Early Methodist Preachers

sermonindex Mar 21, 2005

I have been reading a biography on George Whitefield and came across this precious quote regarding the early methodist preachers. I pray that it may help feed the fire: "If Methodism had not come into contact with the mob it would never have reached that section of the English people which most needed salvation. The "Religious Societies' shut up in their rooms, would never have reformed the country. It was necessary that a race of heroic men should arise, who dare to confront the wildest and most brutal of men, and tell them the meaning of sin, and show them the Christ of the Cross and the Judgement of Throne. The incessant assaults of the mob on the Methodist preachers showed they have reached the masses. With a superb courage, rarely equalled on the battlefield, the Methodist preachers went again and again to the places from which they had been driven by violence, until their persistence wore down the antagonism of their assailants. Then, out of the once furious crowd, men and women were gathered whose hearts the Lord had touched." John S. Simon "George Whitefield" by Arnold A. Dallimore pg 132

philologos Mar 21, 2005

JesseIf you are able I would recommend any history of the Primitve Methodists. They turned Brittain upside down in the early part of the 19th century. It was through a Primitive Methodist preacher that Spurgeon came to faith.They began in my own old home town of Burslem in the Potteries (North Staffordshire). Their exploits were amazing. Many worked in the pottery industry. At midday Saturday they would finish work and walk for 30 miles or so into outlying country district. They would sleep under a hedge and preach 4 or 5 times on the Sunday. They would walk home during the night hours of the Sunday night and be at their work benches for 6 am on the Monday mornings. They stoned and beaten, on one occasion they house in which they held prayer meeting was physically demolished as they prayed still inside it.The were constantly imprisoned, illegally, and brought before the magistrates. Their arrests gave them just the publicity they needed and they grew in numbers from 2 to over a hundred thousand in the space of about 30 years.They called themselves 'primitive' because they sought to return to the primitive zeal of the early church and the Wesleyan methodists. By the turn of the century Methodism was well on its way to respectibility, and this group of men and women were powerfully used of God for almost 50 years.If you are doing Google searches look up "Willian Clowes" and "Hugh Bourne". You are walking in the footprints of the saints...

sermonindex Mar 22, 2005

Charles Wesley would get the ears of people in the open-air by singing a hymn, then John Wesley would get the hearts of people by preaching the gospel. I can imagine that this was one of the hymns that was sung in the open-air.An old Methodist hymn: Sinners, turn; why will ye die? God, your maker, asks you why? God, who did your being give, Made you with himself to live; He the fatal cause demands; Asks the work of his own hands, Why, yea thankless creatures, why Will ye cross his love, and die? Sinners, turn; why will ye die? God, your Saviour asks you why? He, who did your souls retrieve, Died himself, that ye might live. Will ye let him die in vain? Crucify your Lord again? Why, ye ransom’d sinners, why Will ye slight his grace, and die? Sinners, turn; why will ye die? God, the Spirit, asks you why? He, who all your lives hath strove, Urged you to embrace his love. Will ye not his grace receive? Will ye still refuse to live? O ye dying sinners, why? Why will ye forever die?