Editor's Introductory Notes: 1758

[1] Wesley first preached at Yarm in 1748, George Merryweather, a leading merchant of the town, was his host. The preaching-place was for some time above his stables. In 1763 a new house was opened by Peter Jaco, Wesley's opinion of which may be found in the Journal for April 29, 1766. See Journal, iii. 367, iv. 329; Tyerman's Wesley, ii. 408.

Mrs. Mary Robinson used to tell how, at Wesley's wish, she was placed on a form to help him on with his cassock. He said she would remember it in later years. When she had done, he put his hand on her head and gave her his benediction: 'God bless the little maid.' See Methodist Recorder, November 21, 1901.

[2] This letter and those of May 1758 (undated) and December 26, 1761, are probably all addressed to Elizabeth Hardy, of Bristol. They show Wesley's anxiety to help his correspondent to clearer views on the much-discussed subject of Perfection.

[3] John Free, Vicar of East Coker, Somerset, had written against the Methodists, and had challenged Wesley to reply. 'I wrote,' he says in Journal, iv. 262-3, 'a short answer to Dr. Free's weak, bitter, scurrilous invective against the people called Methodists. But I doubt whether I shall meddle with him any more; he is too dirty a writer for me to touch.' Unfortunately the Vicar compelled another answer on August 24. For Free's tract, A Display of the Bad Principles of the Methodists, see Green's Anti-Methodist Publications, No. 273.

[4] The first half of this letter is not in the Works. Mrs. Wesley, after many severe words, had left her husband in January, vowing she would never see him again. In a letter of the 27th of that month, however, Wesley shows how she was brought to a better mind; but, as seen here, she soon returned to her old ways, and managed to win his household over to her side. See Telford's Wesley, p. 256; and letters of January 20 and 27.

[5] Only the last paragraph of this letter, beginning 'In a week or two,' is given in the Works. The letter of June 5 shows how Mrs. Wesley misinterpreted things and prejudiced servants. Even a friend like Blackwell was influenced by her, as Wesley anticipated.

[6] John Free preached a sermon before the University, at St. Mary's, Oxford, on Rules for the Discovery of False Prophets; or, The Dangerous Impositions of the People called Methodists detected at the Bar of Scripture and Reason. This led to Wesley's second letter. In the Journal, iv. 282, he calls him 'the warmest opponent I have had for many years. I leave him now to laugh, and scold, and witticize, and call names just as he pleases; for I have done.' See letter of May 2.

[7] Francis Okeley was an old friend, with whom the Wesleys had much intercourse in 1739. His mother was a Moravian, and is described by Hutton as 'truly a mother in Israel.' Okeley had charge of the Moravian children at Bedford, where he told Wesley on March 9, 1758, he could remain no longer. He joined Wesley at Manchester on March 16, went with him to Ireland, and was at the Bristol Conference in August, but did not preach there for fear of offending the Moravians. He returned to his post at Bedford, where he lived with his wife and three children. Dr. Byrom says on April 2, 1761, Wesley reported that he had seen him lately and told him that he loved him. He was the Moravian minister, and held a high position among them for many years. See Journal, iv. 254, 256; Benham's Hutton, p. 176.

Richard Viney was 'cut off from the Church and delivered over to Satan, by the Moravians in November 1743, but afterwards went back to them. He came to see Wesley in London in February 1744, and told him how he had been treated. Wesley talked with him at Birstall in the following May; and in October Charles Wesley found he had perverted the Society there, 'so that they laughed at all fasting, and self-denial, and family prayer, and such-like works of the law.' See Journal, iii.121I, 139; C. Wesley's Journal, i. 385; W.H.S. xiii. 79.

[8] Mr. Potter, Vicar of Reymerston in Norfolk, published in 1758 A Sermon on the Pretended Inspiration of the Methodists. This letter is Wesley's reply, which was begun at Norwich on November 4, and finished three days later at Lakenheath. See Green's Bibliography, No. 189.

[9] On November 12 this answer was sent, apparently by Mrs. Ryan (see letters of December 14, 1757, and January 20, 1758):

[10] Sarah Moore was admitted on trial into the Methodist Society at Sheffield by Edward Perronet on October 26, 1749. She was born at King's Lynn in 1738. Her parents left that town when she was four years old. She began to teach a school in Sheffield in her seventeenth year; and at eighteen was appointed the first class-leader at Hallam, walking there from Sheffield every week for two years. The first Quarterly Meeting was held in her house at Fargate between 1756 and 1760, and the Society held its meetings there. She went not infrequently to hold prayer-meetings at Bradwell in Derbyshire, sixteen miles distant. She married Samuel Knutton, a popular local preacher at Sheffield, in 1772. See Everett's Methodism in Sheffield, P. 79; and letters of March 3, 1761, and July 5, 1764.

[11] Hervey was dying when he wrote his answers to Wesley's criticisms. He says on November 7, 1758: 'I am now reduced to a state of infant weakness and given over by my physician.' He had asked William Cudworth, Minister of an Independent Church in Margaret Street, London, whether he should reply to Wesley. This is Wesley's last letter to his old Oxford friend, who died on December 25, in his forty-fifth year. Wesley regarded Cudworth as an Antinomian, and his two Dialogues between an Antinomian and his Friend, 1745, were partly in answer to a Dialogue by Cudworth. See Works, x. 266-84; and letter of October 15, 1756.

[12] Toplady was not yet eighteen. Two years earlier he was converted under a sermon preached in a barn at Coolamain by James Morris, one of Wesley's preachers. Toplady wrote Wesley on September 13, 'I thank you for your satisfactory letter'; wherein he says he had lost ground through 'assiduous application to my college business, which prevents my attending the preaching so often as I would.' See Arminian Magazine, 1780, P. 54; Tyerman's Wesley, ii. 315-16; W.H.S. viii. 11-14; and for Dr. Taylor, letter of July 3, 1759.

[Edited by Jerry James (Pastor), and converted to HTML by Steven F. Johnson for the Wesley Center for Applied Theology of Northwest Nazarene College (Nampa, ID).]