EARLY LIFE
John Wesley was born on June 28, 1703 in Epworth, 23 miles (37 km) north-west of Lincoln. He was christened John Benjamin, but never used the second name.
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| "John Wesley," by the English artist George Romney |
He was the fifteenth child of clergyman and poet Samuel Wesley and his wife Susanna Wesley (née Annesley).
His Father, Samuel was a staunch High Churchman whose lifework was to minister to the inhabitants of the North Lincolnshire marshlands. His Mother Susannah was also very devout and both his parents were influenced by the Pietist movement.
His younger brother Charles was the famous hymn writer. John said that Charles' hymnal was the best theological book in existence.
John Wesley was brought up in poverty; his father was the Anglican priest in one of England's lowest-paying parishes. He had numerous children to support and was rarely out of debt even spending time in debtor's prison.
On February 9, 1708 disgruntled members of Samuel Wesley's congregation started a fire which destroyed the Epworth vicarage. The six-year-old John Wesley was trapped in his bedroom until he was rescued by a tall neighbour who stood on a friend’s shoulders. "A brand plucked from the burning" is how he later described it.
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| The rescue of the young John Wesley from the burning rectory by Samuel William Reynolds |
John was brought up strictly and his mother would whip him to teach him to cry softly.
The Wesley children's early education was given by their mother. She educated John and his siblings in all ways including to abhor sin. She was a strict teacher and gave John one day to learn the alphabet.
In 1713 John was admitted to the Charterhouse School, London, where he lived the studious, methodical, and (for a while) religious life in which he had been trained at home.
In 1720 John entered Christ Church College, Oxford (M.A., 1727).
CAREER
In August 1727, after taking his master's degree, Wesley returned to Epworth as his father had requested his assistance in serving the neighbouring hamlet of Wroot. Ordained a priest on September 22, 1728, Wesley served as a parish curate.
He returned to Oxford in November 1729 at the request of the Rector of Lincoln College and to maintain his status as junior fellow.
On October 14 1735, John and his brother Charles sailed on The Simmonds from Gravesend, Kent for Savannah in Georgia Colony in British America. They went on behalf of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel to bring the Gospel to the Indians.
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| Wesley preaching to a tribe of Native Americans. Engraving By https://wellcomeimages.org |
The trip didn't work out. John Wesley became upset when Sophy Hopkey, the 18-year-old niece of Savannah's chief magistrate who he was in love with married someone else. He barred her from Holy Communion, her husband sued him and the trial dragged out.
On top of this controversy Wesley has prohibited whisky to the Native Americans and on one occasion attacked a barrel of whisky on the docks with an axe. After an unsuccessful ministry of two years Wesley returned to London.
John Wesley experienced a conversion to Evangelical Christianity on May 24, 1738 just three days after his brother Charles had a similar experience. The location was a Moravian church at 28 Aldersgate Street, London.
John and brother Charles Wesley believed that their call was to travel to preach the Gospel and as opposition grew from the established churches they were forced to go to the market place or common.
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| John Wesley preaching. By https://wellcomeimages.org |
Originally John Wesley was not overly keen on the idea of preaching outside of a church. One day when visiting the evangelist George Whitefield he was shocked to find Whitefield preaching outside a church building to some Welsh miners. At the time Wesley believed that by taking God's Word out of the church and mixing the spiritual with the secular, he was profaning God and consequently he couldn't see how anybody could be saved outside a church building. However Wesley's views changed in the midst of his preaching at a Society meeting near Bristol. The topic was the Sermon on the Mount and as he spoke he realized Jesus had preached the original message outside. The next day he found himself preaching to 10,000 coal miners from Isaiah 61 in the open air.
Again and again in Wesley's journals, there are notes of meetings where "men, women and children wept and groaned and trembled exceedingly."
For over 50 years Wesley preached 15 times a week on average. He said regarding preaching to plain people "We should constantly use the most common little, easy words (so they are pure and proper) which our language affords". Wesley in fact preached in a gentleman's style with a great deal of personal magnetism.
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| Wesley preaching. Portrait by William Hamilton. |
He preached over 40,000 sermons in total, sometimes to crowds of over 20,000 people without a PA system.
The number of works Wesley wrote, translated, or edited, exceeds 200, including sermons, commentaries, hymns, a Christian library of fifty volumes, grammars, dictionaries, and other textbooks, as well as political tracts.
In 1778, Wesley began the publication of The Arminian Magazine, not, he said, to convince Calvinists, but to preserve Methodists. He wanted to teach the truth that "God willeth all men to be saved."
John Wesley's rule for money was to save all he can and give all he can. Whilst a student at Oxford he had £30 a year. He lived on £28 and gave £2 away. His income increased to £60, then £90, and then £120 but he still lived on £28 and gives the rest away.
He is said to have received at least £20,000 for his publications, but used little of it for himself. His charities were limited only by his means. He died poor.
Wesley saw communicating with the Lord as the most important part of his work. “I have so much to do, that I must spend several hours in prayer before I am able to do it.”
Wesley habitually got up at 4.00 am and returned to bed at 10.00 pm.
In his eighties Wesley complained that he found it difficult to do more than 15 hours of work a day.
BELIEFS
The young John Wesley was influenced by the book A Serious Call by the religious writer William Law, which advocated a simple and pious life. He thought it would hardly be equalled in the English tongue, either for beauty of expression, or for justice and depth of thought.”
At Oxford, John joined a prayer group in 1729, which had been formed by his brother Charles two years earlier. John soon became its leader moulding it in line with his own conviction.
The Holy Club members fasted, went without sleep, lay on grass on frosty nights, visited the sick and prisoners, but it was all good works and no personal salvation. Due to their methodical ways they were scathingly called "Methodists".
On a stormy and dangerous trip back from Georgia, Wesley was greatly impressed by the calm faith of some of his fellow passengers, a group of Moravians from Austria who sang hymns in the midst of the storm.
A few months after his disastrous Georgia experience, a down-beaten John Wesley attended a meeting at Aldersgate, London. Whilst a passage from Luther's Preface to the Romans was read, Wesley felt his heart "strangely warmed".
After Wesley had this conversion experience he visited Count Zinzendorf's Moravian community to see how the Gospel was lived out in community. He then returned to England and founded the Methodist movement, an offshoot of the Anglican Church, to spread "scriptural holiness" throughout the land.
England was in need of spiritual surgery. This was the era of the hunting, shooting, bottle a day parson who entered the ministry not on account of a vocation but because it offered a gentlemanly way of living. Often the church was the only profession open to a younger son who got his post through family influence. He embraced religion as casually as he might have bought a commission in a regiment. The churches often stood empty and there were multitudes in the cities and countryside that knew no more of the Christian message than an inhabitant of the "Dark Continent." John Wesley saw his mission as to reform the nation and spread Scriptural holiness over the land.
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| Wesley preaching to his assistants in the City Road Chapel |
John Wesley was one of the few prominent leaders of the 17th century awakenings to preach an "Arminian" Gospel. He opposed Calvin's doctrine of predestination and for a time he split with fellow evangelist George Whitefield over this issue. However on November 5, 1755 he wrote in his journal "Mr Whitefield called upon me. Disputings are no more. We love one another and join hand in hand to promote the cause of our common master." The Calvinist Whitefield and the Arminian Wesley remained good friends for the remainder of their lives.
RELATIONSHIPS
Following an illness in 1748 John Wesley was nursed by a housekeeper at an orphan house in Newcastle, Grace Murray. Taken with Grace they began courting.
Wesley invited Grace to travel with him to Ireland in 1749 where he believed them to be betrothed though they were never married.
John Wesley married Mary Vazeille, (also nicknamed 'Molly'), the widow of a London merchant in 1751. He fell in love with her after she nursed him back to health after a fall on the ice.
Molly was described as "a well-to-do widow and mother of four children. The couple had no children themselves.
Wesley was not an easy man to live with. For two years she tried to travel with him, but couldn't cope with his hectic schedule, and her health and nerve broke.
Molly grew antagonistic to Wesley, wrote critical letters and spied on him,
In 1771 John Wesley separated from Molly. She had nagged him intolerably and habitually heckled him in his meetings. He eventually took his leave from her saying "You have laid innumerable stumbling locks in the way, both of the wise and unwise. You have served the cause and increased the number of rebels, deists, atheists and weakened the hands of those that love and fear God. If you were to live a thousand years twice fold; you could not undo the mischief which you have done. And until you have done all you can towards it, I bid you farewell."
APPEARANCE AND CHARACTER
Wesley was described as below medium height, well proportioned, strong, with bright eyes, a clear complexion, and a saintly, intellectual face.
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| John Wesley by George Romney crop |
Powerful, autocratic and charismatic, Wesley was given to self praise.
Wesley enjoyed company but was not renowned for his sense of humour.
Wesley popularised the phrase "cleanliness is next to Godliness in his Sermon "On Dress". The term originated in the writings of the ancient rabbi Phinehas Ben Yair.
HOBBIES AND INTERESTS
Before he co-founded the Holy Club, Wesley enjoyed walking, field sports and was a good swimmer.
Most of the many books Wesley devoured, he read in the saddle as he rode with a slack rein towards his next meeting.
Wesley had a strong interest in science, and became convinced that the new science of electricity could benefit humanity. He pioneered the use of electric shock for the treatment of illness and published books describing his techniques and the many cases he had treated.
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| Sketch of an electrical machine designed by Wesley By https://wellcomeimages.org/ |
John Wesley's love for animals was such that Methodism became synonymous with animal advocacy. He wrote: "I believe in my heart that faith in Jesus Christ can and will lead us beyond an exclusive concern for the wellbeing of other human beings to the broader concern for the wellbeing every living creature on the face of the Earth."
HOMES AND CHAPELS
Wesley was brought up in a handsome rectory, which was burnt down in 1708 by a mob politically opposed to the high church views of his father. Samuel Wesley rebuilt the rectory in the same year.
The first Methodist chapel in London was a disused cannon foundry. Wesley purchased the building's lease for £115, then spent a further £700–£800 on refurbishment costs, creating a chapel able to accommodate 1,500 people, plus a smaller meeting room.Wesley first preached in the place of worship on November 11, 1739.
The Methodist Chapel in Bristol was built by John Wesley in 1743. Above it are the rooms where Wesley and his preachers once lived. It is the oldest still-existing Methodist chapel in the world.
One of John Wesley's most famous preaching places was a subsided Mine which formed into the shape of an Amphitheatre. In 1762 a violent gale forced his congregation to shelter there and it became a regular meeting place for his preaching where thousands were able to attend.
The City Road chapel opened in 1778 to replace John Wesley's earlier London chapel, the Foundery.
John Wesley's House, a mid-Georgian townhouse, was built in 1779 at the same time as the chapel
Wesley lived for the last 13 years of his life on the first floor of the house, which was pine-panelled throughout.
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| Exterior of John Wesley;s house. By Graham Portlock and Aisha Al-Sadie |
HEALTH
By 1741 John Wesley had started to travel round Britain to preach the Gospel but had fallen ill. In his journal he wrote of how words from the Gospel of Mark prompted his recovery.
"I was obliged to lie down for most part of the day being easy only in that posture. Yet in the evening my weakness was suspended while I was calling sinners to repentance. But at our love feast that followed beside the pain in my back and head and the fever which still continued upon me, just as I began to pray, I was seized with such a cough that I could hardly speak. At the same time words came strongly in my mind 'These signs shall follow them that believe' (Mark 16v 17). I called on Jesus aloud to 'increase my faith' and to confirm the word of his grace. While I was speaking my pain vanished away, the fever left me, my bodily strength returned and for many weeks I felt neither weakness or pain."
In 1749 Wesley published Primative Physick, which proved to be a bestseller. The work showed how practically all diseases could be cured by brown paper, cold water, lemon, onions and prayer.
Wesley recommended a cold cure for children which involve swallowing six large cobwebs rolled into a ball.
He attributed his good health to getting up early at 4.00 every morning to pray.
DEATH AND LEGACY
John Wesley died on March 2, 1791, at the age of 87. As he lay dying, his friends gathered around him. He sat up, looked at his loved ones weeping at his bedside, and whispered, “Best of all, God is with us. Farewell, Farewell!”
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| Wesley on his deathbed: Mezzotint by John Sartain. - https://wellcomeimages.org |
He was entombed in the pretty garden behind his chapel on City Road, London.
When Wesley died, the only money mentioned in his will was the miscellaneous coins to be found in his pockets and dresser drawers. He also left behind a good library of books and his well-worn clergyman's gown.
He died an ardent Anglican, having never recognized Methodism as a new denomination.
For over 50 years Wesley preached 15 times a week on average a total of close to 40,000 sermons, sometimes to crowds of over 20,000 people. His evangelization of the proletariat helped keep Britain from a similar revolution to the one France was experiencing at the time.
By the end of the 18th century the Methodist movement had 100,000 members.
Source Great Christian Hymn Writers by Jane Stuart Smith and Betty Carlson.
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