Wesley Corpus

To Henry Brooke Date: WHITBY, June 14, 1786. Source: The Letters of John Wesley (1786) Author: John Wesley --- DEAR HARRY, - I will give you an answer to your heart's content. In the year 1729 four young gentlemen joined together at Oxford, all zealous members of the Church of England, and all determined to be Bible Christians. In six years they increased to sixteen, and were exactly of the same mind still. In 1738, only two of these were left together; but a few more joined them, who continually increased till some hundreds were joined together. But they still constantly attended the Church; only if any Dissenter desired to unite with them they had no objection to his attending that worship to which he had been accustomed. But in 1740 Dr. Gibson, then Bishop of London, said, 'Cannot Messrs, Wesleys leave the Church Then they could do no more harm.' This we well understood. It meant,' They could do no more good; for not one in ten of their present hearers would hear them.' [See letter of Feb. 21 to Thomas Taylor.] But, whether they would or no, we would not leave it; our conscience would not permit. In 1743, the Rules of our Society were published; one of which was, 'to attend the Church and Sacrament.' This all our members (except Dissenters) were required to do, or they could not remain with us. In 1744, at our first Conference, we considered ourselves (Methodist preachers), as extraordinary messengers whom God had raised up to provoke to jealousy the ordinary messengers, the clergy; to preach the gospel to the poor, and to call all men of every denomination to worship Him in spirit and in truth. But it did not once come into our mind to separate from the Church or form ourselves into a distinct party. And herein was a new phenomenon in the earth, a thing never seen before - a body of men highly favored of God, who yet chose to abide in their own religious community, and not to separate themselves, from this very motive, that they might be servants of all.