Editor's Introductory Notes: 1747

[1] <Wesley had begun to give physic to the poor in London on December 5, 1746; and in three weeks about three hundred were helped. In six months six hundred came. Similar work was being done in Bristol, where Wesley had been since January 14, see Journal, iii. 273, 301, 329; W.H.S. xvi. 141-3; and letter in December 1748, sect. XII., to Vincent Perronet.>

[2] <Objections had been raised against Wesley's preachers in Plymouth. Charles Wesley says on June 16, I 746, 'Some of Mr. Whitefield's Society importuned me to go to Plymouth. I went, resolving to preach only in the streets or fields.' Next day 'the Society were now so exceeding urgent with me, that I could not refuse praying with them in their room.' On August 14 he preached in the Tabernacle again.

-Joseph Cownley (see letter of September 20, 1746) spent three months in Cornwall, and in March 1747 removed to Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Wesley thought him one of the best preachers in England (Wesley's Veterans, iv. 122-69).

-Thomas Richards, whom Wesley describes as his second lay preacher, was one of the first masters at Kingswood School, and subsequently became a clergyman (Journal, iii. 48n).-John Trembath was a popular preacher who afterwards caused Wesley much sorrow (see letter of September 21, 1755).

-James Wheatley travelled with Wesley in March I 744, and bravely faced the mob in Cornwall. On June 25, 1751 (see letter), the Wesleys had to suspend him for serious misconduct.

-Herbert Jenkins, one of Wesley's itinerants, joined Whitefield, and preached frequently for Mr. Kinsman at Plymouth, where the Wesleys met him (see Journal, v. 523n). The first Calvinistic Methodist Conference in 1743 appointed him a public exhorter. He was to assist Howell Harris in visiting the Societies in England and Wales. He became a Dissenting minister at Maidstone in 1750. (See Tyerman's Whitefield, ii. 49; W.H.S. vi. 141.)>

[3] Note from the digital editor: The letter of June 11, 1747, to Dr. Edmund Gibson, the Bishop of London, 'occasioned by his Lordship's late Charge to his Clergy,' was placed by Telford on pp. 277-91. In this edition it is placed here with the other letters of 1747.

[3a] <Edmund Gibson (1669-1748) was Bishop of London from 1720 to 1748. Dr. Norman Sykes, in his Edmund Gibson (Oxford University Press, 1926), says that the Bishop's Visitation Charge of 1747, to which this letter is an answer, has not survived. He adds: 'Although there is nothing to indicate the impression produced upon Gibson by this reply, it is to be wished that a spirit of greater charity had inspired his last public utterances against the Methodists. At the outset he had seemed predisposed to regard the new movement with a considerable degree of sympathy, but the course of events had driven him into a bitter antipathy' (page 321). Dr. Gibson, who was 'the outstanding and dominant personality of the episcopal bench,' showed great kindness to the Wesleys on several occasions; and when John Wesley told him what he meant by 'perfection,' the Bishop replied, 'Mr. Wesley, if this be all you mean, publish it to all the world' (Works, xi. 374). Henry Moore says the letter 'had, by every account, a great effect on that venerable prelate, so that a vulgar report got abroad that the Bishop of London was turned Methodist!' (Life of Wesley, ii. 415).>

[4] <Wesley preached at Tredinny on Monday, July 13, to 'a large and earnest congregation, notwithstanding the wonderful stories which they have frequently heard related in the pulpit for certain truths. In the morning I wrote as follows.' He adds, 'But he never favoured me with an answer.' See Journal, iii. 308.>

[5] <At St. Ives on June 30 Wesley wrote that they 'walked to church without so much as one huzza. How strangely has one year changed the scene in Cornwall! This is now a peaceable, nay honourable station. They give us good words almost in every place. What have we done that the world should be so civil to us'See Journal iii. 305.>

[6] <Dr. Whitehead thinks the closer examination of justifying faith was due to the controversy with 'John Smith.' Wesley had expressed his view in the words of the homily on Salvation, that it is 'a sure trust and confidence which a man hath in God that his sins are forgiven and he reconciled to the favour of God.' Myles, in his Chronological History, says the letter shows that 'he had thought more deeply respecting the nature of Justifying Faith after the last Conference. He was afterwards more accurate on that head, and spoke of it agreeably to the sentiments expressed in this letter.' At the Conference in June 1747 it was asked, 'Is justifying faith a divine assurance that Christ loved me and gave Himself for me'And the answer was, 'We believe it is.' Wesley now considered the question more carefully and saw that the above definition from the homily described the habitual faith of one who was justified rather than the act by which a sinner is first justified. See Tyerman's Wesley, i. 551-3; and for Wesley's first letter to 'John Smith,' September 28, 1745.>

[7] <In the spring of 1747 Thomas Williams arrived in Dublin, where he held services in an old Lutheran church in Marlborough Street and preached in the open air. At his invitation Wesley went over on August 9. He found a congenial home with William Lunell, a wealthy banker, who was one of Williams's converts. This was Wesley's first visit to Ireland. He crossed the Channel forty-two times, and devoted at least six years to work in the country, with results that not only abide there to this day, but had a large part in the introduction of Methodism to America. See Journal, iii. 312n ; and letter of February 6, 1748.>

[8] <Hall's miserable story is fully told in Tyerman's Oxford Methodists, pp. 386-411. He was first engaged to Martha Wesley, whom he met at her uncle's house in London. He saw Kezia, the youngest sister, at Epworth, and became engaged to her. When he returned to London, he renewed his addresses to Martha, whom he married in 1735. Kezia died on March 9, 1741. The effect of this disappointment on Kezia does not seem to have been so disastrous as the letter suggests. Hall became a polygamist; and when Wesley called to see him at Salisbury on January 26, 1748, he told him he had no business in his house. See Stevenson's Wesley Family, pp. 368-70; and letters of December 30, 1745 (to Hall), and May 9, 1755. In his Journal, iii. 325, Wesley says: 'Being not convinced that I had yet delivered my own soul with regard to that unhappy man, on Tuesday the 22nd I wrote once more to Mr. Westley Hall as follows.'>

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