Breaking: Wesley stresses uniformity and no one is surprised...

Wesley’s appeal to methodical practice was so great as to earn the movement its name and is readily apparent in his works that we studied this week. In his Calm Address to our American Colonies in Sandoz, Wesley urges uniformity between the rule of the colonies and Great Britain: “Let us not bite and devour one another, lest we be consumed one of another! O let us follow after peace! Let us put away our sins; the real ground of all our calamities! Which never will or can be thoroughly removed, till we fear God and honour the king.” Wesley’s general prescription to “fear God and honour the king” comes from his basic argument that the colonists have the same rights as he, and because they work for him, they should work for the colonists. He is also extremely particular in controlling the narrative of Methodist doctrine in A Short History of Methodism, asserting that men are all by nature "dead in sin," and, consequently, "children of wrath,” they are "justified by faith alone,” and that faith produces inward and outward holiness. Beyond this, Wesley is comfortable saying who are (those who ascribe to the aforementioned doctrine) and who are not (predestinarians, antinomians) Methodist- even though they were only a movement, not a church… definitely not a church. Wesley’s call for uniformity reaches even into the pockets of movement members, directing how they should and should not spend their money in The Use of Money, where his gaining/saving/giving model provides questions to ask that should regulate spending habits.

Other than using religion as a means of maintaining dutiful taxpayers/almsgivers, was it typical for church leaders to regulate finances of laypeople? More broadly, was it Wesley’s obsession with uniformity that actually pushed the movement to become its own faith tradition?