ltd., 19517, p. 96.

 

 

91

of England, in which he warned his preachers against them in very out-

 

spoken language:
Either the Teachers are "new light" men, denying the Lord
that brought them, and overturning his Gospel from the foundations;
or they are Predestinarians, and so preach predestination and final
perserverance, more or less....repeated experience shows it is not
wholesome food; rather it has the effect of a deadlypoison.l
Both John and Charles hesley make reference in their writings to
attacks incited by the dissenters, and of rumors started by them which
were intended to embarrass the Methodists.2

The disapproval of wesley's teachings by the dissenters meant that
every major religious group in England was opposed to him, and, with the
exception of the Church of England, he was opposed to them. It seems
likely that had Convocation not been suspended and the Church had been
able to take some common action against him some sort of disciplinary
action would have been taken. In spite of the fact that wesley felt
that his teachings were provided for in the Articles, Hemilies, and
Prayers of the Church they were such that they were sure to arouse re-
sentment among the great majority of the clergy, particularly when he
declared that he would not recognize parish boundaries. The only solu-

tion found by the priests and bishops acting individually was to exclude

the enthusiast from their churches, with the result that he was

 

1 wesley, works, X, 92. The predestinarianism of Calvinism was re-
jected by wesley because it made God "a monster of injustice and led
most obviously to Anti-nomianism; for if the elect must be saved, do
what they will, it is clear that good works are quite unnecessary, and
self-denial an absurdity;" Wesley, Sermons, II, 285.

3 D. Coomer, English Dissent Under the Early Hanoverians (London:
Epworth Press, l9h6), p. 117, and wesley, Journal, II, h87; III, 70.

 

 

92

virtually driven into the highways to preach. The opportunity thus
presented him to take his plain message of justification, new birth,
and Christian perfection to a much wider audience than that of a parish
priest, though taken with some hesitation by Wesley, ultimately led to
a transformation in the lives of many in the lower classes in England.
The doctrine of Christian perfection, which Wesley thought to be
the most important of his teachings, was the major reason for the changes
'which were apparent to Wesley in the lives of those to whom he preached.
It was actually attainable in some degree by everyone, and Wesley never
tired of telling his congregations what it was possible for them to
accomplish with the grace of God. They were, he told them repeatedly,
unspeakably bad, and could do nothing without the gift of grace, which
was entirely the gift of God, but if they were justified through faith
and reborn they would have the grace necessary to live as a Christian
should. They would then be able, by basing their actions on Scripture,
reason, and eXperience, and by taking an active part in the Observances
of the Church, to lizg a religion which was a real moral and practical
force. Perfection, or the attempt to attain it, was not a restrictive
doctrine, since it did not exclude those who were educationally or
physically deficient. Those, for example, who were afflicted with
"weakness or slowness of understanding, dullness or confusedness of
apprehension, incoherence of thought, want of a ready or retentive
memory"1 were just as able to live a holy life as those who were more

alert mentally.

 

1 Wesley, Sermons, II, 155..

r’

 

93

The test of whether or not a person was in the process of attaining
perfection was his attitude toward others. He must show his love for
God by following His laws, and by demonstrating his love for his fellow-
man. The doctrine of Christian perfection made mandatory a strong social
consciousness on the part of the Methodists which was constantly emphasized
in the social and economic teachings of John Hesley - teachings which
were designed to make his concept of Christian perfection a force for

social good.

 

CHKPTER IV

THE SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC IMPLICATIONS OF
W$HWTE®W¥

The practical, experiential nature of Wesley's theology is clearly
evident when one examines its social and economic implications.
Salvation was, of course, the ultimate goal of every Methodist, but
this did not obviate the necessity for living in full Christian love
for God and man while on this earth. This love implied, for Wesley,

a never-ceasing effort to aid one's fellow man. The story of wesley
and his followers in the eighteenth century is a record of vigorous
action taken to make his Christian imperative a vital force among the
poor.

Many of the social and economic problems of the poor were known to
Wesley from his childhood. There had seldom been enough money in
Epworth rectory, the shortage being so acute at one time that his father
was thrown into prison for debt.1 It seems likely that much of his
later concern for the welfare of the poor had its origin in the economic
difficulties encountered by his parents. There is no indication, howe
ever, of any active consideration for the less fortunate until after
Ids graduation from Oxford, and his warning from an old friend of the

family that Christianity was a social religion.2

 

1'See p. 18.

2 See p. 37.

 

 

95

The social consciousness of John wesley had its beginnings in the
activities of the Hbly Club at Oxford. As we have seen,1 he was at
that time more concerned with personal salvation and fulfillment of the
whole law of God than with the well—being of his fellowrman, but he was
conscientiously seeking the answers to his religious problems. Those
answers were to involve a deep sense of reSponsibility toward all men.
it this time, however, he had only a vague feeling that something should
be done for them. Considerable religious and social growth was evident
only four years later in his sermon on the Circumcision of the Heart,
which was so highly regarded by him that in a letter written in 1765 he
said that it "contains all that I now teach concerning salvation from

all sin and loving God with an undivided heart."2 The most striking

 

thing about the sermon was that it emphasized humility, which was given
more importance than faith, hOpe, and love,3 but there were indications
that Wesley was gradually becoming aware of the social implications of
religion. He Spoke of the necessity for loving one's fellow-man,4 yet
there can be no doubt that he was as yet unprepared to take active steps
to put his theolOgy fully into practice. Wesley did not realize just

what the social and economic implications of his doctrine of Christian

 

1 See note, p. 37 and pp. hb-S.

3 wesley, Letters, Iv, 229.

3 wesley, Sermons, I, 265. The influence of Jeremy Taylor and
William Law was particularly strong from 1726 to 1738. This sermon was
first preached in 1733.

4 Ibid., 273.

 

96

perfection were until l7hl, when it had reached its completed form.
From that time on he was a powerful force in the improvement of social
conditions which took place in the latter half of the eighteenth, and
the early part of the nineteenth centuries.

John wesley's efforts in behalf of the common man were based almost
exclusively upon the idea of changing the individual. This does not
mean to imply that he had no confidence in any sort of group action, for
we find that he placed great reliance upon the Church of England as a
force for good. He also had a great deal of confidence in the ability
of the schools and prisons to serve as mediums through which desirable
reforms might be accomplished. The major emphasis was placed upon
changing the individual, however, and comparatively little was given to
group action. 'The idea of using the authority of the government to
initiate social reforms seems to have occurred to him only once, when he
made an appeal for laws to relieve social and economic distress, but even
then he seems to have had little hope that any action would be forth-
coming.1 He believed that England was too irreligious to expect any im-
provement until there was a religious revival - a revival that would
"spread from heart to heart, from house to house, from town to town,
from one kingdom to another."2 As this religious feeling spread it would
carry with it the perfect love for God and man — Christian perfection -
which Wesley believed to be "the medicine of life, the never-failing

remedy, for all the evils of a disordered world, for all the miseries

 

1 See p. 161.
2 wesley, Works, VI, 286.

 

‘4.

...-

 

....

 

97

and vices of man."1 The responsibility for carrying out the Wesleyan
ideal lay with the individual Methodist, who must not only impose a
disciplined inner and outer life upon himself, but must also do his
part in helping to create a Christian society.

The ministry of the eighteenth century Methodists was consciously
directed toward the poor peOple of England. In Spite of the fact that
there were a few of the rich and noble for whom Wesley had some religious
appeal it was his personal preference to preach to the poor,2 since "in
most genteel religious peOple there is so strange a mixture that I seldom
have much confidence in them. I love the poor; in many of them I find
pure, genuine grace, unmixed with paint, folly, and affectation."3

In choosing to preach to the poor'wesley assumed a tremendous task.
Many writers have described the social, economic, and religious condi-
tions of the eighteenth century, and all agree that too little attention
was being given to the poor, especially those in the rapidly-growing

cities.4

Mosley's work among the urban proletariat was intensive and
effective; flearmouth, among others, showing that the greatest growth in

Methodism occurred in the areas where there was the greatest increase

 

1 Ibid., VIII, 187.
.2 Wesley, Journal, IV, 358.
3 vesley, Letters, III, 229.

4 See Trevelyan, English Social History, Chaps. XI-XII; Halévy,
English Pepple in 1815, pp. jhl-KZB; and J. L. and B. Hammond, The Town
Labourer, (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1925). The last gives an
eSpecially dark view of the state of the poor. For extracts from con-
temporary accounts of conditions see M. D. George, England in Johnson's
Day (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1928).

 

 

 

98

in pOpulation, and the most intensive industrial activity.1
The failure of the Church of England to keep pace with the growing
population, and particularly its failure to build new churches in the

2 made the growth of Methodism possible. John hksley's

industrial areas,
realization of the spiritual and material needs of the poor, aided by

his administrative genius, enabled Methodism to take advantage of the
failure of the Church to fulfill its responsibilities.

wesley's major interest was in saving souls, but it was by no means
an all-consuming interest. His awareness of the problems of his time
is shown in his written works, in which there are references to the
problems of population, growth of urban areas, unemployment, agricultural
problems, fisheries, taxation, unequal representation, the national
debt, speculation, distribution of wealth, intemperance, luxury, pro-
duction of useless articles, smuggling, monetary policy, and similar
problems.

Awareness of these problems implied the necessity of working toward
their solution. The attempts of Mesley and his followers to alleviate
the social ills and economic distress of the common people fall rather
naturally into three classifications; their humanitarian efforts, their
attempts to broaden the opportunities for education, and their economic

beliefs and practices. I

 

1 Particularly in such cities as Birmingham, Sheffield, and Liver-
pool. R. F. wearmouth, Methodism and the Common People of the Eighteenth
Century (London: Epworth Press, l9h§7, pp. 181-3: .

 

2 Halévy, English Pegple in 1815, pp. 3h9-50.

 

 

99

The first humanitarian effort of the early Methodists was that of
prison visitation. At the insistence of William Morgan, a member of
the Holy Club at Oxford, John and Charles Mbsley accompanied him on a
visit to a prison, a practice which was continued as a regular activity
of the group.1 During the trip to Georgia wesley was under the influ-
ence of Oglethorpe, whose Parliamentary Committee had revealed the
terrible conditions in the prisons, and had thereby secured some ameliora-
tion of the prisoners' distress. Upon his return to England wesley re-
sumed his work with prisoners, his efforts being concentrated upon
visitation, making public the conditions of the prisons, and working
with various prison reform movements.

The importance wesley placed upon visitation was shown in the rule
of the Societies which made "visiting and helping them that are in prison
one of the conditions of membership."2 He personally preached many
times in the prisons, a number of his visits being made to condemned
prisoners. This practice inspired a poem deriding their activities,
which said, in part,

Next round the gaols they hovering fly,
To plague the wretches e'er they die,

And while the children liSp their praise,
"Bless 'em each good woman says.3

wesley was so shocked by conditions in the prisons that no amount

of criticism could have stopped his work there. In his Jaurnal he

 

1 See p. 38.
2 wesley, WbrkS, IV: 3H9-

3 M. Edwards, John Nesley and the Eighteenth Century, (London:
George Allen and Unwin Itd., 1933), p._l50.

 

 

100

recorded his impressions of Marshalsea in London.
I visited one in the Marshalsea Prison - a nursery of all
manner of wickedness. Oh shame to man that there should be such
a place, such a picture of hell upon earth....
I found some in their cells under ground, others in their
garrets, half starved both with cold and hunger, added to weakness
and pain. But I found not one of them unemployed who was able to
crawl about the room. So wickedly devilishly false is that common
objection, "They are poor only because they are idle."1
This view of prison conditions is substantially in agreement with
that of most writers on the subject, a modern writer observing, for
example, that the lot of the prisoners was so bad that most of them
"suffered in dumb misery; only those who were brutish and hardened
offenders, or exceptionally stalwart in spirit, could bear up against the
prison system of those days."2

In a letter to the London Chronicle Mesley made a strong plea for
public support of prison reform by showing what one man had accomplished.

Of all the seats of woe on this side of hell, few, I suppose,
exceed or even equal Newgate (in London). If any region of horror
could exceed it a few years ago, NeWgate in Bristol did; so great
was the filth, the stench, the misery, and wickedness, which
shocked all who had a Spark of humanity left. How was I surprised,
then, when I was there a few weeks ago....Will no one follow his
[the gaoler's] example?3
The gaoler whose example wesley wanted others to follow was Dagge.

He had been converted by Whitefield in 1737, and during the next twenty

years completely changed the prison. Mesley preached in the prison

chapel with some regularity, giving him an excellent Opportunity to

 

1 Wesley, Journal, IV, 52.

2 R. D. Mitchell and M. D. R. Leys, A History of the English Pe0ple
(London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1950), p. 563.

3 flesley, Journal, IV, h27-8.

101

observe the changes that were taking place. He found that every part

of it was "as clean and sweet as a gentleman's house," there was "no
fighting and brawling, no drunkenness or whoredom." The inmates were
"provided with tools and materials, partly by the keeper, who gives

them credit at a moderate profit, partly by the alms occasionally given."
There was no work on Sunday, and all attended "the public service in the
chapel," from which "no one might be excused unless sick, in which case
he is provided both with prOper medicines and advice."1 The accomplish-
ment of a "reborn" prison-keeper seemed to wesley to be rather convinc-
ing proof of his belief that the way to change society was to change
individuals.

Perhaps the most important contribution made by-Wesley to the cause
of prison reform was his support of John Howard, who is known as the
first prison reformer. They first met in 1787, just four years before
flesley's death, with the meeting having a marked effect upon both men.
Howard wrote, "I was encouraged by him to go on vigorously with my own
designs. I saw in him how much a single man might achieve by zeal and
perserverance; and I determined I would pursue my work with.more
alacrity than ever."2

wesley thought that Howard was "one of the greatest men in EurOpe,"3
and gave him his unqualified support, which was reflected wherever the

Methodist societies might be found.

 

1 Ibid., hlo.

2 Tyerman, John Weslgy, III, h95.

 

3 hbsley, Journal, VII, 29S.

 

 

 

102

The work of such leaders as Howard, Bentham, Romilly, and Wilber-
force was to bring about the needed reforms in the prison system. The
strict public morality through which the Evangelicals hoped to make
criminal law unnecessary was an unattainable dream, but their efforts
on behalf of the prisoners helped to pave the way for the later and
more successful reformers.1

In addition to their work with prisoners Nesley and his followers
took direct measures to aid the poor. In this they were in accord with
their century, which was "strong in men of character and genius, and
weak in institutions and machinery. In such a society it would be
natural to eXpect abuses and suffering, and to expect also a demand for
remedies, and efforts to awaken public indignation."2 The weakness in
machinery was shown by the inability of the parishes, of which there
were about 15,000, to cope with the problems of their poor, sick,
children, old peOple, vagrants, and idlers, responsibilities which had
formerly been borne by the central government. This decentralized
administration led to wide variation in practice, and many abuses. The
lack of qualified personnel was an especially serious handicap. The
breakdown at the parish level brought about demands for reform in which
wesley and his followers took an active part.3

John Mosley, in spite of his recognized genius for organization,

failed to set up any group for the specific purpose of taking care of

 

1 Halévy, English People in 1815, p. 397.
2 Turberville, Johnson's England, I, 328.

 

 

3 Ibid., 301-2.

 

103

the sick and poor.1 He believed that it should be an individual effort,

with only those who felt compelled to do so taking part. The motivating

spirit and methods theley thought desirable he indicated in his Journal:

I reminded the United Society that many of our brethren and

sisters had not needful food; many were destitute of convenient
clothing; many were out of business; many sick and ready to
perish; that I had done what in me lay to feed the hungry, to '
clothe the naked, to employ the poor, and to visit the sick; but
was not, alone sufficient for these things, and therefore desired
all whose hearts were as mygheart:

1. To bring what clothes each could spare, to be distributed
among those that wanted most.

2. To give weekly a penny, or what they could afford, for
the relief of the poor and sick.2

These measures were well-adapted to bring temporary relief, but
something more was needed if any permanent improvement were to be brought
about. The only specific remedy of a permanent sort proposed by Wesley
was his plan "to employ all the women who are out of business, and desire
it, in knitting. To these we will first give the common price for what
work they do; and then add, according as they need. Twelve persons are
appointed to inspect these, and to visit and provide things needful for

the sick."3 The failure of this plan seems to have convinced Wesley

 

1 Actually all members of the United Societies were to do anything
they could to relieve distress. Vbsley'advised the Methodists to "see
that your heart be filled at all times and on all occasions with real,
undissembled benevolence, not to those only who love ygp, but to every
soul of man....ind let all men know, that you desire bgth their temporal
and eternal happiness as sincerely as you do your own." Wesley, Works,
VII, 168.

2Tliesley, Journal, II, h53-h. Underlining mine.

3 Ibid., usu.

10h

that until such time as there were more real Christians in England the
solution to economic distress was to meet it by temporary expedients of .
one sort or another, and it was this method that he followed for the
rest of his life.

In l7h0 he took up three collections for the poor in Bristol, "by
which we were enabled to feed a hundred, sometimes a hundred and fifty
a day."1 Mesley met a severe economic crisis among the poor of London
in 1772 by "writing vigorously to the public press, calling his people
to prayer, and by encouraging them to organize schemes of visitation
and relief."2

In 1785 Wesley gave his approval and enthusiastic support to the
Stranger's Friend Society, a small group organized by Methodist laymen
to help the poor, sick, friendless strangers in London. The group Spread
rapidly, and the reaction to it was very favorable, one contemporary
writer observing that

The principles upon which it rests are liberal in the extreme,
and reflect the greatest honour on the sect. It includes the
wretched of every religious persuasion except their own, who are
relieved from another fund. The only recommendation is distress.3
Shortly after his active ministry began Wesley started what he

called a lending—stock, which was a small sum of money raised by pOpular

subscription to be used for making loans to the poor. Any person could

borrow from one to five pounds upon the recommendation of a class leader,

 

1 Ibid., 333.
2 Ibid., v, t95n.

3 Edwards, John Mosley, pp. 153-h. This society is still in exist-
ence. Townsend, gt 21., Methodigm, I, 310.

 

 

105

the principal to be repaid within three months. Loans were made to

over two hundred and fifty persons in one year.1 About eighteen months
_ 2
later another collection was made, to which even a Deist contributed!

One of the most far-reaching and permanent of Wesley's humanitarian
efforts was his aid to the sick. Many hospitals had been built in the
early eighteenth century, in keeping with the philanthrOpic spirit of
the time, but they were not effective in aiding those who were most in
need of their services.

. i All hospitals were free at first to any applicant who was ill,
provided that he had obtained a letter of recommendation from a
Governor or subscriber....In process of time a vexatious system of
red-tape and fees grew up»which.made it almost impossible for a
really poor applicant to gain admission....If he had no letter
(which was next to impossible to get) he had to deposit a sum for
burial fees, returnable, of course, were he fortunate enough to
recover.3
Mosley and his followers, thoroughly familiar with the conditions

under which the sick poor were living, made systematic efforts to relieve

their distress. In addition to the collections taken up in the societies
personal visits were made to those in need. The visitors were to see
every sick person within their districts three times a week; to ask about

the state of their souls; to ask about their illnesses and to get

medicine and advice for them; to do anything else they could do for them.

 

l-Hbsley, Journal, III, 2&6.
2 Ibid., 329.

3 Turberville, Johnson's England, II, 283. "These (hospitals) were
not municipal undertakings - municipal life was then at its lowest ebb;
they were the outcome of individual initiative and of coordinated volun-
tary effort and subscription." Trevelyan, English Social History,

p. 3145.

 

 

106

There were four rules to be followed by the visitors in their dealings
with the sick: "1. Be plain and Open in dealing with souls. 2. Be
mild, tender, patient. 3. Be cleanly in all you do for the sick.

h. Be not nice (fastidious)."1

The visitors were further instructed to teach the people ndecency
and cleanliness, tell them cleanliness is next to godliness."2 The
radical nature of this teaching in the eighteenth century is readily
apparent when it is noted that personal cleanliness was virtually unknown
among the poor, and that not even the hospitals were prOperly equipped
to keep the patients clean.

In l7h6 Wesley started a free dispensary for the poor in London
which is thought to have been the first established in the city.3 With
the professional aid of a surgeon and an apothecary medicines and advice
were given to the poor, with more than five hundred people receiving
treatment in its first five months of Operation.4 It soon became apparent
that the dispensary was not able to meet the problem of helping all those
who were in need, however, so in 17h? wesley wrote and published the

Primitive Physick; or an Easy and Natural Method of Curipg Most Diseases.

 

The intentions of Wesley in writing the book were highly commendable;

the wisdom was questionable. One doctor took eighty-three pages to tell

 

1 Wesley, ilTOI‘kS, IV, 31‘0'
3 Ibid., 382.

3
Simon, Methodist Societies, p. 336.

 

4 Wesley, Works, IV, 3141.

 

l
107 - ‘

what was wrong with it, depicting Wesley as a dangerous quack. wesley,
whose interest in medicine had been one of his diversions since his
Oxford days, felt that he was doing a real service for the people. His
answer to his critic was brief:

My bookseller informs me that since you published your remarks ,1
on tie Primitive Physick....there has been a greater demand for it {/
than ever. If, therefore, you would please to publish a few
farther remarks, you would confer a farther favour upon your humble
servant.1
Looking at the book now one is convinced that Wesley must indeed

have been held in high regard by his followers, since the remedies he
prOposed could not in themselves have brought about the cures he claimed
for them. Pounded garlic applied to the soles of the feet was the per-
fect remedy for hoarseness and loss of voice, for example.2 The major
significance of the work does not lie in the specific remedies suggested,
however, but rather in its emphasis upon healthful living. wesley
believed in "fresh air and plain food, in eight hours rest, and in daily
exercise," and strongly emphasized the importance of a "contented spirit"
to good health.3 The Primitive Physick was in its twenty.third edition
at the time of his death.

As a result of reading Benjamin Franklin's §§periments and Observa—

 

tions on Electricity Wesley's interest in‘electricity and its possibilities

 

 

1 wesley, Letters, VI, 225-6.
2 J. wesley, Primitive Physick (Boston: Cyrus Stone, 1858), p. 81.

3 Ibid., pp. VI-VII.

108

1
was increased, and he became convinced that it could be used to advan-
tage in helping the sick.2 He then
....procured an (electrical) apparatus on purpose, and ordered

several persons to be electrified, who were ill- of various dis-

orders; some of whom found an immediate, some a gradual, cure....

and to this day, while hundreds, perhaps thousands, have received

unspeakable good,3 I have not known one man, woman, or child, who

has received any hurt thereby.4

The cure worked, and it hurt no one. For Vesley that was enough.
Those who opposed its use were guilty of a "great want either of sense

5

or honesty." It is interesting to note that the same test was applied
to all answers to problems with which wesley came in contact — does it
work? Does experience prove what you say or believe to be true? If so,
use it. If not, readjust your thinking.

Abolition of slavery was another of the reform movements in which
John Wesley took great interest. His first experience with slaves came
during the trip to Georgia, and his first reaction was not one of dismay

at their status and condition, but of interest in finding some way to

convert them.61 There was no change in his attitude toward the problem

 

1 He had seen a demonstration six years earlier. Wesley, Journal,
III, 320. wesley's reaction to Franklin's discovery was, "What an amaz-
ing scene is here opened for after-ages to improve upon." In the year
aftei its publication he read Priestley's work on electricity. Ibid.,
V, 2 7.

2 Ibid., IV, 53-h.

a T . . . . .

Jesley claimed cures for such assorted ailments as angina pectoris
paralysis, and epilepsy through the use of electricity. Ibid., 51; V,
83; VI, 16. '

4 Ibid., IV, 190-1.
5 Ibid.

,

6 One of the purposes for which the colonizing group had been
organized was that of converting the Negro slaves in the area. Ibid.,
I, 352.

109

until 1772, when he read a book written by Anthony Benezet, an "honest
Quaker, on that execrable sum of all villanies, commonly called the
Slave-trade." Wesley had "read of nothing like it in the heathen world,
whether ancient or modern,"1 and resolved to do what he could to remove
it from a Christian nation.

The first step in Vesley's campaign against slavery was the publi-

cation of his pamphlet, Thoughts gpon Slavery, in which he attacked it

 

upon religious, moral, and economic grounds. It was a plea to those
engaged in the slave trade - captains, traders, and planters - to stOp
their traffic in human lives. The approach was characteristic of wesley
in that it was an attempt to change individuals, and thus to bring about
a desired change in society.

Wesley h0ped to gain sympathy for the slaves by painting an idyllic
picture of their natural condition. They lived in a.

...perfect image of pure nature; an agreeable solitude,
bounded on every side by a charming landscape; the rural situation
of cottages in the midst of trees; the ease and quietness of the
Negroes, reclined under the shade of the Spreading foliage, with
the simplicity of their dress and manner....These Negroes were a

reasonable, peaceable people, civil and courteous, practicing
justice, mercy, and truth.2

 

1 Ibid., V, hLS-é. This was the year in which Lord Mansfield ruled
that a slave setting foot on English soil became a free man, "and it '
marked a definite step toward the abolition of slavery," even though
there were at the time more than lh,OOO Negroes in England whose position
was somewhat anomalous. Blackstone pointed out in his Commentaries that
even though a slave became a freeman in that he fell under the protection
of the law as soon as he landed in England, "the master's right to his
service may possibly still continue." Their status was not clarified
until well after Wesley's death. Mitchell and Leys, English PeOple,
pp. 525-6.

2‘W’esley, works, X, h92. Wesley's lack of accurate information con-
cerning the life of the Negro in Africa was as great as that concerning
the American Indian.

 

 

 

110

From this paradise the slaves were taken by force, transported under
almost unspeakable conditions to slave markets, and sold to inhumane
masters who treated them with great cruelty; There was no justification
for this treatment of any human being, since

Liberty is the right of every human creature as soon as he
breathes the vital air; and no human law can deprive him of that
right which he derives from the law of nature. If, therefore,

you have any regard to justice (to say nothing of mercy, nor the

revealed law of God), render unto all their due. Give liberty to

whom liberty is due, that is, to eveny child of man, to every
partaker of human nature.1

hbsley-had little sympathy for those who argued in favor of slavery
on the basis that it was indispensable to the cultivation of land in hot
areas. He believed that white men were perfectly capable of working
there, provided they were temperate in both food and drink, and that they
took thme to become acclimated before attempting hard work. From his
experience in Georgia he had learned that not only could white men do
hard work under very unfavorable conditions, but that those who worked
were in better condition to ward off disease than those who did not.2

Having committed himself to do battle with slavery wesley used

every means at his command. He sent the Thoughts Upon Slavery to every

 

Methodist Society in England, preached sermons against it, wrote articles
for magazines, sent letters to editors, and encouraged those who were
similarly engaged. Wilberforce was so impressed with the zeal of the

Methodists that he enlisted their active support by sending anti-slavery

 

1 Ibid., sou.

2 Ibid., 500.

 

111

literature to all their preachers.1

The relationship of wesley's efforts in behalf of abolition to the
eventual success of the movement is impossible to show. There is no
doubt that the Methodists played an important part, individually and
collectively, in rousing public opinion to active opposition to slavery.
In 1791 they secured 229,h26 signatures to an anti-slavery petition,
while the other nonconforming groups secured only 122,978.2 The pressure
of public Opinion became so great that Castlereagh wrote in 181h, "The
nation is bent upon this object. I believe there is hardly a village
that has not met and petitioned upon it: both Hbuses of Parliament are
pledged to press it: and the ministers must make it the basis of their
policy."3

This public opinion, a new power in English life, was the result
of the total humanitarian activity of the century. Evangelicals,
Dissenters, Absleyans, free-thinkers, Unitarians - all worked together
to bring the reform about. The spirit of the movement is shown in
Bentham'sremark, "If to be an anti-slavist is to be a Saint {Anglican
Evangelicalfl, saintship for me."4 wesley's major role was that of edu-

cator of the poor, a field in which he had no rival.

 

1 W. J. Warner, The Wesleyan Movement in the Industrial Revblution
(London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1930), p. 2h3.

 

2 E. D. Bebb, Nonconformity and Social and Economic Life, 1660-
1800’. (London: Epworth Press, 193‘3Ij p. 160.

 

3 Halévy, English People in 1815, pp. hOO-l.

—_Q—

4 Trevelyan, English Social History, p. h95.

 

 

112

An English historian has rightly said that, “The Methodists them-
selves were the least result of the Methodist revival. The noblest
result was the steady attempt to remedy the guilt, the ignorance, the
physical suffering, the social degradation of the profligateand poor.“1
Hesley's failure to set up an organization of some kind to carry out his
aims of relieving the distress of the sick and poor made any permanent
achievement impossible. The major result of what Green calls their
"steady attempt" to carry out Wesley's social teachings was thatthey
played an important part in the total effort of the eighteenth century
to bring about social reforms.

As we have seen, Wesley was convinced that every man had the right
to liberty, but that basic right could not be fully realized unless man
was made aware of its implications. Liberty meant something more than
freedom from slavery. It meant also freedom from servitude to any human
weakness, and as complete freedom as possible from poverty or illness.
His primary purpose of saving souls could not be realized among the poor
unless he improved the conditions under which they were living. The
humanitarian activities of wesley and his followers were an outgrowth
of his doctrine of Christian perfection - his belief in the possibility
in the ultimate perfectibility of all men ~ but this perfection was im-
possible as long as men were subject to any human weakness. Man's
thoughts must be turned toward God, and kept there by constant attention

to the things of God, such as attending the services of the Church of

 

1 J. R. Green, A Short History of the English People (New York:
American Book Co., l9l6), p. 7hO.

 

 

113

England and the meetings of the Methodist Societies, helping the poor
and sick, visiting the prisons, and other humanitarian activities. But
even though the Christian did all these things he was not safe from
temptation. wesley was fearful that some of his newly-converted
Christians might backslide unless some new avenues of interest were
opened to them. He wrote in regard to those who had given up their
former vices and were trying to follow his concept of a religious life,
"If you take away the rattles from a child, he will be angry. But give
him something better first, and he will throw away the rattles of him-
self."1 The something better Wesley offered his followers was not only
knowledge of God, but knowledge of all kinds, secular as well as sacred.
His attempts to impart this knowledge we have chosen to discuss under
the general tOpic of education.

Education was a broad term for John Wesley, embracing not only his
efforts to assure children a prOper formal education by founding schools,
but also his somewhat informal attempts to influence peOple through his
publications. Some appreciation of the prodigious amount of time spent
by wesley in his attempts to educate his followers through his writings
may be gained by looking at some statistics.

_ John Wesley was personally responsible for three hundred and

seventyaone separate publications. When it is recalled that one

of these, The Christian Library, filled fifty volumes, that another,

The Arminian Magazine, went through more than one hundred and fifty

numbers while he was editor, and that it was a common occurrence
for his separate books to run into upwards of a dozen editions each,

 

 

 

l'kbsley, Letters, VIII, 12.

 

11h

one begins to realize what an enormous amount of printed matter he
caused to be disseminated among English-speaking peoples.l

In all his writing Mesley was careful to see that he did not get
above the mental level of his prospective readers. His remarks on the
style of writing he used, - a style which drew the praise of as severe

2
a critic as Leslie Stephen - are valuable in that they give his reasons
for writing as he did.

What is it that constitutes a good style? PerSpecuity, purity,
prOpriety, strength, and easiness joined togather....Olearness, in
particular, is necessary for you and me, because we are to instruct
peOple of the lowest understanding. we should constantly use the
most common, little, easy words which our language affords. When I
had been a member of the University about ten years, I wrote and
talked much as you do not. But when I talked to plain peOple in
the castle or town I observed they gaped and stared. This quickly
obliged me to alter my style, and adOpt the language of those I
Spoke to.3
In his self-appointed task of educating the poor Wesley Spent much

of his time, as would be expected, writing and editing religious works.

He knew that the effects of his sermons would soon be lost if steps were
not taken to keep them alive. The two principal means to this end were
the organization of societies, and the encouragement of continual reading.

The major problem in regard to the reading was how to get the books to

the people at a price they could afford to pay. One of Wesley's solutions

 

l T.'W. Herbert, John Wesley as Editor and Author (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, l9hO), p. 12l.

 

2 "He shows remarkable literary power; but we feel that his writings
are means to a direct practical end, rather than valuable in themselves.
...He goes straight to the mark without one superflnus flourish. The
compression gives emphasis and never causes confusion." Stephen, English
Thought, II, hO9. Wesley's writings were a means to a direct practical
end, the education of peOple of the lower classes.

3 Overton, John Wesley, p. 178.

 

115

was to publish cheap abridgements of what he considered to be the best

books on practical divinity. The Christian Library, his major effort

 

to carry out this plan, was an attempt "to extract such a collection of
divinity as was all true; all agreeable to the oracles of God; all
practical, unmixed with controversy; and all intelligble to plain men."1
ikitten primarily for his preachers, who were expected to pass on the
knowledge to their listeners, the work proved to be a financial failure.

To support his belief that the "Author of our nature designed that
we should not destroy but regulate our desire for knowledge,"2 Hbsley
made available books in many fields of knowledge beside divinity. He
had, from his Oxford days, made a habit of reading whenever the oppor-
tunity presented itself. The works he published were the result of this
extensive reading. Included were such varied works as novels, grammars,
a natural philOSOphy text, an anthology of poetry, a religious history,
commentaries on the Bible, a dictionary, books on medicine, a book on
logic, histories of England, and political pamphlets.3

The most important medium through which Wesley influenced his peOple

was the Arminian Magazine. Although its primary emphasis was upon re-

 

ligion, with much attention being given to sermons, accounts of religious
experiences of his followers as told in their letters to him, articles

on predestination, and religious poetry, there were other features of

1 "Jesley, Works, VII, 525.

2 Mesley, Letters, VII, 81.
3 a complete list of lbsley's publications is given in R. Green,
The werks of John and Charles wesley. (London: Methodist Publishing
House, 1906).

 

 

 

 

116

a somewhat more secular nature. Among these were articles on leading
writers of the period, such as Butler, Montesquieu, Buffon, and
Priestley.l

we have seen that Wesley was more interested in breadth of knowledge
than in its depth while at Oxford, and this variety of interests served
him well in his attempts to educate the ignorant. Through his work many
pe0ple were given at least a Speaking acquaintance with authors they
would not otherwise have known. Even a cursory inspection of a representa-
tive list of authors whose works were abridged by Wesley is enough to
convince one of his cosmOpolitan taste.2

The problems which confront most authors, that is, those that plague .
them after their books are written, were non-existent for’tbsley. He was
his own publisher, and he had a readyhmade market for his books, once he
had created the desire for reading. In order to make sure that his books
were effectively distributed he sent them with his preachers, whose
saddle-bags always were to be filled with books and pamphlets for sale.3

Each society was expected to have a complete library of Nesley's
works. The Conference of 1763 noted that "the societies are not half
supplied with books; not even with Kempis, Instructions for Children,
and Primitive Physick, which ought to be in every house." The societies

had not even supplied the Christian Library, "for want of which some

 

 

1 J. Wésley, The lrminian Magazine, Vol. IV, 1781.

 

2 See Appendix A for a list of representative works, with the
sources from which they were drawn.

3 Wesley, Wbrks, IV, 382.

117

still read trash."l The preachers were to "beg money of the rich to buy
books for the poor," and collections were to be made through popular
subscription to buy books for general use.2 The success of these efforts
in creating a demand for what Wesley thought to be the right kind of
reading was so marked that Lackington3 reported, "there are thousands
in this society (Methodist) who will never read anything besides the
Bible, and the books published by Mr. Hbsley."4 The editor of the
Journal seems justified in calling wesley "the best gatherer and scatterer
of useful knowledge that Georgian England knew."5

when we turn to Wesley's attempts to change individuals through his
formal System of education we find the same primary emphasis upon
salvation, with a large admixture of secular knowledge. Until the end
of his life John Wesley believed in, and insisted upon following the
religious emphasis and methodology of education that his mother had

6
utilized so successfully in training her children. There were some

 

1 The trash referred to was a flood of cheap paper-backed books
which appeared in the latter half of the eighteenth century. J. R.
Whiteley, Wesley's England (London: Epworth Press, 1938), pp. 283-5.

2 Wesley, works, IV, 382.

 

3 A famous bookseller in London who got his business started
through a loan from a fund established by Hesley.

4Warner, wesleyan Movement, pp. 231—2.
5 Wesley, Journal, I, 21.

6 See pp. 9-10. Perhaps the absence of speculative phiIOSOphy in
John Wesley's thought is partially explained by his mother's belief that
"The speculations of phiIOSOphy are barren compared with the experimental
knowledge of God through faith, yet reason is not to be denied its proper
place in religion, for the understanding is the highest and most noble

 

 

118

modifications of his mother's ideas, but they were due very largely to
the added complexities of trying to teach children of varying backgrounds
in rather large groups. Hesley was not dealing with unusually gifted
children in an isolated rectory, but with children of the lowest economic
level, who were well acquainted with most of the devices of the devil.
His problem was to lead them to salvation, and to give them a useful
education.

John Wesley made no original contribution to educational theory.1
In education, as in theology, he took what was useful from the ideas and
practices of others and adapted them to his own purposes.2 He read from
such authors as Comenius, Locke, Milton, and Rousseau, made visits to
educational institutions to see how different systems of education worked
out in actual practice, and talked with those responsible for their
Operation. As a result of his reading, observation, and discussion wesley
hoped to devise an educational program which would suit his particular
needs.

The Pbly Club at Oxford led Wesley to take his first interest in

education, just as it had been responsible for his interest in other

 

power or faculty of the human soul." Wesley's experience had confirmed
this necessity for both faith and reason. J. W. Prince, wesle on
Religious Education, (New York: Methodist Book Concern, 1935), p. 106.

1 wesley had the same impatience with theory as Johnson, who said,
"Sir, while you are considering which of two things you should teach
your child first, another boy has learnt them both.n Turberville,

Johnson's England, II, 209.
2 One writer claims for him three contributions to educational

theory, but then shows an amazing similarity to Comenius in two of them.
Townsend, g3 21., Methodism, I, 218.

 

119

social problems. During the period from 1729 to 173k he established a
1
school, "paid the mistress, and clothed some, if not all the children."
In addition to the work of the school the Wesleys and other Holy Club
members, when they went to see a poor family, "inquired how each child
behaved, saw their work, heard them read, heard them their prayers or
their catechism, and explained part of it. In the same manner they
taught the children in the workhouse, and read to the old people as they
2

did to the prisoners."

The trip to Georgia gave Vesley and his friends an opportunity to
continue their work with children in a place that had even more need
for their services than Oxford. They were equal to the occasion, Wesley
describing their efforts in a letter to Dr. Bray, who had helped them
by sending some books.

Our general method is this: A young gentleman, who came with
me, teaches between thirty and forty children to read, write, and
cast accounts. Before school in the morning, and after school in
the afternoon, he catechizes the lower class,...In the evening he
instructs the larger children. On Saturday, in the afternoon, I
catechize them all. The same I do on Sunday before the evening
service.3
Perhaps the greatest influence on Wesley's educational thinking,

aside from that of his mother, was that of the Moravians. His Journal
records in considerable detail the courses of study and the daily schedule

followed in the Moravian school at Herrnhut. we shall quote from it at

length because of its great importance to wesley's educational planning.

 

1 TJesley, Journal, VIII, 267.

2 Ibid.

 

3 Wbsley, Letters, I, 21h.

 

 

120

In Herrnhut is taught reading, writing, arithmetic, Latin,

Greek, Hebrew, French, English, History, and Geography....

In the Orphan Hbuse the larger children rise at five. (The
smaller between five and six.) After a little private prayer

they work till seven. Then they are at school till eight, the

hour of prayer; at nine, those who are capable of it learn Latin;

at ten, French; at eleven, they all walk; at twelve, they dine all

together, and walk till one; at one, they work or learn writing;

at three, arithmetic; at four, history; at five, they work; at six,

sup and work; at seven, after a time spent in prayer, walk; at

eight the smaller children go to bed, the larger to the public
service. When this is ended, they work again till at ten they go
to bed.1

It seems incredible that there would have been no word of protest
from wesley against this strict regimentation of the young, but instead
we find the same emphasis upon keeping the children busy from very early
morning until very late in the evening in wesley's schools. This was
true of the school started by Mesley in London, even though it was just
a day school with no provision for boarders.

The London school was established by Wesley with a view toward
correcting some of the worst abuses of the contemporary schools. The
trouble with those who went to English elementary schools, regardless of
whether they were charity schools, public schools, or private schools,
was that they "learned at least to read and write," but at the same time
they "learned all kinds of vice; so that it had been better for them to
have been without this knowledge, than to have bought it at so dear a

2
price." Very rigid rules were drawn up by Wesley in an effort to counter-

act the evil influences to which the children were normally subjected.

 

1 Hesley, Journal, II, 50-1.

2 wesley, works, IV, 3h2.

 

121

His pupils were to gain admission to the school only if the parents were
willing to subscribe to these rules:

1. No child admitted under Six years of age.
2 All the children are to be present at the morning sermon.
3 They are at school from Six to twelve, and from one to five.
h. They have no playdays.
5 No child is to speak in school, but to the masters.
6 The child who misses two days in one week without leave, is
excluded the school.1

This plan of Vesley's was very similar in both purpose and concept
to the Charity School movement which was so strong in England in the early
eighteenth century. Henry Newman, Secretary of the Society for Promoting
Christian Knowledge, wrote in 1713 that "Tho' the method of Charity
Schools has been of but about 15 or 16 years standing it has pleased God
so wonderfully to prosper the design that above 1000 schools have been
erected in that time at which above 20 thousand poor children are now

2

instructed." The Society published accounts of the Charity Schools, in
which their purposes and plans were clearly set forth. The schools were
to instruct children in the Christian religion, to keep them from
vagrancy, and to prepare them for some sort of work.3 The qualifications
needed by a teacher, as listed by the Society, were patriotism, virtue,
and learning, it being "highly reasonable, that those who have such
frequent opportunities of instilling what principles they think fit into

the minds of young peOple, should give all possible security to the pub-

lick, that they do not entertain any which are contrary to, or

 

l .
Ibld., 3&3.
2 Lowther Clarke, Eighteenth Century Piety, p. 77.

 

3 George, Lgndon Life, p. 221.

 

 

122

inconsistent with the present Establishment in Church and State."1
Learning was restricted to reading, writing, and arithmetic, and even
these were to be secondary to the major purpose of making the youngsters
somewhat better than savages through the inculcation of moral virtues.2
tbsley's plan to place major emphasis upon religious instruction in his
London school was in keeping with the spirit of the Charity School move-
ment.

The most ambitious and successful of the schools founded by wesley
was Kingswood, near Bristol. The school is still in Operation, though
with a greatly modified curriculum and a more desirable location at Bath.
Its rules represent Wesley's mature educational concepts, since they
were based not only upon his reading, observation, and discussion, but
also upon the results of his own educational experiences. He intended
that Kingswood should eliminate what he found to be bad in the schools

of his day, including his own school in London. His Plain Account of

 

Kingswood School deals in detail with the deficiencies of the schools of

 

the time, listing them as follows:

1. The very most of them were placed in a great town....The
children, whenever they went abroad, had too many things to engage
their thoughts, which ought to be diverted as little as possible,
from the objects of their learning. And they had too many other
children round about them, some of whom they were liable to meet
every day; whose example would neither forward them in Learning,
nor Religion....(which) they are not likely either to have, or re-
tain, if they converse promiscuously with the children in a great
town. '

 

1 Lowther Clarke, Eighteenth CenturyLPiety, p. 73.

 

2 George, London Life, pp. 221—2.

 

123

2. The promiscuous admission of all sorts of children into a
great School, was another circumstance I did not greatly admire

3. A third inconvenience in many schools is, the Masters have
no more Religion than the Scholars. 1nd if they have little or no
Religion themselves, we may be well assured, they will give them-
selves little trouble about the Religion of the children.

h. They are likewise defective with regard to learning; and
that in several respects. In some, the children are taught little
or no arithmetic; in others, little care is taken even of their
writing....they learn scarce the elements of GeOgraphy, and as
little of Chronology....

Again. In most Schools little judgment is Shown, in the
order of the books that are read. Some very difficult ones are
read in the lower Classes....ind some very easy ones are read long
after, in utter defiance of common sense.1
The neglect of the basic essentials of education in order to allow

more time for the study of classical authors was wrong, for Wesley, and

the contemporary schools made matters worse by using the wrong authors.

They put into their students' hands books which were not only poor

examples linguistically, but which were full of "obscenity and profane-
2

ness."

Hesley's severe indictment of the schools led directly to a decision
to found his own. Since he could find no "School free from these palpable
blemishes, at last a thought came into my mind, of setting up a school
myself." Once the decision had been made he went to work on plans for
one that would "answer the design of Christian Education, by forming

their minds, through the help of God, to wisdom and holiness; by instill-

ing the principles of true Religion, speculative and practical, and

1 1rminian.Magazine, Vol. IV, 1781, pp. 382-h.

 

2 Ibid., p. b32.

 

12h

training them up in the ancient way, that they might be rational, scrip-
tural Christians."1

The location chosen for the school by wesley was "quite private,
remote from all high roads," thus removing the students from the vices of
the city. Applicants for admission were to be carefully screened in order
that none would be allowed who might corrupt the others. The number of
students was kept small, since children are so apt, "when many of them are
together, to binder and corrupt one another." The advantages gained by
having the sclnol in a remote location with a select group of students
were not to be lost by having the students leave it for the corrupt world.
The parents could not take the child from school, "no, not for a day, till
they take him for good and all. The reasonableness of this uncommon rule,
is Shewn by constant experience. For Children may unlearn as much in one
week, as they have learned in several."2

The program to be followed by masters and pupils was drawn up in great
detail. Provision was made for what was to be done during each hour of
the day, from four in the morning until eight at night, at which time all ‘

retired.3 The very early hour at which the day's activities began was

 

1 Ibid., pp. h32-h.
3 Ibid., p. h3h.

3 The daily program, except for Sunday, was as follows:

h 1. M. Rise, reading, singing, ll-l walk, work, dinner.
meditation, prayer. 1-5 School

5 All together with their master; 5 Prayer
till seven they breakfast, 6 Walk, work, supper.
walk, work. 8 Bed, youngest first.

7-11 School wesley, works, VII, 326.

 

 

125

the result of Wesley's belief, gained "by constant observation, and by
long experience," that early rising was "of admirable use, either for
preserving a good, or improving a bad constitution."1 Observation of the
good health of the Moravians had helped to convince him of the soundness
of his belief.2 wesley justified the rigorous schedule under which the
school Operated by quoting an old German proverb, "He that plays when he
is a boy, will play when he is a man."3 He seems to have been so intent
upon saving the children's souls that he could not help treating them as
little adults. His own experience, as an adult, had Shown him that early
rising and a spartan diet were conducive to good health, so he made them
an important part of his educational program. No time was allowed for
play, since sufficient physical exercise could be gained from working in
the gardens, chopping wood, or some other worth-while use of leisure time
which would produce tangible results.

The curriculum included "Reading, Writing, Arithmetic; English, French;
Latin, Greek, Hebrew: History, Geography, Chronology: Rhetoric, Logic,
Ethics: Geometry, Algebra, Natural PhilOSOphy, and Metaphysics."4 Having
considerably broadened the sc0pe of education, wesley had the problem of
finding qualified men to serve as masters. They must be men who were

"truly devoted to God," and who had "learning sufficient for their several

 

1 irminian Magazine, p. h3b.

 

to

See p. 120.

Arminian.Magazine, p. h35.

 

tb

Ibid., p. h86.

 

126

departments."1 The problem was solved by searching for them on his
travels throughout England.

The location of the school, method of selecting students, the rules
under which the school would be operated, the curriculum, and the basis
for appointment of masters had all been decided. The two major problems
remaining for Vesley were those with which most administrators have been
concerned: what books are best for teaching that we want our students to
know; and what are the best methods to use in teaching?

Vesley solved the problem of what books to use in a very characteris-
tic manner. He wrote those for courses in which no suitable text was
available, and edited the works of authors whose writings contained anyh
thing objectionable.2 Many of the books written by Nesley contain sug-
gested methods of instruction for use in that particular course, with the
metlnds being based upon his own Observation and experience.

The training of children was for Wesley, under the influence of his
mother, to be achieved through both discipline and teaching, with the
discipline coming first. "Scripture, reason, and experience jointly
testify that, inasmuch as the corruption of nature is earlier than our .
instructions can be, we should take all pains and care to counteract this

3 _
corruption as early as possible." The strong discipline upon which

 

1 Ibid., p. u33.

2 Among the books written by Wesley were English, French, Latin, and

Greek Grammars. For a complete list of the books he made available to the
students at Kingswood see Minutes of the Methodist Conferences (London:
Conference Office, 1812), I, 63.

3 Wesley, WOrks, X, 152. The age bracket for children entering
Kingswood was six to twelve. If they were over twelve it was too late to
try to change them.

 

 

 

127 i

Wesley insisted at Kingswood was his method of counteracting the native
corruption of children. In some cases, however, Wesley gave some indica-
tion of a deeper understanding of children than his insistence upon a
strong discipline might seem to allow. He once advised that disciplinary
problems be handled with "mildness, softness, gentleness, advice, per-
suasion" where possible, and that severe measures should be taken only
"after the trial and failure of all other methods." He sounds almost
modern in his further advice that when administering punishment one must
"take the utmost care to avoid the very appearance of passion, for other-
wise your own spirit will suffer loss, and the child will reap little ad-
vantage. All punishment must be meted out with kind severity."l '
When the I'native corruption" of the child had been counteracted Ma

through discipline his education could begin. The greatest virtue in

 

teaching, next to knliness, was patience, and wesley never tired of telling .
his schoolmasters and preachers of its great importance. He had fond

memories of his mother's methods of teaching, writing on one occasion that

he had heard his father ask his mother, "How could you have the patience

to tell that blockhead the same thing, twenty times over?" She answered,

"Why, if I had told him but nineteen times I should have lost all my

labour."z Hesley insisted that the students have a complete understanding

of every line they read, telling his teachers to "try them over and over;

stop them sfnrt, almost in every sentence, and ask them, 'What do you

 

1 Ibid., VII, 117.

2

Ibid., Iv, 380.

 

128

mean by that?‘ Read it again."1 The purpose in exercising the patience
was not simply to make it possible for the children to repeat what they
read, but rather to help them understand it. The teachers were to
I"beware Of that common, but accursed way of making children parrots, in-
stead Of Christians. Regard not hgy mush, but 223.3211: or to how good
purpose, they read."2

The teachers had a further responsibility in their attempts to aid
the students' understanding, that of carefully observing "the few ideas
which they have already, and endeavour to graft what you say upon them."3

Milton, in his Treatise on Education, suggests that every student

 

should begin and end his education at the same place. In the Plain Account

of Kingswood School Wesley tells of how he agreed with Milton that it was
"absurd and irrational to break education off in the middle,"4 and to
force the student to begin again in a different place under a different
method, and that he believed that the best preparation for life would ref
sult from the courses and methods in use at Kingswood. His love for
Oxford was so strong, however, that he felt that no one should finish his
education without spending some time there. The expulsion of six students

from Oxford because they were Methodists led him to see that he could not

 

1 Ibid., VII, 118. His mother's influence may be seen here. The
wesley children were kept in school, "never leaving till perfect in their
lessons, were it shorter or longer." Wesley, Journal, III, 37.

2 Ibid., x, 155.

3 Ibid., VII, 119.

4 irminian Magazine, Vol. IV, 1781, p. h87.

 

129

"expect any favour or justice there,“1 so he determined to take Milton's
advice and set up a university program at Kingswood. If Methodists were
to be refused the opportunity to gain a university education at estab-
lished sclnols he had no alternative but to make some provision for them.
The curriculum was comprehensive, and Wesley proudly claimed that those
who completed it would have received better training than that available
at the old universities.2

The bright hopes Vksley had for the future of Kingswood were soon
blasted, There are constant references to difficulties at the school in
the Journal, and the Conferences were always faced with problems of one
sort or another in connection with it. wesley was almost completely dis-
illusioned about it as late as 1783, forty years after its establishment.
The Minutes for that year include a statement by wesley on conditions at
school, in which he said, "The children are not religious: they have not
the power, and hardly the form of religion. Neither do they improve in
learning better than at other schools: no, nor yet so well.ll The only
reason Wesley could find for the failure of the school to do the things
he had expected it to do - to turn out graduates who were both religious
and well educated — was that the rules were not being observed. The
children were even fighting with the collier's children, with whom they
were not supposed to associate, and playing in school. The only solution

he proposed was that the school "must be mended or ended: for no school

 

1 Ibid., p. 1:88,

2 Ibid., pp. b88-93. See Appendix B.

 

 

130

is better than the present school."l Mending meant, of course, that the
school should enforce its original rules.

The Wesleyan concept of formal education was too narrow, too re-
stricted by wesley's insistence upon salvation for those who were too
young to understand or appreciate what he was trying to do. That it would
fail to achieve its aims was almost a certainty. That wesley would fail
to understand why it could not succeed was also to be expected. His habit
of relying upon experience and observation had led him to place too much
dependence upon his own educational background, dominated by the influence
of his mother and the example of the Moravians, and to disregard almost
completely the philosophies of education which might have helped him.

His grasp of the manner in which he must write and speak in order to get
his message across to his adult followers was exceptional: his knowledge
of the behavior and attitudes of normal children was virtually non-
existent. The success of his mother's system of education, as shown in
his own experience, had led him to the conclusion that her methods were
the only sure guide for the children he took it upon himself to educate.
One of the great tragedies of wesley's career was that he never learned
that the way in which his mother taught some exceptionally gifted children
in an isolated rectory in Epworth was not suited to much larger groups of
less gifted students.

In his views on economic affairs wesley reflected much of the attitude
of the Church of England, which failed to furnish guidance during the

period of economic readjustment because it had none to offer, The Church,

 

1 Minutes, I, 166.

 

 

131

as such, made no systematic effort to better the lot of the poor. There
were many within the Church who played important roles in the various
societies organized to help educate and preach to the poor, but the
Church failed to furnish the leadership so desperately needed. Faced
with a large mass of uneducated men and women who had little beauty in
their lives, both the Methodists and the Church failed to provide even
the prOper religious environment for them. Added to the religious failure
was the lack of any attempt to attack the problems of the poor head on.
The Church was content to provide for those who were most sorely in need
and to disregard the problem of finding a long-range solution. Perhaps
the primary reason for the Church‘s failure was that it had come to be
looked upon as "a great system of patronage and property at the disposi-
tion of the richer classes," for whom "the sense of possession was
stronger than the sense of duty."1 I"The rich," Wesley wrote, I'in general
have so little sympathy for the poor because they so seldom visit them."2

The major difference between Wesley and most of the rest of the
clergymen of the Church of England lay in his belief that religion not
only could, but must be used to better the lot of the poor. His sermons
and writings on economic affairs are actually attempts to put this belief
into practice.

The best single source for wesley's teachings on economic virtues

is his sermon The Use of Mone , which was first preached in l7hh. ‘The

 

1 J. L. and B. Hammond, The Bleak Age (London: Longmans, Green
and Co., l93b), p. 72.

2 wesley, works, VII, 1&9.

 

 

 

132

sermon is actually an economic code of ethics reduced to three plain

rules, "by the exact observance whereof we may approve ourselves faithful
1

stewards.‘

l. Gain all you can. But....we ought not to gain money at the
expense of life, nor....health.

we are to gain all we can without hurting our mind....we must
preserve, at all events, the spirit of an healthful mind. There-
fore, we may not engage or continue in any sinful trade; any that
is contrary to the law of God, or of our country. Such are all
that necessarily imply our robbing or defrauding the king of his
lawful customs.2

.to gain all we can without hurting our neighbor... .we can-
not devour the increase of his lands, and perhaps the lands and
houses themselves, by gaining by overgrown bills (whether on
account of law, physio, or anything else)....We cannot sell our
goods below the market price; we cannot study to ruin our neighbors
trade, in order to advance our own.

Neither may we gain by hurting our neighbor in his body.
Therefore we cannot sell anything which tends to impair health.
Such is, eminently, all that liquid fire, commonly called drama,
or spirituous liquors....all who sell them in the common way, to
any that will buy, are poisoners general.

 

And are not partakers of the same guilt....surgeons, apothe-
caries, or physicians, who play with the lives or health of men,
to enlarge their own gain?....

Gain all you can by honest industry. Use all possible dili—
gence....Lose no time....Never leave anthing till tomorrow, which
you can do today....

Gain all you can by common sense....you should be continually
learning, from the experience of others, or from your own experience,

 

1 wesley, Sermons, II, 31b.

2 Wesley fought a long battle against smuggling. No Methodist
could remain in the society if he took part in it.

3 At the time wesley preached this sermon one-eighth of the deaths
of London adults were due to excessive gin-drinking, and in 17h0-2, the
height of the gin era, burials in London were twice as numerous as

baptisms. Trevelyan, English Social History, p. 3h3.

 

133

reading, and reflection, to do everything you have to do better
today than you did yesterday....

2. Save all you can....Do not throw it away in idle expenses,
which is just the same as throwing it into the sea. Expend no

part of it merely to gratify the desire of the flesh, the desire

of the eye, or the pride of life.

Wesley continues by listing those things that one should deny him-
self, among them being "delicacy and variety in foods, expensive apparel,
needless ornaments, costly pictures, elegant gardens, and excessive
generosity to children." Gaining and saving are only means to the end,
however, which is

3. Give all you can. If you desire to be a faithful and wise
steward....first, provide things needful for yourself....secondly,
provide these for your wife, your children, your servants, or any
others who pertain to your household. If there be an overplus

left, then do good to them of the household of faith. If there be

an overplus still, as you have opportunity, do good unto all men.1

This sermon is perhaps the best answer to such critics of Wesley
as the Hammonds, who say that wesley was not sufficiently concerned with

2
everyday problems. They overlook the fact that wesley's primary doctrine
of Christian perfection was centered around perfect love for God and man,
and that it implied helping your fellow man in every possible way.

Wesley stated very clearly his feelings concerning the relative importance

of present and future when he said, ''Above all, do not make the care of

 

1 Wesley, Sermons, II, 31h-2b.

2 J. L. and B. Ehmmond, Town Labourer, p. 282. On another occasion
wesley stated even more strongly his desire that the Methodists should
be primarily concerned with each day's problems. u"Live thou to-day. Be
it thy earnest care to improve the present hour. This is your own; and
it is your all. The past is as nothing, as though it had never been.
The future is nothing to you: It is not yours; perhaps it never will
be....Therefore, live to-day." wesley, works, V, 392;

 

 

13h 1

future things a pretence for neglecting present duty."l wesley's sermon
was an attempt to acquaint his people with their present duty to others.
It contains no protest against the existing economic order, child labor,
living conditions of the workers, or any institutional weakness. wesley
accepted what existed, and made his appeal to individuals, through whose
development desirable changes might be brought about.

Kingswood seemed to Wesley to furnish a perfect example of what
might be accomplished through appeals to the individual conscience.
Undeniable proof of the power of Christianity to transform the whole en-
vironment through individual action was, for him, furnished by the
experience of the miners there, who had formerly been "a people famous
for neither fearing God nor regarding man; so ignorant of the things of
God that they seemed but one remove from the beasts that perish."2
After the ministry of Whitefield and Wesley, which had lasted only about
one year,

The scene is already changed. Kingswood does not now, as a
year ago, resound with cursing and blasphemy. It is no more filled
with drunkeness and uncleanness, and the idle diversions that
naturally lead thereto. It is no longer full of wars and fightings,
of clamour and bitterness, of wrath and envying. Peace and love
are there.3
Within seven months from the beginning of his field ministry John

Wesley saw what could be accomplished in a region known for its evil ways.

 

From 1739 to the time of his death he never doubted the close relationship

 

1 wesley, Wbrks, V, 390.
2 Wesley, Journal, II, 322.

3 Ibid., 322—3,

 

135

between religion and economic and social well—being, and he was one with

1
his century in declaring that economic success demanded work.

I
I
A
o
|
' I
l
|

One of the reasons for the success of the miners at Kingswood was
that they had turned from their idle diversions to something worth-while,
which to wesley meant either the things of God or work, although there
was no clear line of demarcation between these two. A good man and a
busy man were one and the same. ."Every man that has any pretence to be
a Christian will not fail to school himself rigorously to the business
of his calling, seeing it is impossible that an idle man can be a good
man, — sloth being inconsistent with religion."2 Wesley's insistence
upon work was even more clearly and forcefully expressed in his answer
to a critic who had written that Methodist "enthusiasm" would make the

poor even lazier.

 

So far am I from either causing or encouraging idleness, that
an idle person, known to be such, is not suffered to remain in any
of our societies; we drive him out, as we would, a thief or a
murderer. To show all possible diligence....is one of our stand-
ing rules; and one, concerning the observance of which we continu-
ally make the strictest inquiry.3

It is of considerable_importance to a prOper understanding of Wesley
to note that the same man who would remove a man from a society for idle- -h

ness had only one rule for admission to the society, "a desire to flee

 

1 This statement might be made even stronger. The eighteenth
century was one in which "self-respect and poverty seemed incompatible."
Hammond, Bleak A e, p. 68. The economic teachings of wesley, with their
emphasis upon work and wise use of money, encouraged the feeling among
Methodists that no self-respecting member of the Society could remain
complacently poor.

2 wesley, works, VII, 76.
3 Ibid., 78.

 

 

136

rfrom the wrath to come, (and) to be saved from their sins."1 Comparative-
ly little emphasis was placed upon what a man believed, but a great deal
upon evidence of the effects of his faith. wesley did not believe that

a man could be truly saved and not demonstrate it in his every day

activities. The General Rules of the United Societies, like the sermon

 

on The Use of Money, are concerned with the evils of drunkenness, buying
or selling uncustomed goods, usury, idleness, costly apparel, laying up
treasures upon earth, and the like. Indulgence in these vices was suf—
ficient evidence that the individual was not a "good steward," was there-
fore not truly saved, and consequently should be ejected from the society.
What Wesley seemingly failed to foresee was that the Methodists, if
they were good stewards who practiced diligence and frugality, would
become more prosperous if they failed to give all they could. It was one
thing to preach salvation and a new way of life to the poor of England,
and another to keep them from falling victim to one or more of the worldly
vices which might tempt them once they had started to save money. The
imperative to "give all you can" might very easily be overshadowed by
those to "gain all you can," and to "save all you can." This possible
secularization of religious drives had actually taken place before wesley's

death, as his Thoughts Upon Methodi§m_clearly shows.

 

For the Methodists in every place grow diligent and frugal;
consequently, they increase in goods. Hence they prOportionably
increase in pride, in anger, in the desire of the eyes, and the
pride of life....

 

1 Ibid., IV, 3h6.

 

 

137

Is there no way to prevent this? we ought not to forbid
peOple to be diligent and frugal: ve must exhort all Christians
to gain all they can. and to save all they can; that is, in
effect, to grow rich!1
The Methodists grew rich because they omitted what to Wesley was

the most important of his three simple rules, his advice to "give all
you can." In their refusal to meet this obligation they were destroying
the social principle which had been such a powerful motivating force in
early Methodism. They were also proving themselves to be unworthy
stewards, and Wesley's feeling toward them was strong.

Having gained and saved all you can, give all you can; else
your money will eat your flesh as fire, and will sink you to the
nethermost hell! 0 beware of laying up treasures on earth! Is
it not treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath? Lord, I
have warned them....I can only give them up unto their own
hearts' lusts, and let them follow their own imaginations.2
The Wesleyan economic ideal was that of a Christian community in

which everything beyond what was needed for one's household was to be
given to the poor, thus bringing about, through individual effort, some
sort of economic equality. The ideal was impossible to attain unless
every true Christian retained the moral intensity which Wesley envisioned.
If love for one's fellow man was not kept firmly in mind, the approved
pursuit of material gain could easily overshadow the equally important
teaching regarding the disposition of the wealth gained.

The rather precarious balance between gaining all you can and giving

all you can was being lost in favor of the former before wesley‘s death.

 

1Wesley, Works, X, 150.

2 Ibid., VI, 327.

 

 

I
T I
l
1 .
7‘
l
)

 

138

Even though he could not see it, his plain rules for guiding the economic
activity of his followers had within themselves the tendency to subvert
the primary purpose for which they were intended.

The social and economic teachings of John wesley were not the re-
sult of a carefully thought—out plan for the rehabilitation of the poor,
nor were they aided by the creation of an organization set up specific-
ally for that purpose. They were, rather, the result of careful observ—
ation of what was wrong followed by suggested remedies. In each case
the evils resulted from mans' failure through ignorance. The remedy
he found for any particular malfunction of society was to educate the
individuals within that society — to let them know what their individual
obligations to their fellow man were according to the doctrine of
Christian perfection.

The importance of John wesley to the eighteenth century is not to
be found in the solutions he preposed for its social and economic prob-
lems. The remedies he suggested, based upon his own observation and
experience, were designed to correct a specific problem, with little or
no thought being given to what was needed to effect long range improve-
ments. The major significance of his teachings lies in the fact that he
recognized the existence of the problems, and, unlike most of the clergy—
men of the Church of England, taught that a steady attempt to bring
’relief to the less fortunate was an important duty of anyone claiming
to be a Christian. "The Methodist movement did for eighteenth century
England what Christianity did for the ancient world, giving to men of

conscience and compassion a cause for which to live, and blending the

 

 

idea of the brotherhood of man with the most sublime of the mysteries of
religion."1
The awakening of the conscience of England, to which the Methodists
made a significant contribution, made possible the reforms of the early
nineteenth century. Wesley's doctrine of Christian perfection made
every Methodist conscious of the necessity for taking care of his fellow
man, and, at the same time, made him conscious of his own individual
importance. The Methodist was under the obligation of learning to con-
trol himself, after which he might begin to play an important part in the
work of the society as a band or class leader, a visitor of the sick,
an official of the chapel, or some other official capacity. The self—
reliance thus gained was to have considerable political import, in
addition to the religious, social, and economic implications already

discussed.

 

1 Hammond, Bleak Age, p. 60,

 

 

CHAPTER V
JOHN WESLEY AND POLITICAL LIFE

John wesley made no original contribution to political theory, and
showed no interest in it. In politics, as in social and economic theory,
he was content to state what should be done by a Christian in a particu-
lar situation. The primary consideration in his political thinking was
always whether or not the individual within the state had the freedom he
needed to fulfill his Christian obligations, as Hhsley saw them. This
involved a necessity for order, and there is nothing more consistent in
Wesley's written political views than his plea to his readers, of what-
ever status they might be, from the king to the lowliest man in England,
to show due respect for law and order. Aside from this emphasis on order
there is nothing in the nature of a logical presentation of political
ideas to be found in Wesley‘s writings. They were written whenever it
seemed necessary for him to state his views, and always with his Christian
ethic firmly in mind. The close relationship he saw between religion and
politics was, to a great extent, the result of the influence of his
father.

Politics were taken very seriously at Epworth. One of the arguments
betWeen Samuel and Susanna Wesley was so bitter that Samuel left home
for a brief period. When he observed that his wife did not join him in

his prayers for William III he said, "Sukie, if we are to have two kings,

 

 

 

lhl

we must have two beds."1 She made no attempt to stop him as he rode
away. The political High Churclmanship of the rector of Epworth was

well-known to his Whig and non-party parishioners, and caused constant

 

friction between them.2 His political activities in behalf of the Tory
candidate in the election of 1705 were so vigorous that one of his Whig
parishioners to whom he owed some money had him thrown in prison for
non-payment of the debt.3 In 1710 Samuel wesley wrote the speech which
Sacheverell4 delivered in his own defense before Parliament. The High
Churchmen of Lincolnshire showed their appreciation of Wesley's efforts
by electing him to Convocation for seven consecutive years,5 further
alienating him from his religious charges. Firmly convinced of the

validity of his position, Samuel Wesley retained his Tory views.until

 

the end of his life in spite of the attacks of his people upon him, and
tried to train his children in "the highest notions of passive obedience

e
and non-resistance."

 

1 Fitclett, Wesley and His Century, p. 17.

 

2 See pp. 18-9.
3 Simon, Religious Societies, p. 53.

4 A High Churchman who preached a sermon before the Lord Mayor of
London, "the subject of which was Perils among False Brethren, and its
drift a vigorous declamation on the absolute duty of non-resistance to
the supreme power, and a bitter tirade upon the Whig and Low Church
principles which came in with the Revolution." The Whigs brought him to
trial, and lost not only the trial but their supremacy in government for
a slnrt while. ibbey, English Church, I, 9-11.

5 Simon, Religious Societies, p. Sh.
6 wesley, Letters, VI, 156.

 

lh2

Although John Wesley did not follow his father‘s religious High
Churchmanship in that he failed to show the proper regard for ecclesiasti-
cal authority, he retained the Tory principles he had learned at Epworth.
This put him into the seemingly untenable position of advocating both a
religious belief in which the individual was virtually all-important and
a political system in which most citizens of England had no chance to
participate. There was no contradiction in these beliefs for Wesley,
however. His firm and unwavering conviction was that the people of
England could enjoy the freedom necessary for practicing their religious
beliefs only by submitting to the laws passed by Parliament and enforced
by the king. John Hesley, like his father, had a deep affection for the
king, but even the king must obey the laws. "The King of England is a
sovereign Prince: yet he has not the power to bid me to do the least
thing, unless the law of the land require me so to do; for he has no
power but to execute the law. The will of the King is no law to the
subject."1

One of the most striking experiences of John wesley's life was his
narrow escape from the rectory fire when he was six years old.2 The
Wesley family believed that the fire was started by their enemies, whom
they considered to have no fear of God or man. wesley always believed
tlnt he was saved from the fire by divine providence, and he had an

equally strong belief that men who did not fear God would not honor human

 

1 Wesley, Works, VII, 13b.

2 See p. 12.

 

 

1&3

authority. For that reason he had a life-long distrust of "the beasts

of the people," including so—called gentlemen.l They were easily swayed
by unscrupulous men, as the fire at Epworth and his experiences with mobs
in his early ministry clearly showed.2 Wesley‘s concept of the depravity
of man was not the result of abstract reasoning, but a conclusion based
upon reading the Bible and substantiated by observing the mode of life
all over England. When he wrote of the beasts of the peeple he was
writing of those who had treated him as one would expect beasts to treat
him. It was inconceivable to him that they should have any voice in the
political affair of the country.

The consequences of a lack of strong civil government were pointed
out by Wesley during his trip to Georgia. The American Indians had "no
civil government at all; no laws, no magistrates, but every man does what
is right in his own eyes: therefore, they are decreasing daily."3 On
the other hand the English colonists in Savannah were fortunate in that
"we have an advantage here which is not frequent in other places - that
is, a Magistracy not only regular in their own conduct, but desirous and
watchful to suppress as far as in them lies whatever is openly ill in

4
the conduct of others."

 

1 Wesley, Journal, V, 3bl.

2 There are frequent references in the Journal to attacks by mobs.
wesley complained very bitterly about the lack of protection against
such attacks, his contention being that the Metlndists were loyal subjects
and therefore entitled to all the rights of any other laweabiding group.

)

3 «bsley, Works, V, 336.

4 wesley, Letters, I, 223.

 

 

lhh

The ideal government for Wesley was one governed by laws which had
been passed by men who were reasonable, wise, and good. This excluded
the vast bulk of the people, since even though most of them might be
"converted“ and acquire the necessary respect for both divine and human
authority they were not qualified to know what was best for the country.
Tesley felt that he knew a great deal about the England of his day, and

yet he said,

I am no politician; politics lie quite out of my province.
Neither have I any acquaintance, at least no intimacy, with any
that bear that character. And it is no easy matter to form any
judgment concerning things of so complicated a nature. It is
the more difficult, because in order to form our judgment, such
a multitude of facts should be known, few of which can be known
with tolerable exactness by any but those who are eye-witnesses
of them.1

The difficulties involved in keeping informed were tremendous; well
beyond the capabilities of the common man. Their lack of knowledge did
not prevent the peOple of England from expressing themselves on political
affairs, however. Vesley wrote of their penchant for posing as experts

in an extremely sarcastic vein:

Perhaps you will say, "Nay, every Englishman is a politician;
we suck in politics with our mother's milk. It is as natural for
us to talk politics as to breathe: we can instruct both the king
and his council. we can in a trice reform the state, point out
every blunder of this or that minister, and tell every step they
ought to take to be arbiters of all Europe."

I grant, every cobbler, tinker, porter, and hackney-coachman,
can do this. But I am not so deep-learned: while they are sure
of everything, I am sure of nothing.2

 

l Wesley, Werks, X, 100.

2 Ibid., 101.

 

 

115

No good could come of this constant complaining about the way the
government was being run, and it was actually a tendency toward rebellion
which involved a plea for liberty, a plea which to wesley, "if practised,
would overturn all government and bring in universal anarchy."l The
liberty desired by the "bawling mob” was of four kinds: 1"the liberty of
knocking on the head, of cutting the throats, of those we are out of
conceit with; the liberty of taking, when we see best, the goods and
chattels of our neighbours; the liberty of taking our neighbour's wives
and daughters; that of removing a disobedient king." No reasonable man
would want this kind of liberty, but "what is that liberty, properly so-
called, which every wise and good man desires?“2 It is significant that
Wesley, when speaking of liberty, excluded all those who were not both
wise and good. No man could be truly wise or good unless he knew God,
that is, unleSS he was reborn. For that reason Tesley directed his
Thoughts Upon Liberty to the reasonable, wise, and good men of England.

The liberty desired by every reasonable man was either religious or
civil. Religious liberty was that "liberty to choose our own religion,
to worship God according to our own conscience," to which "every man liv-
ing, as man, has a right as he is a rational creature." In times past
this liberty had been abridged, particularly by Queen Elizabeth, Queen
Mary, King James I, and King Charles II. Their actions had been taken
in spite of the fact that it seemed to Wesley incredible "that the most

sensible men in the world should say to their fellow creatures, 'Either

 

1 Wesley, Journal, VI, 100.

2 Wesley, WOrks, X, 118.

 

 

 

lhé

be of my religion, or I will take away your food, and you and your wife
and children shall starve: if that will not convince you, I will fetter
your hands and feet, and throw you into a dungeon; and if you will still
not see as I see, I will burn you alive'." But this was no longer true
in Wesley‘s day. Neither George II nor George III had allowed any man

to be "persecuted for conscience' sake." There was no nation in Europe
"which enjoys such liberty of conscience as the English." They had "full
liberty to choose any religion, yea, or no religion at all."1

Civil liberty was defined by wesley as the l'liberty to enjOy our
lives and fortunes in our own way; to use our property, whatever is
legally our own, according to our choice.“ If individual civil liberties
were to be invaded, it would not be by the "king, or his parliament, or
army, but by the good patriots." It was the king and parliament who kept
his life, person, and preperty safe, and his question was, "Are you not
as free as I am? That many-headed beast, the people," wanted liberty
which was actually licentiousness, but a "reasonable man, a man of real
honour," could not possibly desire a liberty beyond that which he already
enjoyed.2 ‘

The scope of governmental functions, as envisaged by Hesley in the
Thoughts Upon Liberty, was very narrow. The concept of broad governmental
participation in the lives of its citizens was not to become p0pu1ar
until long after his death. Hesley's pamphlet on Liberty was written

four years before Bentham's Fragment, but it is extremely doubtful that

 

1 Ibid., 118-20.

2 Ibid., 121-2.

 

 

1117

he would have written differently even though he had known Bentham's
work. The only valid function of the state was to guarantee its citizens
liberty - religious liberty to worship as they liked, and civil liberty
to enjoy their property as they wished. The English citizen enjoyed

that liberty,1 and as a result was able to live a truly Christian life
practicing Methodist social and economic virtues.

One of wesley's self-imposed obligations in his political efforts
was to refute the writings of those win believed that each individual
had the right to take part in government. This seemed to Wesley to be
an effort to put England under the control of immoral individuals‘from
whom no good could be expected to come, and who were intellectually in-
capable of knowing what was best for England. The works of two authors

drew his particular attention; Priestley's Treatise on Civil Government,

 

 

and Price's Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty. Priestley,

 

accepting Rousseau's line of argument, contended that government was a
bargain under the terms of which every man gave up part of his civil
liberty, his freedom to do as he wished, in return for political liberty,
or influence upon the government of the country.2 His belief that “the
good and happiness of the members, that is the majority of the members

of any state, is the standard by which everything relating to that state

 

1 In a letter to a public official Wesley made a plea for pro—
tection for the Methodists, saying, "we are men; we are Englishmen. As
such we have a natural and a legal right to liberty of conscience."
wesley, Letters, VII, 151-2. His concepts of the natural rights of man
were simple, involving only the right to freedom of religion, person and
property.

2 Stephen, English Thought, II, 251;.

 

 

lh8

must finally be determined," and further, that "this one general idea,
prOperly understood, throws the greatest light upon the whole system

of policy, morals, and, I may add, theology too,"l seemed to Wesley to

be an attack on the entire institutional structure of England, both
religious and political. His reaction to Priestley's work was to publish
a refutation in 1772, only four years after Priestley's Treatise had

appeared. wesley's pamphlet, Thoughts Concerning the Origin of Power,

 

was an attempt to show that the contract theory could not be supported
by fact. The starting-point of his argument was, as usual, the Bible;
"there is no power but from God," even though it had been argued that

All men living upon earth are naturally equal; none is above
another; and all are naturally free, masters of their own actions.
It manifestly follows, no man can have any power over another,
unless by his own consent. The power, therefore, which the govern—
ors in any nation enjoy, must be originally derived from the people,
and presupposes an original compact between them and their first
governors.2

Much of the remainder of the pamphlet is_a reductio ad absurdum of

 

this argument, A few extracts will be sufficient to show the nature of
Wesley's logic.

Who are the people? Are they every man, woman, and cldld?
‘flw-not?....By what argument do you prove that women are not
naturally as free as men? 1nd, if they are, why have they not as
good a right as we have to choose their own governors?

....what pretence have we for excluding men like ourselves
barely because they have not lived one-and-twenty years, 'Why, they
have not the wisdom or experience to judge concerning the qualifi-
cations necessary for governors.‘ I answer, who has? But wisdom

 

1 Ibid., zsh-s.

2 J. Wesley, Thoughts Concerning the Origin of Power (Bristol:
'4. Pine, 1772), p. 9.

 

 

 

1&9

and experience are nothing to the purpose. Are they men? Then
they have a right to choose their governors;ranlindefeasible
right; a right inherent, inseparable from human nature.

....after depriving half the human species of their natural
right for want of a beard; after depriving myriads more for want
of a stiff beard, for not having lived one-and-twenty years; you
rob others of their birthright for want of money. But here is an
Englishman who has money enough to buy the estates of fifty free-
holders, and yet he must not be numbered among the people because
he has not two or three acres of land.1

Believing that he had refuted the argument that government is derived
from the people by showing that its proponents could not logically exclude
any of the peOple,2 Wesley went on to show that as a matter of historical
fact the English peOple had never chosen their rulers, It might be argued
that even though the peOple had not given Charles I his power they had
certainly taken it away, but 1 l

I deny it utterly. The peeple of England no more took away

his power, than they cut off his head. (A small percentage of the

house of commons did it) But suppose they had been the whole house

of commons, yea, or the whole parliament; by what rule of logic

will you prove that seven or eight hundred persons are the peOple

of England? (They are not the chosen delegates of the people,

since they are chosen) not by one half, not by a quarter, not by

a tenth part, of them.3

Not even the royal power gained by William III as a result of the

Revolution could be uSed as an example of power granted by the peOple,

since

 

1 Ibid., pp. 6-8.

2 He had made what Feiling calls the "perennial Tory point," that
if the people were allowed a voice in government, it must be all the
peOple, Since all the people were not qualified there was no logical

basis for changin the government. K. G. Failing, A Histor of the Tor
Party, 16h0-17lh London: Oxford University Press, 1932}.

3 Vksley, Origin of Power, pp. 9-10.

 

 

lSO

....certain it is, that he did not receive it by any act or
deed of the people. Their consent was neither obtained nor asked;
they were never consulted in the matter. It was not therefore the
peeple that gave him the power; no, nor even the parliament. It
was the convention, and none else,...They were a few hundred lords
and gentlemen.1

Since the people were not then, and had never been, the source of
power, wesley sought its origin in the only authority who had the power
of life and death over man - the Creator.

, It is allowed, no man can dispose of another's life by his

own consent. I add, No, nor with his consent; for no man has a

right to dispose of his own life. The Creator of man has the sole

right to take the life which he gave. Now it is an indisputable
truth, none gives what he has not. It plainly follows, that no

man can give to another a right which he never had himself....it

must descend from God alone.

The supposition, then, that the peOple are the origin of
power, is every way indefensible....So common sense brings us back
to the grand truth, 'There is no power but of God.'2
Priestley's fellow revolutionist, Price, was much more pessimistic

about England's future, but equally emphatic in his support of the con—
tract theory. "Civil government, as far as it can be demonstrated free,"
he said, is the creature of the peOple. It originates with them, they
have the power to model it as they please."3 The implications of this
statement were very broad, Price's inference being that "the peeple are
absolute; that they never divest themselves of their undefeasible rights;

and that Parliament, their creature, cannot rightfully oppose their will.

Such a theory is the only security against oppression, because a peOple

 

1 Ibid., p. 10.
2 Ibid., pp. 11-12.

a R. Price. Observations on Civil Liberty (London: T. Cadell,

1776), p. 6.

 

 

 

151

will never oppress itself, and cannot safely trust anybody else."1

Even though wesley had already written an answer to the arguments
of the proponents of the contract theory he felt that he must refute the
arguments set forth in Price's 9§§grvations. In 1776 Wesley wrote his
reply in a pamphlet, Some Observations on Liberty, in which he stated his
position on the contract theory in more emphatic terms. Be first attacked
the pessimism shown by Price regarding England's future. According to
Price both population and trade were declining, but Wesley's travels had
shown him that p0pulation was actually increasing and that trade was
expanding very rapidly throughout the kingdom.2 Then, going on to the
political aspects of Price's work, Wesley denied that 'liberty is more
or less complete, according as the people have more or less share in
government." wesley believed that "the greater share the people have
in the government the less liberty, either civil or religious, does the
nation in general enjoy. Accordingly, there is most liberty of all,
civil and religious, under a limited monarchy; there is usually less
under an aristocracy, and least of all under a democracy."3

This statement of wesley's has led one observer to conclude that
its logic compelled wesley "to say that the greatest liberty is under a
deepot," and that although wesley "refused to admit this, nevertheless

unconsciously he believed it."4 This conclusion is wide of the mark in

 

1 Stephen, English Thought, II, 258.

2 J. wesley, The works of the Rev. John Wesley, A. M., (New York:
Carlton and Lanahan, n.d.5, VI, 300-1. Hereinafter cited as works (2).

3 Ibid., 30h.

4 Edwards, John wesley, p. 31.

 

 

 

152

that it disregards the basis upon which all wesley's political observa-
tions Were made - his high regard for law. The reason for the high
esteem in which wesley held the English government was that it had a
system of laws which provided freedom for the individual citizen - free-
dom which no other nation had. "We have certainly enjoyed more complete
liberty since the Revolution, than England ever enjoyed before; and the
English government, unequal as the representation is, has been admired
by all impartial foreigners."1 His trips through America, Europe,
Ireland, Scotland, and England had convinced him that there was more
freedom under the English constitution than any other nation enjoyed.
His inherent love for the limited monarchy did not blind him to its short—
comings, however, and it did not lead him to state, either expressly or
implicitly, that the government should bemore highly centralized.

wesley had a very caustic answer to Price's statement that “to be
guided by one's own will is freedom; to be guided by the will of another
is slavery." To Wesley this was nthe very quintessence of republicanism,"
and "if this be true, how free are all the devils in hell, seeing they
are all guided by their own will! And what slaves are all the angels in

heaven, since they are guided by the will of another."2

 

l Hbsley, Works (2), VI, 306. Civil liberty was defined by wesley
in this pamphlet as the "liberty to dispose of our lives, persons, and
fortunes according to our own choice, and the laws of the country.

I add, according to the laws of our country: for, although, if we
violate these, we are liable to fines, imprisonment, or death; yet if,
in other cases we enjoy our life, liberty, and goods, undisturbed, we
are free, to all reasonable intents and purposes." Ibid., 302.

 

 

2 Ibid., 311.

 

153

On a somewhat higher plane, Wesley objected to Price's belief in
self-willed individuals on the grounds that it was a person's duty to
obey those in power.

....Whoever is born in any civilized country, is, so long as
he continues therein, whether he chooses it or no, subject to the
laws and the supreme governors of that country. Whoever is born
in England, France, or Holland, is subject to their respective
.governors; and "must needs be subject to the power, as to the
ordinance of God, not only for wrath, but for conscience' sake."
He has no right at all to be independent, or governed only by
himself; but is in duty bound to be governed by the powers that
be, according to the laws of the country.1
The man "that is thus governed, not by himself, but the laws, is

in the general sense of mankind, a free man." The laws by which he is
governed may in certain cases, "deprive him of his goods; in others, of
his personal freedom, or even of his life." But “all this time he en-
joys such a measure of liberty, as the condition of civilized nations
allows; but no independency; that chimera is not to be found; no, not
in the wilds of Africa or America.2

Priestleyrand Price were to wesley political theorists whose ”subtle
metaphysical pleas for universal independency appear beautiful in specu-

3
lation, yet it never was, neither can be reduced to practice." The

theorists were impractical in their views, and were almost totally ignor-

ant of the real state men were in. Wesley felt that the real answer

 

1 Ibid., 305.

2 Ibid., 306. Wesley had found that the idyllic freedom of the
African natives had been destroyed by the slave hunters (See pp. lO9—lb),
and that the American Indians were almost completely corrupt (See p. ha).

3 Ibid., 305.

 

 

15b

to the problems of the time was not to dabble in metaphysics, but to get

the people to fear God. His Observations on Liberty closed with an

 

appeal to his fellow Englishmen to work toward this end.

Let us who are real lovers of their country use every lawful
means to put out, or, at least, prevent the increase of, that
flame which, otherwise, may consume our people and nation. Let
us earnestly exhort all our countrymen to improve the innumerable
blessings they enjoy; in particular, that invaluable blessing of
liberty, civil as well as religious, which we now enjoy in a far
more ample measure than any of our forefathers did. Let us
labour to improve our religious liberty, by practising pure
religion and undefiled; by worshipping God in spirit and in truth;
and taking His ”word for a latern to our feet, and a light in all
our paths." Let us improve our civil liberty, the full freedom we
enjoy, both as to our lives, goods, and persons, by devoting all
we have, and all we are, to His honourable service.1

The Calm Address to Our American Colonies, Nesley's major attempt

 

to keep the colonies within the empire, is the last of his political
pamphlets We shall examine. It is the most significant of his political
writings insofar as p0pu1ar reaction, both pro and con, is concerned, and
the unusually bitter attacks made upon Wesley after the publication of

the pamphlet were due, at least in part, to the fact that he changed his
mind on what the government should do about the colonies. His attitude
prior to the time he wrote the Calm Address is best illustrated by almost
identical letters written in June, 1775, to two men whom he considered

to be among the most valuable men in England - Lords Dartmouth and North,2

The letters began with a plea for fairness toward the Americans, in

 

1 Ibid., 320.

2 In writing of Dartmouth and North Wesley said, "Perhaps no prince
in Europe, besides King George, is served by two of the honestest and
two of the most sensible men in his kingdom." wesley, Journal, VI, 179-80.

 

 

155

\
spite of Wesley's inherent prejudice against those who demonstrated dis-
loyalty to the king.

All my prejudices are against the Americans; for I am an High

Churchman, the son of an High Churchman, bred up from my childhood
in the highest notions of passive obedience and non-resistance.
And yet, in spite of all my long—rooted prejudices, I cannot avoid
thinking, if I think at all, these, an Oppressed people, asked for
nothing more than their legal rights, and that in the most modest
and inoffensive manner that the nature of the thing would allow.

But waiving this, waiving all considerations of right and
wrong, I ask, Is it common sense to use force toward the Americans?1
He thought it was not sensible to use force against the Americans,

since llthese men will not be frightened, They will probably dispute
every inch of ground, and, if they die, die sword in hand." The argu-
ments that the Americans had no combat experience, no discipline, and

no strong feeling of unity were not valid. Few of the English troops
were experienced, and discipline could be learned as rapidly by the
Americans as by the English. The people in the northern colonies were
so strongly united 'that to speak a word in favour of the present English
measures would almost endanger a man's life." The Americans were fight-
ing for "their wives, children, liberty," giving them a tremendous
advantage "over men who fight only for pay, none of whom care a straw
for the cause wherein they are engaged, most of whom strongly disapprove
of it." The Americans were also favored in that "their supplies are at
hand: ours are three thousand miles off."2

In addition to the advantages held by the Americans, which made the

outcome of a struggle with them extremely dubious, there was another,

 

1 Wesley, Letters, VI, 156.

2 Ibid., 157-8.

 

 

156

and greater danger facing England. Her enemies on the continent could
take advantage of the absence of the regular army, and even "if they
find means to land but ten thousand men" who is to oppose them? Wbsley

1 The l"huge majority of the people are

had no confidence in the militia.
exasperated almost to madness," just as they were in léhO. Two other
factors were present which had helped to bring on the earlier revolt;

a general decay of trade, and scarcity of provisions. "So that even

now there are multitudes of people that, having nothing to do and nothing
to eat, are ready for the first bidder,"2 The weakness of her defenses,
the antipathy of the masses toward the government, and the economic un-
balance apparent in England all combined to make her an attractive

target for her enemies. Wesley's conclusion was that war with the
colonies was not justified, and could not be won, so he urged Dartmouth
and North to do what they could to calm the situation.

At about the same time as he wrote the letters to Dartmouth and
North Wesley wrote a circular letter to his preachers in America, advis—
ing them to be very careful in their actions. "You were never in your
lives in so critical a situation as you are at this time. It is your
part to be peacemakers; to be loving and tender to all; but to addict
yourselves to no party. In spite of all solicitations, of rough or

smooth words, say not one word against one or the other side."3

 

1 On one occasion a large body of militia had thrown down their arms
and fled, completely unnerved by the discharge of a fowling-piece by a
boy who was hunting nearby. Ibid., 158.

2 Ibid., 159.
3 Ibid., 1h2.

 

 

157

This conciliatory attitude continued until the Fall of 1775, Wesley

‘
continuing until that time to believe that peace was possible between ‘
1
England and the colonies, but doubts began to appear. The publication
\
of Johnson's Taxation no Tyzanny brought those doubts to a head, and
changed Wesley's mind as to the proper policy toward the Americans.
I was of a different judgment on this head, till I read a
tract, entitled Taxation no Tyranny. But as soon as I received
more light myself, I judged it my duty to impart it to others.
I therefore extracted the chief arguments from that treatise, and
added an application to those whom it most concerns. I was well
aware of the treatment this would bring upon myself; but let it
be, so I may in any degree serve my king and country.1
The reaction to the Calm Address was about what wesley had antici-
pated, even though the pamphlet did not reach the Americans. "The ports
being just then shut up by the Americans, I could not sent it abroad as
I designed. HOWever, it was not lost; within a few months, fifty, or
perhaps a hundred thousand copies, in neWSpapers and otherwise, were
dispersed throughout Great Britain and Ireland. The effect exceeded my
most sanguine hopes."2 One effect of the pamphlet was to provoke very
bitter attacks upon him. For several years he "was exposed to hailstorms
of wild calumny, and unsavoury abuse. He was furiously denounced as a

wolf in sheep‘s clothing; a Jesuit and Jacobite unmasked; a chaplain in

furies to Bellona, the Goddess of War."3

 

1 Wesley, Works (2), VI, 293. Johnson later wrote a letter to
Wesley thanking him for his support of the position taken in Taxation no
Tyzanny, and telling him "to have gained such a mind as yours may justly
confirm me in my own opinions." Wesley, Journal, VI, 7.

2 Wesley, Works (2), VI, 328.

 

3 Herbert, wesley as Editor and Author, p. 107.

 

 

 

158

The unrest in England and the desire for freedom in America wesley
considered to be the result of a diabolical plot. There were 'a few men
in England, who are determined enemies of monarchy." For many years
they had been "undermining it with all diligence, in hopes of erecting‘
their grand idol, their dear commonwealth, upon its ruins." These men
were steadily pursuing their desired end, "as by various other means,
so in particular by inflammatory papers, which are industriously and
continuously dispersed.’l This had raised thousands of people "to the
pitch of madness“ in both England and America. The end result would be,
"although the Americans, in general, love the English, and the English,
in general, love the Americans," that the colonies would leave England.
Then, those who hated the king would be able to discredit the king and
"overturn the government: eSpecially while the main of both the English
and Irish trOOps are at so convenient a distance [in America]."1

The imputation of improper motives to all those who differed with
the government on its American policies was enough to make Wesley dis-
liked by a great many peOple, yet he felt that he was only doing his
duty to his king and country.

The major problem with which wesley dealt in the galm_Address was
that of representation. He believed in virtual representation, which
meant that members of Parliament represented not only their own constitu-
ents but Englishmen at large. The argument that the colonists could be

taxed only with their consent was inadmissable, since "whatever holds

 

1 Wesley, works, x, 1334;.

 

 

 

159

with regard to taxation, holds with regard to other laws. Therefore, he
who denies the English Parliament the power of taxation, denies it the
right of making any laws at all." The colonists had never objected to
the right of Parliament to make laws, but now they argued that "every man
is governed by laws to which he has consented." Quite the contrary, only
a very small percentage of.the peOple were actually concerned with making
laws, and they had been chosen for the purpose by a restricted part of
the population. The rest consented to the laws passively. "As all men
are born, passively, as it Were, consenting to the laws of that state."1
Patrick Henry argued that the colonists had “brought with them, and
transmitten to their posterity....all the liberties, privileges, fran-
chises, and immunities that have at any time been held, enjoyed and
possessed by the people of Great Britain," including self-taxation.2 To
such arguments wesley answered, "If your ancestors were subjects, they
acknowledged a Sovereign; if they had a right to English privileges,
they were accountable to English laws, and had ceded to the King and
Parliament the power of disposing, without their consent, of both their
lives, liberties, and prOperties." What their ancestors had left them
was I'not a vote in making laws, nor in choosing legislators; but the
happiness of being protected by laws [which, under the principle of
virtual representation, their representatives had made for them], and

the duty of obeying them."3

 

1 Ibid., 131.

2 F. J. C. Hearnshaw, ed., Social and Political Ideas of SOme Repgg—
sentative Thinkers of the Revolutionary Era (New York: Barnes and Noble,
Inc., l9§0), p. 17.

3 wesley, works, X, 132.

 

 

 

 

160

The real source of the difficulties between the colonies and the
mother country was not political, however, but moral. "Let us put away
our sins; the real ground of all our calamities; which never will or
can be thoroughly removed, till we fear God and honour the King."1

The most characteristic element of Wesley's political thought was
his high regard for law. He could accept the American belief in a
"government of laws, and not of men" wholeheartedly, and he would have
agreed with John Adams that it was I'a settled opinion that the liberty,
the unalienable, and indefeasible rights of men, the honor and dignity
of human nature, the grandeur and glory of the public, and the universal
happiness of individuals, were never so skilfully and successfully con-
sulted as in that most excellent monument of human art, the Common Law
of England."2 But when the revolutionary leaders claimed the right to
government by their own chosen representatives and the right to consider
loyalty to the king the only bond between the colonies and England3 they
were going too far. The independence they claimed was actually nothing
but mob rule. wesleyds personal experience with mobs was extensive,
and his followers had been subjected to almost inhuman treatment by un—
ruly groups of citizens. In his Journal wesley recorded attacks in
which preachers were subjected to being stoned, blinded, thrown into the

water in mid-winter, and even killed. Their homes were entered illegally,

 

1 Ibid., 135.
2 Hearnshaw, Revolutionary Era, pp. 12—16.

3 Ibid., p. 20.

 

 

161

ransacked, and sometimes burned.l Mob rule, to John Wesley was evidence
of the immorality of the people, and it was inconceivable to him that
immoral men could make moral laws, or exercise effective restraint upon
their fellow men. His judgment seemed to be confirmed by what had
happened to American loyalists, so in 1777 he wrote of conditions in
America:

There is no civil liberty. No man hath any security, either
for his goods or for his person; but is daily liable to have his
goods spoiled or taken away, without either law or form of law, and
to suffer the most cruel outrage against his person, such as many
would account worse than death....Do you observe, wherever these
bawlers for liberty govern, there is the vilest slavery? No man
there can say that his goods are his own. They are absolutely at
the disposal of the mob, or the Congress....Those who have the dis—
posal of his liberty, have the disposal of his life also, and of
this they have given recent proof.2
John Wesley was consistent in his political thought throughout his

entire career, except for the brief period during which he was sympathetic
toward American demands. Even during that time, however, his feelings
seemed to be determined more by England's probable inability to wage war
successfully than by sympathy for the American cause. The major points

of wesley's political beliefs may be summarized as follows:

(1) "There is no power but of God."3 Every man born in a

civilized country was subject to the lawful power of the state in

 

1 These attacks were much more frequent in the early days of Method-
ism, and they tended to taper off sharply after 1765. For examples of
the severity with which the Methodists were treated by the mobs see
Wesley, Journal, III, 290-1; th; IV, 36; V, h8-9; 183-h.

2 wesley, “brks (2), VI: 329°

3 wesley, Origin of Power, p. 12.

 

 

162

the same way that he was subject to the ordinances of God.1 In

England the citizens duty was to I'fear God and honour the King,"
the two duties being inseparable. Properly to fear God implied

following the Bible, reason, and experience, while honoring the

King implied obeying the laws.

(2) The man that was governed, "not by himself, but the laws,
is in the general sense of mankind, a free man."2 The idea that
political society should be based upon the consent of the governed
meant to Wesley simply saying that it should be based upon the
collective self-interest of immoral persons. Since government was
considered by him to be good only insofar as it fulfilled its moral
purpose of providing religious and civil liberty, and in England
the government was fulfilling that purpose, there was no reason for
change, particularly to a political society under the control of
self-interested men. The only true liberty, for Nesley, existed in
a society controlled by laws, not men.3

(3) Most of the people of England were totally incapable of

knowing what was best for England, and should leave the responsibility

 

1 Wesley works (2) VI 305.
, __ i 3
2 Ibid., 306.

3 Ibid. The true liberty wesley desired included civil and religious
liberty, but it went further than that. He wanted liberty in which men
were able to act as completely free moral agents. I'Liberty necessitated,
or over-ruled is really no liberty at all. It is the same as unfree free-
dom: that is, downright nonsense. It may be further observed, (and it
is an important observation,) that where there is no liberty, there can
be no moral good or evil, no virtue or vice....There is no virtue, but
where an intelligent being knows, loves, and chooses the good: nor is
there any vice, but where such a being knows, loves, and chooses what is
evil." Wesley, Works, VI, 276.

 

 

163

for her future in the hands of those who did know what they were
doing. The wise and good legislator was the instrument through
which any change should be brought about.1

(B) No I'reasonable man, a man of real honour," could possibly
"desire a liberty beyond that which he already enjoyed," and which
Englishmen had enjoyed since the Revolution.2

(5) The only possible way for an individual to improve his
condition on earth, for Wésley, was to remove sin from his life.3
The revitalization of England's religious life, through individual
conversion, would lead to virtually perfect conditions on earth.
Much of the difficulty faced by Wésley and his followers in trying

to Spread his political teachings was caused by his identification of

 

"what isn with what "ought to be.n His experiences in England and
America had convinced him that when men either had no laws or disregarded
those they had chaos followed, but that when they feared God, honored the
King, and obeyed the laws all was well with them and the country. This
led him to the belief that political power could not be associated with
what men wanted, since what they wanted was not liberty but license to

do as they pleased.4 What men should desire was freedom under the laws
of England, and it was wesley's constant attempt to convince them of the

desirability of that sort of freedom. He seems to have been unaware of

 

1 Wesley, Works (2), VI, 373.
2 Wesley, Werks, X, 122.
3 Ibid., 135.

4 Ibid., 121.

 

1 6b.

the fact that by giving divine sanction to existing government he was,
for all practical purposes, making it impossible for any citizen, no
matter how morally and intellectually capable he might be, to pass any
adverse judgment on it. In his eagerness to disprove the contract theory,
and to uphold a modified-Toryism, wesley adopted a position which might
be interpreted as implying as strong a centralization of authority as
Ebbbes' Leviathan. When it was pointed out to wesley that the king and
parliament could take away English liberties, his answer was that they
had not done so, and until they did Englishmen were free.1 The state,

as an evidence of divine providence, fulfilled its moral purpose when it
provided the law and order under which free men could enjoy their re-
ligious and civil liberty. The reaponsibility of the citizen was equally
simple, involving only passive obedience to laws to which he had con— .
sented merely by being born into the civil society.

Passive obedience to the laws of the land did not imply acceptance
of existing religious, social, and economic conditions, however. Along
with his moral obligation to obey the laws of the state went a moral
obligation for the converted Christian to fulfill his responsibilities
to his fellow man. Wesley's ambition was to create a soceity of Christians
who would, at the same time, be good citizens. This would seem to make
his utopia subject to the criticism of such societies by Rousseau, who
wrote

we are told that a peeple of true Christians would form the
most perfect society imaginable. I see in this supposition only

 

1 Ibid , V, 115,

 

 

 

165

one great difficulty: that a society of true Christians would not
be a society of men....

Everyone would do his duty: the peOple would be lawaabiding,
the rulers just and temperate; the magistrates upright and incor-
ruptible; the soldiers would scorn death; there would be neither
vanity nor luxury. So far, so good; but let us hear more.

Christianity as a religion is entirely spiritual, occupied
solely with heavenly things; the country of the Christian is not
of this world. He does his duty, indeed, but does it with profound
indifference to the good or ill success of his cares.l
This was the sort of thing Wesley expected from those "who are too

wise to read their Bibles," and whose books are "grounded neither upon
reason nor experience."2 He considered them to be too wise in the use
3

of fine words - of "advices which are trite and common" - and too ignor-
ant as to the true nature of Christianity. Their "subtle metaphysical
pleas for universal independency"4 were not based upon reason and experi-
ence, and failed completely to take into consideration the evil nature

of man. The true Christian — the Christian who had been justified, re-
born, and was in the state of Christian perfection - was not concerned
solely with heavenly things, as Rousseau had written, but was concerned
solely with showing his love for God and man, and he could not regard
with indifference the success or failure of his earthly reSponsibilities.
He could not, if he claimed to be a follower of John Wesley, regard with

indifference the performance of his duty to God, the king, or his fellow

man, since to do so would be a denial of his moral obligations. Wesley's

 

l J. J. Rousseau, Social Contract, in W. Y. Elliot and N. A. McDonald,
Western Political Heritage (New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1950), p. 665.

 

2 wesley, Journal, V, 353.
3 Ibid.

4 Hasley, Works (2), 305.

 

166

unwavering belief in the impracticability of the schemes of the philoso—
phers for remaking society was based upon their disregard for Scripture,
reason, and experience, without which no one could arrive at truth.

Kingswood seemed to Wesley to offer proof of the workability of his
method for reforming society through individual conversion. He cited
the revolution which had taken place among the colliers there as evidence
that a Christian society was not only possible, but had been achieved.
Before the preaching of Whitefield and Wesley "they lived like utter
savages, absolutely out off, not merely from the middle class, but also
from other sections of the labouring class."1 They were "a peOple famous
for neither fearing God nor regarding man; so ignorant of the things of
God that they seemed but one remove from beasts."2 Within a few months
an almost complete transformation had taken place. "Kingswood does not
now resound with cursing and blasphemy....with drunkenness and unclean-
ness....is no longer full of wars and fightings, of clamour and bitter-
ness....Peace and love are there....the peeple are mild, gentle, and easy
to be entreated."a These Christians performed their duty to their
political society by practicing Christian love, and honored the king by
obeying the laws.

If the total p0pulation of England should ever decide to live a

Christian life there was no doubt in John wesley's mind that a perfect

 

1 Halévy, English PeOple in 1815, p. 231.

 

2 wesley, Journal, II, 322.

3 Ibid., 322—3; Wesley, Letters. I, 339.

167

political society would follow. His aim was well—stated by one of his
apologists.

The Wesleyans believe that as spiritual liberty extends, civil
liberty will likewise be extended....They believe that the possession
of this so invigorates, so ennobles the man, that, when it is ex—
tensively enjoyed in any country, deSpotism cannot exist: they
believe, therefore, that the surest way to promote both civil and
religious liberty is to promote an enlightened, active, scriptural
piety. To this their efforts are largely directed....It is thus
that, at length, the difficult problem will be solved for reducing
the interference of the government and law to the lowest quantity
consistent with the security of the governed.1
The wesleyan concept of morally responsible citizens living in a

state in which there was the least possible interference with their
liberties was still in the future, as an acute observer as wesley was quick
to see. Moral man, in the form of the true Christian, was still living in
an immoral society, and should take steps to change the conditions under
which he was living, but the change should be evolutionary in nature.

The first requirement for improving society was, of course, to make in-
dividuals aware of their moral obligations to God, the king, and their
fellow man. Wesley attempted to carry out this aim for all the people

of England and America through the publication of pamphlets, but for the

Methodists it was made part of the daily requirements. There are frequent

references in the Journal, Letters, and Minutes of the Conferences to the

 

proper political behaviour of a Methodist.
The seventy-two tlnusand members of the Methodist Societies at the
time of wesley's death were a small minority in England, but they were a

loyal, dutiful group for whom law, order, and religion were virtually

 

1 Quoted in Warner, Wesleyan Movement, pp. 121-2.

 

I
I
D
l

168

synonymous terms. One of the requirements of the preachers was that
they speak no ill of the king. The Conference of 1779 took up the matter
of those who were expressing their disloyalty, and decided that it would
“suffer none that speak evil of those in authority, or that prophesy

1 Such activities as smuggling2

evil to the nation, to preach with us."
and illegal distilling3 were Condemned, not primarily upon moral grounds,
but rather on the basis that they took rightful revenue from the king.4

A Word to a Freeholder, written in 17h7, and distributed through
the Methodist Societies, is typical of wesley's efforts to create citizens
who not only knew their political obligations, but fulfilled them. An
interesting sidelight on the pamphlet is that it was written while Wesley
waited for his clothes to dry following a rainstorm. His amazing pro-
ductivity was due in part to his ability to take advantage of every
opportunity to impart his teachings.8 The E939 was written on the eve
of an election, and began with a plea to the electors not to submit to

bribery. To receive a "gift or reward, directly or indirectly, or any

 

1 Minutes, I, lhO-l.

2 Smuggling was 'that wickedness for which Cornwall stinks in the
nostrils of all those who fear God or love King George." Wesley, Letters,
III, 1&3.

3 Distilling also used grains that were needed for food, particularly
during the acute shortage in 1772-3. Ibid., V, 351.

4 wesley wrote a Letter to Pitt in l78h protesting the imposition of
new taxes as long as the collection of the old ones was not enforced. He
wrote that "in Cornwall alone the King is defrauded of half a million
yearly in customs," and that the distillers "do not pay a fortieth part
of what they distill." He pointed out that in addition to the loss of
revenue in taxes there must also be taken into consideration the grain
used that might have been used for export. Ibid., VII, 23h-5.

5 wesley, Journal, III, 303.

 

 

 

169

promise of any, on account of your vote," was evidence of failure on
the part of the voter to fulfill his moral obligations. He had the
reSponsibility for assuming that the "whole election depended on your
vote, and as if the whole Parliament depended on that single person whom
you choose to be a member of it."1
wesley continues by giving his concept of the ideal legislator -
the kind of man for whom the conscientious freeholder should cast his
vote.
....for whom shall you vote? For the man that loves God. He
must love his country, and that from a steady, invariable principle.
And by his fruits shall you know him. He is careful to abstain
from all appearance of evil. He is zealous of good works, as he
has Opportunity, doing good to all men. He uses all the ordinances
of God, and that both constantly and carefully. _And he does this,
not barely as something he must do, or what he would willingly be
A excused from; no, he rejoices in this his reasonable service, as a
blessed privilege of the children of God.2
The love for his country which.wesley'demanded of his ideal member
of Parliament would imply love for the king, for "is not the interest of
3
he King of England, and of the country of England one and the same?"
The voters should beware of the "man who talks of loving the Church, and
does not love the King. If he does not love the King, he cannot love God.

and if he does not love God, he cannot love the Church."4 That a man was

a Churchman was not enough for Mesley, and to those who said, "I am for

 

1 vesley, works (2), VI, 273.

2 Ibid. This characterization of the perfect legislator is simply
an abbreviated statement of his concept of the perfect Christian. See

pp. 77-8.
3 Ibid., 27b.

4 Ibid.

 

170

the Church, therefore I vote for ----- ; he is a true Churchman, a lover
of the Church,n Hesley replied that the candidate's actions must prove
him to be a true Churchman.

What kind of a Churchman is he: a whoring Churchman, a gaming
Churchman, a drunken Churchman, a lying Churchman, a cursing and
swearing Churchman? or a red-hot persecuting Churchman, that would
send all Dissenters to the devil at a clap? He is a lover of the
Church who is a lover of God, and consequently of all mankind. Who-
ever else talks of loving the Church, is a cheat.1
The member of Parliament, once elected, had the obligation of protect-

ing the inhabitants of England from the suppression of their lawful civil
and religious liberties. Wesley was insistent in his demands that the
citizen fear God and honor the king, but he was equally insistent that
government officials carry out their prOper functions under the law.

The man who most nearly approached wesley's concept of the ideal
statesman was Lord Dartmouth, whom he described as one of the I'honestest
and most sensible men in the kingdom."2 The high regard Wesley had for
Dartmouth was no doubt influenced by the fact that Dartmouth was an
Evangelical who "did good service to the cause by advocating its interests
both among the nobility and at court,"3 and led him to write to Dartmouth
concerning the American colonies. Unfortunately, however, not all of the
Lords were of equal calibre. "I spent two or three hours in the Reuse

of Lords. I had frequently heard that this was the most venerable assembly

in England, but I was disappointed! What is a Lord but a sinner, doomed

 

1 Ibid., 273-h.
2 wesley, Journal, VI, 180.

3 Abbey and Overton, English Church, p. 389.

 

 

to die!"1 Perhaps it was for this reason that Wbsley deepaired of achiev-
ing social and economic reforms through political action. After having
made a plea for some alleviation of economic distress in 1773 he wrote,
"But will this ever be done? I fear not; at least we have no reason to
hope for it shortly in such a nation as this; where there is such a deep
avowed, thorough contempt of all religion as I never saw, never heard or
read of, in any other nation."2 There were too few Dartmouths. I

The most consistent political effort made by John Wesley was that
to gain protection for the Methodists - protection to which they were
legally entitled. A typical example is recorded in his Journal:

Vb rode to Stalbridge, long the seat of war, by a senseless,
insolent mob, encouraged by their betters, so called, to outrage
their quiet neighbours. For what? Why, they were mad; they were
Methodists. So, to bring them to their senses, they would beat
their brains out. They broke their windows, leaving not one whole
pane of glass, spoiled their goods, and assaulted their persons
with dirt and rotten eggs and stones whenever they appeared in the
street. But no magistrate, though they applied to several, would
show them either mercy or justice. At length they wrote to me.

I ordered a lawyer to write to the rioters. He did so, but they

set him at nought. we then moved to the Court of the King's Bench.
By various artifices they got the trial put off from one assizes to
the other for eighteen months. But it fell so much heavier on
themselves when they were found guilty; and from that time, finding
there is law for Methodists, they have suffered them to be at peace.3

The law for which Wesley had so much respect was effective only
when public officials were prepared to enforce it, and he constantly

brought that fact to the attention of those officials who failed to carry

 

1 wesley, Journal, VII, h6.

2 Wesley, Works (2), VI, 3&2.

 

3 wesley, Journal, V, l83-h.

 

172

out their reSponsibilities. He wrote of an occasion on which a mob had
been "stirred up by a bad man who told them, 'There is no law for
Methodists.‘ Hence continual riots followed; till, after a while, an
upright magistrate took the cause in hand, and so managed both the rioters
and him who set them at work, that they have been quiet as lambs ever
since."1 On another occasion, following a riotous day, wesley wrote to
the mayor of the town in the Spirit which was typical of his requests for
fair treatment, "I fear God and honour the king. I earnestly desire to

be at peace with all men. I have not willingly given offence either to
the magistrates, the clergy or any of the inhabitants....neither do I
desire anything of them but to be treated (I will not say as a clergyman,
a gentleman, or a Christian, but) with such justice and humanity as are
due to a Jew,‘a Turk, or a Pagan."2 The justice and humanity he requested
were provided for under the laws of England. wesley felt that the only
thing needed was prOper enforcement of those laws.

The never-ending efforts of John desley to inculcate veneration for
law and order upon the Methodists - to get them, as well as all the in-
habitants of England, to fear God and honor the king ~ whether they be
poor unenfranchised citizens or lords, would seem to make him an anachron-
ism in the eighteenth century. Upon closer inspection, however, we find
a definite relationship between wesley and the radicals. Both were
interested in the freedom of the individual, but what the radicals hOped

to bring about through changes in the structure of the state Keeley

 

1 Ibid., 56.

2

 

Ibid., III, b73-h.

 

 

173

thought could be accomplished only through the development of individual
character in a society in which there was due regard for law and order.1
There is a great similarity in the insistence of both wesley and the
radicals on respect for law,2 tolerance, humanitarianism, and the belief
that a state must fulfill the moral purpose of providing the "good life"
for its citizens.

The greatest difference between hbsley and the radicals, and it is‘
a very significant difference, lay in their concepts of the origin of
civil power. wesley believed that the radicals were wrong when they said
it came from the people, since Scripture, reason, and experience all
showed that such was not the case. The peOple, that is, all of the people,
were obviously unfitted to take part in the government until they were
reborn, and put their Christian beliefs into practice, as at Kingswood.
Wesley seems to have been almost completely unaware of the political
significance of the social and economic changes that were taking place
in his century - changes that made his appeal to the individual conscience
as the mainspring of desirable political action impossible to realize.
The radicals proved to be closer to a satisfactory solution of the politi—
cal problems of the eighteenth century, but the wesleyan insistence upon
the strong moral character of the individual citizen played an important

part in preparing the citizens of England for their responsibilities.

 

1 Warner, Wesleyan Movement, p. 122,

2 The Wesleyan concept of law was based upon Blackstone rather than
Bentham.

 

 

 

CHAPTER VI

JOHN WESLEY AS PRACTICAL THINKER AND REFORMER

i SUIVIIV'L LRY

The mature thought of John Wesley was, as we have seen, the result
of the interaction of many influences upon him. Epworth rectory, where
the mother's influence was dominant, was responsible for the methodicity,
austerity, and practicality that were typical of his teaching and preach-
ing. Charterhouse and Oxford brought him into contact with a different
kind of intellectual climate, and with the world of reality. His mother
had given him an excellent background upon which further intellectual
growth could be based, but the ability to get along with people and to
c0pe with the problems encountered outside an isolated rectory came to
Wesley very slowly through bitter experience. The writings of a Kempis,
Law, and Taylor, read by Wesley while a student at Oxford, caused him
to take a more serious attitude toward religion, and marked the beginning
of a long period of doubt and indecision.

The formation of the Holy Club injected a new element into Hesley's
thinking, and started him toward his career as an evangelist. The social
aspects of Christianity began to take on tremendous significance for him,
even though it was to take ten years to turn the High Church legalist
into a man of such broad sympathies that he would "break with no man for

his beliefs." During this crucial period of indecision and doubt Wesley

175

drew freely upon the religious experiences of others, especially the
Moravians. It may be recalled that Hesley accepted their belief in
instantaneous conversion when several of them convinced him that they
had experienced such a conversion. This proof, added to his observation
of their Christian conduct even in times of great stress, seemed to him
to furnish incontrovertible evidence of the power of Christianity, and
led directly to his own conversion, or new birth.

wesley's conviction that he had a special mission to perform in
preaching to the poor about the saving power of Christ, which the in-
dividual believer could experience through the new birth, led to bitter
attacks upon him. Pulpits were closed to him and his followers; they
were the victims of attacks by mobs; they were accused of infidelity to
Church and State; and they were considered to be enthusiasts by other
religious groups. Before his death, however, he had become a widely—
reSpected leader of a society which had done much for the betterment of
England. To what may we attribute this amazing reversal of-opinion? The
tireless energy with which Wesley pursued his stated objective of promot-
ing a vital religion, and the administrative abilities he diSplayed in
setting up and maintaining his society were no doubt important factors
in his success, but they must be ranked as less significant than the
nature of Wesley's teachings.

The major campaigns waged by wesley were directed toward sin, ignor—
éunce, and the prevailing religious tone, which is best illustrated by
tile statement, "be not righteous overmuch." The principal weapon used

irl the battle against these evils was the appeal to experience — the

 

176

appeal to the peOple of England to live their religious beliefs. wesley's
ministry was not concerned with the promulgation of new beliefs, but
rather with a changed emphasis upon those which were already in existence.

He hOped to revive deep religious feeling in England by emphasizing the

 

importance of individual belief and practice in the battle against what
he considered to be the irreligious aspects of finglish life.

The values Jesley repeated over and over to his followers were
values which, if practiced, would produce reliant, sober, industrious,
God-fearing, useful citizens. He told them that Christianity was a vital,
dynamic faith that would lead ultimately to salvation, and would in the
meantime make life on earth a fuller, richer experience. True freedom
for man,\the primary goal of the eighteenth century, would begin with
his release from the bondage of sin, and the restoration of the soul to
its original purity - its natural state1 ~ would be accomplished gradually.
The person experiencing such a change would Show his love for God and man
by taking an active part in the social, economic, and political life of
his community, thus becoming more valuable in the sight of God and man.
The sermons preached by wesley were simple, phrased in language the peOple
had no difficulty in understanding, and primarily concerned with a few
basic elements of Christianity.

The peOple presumably most interested in Wesley's message were "those
in whom a strong moral sense, and a keen eye for the facts of life, were

most strongly developed." Those whose "intellectual instincts were

 

1 See p. 67.

 

177

predominant became sceptical with Hume," while "men of warmer temperament
and greater imaginative power might take shelter in Law's theosophical
refuge."1 This criticism of Wesley misinterprets the whole aim of the
evangelical movement in that it presupposes the existence of a strong
moral sense among those who followed wesley. The appeal of John Hesley
for thousands of Englishmen was not due to the fact that they had a
strong moral sense, but rather that his sermons helped them to see the
desirability of developing such a moral sense. The keen eye for the
facts of life did not lead men to Hesley, but followed as a result of
wesley's insistence upon an active concern for human affairs. The scep-
tics who followed Hume and the men who found shelter in Law's mysticism
were equally guilty, in Wesley's eyes, of removing from their consider-
ation the real problems of England - the sin and ignorance of the poor.
The preper sphere of activity for truly religious people was not the
realm of the abstract, but concern with.problems faced by people here and
now, and Wesley's constant aim was to make his followers conscious of
their responsibilities in that sphere.

For John Wesley individual character and intellect were the prime
movers in human progress. The standards by which he judged all activities
and attitudes were Scripture. reason, and experience, with the first serv-
ing as the source of Christian belief, and the last two furnishing proof
of its truth. "The strongest evidence of the truth of Christianity,"

wesley once said, was that he "experienced it in mybreast.n2 Any

1 Stephen, English Thought, II, his.
2 welch, Selections, p. 2h5.

 

 

   

individual could experience the power of Christianity if only he followed

 

Wesley's primary doctrines of justification by faith, the new birth, and
Christian perfection. Individuals living those beliefs would lead the
way in the improvement of the social, political, and economic evils of
the time. Involved theology would not help an individual to become better,
but might prove to be a handicap. The core of wesley's teachings lay in
his insistence upon a life of purposive activity in which the individual,
as an individual, was the key to a better future both for himself and his
community.

The Wesleyan emphasis upon a life of active Christian service in
which individual effort was the all-important factor, and in which social
and economic status made no difference, had a strong appeal for those who
found themselves without adequate religious guidance, without education,
and, in many cases, without adequate provision for their social and
economic welfare. The strength of that appeal may be readily seen in the
rapidity with which the movement spread.

The inconsistencies and weaknesses in wesley's teachings and methods
are not so apparent, and deserve some attention. Perhaps the most glar-
ing inconsistency in Wesley's thought was his insistence upon the primary
importance of individual action, while at the same time he was equally
insistent that certain group action was mandatory. The Church of England,
for example, was considered by Wesley to have means of grace which were
indispensable to salvation, and it was necessary that his followers
participate in the rites and sacraments of the Church. The difficulty

raised for Vesley and his followers by the article concerning baptism,

   

179

'which came into conflict with wesley's doctrine of the new birth, was
not enough to cause him to drop his teaching, but led to an unsuccessful
attempt to show that his doctrine was not contrary to the article.1 The
government of England was, he thought, the best then in existence, since
it gave every individual civil and religious freedom. Under the wesleyan
concept, however, that freedom was restricted. No preacher or member
could speak against the King or the Parliament if he wanted to remain in
good standing in the Methodist Societies. The freedom desired by fibsley
for the individual citizens of England was freedom to do what they ghggld
want to do, and what they should want was freedom under the laws of
England. Hesley's schools, which were designed primarily to help children
toward salvation, and secondarily to give them some secular education,
serve as another example of his dependence upon group action to bring
about desirable changes.2
It may, of course, be argued that these groups were recognized by
Hesley as means through which the desired end of individual experience
might be attained, and it is true that his major justification for the
type of government England had was that it gave its citizens civil and
religious freedom. This does not, however, resolve the difficulty created
for the Methodists in their attempts to follow his doctrine of experience,
which certainly implied more individual freedom than his insistence upon

strict allegiance to Church and State would allow. Hesley seems never to

1 See pp. 71-3.

2 See pp. 118-30.

 

180

have realized that his appeal to experience would almost inevitably
lead to demands on the part of his followers for more freedom than he
was willing to grant them.

The wesleyan standards of Scripture, reason, and experience were
emphasized at every Opportunity, but during his lifetime those standards
were applied exclusively by John Wesley. The eighteenth century empha-
sis on order was part of his temperament, and he felt that maintaining
order among the Methodists was one of hig reSponsibilities. Even the
Methodist Conferences which met to set the policies, doctrines, and
methods of the Societies were called to meet at hig pleasure, and then
to serve only in an advisory capacity.1 The desired individual character
and intellect was to result from the application of Wesley‘s standards,
and would lead the way to better things only if it were develOped along
the lines he established. If things did not proceed as he expected,
as at Kingswood school,2 the fault lay with the individuals who were
not doing as they should. Hesley's own observation, experience, and
reason had convinced him of the practicability of what he taught.

This virtual despotism, benevolent though it is generally considered to
have been, left little room for the exercise of individual initiative.

The greatest strength of Hesley's teachings thus identical with
their greatest weakness — his emphasis upon the practical aspects of

Christianity. Many factors combined to bring about the primary interest

 

1 See pp. 133-b.

3 See pp. 129-30.

 

 

 

 

181

shown by wesley in practical religion, not the least of which was his
mother's belief that speculation was by its very nature an idle pursuit.l
The most important influence, however, was the proof given him by the
Moravians of the power of the Christian faith, experienced by each be-
liever, to work ip the world. They convinced him that outward Christian-
ity was only the visible evidence of the saving grace of Christ working
within an individual who had faith that Christ had died for his sins.
From that point on Wesley looked upon Christianity not as an ideal to

be attained through philOSOphical speculation or a mystical devotion to
God, but as a practical method for relieving the problems of a dis-
ordered world. ‘What the peOple of England to whom he chose to preach -
the poor - needed to hear was not an involved or elaborate theology, but
rather a simple, straightforward message of hepe for all mankind. The
opportunity to preach that simple message came to him as a result of

his exclusion from Anglican pulpits, and his initial success as a field-
preacher determined his future course.

Speculation as to whether or not wesley was intellectually capable
of making any major contribution to Christian thought is interesting, but
fruitless. He did not. He was too busy preaching and writing in an
effort to correct what was wrong in England - to find immediate solutions
for her problems. The only long-range solution he preposed was the
spread of a "vital, practical religion" which would, over a long period

of time, bring an end to the evils of a disordered world. Most of the

 

 

 

182

writing done by Wesley in his attempts to bring about reforms is of
academic interest now because of its extremely limited application.
Hesley's intense interest in practical problems not only made it
impossible for him to take into consideration the more theoretical
aspects of ChriStianity, but also made him too impatient with theories
of any kind. He was unable to appreciate the educational theories of
Rousseau,1 the political theories of Priestley and Price,2 the writings
of Montesquieu and Voltaire, and the demands of the Americans for in-
dependence,3 because in each case they failed to meet his standards of
Scripture, reason, and experience.
The frequently-expressed dislike of John Wesley for philOSOphers
has led his critics to believe that the whole movement was intellectually
sterile, but the term must be used in a restricted sense if the criticism
is to be accepted. Hesley was not Opposed to learning, but took many
Opportunities to encourage wide reading by his preachers and followers.4
He read and disseminated useful literature Of all types throughout his

long career.5 Much of it was edited by him in order to make it more

 

1 lfter reading Emile Wesley wrote that it was "whimsical to the
last degree, grounded upon neither reason nor experience." wesley,
Journal, V, 353.

2 See pp. lh7—Sh.
a See pp. 157-60.

4 wesley believed that "reading Christians will be knowing
Christians." He wrote to one of his preachers, "What has exceedingly
hurt you in times past, nay, and I fear to this day, is want of reading.
...Hence your talent in preaching does not increase. It is lively, but
not deep; there is little variety; there is no compass of thought.
Reading only can supply this." wesley, Letters, IV, 103.

5 See Appendix A for a representative list of Wesley's works.

 

 

 

183

intelligible to his uneducated readers, and to make sure it contained
nothing Objectionable. In spite Of the unfortunate editing wesley did
on some works, notably Milton's, the effect was to encourage reading
by those who had not previously been exposed to good literature. He
was aware of the intellectual currents of the time, even though he could
not sympathize with them in many cases. His primary doctrines of justifi-
cation by faith, the new birth, and Christian perfection needed no
philOSOphical justification, but could make use of all sorts of useful
knowledge in making this world a better place to live. The Christian
who was to attain perfection through showing perfect love for God and
man could not do so in the introspection of mysticism or in the with-
drawal from worldly problems Tesley felt to be typical of philOSOphy,
but he had need of information on medicine, physical exercise, govern-
mental problems, social problems, economic maladjustments and similar
problems if he were to carry out his responsibilities. In learning, as
in the practice of Christianity, wesley placed primary emphasis upon
what was useful in that it led to the desired end - Christian perfection.
John Wesley solved One of the major problems of Christianity, that
of keeping its appeal alive and fresh in an ever-changing world, in a
way that was well-suited to the needs of most of the peOple of England.
The decision, made very early in his career, that he was going to direct
his ministry toward the poor determined the level and approach of his
teachings. The level was dictated by the limited understanding of his
followers; the approach by their needs. His strength lay in his ability

to satisfy those needs through an appeal they could understand.

 

 

18h

His greatest weakness lay in his belief that actions or knowledge not
based upon what he understood to be reason, experience, and Scripture
were not worthy of attention, thus making it impossible for Methodism
to go beyond concern for the immediate. The legacy of John Wesley to
the Methodist Church, which he hOped would never come into being, was
his emphasis upon practical religion. Nineteenth and twentieth-century
Methodism has inherited the vitality as well as the pragmatic character
of that emphasis, but it has lost the theological basis upon which it
was built - the theology of the Church of England - without which

Methodism to John Mesley was unthinkable.

 

 

 

APPENDIX A

In keeping with his belief that reading Christians would be know-
ing Christians fiesley wrote or edited works in almost every field. Most
Of them were religious in Character, but there were also many which were
written on secular topics with the specific purpose of making Methodists
as well-informed as possible. The following list is indicative of
Wesley's tremendous breadth of interest, and of the importance he placed
upon providing his followers with literature of all types.

A Surveygof the Wisdom of God in Creation, or a Compendium of Natural
Philosophy, S—Vols.

Contained whatever was known with regard to the earth or
heavens, and written in the plainest language possible, particu-
larly free from all jargon of mathematics, which is mere heathen
Greek to common readers. It attempted to set down what appears
in nature, not the cause of these appearances.

It was taken from the writings of Buddaeus, Professor of
Philosophy at Jena, Oliver Goldsmith's History of the Earth and
Animated Nature, and Bonnet's Contemplation Of Rature,

 

in Extract from Milton‘s Paradise Lost.
in attempt to make nthe main of this excellent poem clear

and intelligible to any uneducated person of a tolerable good
understanding."

The Christian Pattern: or a Treatise of the Imitation of Christ.
Hesley was dissatisfied with Dean StanhOpe's translation,
and determined to give a full view of the self-denying purity
of his favorite guide.
This was written in 1735, before Wesley's conversion, and
was always his favorite devotional source, next to the Bible.

 

1 Practical Treatise on Christian Perfection.
in extract of Law's work of the same title.

A Serious Call to a Holy Life.
bsley considered this treatise of Law to be outstanding
in "its beauty of expression, justness, and depth Of thought."
Kempis and Law exerted more influence on him than any other
writers.

The Pilgrim's Proggess.
The abridgement destroyed the merit of the work, as is so
frequently the case. Wesley's zeal to educate led him to attempt

such things as this, though he must have known it was by its very
nature impossible.

 

186

Collection of Receits for the Use Of the Poor.
"From a vast number, I have selected those, which are not

only cheap, but safe: very few of them, if they do no good,
being likely to do much harm."

"._p

i ibrd to a Drunkard.
Typical of brief pamphlets directed against the most

prevalent vices of his day.

Herd to a Freeholder.
Written in 17h? just before an election. in attack on
acceptance of bribes, and a plea that the Methodists vote for

the man "who loved his God, his King, and his country."

3;...

s Compendium of Logick.
Taken from a work written by Dean Aldrich of Christ Church,
Oxford, with the practical applications of logic illustrated by

wesley's victories over his Opponents.

Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami Colloquia Selecta
A life of Erasmus, plus twelve of his colloquies. Typical
of the books prepared by Wesley for use at Kingswood School.

A Short French Grammar.
One of the grammars written for use at Kingswood. wesley

thought his students should know French in spite of his very low
opinion of the language, which was the "poorest, meanest language
in EurOpe; it is no more comparable to the German or Spanish

than a bagpipe is to an organ; it is as impossible to write a
fine poem in French as to make fine music on a Jew's harp."

The Complete English Dictionary.
Published not "to get money, but to assist persons of common
sense and no learning to understand the best English authors."
The second edition included "some hundreds of words from Mr.
(Samuel) Johnson's Dictionary." Plagiarism was obviously not a
horrid word at that time.

Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament.

The Desideratum; or, Electricity Made Plain and Useful.
‘"In the following tract I have endeavoured to comprize the
sum of what has been hitherto published on this curious and im—
portant subject by Mr. Franklin, Dr. Hbadly, Mr. Wilson, Watson,
Lovett, Freke, Martin, Watkins, and in the monthly Magazines.
But I am chiefly indebted to Mr. Franklin for the Speculative
part, and to Mr. Lovett for the practical."

 

 

 

187

Advices with Respect to Health.
in extract from a book by a Dr. Tissot, whom wesley con-
sidered to be "a person of strong understanding, extensive
knowledge, and deep experience." His descriptions of diseases
were "truly admirable, and so clearly stated that even common
people of tolerable sense may readily distinguish them."

Free Thoughts on the Present State of Public Affairs.
Tlpughts Concerning the Origin of Power.
Two of Wesley's major attempts to defend his political views.
See Chapter V. Written in anSWer to the political ideas of Price
and Priestley.

a Short Roman History.
Taken from Hook's Roman History. For use in his schools.

The Arminian Magazine.

A monthly publication, started in 1778, still being published
as the Hesleyan Methodist Magazine.

A portion of the magazine was always devoted to poetry, which
"was the language of the emotions," and 1'the sublimest poetry that
which treats religious tOpics."

Such writers as Dryden, Pope, Shakespeare, Gray, Chaucer,
Cowper, and Samuel Johnson appeared with some regularity, along
with articles on Montesquien, Buffon, Locke, and Priestley.

One of Wesley's most effective "instruments of religious and
cultural enlightenment," its annual circulation had reached 7,000
copies at the time of his death.

(Material for the above list drawn from Green, The Wbrks of John
and Charles Wesley, and Herbert, John Wesley as Editor and Author.)

or

APPENDIX B

DETAILS OF '
'COURSE OF -lCiDrMIClL LEARNING' (UNIVERSITY COURSE) AT

KIN GSWOOD SC HOOL

First Year

Read Lowth's English Grammar; Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French
Grammars; Cornelius Nepos; Sallust; Caesar; Tully's Offices;
Terence; Phaedrus; Aeneid; Dilworth; Randal; Bengel; Vossius;
Aldrich and Wallis's Logic; Langbaine's Ethics; Hutchinson on the
Passions; Spanheim's 'Introduction to Ecclesiastical History';
Puffendorf's 'Introduction to the History of EurOpe'; 'Moral and
Sacred Poems'; Hebrew Pentateuch, with the notes; Greek Testament -
Mathew to the Acts, with the notes; XenOphon's Cyrus; Homer's
Illiad; BiShOp Pearson on the Creed; ten volumes of the 'Christian
Library'; Telemaque.

Second Year

Look over the Grammars; read Velleius Paterculus; Tusculan
Questions; Excerpts; Vidae Opera; Lusus hestmonasterienses;

. Chronological Tables; Euclid's Elements; Vell's Tracts; Newton's
Principia; Mosheim's 'Introduction to Church History‘; Spenser's
'Fairie Queene'; Historical Books of the Hebrew Bible; Greek
Testament ad finem; Kurou inabasis; Hbmer's Odyssey; twelve vol-
umes of the 'Christian Library'; Ramsay's Cyrus; Racine.

Third Year

Look over the Grammars; Livy; Suetonius; Tully, 'De Finibus';
Musae Anglicanae; Dr. Burton's Poemata; Lord Forbes's Tracts;
abridgement of Hutchinson's Wbrks; 'Survey of the Wisdom of God
in the Creation'; Rollin's 'lncient History'; Hume's"History of
England'; Neal's 'History of the Puritans'; Milton's Poetical
WOrks; Hebrew Bible - Job to the Canticles; Greek Testament;
Plato's Dialogues; Greek Epigrams; twelve volumes of the 'Christian
Library'; Pascal; Corneille.

 

 

189

Fourth Year

Look over the Grammars; Tacitus; Grotil Historia Belgica;
Tully, 'De Natura Deorum'; Praedium Rusticum; Carmina Quadra—
gesimalia; 'Philosophical Transactions,’ abridged; Matt's
Astronomy &c.; Compendium Metaphysicae; Matt's Ontology; Locke's
Essay; Malebranche; Clarendon's History; Neal's 'History of
New England'; Antonio Solis's 'History of Mexico'; Shakespeare;
rest of the Hebrew Bible; Greek Testament; Epictetus; Marcus
intonius; Poetae Minores; end of the 'Christian Library'; 'La
Faussete de les Vertues Humaines'; Quesnel sur les Evangiles.

"Whoever carefully goes through this course will be a better
scholar than nine in ten graduates at Oxford or Cambridge." wesley,
Works (2), VIII, 335-6.

 

 

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warner, W. J. The Wesleyan Movement in the Industrial Revolution.
London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1930.

Mearmouth, Robert. Methodism and the Common People of the Eighteenth
Century. London: Epworth Press, 19h5.

Wearmouth, Robert. Methodism and the workin —C1ass Movement of England,
1800-1850. London: Epworth Press, l9hg.

 

 

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