The Epworth Experience During his long life, Charles Wesley presented a series of seemingly contradictory faces to the world. At the start of his public ministry during the middle of the 1730s, he was an insecure conservative
Oxford graduate, unsure in his ministerial vocation and even his faith. Five years later, he was a fervent Evangelical confidently facing down hostile crowds and critical archbishops, riding a tidal wave of revival. By middle age he had settled back into an apparently reactionary stance with regard to Methodism and the Church of England, fearful of developments in the movement that he had helped to create and yet unwilling or unable to turn his back completely on his brother and their followers.
Charles Wesley, Methodist leader and Church of England minister, defies easy categorization and this has bedevilled commentators since his own day. On the one hand, he always exhibited certain of the characteristics of a conservative High Church Anglican and on the other he was a charismatic Evangelical who to the end of his life thought little of contravening church discipline. Charles came to personify some of the ambiguities of the Methodist movement itself.
Were the Wesley brothers and their followers Anglicans or Dissenters, or did they occupy a middle ground? Answers to these questions took many decades to emerge and well into the twentieth century unresolved areas were left behind. Charles represents a continuing puzzle, one that has implications for our understanding of the influences that shaped the Wesleyan branch of the Evangelical movement. The underlying factors that determined the peculiar twists and turns of Charles Wesley's ministry can best be understood by first examining his childhood, for it is in his earliest years that some of the keys to 2 The Epworth Experience understanding the personality and denominational identity of this complicated man can be found.
HOME AND FAMILY Charles Wesley was born on 18 December 1707, the third surviving son and nineteenth child of the Anglican clergyman Samuel Wesley and his wife Susanna. His birthplace was the remote Lincolnshire market town of Epworth where Charles's father was the parish priest from 1695 until his death forty years later.1 At the time of Charles
Wesley's birth, Epworth had a population of about fifteen hundred and was the largest settlement for miles around.2 The fenlands surrounding the town had been drained early in the seventeenth century but were still subject to seasonal floods, adding to the isolation of what had long been regarded as one of England's most backward regions.
The domestic environment in which the Wesley children were raised was turbulent and at times deeply unhappy. Their father
Samuel was a dogmatic if well-meaning man who attempted to rule his family as well as his parish with a rod of iron.3 In this, he was a typical eighteenth-century patriarch, but where his situation was different from many of his contemporaries was in the character of his wife and the acute intelligence and sensitivity of their children.
Susanna Wesley was a remarkable woman, educated to a level far beyond what was customary for her sex and time. She was also strongwilled and conformed only so far to the subservient role expected of an eighteenth-century wife. Her serene and rather deferential exterior hid an iron resolve and while there was mutual affection between Charles's parents there were also frequent clashes; Susanna herself remarked on one occasion 'It is a misfortune peculiar to our family that he and I seldom think alike!'4
1 H. A. Beecham, 'Samuel Wesley Senior: New Biographical Evidence', Renaissance and Modern Studies, 7 (1963), 90–1.
2 Henry Rack, Reasonable Enthusiast: John Wesley and the Rise of Methodism (London: Epworth, 1989), 45.
3 George Stevenson, Memorials of the Wesley Family: including biographical and historical sketches of all the members of the family for two hundred and fifty years
(London: S. W. Partridge [1876]), 156.
4 Quoted by Brailsford, A Tale of Two Brothers, 16–17.
The Epworth Experience 3 To marital storms were added other problems. Samuel was a devoted clergyman whose concern for the poor was one of his most attractive characteristics and one that his sons were to inherit. As a poverty-stricken student at Oxford he had given his last two pennies to feed a starving child5 and in later years he sponsored the education of a poor youth through the university.6 Unfortunately this nobility of spirit was not matched by financial common sense and he found it difficult to survive on his clerical income. In 1700 Samuel was forced to apply to the Archbishop of York for assistance,7 and five years later he was imprisoned for debt, leaving his large family at the mercy of enemies, who had often threatened to throw them into the street.8
Acute financial problems and the resulting insecurity formed an everpresent backdrop to Charles Wesley's early life. Family letters reveal that the Wesleys were sometimes hard pressed to feed their children,9 and when Samuel's brother Matthew visited the rectory in 1731, he was shocked by its half-furnished condition.10 To this precarious situation can be attributed the almost obsessive concern with financial matters exhibited by John and Charles throughout their lives; this was manifested in various ways, from their insistence on frugal living to their keeping of detailed personal accounts.
Samuel Wesley was a difficult man to like. For all his strong principles, compassion, ready wit, and keen sense of humour,11 he was also inflexible, abrupt, and possessed of a fiery temper. In these personality traits as well as his poetic talent, Charles appears to have resembled his father. Samuel was not a man to allow common sense to stand in the way of a firmly held principle: on one occasion he forcibly ejected from his house the mistress of his aristocratic patron and lost a well-paid appointment as a result.12 This rigidity of outlook
5 John Newton, Susanna Wesley and the Puritan Tradition in Methodism, 2nd edn.
(London: Epworth, 2002), 79.
6 Luke Tyerman, The Life and Times of the Rev. Samuel Wesley, M.A. (London:
Simpkin, Marshall, 1866), 374–5.
7 Stevenson, Memorials of the Wesley Family, 79–80.
8 Samuel Wesley sen., to William Wake, MS letter, 25 June 1705 (MCA: DDWF 1/2).
9 Susanna Wesley to Samuel Annesley jun., Published copy letter, 20 January 1722. Susanna Wesley, Susanna Wesley: The Complete Writings, ed. Charles Wallace jun., (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 93–9.
10 Tyerman, Samuel Wesley, 436–7. 11 Newton, Susanna Wesley, 81.
4 The Epworth Experience and authoritarian manner made him unpopular with the people of Epworth, who were notoriously distrustful of outsiders and a match for their stiff-necked rector in stubbornness. Charles's sister
Mehetabal described the inhabitants of the village of Wroot, who were also under her father's pastoral charge, in the following short poem:
Debarred of wisdom, wit and grace High births and virtue equally they scorn, As asses dull, on dunghills born; Impervious as the stones, their heads are found;
Their rage and hatred steadfast as the ground.
With these unpolished wights, thy youthful days Glide slow and dull, and nature's lamp decays:
O what a lamp is hid' midst such a sordid race!13
Samuel with his non-local origins, Oxford education, and demands for tithes represented an alien and unwelcome intrusion into a closeknit rural community.14 So strong was the hostility that his crops were damaged,15 and when he was arrested in 1705 it was to the obvious delight of many of his parishioners.16 To give an even more sinister twist to an already unpleasant picture, the fire that destroyed the rectory in 1709, almost taking the life of John Wesley in the process, may have been a result of arson.
Samuel's relations with his seven daughters were also difficult and he certainly gave them little reason to regard him with affection. He wrote on one occasion 'I creep uphill more than I did formerly, being eased of the weight of four daughters out of seven, as I hope I shall be of a fifth in a little longer.'17 The girls spent long periods away from home, staying with relations or working in schools for a pittance, and only two of their marriages could be said to be anything other than disastrous, those of Mary and Anne, indicating that the others were either unlucky or had looked upon matrimony as an escape route.
The oldest daughter Emily revealed something of the tension and despair that was part of their daily lives in a letter to her brother John:
13 Quoted by Tyerman, Samuel Wesley, 389.
14 Rack, Reasonable Enthusiast, 45–6.
15 Stevenson, Memorials of the Wesley Family, 88.
16 Samuel Wesley sen. to John Hutton, MS letter, 27 June 1705 (MCA: DDWES 6/1).
17 Quoted by Gill, Charles Wesley, 25.
The Epworth Experience 5 I think you are not well rewarded by my father for all you have done; he thinks you [are] not a good son or friend. Take what care you can of your own interests, our family are full of fine sanguine dreams, my old belief yet remains that my father will never be worth a groat ...and we of the female part of the family consequently left to get our own bread, or starve ...but life will be over in a few years and then sure all sorrow will end ...now indeed to die seems to me not only tolerable but desirable, that it is as Hamlet says, a dissolution devoutly to be wished ... 18
EDUCATION AND SPIRITUAL NURTURING Very little is known about Charles Wesley's earliest years or how he responded to life as a member of this fragile family. However unstable aspects of his upbringing might have been, two priceless gifts that Samuel and Susanna gave their offspring were a home schooling and a grounding in spirituality that was remarkably advanced for its time and place. With her husband busy with his parochial duties,
Susanna took on the chief responsibility for raising the children and her distinctive methods have received attention from scholars who have seen in her system a forerunner of the principles of Methodist discipline.19
The central feature of Susanna's system was the imposition of tight control over every aspect of a child's life in order to break the will, which she described as the 'root of all sin and misery'.20 In a famous letter of 1732 she described her child-rearing methods and repeatedly stressed the central importance of this point: 'This therefore I cannot but earnestly repeat, break their wills betimes. Begin this great work before they can run alone, before they can speak plain, or perhaps speak at all. Whatever pains it cost, conquer their stubbornness, break the will, if you would not damn the child ...'21 Physical discipline had a part to play in this process and by Susanna's own admission her children from the age of 12 months were taught to 'fear the rod and cry softly'.22 However, her method did not depend solely on the 18 Emily Wesley to John Wesley, MS letter, 31 December 1729 (MCA: DDWF 6/2).
19 Susanna Wesley, Susanna Wesley, 367–8. 20 Ibid. 370.
21 Susanna Wesley to John Wesley, Published copy letter, 24 July 1732. Susanna Wesley, Susanna Wesley, 370.
6 The Epworth Experience indiscriminate threat or use of corporal punishment but was instead the product of a rational and somewhat emotionally detached mind.
Every hour of her children's lives was closely monitored and each action and word was subject to immediate correction. The result was a household containing a large group of boys and girls who were so quiet and restrained in their behaviour that it was almost as if no child lived there.23
Scholars are agreed that just as Charles resembled his father in his impetuous and rather choleric nature, John took after his mother;24 like her, he was on the surface even-tempered and coolly analytical, and kept a tight rein on his emotions. He also inherited his mother's urge to control people and situations; one of his veteran preachers John Hampson remarked that 'opposition from his preachers or people, he could never brook. His authority he held sacred.'25 The influence that Susanna had on Methodism through her son was never illustrated more clearly than on the occasion when John complained that he did not have more than six preachers whose wills were broken enough to serve him as his 'sons in the gospel'.26 Charles too inherited an authoritarian streak but in his case it owed more to his father than to his mother.
Susanna also taught the children to read and write and again there was in her system the close attention to detail so reminiscent of her sons' future management of Methodism: 'The way of teaching was this. The day before a child began to learn, the house was set in order, everyone's work appointed them, and a charge given that none should come into the room from nine till twelve, or from two till five, which ...were our school hours. One day was allowed the child wherein to learn its letters ...'27 As well as basic literacy skills the children were given an excellent classical education to the extent that 23 Susanna Wesley, Susanna Wesley, 369.
24 For example, Rack, Reasonable Enthusiast, 51.
25 John Hampson, Memoirs of the late Rev. John Wesley, A.M. with a review of his Life and Writings, and a History of Methodism, from its commencement in 1729 to the present time, 3 vols. (Sunderland: printed for the author by James Graham, 1791), iii.
26 John Wesley to Edward Perronet, Published copy letter [20? July 1750]. John Wesley, The Works of John Wesley, xxvi. Letters II, 1740–1755, ed. Frank Baker (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1982), 433.
27 Susanna Wesley, Susanna Wesley, 371.
The Epworth Experience 7 Charles's sister Mehetabel was fluent in New Testament Greek by the age of 8.28
Every aspect of the children's upbringing was dominated by religion and it was at Epworth that the search for salvation became the central concern of Charles's life. He and his siblings were taught to read using the Bible, starting appropriately enough with the first chapter of Genesis, but their spiritual education commenced several years before that point:
The children of the family were taught as soon as they could speak, the Lord's Prayer, which they were made to say at rising and bed time constantly; to which as they grew bigger, were added a short prayer for their parents, and some collects, a short catechism, and some portions of scripture ...They were very early made to distinguish the Sabbath from other days, before they could well speak or go. They were as soon taught to be still at family prayers, and to ask a blessing immediately after, which they used to do by signs, before they could kneel or speak.29
In addition to formal instruction, the children were given individual spiritual counselling. Every week on a specific day, each child had a private interview with Susanna—Charles's day was Saturday and these conversations were taking place by the time he was aged 4.30 A defining characteristic of early Methodism was the Wesleys' insistence on the nurturing of inward spirituality through close personal inquiry conducted in closeted group meetings as well as probing conversations with the Wesleys and their preachers. It is perhaps too much to say that Susanna's interviews with her young sons were decisive in their promotion of this practice as the influence of Continental
Pietists can also be discerned, but they probably predisposed John and Charles to recognition of its value.
Susanna's concern for her children's spiritual welfare extended beyond the confines of the parish—when her sons and daughters were away at school or staying with relatives, she wrote regularly to monitor their progress. The more substantial of these documents constitute catechetical treatises of considerable sophistication and 28 Frederick Maser, The Story of John Wesley's Sisters, or Seven Sisters in Search of Love (Rutland: Academy Books, 1988), 51.
29 Susanna Wesley, Susanna Wesley, 371.
30 Susanna Wesley to Samuel Wesley sen., Published copy letter, 6 February 1712.
Susanna Wesley, Susanna Wesley, 80.
8 The Epworth Experience they give an excellent insight into what was taught at the rectory.31 It is clear from such primary sources that the lives of the Wesley children were almost entirely taken up by a daily round of family and private devotions, bible study, and regular counselling by their formidable mother. Less Godly pursuits such as idle play and childish chatter were frowned upon and the children were deliberately deprived of contact with other boys and girls of their own age. This added to the isolation of what must have already been an intense, almost claustrophobic existence, which in Charles's case lasted until the age of 8 when he was sent to Westminster School, exchanging one rigidly controlled environment for another.
Samuel's place in this process of educational and spiritual formation is less clear than that of Susanna, although in his published works he attached great importance to catechetical instruction, arguing that it should be practised at evening service on all Sundays and holidays.32 He also led family prayers twice a day and the children spent their Sundays in the parish church attending on their father's preaching and participating in worship according to the Anglican
Book of Common Prayer. As young men, his sons were accustomed to turn to both their parents for advice on spiritual matters and this practice would have been instilled from their earliest days.
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND IN 1707 There has been emphasis in studies of the Wesley family on the influence of Dissent in the formation of the children's religious values.
There is no doubt that this aspect was extremely important, but it is equally necessary to look at the place of the Church of England in the life of Epworth Rectory. This is particularly significant for any study of Charles Wesley for his allegiance to the Church has always been viewed as the bedrock of his faith and ministry.
Samuel and Susanna were devout Anglicans and subscribers to the political and religious views of the High Church party. This informal grouping of ministers and laymen held strict views on church
31 See e.g. Susanna's exposition on the Apostle's Creed contained in a letter of 13 January 1710 to her daughter Susanna. Ibid. 379–407.
32 Tyerman, Samuel Wesley, 387.
The Epworth Experience 9 discipline and had been one of the dominant influences in the Church of England since the late seventeenth century. Among the characteristics of his ministry that identify Samuel as a High Churchman was his emphasis on the importance of the Sacraments epitomized by the practice of monthly Communion, the holding of weekly prayers on a Wednesday and Friday and regular catechizing.33 He was also a strict disciplinarian who insisted on public penance for sexual misdemeanours, a practice that did not endear him to his parishioners.34 Samuel's three sons all became High Churchmen in their turn, although John and Charles were to be far from conventional in their approach. The main alternative to the High Church party was the moderate Latitudinarians who regarded religion as essentially a matter of reason and sense. They abhorred extremism and were tolerant of diversity, reacting against the religious violence of the previous generation.35 This willingness to entertain other points of view sometimes led to accusations of unorthodoxy by their more doctrinally rigid High Church critics.36
Politics played an important part in distinguishing the individuals and groups that made up the Church of England at the time of Charles Wesley's birth. Anglicans of Samuel and Susanna Wesley's persuasion believed that royal and episcopal authority was divinely sanctioned and that loyalty to God and king went hand in hand. Of course matters could never be that simple given the confused state of English affairs following the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Many
High Churchmen considered the replacement of King James II by his daughter Mary and son-in-law William of Orange to be nothing less than an ungodly usurpation and this presented a grave issue of conscience. The bitterest rift within Samuel and Susanna Wesley's marriage was over this thorny question of who was the rightful sovereign and head of the Anglican Church. Samuel, despite his own views on the divinely ordained nature of royal authority, accepted
33 Rack, Reasonable Enthusiast, 53. 34 Tyerman, Samuel Wesley, 387.
35 Rupp, Religion in England 1688–1791, 32–9; John Walsh and Stephen Taylor, 'Introduction: The Church and Anglicanism in the "Long" Eighteenth Century', in John Walsh, Colin Haydon, and Stephen Taylor (eds.), The Church of England c.1688– c.1833. From Toleration to Tractarianism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
36 Rack, Religious Enthusiast, 25; Walsh and Taylor, 'Introduction: The Church and Anglicanism', 39–40.
10 The Epworth Experience William as king; Susanna on the other hand was a Nonjuror, which is to say that she actively withheld allegiance from William. In this she was at one with the several bishops and an estimated 300–400 inferior clergy deprived of their livings for refusing to swear an oath of loyalty to the new regime.37
The result of Samuel's accidental discovery in 1702 that his wife had the audacity to have an opposing viewpoint to the master of the house was an all too predictable explosion. The resulting separation lasted several months and involved attempts at mediation all the way up to the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Lincoln.38
This disagreement illustrates not only the temperamental relationship between Samuel and Susanna, but also the divided nature of English Church and society at the time of Charles Wesley's birth.
Within the lifetimes of men and women who Charles would have known, English society had been torn apart by civil and religious strife. Families and communities experienced violent division over the interlocking questions of royal authority, parliamentary government, religious toleration, and the nature of the national Church.
The gratuitous bloodletting that resulted had extended in 1649 to the person of the king himself. Even in the more settled times such as followed the restoration of Charles II in 1660 and the overthrow of his brother James in 1688, the spectre of civil and religious strife was never far away and was not entirely dispelled until after the Jacobite rebellion of 1745. The family into which Charles was born represented a microcosm of this conflict.
CHARLES WESLEY'S DISSENTING ANCESTORS Charles's parents might have been supporters of the established Church and royal supremacy, but they had been raised to hold very different opinions. Samuel's father and grandfather, John and Bartholomew Wesley, had been Presbyterians, members of one of the several churches and sects that are often grouped together under the label 'Puritan' because of their common wish to purify the English
Church of any vestige of popish ritual. The Wesleys had been church 37 Rupp Religion in England, 5. 38 Rack, Reasonable Enthusiast, 49.
The Epworth Experience 11 ministers under the Commonwealth and were ejected from their livings in 1662 for refusing to conform to the Act of Uniformity. This statute, part of the raft of legislation that accompanied the return of royal government in 1660, reintroduced the Book of Common Prayer as the liturgy of a reconstituted national Church. John and his father had been supporters of Parliamentary rule and there is a story that Bartholomew had come close to arresting the future King Charles II after his failed attempt to seize power in 1651.39 Nine years later the Wesleys submitted to Charles's return from exile but the reimposition of the Anglican prayer book with what many regarded as its Roman
Catholic elements proved too much for their Puritan sensibilities.
After his ejection Bartholomew quietly withdrew to life as a physician,40 but his son John made a courageous and public stand for his beliefs. He continued to preach and lead dissenting congregations for which he suffered persecution and imprisonment, which probably contributed to his death in 1670 at the age of 34.41 John's son Samuel was aged 8 at the time and his father's premature demise added to the burden of what must have already been an insecure childhood.
Susanna's father Samuel Annesley experienced similar difficulties.42 He had also been a minister during the period of Parliamentary rule when Presbyterian influence within the English Church was at its height and had served as a naval chaplain during the war against King
Charles I, but he may not have been as republican as this record might suggest—he publicly opposed the king's execution in 1649, describing it as a 'horrid murder' and also had a dangerously low opinion of Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell.43 Like the Wesleys and many others,
Annesley was ejected from his living in 1662 but was able to continue his public ministry, despite occasional harassment by the authorities.
He lived long enough to be regarded as one of London's leading Nonconformist divines and a man of principle respected on all sides of the religious divide.
39 William Matthews (ed.), Charles II's Escape from Worcester: A Collection of Narratives assembled by Samuel Pepys (London: G. Bell & Sons, 1967), 126.
40 Beecham, Samuel Wesley, 83. 41 Ibid. 83–5.
42 John Newton, 'Samuel Annesley (1620–96)', Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society, 45 (1985–6), 29–45.
43 'The arrantest hypocrite that ever the Church of Christ was pestered with.'
Quoted by Newton, Samuel Annesley, 32.
12 The Epworth Experience Despite their staunch Puritan background, Samuel Wesley and Susanna Annesley at a young age independently transferred their allegiance to the Church of England. This statement of religious identity was for the young couple, just as much as for their parents, a stand that was born of conviction although the specific reasons why they crossed over remain unclear.44 As is the nature of converts, Samuel and Susanna were enthusiastic in their new loyalty and this may have contributed to their reactionary leanings.
THE RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY OF EPWORTH RECTORY Charles' parents made the controversial decision to turn their backs on their Puritan upbringing, but this is not to say that non-Anglican influence was entirely absent from Epworth Rectory. For all her High
Church and Tory opinions, there was much about Susanna specifically that was the product of an exceptionally wide Christian and intellectual tradition. Her strict routine of daily devotions set against the background of a regimented household is seen as typically Puritan and has parallels in the literature of the period. The words of advice written in 1670 by the Puritan Sir Edward Harley to his daughter
Brilliana might have almost come from Susanna Wesley's pen:
You must be careful to keep the family in good order and that all come to prayers constantly night and morning and the prayers be in seasonable time.
Be you very watchful over yourself that not anything divert you from your morning and evening worship of God in secret and constant reading the scripture and some other good book ...Tell your brothers that I hope they will be careful in learning their book, praying and singing their catechisms every day.45
Susanna's spiritual writings display a bewildering range of influences that include Roman Catholic mystics, deists, Anglican divines,
Cambridge Platonists, and Presbyterian ministers.46 She appears to have been particularly impressed by the work of the Roman Catholic
44 Newton, Samuel Annesley, 39; Beecham, Samuel Wesley, 85–6.
45 Quoted by J. T. Cliffe, The Puritan Gentry Besieged 1650–1700 (London:
Routledge, 1993), 138.
46 Newton, Susanna Annesley, 136–9.
The Epworth Experience 13 Lorenzo Scupoli on Christian perfection, a doctrine that was to occupy a central place in Methodist spirituality. Her chosen denomination might have been the Church of England, but her spiritual curiosity roamed far and wide and nourished the exceptionally wide outlook possessed by her children.
If Susanna represented the non-Anglican element of Charles's religious education, her husband Samuel has come to symbolize that of the Church of England in its most rigid form. It is unclear what if any residual influence his Puritan upbringing had on his personal outlook as very little manuscript material survives that casts light on his innermost spiritual concerns. The impression that we glean from Samuel's contemporaries is that he was a man resolutely fixed in his
High Church viewpoint. His published work such as the controversial A Letter from a Country Divine of 1702 leaves no doubt as to where the author stood on the question of the Church, Nonconformity, and republicanism. This particular publication led to a bitter pamphlet war with Dissenters who viewed Samuel, perhaps understandably, as an unprincipled turncoat.47 As one of the editors of the Young
Students' Library, a selection of extracts from a range of learned works, Samuel's selection of theological material was entirely Anglican with a strong bias towards the High Church.48
As one-dimensional as Samuel Wesley may appear compared with Susanna, he nevertheless made an important contribution to the shaping of his sons' convictions. In politics Samuel was a Tory but had no sympathy with the exiled Stuarts unlike his wife and eldest son
Samuel junior;49 in this allegiance to the Hanoverian line and submission to secular authority, John and Charles were to follow closely in his footsteps. John summed up their viewpoint and cited a specific paternal legacy in a letter of 1775: 'I am an High Churchman, the son of an High Churchman, bred up from childhood in the highest notions of passive obedience and non-resistance.'50 Charles's poetry espouses similar sentiments although revealing an attachment to the royal cause that was as much a matter for the heart and soul as well as 47 Beecham, Samuel Wesley, 92–8. 48 Tyerman, Samuel Wesley, 464–6.
49 Rack, Reasonable Enthusiast, 51.
50 John Wesley to the Earl of Dartmouth, Published copy letter, 14 June 1775. John Wesley, The Letters of the Rev. John Wesley, A. M. sometime Fellow of Lincoln College,
Oxford, ed. John Telford, 8 vols. (London: Epworth, 1931), vi. 156.
14 The Epworth Experience the head. In his poem written to celebrate the birthday of George II, Charles stressed a direct link between God and king:
With joy we see th' auspicious day return When Heaven on Brittain smil'd and George was born Born for the general good, by fate design'd A parent, King, a patron of mankind!
Long may he bless the Nations with his sway, See the calm sunset of his glorious day With golden beams thro' all the horizon shine
And late return to Heaven in Majesty divine!51
This transcendent tradition of loyalty to the crown and strict noninvolvement in party politics helped Methodism to deflect criticism during the eighteenth century and was passed down through the Wesleyan strand of the movement well into the Victorian period.
Samuel also bequeathed to his sons a devotion to the King James Bible, the Book of Common Prayer and a love of the Church of England as an institution. Despite the twists and turns of Evangelical conversions, Continental influence, and Anglican-inspired persecution, John and Charles were never to shake offthe typically High
Church belief that the Anglican Church was Christian, Primitive, and Apostolic with roots that went back to the patristic age. This stance was to have a considerable influence on the movement that the brothers founded.
As different as their specific contributions appear to have been, it would be a mistake to assume that there was a sharp divide between Samuel and Susanna on the question of their children's upbringing.
They were, after all, both Anglican converts from a similar background and of broadly the same doctrinal persuasion. Both for example regarded the Lord's Supper as a 'sovereign means of grace' and this high sacramental tradition, which can be observed in certain Puritan groups as well as the Anglican High Church, was passed down to John and Charles.52 Samuel would have been fully aware of what Susanna was teaching in the nursery, and as the undisputed master of the house (at least in his own mind), he must have approved; for her part,
Susanna was a staunch supporter of the discipline of the Church and 51 Charles Wesley, MS hymns on festivals (MCA: CW box 5).
52 Newton, Susanna Annesley, 144–8.
The Epworth Experience 15 shared her husband's views on many of its aspects. The Wesley parents, for all the tensions and difficulties of their marriage, were in fact complementary halves of a very effective partnership. It is worthwhile to note that John and Charles, the two children whose personalities most resembled their mother and father respectively, had a similarly tense though fruitful and close association. It is perhaps no coincidence that Charles, not long before his death, used phrases from the Anglican marriage service to describe his relationship with John.53
THE COMPLEX CHARACTER OF THE ANGLICAN CHURCH The religious convictions that the Wesleys inherited from their parents were an eclectic mix of High Church Anglicanism infused with Puritan elements and tempered by influences from other Christian traditions. This may seem an unusual and rather confusing combination but it was in fact symptomatic of the wider Anglican ethos in the early eighteenth century. One of the effects of over one hundred years of controversy and intermittent violent upheaval was to make the Church of England home to so many different viewpoints that the boundaries between Establishment and Dissent became blurred.54
Neither the High or Latitudinarian wings of the Church were formally organized or rigidly defined, with the result that it was possible for many shades of opinion to exist within them. The Nonjurors, as has already been noted, represented a radical group on the fringes of the High Church with controversial views on the legitimacy of the successors to King James II. Some Nonjurors withdrew from mainstream Anglicanism altogether and established an episcopate of their own, which they regarded as the true Church of England, but others, including Susanna Wesley, stayed within the Anglican ranks. At the other end of the spectrum were the Cambridge Platonists, an eminent group of intellectuals with connections to the Latitudinarians. As 53 'Whom God hath joined, let no man put asunder. We have taken each other for better for worse ...' Quoted by Gill, Charles Wesley, 199.
54 W. M. Jacob, Lay People and Religion in the Early Eighteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 7.
16 The Epworth Experience their name suggests, they promoted a Christian variant of classical and medieval philosophy.55
Churchmen from Samuel Wesley's generation often held a mix of opinions drawn from across this exceptionally broad denomination.56 Cambridge Platonism influenced the Nonjuror William Law57 while the Latitudinarian John Tillotson, as Dean of Canterbury, introduced a weekly Eucharist, a practice that was more commonly associated with the High Church.58 On the other hand, some High
Churchmen placed stress on careful preparation for taking Communion rather than frequency of celebration—Samuel Johnson for example received the bread and wine only once a year.59 It is equally difficult to attach firm theological labels to the different groups. One significant area of debate centred on predestination, which had been a popular school of thought within the Church of England since the sixteenth century—two firm supporters of the alternative doctrine of free grace were Samuel and Susanna Wesley and this was passed down to their sons with significant effects for the section of the Revival that they were to lead.
The Puritan influence on the Church of England in the late seventeenth century was considerable and by no means confined to Susanna Wesley. Many Puritan ministers had charge of Anglican parishes during the Commonwealth and effectively formed the religious establishment. After the restoration of the king many denied the Act of Uniformity and lost their livings,60 but others submitted and continued to exercise a Church of England ministry but in a Puritan fashion. One of many examples was Thomas Birch,
Vicar of Preston, who it was claimed did not baptize in accordance with the custom of the Church and also held republican views.
Another so-called 'Parish Puritan' was Isaac Archer the Vicar of Chippenham, who was prepared to read only parts of the Book of Common Prayer.61 In counties where Puritanism had been strong, its influence over the Caroline Church remained visible long after 55 Rupp, Religion in England, 30–2. 56 Jacob, Lay People and Religion, 7.
57 Rupp, Religion in England, 240. 58 Rack, Reasonable Enthusiast, 19.
59 Walsh and Taylor, 'Introduction: the Church and Anglicanism', 23.
60 It is estimated that between 1660 and 1662 2,000 Puritan clergymen left the Church of England, either of their own volition or under duress. Ibid. 31.
61 Cliffe, The Puritan Gentry Besieged, 92–3.
The Epworth Experience 17 the return of the king. In 1680 the Bishop of Peterborough reported that thirty clergymen in Northamptonshire did not wear the surplice when officiating at services62—clearly such men were either Puritan sympathizers or were willing to bend to the wishes of congregations that regarded such vestments as a popish affectation. In some cases, like that of Thomas Birch, the patron of the benefice was a member of the Puritan upper class and used this legal right to appoint ministers of his own persuasion to Anglican parishes. Some former
Puritans rose to high rank within the restored Anglican Church including the Bishop of Lincoln Thomas Barlow and Bishop John
Hall of Bristol. The most eminent example of a former Puritan on the episcopal bench was John Tillotson who served as Archbishop of Canterbury between 1691 and 1694 and was a strong voice for toleration of the dissenting groups from which he had himself emerged.
Members of Nonconformist congregations frequently exhibited a dual loyalty, attending the parish church as well as their own meetings. This has a particular interest for students of Methodism as it provides precedents for what became standard practice for the Wesleys and their followers. One of the greatest of Puritan divines
Richard Baxter described himself as a 'half-conformist' and he was by no means unique in this respect.63 Some ministers who had been ejected took the opinion that while they had been forced for conscience sake to deny the Act of Uniformity, they still considered themselves part of a Church of England that was fundamentally sound.
These men hoped for the day when liturgical and other requirements would be relaxed sufficiently to allow them to reunite with the Mother
Church; in the meantime they led worship in private homes and encouraged their followers to attend Anglican services, sometimes leading them as a body to the church in a manner that is strongly reminiscent of Methodist practice fifty years later.
What was termed 'Occasional conformity' was sometimes a result of the legal requirement for holders of public office to take Anglican
Communion—in the dissenting stronghold of Bridport for example, 62 Ibid. 93.
63 John Spurr, 'From Puritanism to Dissent', in Christoper Durston and Jacqueline Eales (eds.), Culture of English Puritanism 1560–1700 (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan [1996]), 241–2.
18 The Epworth Experience the town's leading citizens were often pew-holders and churchwardens of the parish church as well as worshippers at the dissenting chapel.64 Such bending of the rules aside, there can be little doubt that many people in the early eighteenth century saw no reason why they could not in all conscience frequent both the parish church and Nonconformist meeting.65 It is true that Puritans both of the conforming and nonconforming stamp were subject to occasional harassment but the reality is that most people were sick of the violence associated with religious division. For the sake of peace in society at large the majority of Anglican clergy and laity were prepared to live and let live, especially after the granting of limited religious toleration in 1689.66
High Churchmen often felt uncomfortable with such ambiguity but this attitude of pragmatic tolerance was an aspect of the Church of England that John and Charles Wesley, for all their own High Church convictions, were to use to full advantage.
CONTINENTAL INFLUENCE With the return of a measure of religious and political stability after 1660, the English Church opened up to overseas influence.
A significant introduction in terms of its effect on the growth and consolidation of Methodism was the concept of the religious society. Anthony Horneck, who had moved from his native Germany and taken Anglican Orders shortly after the restoration of Charles II, was the principal pioneer of this movement, although it is important to point out that the innovation was quickly and enthusiastically adopted by a significant number of home-grown clergy and laity.67
The societies consisted of small groups of laymen and supervising clergy whose avowed purpose was the promotion of holy living as a challenge to the moral laxity of Restoration England. Members met regularly to study the Bible and other devotional works as a means
64 Paul Langford, Public Life and the Propertied Englishman 1689–1798 (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1991), 96.
65 'Confusion between Church and Dissent was commonplace.' Ibid.
66 Walsh and Taylor, 'Introduction: the Church and Anglicanism', 53–9.
67 Jacob, Lay People and Religion, 77–92; John Spurr, 'The Church, the Societies and the Moral Revolution of 1688', in The Church of England c.1688–c.1833, 131–2.
The Epworth Experience 19 of raising their lives to a higher level of public morality and personal holiness.68 The societies were firmly attached to Anglican discipline and displayed affinity with such High Church principles as regular fasting and Communion,69 although some High Churchmen were suspicious of such groups, seeing in them a disturbing reminder of the exclusive sects of the previous generation.70 Samuel Wesley on the other hand embraced the new movement with enthusiasm and founded a society in Epworth.71 It was Anglican societies of this type that were to form one of the foundation stones of early Methodist structure.
The religious societies were established against the background of the growth of Pietism in Germany. This movement had started in the Lutheran Church during the 1670s as an attempt to restore the primacy of the heart over the mind in matters of religion.72 By the 1730s Pietist influence had spread to the British Isles carried in particular by the Moravians whose use of England as a stepping-stone to the New World was to play a key role in the birth of the Evangelical
Revival. Pietist emphasis on holy living and the nurturing of inward spirituality found a receptive audience within the membership of the religious societies and struck a chord with the Wesley brothers whose own upbringing in the bosom of the Anglican Church had laid stress on those same elements.
CONCLUSION The Church of England in the generation before the Revival has traditionally been viewed as existing in a state of spiritual and institutional lethargy.73 Attacked by deists and Whig politicians,74 undermined by internal conflict and affected with such weaknesses as pluralism and 68 Richard Heitzenrater, Wesley and the People Called Methodists (Nashville:
Abingdon, 1995), 21–4.
70 Jacob, Lay People and Religion, 78–9; Tyerman, Samuel Wesley, 216–17.
71 Jacob, Lay People and Religion, 81–2.
72 Heitzenrater, Wesley and the People Called Methodists, 19–20.
73 'Conventionally the period between the death of Anne and the 1830s is regarded as a period of slumber in the established Church, enlightened only by the Methodist and Evangelical revivals.' Jacob, Lay People and Religion, p. ix.
74 For a discussion of the widespread anticlericalism of the era, see ibid. 44–51.
20 The Epworth Experience non-residency, there was a great deal that was wrong with the Church, but there was also an openness that contributed to an atmosphere unusually receptive to revival. It is easy to view the Anglican Church as a monolithic instinctively conservative institution rigidly attached to the Thirty-Nine Articles and the Book of Common Prayer, but the eighteenth-century reality was far more complex. Anglicans in 1700 could hold a range of radically different theological opinions and disagree strongly and openly on aspects of liturgy and worship but continue as loyal members of the one denomination. When viewed against this inclusive background, the fact that Methodism was born in the Church of England and found a home within it for so long becomes easier to explain.
Epworth Rectory could not be described as a carefree place in which to spend a childhood. Beset by financial difficulties and surrounded by hostile neighbours, Charles and his siblings lived a confined and strictly controlled existence. With the possible exception of John, none of the children in later life appear to have remembered their childhood home with much affection. When Samuel junior and John were each in turn offered the possibility of succeeding their father as Rector of Epworth they reacted as if it were a poisoned chalice, much vaunted filial piety aside.75 Yet despite such negative connotations, the Epworth experience with all its rich diversity represented an ideal preparation for the founders of Methodism.
John and Charles Wesley were raised as High Anglicans with an instinctive attachment to the discipline and ritual of the Church, but they also received a deep grounding in a spirituality that crossed denominational barriers and were brought up to place loyalty to God above all other concerns. For Charles in particular there was to be considerable tension between these various elements of his religious identity, but there was never a breaking point and Methodism became the product of a synthesis that first started to take shape in the unlikely confines of a Lincolnshire backwater.
75 Tyerman, Samuel Wesley, 417–19, 422–3; Rack, Reasonable Enthusiast, 93–4.