METHODISTS

The body of Christians to whom this name is chiefly applied are the followers of the late John Wesley, the founder of this numerous sect; hence 736 METHODISTS. called Wesley an Methodists. But the term bears a more extensive meaning, being applied also to several bodies or sections of Christians who have seceded or withdrawn from the W'esleyan denomination. The origin of the Methodist society took place at Oxford in 1729. After the Revolution, when the principles of religious toleration were recognized amidst the progre of free inquiry, the clergy of the established church were thought by some to have sunk into a state of comparative lukewarmne and indiflFerence. This alleged degeneracy was observed with pain by John Wesley and his brother Charles, when students at the University of Oxford; and being joined by a few of their fellow-students who were intended for the ministry in the established church, they formed the most rigid and severe rules for the regulation of their time and studies, for reading the scriptures, for self-examination, and other religious exercises. The ardent piety and rigid observance of system in every thing connected with the new opinions displayed by the Wesleys and their adherents, as well as in their college studies, which they never neglected, attracted the notice and excited the jeers of the various members of the university, and gained for them the appellation of Methodists; in allusion to the methodic i, a cla of physicians at Rome who practised only by theory. ( Celsus, in Prefat. de Medic in a.) In the mean time Wesley took orders in the established church, and acted for a few months as a istant to his father, who was rector of Epworth, in Lincoln shire. After the death of the latter he was induced (ns.")), in company with his brother Charles and two other friends, to accept of an offer to go to Georgia in North America, to preach the gospel to the Indians. On his return to England in 1737, Wesley officiated in several churches of^ the establishment. But the higher ranks were offended at his declamatory and enthusiastic mode of preaching; and the clergy having disclaimed some of his doctrines, the churches in general were soon shut against him. It was his desire, however, to be allowed to oflBciate in the pulpit of his native church. His object, in truth, was to effect a reformation in the church, not to recede from connection with it; and the rules he observed himself, and imposed upon his followers, were designed as supplementary to the established ritual, not as superseding it. But the circumstances to which we have referred threw his labours into a different, and ultimately an opposite channel; and in short, without having at first intended it, he became the founder of the most numerous cla of Di enters in Great Britain. Being thus virtually expelled from the established church, he preached in Di enting chapels in London and other places where he could obtain admi ion. In course of time, and owing to the vast multitudes that crowded to listen to his ministrations, he adopted the expedient of officiating in the open air, and commenced field-preacher. He first formed his followers into a separate society in 1738, the year after his return from America, though he referred the establishment of Methodism to a prior date. (See Wesley's Eccles. Hist. vol. iv. p. 175.) Wesley, from this date, devoted his time and his great talents exclusively to the propagation of what he regarded the doctrines of the gospel, and to the extension of that sect of which he was the founder. His labours were chiefly confined to England; but he also paid visits to Scotland and Ireland, — in the former of which his succe was inconsiderable. {Sir H.Moncreiff' s lAfeofDr.Erskine, cap. vii.) But while he confined his own labours to Great Britain and Ireland, he was not inattentive to the spiritual nece ities of other countries, and, by means of a succe ion of mi ionaries, propagated his doctrines to a very great extent in America and many of the West India islands. The unparalleled succe which attended his great mi ionary exertions was not gained without much obloquy and persecution, particularly in the United Kingdom. Owing to the intelligence and liberality of the age, neither himself nor any of his mi ionaries were exposed to stripes and imprisonment; but all of them met with violent opposition on the part not merely of clergymen, both established and di enting, and the wealthier cla es, but also of the people; and some of them were beset with mobs, a ailed by showers of stones and other mi iles, and sometimes dragged through the streets as raving enthusiasts and as disturbers of the public peace. It must, at the same time, be confe ed that the imprudence of some of his followers contributed somewhat to the reproach which they experienced. Finding his societies rapidly increasing, and having been refused a istance from the established clergy, Wesley was induced to have recourse to lay preachers; an expedient which he was at first exceedingly averse to adopt, but which he afterwards found most efficient in promoting the triumph of his views. He was thus enabled to exercise superintendence over all his followers, and greatly to extend his sphere of action. Though Wesley objected to his adherents being called Di enters, and required them to attend the established church when they had no opportunity of hearing their own preachers, yet his creed is profe ed Arm in i an ism, [s. 749]