JOHN, a very extraordinary character, and founder of the sect of Methodists, was the son of the Reverend Samuel Wesley, rector of Epworth in the Isle of Axholme in Lincolnshire, and was born in that village in the year 1703. His very infancy was distinguished by an extraordinary incident; for when he was only six years old, the parsonage-house at Epworth was burnt to the ground, and the flames had spread with such rapidity, that few things of value could be saved. His mother, in a letter to her son Samuel Wesley, then on the foundation at Westminster school, thanks God that no lives were lost, although for some time they gave up Poor Jacky, as she expresses herself; for his father had twice attempted to rescue the child, but was beaten back by the flames. Finding all his efforts ineffectual, he resigned him to Divine Providence. But parental tenderness prevailed over human fears, and Mr Wesley once more attempted to save his child. By some means equally unexpected and unaccountable, the boy got round to a window in the front of the house; and was taken out, by one man's leaping on the shoulders of another, and thus getting within his reach. Immediately on his rescue from this very perilous situation, the roof fell in. This extraordinary escape explains a certain device, in a print of Mr John Wesley, engraved by Vertue, in the year 1745, from a painting by Williams. It represents a house in flames, with this motto from the prophet, "Is he not a brand plucked out of the burning?" Many have supposed this device to be merely emblematical of his spiritual deliverance; but from this circumstance it is apparent that it has a primary as well as a secondary meaning; it is real as well as allusive.

In the year 1713 he was entered a scholar at the Charter-house in London, where he continued seven years under the tuition of the celebrated Dr Walker, and of the Rev. Andrew Tooke author of The Pantheon. Being elected to Lincoln college, Oxford, he became a fellow of that college about the year 1725, took the degree of Master of Arts in 1726, and was joint tutor with the Rev. Dr Hutchins the rector. He discovered very early an elegant turn for poetry. Some of his gayer poetical effusions are proofs of a lively fancy and a fine classical taste; and some translations from the Latin poets, while at college, are allowed to have great merit. He had early a strong impression, like Count Zinzendorf, of his designation to some extraordinary work. This impression received additional force from some domestic incidents; all which his active fancy turned to his own account. His wonderful preservation, already noticed, naturally tended to cherish the idea of his being designed by Providence to accomplish some purpose or other, that was out of the ordinary course of human events. The late Rev. Samuel Badcock, in a letter inserted in the Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica, No. XX, says, "There were some strange phenomena perceived at the parsonage at Epworth, and some uncommon noises heard there from time to time, which he was very curious in examining into, and very particular in relating. I have little doubt that he considered himself the chief object of this wonderful visitation. Indeed his father's credulity was in some degree affected by it; since he collected all the evidences that tended to confirm the story, arranged them with scrupulous exactness, in a manuscript consisting of several sheets, and which is still in being. I know not what became of the ghost of Epworth; unless, considered as the prelude to the noise Mr John Wesley made on a more ample stage, it ceased to speak when he began to act."

"The dawn of Mr Wesley's public mission (continues Mr Badcock) was clouded with mysticism; that species of it which affects silence and solitude; a certain inexplicable introversion of the mind, which abstracts the passions from all sensible objects; and, as the French Quietists express it, perfects itself by an abstraction of the will and intellect, and all the faculties, into the Deity." In this palpable obscure the excellent Fenelon led himself, when he forsook the shades of Pindus, to wander in quest of pure love with Madam Guyon! Mr Wesley purified for a while the same ignis fatuus with Mr William Law and the Ghost of De Reny. A state, however, so torpid and ignoble, ill-suited the active genius of this singular man. His elastic mind gained strength by compression; thence bursting glorious, he passed (as he himself somewhere says) "the immense chasm, upborne on an eagle's wings."

The reading of the writings of this Mr William Law, the celebrated author of Christian Perfection, and of A Serious Address to the Christian World, contributed moreover, to lead Mr John Wesley and his brother Charles, with a few of their young fellow-students, into a more than common strictness of religious life. They received the sacrament of the Lord's Supper every week; observed all the fasts of the church; visited the prisons; rose at four in the morning; and refrained from all amusements. From the exact method in which they dispensed of every hour, they acquired the appellation of Methodists; by which their followers have been ever since distinguished.

But a more particular account of the origin of this sect, we shall give from a celebrated publication. "The Methodists (says the editor of this work) form a very considerable class, principally of the lower people in this country. They sprung up about fifty years ago at Oxford, and were soon divided into two parties; the one under the direction of Mr George Whitefield, and the other under that of two brothers, John and Charles Wesley. These leaders, and, if we except Mr William Law, founders of the Methodists, were educated at Oxford, received episcopal ordination, and always professed themselves advocates for the articles and liturgy of the established church; though they more commonly practised the dissenting mode of worship. But conceiving a design of forming separate communities, superior in facility and perfection to all other Christian churches, and impressed to a very considerable degree by a zeal of an extravagant and enthusiastic kind, they became itinerant preachers; and, being excluded from most of our churches, exercised their ministry in private houses, fields. fields, &c. not only in Great Britain and Ireland, but also in America; thus collecting a very considerable number of hearers and proselytes, both among the members of the established church and the dissenters. The theological system of Mr Whitefield and his followers is Calvinistic; that of Mr Wesley and his disciples Arminian; and the latter maintains the possibility of attaining final perfection in the present state. The subordinate teachers of both these classes of Methodists are generally men of no liberal education; and they pretend to derive their ministerial abilities from special communications of the Spirit. The Methodists of both parties, like other enthusiasts, make true religion to consist principally in certain affections and inward feelings which it is impossible to explain; but which, when analysed, seem to be mechanical in their spring and operation; and they generally maintain, that Christians will be most likely to succeed in the pursuit of truth, not by the dictates of reason, or the aids of learning, but by laying their minds open to the direction and influence of divine illumination; and their conduct has been directed by impulses."

Our readers will judge for themselves, according to their various modes of education, and to the different lights in which they may respectively view the doctrines of our common Christianity, whether this representation of the origin of the Methodists, and of their distinguishing tenets, be accurate and just.—Not presuming to sit in judgment on the religious opinions of any man, we shall only observe, that an appellation originally given in reproach, has been gloried in ever since by those who have distinguished themselves as the followers either of Mr Whitefield or of Mr Wesley. "After the way called Methodism, so worship they the God of their fathers." But the ridicule and contempt which the singularity of their conduct produced, both John and Charles Wesley were well qualified to bear. They were not to be intimidated by danger, actuated by interest, or deterred by disgrace.

The boundaries of this island were soon deemed by Mr Wesley too confined for a zeal which displayed the piety of an apostle, and of an intrepidity to which few missionaries had been superior. In 1735 he embarked for Georgia, one of our colonies, which was at that time in a state of political infancy; and the great object of this voyage was to preach the gospel to the Indian nations in the vicinity of that province. He returned to England in 1737. Of his spiritual labours, both in this country and in America, he himself has given a very copious account, in a series of Journals printed at different periods. These journals draw upon our laborious preacher and his coadjutors some severe animadversions from two right reverend prelates; Dr George Lavington bishop of Exeter, and Dr William Warburton bishop of Gloucester. The former published, in three parts, The Enthusiasm of the Methodists and Papists compared; the third part of this performance containing a personal charge of immoral conduct. Mr Wesley, in his vindication, published a letter to his lordship, which produced a reply from the latter.

Bishop Warburton's attack is contained in his celebrated treatise, entitled The Doctrine of Grace: or, The Office and Operations of the Holy Spirit vindicated from the Insults of Infidelity, and the Abuses of Fanaticism: concluding with some thoughts, humbly offered to the consideration of the Established Clergy, with regard to the Right Method of defending Religion against the Attacks of either party; 2 vols. small 8vo, 1762. There is much acute reasoning, and much poignant and sprightly wit, in his Doctrine of Grace; but there is too much levity in it for a grave bishop, and too much abuse for a candid Christian. On this occasion, Mr Wesley published a letter to the bishop, in which, with great temper and moderation, as well as with great ingenuity and address, he endeavoured to shelter himself from his lordship's attacks; not only under the authority of the Holy Scriptures, but of the church itself, as by law established.

On his return from Georgia, Mr Wesley paid a visit to Count Zinzendorf, the celebrated founder of the sect of Moravians, or Herrnhutters, at Hernhut in Upper Lusatia. In the following year he appeared again in England, and with his brother Charles, at the head of the Methodists. He preached his first field-fermon at Bristol, on the 2d of April 1738, from which time his disciples have continued to increase. In 1741, a serious altercation took place between him and Mr Whitefield.

In 1744, attempting to preach at an inn at Taunton, he was regularly silenced by the magistrates. Although he chiefly resided for the remainder of his life in the metropolis, he occasionally travelled through every part of Great Britain and Ireland, establishing congregations in each kingdom. In 1750 he married a lady, from whom he was afterwards separated. By this lady, who died in 1781, he had no children.

We have already mentioned Mr Wesley as a very various and voluminous writer. Divinity, both devotional and controversial, biography, history, philosophy, politics, and poetry, were all, at different times, the subjects of his pen: and, whatever opinion may be entertained of his theological sentiments, it is impossible to deny him the merit of having done very extensive good among the lower classes of people. He certainly possessed great abilities, and a fluency which was well accommodated to his hearers, and highly acceptable to them. He had been gradually declining for three years before his death; yet he still rose at four in the morning, and preached, and travelled, and wrote as usual. He preached at Leatherhead in Surrey, on the Wednesday before that event. On the Friday following, appeared the first symptoms of his approaching dissolution. The four succeeding days he spent in praising God; and he left this scene, in which his labours had been so extensive and so useful, at a quarter before ten in the morning of the 2d of March 1791, in the 88th year of his age. His remains, after lying in a kind of state at his chapel in the city-road, dressed in the sacred robes which he usually wore, and on his head the old clerical cap, a bible in one hand, and a white handkerchief in the other, were, agreeably to his own directions, and after the manner of the interment of the late Mr Whitefield, deposited in the cemetery behind his chapel, on the morning of the 9th March, amid an innumerable concourse of his friends and admirers; many of whom appeared in deep mourning on the occasion. One singularity was observable in the funeral service. Instead of, "We give thee hearty thanks, for that it hath pleased thee to deliver this our brother;" it was read "our father." A sermon, previously to the funeral, had been preached by Dr Thomas Whitehead, one of the physicians to the Wesley, London hospital; and on the 13th the different chapels of his persuasion in London were hung with black.

It has been justly observed of Mr Wesley, that his labours were principally devoted to those who had no instructor; to the highways and hedges; to the miners in Cornwall, and the coaliers in Kingwood. These unhappy creatures married and buried among themselves, and often committed murders with impunity, before the Methodists sprung up. By the humane and active endeavours of Mr Wesley and his brother Charles, a sense of decency, morals, and religion, was introduced into the lowest classes of mankind; the ignorant were instructed, the wretched relieved, and the abandoned reclaimed. His personal influence was greater, perhaps, than that of any other private gentleman in any country.—But the limits of this article will not permit us to expatiate further on the character of this extraordinary man.