Christian Unity (the book) - The Maranatha Community

This was also true of the ‘methodists’, as they were dubbed in 18 th CenturyEngland and Wales. The term ‘methodist’ (without a capital letter) was notused at that period to describe a member of a denomination, but to label avery serious-minded ‘enthusiast’ who believed that each person needed to beconverted to a faith in Christ alone for salvation, an experience sometimesreferred to as ‘receiving the new birth’.In the early days of the Revival, in the late 1730s, there was no thought of theirdividing from the Church of England. That separate churches did eventuallyemerge in distinct bodies, the Methodists under Wesley and the CalvinisticMethodists in Wales under Howel Harris and Daniel Rowland, was due tosocial, national and theological factors.Women were not usually members of the societies, but there was at least onefor women; it was at Wolverhampton and had 80 members.In 1739 George Whitefield, on his second sea-voyage to America, wrote aLetter to the Religious Societies in which he defined his view of the purposeand role of such groups. Once printed the next year, it was ‘immediatelytranslated into Welsh.’ 68 This letter shows clearly how the members ofsocieties were to act and think, according to Whitefield. His views wereendorsed both in England and Wales by the Wesleys and Harris. He wrote:‘The end of your meeting is not that you may think yourselves more holythan your neighbours, much less to form a sect or party, or to promote aschism or sedition in the Church or State. No: such thoughts, I trust, arefar from you; for they are earthly, sensual, devilish. The only end which Ihope you all propose by your assembling yourselves together, is therenewing of your depraved natures and promoting the hidden life of Christin your souls.’ 69Elsewhere in the Letter, Whitefield stressed the importance of confessingone’s sins to each other in the societies’ meetings, a practice of the Moraviansand a feature of early Methodism.68Evans, Eifion, Daniel Rowland and the Great Evangelical Awakening in Wales, TheBanner of Truth Trust, 1985, p 87.69Evans, Eifion, Daniel Rowland and the Great Evangelical Awakening in Wales, TheBanner of Truth Trust, 1985, p 80.Page 107