1. Oxford Methodism.— This began in November 1729, when John Wesley, returning to Oxford from Lincolnshire, where he had been serving his father as curate, found that his brother Charles, then at Christ Church, had induced a few other students to join him in observing weekly communion. John Wesley’s accession lent weight and character to the infant association. Their first bond of association, besides the weekly communion, was the common study of the Greek Testament, with which they joined regular fasting, the observance of stated hours for private devotion, the visitation of the sick, of the poor, and of prisoners, and the instruction of neglected children. They never themselves adopted any common designation, but of the variety of derisive names they received from outsiders that of “Methodists” prevailed,—a sobriquet the fitness of which, indeed, as descriptive of one unchanging and inseparable feature of Wesley’s character (which he impressed also on his followers), was undeniable.

This first Oxford Methodism was very churchly. Between 1733 and 1735, however, a new phase was developed. Its adherents became increasingly patristic in their sympathies and tendencies, and Wesley came much under the influence of William Law. In regard to this period of his history, Wesley himself says that he

“Bent the bow too far, by making antiquity a coordinate, rather than a subordinate, rule with Scripture, by admitting several doubtful writings, by extending antiquity too far, by believing more practices to have been universal in the ancient church than ever were so, by not considering that the decrees of a provincial synod could bind only that province, and the decrees of a general synod only those provinces, whose representatives met therein, that most of those decrees were adapted to particular times and occasions, and, consequently, when those occasions ceased, must cease to bind even those provinces.”

It was in 1736, during his residence in Georgia, whither he had gone as a missionary of the Propagation Society, that he learnt those lessons. Notwithstanding his ascetic severity and his rubrical punctilios, the foundations of his High-Churchmanship were gradually giving way. When he returned to England he had already accepted the doctrine of “salvation by faith,” although he had not as yet learned that view of the nature of faith which he was afterwards to teach for half a century. He had, however, as in the journal of his homeward voyage he tells us, learned, “in the ends of the earth,” that he “who went to America to convert others was never himself converted to God.” In this result his Oxford Methodism came to an end.

The original Methodism of Oxford never at any one time seems to have numbered as many as thirty adherents.

There was a set called “Methodists,” but there was no organization, no common bond of special doctrine or of discipline; there were habits and usages mutually agreed upon, but there was no official authority, only personal influence. The general features of the fraternity, if fraternity it may be called, seem to suggest closer analogies with the “Tractarian” school in its earlier stages than with anything else in modern history, and the personal ascendency of John Wesley may remind us in some measure of the influence exercised a century later by J. H. Newman. There was no more any germ of permanent organization in the Oxford Methodism of 1735 than in the patristic and “Tractarian” school of Oxford of 1833.

2. Methodism after Wesley's Conversion. — John Wesley landed at Deal, on his return from Georgia, on February 1, 1738. His journals on the homeward voyage, says Miss Wedgwood, “chronicle for us that deep dissatisfaction which is felt whenever an earnest nature wakes up to the incompleteness of a traditional religion; and his after life, compared with his two years in Georgia, makes it evident that he passed at this time into a new spiritual region.” “By Peter Böhler, in the hands of the great God,” he writes in his journal, “I was, on March 5, fully convinced of the want of that faith whereby we are saved.” This “conviction” was followed on March 24 of the same year (1738) by his “conversion.”

Like most good men of that age in England, Wesley, before he came under the influence of his Moravian teacher, had regarded faith as a union of intellectual belief and of voluntary self-submission—the belief of the creeds and submission to the laws of Christ and to the rules and services of the church, acted out day by day and hour by hour, in all the prescribed means and services of the church and in the general duties of life. From this conception of faith the element of the supernatural was wanting, and equally that of personal trust for salvation on the atonement of Christ. The work of Böhler was to convince Wesley that such faith as this, even though there might be more or less of divine influence unconsciously mingling with its attainment and exercise, was essentially nothing else than an intellectual and moral act or habit, a natural operation and result altogether different from the true spiritual faith of a Christian. This conviction led him a few days afterwards to stand up at the house of the Rev. Mr Hutton, College Street, Westminster, and declare that five days before he had not been a Christian. When warned not thus to despise the benefits of sacramental grace, he rejoined, “When we renounce everything but faith and get into Christ, then, and not till then, have we reason to believe that we are Christians.” It is true that for several years after this he remained High-Church in some of his principles and opinions, but nevertheless his ritualism was dead at its roots.

This experience also made Wesley an evangelist. He had a forgotten gospel to preach,—the gospel by which men were to be converted, as he had been, and to be made “new creatures.” And this result, this new birth, was not dependent on any churchly form or ordinance, on any priestly prerogative or service, or on any sacramental grace or influence. To raise up, accordingly, by his preaching and personal influence, a body of converted men, who should themselves become witnesses of the same truth by which he had been saved, was henceforth to be Wesley’s life-work. This was the inspiration under which he became a great preacher; this also made him an organizer of his living witnesses into classes and societies. In the pulpit was the preaching power; in the class-room was the private and personal influence. The vital link between the pulpit and the class meeting was the doctrine and experience of “conversion.” Thus Wesleyan Methodism is derived, not from Wesley the ritualist, but from Wesley the evangelist.

Wesley’s doctrines offended the clergy. His popularity as a preacher alarmed them. The churches were soon shut against him. He attended the religious meetings— on a Church of England basis—which had existed in London and elsewhere for fifty years, so far as these were still open to him, the Moravian meetings, and meetings in the rooms of private friends, but these were quite insufficient for the zeal and energy of himself and his brother, who had been “converted” a few days before himself. Accordingly, in 1739, he followed the example set by Whitefield, and preached in the open air to immense crowds. In the same year also he yielded to the urgency of his followers and to the pressure of circumstances, and, becoming possessed of an old building called “the Foundery,” in Moorfields, transformed it into a meetinghouse. Here large congregations came together to hear the brothers. About the same time, in Bristol and the neighbouring colliery district of Kingswood, he found himself obliged, not a little against his will, to become the owner of premises for the purpose of public preaching and religious meetings. Here was the beginning of that vast growth of preaching-houses and meeting-rooms, all of them for nearly fifty years settled on Wesley himself, which, never having in any way belonged to the Church of England, became, through Wesley, the possession of the Methodist Connexion.

The religious societies through which the Wesleys, after their conversion, exercised at first their spiritual influence were in part, as has been intimated, Moravian,—that in Fetter Lane, of which the rules were drawn up by Wesley himself in 1738 (May 1), being the chief of these,—and in part societies in connexion with the Church of England, the successors of those which sprang up in the last years of the Stuarts, as if to compensate for the decay of Puritanism within the church. In 1739, however, a strong leaven of antinomian quietism gained entrance among the Moravians of England (Böhler himself having left for America in the spring of 1738); and Wesley, after vainly contending for a time against this corruption, found it necessary formally to separate from them, and to establish a society of his own, for which a place of meeting was already provided at the Foundery. This was the first society under the direct control of Wesley, and herein was the actual and vital beginning of the Wesleyan Methodist Society, that is, of Wesleyan Methodism. Hence the Wesleyans celebrated their centenary in 1839. It was not, however, till 1743 that Wesley published the Rules of his Society .By that time not a few other local societies had bθ2∩ addd to that at the Foundery, the three chief centres being London, Bristol, and Newcastle. Hence Wesley called his Society, when he published the “Rules” in 1743, the “United Societies.” His brother’s name was joined with his own at the foot of these Rules, in their second edition, dated May 1, 1743, and so remained in all later editions while Charles Wesley lived. Those Rules are still the rules of Wesleyan Methodism. Since Wesley’s death they have not been altered. During his life only one change was made of any importance. In 1743 the offerings given weekly in the classes were for the poor, there being at that time no Conference and no itinerant preachers except the two brothers; after a few years the rules prescribed that the weekly contributions were to go “towards the support of the gospel.” The Society is described as “a company of men having the form, and seeking the power, of godliness, united in order to pray together, to receive the word of exhortation, and to watch over one another in love, that they may help each other to work out their salvation.” “The only condition previously required of those who desire admission into these societies” is “a desire to flee from the wrath to come, and to be saved from their sins.” The customary contribution was a minimum of a penny a week or a shilling a quarter.

In 1739 these societies were not divided into “classes.” But in 1742 this further step in organization was taken, and the change is recognized in the rules of 1743. Leaders were appointed to these classes, and became an order of spiritual helpers and subpastors, not ordained like lay elders in the Presbyterian churches, but, like them, filling up the interval between the pastors that “labour in the word and doctrine” and the members generally, and furnishing the main elements of a council which, in after years, grew up to be the disciplinary authority in every “society.” In every society there was from the beginning a “steward” to take and give account of moneys received and expended. After a few years there were two distinct stewards, one being specially appointed to take cafe of the poor and the “poor’s money,” the other being, in general, the “society steward.” And, finally,—though hardly, perhaps, during Wesley’s lifetime,—in the larger societies there came to be two stewards of each description. The leaders and stewards together constituted “the leaders’ meeting,” of which, however, the complete circle of functions grew into use and into recognition only by degrees. The Rules of the Society, which are strict and searching, relate to worship, to conduct, and to the religious life, but do not once mention or refer to the Church of England, the parish church, or the parish clergy. The only authority at first was the personal authority of the two brothers, exercised either directly or by their official delegates. After years had passed away the leaders’ meeting came to have an important jurisdiction and authority, but its rights and powers were neither defined nor recognized until after Wesley’s death. From first to last there is no trace or colour of any Anglican character in the organization. Moravians or Dissenters might have entered the fellowship, and before long many did enter it who had either been Dissenters or, at any rate, had seldom or never entered a church. What would to-day be called the “unsectarian” character of his society was, indeed, in Wesley’s view, one of its chief glories. All the time, however, this “unsectarian” society was only another “sect” in process of formation. Wesley for many years before his death had seen that, unless the rulers of the church should come to adopt in regard to his society a policy of liberal recognition, this might be the outcome of his life-work. And it would seem as if in his private confidences with himself he had come in the end at times to acquiesce in this result.

Still more decisive, however, was the third step in the development of Wesley’s “Society.” The clergy not only excluded the Wesleys from their pulpits, but often repelled them and their converts from the Lord’s Supper. This was first done on a large scale, and with a systematic harshness and persistency, at Bristol in 1740. Under these circumstances the brothers took thecdecisive step of administering the sacrament to their societies themselves, in their own meeting-rooms, both at Bristol and at Kingswood. This practice having thus been established at Bristol, it was not likely that the original society at the Foundery would rest content without the like privilege, especially as some of the clergy in London acted in the same manner as those at Bristol. There were therefore at the Foundery also separate administrations. Here then, in 1740, were two—if we include Kingswood, three—separate local churches, formed, it is true, and both served and governed by ordained clergymen of the Church of England, but not belonging to that church or in any respect within its government. As thereafter during Wesley’s life one of the brothers, or some cooperative or friendly clergyman, was almost always present in London and in Bristol for the administration of the sacraments, these communions, when once begun, were afterwards steadily maintained, the Lord’s Supper being, as a rule, administered weekly. Both on Sundays and on week days full provision was made for all the spiritual wants of these “societies,” apart altogether from the services of the Church of England. The only link by which the societies Were connected with that church—and this was a link of sentiment, not an organic one—was that the ministers who served them were numbered among its “priests.”

In 1741 Wesley entered upon his course of calling out lay preachers, who itinerated under his directions. To the societies founded and sustained with the aid of these preachers, who were entirely and absolutely under Wesley’s personal control, the two brothers, in their extensive journeys, administered the sacraments as they were able. The helpers only ranked as laymen, many of them, indeed, being men of humble attainments and of unpolished ways. For the ordinary reception of the sacraments the societies in general were dependent on the parish clergy, who, however, not seldom repelled them from the Lord’s table. So also for the ordinary opportunities of public worship they often had no resource but the parish church. The simple service in their preaching-room was, as Wesley himself insisted, defective, as a service of public worship, in some important particulars: besides which, the visits of the itinerants were usually, at least at first, few and far between. Wesley accordingly was urgent in his advices and injunctions that his societies generally should keep to their parish churches; but long before his death, especially as the itinerant preachers improved in quality and increased in number, there was a growing desire among the societies to have their own full Sunday services, and to have the sacraments administered by their own preachers. The development of these preachers into ministers, and of the societies into fully organized churches, was, if not the inevitable, at any rate the natural, result of the steps which Wesley took in order to carry on the work that was continually opening up before him.

In 1744 Wesley held his first Conference. The early Conferences were chiefly useful for the settlement of points of doctrine and discipline and for the examination and accrediting of fellowlabourers. They met yearly. Conferences were a necessity for Wesley, and became increasingly so as his work continued to grow upon him. It was inevitable also that the powers of the Conference, although for many years the Conference itself only existed as it were on sufferance, and only exercised any authority by the permission of its creator and head, should continually increase. The result was that in 1784 Wesley could no longer delay the legal constitution of the Conference, and that he was compelled, if he would provide for the-perpetuation of his work, to take measures for vesting in trustees, for the use of “the people called Methodists,” under the jurisdiction of the Conference as to the appointment of ministers and preachers, all the preaching places and trust property ol the Connexion. The legal Conference was defined as consisting of one hundred itinerant preachers named by Wesley, and power was given to the “legal hundred " continually from the first to fill up the vacancies in their own number, to admit and expel preachers, and to station them from year to year, no preacher being allowed to remain more than three years in one station.

By this measure Wesley’s work was consolidated into a distinct religious organization, having a legally corporate character and large property rights. And yet Wesley would not allow this great organization to be styled a “church.” It was only a “society” —the “United Society ”—the Society of “the people called Methodists”—the “Methodist Society.” And of its members all who were not professed Dissenters were by him reckoned as belonging to the Church of England, although a large and increasing proportion of them seldom or never attended the services of that church. The explanation of this apparent inconsistency is that Wesley admitted none to be Dissenters except such as were so in the eye of the law—those who, “for conscience sake, refused to join in the services of the church or partake of the sacraments administered therein”—and that he interpreted “the Church of England” to mean, as he wrote to his brother Charles, “all the believers in England, except Papists and Dissenters, who have the word of God and the sacraments administered among them.”

But Wesley was to carry his Society to a yet higher pitch of development, and one which made it still more difficult to distinguish its character from that of a distinct and separate church. In 1738 Wesley had been theoretically a High-Churchman. For some time even after he had entered upon his course of irregular and independent evangelism he continued to hold, in the abstract, High-Church views. But in 1746 he abandoned once for all his ecclesiastical High-Churchmanship, although he never became either a political or a latitudinarian Low-Churchman after the standard and manner of the 18th century. He relates in his journal under date January 20, 1746, how his views were revolutionized by reading Lord (Chancellor) King’s account of the primitive church. From this time forward he consistently maintained that the “uninterrupted succession was a fable which no man ever did or could prove.” One of the things taught him by Lord King’s book was that the office of bishop was originally one and the same with that of presbyter; and the practical inference which Wesley drew was that he himself was a “Scriptural Episcopos,” and that he had as much right as any primitive...