Session 5:

Quakers and Methodists

Leader Presentation
This week were going to zero in on England, which by now had broken away from the Church of Rome, thanks to the shenanigans of King Henry VIII. You all remember how he wanted an annulment from his first wife (of six!) because she hadnt borne a son to succeed him on the throneand when the pope said no, Henry retorted that, well, hed just take over the English church himself instead. Quite a guy A century or so later (in the mid-1600s), we come to: Notes

GEORGE FOX (1624 1691) and the SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

This humble shoemaker had no formal schooling. When he was 21, two Puritans (the name doesnt quite fit, as youll see!) challenged him in a pub to a drinking contest. The loser (the fellow who would quit drinking first) had to pay the tab. Young George was genuinely disgusted by this kind of decadence. He quit going to church. He entered into a lengthy period of seeking for God. By the next year he was genuinely saved. He strongly sensed Gods presence in his life. He began to talk often about the Inner Light of the Living Christ that residedor should

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residein every Christian. Soon George Fox started itinerant preaching. Those who began to follow him called themselves simply the Society of Friends. With the Inner Light, he reasoned, who actually needed clergy? (Most of the ones he saw in his day were crooked and hypocritical anyway.) Dr. Earle E. Cairns, longtime chair of the history department at Wheaton College, described the Friends viewpoint this way: The Spirit was the sole Revelator of God and the Source of the Inner Light within man which gave him spiritual illumination. The Bible was but a secondary rule. However, revelations to a Friend should not contradict the Scriptures, or right and sound reason. The Friends movement was noted for such things as: No sacraments (baptism, Communion). Why? Because they said Christians just seemed to fight over these anyway. In George Foxs opinion: o You ought to remember Christ at every meal, not just once a week (or month) at church. o Jesus didnt baptize anybody with water. He only said to be baptized with the Holy Spirit and fire! (Of course, theres the Great Commission to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them. Ooops.) No participation in war (which got them in trouble with both Anglicans and Puritans). No slavery. The Friends were pioneers in the struggle for abolition, based on their high regard for every individual. No oaths (taking a literal reading of Matthew 5:33-37). After all, if you were walking in the Light, why should you need to swear by Gods name or anything else? You simply spoke the truth as a lifestyle. Simple speaking and living o While most people addressed each other as you, the Friends preferred to keep using thou (the connotations of those two words were opposite of what they are today; thou was common talk, you was a bit uppity). o They wouldnt say Sunday, Monday, Thursday, Saturday, etc., because of the association with pagan gods (day of the sun, day of the moon, day of the god Thor, day of the god Saturn). They said instead, First Day, Second Day, Third Day, etc. o They wouldnt haggle on prices when selling in the marketplace, believing it was wrong to pretend you wanted more money than you were

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willing to accept in the end. The Friends were among the first advocates for fixed-price trading. Simple worship o Their meetinghouses (notice: not cathedrals or basilicas) were plain, with interior walls usually painted gray or light blue. No fancy artwork or embellishments. o Their meetings were unstructured. It was fine with them just to wait on the Lord, until someoneanyone, male or femaleshared what the Inner Light had revealed to them. If that meant periods of silence, so be it. Heres a quote from one of the early Friends, a man named Edward Burrough, who wrote Preface to Great Mystery: PowerPoint: While waiting upon the Lord in silence, as often we did for many hours together, we received often the pouring down of the Spirit upon us, and our hearts were glad and our tongues loosened and our mouths opened, and we spake with new tongues as the Lord gave us utterance, and His Spirit led us, which was poured down upon us, on sons and daughters, and the glory of the Father was revealed. And then began we to sing praises to the Lord God Almighty and to the Lamb forever. Other early records speak about visions, healings, and prophecies. As you might expect, a lot of this did not sit well with the religious establishment of England. Throughout the 1650s and 60s, some 15,000 Friends were jailed, fined, beaten, charged with contempt of the king, or also blasphemy. More than 450 Friends died in prison. George Fox himself was imprisoned six times, once for two and a half years. In 1649 he got locked up for disrupting a Nottingham church service by appealing passionately from the Bible that the Holy Spirit should be our authority and guide. The next year (1650) he was jailed again as a blasphemer. Why? Well, he had urged the judge to tremble at the word of the Lord (see Isa. 66:2, 5). The judge shot back, You are the tremblers; you are the quakers. He had been told that in meetings of the Friends, some people would actually quiver under the power of God. In that moment a new name was born. The Society
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of Friends would be known forever after in popular jargon as the Quakers. While George Fox was a common man with no access to the levers of power, a young aristocrat, just 22 years old, wandered into a Quaker meeting in Ireland one day and was immediately impressed. Hed already gotten kicked out of Oxford for his rowdiness and then had spent a while traveling around Europe using Dads money (his father was a renowned British admiral). The young man now felt drawn to the simple, genuine, unpretentious faith he saw in the Quakers. His name: William Penn. What a shock this was to his well-bred family. But young William would not be deterred. He went to prison a number of times, once even in the Tower of London. He used the time to write defenses of the Quaker faith. It so happened that King Charles II owed the Penn family a large sum of money and, in 1681, proposed to strike a deal: He would give the family all the New World land beyond the Delaware River to settle his debt. And thats how the Province of Pennsylvania came to be, under the management of William Penn. He called it a Holy Experiment, intended to be a safe haven for Quakers and other dissenters. Both George Fox and William Penn cared a great deal about prison reform (understandably, after what they had personally endured behind bars!). This became a major effort of the Quaker movement. It was Penn and the Pennsylvanians who said, in essence, Dont torture these people, even if theyve done a crime. Just put them in a quiet cell with a Bible, and let the Holy Spirit work on them. Such thinking proved to be a major influence on a more humane approach to corrections. You can still see a trace of it today in the word we use, penitentiary (a place for penitence). The Quakers have been an active force in America to this day, emphasizing simplicity, peacemaking, and sensitivity to the Spirit. One of their colleges, in fact, is named George Fox University, outside Portland, Oregon. Another, in Oskaloosa, Iowa, is William Penn University. DISCUSSION [If your group is non-Quaker] What do you find attractive about the Friends approach to the Christian life? What would you like to incorporate from them? [If your group is Quaker] What do you think George Fox would say if he could visit your
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Quaker church in America today? George Fox had passed away and William Penn was nearly 60 years old when the next generation produced a new baby in 1703 who was destined to call all of both England and America to a revitalized walk with God. Now we turn our attention to

JOHN WESLEY (1703 1791) and the METHODIST AWAKENING

His impact on the English-speaking peoples can hardly be exaggerated. Let me show you a nine-minute video clip, narrated by Dr. Timothy George, dean of the Beeson Divinity School at Samford University (Birmingham, Ala.). As the video showed, John was born to an Anglican pastor and his wife, the 15th of 19 children. (Eight of them died as infants, unfortunately.) His rescue from the burning rectory in 1709 made his mother think this was to be a special child; she called him a brand plucked from the burning (see Zech. 3:2). John grew up to go to Oxford, where he led a small group of students called the Holy Club who wanted more of Gods presence in their lives. They held a strong appreciation for methods of spiritual discipline. Other students began to mock them as Methodists. At the age of 32, John went to Georgia as a single missionary and was a flop. His love relationship with the young Sophy Hopkey back-fired after they broke up and he refused to serve her Communion. He came back to London at age 34 moaning in his journal, I went to America to convert the Indians, but oh, who will convert me? Finally on May 24, 1738, he experienced his dramatic conversion. He wrote: In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate-Street, where one was reading Luthers preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation: And an assurance was given me, that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and
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Play video by accessing http://youtu.be/kt1P2OZ9EZg (Must be online to play.)

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saved me from the law of sin and death.1 About six months later, on New Years Day 1739, Wesley experienced what we might call his empowerment by the Holy Spirit. Again, he wrote: Mr. Hall, Kinchin, Ingham, Whitefield, Hutchins, and my brother Charles, were present at our love-feast in Fetter-Lane, with about sixty of our brethren. About three in the morning, as we were continuing instant in prayer, the power of God came mightily upon us, insomuch that many cried out for exceeding joy, and many fell to the ground. As soon as we were recovered a little from that awe and amazement at the presence of his Majesty, we broke out with one voice, We praise thee, O God; we acknowledge thee to be the Lord.2 For the rest of his life, John Wesley was constantly on the move to preach in Anglican churchesand beyond. He averaged 5,000 miles a year on horseback. He didnt even use a carriage until age 63. He made 21 trips to Ireland, 22 to Scotland. He preached an average of 15 times a week (lifetime total: around 42,000). And he was only 5 4 tall and 122 pounds! It was his friend and fellow evangelist George Whitefield [pronounced WHIT-field] who coaxed him outdoors to begin field preaching in Bristol. People would show up at five oclock in the morning to hear him before they had to go to work. When he returned to the town of Epworth, where he had grown up, the curate of his fathers church wouldnt let him back into the pulpit. So John simply moved to the one piece of real estate no one could contest: his fathers grave in the church courtyard! Here is a picture of him preaching that day, with the church in the hazy background.

1 2

The Works of John Wesley, Third Edition (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1998), Vol. 1, p. 103 The Works of John Wesley, Vol. 1, p. 170

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His view of salvation was that the Spirit gives us the grace to receive itif we choose. In other words, our freedom of the will is not just a natural thing but a gift of Gods Spirit. If we use it to invite him in, he will give us salvation. As you read John Wesleys extensive daily journal (more than 1,000 pages!), there is not much evidence of healing, miracles, revelations, prophecy, or tonguesbut there is dramatic evidence of conviction of sin as he preached. And this, too, is a work of the Spirit, says John 16:8. Listeners would begin to groan, to weep, sometimes even to collapse. A few samples: At Weavers Hall a young man was suddenly seized with a violent trembling all over, and in a few minutes, the sorrows of his heart being enlarged, sunk down to the ground. But we ceased not calling upon God, till he raised him up full of peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.3 While I was preaching at Newgate, on these words, He that believeth hath everlasting life, ... one, and then another, and another sunk to the earth: They dropped on every side as thunderstruck. One of them cried aloud. One was so wounded by the sword of the Spirit, that you would have imagined she could not live a moment. But immediately [Gods] abundant kindness was showed, and she loudly sang of his righteousness.4
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The Works of John Wesley, Vol. 1, pp. 187-88 The Works of John Wesley, Vol. 1, pp. 188-89

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[At Baptist-Mills] we were comforted by the coming in of one who was a notorious drunkard and common swearer. But he is [now] washed, and old things are passed away. Such power belongeth unto God. In the evening our Lord rose on many who were wounded, with healing in his wings. One of these showed the agony of her soul by crying aloud to God for help, to the great offence of many, who eagerly rebuked her that she should hold her peace. She continued in great torment all night, finding no rest either of soul or body. But while a few were praying for her in the morning, God delivered her out of her distress.5 Some people criticized all this as excessive emotionalism, of course. Heres a cartoon of the day that pokes fun at a Methodist meeting gone wild. Wesley replied that the responses to his preaching were either (a) the Holy Spirit at work, or (b) the devil resisting. In any case, he refused to be intimidated. A dramatic day came on August 24, 1744, when he was invited to preach at St. Marys, Oxfordhis alma mater. In a church full of esteemed faculty members, he dared to choose as his text Acts 4:31And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost. He openly chided the academics for educating students minds without drawing them close to the heart of God. Near the end, his rhetoric rose to this crescendo6:

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The Works of John Wesley, Vol. 1, pp. 230 The Works of John Wesley, Vol. 5, pp. 51-52

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PowerPoint: How few of you spend, from one week to another, a single hour in private prayer!... Who of you is, in any degree, acquainted with the work of his Spirit, his supernatural work in the souls of men? Can you bear (unless now and then, in a church) any talk of the Holy Ghost?... In the name of the Lord God Almighty, I ask, What religion are you of? Amazingly, he did not get booed out of the building. In fact, the vice-chancellor sent a message later to get his notes, so they could be spread around to those absent! John Wesley truly did not want people to leave the Church of England. He just wanted them to become real Christians, alive in the Spirit. He once wrote: Would to God that all party names, and unscriptural phrases and forms which have divided the Christian world, were forgot. I should rejoice if the very name [Methodist] might never be mentioned more, but be buried in eternal oblivion. Neither did he want to buck the clerical system by commissioning lay preachers for his movement. But then his mother said he might be quenching the Spirit by this stance. So he relented, eventually enrolling some 500 preachers. He required that they be ready to go at 5 a.m., and that they fast two days each week (Wednesdays, Fridays). One of those lay preachers was a man named Thomas Walsh. In his diary for March 8, 1750, he wrote: PowerPoint: This morning the Lord gave me language that I knew not of, raising my soul to him in a wonderful manner. Now I must not mislead you into thinking that John Wesley was perfect. He made mistakesperhaps the greatest of which was to get married abruptly at age 48 to a widow named Mary (Molly) Vazielle. It proved to be a disaster for a man who was constantly traveling. She had no desire to keep up with his horseback ventures to hither and yon. They separated after four years. Nearly everyone agrees that John Wesleys calling would best have been practiced like that of the apostle Paulas a single man. There is no denying his exceptional achievement, however. He published 151 sermons. He also published A Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodists, which spread the works of his brother Charles that we still sing today, such as Love Divine, All Loves

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Excelling, Christ the Lord Is Risen Today, O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing, and the Christmas carols Hark, the Herald Angels Sing and Come, Thou LongExpected Jesus. Suggestion: For a change of pace, you might stop here and sing a verse or two of one of these classic hymns. John Wesley absolutely hated slaveryand liquor as well, campaigning against both. By his death in 1791, there were almost a million Methodists. Modern historians say with respectful hindsight that this one mans revival of dynamic faith just may deserve the credit for preventing a British equivalent to the ghastly French Revolution that erupted just across the water in the late 1780s. Here are two of his most memorable sound bites: PowerPoint: The world is my parish (after the bishop of Bristol complained about Wesley coming into his territory) Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can. What were some of the influences that shaped the preaching and passion of the Wesley brothers? Both of them were affected in the earlier years of their ministry by the devotional writings of

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WILLIAM LAW (1686 1761)

He was a teaching and tutoring fellow at Cambridge, until he lost his job for declining to swear allegiance to King George I. His best known book is A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, which appeared in 1728. To be honest, the Wesleys found this one a bit too stern and

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legalistic. But they were no doubt in full agreement with Laws later book entitled An Affectionate Address to the Clergy. His main point: Without the Spirit, your religion is cold and dead! Here are two excerpts 7: Show this slide.

PowerPoint: Resisting the Spirit, quenching the Spirit, grieving the Spirit gives growth to every evil that reigns in a fallen creation and leaves men and churches an easy prey to the world, the flesh, and the devil. Nothing but obedience to the Spirit, walking in the Spirit, trusting Him for continual inspiration can possibly keep men from being sinners or idolaters in all that they do. PowerPoint: Read whatever chapter of Scripture you will, and be ever so delighted in ityet it will leave you as poor, as empty and unchanged as it found you unless it has turned you wholly and solely to the Spirit of God, and brought you into full union with and dependence upon Him. Take away this inspiration of the Holy Spirit, or suppose it to cease for a moment, then no religious acts or affections can give forth anything that is godly or divine.

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In fact, listen to this intriguing analogy from William Law: The Christian church today [is] in the same apostasy that characterized the Jewish nation. And it has occurred for one and the same reason. The Jews refused Him [i.e., Jesus] who was the substance and fulfilling of all that was taught in their Law and Prophets. The Christian church is in a fallen state for the same rejection of the Holy Spirit, who was given to be the power and fulfilling of all that was promised by the gospel. And just as the Pharisees rejection of Christ was under a profession of faith in the Messianic Scriptures, so church leaders today reject the demonstration and power of the Holy Spirit in the name of sound doctrine.
Reprinted as: William Law, The Power of the Spirit, edited by Dave Hunt (Fort Washington, Pa.: Christian Literature Crusade, 1971), pp. 17, 19
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The New Testament without the coming of the Holy Spirit in power over self, sin, and the devil is no better a help to heaven than the Old Testament without the coming of the Messiah.8 Finally, a somber warning: Every society of Christians which rejects the present operations of the Holy Spirit can produce nothing better than a religion of self-effort, despite its great zeal for sound Scripture doctrines. One can be so proud of his doctrinal soundness that the Holy Spirit cannot convict him of the unsoundness of his life.9 There is no question that the Quakers and Methodists of the 1600s and 1700s made a huge impact on the English-speaking people on both sides of the Atlantic. They drew churchgoers close to the fire of the Spirit and brought many unbelievers to know Christ for the first time. Next week well see how this spiritual tide kept rolling in America. As always, give out copies of this weeks Whispers of the Divine Wind. The two pages can be printed frontand-back if you wish.

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The Power of the Spirit, pp. 23-24 The Power of the Spirit, pp. 27, 41

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