James Relly

James Relly (c.1722 – 25 April 1778) was a Welshman, Methodist minister and mentor of John Murray who spread Universalism in the United States.

Relly was born at Jeffreston (seventy miles west north west of Cardiff), Pembrokeshire, Wales. He attended the Pembroke Grammar School, came under the influence of George Whitefield, probably in the latter's first tour of Wales in 1741, and became one of his preachers. His first station was at Rhyddlangwraig near Narbeth; and in 1747 he made a report of a missionary tour to Bristol, Bath, Gloucestershire, and Birmingham. He broke, however, with Whitefield on doctrinal grounds - his views on the certainty of salvation being regarded as antinomian - and is known to have been in controversy with John Wesley in 1756. In that year, at Carrickfergus, he delivered, in opposition to Wesley, a 'pointless harangue about hirelings and false prophets'. On 2 April 1761 Wesley writes of him and others as 'wretches' who 'call themselves Methodists' being really antinomian.

About the same time he adopted Universalism, which he viewed as a logical consequence of the universal efficacy of the death of Christ. He settled in London as a preacher at Coachmakers' Hall, Addle Street, Wood Street. In 1764 a chancery action was brought against him by a Yorkshire lady, who had given him a sum of money and executed a deed securing to him an annuity of £5. It was alleged that Relly had fraudulently obtained these benefits while the grantor was in a state of religious frenzy. Under an order of the court the deed was cancelled and the money refunded. Shortly afterwards Relly removed to a meeting-house in Bartholomew Close (formerly presbyterian), which had just been vacated by Wesley. Here he remained till midsummer 1769, when the lease expired. He then secured (October 1769) a meeting-house in Crosby Square (formerly presbyterian), where he continued to preach till his death, but his cause did not thrive, and he had no immediate successor in this country.

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