The Spirit of Methodism

From the Wesleys to a Global Communion

Jeffrey W. Barbeau

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780830866656
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Denominations

"I felt my heart strangely warmed."That was how John Wesley described his transformational experience of God's grace at Aldersgate Street on May 24, 1738, an event that some mark as the beginning of the Methodist Church.Yet the story of Methodism, while clearly shaped by John Wesley's sermons and Charles Wesley's hymns, is much richer and more expansive. In this book, Methodist theologian Jeffrey W. Barbeau provides a brief and helpful introduction to the history of Methodism—from the time of the Wesleys, through developments in North America, to its diverse and global communion today—as well as its primary beliefs and practices.With Barbeau's guidance, both those who are already familiar with the Wesleyan tradition and those seeking to know more about this significant movement within the church's history will find their hearts warmed to Methodism.

PART ONE

THE Origins OF BRITISH METHODISM

CHAPTER ONE

Warm Hearts

BRIGHT ORANGE AND YELLOW LIGHT streams from the top of a tall building. An inferno consumes the home, flames rushing from its fragmentary remains. White smoke rises to the sky. Against the flow of blazing heat, a crowd of desperate neighbors moves toward the fire. They hoist up one brave and desperate man. He grasps for a frantic child, who dangles from the upper window. Farther away, onlookers flee the conflagration. A cool darkness surrounds the rescued family. They shrink from the heat and the terrible sight of the child. One figure alone leans into the light. A father on his knee, hands clasped in prayer, reaching feverishly to the sky.

Figure 1.1. Rescue of John Wesley

Two haunting images in a single scene—a defenseless child and a fleeing family—resist closure in Henry Perlee Parker’s portrait, “The Rescue of John Wesley from the Epworth Rectory Fire” (1840) (figure 1.1). The lack of a single focal point leaves viewers uncertain. Even the father’s eager supplication on bended knee, whether pleading heavenward to God for providential deliverance or only in desperation that the child might save his life by risking the fall, is offset by a man leading a startled horse from the blaze in the distance. Antagonistic and contrary motions disrupt simple resolution, symbolizing tensions that have existed within Methodism from its earliest days.

The horror of the real event surpasses Parker’s dramatic painting. The Epworth fire of 1709 nearly killed John Wesley (1703–1791), who was only five and half years old at the time. Wesley’s father, Samuel, was a minister in the Church of England. Their family lived in the church rectory in Epworth, a small town in Lincolnshire near Sheffield. Sometime near midnight, flames consumed the family home. Sparks from the chimney fell on the roof and quickly spread. One of the girls felt a burning sensation on her foot and hurriedly ran to tell her parents. Samuel Wesley awakened the children in the adjacent room, a maid carried the youngest child from the nursery, and all but young “Jacky” followed along with the others. The family huddled in the downstairs hall, surrounded by the fire. The roof had weakened in only a matter of moments, and they feared that all was lost as the walls began to collapse around them. When the front door was finally opened (the key had been left upstairs in the commotion), flames rushed in from a strong northeast wind, threatening to consume them all. They finally escaped through windows the neighbors broke open to reach the family. Safely outside, they assessed the damage. They were scorched but unharmed, undressed and bitterly cold but together. Then, in the calm, Jacky’s terrified cries reached them from the upper level of the burning home. The child, previously unnoticed, was unable to escape by descending on the severely weakened staircase. Samuel Wesley, hearing the terror-stricken screams of his son, frantically ran back inside. He couldn’t ascend the stairs through the fire, no matter the effort. My child is lost, he thought. In unspeakable anguish, Samuel Wesley knelt down where he stood, commended his son to God, and “left him, as he thought, burning.” John’s mother later marveled, “The boy, seeing none came to his assistance and being frightened by the hanging of the chamber and his bed being on fire, climbed up to the casement, where he was presently spied by the men in the yard, who immediately got up and pulled him out just in that article of time that the roof fell and beat the chamber to the earth.”1

John Wesley’s mother recognized the infinite mercy of God in the event. Susanna Wesley was an independent woman by standards of the day. As with other mothers, she was primarily responsible for the education of her children and the development of their faith. Letters to her eldest son, Samuel Jr., provide a glimpse into her methods and temperament. She advised scrutiny of individual conscience, avoidance of temptations, and constancy in virtue. Although she never attended university, just as other women were barred from such studies at the time, she was far better educated than most of the Epworth townspeople and taught her children to carefully understand Scripture and the fundamentals of the faith.

Figure 1.2. Susanna Wesley

Samuel and Susanna both participated in the religious education of their children—ten of nineteen survived into adulthood, including three boys—but Susanna’s piety deserves special notice. Each evening, she devoted time to one or two of her children for individual counsel in religious matters. Even when they lived away from home, she continued to guide them in letters she sent with extended discourses on Christian faith and practice. A few years after the Epworth rectory fire, Susanna’s independent spirit resulted in public scandal. Her husband was away in London, so she began providing Sunday evening prayers and devotions for the family in his absence. In time, their neighbors began to attend the meetings as well—in fact, quite a few of them. Not surprisingly, Samuel Wesley was bound to find out after more than two hundred people had gathered for prayer and spiritual advice at his home. He wasn’t pleased. But when he wrote to question his wife, she shrugged off any criticism of the propriety of a woman teaching and leading others with a reasoned defense of her responsibility to obey the Lord:

I reply that as I am a woman, so I am also mistress of a large family. And though the superior charge of the souls contained in it lies upon you as head of the family and as their minister, yet in your absence I cannot but look upon every soul you leave under my care as a talent committed to me under a trust by the great Lord of all the families of heaven and earth. And if I am unfaithful to him or to you in neglecting to improve these talents, how shall I answer unto him, when he shall command me to render an account of my stewardship?3

Samuel Wesley (1662–1735) and Susanna Annesley Wesley (1669–1742), the parents of John and Charles Wesley, came from families with strong Protestant nonconformist backgrounds, though each elected to join the Church of England prior to their marriage in 1688. The couple lived briefly in London before Samuel received a living in Lincolnshire, where they eventually settled at Epworth and raised a large family. Susanna’s regimented methods of religious education and self-discipline had a marked influence on the children and has often been heralded as a model of Christian piety. As members of the Church of England, which had separated from Rome and the authority of the pope during the sixteenth-century Reformation, the Wesleys affirmed the historic teachings of the creeds and the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion (the Anglican confession of faith).2 They regularly used the Book of Common Prayer, with Thomas Cranmer’s timeless prayers and liturgy. Yet it is also worth noting that both Susanna and her husband, Samuel, were raised in dissenting families. While worshipers in the Church of England enjoyed the political and social privileges that came with membership in the national church, including the possibility of attending the universities at Oxford or Cambridge, dissenters assembled only under various restrictions or “disabilities.” The Act of Uniformity (1662) had required that all ministers abide by the Book of Common Prayer, and dissenting or “nonconformist” ministers were barred from preaching within five miles of any town or city. Susanna attended her father’s dissenting church until she joined the Church of England as a youth—an early sign of her independence. Samuel’s father, John “Westley,” was a dissenter who spent time in prison for refusing to use the Prayer Book after 1662. Samuel joined the Church of England shortly before moving to Oxford to attend Exeter College. The two married in 1688.

When her husband refused to change his mind on the matter, Susanna replied in a most unrelenting fashion: “Send me your positive command in such full and express terms as may absolve me from all guilt and punishment for neglecting this opportunity of doing good to souls, when you and I shall appear before the great and awful tribunal of our Lord Jesus Christ.”4

Figure 1.3. John Wesley

Although his parents’ influence and example continued to shape his decisions, John Wesley eventually left home to prepare for university life through education in languages and classics at Charterhouse School. He was devout and successful. By the end of the 1720s, John was a fellow at Lincoln College, Oxford, and a teacher of the Greek New Testament. When his younger brother Charles came up to Oxford for studies, John took special responsibility for a small group the two gathered together, leading the band of students into fervent acts of spirituality and Christian service. He was especially attracted to devotional writings that focused on right practice and the need for holiness in everyday life: Thomas à Kempis’s Imitation of Christ, Jeremy Taylor’s Holy Living and Holy Dying, and William Law’s Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life. These works inspired in John a deep piety and commitment to the church. The “Holy Club” dedicated themselves to fasting, regular participation in the Lord’s Supper, and works of charity, such as visiting the sick and providing material goods for those in orphanages and prisons. In time, rumors spread about these Oxford students, their numbers increased, and the derisive label “Methodists” eventually stuck.5

John and Charles Wesley were lifelong members of the Church of England. As children, they learned from the Book of Common Prayer (BCP), which first appeared in 1549 and marked the reformation of the English church under the reign of Edward VI. The BCP contains prayers, litanies, and services for the Lord’s Supper and other special occasions. The Wesleys also subscribed to the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, which provide the standard of doctrine and practice for the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican communion.

John Wesley’s zeal brimmed over. Life at Oxford, though prestigious and comfortable, proved insufficient for a man of his temperament. In 1735, John convinced his brother Charles that they should risk the dangers of traveling across the ocean to serve as clergymen in the new colony of Georgia. Charles would have been quite happy to stay at Oxford, but he reluctantly agreed and quickly received ordination in the church for the task. The arduous journey challenged John Wesley’s faith far more than any event before: as storms rocked the ship, John Wesley’s trust foundered (“much ashamed of my unwillingness to die”). To his surprise, a group of German Pietists aboard the ship—Moravians, known for their belief in assurance of salvation and commitment to foreign missions—appeared entirely unmoved during the worst trials of the journey.6

Ministry in the new settlement at Savannah, too, proved far less glamorous than the young man had imagined. His methods of intense self-examination and devotion were not appreciated by the colonists, and an amorous relationship with a young woman, Sophy Hopkey, soured. He soon found himself a victim of his own impetuous decisions. John barred his paramour from the communion table, and h...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Prologue: Methodism in Crisis
• Part 1: The Origins of British Methodism
• Part 2: The Growth of North American Methodism
• Part 3: The Expansion of World Methodism
• Epilogue: Hope for the Future
• Notes
• Image Credits
• Index
• Praise for The Spirit of Methodism
• About the Author
• More Titles from InterVarsity Press
• Copyright