John Wesley preached the Gospel. Of course, he did, I hear you say. After all, he was a Church of England clergyman. But not all rectors and vicars preached as he did. He rode all over England, falling asleep on his horse as he did his reading, handling an audience of miners in the open air, making himself understood by trying out his sermons on a housemaid.
A Moravian pastor asked him whether he had assurance of salvation. This was something of an improper question to put to a clergyman who was the son of a clergyman, a Fellow of Lincoln College and a missionary in Savannah. .Three years later it happened. The penny dropped. The question was answered. John Wesley realised he had been mis-judging English Christianity. He knew it as an institution. He had forgotten the Gospel was a heart-felt matter. ‘I felt my heart strangely warmed,’I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation.’
Kingswood miners entered into this experience as Wesley preached to them. They roared and fell to the ground. They also joined the classes that Wesley set up for his converts- -- 18th century Alpha evenings, if you wish.
This kind of thing did not always go down well with the bishops. ‘Sir, this pretending to extraordinary revelations and gifts of the Holy Spirit is a very horrid thing; yes, sir, it is a very horrid thing… You have no business here, you are not commissioned to preach in this diocese. Therefore I advise you to go hence.’ That was the reaction of Bishop Butler of Bristol. Wesley remained of the conviction that God had given him a task to do. ‘I look upon the world as my parish.’
He also said: ‘Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin, and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergymen or laymen, such alone will shake the gates of Hell, and set up the kingdom of heaven on earth.’
If John Wesley spent his time and and energy preaching the Gospel, his brother Charles did something equally compelling: he sang the Gospel. – or rather gave other people Gospel songs to sing. Methodism has always lived by its hymns. There has never before or since been a hymn-writer with such a gift for bringing in scriptural allusions to his works. Charles wrote 5,500 hymns and left an example for subsequent generations of what Gospel singing could be.
John was unfortunate in his marriages. One unsuitable match followed another. Like us all, he was a flawed individual. But he retained his affection for the Church in which he had been ordained until he died in 1791.
Methodism is Britain’s fourth largest Christian denomination and has 60m members world- wide plus 20m adherents. In addition there are (LEPs (local ecumenical partnerships) with 28,000 Methodists participating with Anglicans and others. There are about 7,000 Unitarians in Britain and Ireland and 150 ministers. World-wide there are 800,000 Unitarians.
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