John Wesley — "I have often thought, that if I were to choose a food to eat, it should be bread…"
I have often thought, that if I were to choose a food to eat, it should be bread and water.
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More from John Wesley
"Are we not a little too apt to forget that the Methodists are not the only Christians in the world?"
"I have often thought, that if I were to choose a servant, it should be one that needed no wages."
"I am a debtor both to the wise and to the unwise."
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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
The speaker would willingly choose the most basic, plain sustenance possible — bread and water — over any richer food. This expresses a deep embrace of simplicity and voluntary poverty, rejecting comfort and luxury as unnecessary or even harmful to spiritual life. It is not deprivation as punishment but as a freely chosen discipline reflecting values over appetite.
Relevance to John Wesley
Wesley lived with radical frugality throughout his life, famously earning large sums from his writings yet dying with almost nothing, having given nearly everything away. He preached against luxury and materialism constantly, warning that wealth corrupted the soul. His 'plain living' extended to diet, dress, and possessions — this statement perfectly mirrors his lifelong ascetic discipline and Methodist emphasis on stewardship over self-indulgence.
The era
Eighteenth-century England was marked by stark inequality — the wealthy indulged in elaborate feasts while the poor frequently starved. The Methodist revival emerged partly as a reaction to this moral contrast. Wesley ministered primarily to miners, factory workers, and the destitute. In that context, a prominent clergyman voluntarily identifying with the diet of the poor carried enormous symbolic weight and challenged the Church of England's comfortable alliance with the gentry class.
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