The life and times of the Rev. John Wesley, M.A., founder of the Methodists. Vol. 1 (of 3)Tyerman, L. (Luke)
History
The life and times of the Rev. John Wesley, M.A., founder of the Methodists. Vol. 1 (of 3)
Tyerman, L. (Luke)
Methodism; Wesley, John, 1703-1791
On New Year’s day, 1740, he writes: “I endeavoured to explain to
our brethren the true, Christian, scriptural stillness, by largely
unfolding these words, ‘Be still, and know that I am God.’” The day
after, he “earnestly besought them to ‘stand in the old paths.’ They
all seemed convinced, and cried to God to heal their backslidings.”
Wesley adds: “He sent forth such a spirit of peace and love, as we had
not known for many months before.” Next day, January 3, Wesley set out
for Bristol, and returned a month afterwards. He now found his old
friends pleading for “a reservedness and closeness of conversation,”
which perplexed him. He was told that “many of them, not content
with leaving off the ordinances of God themselves, were continually
troubling those that did not, and disputing with them, whether they
would or no.” He “expostulated with them, and besought them to refrain
from perplexing the minds of those who still waited for God in the ways
of His own appointment.”
Thus he left them on the 3rd of March. Meanwhile, “poor perverted
Mr. Simpson” declared to Charles Wesley, that no good was to be
got by what he called the _means of grace_, neither was there any
obligation to use them; and that most of the Brethren had cast them
off. Charles, accompanied by Thomas Maxfield, called on Molther, who
talked “against running after ordinances. They parted as they met,
without prayer or singing; for the time for such exercises was past.”
Maxfield was scandalized, and Charles Wesley foresaw that a separation
was unavoidable. On Easter day, when preaching at the Foundery, he
appealed to the society, and asked, “Who hath bewitched you, that
you should let go your Saviour, and deny you ever knew Him?” A burst
of sorrow followed; but, on going to Mr. Bowers’, in the evening, to
meet the bands, the door was shut against him; and proceeding to Mr.
Bray’s, the brazier, he was threatened with expulsion from the Moravian
society. The day after, at Fetter Lane, Simpson reproved him for
mentioning himself in preaching, and for preaching up the ordinances.
He answered, that he should not ask him, or any of the Brethren, how
an ambassador of Christ should preach. He adds: “I went home, weary,
wounded, bruised, and faint, through the contradiction of sinners;
_poor_ sinners, as they call themselves,—these heady, violent, fierce
contenders for stillness. I could not bear the thought of meeting them
again.” Simpson said, “‘No soul _can_ be washed in the blood of Christ,
unless it first be brought to one in whom Christ is fully formed. But
there are only _two such ministers_ in London, Bell and Molther.’
Is not this robbing Christ of His glory, and making His creature
_necessary_ to Him in His peculiar work of salvation? First perish
Molther, Bell, and all mankind, and sink into nothing, that Christ may
be all in all. A new commandment, called ‘_stillness_,’ has repealed
all God’s commandments, and given a full indulgence to corrupted
nature.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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