Straight Dope on Medicine: Methodists

“It is diligently to be noted, the faith, which brings not forth repentance, and love, and all good works, is not that right living faith which is here spoken of, but a dead and devilish one.” John Wesley and Charles Wesley.

Ersatz faith was found wanting.

It’s always good to be sesquipedalian.

On with the memory of John and Charles Wesley.

Nobody wants to be forgotten. But we will be. It is almost inevitable.

 Seth J. Gillihan, PhD writes:

But even if we leave a great impression, soon everyone that knew us will be dead, and their memories of us will die with them. Even our eventual descendants—who will owe us their very existence—will consider us largely irrelevant, if they think of us at all.[i]

It takes about 3 generations.

What is the price for forgetting?

Whenever I travel, I always drive past a cemetery. Not intentionally. They are on the path. Frequently, more than one. Who remembers these people? Does anyone visit their graves? I don’t know the people buried there, and I have no familiarity with the lives they lived.

But wait, we might think, what about truly famous people? Of course we remember people like George Washington and Socrates and St. Francis of Assisi. If we’re successful enough or smart enough or devout enough, we can achieve immortality.

That’s true, to a certain extent.

But can we? Of all the people who were famous during their time, how many do we actually know? Even being president of the United States is no guarantee of being remembered: When was James K. Polk president? What did Millard Fillmore accomplish (besides the presidency)? Why did Franklin Pierce serve only one term?

It’s been estimated that about 119 billion people have ever lived. How are we doing on their memory?[ii]

Yet, there are men and women who are remembered.

Today, we remember some especially devoted men of God:

John and Charles Wesley.

Charles was said to have averaged 10 poetic lines a day for 50 years. He wrote 8,989 hymns, 10 times the volume composed by the only other candidate (Isaac Watts) who could conceivably claim to be the world's greatest hymn writer. He composed some of the most memorable and lasting hymns of the church: "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing," "And Can It Be," "O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing," "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling," "Jesus, Lover of My Soul," "Christ the Lord Is Risen Today," "Soldiers of Christ, Arise," and "Rejoice! The Lord Is King!"

And yet he is often referred to as the "forgotten Wesley."[iii]

His brother John is considered the organizational genius behind the founding of Methodism. He is typically accredited with being the father of the Methodist church. But without the hymns of Charles, the Methodist movement may have gone nowhere. As one historian put it, "The early Methodists were taught and led as much through [Charles's] hymns as through sermons and [John] Wesley's pamphlets."

John could write too. It just wasn’t music.

John Wesley wrote one of the bestselling medical texts of all-time.

John Wesley was deeply convicted that God is concerned about our earthly life as well as our heavenly one. To that end, he wrote a medical text for the everyday person titled Primitive Physic. The book discussed the contemporary knowledge about home health remedies and went through 32 editions, making it one of the most widely read books in England.

Evangelistic preacher

At evangelist George Whitefield's instigation, John and Charles eventually submitted to "be more vile" and do the unthinkable: preach outside of church buildings. In his journal entries from 1739 to 1743, Charles computed the number of those to whom he had preached. Of only those crowds for whom he stated a figure, the total during these five years comes to 149,400.

In 1735, John sailed from England to America where, as an Anglican priest, he was going to pastor the British people in the Savanna, Georgia. He was 32 years old. While aboard, there was a sudden great storm at sea. He was gripped with fear. The German Moravians on board were not. They were calm and sang hymns of praise. This amazed John. He wanted to be like them.

John felt his faith falling short.

John was brought up in a Christian family. His father was a priest, and his mother provided rigorous Biblical instruction at home. The children were expected to memorize chunks of the New Testament, and they even learned Greek and Hebrew.

Pretty serious training.

When he was six, his home caught on fire, and he was rescued from a second-story window by a man standing on another man’s shoulders. From that time, he was dubbed “a brand plucked from the burning.”

John graduated from Oxford University, and then embarked on his theological career. He joined the Oxford Holy Club started by his brother Charles. The members vowed to lead holy lives. They preferred to receive Communion every week, abstain from most forms of amusement and luxury and commonly visit the sick and the poor. They visited prisons regularly. They were labeled Methodists for their methodical ways.

The fellowship was stigmatized as "Methodist" by their fellow classmates because of the way they used "rule" and "method" to determine their religious convictions. John, who was the leader of the club, took the attempted mockery and turned it into a title of honor.

Teachings:

1) A person is free not only to reject salvation but also to accept it by an act of free will.

2) All people who are obedient to the gospel according to the measure of knowledge given them will be saved.

3) The Holy Spirit assures a Christian of their salvation directly, through an inner "experience" (assurance of salvation).

4) Christians in this life are capable of Christian perfection and are commanded by God to pursue it.

Wesley preached that we needed to be connected in “social holiness.” He believed we could only grow as Christians in a community, surrounded by people of similar faith and conviction.

John Wesley coined the term “agree to disagree.”

There was something gnawing at John, which he found particularly disagreeable.

“I was fighting constantly, but not conquering. I fell and rose and fell again.”

A defining moment came at Aldersgate, the northern gate of the city, in 1738.

Walter Thornbury in Old and New London partly quotes Stowe:

“Aldersgate was one of the four original gates of London, and formed the extreme corner to the north. Some say it was named after Aldrich, a Saxon, who built it; others, says Stowe attribute it to the Alder trees which grew around it.”

A reluctant John went to the gathering. Luther’s preface to the epistle to the Romans was being read. He was told that God works a change in the hearts of believers through faith in Christ, he felt his heart “strangely warmed.”

He felt he did trust in Christ. He trusted Christ alone for salvation and assurance that he had been saved from his sins.

These outdoor evangelistic assemblies were brand new at the time. George Whitefield, another holiness club member, had pioneered the events. If people don’t come to you, go to them. Whitefield asked for help in attending to the fledgling believers, because there were so many. John was a bit suspicious of the practice, for it was unconventional.

He soon became the leader in this new movement.

From June 24 through July 8, 1738, Charles reported preaching twice to crowds of ten thousand at Moorfields, once called "that Coney Island of the eighteenth century." He preached to 20,000 at Kennington Common plus gave a sermon on justification before the University of Oxford.

At first, his followers met in private homes and societies. There was one leader and 11 members meeting weekly with members learning the Bible. There must have been something special about the number 12. Jesus used it.

They started schools for poor children, orphanages and clinics. They strove to do good in whatever they were able.

Early Methodists consisted of all levels of society, including the aristocracy, but the Methodist preachers brought the teachings to laborers and criminals who were likely left outside of organized religion at that time. In Britain, the Methodist Church had a considerable impact in the early decades of the developing working class.[iv]

Outsiders bullied them and hurled abuse. Wesley even received threats on his life. Derisively called Methodists, because they methodically set about fulfilling the commands of scripture.[v]

Yet, Wesley would not be intimidated. He truly believed that “the world was my parish.” This is a far cry from the young preacher on the ship headed to America, who feared for his life.

He traveled by horse more than 4,000 miles per year. He was a man on a mission. He was said to have preached 40,000 sermons by the time he died at the ripe old age of 87.

After their early instruction, the Wesleys learned that works cannot save, and discovered salvation by faith in Christ. Afterward, they carried that message to all England in sermon and in song. John Wesley is credited with staving off a bloody revolution in England such as occurred in France. There have been lots of revolutions in Britain (the peasants' revolt, the glorious revolution, the Jacobite rebellion …). England (and later the UK) has been a relatively democratic place compared to many of its neighbors. Another element of relative calm is the success of reformist political measures, and the existence of a non-violent Chartist movement.

Cultural influencers.

His goal for Christians was to always press on “toward entire sanctification.” He always observed, that where “sanctification breaks out, the whole work of God prospers."

References

[i] https://sethgillihan.com/we-will-be-forgotten/

[ii] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/04/quantifying-human-existence/#:~:text=With%20this%20context%20and%20timeframe,humans%20that%20have%20ever%20lived.

[iii] https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/people/poets/charles-wesley.html

[iv] https://www.christianity.com/church/denominations/what-is-methodism-10-things-to-know-about-methodists.html

[v] https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/study/module/wesleys