Charles Wesley

"Charles Wesley: One of the founders of Methodism; born at Epworth (23 miles northwest of Lincoln), [England] December 18, 1708, O. S. (December 29, N. S.); died in London March 29, 1788. He was the son of Samuel Wesley, Sr., and brother of [John] Wesley. In childhood he declined an offer of adoption by a wealthy namesake in Ireland; and the person taken in his stead became an earl, and grandfather to the duke of Wellington. He was educated at Westminster School, London, under his brother Samuel, 1716; at St. Peter's College, Westminster, London, 1721; and at Christ Church, Oxford, 1726, where, with his brother John and one or two others, he received the nickname of "Methodist" in consequence of the method they employed in prayer and daily life."

The rest of the story → Christian Biography Resources http://www.wholesomewords.org/biography/bwesley2.html

"Charles Wesley wrote over 6,000 hymns. Like most hymn­ists, his works were fre­quent­ly al­tered. In the pre­face to the 1779 Col­lection of Hymns for the Use of the Peo­ple called Meth­od­ists, his bro­ther John wrote:

I beg leave to men­tion a thought which has been long up­on my mind, and which I should long ago have in­sert­ed in the pub­lic pa­pers, had I not been un­will­ing to stir up a nest of horn­ets. Ma­ny gen­tle­men have done my bro­ther and me (though with­out nam­ing us) the hon­our to re­print ma­ny of our hymns. Now they are per­fect­ly wel­come to do so, pro­vid­ed they print them just as they are. But I de­sire they would not at­tempt to mend them, for they are real­ly not able. None of them is able to mend ei­ther the sense or the verse. There­fore, I must beg of them these two fa­vours: ei­ther to let them stand just as they are, to take things for bet­ter or worse, or to add the true read­ing in the mar­gin, or at the bot­tom of the page, that we may no long­er be ac­count­a­ble ei­ther for the non­sense or for the dog­ger­el of other men."

Listen to many of Charles Wesley's hymns:

http://www.cyberhymnal.org/bio/w/e/s/wesley_c.htm

"Mon., September 22d. I was setting out for the Downs, when one asked me to ride out toward Mr. Willis's. At the end of the town I was informed the colliers were risen. Above one thousand of them I met at Lawrence-hill They came about me, and saluted me very affectionately, not having seen me since my sickness. The occasion of their rising, they told me, was the dearness of corn. I got to an eminence, and began speaking to them. Many seemed inclined to go back with me to the school; but the devil stirred up his oldest servants, who violently rushed upon the others, beating, and tearing, and driving them away from me. I rode up to a ruffian who was striking one of our colliers, and prayed him rather to strike me. He would not, he said, for all the world; and was quite overcome. I turned upon one who struck my horse, and he also sank into a lamb. Wherever I turned, Satan lost ground; so that he was obliged to make one general assault, and, by the few violent colliers, forced on the quiet ones into the town.

I seized on one of the tallest, and earnestly besought him to follow me: that he would, he said, all the world over. About six more I pressed into Christ's service. We met several parties; stopped and exhorted them to join us. We gleaned a few from every company, and grew as we marched along singing to the school. From one till three we spent in prayer that evil might be prevented, and the lion chained. Then news was brought us that the colliers were returned in peace. They had quietly walked into the city, without sticks, or the least violence. A few of the better sort went to the Mayor, and told their grievance: then they all returned as they came, without noise or disturbance. All who saw were amazed; for the leopards were laid down. Nothing could have more shown the change wrought ill them than this rising.

I found afterwards that all our colliers to a man had been forced in it. Having learned of Christ not to resist evil, they went a mile with those that compelled them rather than free themselves by violence. One the rioters dragged out of his sick-bed, and threw him into the Fishponds: near twenty of Mr. Willis's men they got by threatening to fill up their pits, and bury them alive, if they did not come up and bear them company."

Copyright © 1999 by the Wesley Center for Applied Theology. Scanned and edited by Ryan Danker. Read more → http://wesley.nnu.edu/charles_wesley/journal/index.htm

"Susanna Wesley (1669-1742), although she never preached a sermon or published a book or founded a church, is known as the Mother of Methodism. Why? Because two of her sons, John Wesley and Charles Wesley, as children consciously or unconsciously will, applied the example and teachings and circumstances of their home life. Their early purpose was to help people reshape their own lives for the better and almost before John and Charles knew it, they were shaping a movement that would reform not only individuals, but the church and the society of England. Because they behaved purposefully and methodically in the Holy Club they organized at Oxford, other less disciplined students who had not had Susanna for a mother derisively called them "method-ists". The Wesley brothers accepted the term as a badge of honor for their growing movement."

Read more here → http://www.susanpellowe.com/sw/bio.html

These experiences fostered in Wesley an abhorrence of slavery, but it was not an abhorrence he felt able to act upon. In his journal, Wesley records meeting with people involved in the slave trade - including the slave-ship captain John Newton, now more famous as the author of the hymn "Amazing Grace". Newton's conversion to Christianity was later followed by a conversion to anti-slavery, but it is not recorded if he and Wesley discussed the issue. In 1772, the Somerset case, brought before the courts by Granville Sharp, put slavery in the news. Wesley, putting aside Laurence Sterne's Sentimental Journey (a book he described as marked by: "oddity, uncouthness, and unlikeness to all the world") took up instead Some historical account of Guinea, a work of anti-slavery by the Philadelphia Quaker, Anthony Benezet. Wesley recorded his thoughts in his journal:

Wed. 12.-In returning I read a very different book, published by an honest Quaker, on that execrable sum of all villanies, commonly called the Slave-trade. I read of nothing like it in the heathen world, whether ancient or modern; and it infinitely exceeds, in every instance of barbarity, whatever Christian slaves suffer in Mahometan countries."

Read more → http://www.brycchancarey.com/abolition/wesley.htm

"Charles Wesley was born nearly 300 years ago, in December 1707. For the last 250 years, Christians around the world have been singing the hymns he composed. This "Orpheus" was the 18th child of Samuel and Susanna Wesley and younger brother of John Wesley. He left his home in Epworth, Lincolnshire, in east England, to study at the prestigious Westminster School in London. Later, his education continued at Christchurch College in Oxford University, where he and a small number of fellow students regularly met to pray and study the Bible and devotional books. This was the beginning of what was later known as the "Holy Club," and later still as "Methodists." The world's first Methodist was Charles Wesley."

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