FORWARD INTO A NOBLE FUTURE

It was but natural for the mobs to set upon Wesley and his workers--frowned upon by the clergy and opposed by the bishops. This was the price John was to pay for the victory of his success when England and the world took his movement to her bosom. Crowds came to hear his messages--five, ten and even twenty thousand--and with the crowds were the mobs. It is almost unbelievable the number of times John refers to the wrath of his enemies and the serious attempts even at his own life as well as that of his co-workers...

A six-day riot broke out in that district, while John was in London, of which he affirms, "I was not surprised at all; neither should I have wondered if, after advices they had so often received from the pulpit as well as from the Episcopal chair, the zealous High Churchmen had risen and cut all Methodists to pieces."...

Returning they were met by a mob from Walsall who showed fight, and soon overpowered John's new friends. This left the preacher in the hands of his enemies once more. A big fellow struck him several times with a heavy club, but missed. If the blow had taken effect Wesley says "it would have saved all further trouble. But every time the blow was turned aside, I know not how, for I could not move to the right hand or the left."

John was struck on the mouth, across the face, over the head, until blood gushed from open wounds, but he felt no pain. Dragged through the town, John made for an open door, which proved to be the mayor's, only to be denied entrance. This man thought his house would be torn down if Wesley entered.

When he gained the attention of the crowd, people began yelling, "Knock his brains out. Down with him. Kill him." Others shouted, "We will hear him once." When he began to speak he lost his voice suddenly, and the crowd was on him again. When strength returned John began to pray at the top of his lungs. A ruffian stepped to the fore and said, "Sir, I will spend my life for you. Follow me, and not one soul here shall touch a hair of your head."...

"I never saw such a chain of providences, so many convincing proofs that the hand of God is on every person and thing, overruling all as it seemeth Him good." [cf. Daniel 4]...

John learned to eye these mobs. He had a rule "always to look a mob in the face." When at St. Ives a mob attempted to break up his meeting, he says, "I went into the midst and brought the head of the mob to the desk. I received but one blow on the side of the head, after which we reasoned the case, till he grew milder and milder and at length undertook to quiet his companions.

At Plymouth-dock when the crowd became venomous, John "walked down into the thick of them and took the captain of the mob by the hand. He immediately said, "Sir, I will see you safely home. Sir, no man shall touch you. Gentlemen, stand off; give back. I will knock down the first man that touches him."

There seemed to be no limit to which this violence went. Often they stoned Wesley; gangs set upon him, and dragging him into alleys, would leave him for dead. Once while preaching at Gwennap two men rode furiously into the congregation and laid hold of the people. As John commenced singing, one man cried, "Seize the preacher for His Majesty's service." When his servants were unwilling to do this, the leader jumped from his horse, seized John by the cassock and led him away three-quarters of a mile.

On finding John to be a gentleman, the man offered to take the preacher home, but Wesley declined this favor; so the man sent for horses and took John back to his preaching place. Wesley--undaunted by the bravado--arose to complete the service.

The sermons against John were as violent as the actions of the mobbers. At Bristol in 1743 a clergyman shuttled terrible messages at Wesley. Finishing his course the cleric was about to repeat them in the Church of St. Nicholas, when immediately on announcing his text, he was seized with a throat rattle, and falling backward in the pulpit, died the following Sunday. In other cases those who tried to wound or murder the preachers were themselves wounded or died at the hands of their companions in arms.

This violence continued until 1757 when peace reigned throughout the ranks of Methodism. This was brought about by the wise leadership and perfect command which John had over his forces. Isaac Taylor asserted, "When encountering the ruffianism of mobs and of magistrates, he showed a firmness as well as guileless skill, which, if the martyr's praise might be of such an adjunct, was graced with the dignity and courtesy of a gentleman."

John's heroism was perfect, and not once was he forsaken by self-possession. The serenity of his temper, mobs could not ruffle. In the face of bravery and self-command the threatenings of the rabble could not stand. John always triumphed in the end. During those turbulent years when mobs fought him and clergymen condemned his work, Wesley went straight into the future, his mind racing with plans, his soul aflame with messages, the while busy binding his societies into a workable unit...

Holding the reins over a growing group of lay preachers, which in the end numbered seven hundred, Wesley had to be forceful and dominant. To a flowery preacher who had strayed far afield from simple oratory, he wrote, "I hope you have now quit your queer, arch expressions in preaching, and that you speak as plain and dull as one of us."

His generalship extended even to advice to preachers on the masterly art of being profound yet simple. "Scream no more, at the peril of your soul," he advised a lay worker. "God now warns you by me, whom He has set over you. Speak as earnestly as you can but do not scream. Speak with all your heart; but with a moderate voice...I often speak loud, often vehemently, but I never scream. I never strain myself; I dare not; I know it would be a sin against God and my own soul." ...[Very sound advice to all who would preach.]

Wesley laid the foundation of his success by absolute authority in command. Like a general, he asked for advice but always reserved the right to act upon it.

On the matter of conferences Wesley recognized that his word must be final. Others might enter into discussions, but when John once spoke there was no appeal...During his own lifetime John determined to control the conferences, but after his death he made disposition of rulership by affirming that Methodism was to be governed by the Annual Conference of preachers...

Yet with all this dictatorial power Wesley had the universal esteem of his people. Southey expresses this sentiment in his biography, "No founder of a monastic order ever more entirely possessed the respect as well as the love and admiration of his disciples." He drew the converts to him with personal warmth flaming into affection.

It was one thing to unite individuals as such to him, but quite another to join the societies with something besides Whitefield's rope of sand. During the first five years of his itinerancy--1739-1744--Wesley had drawn forty-five preachers to himself, who supported themselves by working at their secular tasks in intervals of their preaching journeys...

That little Foundry conclave was the initiation of the famous Methodist Conference which have been the Church's executive backbone for almost two hundred years. There were present the two Wesley's, four other clergymen and four lay assistants. During this time they considered things--what to teach, how to teach, and how to regulate doctrine, discipline and practice.

Doctrinal problems such as the fall, the work of Christ, justification, regeneration, and sanctification were fully discussed. Answering the "how to teach" problem, they decided that every sermon must invite, convince, offer Christ, build up the believer. This indeed was a large order for a single sermon, especially considering the fact that most ministers were untrained laymen. [Sermons in the Calvary Chapel revival tend to fulfill these requirements quite well.]

Twelve rules were laid down for the guidance of lay assistants:

1. Be diligent; never be unemployed a moment; never be triflingly employed (never while away the time); spend no more time at any place than is strictly necessary.
2. Be serious. Let your motto be: Holiness unto the Lord. Avoid all lightness as you would avoid hell-fire, and laughing as you would cursing and swearing.
3. Touch no woman; be as loving as you will, but hold your hands off 'em. Custom is nothing to us.
4. Believe evil of no one. If you see it done, well; else heed how you credit it...
5. Speak evil of no one...Keep your thoughts within your own heart...
6. Tell everyone what you think is wrong in him...
7. Do nothing as a gentleman: you have no more to do with this character than with that of a dancing-master. You are the servant of all therefore.
8. Be ashamed of nothing but sin: not of fetching wood, or drawing water, if time permit; not of cleaning your own shoes or your neighbor's.
9. Take no money of anyone. If they give you food when you are hungry, or clothes when you need them, it is good. But not silver or gold. Let there be no pretense to say: We grow rich by the Gospel.
10. Contract no debt without my knowledge.
11. Be punctual: do everything exactly on time...
12. Act in all things not according to your own will but as a son of the Gospel. As such, it is your part to employ your time in the manner which we direct: partly in visiting the flock...partly in such course of reading, meditation and prayer as we advise from time to time. Above all, if you labor with us in our Lord's vineyard, it is needful you should do that part of the work we prescribe at those times which we judge most for His glory.

These rules were lengthy and detailed, but Wesley felt the lay workers were the heart of the Gospel appeal, and as such needed his guidance. It is interesting to note that they decided to spread the work by going "a little and little farther from London, Bristol, St. Ives, Newcastle or any other society. So a little leaven would spread with more effect...and help would always be at hand."

It was by this procedure that Wesley in his lifetime saw his societies cross England, reach into Ireland, Scotland and Wales and then leap across the ocean to America.

The matter of selecting proper lay preachers called for a definition as to abilities to be sought. "Q. How shall we try those who believe they are moved by the Holy Ghost and called of God to preach?" "A. Inquire: 1. Do they know in whom they have believed?...Are they holy in all manner of conversation [this middle-English word means conduct.] 2. Have they the gifts as well as the grace for the work? Have they in some tolerable degree a clear, sound understanding? Have they the right judgment in the things of God? Have they a conception of salvation by faith? And has God given them any degree of utterance? Do they speak justly, readily, clearly? 3. Have they success? Do they not only speak as generally either to convince or affect the hearts?

At Leeds in 1766 Wesley was careful to impress upon his preachers the necessity of possessing a book-shelved mind, and entered in the minutes, "Read the most useful books...Steadily spend all the morning in this employ, or at least five hours in twenty-four...'But I have no taste for reading.' Contact a taste for it by use or return to your trade." John was trying to make certain there were to be no preachers the feet of whose minds paced across their sermons with a leaden step...

It is interesting that John was always on the lookout for little services he could perform for his preachers. This caused him to enforce a rule in 1774 that "every circuit shall find the preacher's wife a lodging, coal and candles, or L15 a year" to purchase these necessities, and later $20-a-year allowance was given for each child.

The education of preachers' children called for consideration, and as a result of a $4,000 gift by a lady, the Kingswood school was enlarged with various facilities for the preachers' children in addition to those furnished the colliers' lads and lassies. This enlargement came about in 1748, when the most strict rules were enforced by Wesley for the control of students and teachers...

When asked what would keep his work alive, John answered, "The Methodists must take heed of their doctrine, their experience, their practice, and their discipline. If they attend to their doctrine only, they will make the people Antionomians; if to the experimental part of religion only, they will make them enthusiasts; if to the practical part only, they will make them Pharisees; and if they do not attend to their discipline, they will be like persons who bestow much pains in cultivating their gardens, and put no fence round it to save it from the wild boars of the forest."

TRAVELING THE GLORY ROAD

John Wesley was one of that large army of mighty little men. When seventeen he was spoken of as "a very little fellow," and from then on he never grew any more. Never in his life did he stand over five-feet-five, nor weigh much over a hundred and twenty pounds. But into that small stature he packed the genius of an achieving man.

His was a long and glory-topped career. During the more than forty years he spent on horseback he traveled a quarter of a million miles. He preached forty-two thousand sermons and when the total of his books is summed they come to more than two hundred.

In John's prime he suffered a severe attack of tuberculosis which cause him to compose the epitaph he thought would mar (grace) his tomb:

Here Lieth the Body
Of
JOHN WESLEY

A Brand plucked from the Burning:
Who died of a Consumption in the Fifty-first Year
Of his Age,
Not leaving, after his Debts are paid,
Ten pounds behind him:
Praying:
God be merciful to me, an Unprofitable Servant!

He ordered that is, if any, inscription should be placed on his tombstone.

Thirty-four years later on his eighty-fifth birthday he thought back on the long trail which wound to the cradle that graced the Epworth rectory, recalling thirty-four years with practically no aches or pains, and he wrote in his Journal the sources to which he imputed his perfect health:

1. To my constant exercise and change of air.
2. To my never having lost a night's sleep, sick or well, at land or at sea, since I was born.
3. To my having sleep at command, so that, whenever I feel myself almost worn out, I call it and it comes day or night.
4. To my having constantly for over sixty years risen at four in the morning.
5. To my constant preaching at five in the morning for above fifty years
6. To my having had so little pain in my life, and so little sorrow or anxious care."

During the forty years of his horseback ministry, John rode on the average twenty miles a day, and often within the round of twenty-four hours he horse-backed as much as a hundred miles. He laid the secret of his tremendous accomplishments to the time-defying schedule with which he charted the course of his day. From his early injunction never to waste time he could not release himself. Checking through his Journal for instance on June 23, 1787, in his eighty-fourth year, we find this entry:

"Sat. 4:30, prayed, sermon. 8 tea, conversed, sermon; 2:30 dinner, conversed, sermon; 4:30 tea, conversed; 6 Matt. 13:33; 7 at Mr. Smythe's, sermon; 8 supper, conversed, prayer, on business; 9:45." [six hours of sleep a night. I do this barely, but six hours of sleep a night is a tough road for most of us.]

That was the log of a Wesleyan day and little did he deviate from such a schedule except to change the activities in which he engaged due to the exigencies of circumstances. To him time was all important, and once when he lost five minutes it required much water to run under the bridge of his life before he could forget those "five minutes lost forever."

He tutored himself to read while on horseback, and often as he jogged along the country roads of England his pen would be busy writing letters or even composing notes for sermons or articles that should in time find their way into books.

He knew England's highways and byways as no man of his generation. His innumerable hours hummed with the business of executing expeditiously the affairs of the societies. Thinking back through a hundred thousand miles of good horsemanship he discovered the secret of success with his mounts--"I rode with a slack rein." And in all his traveling he affirms that never had a horse stumbled with him, "except two, that would fall head over heels anyway." He goes on to say, "A slack rein will prevent stumbling, if anything will. But some horses nothing can."

His horse sense (ability to read horses) evidently stood on as high an I.Q. level as his ability to read humans with whom the lot of his life was cast. A quaint picture indeed of John made when he was an old man he would jog along at an easy pace on a faithful mount, leaving the road to the horse's nose, while the rider's was deep in some book such as Priestly's Treatise on Electricity.

John loved horseflesh, even punctuating the spiritual admonitions of Conference minutes with practical advice about the care of animals, admonishing his preachers to save souls but to remember that every one "shall see with his own eyes his horse rubbed, fed and bedded."

How the man could find time to turn out of his mind's gristmill two hundred and thirty-three original works is more than one can understand, did not his Journal chart John's long career through those many ministerial years. Besides this the man had the habit of editing paraphrasing, clipping and altering, and, as one biographer phrases it, "sometimes mutilating" the works of other men. Among these were 183 volumes which he sent through his thought machine, often hewing upon the mental output of others.

John's pen touched all subjects. He wrote many histories, English, Roman, etc., composed a book on logic, completed a text on primitive physic for the guidance of his people in matters of health. He wrote grammars of Hebrew, Greek, French and English along with an excellent English dictionary.

In January, 1778, he published the first volume of The Arminian Magazine, with the first editorial reading, "To the Reader. It is usual, I am informed, for the compilers of magazines, to employ outside covers in acquiring the courteous reader with the beauties and excellencies of what he will find within. I beg him to excuse me from this trouble...for writing a pangyric upon myself...I am content this magazine shall stand or fall by its own intrinsic value...

"It is usual likewise with magazine writers to speak of themselves in the plural number...And indeed it is the general custom of great men so to do. But I am a little one. Let me then be excused in this also and permitted to speak as I am accustomed to do. John Wesley."

Wherever John went his saddlebags were stuffed with cheap books which he sold or gave to the people. "Two and forty years ago," he says later in life, "having a desire to furnish poor people with cheaper, shorter and plainer books than any I have seen, I wrote many tracts, generally a penny apiece, and afterward several larger ones. Some of these have such a sale as I never thought of; and by this means I became unawares rich," all of which, however, he gave away.

In 1872 he and Coke started the first tract society, which is seventeen years before the Religious Tract Society of London was formed, and even forty years earlier, thousands of "Wesley's Word to a Smuggler," "Word to a Sabbath-breaker," "Word to a Swearer" and similar tracts titles were in circulation.

During the years 1749-55 he edited a fifty-volume Christian Library, practically the only venture on which he lost money, the sum being a thousand dollars. Wesley's Notes on the New Testament is a classic for brevity and spiritual tone. This, along with his Fifty-three Sermons, forms of doctrinal standards of early Methodism. John was as much at home in the Greek Testament as in the English Bible.

For forty years Wesley conducted a book store, which was first opened at the Book Room in the Foundry. When the City Road Chapel was erected the business was moved there in 1777. It was this which gave rise to the several Methodist publishing houses existing in various sections of the world.

Nor could John be idle in the field of sacred hymnology. When his own soul had tasted Pentecost in 1738, he and Charles issued a hymnbook for general use in their societies. This was to be followed by fifty-three other hymnal publications, which on the average is one each year until John's death. In 1778 the large hymnbook came out, titled "A Collection of Hymns for Use of the People called Methodists." In this are 525 hymns selected from twenty-one previous books which he and Charles had written and edited...

It is but natural that a man who lived so long should at least have seasons when his heart was warmed in affection toward women. In John's life there was really but one woman who unlocked the memory-casket of his heart and she was the memorable Susannah, at whose funeral he spoke. However, he seemed to be possessed by a weakness for his nurses. There were three women who greatly moved Wesley's heart, and each of them was a nurse...

Having at length made up his mind to marry in 1751, he did so with the utmost dispatch. Again he suffered a sickness which called for the services of a nurse, said position being filled by Mrs. Vazeelle. At the time John said, "I was clearly convinced I ought to marry," and four days later he said to Charles that he "was resolved to marry." And marry he did. At once a storm arose over this step. John, however, could not be stopped by a mere tempest of words; so he went straight on in the deed. Married or no he saw no reason why he should change the course or tenor of his life. He entered in his Journal, "I cannot understand how a Methodist preacher can answer to it to God, to preach one sermon or travel one day less in the married than in the single state."...

This was his policy and to it he remained true. He discovered things at home were not so much as they might be. The matrimonial boat rocked back and forth for several years until at length John's wife left him in 1771...[John failed in only one area of his life...on how to make a marriage work. So I would not recommend the advice he gave to his Methodist's preachers for your marriage. Instead, I highly recommend pastor David T. Moore's cassette series "Love For A Lifetime" available online at: http://www.mooreonlife.com , cost $38.95 and worth every penny of it. It will help transform your marriage and rebuild even a bad one. But don't wait if yours is rocky, it won't hold together forever in that state, even as John Wesley found out. But John's problem came from having one love which was greater than any matrimonial love he could ever have. And when we understand that, how can we fault him for this one failing. I can't.]

Wesley had been wedded in his early life to the only true love that should ever reign in his heart--the love of winning lost men to Christ. While others touched the springs of his emotions, the desire to win souls, to promote God's kingdom, to herald the true Gospel of salvation from sin, alone held his heart. He was a man who sought to keep the glow of God in his life shining at such white heat that others should recognize it and be led to seek the same transforming glory...

It was this being constantly on tiptoe for the heavenly gleam that dominated Wesley's struggle to form his world parish. He sums up his doctrinal emphasis thus: "Our main doctrines, which include all the rest, are repentance, faith, and holiness. The first of these we account as it were the porch of religion; the next, the door; the third religion itself...

Wesley's strength was to be found in the fact that he was homo unius libri --a man of one book, and that Book was the Bible.

To quote a famous 1960’s tune, “The times, they are a changin”. After September 11, 2001 we have all become aware of the fact that the world has become a more dangerous place to live in, even within the borders of the United States. September 11th should be a wake-up call for all Christians and those who think they are Christians. If you were to die today-tonight-would you be assured of your place in God’s heavenly kingdom, a recipient of eternal life? The words of the apostle Paul ring out across the centuries asking this age-old question “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates.” Dr. Charles F. Stanley poses this same eternal question in his sermon “What Does It Mean To Believe In Jesus”. And he gives three essential criteria that will help you answer that question in your own personal life. The assurance of your eternity is worth confirming. CLICK HERE to find out if “Jesus Christ is in you.”