![]() ![]() ![]() I have written about several other quotes misattributed to John Wesley: You can add this quote to other quotes that are stubbornly connected to John Wesley despite the fact that there is no source that connects them to Wesley’s pen. Wesley didn’t say, “I set myself on fire and people come to watch me burn.” We should stop saying that he did. Wesley’s desire was not to attract people to himself, but to point them to the risen Lord who was their only hope of salvation. It would not be characteristic of Wesley to say, “I do something awesome, and as a result people come to look at me.” In the email string that first made me aware of how often this is attributed to Wesley, someone commented that the quote was rather “braggadocious” and as a result did not sound like Wesley. It does not sound like something that Wesley would have said. It troubles me that this quote is so frequently attributed to Wesley. His response was along these lines: You can look for that quote in Wesley as long as you want, you won’t find it. I emailed noted historian of Wesley and early Methodism, Dr. I was a PhD student when I first wrote this post, so I checked in with an expert before I hit publish. For John Wesley, this would be published writings like sermons, treatises, and his published Journal or manuscript sources like letters. The standard for attributing words to someone is documentation showing they said it. It is impossible to prove that someone never said something. But no historian thinks we can know what dead people said in conversations that were never recorded or written down. Several people have sarcastically said something like, “Oh, so you were there to hear every word that John Wesley ever said?” I have been surprised by the anger from some commenters on my series of “Wesley Didn’t Say It” posts. Inaccurate information spreads rapidly on the internet. But what you will not find is a citation of the source where Wesley is supposed to have actually said it. It is easy to come up with numerous examples of this quote being attributed to Wesley. So, if you ask Google for John Wesley quotes, two of the first four it currently gives you are two quotes that he did not actually say. I updated this post on April 25, 2020, and did a google search for “John Wesley quotes.” The first entry is an answer box that has a list of unattributed John Wesley quotes. I set myself on fire and people come to watch me burn.Ĭatch on fire with enthusiasm and people will come for miles to watch you burn.īut this may be the most persistent quote that is incorrectly attributed to John Wesley. Continued abuse of our services will cause your IP address to be blocked indefinitely.Among the words put in John Wesley’s mouth that he did not actually say, perhaps the most common are the following: Please fill out the CAPTCHA below and then click the button to indicate that you agree to these terms. If you wish to be unblocked, you must agree that you will take immediate steps to rectify this issue. If you do not understand what is causing this behavior, please contact us here. If you promise to stop (by clicking the Agree button below), we'll unblock your connection for now, but we will immediately re-block it if we detect additional bad behavior.
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