LIBERTY AND LOYALTY IN THE LONG EIGHTEENTH CENTURY: A GLOBAL HISTORY APPROACH Glen O’Brien This paper was presented at the Australasian Centre for Wesleyan Research Conference on Global Wesleyanism in Wellington, New Zealand 2-3 October 2017 ‘Global history’ focuses on the cultural and social features of international relations. Themes covered by global history in its attempt to connect the ‘local’ with the ‘global’ have included race relations, colonisation, economic forces, migration, and human rights. Religion is an area of study that lends itself well to a global history approach because religious movements always depend upon transnational networks of piety for their spread and consolidation. W.R. Ward claimed that ‘the first great Protestant awakenings arose from an interweaving of pietism, revivalism, and politics.’ John Wesley’s political writings reflect on the impact of Britain’s global conflicts and provide insights into the political responses of the broader religious world of the eighteenth century. The notion of ‘liberty’ was a significant theme in the mentalities that dominated the Atlantic world of the long eighteenth century (1688-1815) and this paper will investigate the two overarching themes of ‘liberty’ and ‘loyalty’ that dominate Wesley’s political thought in order to provide insights into the political responses of the broader religious world of that period. ____________________________________________________ Introduction This paper seeks to situate John Wesley’s political writings historically more than theologically, taking a ‘transnational’ or ‘global history’ approach. 1 This differs from ‘international history’ approaches which tend to deal with the history of diplomatic relations between countries (foreign policy), and focuses instead on 1 Though chapters 2-5 of Ted Weber’s Politics in the Order of Salvation, offer a valuable historical treatment, his approach is that of the theological ethicist not the historian. He is ‘interested more in the theological and moral reasoning – present, absent, or implied – in Wesley’s political thought than in the details and impact of his political history.’ T.H. Weber, Politics in the Order of Salvation: Transforming Wesleyan Political Ethics (Nashville, TN: Kingswood Books, 2001), 13–14.