A HISTORY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE 



He went to Pembroke College, Oxford, as a servitor, and there came under 

 the influence of the Wesleys, joining their religious society in 1733. On his 

 return to Gloucester he formed a little society on the Methodist model. In 

 1736 he was ordained deacon by Bishop Benson. His remarkable gift for 

 preaching was at once made manifest ; the earnestness of his first sermon in 

 the church of St. Mary de Crypt at Gloucester is said to have driven fifteen 

 persons mad. In 1737 he was curate of Stonehouse for two months, 

 and his popularity was extraordinary. In 1739, after his return from a 

 missionary journey to North America, he came to Bristol, and being unable 

 to get permission to preach in any of the city churches, he delivered his 

 first field sermon to the neglected colliers of Kingswood on Saturday, 

 17 February. On Sunday he preached to an immense congregation in 

 St. Mary RedclifFe, and on Monday in the church of St. Philip. The 

 chancellor summoned him to appear before him on Tuesday, and threatened 

 that if he preached or expounded anywhere without a licence, he would first 

 suspend and then excommunicate him. 1 Nevertheless Whitefield preached 

 the next day to nearly 2,000 colliers at Kingswood, and two days later to 

 between 4,000 and 5,000. He summoned the Wesleys to join him, and on 

 3 1 March John Wesley arrived. ' I could scarce reconcile myself at first,' he 

 wrote in his journal, ' to the strange way of preaching in the fields, of which 

 he set me an example on Sunday, having been all my life (till very lately) 

 so tenacious of every point relating to decency and order, that I should have 

 thought the saving of souls almost a sin if it had not been done in a church.' 2 

 On 2 April he himself began his work as a field preacher, and in the course 

 of the next few days he addressed large gatherings at Baptist Mills, Hanham 

 Mount, Rose Green, Two-Mile-Hill, Fishponds, and the Bowling Green. 8 

 On 12 May the foundation-stone was laid of a building in the Horse Fair 

 near St. James's church, which was intended to contain the societies of 

 St. Nicholas and Baldwin Street and their acquaintance.* Thenceforth 

 Bristol was one of the chief centres of the itinerant ministry of John and 

 Charles Wesley. In 1742 the class meeting with its weekly contributions 

 originated there. 6 On his frequent journeys between Bristol and London 

 during the next few years 6 Wesley preached in many places in Gloucester- 

 shire; for instance, in 1739 at Thornbury and Gloucester, 7 at Runwick, 

 Stanley St. Leonard, and on Hampton Common to between five and six 

 thousand persons; 8 in 1742 at Painswick, Stroud, and Henbury; 9 in 1743 at 

 Gutherton near Tewkesbury; 10 in 1745 to the miners at Colesford. 11 As else- 

 where, the preaching of Wesley and Whitefield chiefly influenced the lower 

 middle class and the poor. Their work at once attracted the attention of 

 Bishop Butler, and in 1740 he sent for Wesley and raised an objection to 

 the form of the doctrine of justification by faith which Wesley taught, on the 

 ground that it was not in accordance with the teaching of the Church of 

 England. 18 He censured the encouragement given by both Wesley and 

 Whitefield to violent physical manifestations of the sense of conversion among 

 their hearers. According to Wesley's account of the conversation, the bishop 



1 Nicholls and Taylor, op. cit. ii, 292. ' Works of John Wesley (ed. 1829), i, 185. 



3 Ibid. 185-192 ; Pawlyn, Bristol Methodism, 21. * Works of John Wesley, i, 192. 



5 Pawlyn, op. cit. 29. 6 Works of John Wesley, \, \\,passim. 



7 Ibid, i, 2U. 'Ibid. 229. ' Ibid. 381-3. 



10 Ibid. 436. " Ibid. 482. " Spooner, Bishop Butler, 25. 



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