Introduction

Biography

Joseph was the son of Ash­er Hum­phreys, rec­tor of Bar­ton, Hert­ford­shire, and su­bse­quent­ly Bur­ford, Ox­ford­shire.

At age 10, he was sent to a gram­mar school at Fair­field, Glou­ces­ter­shire. His fa­ther died in 1732, and Jo­seph was sent to a theo­lo­gic­al school in Lon­don.

In 1738, hav­ing been con­vert­ed to the doc­trines of the Wes­leys, he be­gan to preach at the Foun­dry, Lon­don, in Bris­tol, and else­where. He at­tached him­self par­ti­cu­lar­ly to John Cen­nick, and ac­com­pa­nied him fre­quent­ly on his ev­an­gel­is­tic tours. Hat­field reports, For his ir­re­gu­lar­i­ties in these re­spects, he was ex­pelled, De­cem­ber 25, 1739, from the school.

Following Cen­nick’s ex­am­ple, Hum­phreys sep­a­rat­ed from the Wes­leys in April 1741 and be­came as­so­ci­at­ed with White­field. The same year, he preached for the Mo­ra­vi­ans at Dept­ford, West Green­wich.

He was al­so one of the four prin­ci­pal con­tri­bu­tors to The Week­ly His­to­ry, just then es­tab­lished, in the in­ter­est of the new re­li­gious move­ment. Sev­er­al of his Let­ters to John Wes­ley, op­pos­ing his views, ap­peared in this jour­nal.

Humphreys oft­en preached at the Bowl­ing Green, Bris­tol, and the Ta­ber­na­cle, Lon­don. In Jan­ua­ry 1743, he unit­ed with sev­er­al cler­gy­men and lay preach­ers in or­gan­iz­ing, near Car­diff, Wales, the first Cal­vin­is­tic Me­tho­dist So­cie­ty.

In 1790, ac­cord­ing to John Wes­ley’s jour­nal, Hum­phreys left White­field and was or­dained a Pres­by­te­ri­an min­is­ter. He lat­er re­ceived an Epis­co­pal or­di­na­tion.

Works

• A Let­ter to the Re­li­gious So­cie­ties, in Tes­ti­mo­ny Against the Er­rors of Uni­vers­al Re­demp­tion and Sin­less Per­fect­ion (Bris­tol, Eng­land: 1741)
• An Ac­count of Jo­seph Hump­hreys’ Ex­pe­ri­ence at the Work of Grace up­on His Heart (Bris­tol, Eng­land: 1742)