<b>Wesley, God & England</b>

[The following is a brief talk regarding the person and work of The Rev. John Wesley, M. A. and his impact on the society of his day. The information contained here, while of a cursory nature, is illustrative of the character and methodology of the man and the early Wesleyan movement he birthed. The details provided here have been shared before churches, civic and social clubs, school committees and university students.

It is sure that such a brief introduction cannot do justice to the whole man and his ministry but it is hoped that what is written in the following paragraphs will stimulate the reader to further, individual exploration. The "take away" here is that the God of Heaven, a Being of absolute purity and immense, never-ending love, looks yearningly and lovingly upon this world and so longs to deeply relate with us that He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to redeem us from sin and make us His own people. To this end He eagerly uses any woman or man who will yield to His merciful and tender guidance and submit to give themselves wholly for His purposes.

The last "Wesley" has yet to be born!]

 

Introduction to

Wesley & His Times 

Three Stages of Ol Suit.

We sometimes hear it said that these are the most evil of times: That ours is a generation with problems and sins which literally tower above the comparatively petty sins and problems of earlier generations. And while it may be partially true that our day is more outwardly wicked than the one in which our parents grew up, it is decidedly not true that our day is the most wicked of all human history. To argue otherwise betrays a deep lack of familiarity with other times and cultures or even the current depth of darkness existing in unevangelized and unredeemed societies around the world.

            The story of John Wesley and Eighteenth Century English society is a particularly hopeful one. It shimmers with the light of promise for days such as our own - days when the flow of history seems to be against — not favoring — the redemption of our culture. Wesley’s story is a story worth telling; a story worth hearing; and a story worth emulating in our lives and generation.

            The England into which John Wesley was born was an England rife with social, spiritual, and moral problems…and the church was largely asleep…without a voice or the influence with which to counteract those problems. The dawn of the Eighteenth Century was, in England, a time of even greater tumult than in the American colonies. England was undergoing massive transition at virtually every level.

-Gin Lane- Depicting a Scene from Wesleys Day.

            Life was hard. Anyone familiar with Charles Dickens’ (early 19^th Century) ‘A Christmas Carol’ has at least some small understanding of what 18^th Century London life was like.

            As one observer has noted: “There was forced labor, slave labor, bonded labor, convict labor, indentured labor, incarcerated labor, craft labor, pressed labor and child labor. A longer working week, a longer working day, the abolition of holidays. Mechanization and reduced wages between 1690 and 1720 speeded up the twin processes of profit and capital accumulation in the hands of the elite.” [i]

            Work days could be ten hours long or as much as sixteen. Children were employed from age four and upward and compelled to do the most menial (and frequently dangerous) jobs. The average life-expectancy of a chimney-sweep was in the early-teens not only due to the hazardous nature of their work but also the fact that they were deliberately under-fed so as to keep them small and, thus, able to continue working as chimney sweeps. By age twelve they were generally too big for such work and were abandoned on the streets of London’s lower east side. [ii]

            The English economy was in upheaval due to the rapid advance in industrial technology. Jobs that had formerly required the labor of 100 men were now accomplished with the effort of one man and one machine…leaving 99 men without a job. Unemployment was chronic and extensive and job security largely unknown. Poverty sky-rocketed with no social “net” to rescue those driven out of gainful employment. [iii]

            Largely influenced by the shortage of adequate jobs, crime was rising at an alarming rate. It was chiefly for this reason that the eighteenth century was the era of the highwayman, the pickpocket, and the robber. “Old Baily”, the district within London where capital (and other serious) crimes were adjudicated, was a busy place and Tyburn (where were the gallows and “Mother Proctor’s Pews” -that is, the grandstand erected to hold the spectators of the executions), was always provided with condemned men for hanging day which was held every six weeks on a Monday.

Tyburn, where criminals were executed like sport.

            As many as 100,000 curious and unruly onlookers would gather at 8 A.M. on hanging day. [iv] A festival atmosphere filled the air and “last words and dying speeches” of the condemned were offered for sale -well in advance of their actually being spoken.

            “Justice” was neither just nor fair, many crimes of a minor nature being punishable by death. For example, capital crimes (crimes for which you could be put to death) “included poaching (if a gun was fired at a gamekeeper), counterfeiting, forgery, sheep stealing, killing a cow, looting, theft or robbery of even small items (for pickpocketing, goods over 1s. (one shilling) in value, for shoplifting 5s. (five shillings) worth, for burglary or “house-breaking” 40s. (forty shillings), associating with gypsies, entering land with intent to kill rabbits, chipping stone from Westminster Bridge, bigamy, major vandalism, (against turnpikes, fishponds, silk looms, machinery, and hop binds), and theft of a master’s goods by a servant.”[v] It was not merely “a life for a life” but a life for any of a long list of offenses. There were about 200 crimes, in all, that were punishable by death.

            Life was cheap, violent, and seemingly pointless.

            Not only was punishment out of all proportion to the severity of the crime, but the prosecution of crime was often pursued in an uneven manner. The rich and famous were, in many cases, less likely to face conviction than were the poor and powerless.[vi] And, too, the age of moral responsibility or culpability would, today be deemed near-barbaric. The law permitted children as young as 7 years of age to be hanged for any of the capital offenses above.[vii]

            Economically, there was a wide disparity between the rich and the poor. The upper-classes lived in sweet luxury in broad plantation-like dwellings with manicured lawns and hot and cold running water. The poor lived in squalid streets where rubbish and sewage lay rotting in the open. The wealthy walled in their estates and made it a crime for the poor and unemployed to even hunt the wild rabbits to feed their starving families. As seen above, the death sentence could be invoked for such a crime (?) as this.

            In Parliament, feelings ran against the poor (who were thought to be poor solely because they were lazy and wicked) and many laws were passed that brought more pain (and not relief) to them: laws regulating who could move where; laws which made the fact of one’s poverty the evidence that they were vagrant and, therefore, criminal.

            Without ecclesiastical or civil governmental social networks to assist them, the poor turned more and more to crime, addiction, and other wicked activity to try to provide some meager living for themselves and their families, or to forget their miserable condition. Sections of London (particularly Fleet Street and Drury Lane) are said to have been largely inhabited by prostitutes…a large percentage of whom were under-aged juveniles.

            “Women of the street” soon lost their youthful looks, then their health, followed by their teeth, and finally their lives. In part, this was because of the self-destructive nature of their work; and in part it was due to the use of mercury in treating their frequent social diseases.[viii]

            And what of religion…? Where was the church? Surely the church that Christ built would be a warm and powerful counter-agent to the coldness and wickedness of such a time. But, in 1738, Bishop Berkeley sadly declared that religion and morality in Britain had collapsed “to a degree that was never before known in any Christian country.”

The Church As Popularly Portrayed in Wesleys Day.

            Well-publicized pictures from that day show sleeping congregations gathered to hear “sermons” that have nothing to do with the Bible or godly living. In fact, one such sermon has been preserved which was nothing more nor less than pornographic. In it, a priest – in the crudest terms – simply spent the entire sermon telling all who were in attendance of his lust for a young woman of the congregation.

            Statistics from that era demonstrate that likely no more than six members of Parliament regularly attended church. And why should they? The vast majority of priests had simply chosen the profession because, under English law, it was a government job with a good and guaranteed income. Many of these had no religious affection and most had no understanding of the Scriptures. Far and away the largest part of these so-called preachers disbelieved in the miracles or doctrines of the Bible. In fact, for a time, many hired people to stand in the pulpit and read old sermons to the congregation while the priest himself partied on the European continent.

            So, with no earthly help, and no apparent Heavenly help, where were the poor folk supposed to turn? Where, indeed? The 19^th century rationalist historian and philosopher, William Lecky, (himself no friend to Christianity), claimed that it was only due to the work of Wesley and the early Methodists that England averted a bloodier revolution than that which swallowed up France.

            But who is John Wesley and why should we care? What can one man do among so many millions?

John Wesley Street Preaching.

            Wesley biographer, Luke Tyerman, says: “JOHN WESLEY was born at Epworth, in the county of Lincoln, on the 17th of June (June 28^th as presently calculated), 1703, and was the son of Samuel and Susannah Wesley, the former being the learned, laborious, and godly rector of the Epworth parish from about the year 1696 to his death in 1735. The Wesley family consisted of nineteen children, but, of these, nine died in infancy. The name of one of the dead infants was John, and the name of another Benjamin; and when the subject of this biography was born, his mother united the two names by calling him John Benjamin. Second names are of little use, and are often troublesome, and probably for this reason Wesley’s second name was one which he never used.” [ix]

            Physically, he was small even for the day in which he lived. Thin and barely 5′ 2″ he often stood on a table when preaching outdoors so as to be better heard and seen.

            Most of us are familiar with the bare facts of his life:

1. Rescued from the upstairs window of a burning house when he was only 3.

2. Oxford trained (grad 1724) and ‘Fellow of Lincoln College’ (a prestigious position within the scholarly community.)

3. Ordained, first a deacon (1725), then a priest (1728) in the Church of England.

4. Priest to the colony (now state) of Georgia and Missionary to American Indians.

5. Experienced a “heart warming” religious experience at “about a quarter before nine” on a street called ‘Aldersgate’ on May 24, 1738.

6. Father to the whole family of Wesleyans in various denominations.

7. Instrument of God for the preaching of the Gospel, spreading of Scriptural Holiness, securing British and American revival.

8. Vibrant and unapologetic social reformer.

9. Died on Wednesday, March 2, 1791.

10. Buried at 5 o’clock in the morning at the Chapel at City Road, London on the 9^th of March. 

            We know, too, of his unhappy marriage to the widow of a prosperous merchant. In fact, to us it is no secret that his one chronic defect was his seeming inability to act in his best interest in the romance department. I want to be clear: Wesley was neither immoral nor indecent in his dealings with the opposite sex. It’s just that he, the man who was so adept at reducing every other complex circumstance of life to its simplest and most manageable size, was never quite able to create an adequate flow chart for his love. It was as though, after falling in love, he lost the ability to understand what his next step ought to be.

            Thus do we know John Wesley to be fully human and not an angel!

            But what of the man himself? What sort of fellow would we take him to be were he to show up here in this service?

            I do not mean to disparage him. To me John Wesley ranks only slightly after the Apostle Paul in greatness. So I do not want to seem to be making light of our illustrious founder. Nonetheless, anyone who carefully reads the life of John Wesley will come away with the feeling that there was more than a little bit of the nerd or geek in him. Allow me to illustrate:

            While it is true that Mr. Wesley despised the high and flowery language of the effeminate society of his day it is equally true that he did not speak in the vernacular (the language of the common man). By this I mean, he spoke with all the culture and grammatical precision of the Oxford graduate that he was. Can you imagine how this must have appeared to the common coal-miners and other uneducated classes to which he preached? Think! Every word pronounced perfectly and every phrase turned just “so”. (Think of the contrast between ‘Mary Poppins’ and ‘Bert’ the chimney-sweep!)

John Wesley Field Preaching.

            And he constantly carried about with him his priestly robe and other accoutrements of the clerical office…and wore them regularly even when preaching out-of-doors! And, that, while he was preaching to the lowest and least sophisticated people in all England!

            In his dealings with others he could be brusque almost bordering on rudeness…though he did not mean to be. Listen to this example…a letter written from John Wesley in England to Francis Asbury in America disputing Thomas Coke’s and Asbury’s title of bishop. (By the way, the founders of our denomination made special and frequent use of this letter to “prove” that Bishops were not a Wesleyan concept!)

            The Journal of Asbury refers to this letter. On March 15, 1789, he says, “Here I received a bitter pill from one of my greatest friends. Praise the Lord for my trials also! May they all be sanctified!” It was the last letter he had from Wesley.

LONDON

September 20, 1788

[TO FRANCIS ASBURY] 

My dear Brother:

      There is, indeed, a wide difference between the relation wherein you stand to the Americans and the relation wherein I stand to all the Methodists. You are the elder brother of the American Methodists: I am under God the father of the whole family. Therefore I naturally care for you all in a manner no other persons can do. Therefore I in a measure provide for you all; for the supplies which Dr. Coke provides for you, he could not provide were it not for me, were it not that I not only permit him to collect but also support him in so doing.

      But in one point, my dear brother, I am a little afraid both the Doctor and you differ from me. I study to be little: you study to be great. I creep; you strut along. I found a school: you a college! nay, and call it after your own names! O beware, do not seek to be something! Let me be nothing, and “Christ be all in all!”

      One instance of this, of your greatness, has given me great concern. How can you, how dare you suffer yourself to be called Bishop? I shudder, I start at the very thought! Men may call me a knave or a fool, a rascal, a scoundrel, and I am content; but they shall never by my consent call me Bishop! For my sake, for God’s sake, for Christ’s sake put a full end to this! Let the Presbyterians do what they please, but let the Methodists know their calling better.

      Thus, my dear Franky, I have told you all that is in my heart. And let this, when I am no more seen, bear witness how sincerely I am…

 

Your affectionate friend and brother,

JOHN WESLEY

 

            Whew! And that was a letter to a friend! J 

            What, then, was the secret to the effectiveness of this strange little man? How is it that, in an age of sneering ridicule toward spiritual things, he was able to touch the heart of a nation and move the Hand of God? 

THE FIVE KEYS OF WESLEY’S SUCCESS

            There are five keys to understanding Wesley’s success:

            1. His Passion

            2. His Method

            3. His Discipline

            4. His “Long View” 

            5. His Willingness to Innovate

 

            1. His Passion

            Wesley was a man of strong spiritual desire. Long before he knew that God’s grace could save a man so well that he could know it he determined to do all that was in his power to live for God.

            Not only did he decide to live a godly life, he also purposed to live a useful life in regard to the needs of others. Insofar as it was humanly possible, Wesley resolved to live a life of love toward God and humanity. It was the central passion of his life…one that he kept until his dying day.

            He was a passionate soul-winner, too. His constant urging to his preachers was, “You have nothing to do but to save souls: therefore spend and be spent in this work: and go always, not only to those who want you, but to those who want you most. It is not your business to preach so many times, merely, or to take care of this or that society; but to save as many souls as you can: to bring as many sinners as you possibly can to repentance, and with all your power to build them up in that holiness without which they cannot see the Lord.” [x] 

            2. His Method

            George Whitefield, the Calvinist and fellow-Methodist of Wesley was far and away the best preacher of the two. David Garrick, the greatest actor of the day, said he would give all he owned to be able to simply utter the word, “Oh!” as powerfully as Whitefield. Yet Whitefield, himself, lamented in later life that he had not much fruit to show for his years of preaching whereas Wesley had wisely organized his people and standardized their beliefs and methods. 

            3. His Discipline (The point we most despise!)

            In the early 1900′s Nazarene General Superintendent C. B. Jernigan wisely noted that most churches need organization and order more than they need a revival. [xi] Wesley would have heartily agreed. What would it matter if a nation possessed the greatest military in the history of the world if there was no discipline-no order and chain of command to govern it? And, likewise, what would it matter if we won the whole world to Christ only to dump them into a church without the organizational apparatus to facilitate their discipling and promote their spiritual growth?  Many have been lost to the church through sloth and disorganization who might, otherwise, become mighty in faith.

            Wesley, early on, instituted a system of order and methodology for his followers. Virtually every facet of church life was detailed in some plan or other of his and rarely did anything take place without the proper authorizations. He instilled the idea into his people that the church was on a mission. This meant that she had to be organized to fulfill that mission. Wonderful friendships and relationships developed within the fellowship of those early Wesleyans but never was the chain of command allowed to be disregarded or neglected.

            They were, after all, Method-ists! 

            4. His “Long View”

            John Wesley planned for the long haul. He recognized that God’s Work normally advances on a slow-rising path. He didn’t cheat the future to get a cheap, momentary thrill. He advanced like an army on a long march…systematically and deliberately! “Slow and steady” might well have been his slogan. He also believed in the eventual triumph of the kingdom of God over the world. He passionately believed that time and God were on the side of the church!           

            He understood, like every other great leader in history, that all of life is like the cycle of preparing, planting, tending, and harvesting. The harvest of Wesley’s labors came then and is yet to come. Evangelicals of every generation since have returned to glean the still-productive soil that he and the early evangelicals so carefully worked.

              5. His Willingness to Innovate

            Rigorously devoted to the sacred traditions of his church, Wesley nonetheless prized the salvation of souls and effectiveness in proclaiming the Gospel above maintaining those valued but non-essential customs. Thus, when the pulpits of many churches closed against his faithful, pointed preaching and his good friend and fellow evangelist, George Whitefield, urged him to take to the fields to preach under open skies, Wesley went even though it seemed a scandal to most of the church. “You have nothing to do but save souls” he said, and save souls he did…robbing hell of many thousands.

            The music those early Wesleyans sang, their practice of street- and field-preaching, the heavy reliance upon a lay-driven ministry, and the deep committment to reforming the nation socially as well as spiritually, were all an astonishment to the majority in Wesley’s day. But despite being lampooned in the press, condemned in the pulpits and battered in the streets, these people, with hearts aflame with the love of God and an insatiable thirst for holiness, scattered the Good Seed of God’s trustworthy Word wherever they went. And God honored them, too, going with them wherever they went.

            Of John Wesley, the faithful servant of the Lord, “Archbishop Davidson has declared, “‘It is not too much to say that Wesley practically changed the character of the English nation.’”[xii] 

           Wesley would be quick to point out that it was all the Lord’s doing. But we must also softly repeat those words of Scripture with new meaning, “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.” (John 1:6) May His God make of us such faithful servants in our day!

‘A Charge To Keep’ 

1.  A charge to keep I have, 
     a God to glorify,
     a never-dying soul to save,
     and fit it for the sky. 

2.  To serve the present age,
     my calling to fulfill;
     O may it all my powers engage
     to do my Master’s will! 

3.  Arm me with jealous care,
     as in thy sight to live,
     and oh, thy servant, Lord,
     prepare a strict account to give! 

4.  Help me to watch and pray,
     and on thyself rely,
     assured, if I my trust betray,
     I shall forever die.

---

[i] see http://www.emayzine.com/lectures/tybun.html

[ii]  Olsen, Kirstin ‘Daily Life in 18^th Century England’ pg. 130

[iii]  Olsen, Kirstin ‘Daily Life in 18^th Century England’ (Data drawn from throughout Chapter 9.)

[iv]  Olsen, Kirstin ‘Daily Life in 18^th Century England’ pg. 217 (illustration caption 13.4)

[v]  Olsen, Kirstin ‘Daily Life in 18^th Century England’ pg. 213 Greenwood Press

[vi]  Black, Jeremy ‘An Illustrated History of Eighteenth Century Britain’ pg. 78 Manchester University Press

[vii] Olsen, Kirstin, Ibid.

[viii]  Black, Jeremy pg. 59

[ix]  Tyerman, The Rev. Luke ‘THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE REV. JOHN WESLEY, M.A.’ Chapter One, first paragraph WHCD PDF Edition 3.0 (Footnote: See Crowther’s ‘Portraiture of Methodism’)

[x]  Wesley, John as quoted in Adam Clarke’s ‘Letter to a Preacher’

[xi]  see Jernigan’s comments at: http://wesley.nnu.edu/wesleyctr/books/0501-0600/HDM0554.PDF
“Without a commander-in-chief no army will win; without proper men in office who will earnestly contend for the things once delivered to the saints, no church will accomplish much. We have plenty of men and women in the Church of the Nazarene who are clean in their lives and holy in heart, and would die before they would knowingly do anything contrary to the will of God, but they lack system and real organization.

How often has my heart been made to bleed as I traveled the district visiting the churches when some pastor would announce, “We now have with us our beloved District Superintendent and we expect a great revival while he is here and expect to see many souls get to God.” It is all right to have a D. S. who can produce a revival, but there are times when a church needs something else worse than it needs a revival.

They have had many real revivals of old time religion but were sadly lacking in methods of conserving the results of the revival. You had as well run a dynamo at great expense and have the trolley wire laying on the ground as to run a church at great expense and not conserve the work accomplished. This was the trouble with the Association work that had its day. We must concentrate; we must have close organization; we must stand together as one man to accomplish the most for God.”

[xii]  Maxwell, The Rev. Nobel ‘A Man Sent From God Whose Name Was John’ HERE: 

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Additional Resources:

The Gin Craze: Drink, Crime & Women in 18th Century London
http://culturalshifts.com/archives/168