History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

METHODIST REFORM
Edward J. Drinkhouse, M.D., D.D.
Volume I
CHAPTER 2
Charles Wesley — Birth, education, Episcopal bias — Visit to America with John — Return, and
itinerates among the Societies — Differences with his brother over lay-preachers and separation from
the National Church — Friendship with Whitefield — Leaves the itinerant plan — Final separation
from his brother — Whitehead's "Life," from his Journal and other papers — Triumphant death.
John and Charles Wesley are names immortal in the annals of Methodism. The former the
exponent of its doctrines, the secret of its marvelous success, and the organizer of its primitive
discipline, an accessory to that success. The latter was the complement of his brother as his most
efficient helper and the author of its psalmody. They were sons of Rev. Samuel Wesley, rector of
Epworth, England, and of his wife, Susannah. It is not within the scope of this History to treat of the
Wesley family. Those who are curious as to its genealogy will find it exhaustively presented in
[1]
Whitehead's "Life," the source of all succeeding biographies, and in Clarke's "Memoirs of the
[2]
Wesley Family," the concluding sentence of its 432 octavo pages, crystallizing a verdict which
loses all extravagance under his illumination: "Such a family I have never read of, heard of, or
known; since the days of Abraham and Sarah, and Joseph and Mary of Nazareth, has there ever been
a family to which the human race has been more indebted."
Charles Wesley was the junior of his brother by over five years, and was born December 18, old
style, 1708. It seems demanded in view of his conspicuous position in early Methodism and the scant
reference accorded him in its annals generally, that a worthy place be given him in this outline. [3]
His education was as thorough as his brother's, and his intellectual capacity in no wise inferior; his
piety was as deep and his experience and grasp of evangelical doctrines as pronounced and
comprehensive. The tutelage he received under his eldest brother, Samuel, gave him a high Church
bias, which if it maintained his consistency, a quality his brother did not so fully esteem when it
crossed his purpose, was the cause of the ultimate separation of the twain in their declining years of
self-abnegating service in a common devotion to a spiritual kingdom without, and yet of the National
Church. He accompanied John to America and shared in the hardships of the sojourn in Georgia. To
this end he was ordained deacon and priest, and crossed the ocean as secretary to the governor,
Oglethorpe; and also of Indian affairs. While detained at Cowes by contrary winds for six weeks,
after sailing from Gravesend, October 22, 1735, he preached several times, "great crowds attended
his ministry;" a foretoken of a popularity that followed him through life and made early Methodism
a large debtor to his unremitting labors. Arriving at Savannah, John was stationed in the city and
Charles at Frederica, an Indian station some miles distant. He soon became embroiled with the
inhabitants by reason of his rigid discipline, strict preaching, and pure life, and they conspired against
him either for the ruin of his reputation with the governor, or to take him off by violence. His health
gave way under the climate and his persecutions; he resigned his position, shipped for England, but
by stress of weather was driven to Boston and re-shipped for home, whither he arrived about thirteen
months after his embarkation for America. [4]