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John Wesley
John Wesley (1703 - 1791). English Anglican clergyman, evangelist, and co-founder of Methodism, born in Epworth, Lincolnshire, to a rector’s family. Educated at Oxford, where he earned an M.A. in 1727, he was ordained in 1728 and led the Holy Club with brother Charles, emphasizing disciplined faith. After a failed mission to Georgia (1735-1737), he experienced a transformative conversion in 1738 at Aldersgate, London, feeling his “heart strangely warmed.” Wesley preached over 40,000 sermons, often outdoors, sparking the 18th-century Evangelical Revival, and traveled 250,000 miles on horseback across Britain and Ireland. He authored 400 works, including A Plain Account of Christian Perfection (1777), and edited The Christian’s Pattern. Founding Methodist societies, he trained 650 preachers and ordained ministers for America, influencing millions. Married to Mary Vazeille in 1751, their childless union strained, but his brother’s hymns enriched worship. A tireless advocate for the poor, he opened dispensaries and schools, and his 1787 sermon against slavery stirred abolitionism. Despite tensions with the Church of England, he never left it, shaping global Protestantism. His maxim, “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can,” inspired generations to active faith. Wesley’s journals and letters, still widely read, reveal a legacy of practical holiness and social reform
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John Wesley reflects on the value of his brother's hymns, contrasting them with the works of contemporary writers who may charm with their eloquence but lack true understanding of God. He recounts an anecdote about Mr. Garrick allegedly throwing Wesley's hymns overboard, which he finds hard to believe, asserting that his brother's poetic and theological depth surpasses that of many celebrated authors. Wesley emphasizes the importance of recognizing the spiritual significance of hymns and their role in guiding believers towards a deeper relationship with God. He concludes with a powerful sermon that resonates with his audience, many of whom are visibly moved.
Throw Mr Wesley's Hymns Overboard
Mon 28 1789: I retired to Peckham; and at leisure hours read part of a very pretty trifle, the Life of Mrs. Bellamy. Surely never did any, since John Dryden, study more to make vice pleasing, and damnation shine, than this lively and elegant writer. She has a fine imagination; a strong understanding; an easy style, improved by much reading; a fine, benevolent temper; and every qualification that could consist with a total ignorance of God. But God was not in all her thoughts. Abundance of anecdotes she inserts, which may be true or false. One of them, concerning Mr. Garrick, is curious. She says, "When he was taking ship for England, a lady presented him with a parcel, which she desired him not to open till he was at sea. When he did he found Wesley’s Hymns, which he immediately threw overboard." I cannot believe it. I think Mr. G had more sense. He knew my brother well; and he knew him to be not only far superior in learning, but in poetry, to Mr. Thomson, and all his theatrical writers put together: None of them can equal him, either in strong, nervous sense, or purity and elegance of language. The musical compositions of his sons are not more excellent than the poetical ones of their father. In the evening I preached to a crowded congregation, some of whom seemed a good deal affected
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John Wesley (1703 - 1791). English Anglican clergyman, evangelist, and co-founder of Methodism, born in Epworth, Lincolnshire, to a rector’s family. Educated at Oxford, where he earned an M.A. in 1727, he was ordained in 1728 and led the Holy Club with brother Charles, emphasizing disciplined faith. After a failed mission to Georgia (1735-1737), he experienced a transformative conversion in 1738 at Aldersgate, London, feeling his “heart strangely warmed.” Wesley preached over 40,000 sermons, often outdoors, sparking the 18th-century Evangelical Revival, and traveled 250,000 miles on horseback across Britain and Ireland. He authored 400 works, including A Plain Account of Christian Perfection (1777), and edited The Christian’s Pattern. Founding Methodist societies, he trained 650 preachers and ordained ministers for America, influencing millions. Married to Mary Vazeille in 1751, their childless union strained, but his brother’s hymns enriched worship. A tireless advocate for the poor, he opened dispensaries and schools, and his 1787 sermon against slavery stirred abolitionism. Despite tensions with the Church of England, he never left it, shaping global Protestantism. His maxim, “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can,” inspired generations to active faith. Wesley’s journals and letters, still widely read, reveal a legacy of practical holiness and social reform