John (left) and Charles Wesley - Images from Wikipedia
Four years separate these brothers in age, yet age couldn't keep them apart in their ministry. John, the elder, already a college professor at Oxford and an Anglican Priest when his younger brother, Charles, started at university. Charles, an eager young Christian, formed a prayer and study group known as the "Holy Club". John soon joined the "Holy Club", and this band of brothers was mockingly called, "Methodists", because of their methodical means of prayer, study, and action. However, it would be something far more than their devoted acts of piety that would make them early leaders in a spiritual explosion later known as "The Great Awakening".
Ask any United Methodist or even those in other Wesleyan traditions for that matter, and you will hear many wonderful things about John and Charles. John was an inspired teacher and preacher who had a heart for the poor, sick and imprisoned. Charles was a poet and hymn-writer extraordinaire. They both followed their father Samuel, also an Anglican priest, in the ministry. Both boys learned much of their personal piety from their mother Susanna. When Charles got his first job after college as secretary for Indian Affairs in the American colony of Georgia, John gets appointed as a colonial parish pastor, also in Georgia.
On the voyage from England to America, in 1736, the Wesley brothers witnessed a marvel of spiritual faith through a group of German colonists. The ship had sailed into a storm of such magnitude that the "professionals" thought they were all going to die. And yet, these German colonists were worshiping and praising God. John was highly inspired by this level of faith and once he arrived in Georgia, he questioned a German pastor, Mr. Spangenberg, about this faith he had observed. This conversation is documented in John's journal:
Mr. S.: "My brother, I must first ask you one or two questions. Have you the witness within yourself? Does the Spirit of God bear witness with your spirit that you are a child of God?"Can you see how John doubted his beliefs? Despite John's experience as a priest, a professor, and a child raised in a religious family, he was not fully sure of his own faith.
J.W.: I was surprised, and knew not what to answer. He observed it and asked
Mr. S.: "Do you know Jesus Christ?"
J.W.: I paused and said, "I know He is the Saviour of the world."
Mr. S.: "True," replied he; "but do you know He has saved you?"
J.W.: I answered, "I hope He has died to save me."
Mr. S.: He only added, "Do you know yourself?"
J.W.: I said, "I do." But I fear they were vain words. 1,2
In 1738, the Wesley boys returned to England from their missionary trip to Georgia. I think on many accounts that their journey had been a failure. John had been run out of the colony because he failed to serve a former girlfriend communion. And Charles hadn't been successful in bringing many native Americans to Christ. It was during this time in London that the brothers met Peter Bohler, a Moravian pastor, who encourage them to continue to seeking faith and to understand that "whereby alone, through grace, we are saved."3 Soon after, Bohler departs England for the colonies and Charles has a life-transforming evangelical conversion on May 21, 1738, at the home of John Bray. Three days later, John would also have a conversion experience, as he describes:
"In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death."4Seven months later John, Charles, their friend George Whitefield (a member of the Holy Club and early Methodist pioneer) and about sixty others from the Fetter Lane Society were present in a prayer meeting which John tells:
"About three in the morning, as we were continuing instant in prayer, the power of God came mightily upon us insomuch that many cried out for exceeding joy and many fell to the ground. As soon as we were recovered a little from that awe and amazement at the presence of His majesty, we broke out with one voice, 'We praise Thee, O God, we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord.'".5The event is further supported by George Whitefield's observation:
"It was a Pentecostal season indeed….We were filled as with new wine…overwhelmed with the Divine Presence."6Folks, what John and George describe here is what is known in Pentecostal and Charismatic circles as "falling out in the Spirit". It is after this event, that John, Charles, and George would begin experiencing God's power moving through their preaching and camp meetings. A new derogatory term soon arose for Methodists who physically experienced the presence of God - "enthusiastic".
Without knowing it, many believers today, follow a teaching known as cessationism. Cessationism is the belief that the gifts of the Spirit were for the apostolic age (if they even existed at all) and are no longer applicable for the modern times. John addresses this:
"I do not recollect any Scripture wherein we are taught that miracles were to be confined within the limits either of the apostolic age...or any periods of time, longer or shorter, even till the restitution of all things."7Folks, I think we have been missing an important piece of, not just our Methodist heritage, but our Christian heritage as well.
~~Ken
Notes:
1. Journal of John Wesley, Christain Classics Ethereal Library ↩
2. I added the speaker identifiers to make following the conversation easier. KLS↩
3. Journal of John Wesley, Christain Classics Ethereal Library ↩
4. Journal of John Wesley, Christain Classics Ethereal Library ↩
5. Fetter Lane Society, Wikipedia ↩
6. The Supernatural Thread in Methodism, Frank Billman, p 26↩
7. The Works of John Wesley. 3d Edition. Volume VIII. p 465. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1996.↩
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