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.

More Information

• A Moment With John Wesley, a skit by J. Ann Craig
• Interactive Quiz: John Wesley and the People of His Day (women and men)
• Mary Bosanquet Fletcher (1739-1814), one of the first deaconesses in Methodism
• Jane Cooper: "My Jesus Is All in All to Me", a Methodist leader in 18th Century England
• Grace Murray, Model Leader and John Wesley's True Love
• John Wesley on Women Visiting the Sick, a statement in support of this ministry for women
• On the Death of George Whitefield by Phillis Wheatley (c. 1753-1784), includes a reference to Lady Huntington
• Sarah Gwynne Wesley, musician and wife of Charles Wesley
• Susanna Wesley and the Unauthorized Meetings, a story from J. B. Wakeley, Anecdotes of the Wesleys: Illustrative of Their Character and Personal History (19th century)
  • Charles Wesley's Epitaph for Susanna (1670-1742) from J. B. Wakeley, Anecdotes of the Wesleys: Illustrative of Their Character and Personal History (19th century)

Other Web Sites

• Eliza Bennis. Eliza Bennis was actively involved in the growth and maintenance of Methodism in Ireland and served as a spiritual adviser to many. She kept Wesley informed of Irish developments and maintained many dispirited missionaries by her sound and independent advice.
• A Cluster of Stars - Pioneer Methodist Women by Revd. I. W. Willey, The Ladies' Repository, Volume 26, Issue 6, 1860. Stories about a number of the earliest Methodist women leaders. Part of the Making of America Project, University of Michigan.
• Lady Selina Shirley Huntingdon (1707-1791) Lady Huntingdon (right) appointed the Rev. George Whitefield as one of her chaplains, established sixty-four Methodist meeting houses in England, and provided seminaries for the education of ministers to supply them.
• Letter of John Wesley to Mary Bosanquet, June 13 1771
• Letter of John Wesley to his wife Mary Vazeille, May 22 1752
• The Religious Experience of Jarena Lee b. 1783 (Philadelphia 1836) Giving an account of her call to preach the gospel, revised and corrected from the original manuscript written by herself. Prepared as part of The Digital Schomburg, a project providing electronic access to collections on the African Diaspora and Africa from The New York Public Library.
• Sources of Women's History in Methodism
• Susanna Wesley, George Whitefield and an Early Methodist Controversy, Martha F. Bowden, Kennesaw State University, December 3, 1999

Susanna Wesley
and the Unauthorized Meetings

Graphics
The drawing near the top of most the web pages for Holiness of Heart and Life depicts the Reverend John Wesley (1703-1791) at age 48. All of the black and white drawings have been scanned by Nancy A. Carter for the General Board of Global Ministries, United Methodist Church from public domain nineteeth century or early twentieth century Methodist history books. Please acknowledge this web site, John Wesley: Holiness of Heart and Life, http://gbgm-umc.org/umw/wesley/, if you reproduce these. We now have some graphics available in high resolution format, suitable for print media.

[3] John Wesley: Holiness of Heart and Life, p. 9. This book can be purchased from the Service Center in English, Spanish, or Korean versions.