Charles Wesley the Paradoxical Anglican The question might legitimately be asked when considering the early years of the Methodist movement how the Wesley brothers could accommodate their radical ministry with their Anglican orders and continued membership of the Church. This is particularly the case with Charles, whose championship of the Church of England was the defining characteristic of his later ministry. His absolute refusal to countenance the secession of the Methodists from the Anglican
Communion, stated with particular emphasis in the years after 1750, was to poison his relationship with a number of the preachers and cause severe strain with his brother. His aggressive advocacy of the Church also flavoured the way that he has been viewed by Methodist scholarship—his principal biographer Thomas Jackson described Charles as the 'most rigid and unbending Churchman in the Methodist body',1 while one recent study referred to his refusal to 'step outside the discipline of the Church of England'.2 In one sense, it is understandable that scholars have unanimously accepted that Charles Wesley was devoted to the Church in which he was raised; after all, he declared as much himself repeatedly and with characteristic vigour. In his journal entry for 3 July 1743, he expressed his 'inviolable attachment to the Church of England'3 and he never appeared to shift from that fundamental position.
There was however, as with many things about this complicated man, a contradiction that demands clarification, and which puts this
1 Jackson, Charles Wesley, ii. 474.
2 Robin Leaver, 'Charles Wesley and Anglicanism', in S. T. Kimbrough jun. (ed.), Charles Wesley: Poet and Theologian (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1992), 157.
Charles the Paradoxical Anglican 65 much-vaunted loyalty in a different light. During the crucial decade of the 1740s there was little about Charles Wesley's ministry that would have suggested unbending devotion to Anglican discipline, and for all his protestations of loyalty his drift away from the Church in practice was unmistakable. In the aftermath of his conversion, he found much to dislike about his fellow Anglicans, whether it was a minister complaining of the increase in communicants because of the activities of the Evangelicals,4 or the rank hypocrisy of some that attended worship.5
He could be blunt in his criticism; on one occasion in 1748, he took issue with the future Primate of Ireland for his complaint of the lay preachers' lack of education, replying 'so the dumb ass rebukes the prophet'.6 He was even threatened with excommunication in a personal interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury for the crime of preaching in other ministers' parishes; Charles stood his ground and wrote in his journal for that day 'I felt nothing in my heart but peace'.7 Such a direct confrontation with the most senior person in the Church hierarchy hardly supports the view that Charles was unconditionally devoted to the 'old ship'. Nor was this uneasy relationship with the Church of England an exclusive characteristic of Charles's early Evangelical years—until the end of his long life, he regularly contravened Anglican practice by encouraging lay preaching and preference for work in a Methodist circuit rather than a parish.
In seeking to explain the contradictory stance adopted by Charles Wesley with regard to the Church of England, it becomes clear that his conversion experience represented a fundamental turning point with regard both to personal faith and the way that he viewed the Church. In the aftermath of May 1738, Charles experienced a change in religious identity, but crucially without breaking the link with his own past. He had been raised as a conservative Anglican, although his membership of the holy club shows that he was unconventional in his approach and open to new ideas; after his conversion, Charles became a radical conservative influenced by the High Church but inspired by the new wave of Pietist thought and innovative forms of worship. The movement that he helped to create was a product of this
4 CWJ, 13 October 1739. 5 CWJ, 27 October 1739.
6 Gill, Charles Wesley, 233. 7 CWJ, 19 June 1739.
66 Charles the Paradoxical Anglican mix of tradition and innovation. Methodism was built on a Church of England foundation and on the basis of attachment to the Church, yet it was far removed in many areas from what Charles's father Samuel would have recognized or approved of. This apparent contradiction gave rise to many questions concerning the true nature of Methodism and it became an issue that plagued the brothers throughout their careers. It is necessary therefore to examine the nature of Charles
Wesley's changing churchmanship and the impact of the brothers'
Anglican background on the early Methodist movement, starting with the effect of their nurturing in the High Church tradition.
HIGH CHURCH INFLUENCE Charles and John were raised to be loyal to Church and King and this view was reinforced by their experiences at Oxford. As influential as other strains of religious thought and practice became in their lives, the brothers always retained a strong vestige of this background and placed it to good use in their Evangelical ministries. The High
Church placed emphasis on discipline and the maintenance of private and public morality and this was echoed in the brothers' management of Methodism. It was very easy to transgress the Wesleys' rigid codes of behaviour and the extensive tours made by the brothers were often accompanied by expulsions from the societies. In March
1743 for example, John observed that sixty-four people had been expelled from the Newcastle society during the previous three months for offences ranging from Sabbath-breaking and selling alcohol to 'lightness and carelessness'.8 Charles was no less backward in enforcing proper conduct, expelling fifty from the Bristol society in May
1747.9 This firm hand was no doubt made necessary by Methodism's expansion and the lack of clerical helpers to share the workload, but it was also part of the High Church ethos and came naturally enough to the sons of the Rector of Epworth.
The brothers made other impositions on their followers that were grounded in conservative Anglicanism. John Wesley's manuscript
8 JWJ, 12 March 1743. John Wesley, The Works of John Wesley, xix. 318.
Charles the Paradoxical Anglican 67 annotation to his copy of the Rules of the United Societies laid down the following requirements for membership of a Methodist band:
1. To be at [parish] church, and at the Lord's Table every week ...
2. To attend the ministry of the Word every morning ...
3. To use private prayer every day and family prayer if you are the head of a family ...
5. To observe as days of fasting or abstinence all Fridays in the year.10
One can easily identify elements from this list that fit comfortably into a High Church context, such as the insistence on weekly Communion and the use of family prayers, while fasting had been a feature of the brothers' own spiritual life since at least their days at Oxford.
It is with regard to the Sacraments and specifically Holy Communion that the influence of Epworth Rectory over Methodism is at its most visible. Charles's parents set great store by regular attendance at the Lord's Table and emphasized the need for communicants to be in a proper frame of mind and spirit for what the High Church considered the most important act of Christian worship.11 In his book
The Pious Communicant rightly prepared12 Samuel Wesley justified the practice of frequent observance and made suggestions as to how one should prepare for the celebration. John and Charles inherited this eucharistic concern to such a degree that it became a central component of Methodist doctrine. The devotion displayed by the holy club to regular and careful attendance at the Lord's Table earned them the nickname 'Sacramentarians' and it was through Charles's unusual practice of weekly celebration that Oxford Methodism had its beginnings.13 In an undated sermon or treatise on Acts 20: 7,14
10 MS annotation to John Wesley's Rules etc of the United Societies ([London]: 1743) 11 'The eucharist was the apex of High Church and Non-juror worship.' Robert Cornwall, Visible and Apostolic: The Constitution of the Church in High Church Anglican and Non-Juror Thought (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1993), 136.
12 Samuel Wesley, The Pious Communicant rightly prepared, or a Discourse concerning the Blessed Sacrament (London: printed for Charles Harper, 1700).
13 CW to Dr Chandler, MS letter, 28 April 1785 (MCA: DDWes 1/38).
14 Charles Wesley, The Sermons of Charles Wesley, ed. Kenneth Newport (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2001), 277–86.
68 Charles the Paradoxical Anglican Charles expounded his mature views on the Eucharist with particular regard to the necessity for a weekly observance. In a manner typical of the High Church, he points to scripture and ancient Christian practice in support of his contention15 and it is noteworthy that he cites the Apostolic Constitutions to which the Nonjuror John Clayton first introduced the Wesleys at Oxford.16
Conservative Anglicans believed that Communion was a means of bringing spiritual refreshment and comfort to the soul17 and this is reflected in Wesleyan doctrine. In his sermon on The Duty of Constant
Communion John Wesley stated: 'As our bodies are strengthened by bread and wine, so are our souls by these tokens of the body and blood of Christ. This is the food of our souls: this gives strength to perform our duty and leads us on to perfection ...'18 High Church
Sacramental theology and observance was adopted by the Wesleys with such fervour that in the words of John Rattenbury the revival they led 'might as truly be called Sacramental as Evangelical'.19
Charles himself took Communion far more frequently than even the majority of High Church ministers would have deemed strictly necessary—in the Christmas week of 1738 for example he attended the Lord's Table on no fewer than six successive days.20
For Charles, the taking of the elements represented a mystical experience during which the doors of heaven itself were opened. His conviction that the Eucharist when properly celebrated was a channel for the transmission of grace was no mere academic notion but a deeply personal experience. This is seen many times in his letters and journal from which the following extracts are taken:
[I] received the never-failing blessing at the Sacrament. Our prayer after it always opens heaven.21
[I] found the great blessing after the Sacrament, an ordinance which God always magnifies and honours with his special presence ...22
15 Charles Wesley, The Sermons of Charles Wesley, 286.
16 Rack, Reasonable Enthusiast, 90.
17 Cornwall, Visible and Apostolic, 138–9.
18 John Wesley, The Works of John Wesley, iii. 429.
19 John Rattenbury, The Eucharistic Hymns of John and Charles Wesley (London:
20 CWJ, 25–30 December 1738. 21 CWJ, 10 February 1745.
22 CWJ, 7 April 1745.
Charles the Paradoxical Anglican 69 My subject at Spitalfields Chapel was, Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy etc ... [Brother] Richardson assisted me to administer to above 1200 communicants ...23
The central importance of Communion to the Wesleyan wing of the Revival is corroborated by manuscript testimonies written by the brothers' followers. For some it represented the moment of conversion itself—the preacher Thomas Tennant upon being given the bread and wine 'was enabled to believe that Christ died for me, and was filled with peace in the Holy Ghost'.24 For others, regular observance made an important contribution in their struggle towards conversion; Thomas Middleton felt at chapel services in London that 'my heart was poured out before the Lord: it was full and ready to break, and particularly at the Lord's Table ...'25 The mystical aspect of Charles's own celebratory experience can also be detected in a passage from a letter written by Elizabeth Halfpenny: 'Being at Kingswood on Sacrament day, in an instant, was brought to my view, by the eye of faith, the form of a tall person in his surplice: his hair was white and seemed to move on the ground with his back towards me, but he was soon vanished.'26
Inextricably bound up with the supreme spiritual significance attached to the Eucharist was the vital role performed by the officiating minister. The High Church stressed the necessity of proper celebration by an episcopally ordained priest who alone, in their opinion, was qualified to act in a sacerdotal role and draw down the grace and favour of God.27 This view was carried over by the Wesley brothers into Methodism where over time it became a bone of contention and a steadily widening point of fracture with the Church of England. The fact that only Anglican priests were allowed to administer the bread and wine drastically curtailed the opportunities for Methodists seeking to attend Communion outside London—in some areas they were
23 CW to Sarah Wesley, MS letter, n.d. [post-1757] (MCA: DDCW 7/20).
24 The Lives of Early Methodist Preachers, ed. Thomas Jackson, 3 vols. (London:
Wesleyan Conference Office, 1871; repr. as a retypeset from the original 6 vols. of the 4th edn., Stoke on Trent: Tentmaker Publications; Lewes: Berith Publications, 1998), iii. 383.
25 Thomas Middleton to CW, MS letter, 8 October 1743 (MCA: EMV 111).
26 Elizabeth Halfpenny to CW, MS letter, May 1742 (MCA: EMV 87).
27 Cornwall, Visible and Apostolic, 123–6.
70 Charles the Paradoxical Anglican barred from the parish church while in other parts of the country, weekly and even monthly celebration was rare.28
In one sense, the Wesleys were hoist on their own High Church petard. They urged their followers on to 'constant communion' and taught the spiritual benefits of proper celebration, but that served to expose what some Methodists viewed as the inadequacies of the Established Church and its clergy. Over time, a section within the societies began quietly to make their own arrangements by taking the bread and wine from Methodist preachers, despite their lack of clerical orders. John Wesley never abandoned his view that ordination was necessary to act as mediator of divine grace,29 but he did after years of strenuous mental gymnastics finally conclude that he was as qualified to ordain as any bishop;30 thus a separate Methodist ministry and Church was born. It is ironic that John Wesley's High Church stance with regard to the Lord's Supper became a parting of the ways for the Anglicans and the Methodists. Charles Wesley on the other hand, while he was willing enough to depart from many points of Anglican practice, never compromised on what he viewed as the essential requirement for the participation of a specifically Anglican ministry in the Methodist mission. The various Sacramental and ordination controversies and their role in the unravelling of Methodism from the Church will be covered in greater detail later.
THE WIDER RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE IN THE MAKING OF METHODISM Any attempt at identifying the specific contribution made by the different sections of the Anglican community to the evolution of Methodism is rendered complicated by difficulties in defining what constituted typical Church of England belief and practice in the early eighteenth century. Anglicans might hold High Church views in some respects but not in others, and there was broad agreement between the different parties on important points of doctrine and practice.
28 John Bowmer, The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper in Early Methodism (London:
29 Ibid. 149–52. 30 Rack, Reasonable Enthusiast, 294–6.
Charles the Paradoxical Anglican 71 Most Latitudinarians and Dissenters would have been as concerned with the necessity of maintaining a strict moral code within society as their High Church brethren, and there was a strain of Puritanism that espoused a Sacramental theology that was close to the High Church model. Some other aspects of Methodism's Anglican character such as the use of the Book of Common Prayer or the Wesleys' practice of wearing full canonicals when leading worship may not indicate anything more than an inheritance from the broader Anglican mainstream.
This blurring of distinctions makes it difficult to draw firm conclusions about the exact starting point for some areas of Methodist ecclesiology. The Wesleys certainly received their Sacramental doctrine and views on secular authority from a High Church source, but the origin of other Methodist building blocks are not so easy to trace with exactitude. It should also be remembered that individual members of the societies, some of whom were Dissenters or Roman
Catholics, would have quietly accepted or rejected aspects of the Wesleys' teaching based on their own experience and background.
Over the course of several decades this invisible pressure from the grassroots had as great an effect on the construction of Methodist identity as the more public actions of the leadership. The Wesleyan wing of the Revival was not simply a modification of one particular denominational tradition, but was rather a weaving together of many different strands. In the rest of this chapter, some of these other influences will be examined, with particular regard to the grafting of radical practice onto the brothers' High Church sensitivities and the extent to which this was accepted and even encouraged by Charles
The Wesleys' dissatisfaction with the state of the Church, coupled with the driving force of their new-found faith, found expression in the adoption of practices that were most untypical of Anglican ministers. In addition to Sacramental services that followed the forms laid down in the Book of Common Prayer and the insistence that Methodists attend their parish church, the brothers introduced meetings that had little or no Anglican precedent. The very concept of a religious society was, as we have seen, a relatively recent introduction to the English Church and one that was regarded with suspicion by some High Church ministers.
72 Charles the Paradoxical Anglican The Wesleys further divided the societies into bands and classes, which were intimate gatherings of small groups under the supervision of a lay leader with an established reputation for piety. This process of rapid development represented a part of what Walsh and Taylor have termed a radicalization of the Anglican model.31 The bands were introduced as early as 1739 as a direct borrowing from the Moravians and were for the encouragement and guidance of people who had already been converted and were seeking to attain higher levels of holiness on the path to perfection. By way of contrast, was the weekly class meeting, which commenced in 1742 and was originally a mechanism for raising money. Within a short time, the classes were also being used for spiritual examination and the giving of advice and correction where necessary. Unlike the bands, conversion was not a prerequisite for class membership and it became possible therefore for the Wesleys to insist that all their followers meet in this fashion. Within a few years, membership of the Methodist societies was defined by possession of a class ticket, which could be taken away for backsliding and other infringements of the rigid code of discipline that was central to the early Methodist system.32
The lovefeast and watchnight were different types of meeting altogether and satisfied the need for informal fellowship on a wider society level. The lovefeast originated as a communal meal of bread and water accompanied by prayer, conversation, singing, and the giving of testimonies. It was another feature of Methodism that was borrowed from the Moravians, although it is also referred to in the New Testament, which gave it the additional attraction of representing a return to primitive Christianity. At the watchnight meetings,
Methodists spent part of the night in a vigil of prayer, praise, and thanksgiving. Like the class meetings the watchnight appears to have started in Bristol independently of the Wesleys, although again there is some Moravian and New Testament precedent.33
Another Wesleyan innovation was the covenant service and this has special interest as the only Methodist meeting that drew specifically on a Puritan source. The idea of a divine contract whereby grace is given through Christ in exchange for faith and obedience is part of 31 Walsh and Taylor, 'Introduction: The Church and Anglicanism', 18.
32 Rack, Reasonable Enthusiast, 240–2. 33 Ibid. 411–12.
Charles the Paradoxical Anglican 73 mainstream Christian theology and one that was particularly influential in Puritanism, where it took the form of a personal commitment entered into by an individual. John Wesley drew heavily on the writings of Richard and Joseph Alleine, who had been ejected in 1662, for his views on the covenant, but in 1755 he took the concept one step further with the introduction of a covenant service during which the assembled congregation gave their assent as one body to a binding agreement with God.34
THE USE OF HYMNS IN WORSHIP An important feature of all Methodist gatherings was the singing of hymns and this was another practice that had roots in the Pietist and dissenting traditions. Hymns made their first appearance in English Protestant worship in the late seventeenth century with the work of the Baptist minister Benjamin Keach. Both Anglicans and Dissenters had written hymns for devotional use prior to this but it was Keach who introduced hymn-singing to services.35 Writers of hymns who followed Keach's example in the early eighteenth century were almost exclusively Nonconformists and included Philip Doddridge, Anne Steele, and Joseph Stennett. The best known and most talented was Isaac Watts, an Independent minister who authored six hundred hymns to become known as the 'father of English hymnody'.
The use of hymns in services was not generally accepted even by Nonconformists and was positively disliked by many in the Church of England well into the nineteenth century. Public hymn-singing came under suspicion because of its dissenting associations and was placed by conservative churchmen into the same 'enthusiastic' category as extempore preaching and prayer.36 The practice favoured in Anglican churches was the singing of metrical psalms, which while adapted for 34 Leslie Church, More about the Early Methodist People (London: Epworth, 1949),
249–50; Rack, Reasonable Enthusiast, 412–14.
35 Richard Watson, The English Hymn: A Critical and Historical Study (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1997), 110.
36 Susan Tamke, Make a Joyful Noise unto the Lord: Hymns as a Reflection of Victorian Social Attitudes (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1978), 19–23.
74 Charles the Paradoxical Anglican congregational use, remained close to the biblical source and were not therefore as prone to the promotion of wild flights of fancy.
John Wesley's fascination with religious song as an aid to spiritual growth can be traced back to his contact with the Moravians while on passage to Georgia.37 The German Pietists were the inheritors of a rich tradition of the use of hymns in public worship dating back to the time of Martin Luther, and Wesley was so impressed by what he witnessed on board the ship Simmonds that within a year he had compiled a collection of hymns for publication in Charlestown,
South Carolina.38 This slim but important volume contains work by an eclectic mix of contributors including Isaac Watts, the Roman
Catholic John Austin, George Herbert, Samuel Wesley senior, and John Wesley's own translation of German originals. The Charlestown hymnal has the distinction of being not only the first of many such collections produced by the Wesleys, but also the first hymn-book produced specifically for use by an Anglican congregation.39 One of the complaints made against Wesley to the Grand Jury for Savannah was that this most unusual High Churchman had deviated from Anglican principles by introducing 'into the church and service at the altar, compositions of Psalms and Hymns not inspected or authorized by any proper judicature'.40
Hymns by Charles Wesley did not appear in print until 1739 although he was certainly writing religious poetry well before that date.41 In a letter written from Georgia to the wife of Governor
Oglethorpe,42 Charles refers to being inspired by his wild surroundings to write a 'hymn' but it is likely that this was intended for personal use rather than congregational worship. He showed no such restraint after his Evangelical conversion in May 1738 and starting with the publication the following year of Hymns and Sacred Poems,
37 Rack, Reasonable Enthusiast, 123.
38 A Collection of Psalms and Hymns, compiled by John Wesley (Charles-Town: printed by Lewis Timothy, 1737).
39 John Wesley, John Wesley's First Hymn-Book: A Facsimile with Additional Material, ed. Frank Baker and George Williams (London: Wesley Historical Society Publication 6, 1964), p. ix.
40 JWJ, 22 August 1737. John Wesley, The Works of John Wesley, xviii. 555.
41 Charles's earliest extant religious verse dates to 1728. Rack, Reasonable Enthusiast, 256.
42 Baker, Charles Wesley as Revealed, 25.
Charles the Paradoxical Anglican 75 verse written specifically for use in services flowed from his pen.
Charles's compositions formed the backbone of Methodist hymnals well into the twentieth century and so profound was the spiritual and theological content of the best of his work that according to one non-Methodist critic they 'prefigured the constitution of the new
[Methodist] Church and formed the manual of its spiritual discipline'.43
The hymns of Charles Wesley were a vital ingredient in Methodism's success as a popular religious movement. Immediately accessible to people of all levels of education, easy to remember and fun to sing, they were heard not just in chapels, but in the workplace, the home, and the street. Between 1739 and the end of the century the Methodists published a multitude of separate collections on a bewildering array of themes ranging from earthquakes to children, together with volumes intended for specific services and general usage. The income produced from the sale of hymn-books made a significant contribution to Connexional finance—in 1791 a detailed inventory of the contents of the Methodist Book Room recorded over 11,000 hymnals in the warehouse awaiting distribution together with several thousand more available for sale in the shop.44 Such print runs attest to the phenomenal popularity of Methodist sacred verse and help to explain how hymns such as 'O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing' entered the mainstream of popular culture.
Anglican Evangelicals such as Augustus Toplady and John Newton noted the success enjoyed by the singing Methodists and started to write and publish their own collections for use in parish churches.
The struggle towards acceptance of hymns in the Church of England was long and hard; as late as 1820 the Bishop of Peterborough condemned their use because there was no provision for them in the Book of Common Prayer,45 but by the end of the nineteenth century the singing of hymns had become a standard feature of Anglican worship and could be regarded as Methodism's most important gift to her parent denomination.
43 Louis Benson, The English Hymn: Its Development and Use in Worship (Philadelphia: The Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1915), 244.
44 MS inventory of books belonging to John Wesley, 27 April 1791 (MCA: Wesleyan Conference collection).
45 Tamke, Make a Joyful Noise unto the Lord, 27.
76 Charles the Paradoxical Anglican PREACHING AND PRAYER As radical as the Wesleys' services and meetings seemed to their contemporaries, it was in their ministry of the 'Word' that the most controversial departures from the Church of England took place.
Open-air preaching, while not in itself contrary to canon law, was a sensitive area, touching as it did on public order and the traditional alliance between Church and State. In the turbulent and often violent world of Georgian England, the sight of large crowds of the lower orders being whipped into a state of high emotion by charismatic preachers was certain to cause concern on the part of the authorities.
Confusion and suspicion were exacerbated by the fact that two of the most successful of these evangelists were self-proclaimed Tory stalwarts and ministers of the established Church. It is hardly surprising that some critics found sinister significance in the fact that the Wesley family had Nonjuror and Jacobite connections.46
The employment of lay itinerants was even more distasteful to champions of the Establishment.47 Reverend John Lewis in a letter of October 1747 to John Wesley criticized his encouragement of 'unlearned mechanics to usurp the ministerial office' describing it as an 'indefensible point'.48 There can be no doubt that Lewis was correct in his assessment, as lay preaching was certainly in breach of the Thirty-Nine Articles that Charles and his brother had sworn to obey at the time of their ordination.49
It has been stated, or at least implied, that Charles was more reluctant than John to accept the validity of this lay call to preach,50 but there is evidence to indicate that he was in fact more receptive. It
46 Rack, Reasonable Enthusiast, 172.
47 For example, 'Another error is their permitting unlearned men without ordination, to go about preaching the Gospel.' Nathan Fletcher, A Methodist dissected; or, a description of their errors (York: printed by Caesar Ward, 1749), 14.
48 John Lewis to JW, MS letter, 5 October 1747 (MCA: Collection of letters to JW).
49 Article XXIII: 'It is not lawful for any man to take upon him the office of public preaching, or ministering the Sacraments in the Congregation before he be allowed, lawfully called and sent to execute the same. And those we ought to judge lawfully called and sent, which be chosen and called to this work by Men who have public authority given unto them, in the Congregation, to call and send Ministers into the Lord's Vineyard.'
50 Heitzenrater, Wesley and the People called Methodists, 115–16; Church, More about the Early Methodist People, 101; Laycock, Methodist Heroes, 12–13.
Charles the Paradoxical Anglican 77 is true that one of Charles's grievances with the Fetter Lane Society in 1739 was the demand for lay preaching, but the issue there was complicated by the insistence of some at Fetter Lane on lay administration of the Sacraments, something to which Charles was resolutely opposed throughout his life. For an insight into his opinion of lay preaching in isolation, one should turn to his journal entry for 8 May
1740, describing an address given by the layman Howell Harris to the London Society:
He declared his experience ...O what a flame was kindled! Never man spake in my hearing as that man spake. What a nursing father has God sent us! He has indeed learnt of the good Shepherd to carry the lambs in his bosom. Such love, such power, such simplicity was irresistible ...These words broke out like thunder 'I now find a commission from God to invite all poor sinners, justified or unjustified, to his altar' ...51
It is true that Harris appears on this occasion to have been exhorting or testifying, as opposed to preaching from a scriptural text, which was a subtle distinction of great value to the Wesleys in their justification of lay ministry.52 However, Charles could not have been unaware that his friend had been speaking in public both from a text and without for several years, a divine call to which Harris specifically referred in the above passage. At no point in their several meetings at this time did Charles express concern over such activities, and indeed it is clear that he held the Welshman in the highest regard; it was not long either before he was using the specific term 'preaching' to describe Harris's role in Methodism.53 Charles might have questioned the ability of individuals, but he never declared against the validity of lay preaching per se. One might contrast this apparent indifference with John's reluctance to allow the practice, which he apparently
52 'At their first setting out, they called themselves ...Exhorters, rather than Preachers; a distinction, at least as they managed it, which I confess I don't very well understand ...' [Robert Cruttenden], The principles and preaching of the Methodists considered in a letter to the Reverend Mr∗∗∗∗(London: printed for James Buckland,
53 'Had an opportunity to moderate the spirits of some, who were greatly exasperated against Howell Harris, for preaching predestination among them.' CWJ, 8
78 Charles the Paradoxical Anglican permitted only after an angry confrontation with his mother in early The acceptance of lay preaching by the Wesleys at such an early date was of vital significance for the spread of Methodism. There were
Church of England ministers such as William Grimshaw and John Meriton who were prepared to contribute to the work of the Revival, but for Methodism to make any long-term impact it quickly became apparent that lay assistance was required, regardless of Anglican opposition. This was underlined by the importance that the brothers attached to their followers hearing the 'Word' on a regular basis—
John Wesley specified a daily attendance in his Rules of the United Societies. Something that the brothers did not appreciate in this first rush of Evangelical success was that by elevating preaching to such a high level of importance, they were also paving the way for the lay purveyors of God's message to assume a special status in Methodist eyes.
Another controversial and related aspect of Methodism was the widespread use of extempore preaching and prayer. Impromptu preaching was not unknown in an early eighteenth-century Anglican context, but the normal practice was for sermons to be carefully prepared and either memorized or delivered from notes.55 Alternatively, ministers would make use of the compositions of others;
Charles Wesley for example transcribed several of John's sermons and preached them himself.56 Public prayer was regarded in a similarly formal fashion and was based on the set forms laid down in the Book of Common Prayer.57
After their Evangelical conversions, the Wesley brothers started to preach and pray extempore following the direction of the Holy
Spirit.58 In the case of a sermon, this involved selecting a random biblical text at the last possible moment before beginning to speak, and then trusting to divine inspiration. In March 1740, Charles wrote to his brother concerning such an occasion: 'In the pulpit, I opened the book and found the place where it is written, "the Spirit of the 54 Rack, Reasonable Enthusiast, 210. 55 Rupp, Religion in England, 515.
56 Charles Wesley, The Sermons of Charles Wesley, 78–81.
57 Spurr, John, The Restoration Church of England, 1646–1689 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), 334.
58 Charles appears to have commenced extempore preaching in July 1738. Charles Wesley, The Sermons of Charles Wesley, 35.
Charles the Paradoxical Anglican 79 Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, etc" I explained our Lord's prophetic office, and described the person on whom alone He could perform it. I found as did others that he owned me.'59 With regard to public prayer, the Evangelicals continued to use the Anglican liturgy but supplemented by their own spur-of-the-moment compositions. Such discourses were a source of concern to the brothers' High Church friends who objected to their irregularity and encouragement of excess. John Clayton wrote to John
Wesley in May 1739 cautioning him of the need for prudence and warning that his refusal to use notes was causing offence,60 while
Samuel Wesley junior brusquely told his brother 'to banish extemporary expositions and extemporary prayers',61 but to no avail.
Extempore preaching and prayer had been commonplace in seventeenth-century Puritanism and were a cause of disquiet to Latitudinarian and Nonjuror alike for their reliance on unseemly emotion rather than reason and solid teaching.62 If the brothers had restricted these activities to themselves and their ordained colleagues, it would probably have been regarded as little more than harmless eccentricity, but by encouraging laymen also to preach and pray in this fashion, the Wesleys provoked deep and widespread concern. Memories were revived of Puritan firebrands rocking the foundations of society with misplaced zeal for God; James Buller referred in typically High
Church language to this lingering fear in his Reply to the Rev. Mr Wesley's address to the clergy:
Whilst the sons of Belial were undermining the Church and State, and unnatural subjects were most cruelly conspiring against the life of God's Anointed, our then most gracious Sovereign, Charles the First. Great was the Company of Preachers. Like the frogs in Egypt they filled the houses ...The Colonels and the Captains, the Drummers and private Centinels of the Soldiery, most audaciously became the Trumpeters of the Gospel; they effectively paved the way with their tongues for their swords....63
59 CW to JW, Published copy letter, March 1740. Charles Wesley, The Sermons of Charles Wesley, 36.
60 Rack, Reasonable Enthusiast, 141.
61 Samuel Wesley jun. to JW, MS letter, 16 April 1739 (MCA: DDWF 5/15).
62 W. Spellman, Latitudinarians and the Church of England 1667–1700 (Athens, Ohio: University of Georgia Press, 1993), 124–7.
63 James Buller, A reply to the Rev. Mr Wesley's address to the clergy (Bristol: printed by S. Farley, 1756), 19–20.
80 Charles the Paradoxical Anglican Unlettered laymen leaving their lawful occupation and tramping the countryside expounding the Gospel as the Spirit allegedly moved them was not simply a question of stepping on the toes of ordained clergymen, but had implications for public order. The Wednesbury riots represent just one example of what could happen when itinerant preachers went too far in their calls for people to repent.
The criticism in 1745 by the Anglican minister Henry Stebbing in his Address to the Methodists reflects this widespread perception that the Evangelicals were disturbers of the peace and wreckers of social harmony: 'Some of them [Methodists] have since run about the country, teaching and exhorting, without any orders or authority, learning or judgement; distressing the minds of the poor, ignorant well-meaning people; throwing some into despair, others into presumption and many into madness ...'64 Stebbing's accusations appear extreme, but the fact that his work went through five editions in as many years after first publication and fourteen editions by 1807 indicates the depth and longevity of fears concerning the Wesleys and their so-called Sons in the Gospel.
When reading accounts of early Methodist meetings, it is difficult not to feel some measure of sympathy with the brothers' critics. The Evangelicals encouraged emotional outbursts through their highly charged preaching and public prayer, and Charles Wesley himself acknowledged the potential dangers inherent in this inflammatory brand of popular religion. In 1740 he wrote to John from Bristol that 'the noises and outcries here are over. I have not spoken one word against them, nor two about them. The Devil grows sullen and dumb because we take no notice of him.'65 Other instances of his concern with keeping fanaticism in check are scattered throughout the journal, as on 6 May 1741 when he 'cautioned the unstable and comforted the feeble-minded'.66
The best example of Methodism out of control occurred in London in 1763 when the preacher George Bell was arrested for disturbing
64 [Henry Stebbing], An earnest and affectionate address to the people called Methodists (London: printed by J. Oliver, 1745), 38.
65 Quoted by Baker, Charles Wesley as Revealed, 36. 66 CWJ, 6 May 1741.
Charles the Paradoxical Anglican 81 the peace of the King's subjects.67 Bell had claimed to be in a state of sinless perfection, a condition regarded as the Holy Grail of Methodist spirituality. Unfortunately he took the Wesleys' teachings to extravagant lengths and in the months leading up to his arrest claimed the power to heal the sick and raise the dead.68 Bell achieved great personal influence and enjoyed the approbation of John Wesley until a short time before the final denouement.69 Bell's downfall occurred when his prophecy that the world would end on 28 February 1763 resulted in mass panic in the streets of the British capital. John Wesley not surprisingly distanced himself from his one-time protégé, but too late to prevent letters appearing in the popular press denouncing
Methodism as the 'the most destructive and dangerous system to government and society that ever was established'70—not the type of publicity that would have endeared the Wesleys to their colleagues and superiors in the Anglican ministry. The fact that the London society lost a quarter of its membership in the immediate aftermath of the controversy indicates that many of the Wesleys' own followers also took fright at the direction their movement was taking.71
Charles Wesley took a strong line against claims of extreme spiritual revelation and he was certainly more aware than his brother of the threat posed by preachers such as Bell.72 At the same time, however, Charles was himself encouraging his followers to step over the boundaries of what many Anglicans, including his own father and oldest brother, would have considered seemly or safe behaviour. His preaching and prayer were passionate in their content and delivery and often produced strong reactions. The following was recorded in Charles's journal for 22 April 1741: 'I sharply reproved three or four inflexible pharisees; then prayed the Lord to give me words of consolation and immediately I was filled with power which broke out as a mighty torrent. All our hearts caught fire as in a moment, and such tears and strong cryings followed as quite drowned my voice.
67 Gareth Lloyd, 'A Cloud of Perfect Witnesses: John Wesley and the London Disturbances 1760–1763', The Asbury Theological Journal, 56/2 (Fall 2001/Spring 2002),
68 John Walsh to CW, MS letter, 11 August 1762 (MCA: EMV 134).
69 Lloyd, 'A Cloud of Perfect Witnesses', 126–8. 70 Ibid. 130.
71 Ibid. 129. 72 Ibid. 123–4.
82 Charles the Paradoxical Anglican I sat still while the prayer of the humble pierced the clouds ...all present received an answer of peace.'73
Charles Wesley, for all his High Church upbringing and reputation as an Anglican loyalist, breached the conventions and discipline of his denomination on a daily basis across such key areas as liturgy, preaching, and subservience to Episcopal authority. The closer that one examines the detail of his activities, the more radical he appears and the less like his historical image and High Church stereotype.
CHARLES WESLEY AND THE 'MOTHERS IN ISRAEL'
Another area in which Charles displayed a startling degree of toleration was his willingness to allow women to play an active role in Methodist affairs. This important aspect of his ministry has never been addressed in the standard biographies and it is valuable therefore to examine now as a final example of Charles Wesley's radical churchmanship.
One of Charles's closest friends was Sarah Perrin, with whom he enjoyed an extensive correspondence for over thirty years. In 1741,
Perrin wrote to Charles describing her personal contribution to the work of the Revival: here [Leominster] seems to be some good stirring. Many of the Church of England meet often together to talk of the things of God. They invited me to come among them. I have been with them several times ...I earnestly desire
I may lay no stumbling block in their way but that the master ...may give me words for their edification ...one evening I gave them the sermon upon salvation by faith, they much approved of it. I read the hymn to them ...they said it comforted them.74
Perrin was clearly exercising a semi-public ministry at a very early date. Depending on the way that this passage is interpreted, she could even be said to have been preaching, and that would have been unheard of in a contemporary Anglican setting. Perrin referred to 73 CWJ, 22 April 1741.
74 Sarah Perrin to CW, MS letter, 1741 (MCA: 'Letters to CW II'), 5.
Charles the Paradoxical Anglican 83 her public ministry on other occasions in her letters to Charles.75
The most striking example was written on 12 June 1750 when she described exhorting several times a week in Leominster76 and to Charles's successful prayers that she might be blessed with wisdom, presumably in her utterances.77 This constitutes one of the earliest unambiguous references to Methodist women exhorting in public.
The fact that Perrin was a convert from the Quakers who had long accepted female ministry may account for Charles's toleration. There are unfortunately no extant letters from Charles to Perrin, although we can deduce from indirect evidence that he had no major objection to her irregular activities. His annotation on the letter of 1741 consists simply of her name, and the tone of her correspondence does not suggest that this was an uncomfortable subject. As for general Anglican opinion about the role of women in the Church, this is summed up by a comment made to Charles in 1771 by the Irish minister and later bishop Thomas Barnard that women 'should not forget that their office is to wash the feet and not direct the paths'.78 It is interesting that Charles's annotation on Barnard's letter suggests approval of his view,79 indicating that in this area he grew more conservative with the passage of years.
THE ANGLICAN–EVANGELICAL DIVIDE Charles Wesley was far from being a typical churchman despite his historical image, which is in large part based on his actions and statements in later life. This could cause confusion to his contemporaries: during his visit to Ireland in 1748, he commented 'It is worth
75 For example, Sarah Perrin to CW, MS letter, 2 May 1741 (MCA: 'Letters to CW II'), 6.
76 'he [God] gave me utterance more than an hour. I exhorted them to repentance and to come to knowledge of God by the remission of sins ... I have ever seen myself the most unfit to exhort having neither mouth nor wisdom, yet several times of late I could not refrain.' Sarah Perrin to CW, MS letter, 12 June 1750 (MCA: 'Letters to CW
77 'You had need indeed to pray for wisdom for me. They increase that come to hear.' Ibid.
78 Thomas Barnard to CW, MS letter, 18 August 1771 (MCA: DDPr 1/3).
79 'Barnard. Wise remark of honourable women.' Ibid.
84 Charles the Paradoxical Anglican observing that in Kinsale I am of every Religion. The Presbyterians say I am a Presbyterian; the church-goers, that I am a minister of theirs; and the Catholics are sure I am a good Catholic in my heart.'80 Far from being concerned that he was difficult to recognize as an Anglican minister, Charles seemed proud of the fact. This cavalier attitude towards his denominational identity was something that Charles shared with people from all sections of the Evangelical community.
The willingness of the Wesleys and their associates to venture outside denominational constraints in the most public fashion was one of the aspects that distinguished them from their more conventional brethren.
The Methodists did not differ from the Church of England in matters of doctrine, and far from rejecting her Sacraments and public worship they embraced them with a degree of enthusiasm that other
Anglicans found rather unsettling. Nor was the pursuit of inward holiness incompatible with the tenets of the Church; High Churchmen such as Samuel Wesley senior and Latitudinarians such as John
Tillotson would have all claimed to be focused on this quest. There were differences in emphasis between Evangelicals and other Anglicans exemplified by the use of such terms as the 'New Birth', but these should perhaps more properly be termed variations rather than departures from the Anglican norm. There was in fact no aspect of the Wesleys' teaching that was not either contained within the doctrines of the Church of England or so radically different that it could not have been accommodated within this exceptionally broad denomination. The brothers' older contemporary Archbishop William Wake proudly noted that:
The moderation of the Church of England has been very exemplary ... and we have felt the good effect of it in that peace we enjoy among our ministers, notwithstanding their known difference of opinion in many considerable articles of Christian doctrine. The Thirty-nine Articles ... we have left every one to interpret them in his own sense; and they are indeed so generally framed that they may, without any equivocation, have more senses than one fairly put upon them.81
80 CWJ, 8 September 1748.
81 Quoted by Paul Avis, Anglicanism and the Christian Church: Theological Resources in Historical Perspective (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989), 138.
Charles the Paradoxical Anglican 85 Wake was writing before Methodism was founded, but his references to 'moderation' and 'peace' provide a key to understanding why the Wesleys provoked such fierce opposition. The Evangelicals were viewed in many quarters as dangerous radicals, not because of their beliefs, although the Wesleyan concept of perfection did raise a few eyebrows, but because of their practices. They were obviously discontented with the Church as it stood, but instead of moving into nonconformity, they abused traditional Anglican toleration and seemed set on undermining the Church from within, very much like the Puritans of an earlier era. They imposed meetings that had no place in Anglican structure, adopted practices that owed more to Dissent than the Establishment, and showed scant respect for their colleagues and superiors in the ministry. This is not to argue that the institution of the Church of England was negative in its attitude towards innovation or dead to the stirrings of popular piety. The religious societies of the late seventeenth century are an example of Anglican openness to new ideas, while the Wesleys' experiments with holy living at university were tolerated and even welcomed in certain quarters. It was when the Wesleys and their fellow Evangelicals took promotion of personal holiness out of the Oxford colleges and fashioned a mass ministry that the flashpoint occurred.
The Evangelicals were not the only Anglicans to stray outside normal Church of England practice, and indeed the point has already been made that in the half-century after the restoration of the monarchy it would be difficult to define what constituted such practice. At the parish level there was great diversity exemplified by the fact that some ministers wore a surplice, others did not; in some churches, the Eucharist was celebrated once a month, and in others, once a quarter; the parish Puritans had a dual identity that encompassed attendance at the parish church as well as more private gatherings and to the outrage of the High Church, many individuals embraced the practice of occasional conformity in order to avoid civil penalties. At the other end of the Anglican spectrum, Nonjurors such as Susanna
Wesley sought the advice of their own bishops outside the Church of England over such intimate matters as the state of her marriage.82
The Anglican leadership had been able to hold these many disparate 82 Susanna Wesley, Susanna Wesley, 34–9.
86 Charles the Paradoxical Anglican strands of the denomination together because few people showed any inclination to take religious differences into the street and thereby run the risk of inciting disturbance and persecution. The civil authorities too had learned to turn a blind eye to quiet breaches of Anglican conformity. Practical toleration was the prevailing sentiment of the early eighteenth-century Church and a source of pride to men such as William Wake.
This uneasy consensus was disturbed by the arrival of the Evangelicals on the religious scene at the end of the 1730s. It had been possible to ignore such groups as the discreet parish Puritans, but the loud and turbulent Methodists were a different matter. Whitefield and the Wesleys beseeched the Almighty and celebrated their spiritual triumphs before crowds of thousands and were followed by an ever-growing band of lay preachers. They trumpeted their views, one might say their defiance, through a multitude of publications that were aimed primarily at the common man rather than the Church and social elite, and when the brothers were called to account for their actions, they refused to give way, confident in the knowledge that they were doing
The Wesleys also made use of an uncommon talent for picking over fine points of discipline in order to find a convenient loophole. John
Wesley for example, justified his practice of preaching in other ministers' parishes because of his status as a Fellow of Lincoln College.83
It is worth pointing out that Charles as a mere 'student of Christ Church' did not have that argument available to him, but preached anyway. This level of public intransigence came as a shock to the bishops: in 1738 Charles had a stormy interview with the Bishop of London during the course of which he bluntly challenged his superior to invoke his authority and prevent him from preaching. It was the bishop who backed down with the telling words: 'O why will you push things to an extreme? I do not inhibit you.'84
Anglican toleration did of course have its limits and there are many first-hand accounts of Methodists being persecuted, but it is important not to exaggerate this campaign of violence and harassment; incidents tended to be localized in nature and were driven by the 83 Baker, John Wesley and the Church of England, 71.
84 Quoted by Gill, Charles Wesley, 77.
Charles the Paradoxical Anglican 87 irritation of individuals rather than the policy of Church and State.
Much of the active persecution was also confined to the first decade of Methodism's existence, although hostility and dislike remained for many years. The Anglican response was rendered confused by the fact that the Church of England itself was divided over its reaction to revival. The rank and file of the Wesleyan societies was drawn largely from Anglican congregations and there were sympathizers among the bishops, parochial clergy, and gentry. Even people who were inimical to the Evangelicals tended to stop short of calling for the suppression of the movement or their expulsion from the Church, perhaps fearful that such action would lead to yet greater division and sectarian feeling.
There is no doubt that Charles Wesley was indeed a paradoxical Anglican, but his view of God and the Church was shared by many within the Methodist movement and the broader Anglican community. The Church of England was so wide in its boundaries that people could legitimately regard themselves as true Anglicans while at the same time building a loyalty to another body that was rapidly forging its own identity. In one sense, Methodism was one of the fruits of that spirit of Anglican toleration and inclusiveness that had evolved through bitter experience. For Charles Wesley and the majority of Methodists there was no inherent contradiction in their stance, particularly during the first twenty years of the Revival. They placed obedience to God above unthinking subservience to denomination and were able to maintain loyalty to both. Yet there came a stage in Charles Wesley's life after which he tried to act as a brake on the process he had initiated and he may have even attempted to reverse it. One must ask when did his views change, and why? This must be looked at against the background of the evolution of the Wesleys' relationship with one another starting with their engagements and marriages.