John Wesley, enthusiast

The upper class and intellectuals hated "enthusiasm."  In fact, a famous bishop in the Church of England said that claiming to be inspired by the Holy Spirit was "a horrid thing, sir, a very horrid thing."   Another bishop wrote a three volume book on The Enthusiasm of the Methodists and Papists Compared (Edwards, 66).  "Papists" (followers of the pope, Catholics) were suspiciously distrusted due to the religious civil wars in which the Protestant Church of England "won."  Most people thought Methodism and Catholicism had a lot in common, and trusted neither.  And although when John and Charles Wesley preached they did not intend to incite crowds to revivalist phenomena, this is what happened (Edwards, Maldwyn.  Sons to Samuel (London: The Epworth Press, 1961) 65-66).

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John and Charles and their friend George Whitefield had discovered there were hundreds of thousands of people who had not been exposed to the Gospel, so they preached wherever they could.  John Calvin's doctrine of "double predestination" was the prevalent theology.  This meant that God calls only some of us to be Christians, God's grace is irresistible and the called can't do anything but be saved.  There are others who are not chosen and there is nothing they can do to be saved  The Wesleys preached that Christ died for everyone and offers universal salvation.  All persons can be redeemed but not quickly and not easily, and we must "work out our own salvation with fear and trembling" (Philippians 2:12) (Watson, David Lowes. "Q and A" lecture, Wesley Pilgrimage, 8 October 2012).  Think how poor illiterate oppressed people would feel when told they have not been automatically condemned but can change their lives through their own effort and God's grace?  Of course they would react intensely!

"While the word of God was preached, some persons have dropped down as dead; some have been, as it were, in strong convulsions; some roared aloud, though not with an articulate voice; and others spoke the anguish of their souls," wrote John (Works, viii, p. 129 ff, quoted in Holland, Bernard. "A Species of Madness: The Effect of John Wesley's Early Preaching." Wesley Historical Society Proceedings (v. 39, October 1973), 79).  By fervently preaching about hell and its agonies, John frightened some people into becoming hysterical.  Bernard Holland postulates that the reason penitent people desperate for God's forgiveness would become so hysterical is that early in his preaching John taught that, "in spite of their longing to be reconciled to God, they were nevertheless still damned until faith was given them.  It was this that so intensified the feeling of helplessness and anxiety of those who were under conviction that some of them fell down as if dead, or cried out, or became delirious" (Holland, 80-81, italics by author.)

Charles felt that often people were doing this for attention, and found it distasteful.  He wrote in his Journal on 4 June 1743 that "outward affections were easy to be imitated" and found that when he ignored a drunk who supposedly was having a religious fit, and moved some loudly crying women out of his sight, both these problems resolved (Edwards, 65-66).

Neither Charles' nor George's preaching inspired the hysteria John's did.  Eventually John agreed with Charles that those longing for faith were accepted by God, since God gave the longing even if one did not immediately have spiritual confirmation of the faith, and therefore changed his message.  Thus, after the anxiety (Holland, 83) and the novelty wore off, the unpleasant excesses of emotionalism receded.  However, the negative impressions of Methodist "enthusiasm" continued for many years (Edwards, 66).