Charles Wesley was only in America for 246 days. He arrived in Georgia aboard the Simmonds with his brother John on February 5, 1736. He set sail again for England aboard the Hannah on October 25, 1736.
What did he have to say about America? Charles Wesley had a lot to say about America. He wrote some about his brief time there. He wrote more about the Methodists in America and the American Revolution which began almost 30 years after he left. He also discussed the horrors of slavery that he witnessed with his own eyes.
Here are twelve quotes to give you a flavor of Charles’s thoughts on America. Some of these may be surprising or even upsetting for those who grew up in the U.S. It is eye-opening to see a committed Christian’s outside perspective on the country and its formation.
1. A Scene of Sorrows
Charles’s time of ministry in Georgia did not go as well as he had hoped. When he left Savannah, he wrote this:
The words which concluded the lesson, and my stay in Georgia, were, “Arise, let us go hence.” Accordingly at twelve, I took my final leave of Savannah. When the boat put off, I was surprised that I felt no more joy in leaving such a scene of sorrows.
-Charles Wesley, MS Journal entry Monday, July 26, 1736.
He was mostly miserable for his entire stay. Yet, he had hoped that his ministry would have been more fruitful.
Therefore, he has mixed emotions at leaving. He viewed Georgia as a scene of sorrows. He was happy to leave. Yet, his joy was mingled with disappointment.
2. On The Horrors of Slavery
After leaving Georgia, Charles arrived in Charleston on July 31, 1736. Here he observed and heard about the terrible reality of slavery in America.
Beware. These descriptions are not easy to read.
I had observed much, and heard more, of the cruelty of masters towards their negroes. But now I received an authentic account of some horrid instances thereof. The giving a child a slave of its own age to tyrannize over, to beat and abuse out of sport, was, I myself saw, a common practice. Nor is it strange that being thus trained up in cruelty, they should afterwards arrive at so great perfection in it.
-Charles Wesley, MS Journal entry Monday, August 2, 1736.
Charles witnessed the common practice of cruelty being practiced by children toward slaves. It was no surprise to Charles that results of such common practice would be that the children would grow to even more cruelty as adults.
After some truly shocking and disgusting tortures are described by adult slave masters toward their slaves, Charles continues his entry:
It were endless to recount all the shocking instances of diabolical cruelty which these men (as they call themselves) daily practice upon their fellow-creatures, and that on the most trivial occasions. I shall only mention one more … He whipped a she-slave so long, that she fell down at his feet for dead. When by the help of a physician she was so far recovered as to show signs of life, he repeated the whipping with equal rigour, and concluded with dropping hot sealing wax upon her flesh. Her crime was overfilling a tea-cup.
-Ibid.
In a land that said slaves were less than human, Charles questioned the humanity of the slave owners. He said they call themselves men. But their treatment of fellow creatures proves otherwise.
Charles didn’t mince words. This practice of slavery practiced in America was diabolical. Wicked. Evil. He was shocked by it. And rightfully so. It was a truly despicable practice.
He concludes the entry with these thoughts:
These horrid cruelties are the less to be wondered at, because the government itself in effect countenances and allows them to kill their slaves by the ridiculous penalty appointed for it, of about 7 pounds sterling (half of which is usually saved by the criminal’s informing against himself). This I can look upon as no other than a public act to indemnify murder.
Ibid.
The law of the land allowed, and in effect, made this cruelty commonplace. Charles didn’t view slaves merely as property. He viewed them as people. Made in the image of God. You can’t murder property. You can only murder people.
It didn’t take much exposure for Charles Wesley to conclude that American slavery was evil. He would remain anti-slavery for the remainder of his life.
3. Beauty in Boston
I rode out with Mr Price in his chaise, to see the country, which is wonderfully delightful. The only passage out of town is a neck of land about 200 yards over, all the rest being encircled with the sea. The temperate air, the clear rivulets, and the beautiful hills and dales, which we everywhere met with, seemed to present the very reverse of Georgia.
-Charles Wesley, MS Journal entry Saturday, October 2, 1736.
Charles was now in Boston. He had arrived on September 24, 1736.
By his description, Charles found Boston to be the reverse of Georgia. While he didn’t have much positive to say about Georgia, it seems that Charles enjoyed his brief stay in New England a bit more.
4. Advocates For The Colony
Despite Charles’s disappointing personal ministry, he advocated for the work of the ministry to continue in America upon returning to London.
In the evening a multitude came and went, most to inquire of their friends or relations in Georgia. I sent them away advocates for the colony.
-Charles Wesley, MS Journal entry Wednesday, December 15, 1736.
Even though he no longer remained in America, people he and others cared about were. He also genuinely desired for the work of evangelization to continue. Something he was unable to participate much in his brief stay.
5. George Whitefield’s Orphanage
The most important person influenced by Charles Wesley in favor of the work in America was his friend George Whitefield.
In our own day, George Whitefield is the more famous Methodist between the two. The preaching campaigns of Whitefield in America are legendary. Whitefield is also famous for his orphanage in Bethesda which is still operational today as an academy for boys.
But they may never have happened without the influence of Charles. Charles had been advocating for the evangelization of America after his return to London. He received correspondence from his friend.
Received a letter from Mr Whitefield, offering himself to go to Georgia.
-Charles Wesley, MS Journal entry Wednesday, December 22, 1736.
Short. To the point. There isn’t much in the journal to fill out the context. But George Whitefield provides some insight in a letter he wrote from Georgia dated March 21, 1745.
Some have thought that the erecting such a building was only the produce of my own brain; but they are much mistaken; for it was first proposed to me by my dear friend, the Rev. Mr. Charles Wesley, who, with his excellency General Oglethorpe, had concerted a scheme for carrying on such a design before I had any thoughts of going abroad myself. … and believing such a provision for orphans would be some inducement with many to come over, I fell in with the design, when mentioned to me by my friend, and was resolved, in the strength of God, to prosecute it with all my might.
-George Whitefield, Historical Collections of Georgia, 329.
Whitefield explained that the idea for building an orphanage in Georgia was not his idea. It was presented to him by his friend, Charles Wesley, before he even considered going to America at all.
This seed has produced much fruit. It was planted by Charles Wesley and cultivated by George Whitefield to the glory of God.
6. To The American Rebels
Charles was English. He was also a Christian. His perspective on the American Revolution was that the Americans were rebels. The Founding Fathers that some Americans nearly deify, Charles vilified.
You may not like his perspective. That’s okay.
It is important to realize that while many Americans claim that the country was founded on Christian principles, Charles argues that the founding of America was against Christian principles.
In a long poem titled, “To the American Rebels, Hymn IX,” Charles Wesley wrote:
3. Your unprovok’d Rebellion brings
Our more disloyal deeds to mind,
(Disloyal to the King of Kings)
In league against your Country join’d,
Ye our ingratitude reprove,
Against our heavenly Father’s Love.
-Charles Wesley, in Kimbrough, Unpublished Poetry, 1:71.
Charles viewed the American rebellion as unprovoked. He said it was disloyal both to England and to their God. Charles said the rebellion was against their heavenly Father’s love.
He continued:
5. Ye vipers who your Parent tear
With evil all our good requite,
Ye cannot yet with us compare,
Who do our Loving Lord despite,
His yoke reject, his cross disclaim,
And put him to an open shame.
Ibid.
From Charles’s perspective, the American rebels were doing evil. Repaying good with evil. Yet, Charles also viewed his own country as rejecting God. Disclaiming his cross. Putting the Lord to open shame.
Charles viewed the American rebellion as chastening of England for their own apostasy. He prayed, not for American Independence, but for reconciliation.
8. Great Peacemaker ‘twixt God and man,
Who God and man hast join’d in one,
Turn and unite our hearts again,
That all Jehovah’s work may own,
And Britons thro’ the world proclaim
The wondrous powers of Jesus’ name.
Ibid.
Charles didn’t want England and America to fight each other for political sovereignty. He wanted to work in unity to proclaim the excellencies of Christ to the ends of the earth.
Therefore, Charles did not view the America Revolution, or its effects, with favor.
7. Fighting Against The Lord
Scripture is filled with nations God raised up as instruments in His hand. Assyria. Babylon. Persia. Greece.
But their military success was not proof that God was with them. Sometimes people mistake victory with proof of God’s divine stamp of approval for the victors.
Charles didn’t. He viewed the war with the American rebels as fighting against God, not with Him. For either side.
4. Father, for his sake convert
A rebellious nation’s heart,
That we may thy grace implore,
Fight against our God no more.
-Charles Wesley, “Hymn XI,” ibid., 1:75.
Charles was praying for God to convert the heart of England. For the sake of Jesus. To stop fighting a war and shedding blood. So they could focus on preaching the blood of Christ to sinners. (For more of Charles’s thoughts on this, check out my articles on evangelism and the gospel.)
8. American Independence
The Revolutionary War ended in 1783 with a peace treaty between America and the British. Charles’s thoughts on this were clear.
4. Rebels, whose Independent Rise
He prophesies his Country’s fall,
He decks with the imperial prize,
He makes them sovereign lords of all,
His own prediction to fulfil,
And yields us up to Satan’s will.
Ibid., 1:100.
9. The Bill of Rights
In college, I studied political science. It was my minor. Most of my study of American history viewed the Bill of Rights as one of the best and most important political documents ever written.
Charles Wesley had a different perspective on it.
For Liberty Rebellion fights,
And Hell supports The BILL OF RIGHTS!
-Charles Wesley, “Another,” Ibid., 1:150.
Charles saw irony in the rebellious fighting for liberty. He also asserted that these rights were not supported by heaven but by hell.
While his reasons are not explicit in this poem, it seems Charles saw the danger in elevating individual rights and sovereignty in the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness against true Christian freedom, which lays down life and liberty to pursue the glory of God.
10. Laying Hands on a Hot Head
If there was something Charles liked less than the American rebellion, it was the idea of separating from the Church of England. Charles and his brother John had a sharp disagreement about the ordination of ministers as Methodists, outside of proper Anglican channels.
It came to a head in the ordination of Dr. Thomas Coke by John Wesley to be a bishop for the Methodists in America.
Charles wrote a poem about John’s decision.
On John Wesley’s Ordaining Dr. Coke, Etc.
1. Wesley himself & Friends betrays
By his good Sense forsook,
When suddenly his Hands he lays
On the hot Head of Coke:
2. Yet we at least should spare the weak,
His weak Co-evals we;
Nor blame a hoary Schismatick,
A Saint of eighty three.
-Charles Wesley, ibid., 3:81.
Wesley felt betrayed by his brother. He did not think highly of Dr. Coke. Charles was even less enthusiastic about the inevitability of separation after the ordination.
11. Sects Throughout The Land
Charles dreaded separation from the Church of England because he saw the bigger picture. He didn’t believe that Anglicans were perfect. But he valued unity.
To separate was to be a schismatic. It was an attack on unity. Charles was right about the effects of separation which resulted from John Wesley’s ordination of Thomas Coke as bishop for America.
3. Ah! Where are all his Promises and Vows
To spend, & to be spent for Sion’s Good,
To gather the lost sheep of Israel’s house,
The Outcasts bought by his Redeemer’s bl[oo]d?
4. Who won for God the wandring Souls of men,
Subjecting multitudes to Christ’s command,
He shuts his eyes, & scatters them again,
And spreads a thous[an]d Sects throughout the land.
Ibid., 3:87.
This seed of sectarianism was being planted in both America and England. It was planted by John Wesley in defiance of Charles’s wishes and warnings.
Just as the revival of The Great Awakening has impact on modern religious experience, so did the ordination of Thomas Coke.
In another poem, Charles makes it clear that he believed Coke was sent to America for their rebellion against Britain.
Happy America, whose ruinous wars,
Direful calamities, & loss extreme,
One single man, (above man’s height) repairs,
In rank sublime, in dignity supreme:
To gain a C[oke] is “ample Compensation,
For half a million slain and general Desolation!”
Ibid., 3:89.
From Charles’s perspective, America was causing desolation. Thomas Coke was their compensation.
It’s very likely that Charles would look at the state of denominationalism in America today and say we are still eating the fruit of the sins of our Founding Fathers.
12. Abiding Influence In The U.S.
The many denominations springing from the Methodists separation have been influential in America.
With the possible exception of the Reformed Churches, the Methodists have been the most influential Protestant family of churches in the U.S. Hundreds of American denominations, service organizations, and educational institutions have their roots in the Methodist movement. Until it was eclipsed by the Catholic Church, the Methodist Church was the largest religious organization in the United States, and it still has the greatest geographical scope in the U.S. of any religious body, being represented in virtually every county of the nation.
-Frank Mead et. al., Handbook of Denominations, 12th edition, 217, bold added.
That influence, from Charles’s perspective, would have been greater had they remained in unity with the Church of England.
But what are your poor Methodists now? Only a new sect of Presbyterians! And after my brother’s death, which is now so near, what will be their End? They will lose all their influence and importance; they will turn aside to vain janglings; they will settle again upon their lees; and, like other Sects of Dissenters, come to nothing!
-Charles Wesley, Letter to Dr. Chandler, in Tyson, Charles Wesley: A Reader, 61.
The Methodists certainly didn’t lose all their influence as Charles predicted. The value of that influence, whether they’ve turned aside, settled on their lees, and come to nothing, is for the reader to decide for themselves.
Related Questions
When did John Wesley ordain Thomas Coke? Thomas Coke was ordained by John Wesley as the first Methodist bishop in 1784. He was commissioned to ordain the Methodist lay-preachers in America. John had concealed his intention knowing Charles’s feelings against it. In a letter to Dr. Chandler, Charles stated that John’s ordination of Coke had dissolved their ministry partnership.
Did the Wesley’s start the Methodist denomination? The Methodists were not officially a separate denomination until after the death of both John and Charles Wesley. However, Charles had been counseled by the Church that “ordination was separation.” It could be argued that John’s ordination of the Methodists in 1784 was the beginning of the denomination even though it wasn’t official until 1795, four years after John’s death and seven years after Charles’s.
0 Comments