The Oxford Methodists : $b Memoirs of the Rev. Messrs. Clayton, Ingham, Gambold, Hervey, and Broughton, with biographical notices of othersTyerman, L. (Luke)
History
The Oxford Methodists : $b Memoirs of the Rev. Messrs. Clayton, Ingham, Gambold, Hervey, and Broughton, with biographical notices of others
A marvellous work was accomplished by the Wesley brothers and by
Whitefield; but it is a great mistake, and not a just acknowledgment
of the grace of God, to regard the results of the revival of religion
in the Oxford University, as confined to Methodism. Contemporaneous
Reformers, raised up by Providence, are seldom all employed in the same
kind of work. At the beginning of the Christian era, God “gave some,
apostles, and some, prophets, and some, evangelists, and some, pastors,
and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the
ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ” (Ephesians iv. 11,
12). Luther, Zuinglius, Melancthon, Œcolampadius, Erasmus, Calvin, Knox,
Ridley, Latimer, and Cranmer were all engaged, at the same time, in the
same great and glorious reformation; but the services they rendered
were as various as the dispositions and talents of the men themselves.
So in regard to the movement in the Oxford University. Among the Oxford
Methodists, the Wesleys and Whitefield will always be pre-eminent; but a
great work was also done by their associates. Clayton’s High-Churchism
was objectionable; but it is not unreasonable to indulge the hope, that,
his earnest piety exercised a useful influence upon the clergy among whom
he lived, and especially upon the young gentlemen who were favoured with
the instructions of his school. Ingham, as an evangelist, was exceedingly
successful among the masses in the North. The Moravian Church owes a debt
of incalculable gratitude to Gambold, for checking and correcting its
early religious follies. Broughton was efficiently employed in promoting
the translation of the Bible, in the work of Home and Foreign Missions,
in the distribution of religious tracts, and in the education of the
children of the poor, at a period when the present principal societies
for such objects did not exist. Hutchins, though retaining, at least,
a few of his High-Church doctrines, was a spiritually-minded, earnest
Christian; and, in the important office which, for so many years, he held
in Lincoln College, could hardly fail in moulding the minds and hearts
of some of the young students there. And Hervey was one of the first
clergymen of the Church of England, in the last century, who turned the
attention of the upper classes of society to religious matters. These
were not trifling services. Do they not deserve to be recorded?
The Oxford revival of religion was pregnant with the most momentous
issues. And so are most revivals. How often in the history of Methodism,
though on a smaller scale, have its revivals of the work of God resulted
in consequences bearing some analogy to those of the Oxford movement
of a hundred and forty years ago? Who will not pray, that such “Divine
visitations” may be continued and multiplied, not only in Methodism, but,
in all the Churches of the Great Redeemer?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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