Wesley Corpus

Last updated: November 24, 2009. "Primitive Christianity" (1743)1 cf. Baker list, 74 Editorial Introduction: The leading voices in the Church of England in the eighteenth century championed their church as embodying the faith of the "primitive church." The Wesley brothers echoed this claim, but they also contended that the constituency of the Church of England in their day broadly failed to emulate the spiritual vitality of the primitive church. They viewed the Methodist movement as an attempt to renew the Church of England along the lines of its most central commitments. Many of the leaders in the Church of England, and in British culture at large, had questions and concerns about the Methodist movement, sensing in it the ghost of the puritan emphases that had led to civil war in the prior century. John Wesley addressed these concerns in 1743 in a tract titled An Earnest Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion, insisting that the movement was not trying to undermine the established church. After issuing the tract in Newcastle, John had a second edition published in Bristol, to which he appended a poem titled "Primitive Christianity." This poem articulated the ideal of Christian spirituality that the Methodists were trying to recover. It remained as an appendix to most subsequent editions of the tract (exceptions noted below). While there was no indication of the author of "Primitive Christianity" when it appeared in the Earnest Appeal, it is present in Charles Wesley's MS Cheshunt, 160-64; and he included it in his collection HSP (1749), 2:333-36. This makes clear that he was the author. Editions: Charles Wesley. "Primitive Christianity." In John Wesley's An Earnest Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion, 52-55. 2nd edn. Bristol: Farley, 1743. 3rd Bristol: Farley, 1744. 4th Dublin: Powell, 1747. 3rd Bristol: Farley, 1749. 5th Dublin: Powell, 1750. hymn not present 6th Bristol: William Pine, 1765. hymn not present 6th Bristol: William Pine, 1771. Included in JW's Works (Bristol: Pine, 1772), vol. 14 hymn on pp. 172-77. 7th London: Paramore, 1786.