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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009
It was the Primitive Christians of the “purest ages” who inspired and encouraged the Methodist leader, John Wesley, to create a movement based on his vision of the ancient Church. Wesley was convinced that Methodist doctrine, discipline, and depth of piety came nearer to the Primitive Church than to any other group. Methodism, he argued in his sermon for Laying the Foundation of the New Chapel in 1777, was the “old religion, the religion of the Bible, the religion of the Primitive Church.”
1 Ted, Campbell, John Wesley and Christian Antiquity: Religious Vision and Cultural Change (Nashville, Tenn.: Kingswood Books, 1991)Google Scholar; Keefer, L. L., “John Wesley: Disciple of Early Christianity,” Wesleyan Theological Journal 19 (1984): 23–32.Google Scholar
2 Wesley, , On Laying the Foundation of the New Chapel (1777), in Sermons, ed. Outler, Albert C., The Bicentennial Edition of the Works of John Wesley (Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon, 1985), 3:585.Google Scholar
3 Wesley, , Causes of the Inefficiency of Christianity (1789), in Sermons, ed. Outler, , 4:85–96.Google ScholarDeborah, Valenze, “Charity, Custom, and Humanity: Changing Attitudes towards the Poor in Eighteenth-Century England,” in Revival and Religion since 1700: Essays for John Walsh, eds. Jane, Garnett and Colin, Matthew (London: Hambledon, 1993), 59–78, 59.Google Scholar
4 Keefer, , “John Wesley: Disciple of Early Christianity,” 27–30.Google Scholar See Vanderpool's, H. Y. essay, “The Wesleyan-Methodist Tradition,” in Caring and Curing: Health and Medicine in the Western Religious Traditions, eds. Numbers, Ronald L. and Amundsen, Darrel W. (New York: Macmillan, 1986), 317–53, which considers Wesley's medical practice in the context of later Methodist healing traditions. My thanks to Amanda Porterfield for drawing attention to this work.Google Scholar
5 In a letter to his friend, Rev. Vincent Perronet, Wesley explained how he had decided to “prepare and give physic” out of sheer necessity. He wrote the letter in 1746 and a year later published Primitive Physic. See Telford, J., ed., The Letters of the Rev. John Wesley A.M, 8 vols. (London: Epworth, 1931), 2:307.Google Scholar
6 Schmidt, M., John Wesley: A Theological Biography, 2 vols., trans. Goldhawk, N. P. (London: Epworth, 1985), 1:88.Google Scholar
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9 Robert, Boyle, Medicinal Experiments: or, a Collection of Choice and Safe Remedies For the Most Part Simple and Easily Prepared, 4th ed. (1692; London: Samuel Smith, 1703)Google Scholar, n.p. In 1688 Boyle published a collection of recipes entitled “Receipts Sent to A Friend in America.” This collection was expanded and renamed “Medical Experiments” as a posthumous second edition in 1692. See Barbara Beigun, Kaplan, “Divulging of Useful Truths in Physic”: The Medical Agenda of Robert Boyle (Baltimore, Md.: John Hopkins University Press, 1993), 7.Google Scholar
10 Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, n.p.
11 Heller, R., “Priest-Doctors as a Rural Health Service in the Age of Enlightenment,” Medical History 20 (1976): 361–83.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
12 Rack, Henry D., “Doctors, Demons and Early Methodist Healing,” in The Church and Healing, ed. Sheils, W. J., Studies in Church History 19 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), 137–52, at 139.Google Scholar I also treat this argument in my article, “Experience and the Common Interest of Mankind: The Enlightened Empiricism of John Wesley's Primitive Physic,” British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 26:1 (2003): 41–53.Google Scholar Felicity Heal modified this view in her study of hospitality in early modern England. She argued that by the time one reaches the clerical diaries of the eighteenth century, George Herbert's advice about hospitality and charity as a means of curing souls was outdated: “The good parson revelled in entertainment, and was on easy terms with most of his parish, but would have seen no purpose in providing them with general hospitality of any kind.” Heal does see that there were some clergymen who defended the apostolic ideal of open care, but “they were not normally the voices of mainstream Anglicanism: the greatest exponents of open hospitality were William Law … and John Wesley.” See Felicity, Heal, Hospitality in Early Modern England (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990), 298.Google Scholar
13 “Dedication to the Parochial Clergy of this Kingdom,” in Anonymous, The Family Guide to Health; or, a Practice of Physic: In a Familiar Way, 1st ed. (London: J. Fletcher, 1767), iii–iv.Google Scholar
14 “Dedication to the Parochial Clergy of this Kingdom,” in The Family Guide to Health, v.
15 Cule, J., “The Rev. John Wesley, M.A. (Oxon.), 1703–1791: ‘The Naked Empiricist’ and Orthodox Medicine,” The Journal of the History of Medicine 45 (1990): 41–63.Google Scholar
16 Herbert, G., The Country Parson, 1st ed. (London: T. R. for Benjamen Tooke, 1671), 43.Google Scholar
17 Schmidt, , John Wesley: A Theological Biography, 1:41.Google ScholarTyerman, L., The Life and Times of the Rev. Samuel Wesley, MA. (London: Simpkin, Marshall, 1866), 177–79.Google Scholar
18 Tyerman, , The Life and Times of the Rev. Samuel Wesley, 51.Google Scholar
19 Rack, , “Doctors, Demons and Early Methodist Healing,” 139.Google Scholar
20 Bishop Gilbert Burnet noted that there had formerly been societies of this description among Puritan and dissenting religions, but Tyerman states that those springing up in this period belonged to the Established Church. Tyerman, , The Life and Times of the Rev. Samuel Wesley, 215.Google Scholar
21 Wilson, A., “The Politics of Medical Improvement in Early Hanoverian London,” in The Medical Enlightenment of the Eighteenth Century, eds. Cunningham, A. and French, R. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 4–39, at 15.Google Scholar
22 The idea for an infirmary in Westminster was conceived in 1716, but the Charitable Society discontinued its activities for three years before resuming to found and open the Infirmary between the years 1719–20. Samuel Wesley was part of an enlarged personnel of 1719. See Humble, J. G. and Peter, Hansell, eds., The Westminster Hospital, 1716–1966 (London: Pitman Medical, 1966)Google Scholar, which cites the Society Minutes. Craig Rose, “Evangelical Philanthropy and Anglican Revival,” London Review 16 (1991): 35–65.Google Scholar
23 Cited from the Society Minutes in Humble and Hansell, , Westminster Hospital, 6.Google Scholar
24 Ibid.
25 Wilson, , “The Politics of Medical Improvement in Early Hanoverian London,” 20.Google Scholar
26 Rose, “Evangelical Philanthropy and Anglican Revival.”
27 Wesley, Letters, 1:187.
28 Ibid.
29 Tyerman, , The Life and Times of the Rev. John Wesley, MA, 3 vols. (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1870–1872), 1:114Google Scholar; Schmidt, , John Wesley: A Theological Biography, 1:132–33Google Scholar; Campbell, , John Wesley and Christian Antiquity.Google Scholar
30 Tyerman, , The Life and Times of the Rev. Samuel Wesley, 215.Google Scholar
31 After the revolution of 1688, Horneck was appointed Chaplain to King William and Queen Mary. In 1693 he became Prebendary of Westminster.
32 Tyerman, , The Life and Times of the Rev. Samuel Wesley, 215.Google Scholar
33 Ibid.
34 The Society for the Reformation of Manners became defunct in 1730 but was revived by John Wesley, among others. By 1766 the Society ceased to exist—as a result of legal action taken against it, which resulted in their paying £300 in damages. The Society could not recover this loss.
35 Tyerman, , The Life and Times of the Rev. Samuel Wesley, 226.Google Scholar
36 Gilley, S., “Christianity and Enlightenment,” History of European Ideas 1 (1981): 103–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
37 Cited by Rose, , “The Origins and Ideals of the SPCK 1699–1716,” in The Church of England. C.1689–C.1833: From Toleration to Tractarianism, eds. Walsh, J. D., Haydon, C., and Taylor, S. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 172–90, at 179.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
38 Wilson, , “The Politics of Medical Improvement in Early Hanoverian London,” 20–25.Google Scholar
39 Rose, “The Origins and Ideals of the SPCK 1699–1716.” A philanthropic initiative such as the charitable hospital was an instance where Anglicans and Dissenters could and did work together.
40 Tyerman, , The Life and Times of the Rev. Samuel Wesley, 228.Google Scholar
41 Ibid., 227.
42 Seen in the different views expressed in the work of Wilson and Rose. See Wilson, , “The Politics of Medical Improvement in Early Hanoverian London,” and Rose, “The Origins and Ideals of the SPCK.”Google Scholar Also see Lawrence, Susan C., Charitable Knowledge: Hospital Pupils and Practitioners in Eighteenth-Century London (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
43 Deborah, Valenze, “Charity, Custom and Humanity,” 63Google Scholar; Fissell, M. E., “Charity Universal? Institutions and Moral Reform in Eighteenth-Century Bristol,” in Stilling the Grumbling Hive: The Response to Social and Economic Problems in England, 1689–1750, eds. Davison, L., Hitchcock, T., Keirn, T. and others (New York: St. Martin's, 1992), 121–44.Google Scholar
44 Valenze, , “Charity, Custom and Humanity,” 63–64.Google Scholar
45 See Heal, , Hospitality in Early Modern England; Valenze, “Charity, Custom and Humanity,” 63.Google Scholar
46 Bronwyn, Croxson, “The Public and Private Faces of Eighteenth-Century London Dispensary Charity,” Medical History 41 (1997): 127–49, at 129–28Google Scholar
47 An example of this “social discipline” argument appears in Wilson, K., “Urban Culture and Political Activism in Hanoverian England,” in The Transformation of Political Culture: England and Germany in the Late Eighteenth Century, ed. Hellmuth, E. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 165–84Google Scholar; See also, Croxson, , “London Dispensary Charity,” 135.Google Scholar Many scholars have pointed to this element of social control in the Methodist movement—with particular reference to both John and Charles's desire to inculcate into the lower orders a disciplined “work ethic.” E. P. Thompson put forward this argument famously in his essay, “Time, Work-Discipline and Industrial Capitalism,” in Customs in Common (London: Penguin, 1993), 352–403Google Scholar, but also in his seminal text, The Making of the English Working Class (London: Penguin, 1963).Google Scholar
48 Cited by Tyerman, , The Life and Times of the Rev. Samuel Wesley, 221.Google Scholar
49 Tyerman, , The Life and Times of the Rev. Samuel Wesley, 213.Google Scholar See Wesley, , The Reformation of Manners (1763), in Sermons, ed. Outler, 2:300–323.Google ScholarSamuel, Wesley'sSermon was published in the Methodist Magazine (1814): 648–65, 727–36.Google Scholar
50 Lawrence, , Charitable Knowledge, 38.Google Scholar
51 Roy, Porter, “The Gift Relation: Philanthropy and Provincial Hospitals in Eighteenth-century England,” in The Hospital in History, eds. Granshaw, L. and Roy, Porter (London: Routledge, 1989), 149–78.Google Scholar
52 Porter argues that such acts of benevolence in Georgian England contrasted with those of the seventeenth century because they were stripped of their “sectarian sting” and theological “sniping” (Porter, “The Gift Relation,” 152).
53 Ibid., 162.
54 Ibid., 163.
55 Mandeville, B., An Essay on Charity and Charity Schools, 4th ed. (1724; London: J. Tonson, 1725), 24.Google Scholar
56 Mandeville, , The Fable of the Bets or Private Vices, Publick Benefits, 2 vols., with a commentary by F. B. Kaye (1723, 1728; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1924Google Scholar; reprint Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1988). For a full and illuminating discussion on this subject, see Hundert, E. J., “Sociability and Self-Love in the Theatre of Moral Sentiments: Mandeville to Adam Smith,” in Economy, Polity, and Society: British Intellectual History, 1750–1950, eds. Stefan, Collini, Richard, Whatmore, and Brian, Young (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 31–47, at 35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For Wesley's, comment, see The Journal of the Rev. John Wesley (1827), 2:311.Google Scholar
57 Hundert, , “Sociability and Self-Love in the Theatre of Moral Sentiments,” 35.Google Scholar
58 Theophilus, Evans, The History of Modern Enthusiasm from the Reformation to the Present Times, 1st ed. (London: W. Owen, 1752), 4.Google Scholar
59 Evans, , History of Modern Enthusiasm, 4.Google Scholar
60 Lawrence, , Charitable Knowledge, 45.Google Scholar
61 Ibid.
62 Porter, , “The Gift Relation,” 166.Google Scholar Porter observes that the Leicester Royal Infirmary had no fewer than two hundred copies of DrStonhouse's, James. Friendly Advice to a Patient, 12th ed. (London: J. and F. Rivington, 1774)Google Scholar, and Spiritual Directions to the Uninstructed, 14th ed. (London: J. And F. Rivington, 1780).Google Scholar
63 Hitchcock, T., “Paupers and Preachers: The SPCK and the Parochial Workhouse Movement,” in Stilling the Grumbling Hive, eds. Davison, Hitchcock, Keirn and others, 145–66.Google Scholar
64 Haakonssen, L., Medicine and Morals in the Enlightenment: John Gregory, Thomas Percival and Benjamin Rush (Amsterdam: Clio Medica, 1997), 30.Google Scholar Margaret Pelling has made a similar point by tracing the etymological roots of the word “profession” with regards to medicine. She has seen how this word derived its meaning from a religious context: a member of a religious order “professed” when they took a public vow. After the Reformation, Pelling argues, this term began to acquire more “secular” applications relating to themes of public commitment or open avowal. See Pelling, , “Medical Practice in Early Modern England: Trade or Profession?” in The Professions in Early Modern England, ed. Wilfred, Prest (London: Croom Helm, 1987), 90–128.Google Scholar
65 William, Buchan, Domestic Medicine: or, a Treatise on the Prevention and Cure of Diseases by Regimen and Simple Medicines, 2nd ed. (1769; London: W. Strahan, 1772), xxx–xxxi.Google Scholar
66 Cited by Rousseau, G. S., “John Wesley's ‘Primitive Physick’ (1747),” Harvard Library Bulletin 16 (1968): 242–56, 249.Google Scholar
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68 Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, “The Authors Introduction to the First Volume," n.p. It must be stated here, however, that while the style, form, and motivation of Primitive Physic is reminiscent of the earlier text written by Boyle, the actual remedies put forward by Wesley differ enormously. Wesley's, “receipts” were closely allied to the medical practice of his day. For a full analysis of this connection, see my doctoral thesis, “Pristine Purity: Primitivism and Practical Piety in John Wesley's Art of Physic” (Ph.D. thesis, University of Oxford, 2003).Google Scholar
69 Boyle, , Medicinal Experiments, 4th ed., “Preface,” n.p.Google Scholar
70 “Dedication to the Parochial Clergy of this Kingdom,” The Family Guide to Health, iv.Google Scholar
71 Porter, , “The Gift Relation,” 163.Google Scholar
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73 Ibid., xxxi.
74 Dorothy, Porter, “Public Health,” in Companion Encyclopaedia of the History of Medicine, 2 vols., eds. Bynum, W. F. and Roy, Porter (London: Routledge, 1993), 2:1231–61, at 1235Google Scholar; Riley, James C., The Eighteenth-Century Campaign to Avoid Disease (London: Macmillan, 1987).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
75 Riley, , The Eighteenth-Century Campaign to Avoid Disease, 151.Google Scholar
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