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Piety Among ‘The Society of People’: The Witness of Primitive Methodist Local Preachers in the North Midlands, 1812–1862
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Extract
The chief business of Primitive Methodism,’ wrote the editor of the denominational magazine, ‘is to cultivate personal religion, and to seek the salvation of souls.” Although statements at the national level seldom made their way unhampered down to the lay-dominated local circuit, nevertheless, this was one directive which was generally pursued by a substantial number of its local preachers. Indeed, this search for personal holiness, as well as the seeking of it in others seems to have been the two main strands tying Primitive Methodism together. A frustrated Primitive Methodist, however, wrote, ‘Have we shown to the poor and needy that the gospel… teaches us to regard their temporal as well as their spiritual wants?’ Just here lay the source of much of what has concerned historians interested in interpreting the nature and influence of Primitive Methodism. Indeed, when taken together, these two comments have, coincidentally, established the parameters of debate within which the study of Primitive Methodism has been conducted.
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- Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1989
References
1 Primitive Methodist Magazine (1849), p. iii.
2 Ibid. (1848), p. 2.
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