Wesley Corpus

Thus all the Apostles built up believers: witness all the Epistles of St. Paul, James, Peter, and John. And upon this plan all the Methodists first set out. In this manner not only my brother and I, but Mr. Maxfield, Nelson, James Jones, Westall, and Reeves all preached at the beginning. By this preaching it pleased God to work those mighty effects in London, Bristol, Kingswood, Yorkshire, and Newcastle. By means of this twenty-nine persons received remission of fins in one day at Bristol only, [On May 21, 1739. Thomas Maxfield was one of the number. See letter of the 28th of that month.] most of them while I was opening and enforcing our Lord’s Sermon upon the Mount. In this manner John Downes, John Bennet, John Haughton, and all the other Methodists preached, till James Wheatley [For the trouble with James Wheatley, see letter of June 25.] came among them, who never was clear, perhaps not sound, in the faith. According to his understanding was his preaching -- an unconnected rhapsody of unmeaning words like Sir John Suckling’s Verses, smooth and soft as cream, In which was neither depth nor stream. Yet (to the utter reproach of the Methodist congregations) this man became a most popular preacher. He was admired more and more wherever he went, till he went over the second time into Ireland and conversed more intimately than before with some of the Moravian preachers. The consequence was that he leaned more and more both to their doctrine and manner of preaching. At first several of our preachers complained of this; but in the space of a few months (so incredible is the force of soft words) he by slow and imperceptible degrees brought almost all the preachers then in the kingdom to think and speak like himself. These, returning to England, spread the contagion to some others of their brethren. But still the far greater part of the Methodist preaches thought and spoke as they had done from the beginning. This is the plain fact. As to the fruit of this new manner of preaching (entirely new to the Methodists), speaking much of the promises, little of the commands (even to unbelievers, and still less to believers), you think it has done great good; I think it has done great harm.