John Wesley

John Wesley is a British priest Anglican of the 18th century and the founder of the methodism.

Born on June 17th 1703, he is the fifteenth child of the rev. Samuel Wesley, vice-chancellor ( vicar ) of the parish Anglican of Epworth (Lincolnshire), and Suzanna Wesley, a pious, but demanding mother. His/her two parents came nonconformist families (i.e. having broken with the Church of England). In 1720, it is registered with the Université of Oxford, where it refuses to be delivered to libertinages and the life dissolue students. It forms the ¨Club of Saints¨ ( Holy Club ) with other students, of which his/her Charles brother, to request and make spiritual exercises punctually, which was worth to them the qualifier of methodists " because of the regularity and the spirit of méthode" brought by its members in their religious practices. Graduate in 1724, it is ordered priest Anglican in 1728 by the bishop of Oxford, John Potter, who was to be appointed thereafter archbishop of Canterbury (1737-1747).

Influenced by the Moravian Brothers and the Movement of the Alarm clock, Wesley saw, in 1738, an experiment of conversion. Announcing the Good news of the hello offered to all the men, by the faith, it meets soon a sharp opposition on behalf of the established Church. He recommended an personal experience with God and its Christian social concern started by visiting the coal mines and writing treaties of popular medicine. Its theology is found in its “Sermons” (100 in the last edition of its " Sermons one Several Occasions" published of alive sound, in 1785). Wesley is surrounded laic preachers. He does not hesitate to furrow the Great Britain - preparing its sermons, reading and writing with horse - to go to the meeting of his parishioners. Untiring preacher, it traverses more than 400.000 km, most of the time with horse, and pronounces more than 40.000 sermons. “The world is my parish”, declares it. Contributing to the creation of schools and social welfare to fight against ignorance and poverty, it will be one of the first to be protested against the Esclavage.

Wesley ends up breaking " de facto " with the Church Anglican in 1784. The act which consumed in an obvious way the schism took place in two times: September 1st, 1784, in a Bristol-board house, it ordered deacons two of its itinerant preachers, Richard Whatcoat and Thomas Vasey. The following day, it ordered them “old hand” (“elders”), i.e. priests, and ordered to his friend Thomas Coke “inspector” (“superintendent”), in other words, bishop. These events are reported laconically in the Newspaper of John Wesley: “Wednesday September 1. Being now clear in my own mind, I took has step which I had long weighed in my mind and appointed Mr. Whatcoat and Mr. Vasey to go and serf the desolate sheep in America. Thursday 2, I added to them three more, which I verily believe will Be much to the glory off God”. For each one of these ordinations, it used the ritual specified by the ordinal one of the " Book off Common Prayer" , although this last specified as of its preamble that only a bishop can confer the orders.

With its death, in 1791, one counted approximately 70.000 methodists in Great Britain and 60.000 in the United States.

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