Archive: The Passing of a Prophet

By J. Wesley Bready

John Wesley’s final years were a prolonged and glorious evening, terminating in a golden sunset. If the face of the very young man had been ascetic, rigid, and slightly overbearing, that of the very old man was mellow, gracious, and beatific.

“Perfection” was the goal to which he long had aspired; and though he himself was acutely conscious of his shortcomings, the marks of his high aspiration were written unmistakably in the beauty and strength of his countenance and reflected unmistakably in the graciousness of his spirit and manner.

Resistance Wanes—Acceptance Grows

But ere the termination of his eightieth year, cloud and storm had well-nigh passed from his horizon and the veteran prophet moved largely in an atmosphere of serenity, veneration, and awe. Many who once had cursed him, now were praying for him. Not a few parsons who long had thundered against him from their pulpits, now were imploring him to preach from those same pulpits.

The stiff-necked, ecclesiastical and lay, continued to put on airs and expatiated on the “folly of enthusiasm” and the “madness of the masses.” But to multitudes Wesley finally was an honored and matchless prophet. The tide had turned. The latter years of the great evangelist’s itinerary were a series of triumphal tours. Commonly, as this veteran campaigner for God passed through towns and villages, the streets were lined with excited crowds gazing with stark admiration and wonder “as if the king were going by.” Clergymen—Nonconformist and Anglican—turned out everywhere to hear him preach. Even bishops stole sheepishly into his open-air congregations. The fury of the anti-Wesley mobs was no more.

His Vigor Remains

This patriarch-preacher’s virility as an octogenarian is one of the marvels of recorded history. Still he rose regularly at four in the morning, and generally he preached at five. Still his mental and physical powers matched, or all but matched, the vigor of his indomitable soul.

On his eighty-fifth birthday, he breaks forth in a typical strain: “What cause have I to praise God; as for a thousand spiritual blessings, so for bodily blessings also! I find some decay in my memory, with regard to names and things lately past; but not at all with regard to what I have read or heard twenty, forty, or sixty years ago. And I am not conscious of any decay in writing sermons; which I do as readily, and I believe as correctly, as ever.”

Wesley’s life extended into all the decades of the eighteenth century. To many of his followers it must have seemed incredible that ever he should leave them. His very person appeared to them the symbol and embodiment of all that was immortal. Yet the days even of holy men are numbered, and the sands of his life were fast running out. On Tuesday, February 22, 1791, he preached in the City Road Chapel and conferred with his leaders. But he was not well.

Up at four the following morning, he traveled to Leatherhead, where in the home of a magistrate he preached from the text, “Seek ye the Lord while He may be found.” It was his last sermon. On Thursday he visited an old friend, Mr. Woolf, at Balham. On Friday he was hurried back to his London rooms in the City Road, a stricken man. With difficulty he mounted the stairs to his chamber. Premonition told him he would mount those familiar stairs no more.

Immediately Bessie Ritchie had a blanket about him, and he was seated in an easy chair. Friends already were clustering around, desiring to serve him. Calmly and graciously, he bestowed upon them his blessing. Then, emphatically, he requested to be left alone. For at least half an hour, no one must enter his chamber — not even his faithful confidant Joseph Bradford or Dr. Whitehead, his physician.

The Prophet’s Reflections

For fifty-three years past, the central doctrine of Wesley’s preaching was that men are saved by faith; but the corollary of that doctrine he taught was that they would be judged by their works. And now he who had spent his long life in leading a nation to God, was himself about to stand before the eternal Judge. No sooner was the chamber door closed, than the deeper impressions of his life began to surge in rapid sequence across his mind. Time and space were gone.

Again a child of five, the old man felt himself a “brand plucked from the burning,” staring wildly from his rescuer’s arms to see the blazing roof of the Epworth parsonage crash into a furnace of flames. Again he heard his mother’s soft voice explaining to him the mysteries of the Spirit. “Your rescue from the fire, Jackie, was wrought by the hand of God. Providence has sealed you for His own!”

Charterhouse school … Oxford … the Holy Club loomed before him. Very sincere had been that band of legal zealots, struggling with monkish ardor to hammer out their salvation by ascetic habits and rites. Their faith was that of servants, not sons.

His mind sped on to Georgia … Sophy Hopkey–that capable, sprightly, lovely girl. Little had he understood her! … and his squabbles with his parishioners. The panorama swept back to England.

Then appeared Peter Bohler, with his tender patience and his quiet communion with Christ. “Preach faith till you have it!” implored the young Moravian missionary. Aye, Bohler’s example and advice had indeed been a lamp to his feet. For the thousandth time, he thanked God that the youthful pietist had crossed his path.

And now once more it was May 24, 1738, the day of his spiritual baptism, the day of his rebirth. Again he was with the little society in Aldersgate Street. The eternal glory and power of faith now flashed afresh as a mighty revelation athwart his soul. Anew, his heart was “strangely warmed,” and vividly he saw himself impelled to testify concerning the marvelous experience that there first filled his being. Struggles and difficulties were ahead; but worry, morbidity, corroding doubt—these (Heaven be praised!) were nightmares of the past. Sin still would tempt him, but never again could it conquer him. A new Power possessed him. Henceforth, he knew himself an approved ambassador of God.

And now, as his life’s work really began, the Church that had ordained him, began to disown him. “Go hence!” was Bishop Butler’s advice. “Pretending” to any special guidance of the Holy Spirit was “a horrid thing—a very horrid thing.”

It was George Whitefield who cast down the barriers. His open-air preaching to the disinherited had illumined the example and revealed the will of Christ. The brooding man now saw himself preaching on the Horse Fair, Bristol. A national crusade had been forced upon him. Thenceforth, the marketplace, the town common, and the open field were to him the temple of God.

Once more he saw the mobs “raging as lions”; sticks and stones again were hurtling round his head. “Satan was fighting furiously for his kingdoms.” But how the arm of the Lord had been revealed! What wondrous deliverances had he known! Even mob leaders had turned defenders and friends.

Abruptly the chambers of memory opened upon the itinerant and local preachers, upon the class leaders and teachers of the crusade. They now were to be numbered in thousands, “a cloud of witnesses” to the redeeming power of grace. Ah, the ways of God put the pride and snobbery of man to shame.

His memories glided on to America. Where he had failed, Whitefield had prepared the way for his disciples. Oh, the encouraging letters from Francis Asbury and Thomas Coke! In ten years the preaching circuits within the young republic had increased fivefold. He himself had hoped to visit America again, but well had his place been filled.

Soon came a group of old friends. Whitefield—dear George! With what holy abandon had he placed his life on the altar of God! “Oh, the tragedy,” thought the brooding man aloud, “that ever we had bickered. As though any creed or doctrine could encompass the wisdom or ways of God. Ah, here our hearts were purged, but hereafter our brains also will be purged.”

And brother Charles. Already his hymns were proving a blessing in the far-flung ends of the earth. And Lady Selina. She, too, had been wondrously used. And Fletcher, the saintly John Fletcher. Wesley had preached “Perfection”; but Fletcher had come nearer to its attainment than he. Even in controversy that gracious, godly man had breathed but only tender love toward his adversaries.

And England. True, the Revival had made religion once more vital and God, through Christ, both personal and real. But England’s need of spiritual vision was still great. The poor. How misunderstood were the poor! How neglected and how abused. And the African slaves. Their appalling wrongs cried aloud to Heaven for redress! Oh, man’s inhumanity to man! Yet, God be thanked, the national conscience was gradually, if slowly, awakening. Something approaching a moral revolution was under way.

But hark. The brooding, stricken man roused himself as from slumber. The great clock was striking. His half-hour of solitude was more than up. Someone was vigorously tapping on the door. Wesley’s musing ceased.

A Grace-Filled Death

The veteran preacher’s end was wholly beautiful. In death, as in life, Wesley’s example was one not only of spiritual triumph, but of continued fellowship with the poor. Often had he prayed, “Lord let me wear out, not rust out! Let me not live to be useless.” That prayer was literally fulfilled. Though in the ninth month of his eighty-eighth year he was preaching and writing even into his last week on earth. And now, on his deathbed, he called out, “Where is my sermon on ‘The Love of God?’ Take it and spread it abroad. Give it to everyone.” Then he broke into song.

But the strength of his body was being spent. Long periods of sleep ensued. Once or twice as the fever reached its zenith, he was wafted into a gentle delirium, and imagined himself preaching to the multitude or conferring with his preachers. As the fever waned his countenance would kindle and his eyes sparkle, and he would bid his friends, “pray and praise.” No murmur, no complaint escaped his lips. With the humility of saintliness, several times he cried:

“I the chief of sinners am,

But Jesus died for me.”

The lines, however, which focused his consciousness, and which again and again he sang, were:

“I’ll praise my Maker while I’ve breath,

And when my voice is lost in death,

Praise shall employ my nobler powers.”

On the evening preceding his translation, he smiled benignly on all about him, and with great effort, raising his hand, exclaimed calmly and clearly, “The best of all is, God is with us!” Instinctively all present fell on their knees, and as Joseph Bradford led in prayer, the holy man’s soul without struggle or groan sped forth to the spirit center of the kingdom of God—the kingdom which had provided the inspiration and the dynamic for his abundant labors on earth. In death his countenance reflected the supreme gladness of his exultant soul. A winsome smile enwreathed his face.

Thus, the man who had preached more than 45 thousand sermons, who had traveled (mostly on horse-back) a distance equivalent to nine times round the world, who had written 233 books and pamphlets, and helped with the writing of fully 100 more—the “grand old man” and noblest prophet of the English-speaking world—passed to his long home. No sooner was his spirit released, than those who had come to rejoice with him, burst into an anthem of praise.

The Witness of Wesley’s Funeral

Among Wesley’s funeral instructions was the request that his body be buried in nothing more costly than wool. No silk or satin was to adorn the corpse from which his spirit had fled. And his last will and testament gave final seal to the gospel he had so long and so courageously preached. “Whatever remains in my bureau and pockets at my decease,” he directed, was to be equally divided among four poor itinerants, whom he named. Then came a clause expressive both of his solicitude for the unemployed and of his efforts for funeral reform. He specially requested that neither hearse nor coach take any part in his funeral, and he desired that six poor men in need of employment be given a pound each to carry his body to the grave.

For several days, Wesley’s body lay in state in his City Road Chapel, where multitudes filed silently by, each reverently pausing a moment over the now cold, lifeless face, which so often they had seen aflame with a living fire, divine. Thousands in that multitude shed tears as they thought of all they owed to him who, in the deepest sense, was their “father in God.” But to avoid any final blockade the actual hour of interment was kept secret to the inner circle. The funeral on that memorable winter’s morning was conducted by torchlight and was concluded before dawn of day.

Dr. Whitehead, his faithful medical adviser and loyal disciple, delivered the funeral address; an itinerant preacher performed the last rites. The solemn comrades looking on knew well that “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes,” referred only to the body. Wesley already was in the land of the immortals, where always he will occupy a foremost place among the world’s worthiest leaders of men. “Do you think we shall see John Wesley in heaven?” once inquired an over-aggressive Calvinist of Whitfield. “I fear not,” replied the fellow evangelist, musing. “No, he will be so near the throne, and we at such a distance, that we shall hardly get a glimpse of him.”

Though this great gentleman and mighty prophet died without material estate, he nevertheless left behind him a heritage which has enriched beyond computation the real and abiding wealth of all mankind. For if spiritual values and spiritual attainments be the ultimate standard of greatness, few greater than this little English preacher have yet trodden the earth; and none greater has spoken the English tongue.

Reprinted with permission of Macmillan Publishing Company from England: Before and After Wesley—The Evangelical Revival and Social Reform, by J. Wesley Bready: Russell & Russell Publishers, New York, 1971.