I did not know this about Wesley. Good for him.
John Wesley's views on women
John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, was the first within his movement to authorize a woman to preach. In 1761, he granted a
license to preach to
Sarah Crosby.
[9]
Mary Bosanquet was responsible for Wesley formally allowing all women to preach. In the summer of 1771, Bosanquet wrote to John Wesley to defend hers and Crosby's work preaching at her orphanage, Cross Hall.
[10][11] Bosanquet's letter to Wesley is considered to be the first full and true defense of women's preaching in Methodism.
[10] Her argument was that women should be able to preach when they experienced an "extraordinary call", or when given permission by God.
[10][12] Wesley accepted this idea, and formally began to allow women to preach in Methodism.
[13][14] Later, Wesley also licensed other women as preachers, including Grace Murray, Sarah Taft,
Hannah Ball and Elizabeth Ritchie.
Wesley's appreciation for the importance of women in the church has been credited to his mother,
Susanna Wesley. It is said[
by whom?] that she instilled in him, and in his brother
Charles Wesley, a fellow preacher in the movement, a deep appreciation for the intellectual and
spiritual qualities of women. Susanna Wesley and other women in the early Methodist movement helped to evangelize and were active members in Methodist activities ranging from band classes to raising funds for the continuation of Methodism and managing
educational institutions.
John Wesley's views on women can be found in his 1786
sermon "On Visiting the Sick". In the sermon, he attacks the requirement of
submissiveness that was often imposed on women of the time:
It has long passed for a maxim with many that "women are only to be seen but not heard." And accordingly many of them are brought up in such a manner as if they were only designed for agreeable playthings! No, it is the deepest unkindness; it is horrid cruelty; it is mere Turkish barbarity. And I know not how any women of sense and spirit can submit to it.
[15]
Previous to this sermon, John Wesley had also removed the word "obey" from the
marriage rite he sent to North America in 1784.
[16]