DAY 9

MORNING

PSALMS 44–46

Psalm 44:13 “You have made us a reproach to our neighbours.”

Excluded from the Churches

The following Sunday after his Aldersgate experience, John Wesley says that he was “roughly attacked in 
a large company as an enthusiast, a seducer and a setter-forth of new doctrines.”83 Mrs Hutton was very offended and she said, “If you were not a Christian ever since I knew you, you were a great hypocrite for you made us all believe you were one.”84 This attitude of his friends did not deter him at all. Dr Plumb says that following his conversion he had “a burning determination to bring to others what he himself had felt.”85 One biographer says, “It was the warmed heart that made Wesley an evangelist. The fire could only be spread as first of all it was kindled. The flame was lit in Aldersgate street. Then Dr Bett said ‘There came to him a spiritual energy, an evangelical zeal, an unction of the holy one that he had never before possessed.’”86

Earlier Wesley had been concerned for what he could do for God. Now at a stroke
 all the strain had gone. All was now grace through faith. In all his earlier disciplined life of holiness and the good works to which he set his hand writes Edwards, “his primary concern was on what he could do for God. But after that Aldersgate street heartwarming he asked only what God could do for him and through him. Thus at a stroke the old sense of strain and effort had gone. The ecclesiastical of Georgia could now become the evangelist of the open road.”87 However church after church now excluded Wesley because he preached evangelical doctrines. This exclusion had already begun even before Aldersgate. He had begun to preach justification earlier in the year and it was justification by faith that was the doctrine that caused such offence. On 5 February 1738, at St John the Evangelist, Westminster, he preached on those strong words “if any man be in Christ he is a new creature.” “I was afterwards informed, many of the best in the parish were so offended
that I was not to preach there any more.”88 He didn’t preach there again. On 26 February he preached three times — at St Lawrence Jewry, St Catherine Cree, and St John Wapping. “I believe it pleased God to bless the first sermon most,” he wrote, “Because it gave most offence.”89 Then after Aldersgate yet more churches refused Wesley to preach in their pulpits. Again and again he was excluded.

Prayer

Lord, we pray for the raising up of another wave of evangelists with the spiritual energy and the evangelical zeal and the unction of the Holy Spirit that was on John Wesley. Although the preaching of the Gospel be a ‘sign spoken against’ and ‘a reproach to our neighbours’, give us the courage and fiery determination to keep going. Set a fire deep down in our soul. We want more of you, Lord, more passion to preach the Good News of grace to a lost and dying world.

83 Wesley, J. Journal, Vol 1,476, May 24, 1738.


84 Benham, D. The memoirs of James Hutton, 34.


85 Plumb, England in the Eighteenth Century, 92.


86 Bett, H. The Spirit of Methodism, 33 quoted in Skevington- Wood, A. The burning heart, 73–74.

87 Edwards, M. A history of the Methodist church in Great Britain, Vol 1, 51.


88 Wesley, J. Journal, Volume 1, 5th February, 1738.


89 Wesley, J. Journal, Volume 1, 126th February, 1738.

DAY 9 EVENING PSALMS 47–49

Psalm 48:12 “Walk about Zion, go round her ...”

Travel to Herrnhut

After Wesley’s Aldersgate experience he made a trip to Herrnhut. It was
 an ‘intentional study tour of pietist centres’ 90 in Germany. He did not want
to learn about Moravianism 91 but he was concerned “to recapture the life of faith of
 the primitive Christian community ... it was the koinonia, the spirit, the message and the sense of mission of that community” 92 that Wesley sought, and he returned to England from Herrnhut with his vision renewed by what he had seen.

Some weeks after Wesley returned from Herrnhut he expressed his appreciation for the Moravians. He said, “We are endeavouring here also, by the grace which is given us, to be followers of you, as ye are of Christ. Fourteen were added to us since our return, so that we have now eight bands of men, consisting of fifty-six persons (at Fetter-Lane); all of whom seek for salvation, only in the blood of Christ ... Though my brother and I are not permitted to preach in most of the churches in London, yet (thanks be to God!) there are others left wherein we have the liberty to speak the truth as it is in Jesus.”93

Now that Wesley had seen Herrnhut he had certainly been impressed and appreciated Moravian faith and piety. However, he did not like what he called their ‘quietism’. There was a tendency toward spiritual contemplation, and he felt that there was something approaching a ‘personality cult’ around Count von Zinzendorf. Wesley now gave all his energies to be a travelling evangelist and caring for those that were converted in and around London.94

Prayer

Lord, open our eyes to see what you are doing in our day. We long for a fresh visitation today Lord. Thank you for the example of the Early Church. As you stirred Wesley to consecrate himself to you, as you gave him vision and faith for a restoration of early Christianity in his day, do it on ours, Lord. Do not pass us by. Come Lord Jesus.

90 Stoeffler, Tradition and renewal in the ecclesiology of John Wesley, 305

91 Snyder, H. The Radical Wesley, 29,30.


92 Stoeffler, Tradition and renewal, 305.

93 John Wesley, Works X11, 55.

94 Snyder, H. The Radical Wesley, 29, 30.