From The London Times-
A union of Methodism and the Church of England is not only inevitable, it is absolutely consistent with John Wesley’s view of the proper relationship between the “Connexion” that he founded and the Anglican Communion that he never left. Wesley did not set out to create a new protestant denomination. He aspired first to reinvigorate the Established Church, then to reform it and eventually to rebuild it in his own image. That aspiration reveals he was a megalomaniac — but not an apostate. He was living proof of Bernard Shaw’s belief that the world is changed by unreasonable men. Without him the “Great Awakening” would not have shaped modern Britain.
Critics complained that Wesley’s behaviour made a split inevitable. But the worst that his brother Charles — an Anglican loyalist — could say about him was that he did not fight hard enough to avoid the schism and that his paper to the Leeds Conference in 1755 rejected separation on grounds of expediency rather than principle. And even Charles — the contented rural rector and hymn writer — accepted that the Church he served and loved was at best torpid and at worst corrupt.
When Wesley began to spread the message of redemption throughout England, the Archdiocese of York included 393 incumbencies in which the clergy were strangers to their parishes. In another 335, priests enjoyed income from more than one benefice. Patronage and plurality were not the prerogative of the North. The Bishop of Winchester, distributed 30 incumbencies between his sons and sons-in-law. Wesley was a great phrase maker – an important attribute in an insurgent. But his complaint that the shepherds neglected their sheep — stolen from Milton – was a statement of fact as well as a slogan.
More here-
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article7026846.ece
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