Wesley Corpus

cf. Baker list, 240 Editorial Introduction: The early 1750s were a period of growing tension between John and Charles Wesley over the nature and goals of the Methodist movement. A key point of divergence concerned the use of lay preachers. While open to this in principle, Charles was convinced that John was encouraging far too many who had neither the gifts nor the grace to take up the calling. For more on this dimension of the tensions, see Richard P. Heitzenrater, "Purging the Preachers: the Wesleys and Quality Control," in Charles Wesley: Life, Literature Legacy, edited by Kenneth Newport Ted Campbell (Peterborough: Epworth, 2007), 486-514. Even if they were persons of deep spiritual character and clear gifts for preaching, there was another dimension to the challenge of the lay preachers many of them chafed at the restriction from administering the sacraments. When one of their assistants had sufficient training and could find a willing bishop, the Wesleys supported them seeking ordination. But few were thus qualified. Things came to a head in October 1754, when two lay preachers, Charles Perronet of London and Thomas Walsh in Reading, administered the sacrament of Holy Communion. Charles Wesley suspected that John was ready to bow to the desires of such preachers, in order to provide for sufficient sacramental ministry among the Methodist faithful. This would have amounted to separation from the Church of England, and Charles strongly resisted it. He began to muster support prior to the scheduled Conference at Leeds in early May 1755. One form of this preparation was his poetic Epistle to John Wesley (1755). In part because of the pressure brought by Charles, John Wesley read a paper at the Leeds Conference that affirmed the purposes of the Methodist movement but insisted that they could be upheld without separating from the Church of England. Some of the most recalcitrant lay preachers took this as reason to withdraw from the connection, joining dissenting churches that would ordain them. As things settled down, John published an abridgment of his Leeds paper as a chapter in Preservative Against Unsettled Notions in Religion (1758) titled "Reasons against a Separation from the Church of England." While Charles appreciated this move, he desired to reenforce the point.