Charles Wesley—His Final Years and Legacy

AbstractBy the time of Charles Wesley's death in 1788 his public and Methodist profile outside London and Bristol was greatly diminished. His relationship with his brother had been strained since the beginning of the 1750s, while some important preachers expressed little sadness at his death. Charles Wesley's Church‐Methodist viewpoint did not, however, die with him; many lay people and some preachers retained a dual loyalty to both Methodism and the Church of England and carried on the struggle into the 1790s and after. The legacy of Church Methodism was an inclusive 19th century Wesleyan denomination whose members were at liberty also to regard themselves as Anglicans if they wished. Also, as late as the 1880s, important features of Wesleyan Methodist polity and worship referred back to the movement's origins within the Church of England.