The Wesleyan Revival1739-1742

English Society and the Age of Industry

o England had adopted enclosure laws which gave landowners absolute control over land that had previously been held in common.

o This propelled mass migration to cities where workers competed for new industrial jobs in mines and factories.

Bristol, England in the 18th century

o Population was around 50,000

o It was a major shipbuilding and coal mining town

o Bristol was a chief port for trade with North America and the West Indies.

Outbreaks of Revival

o In England, Wales, and the British colonies there were outbreaks of enthusiastic religious revivals.

o Wesley was particularly fascinated by Jonathan Edwards’s accounts of the revival in Northampton, Massachusetts.

George Whitefield (1714-1770)

o A priest in the Church of England and former member of the Oxford “Holy Club”

o Led revivals in Bristol in 1739.

Whitefield’s Success

o Traveled widely and was a gifted orator

o Encouraged conversion and emotional outbreaks

o Preached an ecumenical message

John Wesley in Bristol

o Began open-air preaching onApril 2, 1739 to an audience of coalminers and factory workers.

o Over the next few months, he preached to thousands of people.

“At four in the afternoon, I submitted to be more vile and proclaimed in the highways the glad tidings of salvation, speaking from a little eminence in a ground adjoining to the city, to about three thousand people.“

- John Wesley, Journal, April 2, 1739

Wesley’s Defense of his Itinerancy

“I look upon all the 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. This is the work which I know God has called me to; and sure I am that His blessing attends it.  Great encouragement have I, therefore, to be faithful in fulfilling the work He hath given me to do.”

- John Wesley, Journal

Organizing the Revival

o Many of the converts of the revivals in Bristol became part of societies.

o The New Room in Bristol was built in 1739 to accommodate the new converts.

Organizing the RevivalSoci

ety Classes Bands Select BandsPenitential Bands

Societies

o All Methodists in an area belonged to a Society.

o Primary activity of Society meeting was listening to lectures and sermons.

Classes

o Everyone in society was divided up into classes of 12 persons based on geography.

Bands

o Made up of 5-8 members who banded together for spiritual nurture and growth. They were divided by age and sex.

The General Rules

“First: By doing no harm, by avoiding evil of every kind…

Secondly: By doing good; by being in every kind merciful after their power…

Thirdly: By attending upon all the ordinances of God…”

-John Wesley, “The General Rules of the Methodist Societies”

Organizing the Revival

o Class Leaders were charged with collecting money, settling disputes, and regulating behavior of members not conducive to holiness.

o Stewards: Handled financial transactions for each Society.

Duties of Class Leaders“1. To see each person in his class once a week at least, in order: (1) to inquire how their souls prosper; (2) to advise, reprove, comfort or exhort, as occasion may require; (3) to receive what they are willing to give toward the relief of the preachers, church, and poor.

2. To meet the ministers and the stewards of the society once a week, in order: (1) to inform the minister of any that are sick, or of any that walk disorderly … (2) to pay the stewards what they have received of their several classes in the week preceding.”

-John Wesley, “The General Rules of the Methodist Studies”

Kingswood School

o A boarding school founded in 1748 in King’s Wood (near Bristol)

o The school featured a rigorous curriculum and a strictly regimented schedule.

o It initially served the poor and uneducated children in the Bristol area.

The “Stillness Controversy” and Wesley’s Break with the Moravians

o Philip Henry Molther’s group came to dominate the Fetter Lane Society.

o Molther insisted that people should stop all means of grace and works of piety and simply remain still before God until they had faith.

Foundery and United Societies

o Wesley had the old royal foundry for cannons in London reconstructed.

o In 1740, it became the first Methodist preaching house in London and the meeting place for the United Societies.

Orphan-House (New Castle)

o Built in New Castle in 1743.

o It became a key headquarters for Methodism in that city.

The Desideratum (1760)

o Wesley’s book on the medicinal uses of electricity which he believed was “the nearest an universal medicine, of any yet known in the world.”

“A young Lady had been affected with Fits near seven Years, which seized her without any Warning, and threw her flat on her Face, quite insensible. These frequently returned twice in a Day. This was attended with almost continual Coldness in her Feet. Her Stomach also was much affected. She stood upon a Wire coming from the Coat of the Phial, and to complete the Circuit, another Wire was laid upon her Head, by which means the Fire was conveyed to that Part. By this Means both the Fits and Coldness were gradually removed, and a complete Cure effected.”

-John Wesley, Desideratum – Electricity Made Plain and Useful

Whitefield vs. Wesley Leadership of the Revival

“many of my spiritual children….will neither hear, see, nor give me the least assistance: Yes, some of them send threatening letters that God will speedily destroy me.”

-George Whitefield, after returning to England (1739)

“My business seems to be chiefly in planting; if God sends you to water, I praise his name.”

-Whitefield to Wesley (1739)

Whitefield vs. WesleyPredestination

o Whitefield came to embrace Calvinism while in America in 1739.

o Wesley opposed predestination, preaching against it as early as March 1739.

“This is the blasphemy clearly contained in the horrible decree of predestination! And here I fix my foot. On this I join issue with every assertor of it. You represent God as worse than the devil; more false, more cruel, more unjust.”

-John Wesley, “Free Grace”

Calvinism

1. We know God only through the Bible.

o The Bible teaches us divine sovereignty.

o The Bible also teaches us that God is benevolent.

Calvinism

2. Since the Fall, human beings are all sinful and, hence, deserving of eternal damnation.

Calvinism

3. But, God is benevolent.

o So, God has predestined some for salvation.

o All others are reprobates.

Calvinism

4. If a person is one of the elect, they can never fall from grace.

o This is often referred to as the perseverance of the saints or the final perseverance

“…Give yourself to reading. Study the covenant of grace. Down with your carnal reasoning. Be a little child; and then, instead of pawning your salvation, as you have done in a late hymn book, if the doctrine of universal redemption be not true; instead of talking of sinless perfection, as you have done in the preface to that hymn book, and making man's salvation to depend on his own free will, as you have in this sermon; you will compose a hymn in praise of sovereign distinguishing love. You will caution believers against striving to work a perfection out of their own hearts, and print another sermon the reverse of this, and entitle it "Free Grace Indeed." Free, not because free to all; but free, because God may withhold or give it to whom and when he pleases.”

-Whitefield to Wesley (Dec. 24, 1740)

Whitefield vs. WesleyThe Two Methodisms

o Whitefield’s “Calvinist Methodists”

o Wesley’s Arminian “Methodists”

Selina Hastings

o The Countess of Huntingdon provided financial backing to Whitefield’s group.

o She also founded the closely related group, Lady Huntingdon’s Connexion.

Break with Oxford

o Wesley preached an alumni sermon at St. Mary’s Church, Oxford on August 24, 1744.

o The sermon titled “Scriptural Christianity” was a scathing critique of the lack of genuine religion at Oxford.

“Let me ask you then, in tender love, and in the spirit of meekness, Is this city a Christian city? Is Christianity, scriptural Christianity, found here? …Is this the general character of Fellows of Colleges I fear it is not. Rather, have not pride and haughtiness of spirit, impatience and peevishness, sloth and indolence, gluttony and sensuality, and even a proverbial uselessness, been objected to us, perhaps not always by our enemies, nor wholly without ground O that God would roll away this reproach from us, that the very memory of it might perish for ever!”

-John Wesley, “Scriptural Christianity” (1744)