Rules for Holy Living

Here is the guidance given by Hugh Bourne to those who attended the open-air Camp Meeting in 1808 during the early beginnings of the Primitive Methodist movement. We have much to learn from this wisdom two hundred years later, especially given the level of Biblical illiteracy today.

Rule 1. - Endeavour to rise early in the morning, for this is most healthful. Spend some time in private prayer ; give yourself with all your concerns up to God ; and if possible get the family together before going to work, pray with them, and for them, and recommend them to God.

2. - While at work lift up your heart to God, and if possible get a little time in private once or twice a day to kneel before God.

3. - At night be sure to get the family together on their knees, pray with them, and for them; before going to bed spend some time on your knees, and pour out your soul before God, and remember God is present. Psalm cxxxix.

4 .- If you are able, read a chapter or part of a chapter in the Bible every day.

5. - If you are not born again pray for God to show you the need of it:

6. - As ye have received the Lord Jesus so walk in Him.

7. - On the Sabbath attend public worship as often as possible; avoid buying or selling, or talking about worldly business, or doing any work that is unnecessary. Be sure to shave and clean shoes before Sunday, and be as much afraid of sin as of burning fire.

8. - If the Lord call you to any public exercise, to assist in a Sunday School, He will give you wisdom and patience.

9. - Now play the man, be strong, never mind being reproached for Christ.

Quoted in "The Life of the Venerable Hugh Bourne", by Jesse Ashworth, 1888, page 26

The nonsense my wife talks!

My Wife says I must buy no more books 'till I build another house and advises me to first read some of those I have already - What nonsense she talks sometimes!

Josiah Wedgwood to Thomas Bentley
December 1779

What Dave had for Christmas

Yes, you guessed ...

A Primitive Methodist Centenary plate. It's over a hundred years old, and celebrates the movement's achievements from 1807 to 1907.

The inscription on the back of the plates reads as follows:



“What hath God wrought!”

Chapels & Preaching Places…. 4,905
Ministers …. 1,153
Local Preachers … 16,209
Church members … 210,173
Adherents … 607,682
Sunday Schools … 4209
Teachers … 61,275
Scholars …. 477,114
Value of property … £4,958,978

RD. No 491901
Royal semi porcelain
Manufactured by Wood & Sons, Burslem

In summary, by 1907, that's over 800,000 members and adherents, five thousand churches and nearly half a million scholars.

Repost: A Christmas Day story from 1800

In 1800, life for ordinary working people in England was hard. Times were tough and no-one really cared for the “masses”. One of these men was a coal miner by the name of Daniel Shubotham, who lived in the North Staffordshire village of Harriseahead.

Daniel was a fist fighter, drunkard, gambler and poacher, and prone to outbursts of violence and uncontrolled anger. Although he had been left a considerable amount of property by his father, he had reduced himself and his family to comparative poverty.

Above all else, he excelled at swearing, cursing and profanity. Even his hard living friends, themselves no stranger to foul language, thought that Daniel was the worst swearer they had ever heard.

After bouts of drinking Daniel began to feel remorse and guilt. One day he went to see a friend, a blacksmith, who suggested that Daniel go and see his cousin Hugh Bourne. Bourne himself had been converted to Christ the previous year (in 1799), and had decided to write down his testimony.

Hugh was by nature and temperament shy, bashful and timid, but he took courage went to see Daniel on Christmas Day, 1800. He shared the gospel with his cousin, and gave him a copy of his testimony. Daniel was soundly converted, and news of the dramatic change in his life soon got round the village. From that moment gospel spread like wild fire in the community.

Once converted, Daniel proved a champion of the faith, deterred neither by difficulty nor opposition. In everyday conversation he preached “Jesus and Him crucified” with great zeal. The effects of Daniel’s dramatic change were soon noted in the community and the whole neighbourhood soon felt the effects. Hugh Bourne recalls “In our conversational way, we preached the gospel to all - good and bad, rough and smooth; people were obliged to hear, and we soon had four other coal miners under deep conviction of sin.”

The new converts were great “talkers for the Lord”, and soon the village of Harriseahead was “moralised” (to use their original expression) and the revival quickly spread to the surrounding villages and towns. Conversions spread among the coal miners of Kidsgrove, and five months later, by the time of the Congleton May Fair, the transforming power of the gospel was felt in Mow Cop, Congleton, and beyond. It was like the epicentre of an earthquake, whose effects sent shock waves through the locality.

New believers gathered in homes and they held lively and loud prayer meetings. One woman was converted because she could hear the sound of prayer and praise from a distance of two kilometres.

Once the fire of the gospel took hold, there was no stopping it. There was a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit in 1804. In 1807 they held their first open-air camp meeting at Mow Cop; by 1810 they formally became the Primitive Methodists, and ten years later they had eight thousand members. We have a lot to learn from this revival that became a movement.

What’s in a name? Why “Primitive” Methodism?

The name “Primitive Methodism” seems rather quaint to our modern ears. The word “primitive” usually conveys a negative impression – that of being prehistoric, out-of-date or archaic. That is not what is intended.

John Wesley founded the Methodist movement in 1738. One of the most effective methods he pioneered, together with George Whitfield was field preaching or open-air preaching. In so doing he was able to preach the gospel to hundreds or even thousands of people at any one time. Ironically, by the early 1800s, Wesleyan Methodism had become respectable, and field preaching had fallen out of favour.

In 1790, Wesley preached a farewell address to the preachers of the Chester Circuit. He urged his preachers to preach the gospel wherever there was opportunity. He said “they must enter in, and preach the gospel, under a hedge or a tree” or in any place that was available. Wesley was passionate about using any and every means to declare the Good News.

By 1807, a group of Wesleyan Methodists, led by Hugh Bourne, organised a series of open-air tent meetings (or camp meetings as they were known). These meetings were officially denounced by the Methodist authorities. In response, the Wesleyan Conference of 1807 passed the following resolution:

Q. - What is the judgment of the Conference concerning what are called Camp meetings?

Ans. - It is our judgment that even supposing such meetings to be allowable in America, they are highly improper in England, and are likely to be productive of considerable mischief; and we disclaim all connection with them.

Consequently Hugh Bourne and others were expelled from the Wesleyan Methodists. They continued to practice open-air preaching and camp meetings, believing that in so doing they were reverting to early, authentic Methodism.

One of Hugh Bourne’s fellow preachers defended his position to the Wesleyans when accused of preaching for the Quaker Methodists. Referring to Wesley’s farewell address he said “Mr. Chairman, if you have deviated from the old usages I have not; I still remain a primitive Methodist.”

In 1812 the time came for a name for the new movement. At a business meeting they decided on “The Society of the Primitive Methodists”. The primitive Methodists became Primitive (with a capital P) Methodists.

That is how this slightly anachronistic name identified a great world-wide movement of God.

Hugh Bourne and the lads

A number of Hugh Bourne’s fellow labourers in Primitive Methodist ministry were uneducated young men known as lads. They were a motley crew.

There were many complaints respecting the young men appointed to labour with him; some said – “they were nothing but lads just taken from the plough”.

However, as a result of their ministry in a single year, 1819, they paid a substantial debt of thirty pounds incurred by the Tunstall circuit, they restored camp meetings to their earlier effectiveness, and they were successful evangelists.

So successful were they that at “the quarter-day [business meeting], held at Tunstall, December 27th, 1819, it was found that these plain, unlettered lads had gathered hundreds of precious souls into the church of Christ, the increase for the year being one thousand and fourteen”.

In other words these lads made a thousand converts in one year. Not bad, for uneducated, ordinary young men. Jesus recruited a motley crew – they were called disciples!

Abridged from the “Memoirs of the Life and Labours of Hugh Bourne", Volume II, p98 republished by Tentmaker Publications 121 Hartshill Rd, Stoke-on-Trent

The three amigos, prayer and the start of a movement

On Christmas Day, 1800, Hugh Bourne led his friend Daniel Shubotham to Christ. Not long after Daniel's conversion, Hugh Bourne became friends with another converted coal miner, Matthias Bayley. These three - Hugh, Daniel and Matthias - formed a trio of earnest evangelists, and the whole neighbourhood soon felt the effects as they spoke on pit banks and in open spaces. Lives were dramatically changed as the impact of the gospel message was experienced.

They also organised a weekly prayer meeting on Tuesday evenings which lasted strictly for an hour and a quarter. This was time constrained, because as working men, they felt it their Christian duty to be fit for work the next day. However, the prayer meetings were so dynamic that they wanted to pray more.

Their frustration at not being able to pray increased amongst the zealous believers. One day in a moment of prophetic foresight Daniel proclaimed ‘You shall have a meeting upon Mow Cop some Sunday, and have a whole day’s praying, and then you will be satisfied’.

These words came true on May 31st, 1807 when thousands gathered at Mow Cop in North Staffordshire for the first English Camp Meeting. This event marked the start of what became the Primitive Methodist movement.

The ripples from this great open-air preaching and praying service went far and wide. A whole new denomination was formed, over five thousand churches planted, and hundreds of thousands of members gathered. By 1907, there were ten Primitive Methodist Members of Parliament, and the movement played a key part in the development of Trade Unions and other social institutions such as homes for orphans, an institute for “working lads”, day schools and Sunday Schools.

All this from three friends who gathered together to pray once a week.