Preacher to the world
by Mike Oettle
ONE could hardly forget the name Wesley, since it crops up as a church name in many towns and as a given name in many families. But to see it on the Church calendar at 3 March: “John and Charles Wesley, Priests” may come as a surprise to Anglicans. After all, weren’t these chappies Non-Conformists? And didn’t they found their own denomination?
Well, although Non-Conformism[1] features in their background – their father, Samuel, was raised a Non-Conformist – they were born in the Church of England rectory at Epworth, Lincolnshire (now in Humberside), where Samuel was a staunch High Church clergyman. John, the second son, was born in 1703, and Charles in 1707. In 1709 the rectory burned down; John was barely rescued in time. Later he was to call himself “a brand plucked out of the burning”.
Graduating from Oxford University
in 1724, John was made a deacon the following year and priested in 1728. In
1726 he became a Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford and, returning to the university, he found that Charles had formed a group which some derisively called the Holy Club, which John now led. Others, because these were the only students who made a conscientious effort to follow the prescribed method of study at Oxford, called them Methodists. The club, also known for its piety and charity, lasted only until 1735, but its name survives.
In 1737, John and Charles took up
the invitation of Col James Oglethorpe, Governor of Georgia, to go to the
colony as missionaries for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. But
the mission was a failure in many ways, and they returned to England the next
year.
In America they had met Moravian
Brethren,[2] and back in London they were influenced strongly by a Moravian called Peter Böhler. The turning point in John’s life was a meeting on 24 May 1738, in Aldersgate Street, London, where, as he later said, his heart was “strangely warmed” as a passage was read from Luther’s Preface to [the Letter to the] Romans.
Previously convinced intellectually
of the truth of the gospel, John was now totally committed to the One Who “had
taken away my sin, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death”.
He began preaching wherever he
possibly could – but his enthusiasm was too much for many priests of the Church
of England, and many pulpits were denied him. So he founded “bands”, rather
like those formed by Moravian believers. And on 1 April 1739 he preached in the
open air in Bristol to a Sunday crowd of 3 000. This set the pattern for his
life: public preaching, the formation of Methodist societies and travel. He is
estimated to have travelled 400 000 km in the British Isles and preached 40 000
to 50 000 sermons.
Lacking support from ordained
clergy, Wesley came to rely on dedicated laymen to preach and to administer the
Methodist societies. In 1784 the Bishop of London refused to ordain a group of
preachers who were being sent to the United States (as the American colonies
had become), so Wesley ordained them himself. Thus forced to operate outside the
Established Church, John Wesley announced in the same year that his societies
operated independently of any control of the Church of England.
Charles (who died in 1788) not
only assisted his brother in preaching but wrote over 7 000 hymns[3]
– John believed that if one couldn’t sing a message, one shouldn’t try to
preach it. However, Charles also let his brother down, firstly by persuading
John’s fiancée, Grace Murray, to marry one of his preachers, and later by
withdrawing from Methodism and returning to the High Church. John was wed “on
the rebound” to Mary Vazeille, a widow with four children.
It is a tragedy that the Church
of England drove the Wesleys out, so to speak. To the end, John (died 2 March
1791) saw himself as an Anglican priest, and endowed a chapel in London which,
he desired, would always be served by an ordained minister of the Established
Church. It was not to be.
Yet the Evangelical Movement
which he helped begin turned Britain and America to God at a time when
continental Europe was set on the road to a godless revolution, and in both
Anglican and Methodist communions it continues to be an influence which builds
God’s kingdom on earth.
