Women and Wesley's Times

   John Wesley received much of his early spiritual and academic training from his mother Susanna Wesley (below),



who told him that he was "a brand plucked from the burning" and was to have a special vocation given by God when he grew up. Susannah was referring to his near death from burning when the parsonage home his family was living in went up in flames when he was a little boy.

    In that Susanna was a strong, intelligent, spiritually mature woman may also be a reason why Wesley supported such women leaders in the Methodist movement. While John Wesley , for the most part, did not technically allow women to preach ("exhort"), he did recognize and encourage women to be leaders in a variety of ways.

    Though we may think of John Wesley as too conservative in his view of women's leadership, he was attacked from inside and outside of Methodism for his actions. In London , for example, some of Wesley's followers tried to exclude women from a number of the society's activities. Their actions infuriated Wesley, who told them that he did "exceedingly disapprove" of excluding women when the society met to pray, sing , and read the Scriptures. 1 A clergyman accused Wesley of keeping women in Bristol so busy that they were not giving their families proper attention. "William Fleetwood dismissed the Methodists, or 'Perfectionists,' as he called them, as a group of 'silly Women.'... Such attacks were unfounded but the response of women to Wesley's liberating message was overwhelming indeed. 2

   In his book John Wesley: Holiness of Heart and Life , Charles Yrigoyen, Jr., observes:

Methodists flourished under the direction of class and band leaders, persons of spiritual strength and insight. Most of them were women! Among them were Sarah Crosby, Dorothy Downes, and Grace Murray , exemplary Christians whose witness persuaded many to accept God's grace and begin a new life....

In effect, [Sarah Crosby, Mary Bosanquet (right), Hannah Harrison, Eliza Bennis , Jane Cooper , and others]... were engaged in preaching, and many people experienced conversion as a result of their testimony and proclamation of the gospel.... In 1787, despite the objections of some of the male preachers, he officially authorized Sarah Mallet to preach, as long as she proclaimed the doctrines and adhered to the disciplines that all Methodist preachers were expected to accept. [3]

   Methodist women of Wesley's day truly "offered them Christ" in a variety of ways.

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Susanna Wesley and the Unauthorized Meetings

by J. B. Wakeley, 19 th Century Methodist Historian

   While her husband was absent in London in 1711, attending Convocation, Mrs. Wesley adopted the practice of reading in her family, and instructing them. One of the servants told his parents and they wished to come. These told others, and they came, till the congregations amounted to forty, and increased till they were over two hundred, and the parsonage could not contain all that came. She read to them the best and most awakening sermons she could find in the library, talked to the people freely and affectionately. There meetings were held "because she thought the end of the institution of the Sabbath was not fully answered by attending Church unless the intermediate spaces of time were filled up by other acts of devotion."

   Inman, the Curate, was a very stupid and narrow man. He became jealous because her audience was larger than his, and he wrote to Mr. Wesley, complaining that his wife, in his absence, had turned the parsonage into a conventicle; that the Church was likely to be scandalized by such irregular proceedings; and that they ought to be tolerated no longer. Mr. Wesley wrote to his wife that she should get some one else to read the sermons. She replied that there was not a man there who could read a sermon without spoiling it.

   Inman, the Curate, still complained, and the Rector wrote to Mrs. Wesley that the meetings should be discontinued. Mrs. Wesley answered him by showing what good the meetings had done, and that none were opposed to them but Mr. Inman and one other. She then concludes with these wonderful sentences: "If after all this you think fit to dissolve this assembly do not tell me you desire me to do it, for that will not satisfy my conscience; but send your positive command in such full and express terms as may absolve me from all guilt and punishment for neglecting this opportunity for doing good when you and I shall appear before the great and awful tribunal of our Lord Jesus Christ.

   Were not these the first Methodist meetings held by the Wesleys?

   Can we wonder that Isaac Taylor says that "the mother of the Wesleys was the mother of Methodism;" and that in her characteristic letter, when she said, "'Do not advise me, but command me to desist,'" she was bringing to its place a corner-stone of the future of Methodism."

   Who can tell the influence those meetings of their mother in the parsonage had upon John and Charles in future years, who were then little boys, and always present!


Epitaph for Susanna Wesley

1670-1742

   After Susanna Wesley died on July 23, 1742 , she was buried at Bunhill Fields. John Wesley conducted the services. Charles Wesley wrote the epitaph for her tombstone. Later a new stone was set up, bearing a different inscription.

In sure and steadfast hope to rise,
And claim her mansion in the skies,
A Christian here her flesh laid down,
The cross exchanging for a crown.
True daughter of affliction, she,
Inured to pain and misery,
Mourn'd a long night of griefs and fears,
A legal night of seventy years.
The Father then revealed his Son;
Him in the broken bread made known;
She knew and felt her sins forgiven,
And found the earnest of her heaven.
Meet for the fellowship above,
She heard the call, "Arise, my love!"
"I come!" her dying looks replied,
And , lamb-like as her Lord, she died.

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