Cennick, John

Cennick, John, was originally one of Wesley's lay preachers, who appointed him as a sort of lay-chaplain at Kingswood School in 1739. In a year or two he began to preach against Wesley's Arminian doctrines, and to raise a party within the Wesleyan Society. After unavailing delays and overtures of peace, Wesley read publicly a paper declaring, "by the consent and approbation of the Band Society of Kingswood," that Cennick and his followers "were no longer members thereof." Cennick afterwards united with the Whitefield Methodists, but did not continue long with them. He became at last a Moravian. He as a good though weak man, and his subsequent earnest and laborious life shows that he deserves more lenity than has usually been accorded to him by Methodist writers. After many years of diligent labor as an evangelist, he died July 4, 1795. His Discourses were published in 1770 (2 vols. sm. 8vo); and a new edition, with a "Life," was published in 1852 by Matthew Wilks, who says: "He possessed a sweet simplicity of spirit, with an ardent zeal in the cause of his divine Master." The well-known hymn, "Jesus, my all, to heaven is gone," was written by Cennick. — Stevens, History of Methodism, 1:155; Darling, Cyclopaedia Bibliographica, 1:615.