Features

Thomas Taylor One of Wesley’s veterans

We continue our series of paired articles on early Methodist preachers from the UK and Singapore, aiming to trace the movement of the Holy Spirit in grassroots evangelistic preaching, reminding us of the evangelistic fervour of Methodism worldwide, and demonstrating the fruitfulness of the Gospel when preached with spiritual power and integrity. The first instalment was published in MM Oct 2015 (P20-21). As you read the biographies of our Methodist forebears, may you too be inspired to preach the Gospel – not only within the church, but going beyond to reach our community.

 

The Rev Dr David Lowes Watson is an eminent Wesleyan scholar, author and Methodist minister of the Tennessee Conference, the United Methodist Church, USA. He was keynote speaker at the Aldersgate SG 2014 Convention.

 

Like many early Methodist preachers, Thomas Taylor came from humble origins. He was born on 11 Nov 1738, the youngest of eight children in a working-class family. According to his own account in The Lives of Early Methodist Preachers, he was a boy “of a passionate temperament who swore in a most dreadful manner,” though he did read the Bible and “got much light into many things”.

 

When he was 17 he heard George Whitefield preach on the text “it is high time to awake out of sleep” (Rom 13:11, KJV) and went home “full of good resolutions”. This led him to join a Methodist Society, and one evening during his prayer time “the Lord appeared in a wonderful manner … I saw him by the eye of faith, and caused such love to flow into my soul that I believed that moment and never since gave up my confidence”.

 

He continued his fellowship with the Methodists and began to sense a call to preach “as a fire in his bones”. The Society recognised this, and one Sunday when they had no preacher they asked him to bring the message. Further invitations followed, and in July 1761 he met John Wesley who encouraged him to attend the next Methodist Conference in London. It was a mark of Wesley’s leadership that he quickly discerned a call to preach, and Taylor was duly appointed by the Conference to serve in Wales.

 

Thus began a ministry of more than five decades, boldly preaching the gospel throughout the British Isles. Wherever he was appointed he also made sure that the Methodist Societies followed the General Rules established by John Wesley, which make clear that the “method” of Methodism has always been a disciplined discipleship.

 

Most of Taylor’s preaching was in the open air. This meant extensive travel, usually on horseback, often on foot. It also meant facing direct and even violent opposition which he became adept in handling, as in the town of Cork in Ireland when the colonel of an army regiment ordered his trumpeters to sound while Taylor was holding a service in the street. He responded by having the people who had gathered to hear him sing the Doxology over and over again until “the trumpeters were at last fairly worn out”.

 

He also encountered the brutality of the 18th century penal system. In Scotland he visited a man in prison for the murder of his wife, and witnessed his execution. According to Scottish law at the time, before being hanged the man’s right hand was chopped off. Taylor published a censorious account of this, leading to personal attacks on him “filled with lies of all sorts”.

 

In 1799, Taylor’s ministry took him to the West of England, and on 22 May he preached at Gwennap Pit in Cornwall. This was a large hollow in the ground, probably caused by mining subsidence, and John Wesley preached there a number of times. It remains an important place of Methodist pilgrimage, and Bishop Emeritus Dr Robert Solomon of The Methodist Church in Singapore is pictured below preaching to a group of pilgrims at the same site.

 

Wesley records in his Journal that he preached at Gwennap on 14 Sept 1766, and observes: “I believe there were twenty thousand people, and, the evening being calm, all could hear.” As we can see from the picture, even Wesley could be lured into what can best be described as “a preacher’s count”. Thomas Taylor died on 16 Oct 1816, his obituary noting that he had “only a few hours earlier, in an animated sermon, set forth the deep things of God”

SHARE THIS POST

Menu