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Bible Encyclopedias
Wesley, Charles (1), a.m.
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
or Wesley, Charles (1), A.M.
the hymnnist of Methodism, and one of "the sweet singers in Israel," was celebrated also as a preacher and a coadjutor of his brother John in the great evangelical and ecclesiastical movement of their lives and times.
I. Life. — Charles Wesley was born at the parsonage, Epworth, Lincolnshire, Dec. 18, 1707, being the eighteenth child and the youngest son of Rev. Samuel Wesley. (All the biographers. except one give the date as Dec. 18, 1708; the latest, Mr. Geo. J. Stevenson, says that the information now at hand places the date a year earlier. See Memorials of the Wesley Family [Lond. 1876], p. 385). When five years of age he entered his mother's school, where began that systematic course of mental discipline which laid the groundwork of his after success in academic pursuits. At eight he was enrolled at Westminster School, where his brother Samuel was usher — elegant scholar, and who imbued his little charge with his own High-Church notions. Here he became a friend of a Scotch lad, James Murray, afterwards the celebrated lord Mansfield.
Young Charles made such progress in his studies that in 1721 he was admitted one of the king's scholars, his expenses being thus henceforth borne by the Foundation. The biographers think it doubtful whether religion would ever have had the services of the great hymnist, or the State those of the administrator of India and the hero of Waterloo, if the student at Westminster had accepted an heirship to the estates of Garrett Wesley, Esq., member of Parliament for the County of Meath, at this time (about 1726) pressed upon him by his landed relative. In 1726 he was elected to Christ Church College, Oxford, an institution which his brother John had left a little before. Here he and a few friends became so diligent in study, serious in manner, and observed with such strictness the method of study and practice laid down in the statutes of the university, that they won for themselves an epithet first applied to a college of physicians in Rome in the time of Nero, and soon the little band was known by a word that has now in a large measure lost its opprobrious note — Methodist. At the age of twenty-one Charles took his A.B. degree, and became tutor in the college. In November, 1729, the "Methodists" were joined by John Wesley, and through insult and ridicule pursued their devotional and self-denying labors.
The brothers remained at the university until the death of their father, in April, 1735. Having been persuaded to accompany John on the mission to Georgia, primarily as secretary to the managing committee of the colony and private secretary to general Oglethorpe, its founder, Charles, at the instance of Dr. Burton, was ordained deacon in Oxford by Dr. John Potter, bishop of that city, and on the following Sunday he was ordained priest in the metropolis by Dr. Gibson, bishop of London (autumn of 1735). The ship Symmonds sailed up the Savannah Feb. 5, 1736. It is needless to treat the reader with an account of the mishaps, privations, trials, and persecutions which befell our subject in this country. He can read it in Charles Wesley's Journal and Life. Suffice it to say that diligently and conscientiously he endured hardship as a good soldier while stationed at Frederica. On the 11th of August, 1736, Charles Wesley, sick and disappointed, embarked for England. The vessel was compelled to put into Boston, here, under kind and hospitable treatment, he quite filly recovered, so as to be able to preach frequently in King's Chapel. On Dec. 3, 1736, he arrived at Deal. England. By the desire of the University of Oxford, Charles Wesley was requested to present their address to the king, which he did at Hampton Court, Aug. 29, 1737. He was graciously received, and dined with the royal household.
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