Heart Strangely Warmed

"Catch on fire with enthusiasm, and people will come for miles to watch you burn."

            "Knock his brains out! Down with him! Kill him at once!" So shouted a mob of several hundred men surrounding John Wesley. Riots often accompanied Wesley, the mild-mannered founder of the Methodist Church. The worst violence he encountered probably came at the coal-mining town of Wednesbury in October 1743. The rioting went on for six days. Homes of Methodists were vandalized and wrecked. Wesley's followers were beaten in the streets.

            “It is no wonder that Satan should fight for his own kingdom, when such inroads are made upon it," Wesley remarked.

            The mob marched him from place to place in the rain, either trying to muster the courage to lynch him or to find a magistrate to jail him. A 1903 biography of Wesley says the turning point came when Wesley "began to pray aloud. Then the ruffian who had headed the rabble, a prize fighter at the bear garden, struck with awe, turned and said: "Sir, I will spend my life for you! Follow me, and not one soul here shall touch a hair of your head!" One by one, members of the mob felt ashamed, and Wesley went free."

            He had a remarkable ability to keep his head when people were throwing rocks at him or otherwise threatening to kill him. He believed that one must “always look a mob in the face.”

            He had "an indescribable dignity in his bearing, a light in his eyes, and a spiritual influence pervading his whole personality often overawed and captured the very leaders of the riots," said one admirer.

"Plucked out the fire"

            The fifteenth child of an Anglican cleric, he memorized much of New Testament while still a child. From an early age, he believed that God had a special purpose for him in life. When he was five years old, he was trapped in the home of a minster when it caught on fire.

            Upstairs and with no way out, death looked certain until a parishioner (who was standing on another man's shoulders) reached in the window and lofted him to safety. Throughout his life, Wesley quoted Zechariah 3:3 saying he was "a brand plucked out of the fire" to burn an impression on the souls of men.

            Unfortunately, however, as a young Anglican minister, Wesley got off to a dismal start. He showed courage in accepting an offer to be the minister of the church in the newly created town of Savannah in the Colony of Georgia. But while crossing the Atlantic, he fell in love with a young woman, Sophia Hopkey.

            He ultimately concluded that his vows required him to be celibate. When she fell in love with another man and married him, Wesley humiliated her by refusing to offer her communion. It did not help that she was the niece of the local magistrate.

            Wesley was reassigned to a smaller parish. That did no good for her reputation. The magistrate brought charges against Wesley calling him "a liar, villain, and so forth" for defaming her. He asserted that Wesley denied her communion out of revenge because she spurned his repeated marriage proposals.

            Ordered not to flee the colony, Wesley did exactly that. In December 1737, he fled Savannah at night, sailing down the river. He then walked to South Carolina and bought passage on the next ship home.

            But his miserable experience in the New World contained the seeds of his spiritual rebirth. During his voyage to the colonies, a furious storm hurled his ship terrifically, snapping off its mast. Wesley was petrified. During the tumult, he watched his shipmates calmly praying and singing hymns. They were Moravians, German Protestant settlers. The purity of their faith astonished him.

            Humiliated and depressed, he felt adrift back in London. Then one day in May 1738, he came upon a group of Moravians holding an evening service in Aldersgate Street. "About a quarter before nine, while [the leader of the service] was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed," Wesley recalled.

            "I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation, and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death."

            A year later Wesley received an invitation to preach outdoors near the coal-mining town of Bristol. By the standards of the day, this was a strange thing to do, but it was an excellent way to reach some of England's most downtrodden people—coal miners, many of whom didn't go to church.

            As an Anglican, Wesley had been brought up and taught to believe in predestination which contends that God determines before men are born whether or not they will go to Heaven or Hell.

"Going on to perfection"

            Slowly, out of compassion for the poor and because he believed God loves everyone equally, Wesley developed what would become a primary tenant of the Methodist Church—prevenient grace. It asserts that God loves all people before they are born, and that God's grant of free will gives everyone the possibility of "going on to perfection," the chance to live an increasingly better life whose reward will be eternity in heaven.

            Wesley also took a dim view of corruption in the Anglican Church, a stance that contributed to the opposition against him. He felt that it did far too little to reach people in the greatest need of salvation.

            Originally, his critics used the term "Methodist"  to mock Wesley and his followers as they believed one should have an organized approached to living a Godly life. He also steadfastly opposed drinking and gambling. This did not endear him to ruffians who thought he should mind his own business.

           Wesley tirelessly promoted his young denomination. He preached as many as 15 sermons a week, many outdoors and in places other than churches—wherever he could reach new souls.

            It is estimated he rode his horse 250,000 miles to spread the gospel. By the time he died in 1791, he left a thriving movement which had 72,000 members in England and 60,000 in the United States.

            Interestingly, his views on health and diet may have been equally influential (and ahead of their time). His book "Primitive Physick" was a best-seller. In it, he offered the following advice: Eat a light dinner and fast for several hours before going to bed; retire at 9 p.m. and rise at 4 or 5 a.m.; work standing if you are in an office; shun coffee and tea because they create anxiety; drink lots of water; exercise regularly, especially by walking; exercise on an empty stomach; and take cold baths to stimulate the blood.

MORAL: Have faith. Stare down the mob.

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