John Wesley — "I am as much a High-Churchman as ever I was."
I am as much a High-Churchman as ever I was.
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More from John Wesley
"I have but one point in view, to promote, as far as I am able, vital, practical religion."
"Cleanliness is indeed next to godliness."
"I set myself on fire, and people come to watch me burn."
"Though I am an old man, I am but a little child; for I am just beginning to learn the alphabet of salvation."
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About John Wesley (1703-1791)
English Anglican cleric and founder of Methodism, whose open-air preaching and class-meeting structure created the largest 18th-century evangelical revival. Closely associated with Charles Wesley (his hymn-writing brother) and George Whitefield (early co-revivalist, later doctrinal opponent). For an intellectual contrast, see George Whitefield, Calvinist evangelical revivalist — Whitefield's predestinarian Calvinism vs Wesley's free-grace Arminian theology split the early Methodist movement permanently in the 1739-41 break. The founding evangelical Calvinist-Arminian schism — the two parallel evangelical traditions American Christianity descends from.
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Understanding this quote
What it means
Wesley insists his commitment to Anglican High-Church principles—sacramental practice, liturgical order, and church authority—remains unchanged despite his controversial field preaching and Methodist societies. He's defending against accusations of abandoning the established church's traditions. The point: innovation in method doesn't equal abandonment of doctrine. You can organize open-air revival meetings and still hold exactly the theological and ecclesial convictions that Anglo-Catholic High-Churchmen prize.
Relevance to John Wesley
Wesley was an ordained Anglican priest who never formally left the Church of England. Steeped in High-Church tradition at Christ Church Oxford and the Holy Club, he insisted Methodism was a renewal society within Anglicanism, not a breakaway denomination. He administered sacraments, revered liturgy, and believed in apostolic order. This quote captures the painful tension he carried lifelong: a High-Churchman whose movement inevitably became a separate church only after his death.
The era
In 18th-century England, High-Churchmen and evangelical reformers were in open conflict inside the Church of England. Wesley's open-air preaching and lay preachers looked exactly like Dissent to his critics—and Dissenters faced real legal disabilities under the Test and Corporation Acts. Claiming High-Church identity wasn't theological vanity; it was Wesley positioning himself as a reformer working within the establishment rather than a Nonconformist outsider, a distinction that carried serious social and legal weight.
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