Part III
., a volume in itself, is addressed “to the Reverend Mr. Wesley”; who is made the almost exclusive object of its virulent attack. He is told, that he is “an arrant joker, a perfect droll.” “Go on,” says the ribald bishop, “and build chapels. One may be dedicated to the god Proteus, famous for being a juggling wonder-monger, and turning himself into all shapes; another to the god called Catius, because he made men sly and cunning as cats. The people with whom you have to do, you know, will adore you; for the same reason that the Egyptians did their bull Apis; because renowned for miracles, and every hour changing its colour.” He adds: “your Letter to the author of Enthusiasm is a medley of chicanery, sophistry, prevarication, evasion, pertness, conceitedness, scurrility, sauciness, and effrontery. Paper and time should not be wasted on such stuff.” And this was all the answer his lordship furnished.
We are afraid to make our pages, what Lavington has made his book, “a perfect jakes of uncleanness,” by further quotations. Suffice it to say, that the whole of this scurrility was anonymous.
No wonder that Wesley, in his answer, speaks of his calumniator as “one that turns the most serious, the most awful, the most venerable things into mere farce, and matter of low buffoonery”; one who treats sacred topics with the “spirit of a merry-andrew.” He convicts him of the most flagrant falsehood, and says, “I charge you with gross, wilful prevarication, from the beginning of your book to the end”; and firmly, but respectfully, sustains the charge. He writes:—
“I have now considered all the arguments you have brought to prove, that the Methodists are carrying on the work of popery. And I am persuaded, every candid man, who rightly weighs what has been said, with any degree of attention, will clearly see, not only, that no one of those arguments is of any real force at all, but that you do not believe them yourself; you do not believe the conclusion which you pretend to prove; only you keep close to your laudable resolution of throwing as much dirt as possible.”
* * * * *
“These things being so, what must all unprejudiced men think of you and your performance? You have advanced a charge, not against one or two persons only, but indiscriminately against a whole body of people of his majesty’s subjects, Englishmen, Protestants, members, I suppose, of your own church; a charge containing abundance of articles, and most of them of the highest and blackest nature. You have prosecuted this with unparalleled bitterness of spirit, and acrimony of language; using sometimes the most coarse, rude, scurrilous terms; sometimes the keenest sarcasms you could devise. The point you have steadily pursued, in thus prosecuting this charge, is, first, to expose the whole people to the hatred and scorn of all mankind; and next, to stir up the civil powers against them. And when this charge comes to be fairly weighed, there is not a single article of it true! Most of the passages you have cited, you have palpably maimed, corrupted, and strained to a sense never thought of by the writer; they prove nothing less than the points in question; and many of them are flat against you, and overthrow the very point they are brought to support. Is not this the most shocking violation of the Christian rule, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself’; the most open affront to all justice, and even common humanity; the most glaring insult upon the common sense and reason of mankind, which has lately appeared in the world?”
* * * * *
“You regard neither mercy, justice, nor truth. To vilify and blacken is your one point. I pray God it may not be laid to your charge! May He show you mercy, though you show none!
“I am, sir,
“Your friend and well wisher,
“JOHN WESLEY.”
What was the result? In the month of March, or April,[181] Lavington published a tract, with the title, “The Bishop of Exeter’s Answer to Mr. Wesley’s late Letter to his Lordship.” 8vo, 15 pages; in which he feebly struggles to get out of a flagrant falsehood, of which Wesley had convicted him; and, true to his old vituperative style of writing, concludes thus:—
“The remainder of your epistle, mere rant and declamation, shall give me no trouble. Having cleared up a matter of fact, which may be thought necessary for my own justification, I find myself under no obligation or disposition, to enter into matters of dispute, wherein our opinions would widely differ. I am too sensible of your way of answering, your temper, and of what spirit you are of, to think of any further correspondence: and if you expect, that I should let myself down to a level with you, you will find yourself mistaken. I pray God to give you a good will, and a right judgment in all things;
“And am, sir,
“Your obedient, humble servant,
“G. EXON.”
This was pitiful poltroonery, in perfect character with a cowardly calumniator, who had poured forth the most unfounded scandals, without daring to show his face or to sign his name. Wesley briefly replied, in a letter dated “Newcastle upon Tyne, May 8, 1752”; and so the matter ended.
Amid such hurricanes was Methodism cradled; and in the face of such opponents Wesley had to pursue his great, gospel mission. Who, after the specimens of Lavington’s scandalizing pen, is prepared to expect that the tablet, erected to his memory in Exeter cathedral, should represent him as one who “never ceased to improve his talents, nor to employ them to the noblest purposes”? The conclusion of this marvellous epitaph is as follows:—
“Unaffected sanctity dignified his instructions, And indulgent candour sweetened his government. At length, having eminently discharged his duties, Of a Man, a Christian, and a Prelate, Prepared, by habitual meditation, To resign life without regret, To meet death without terror, He expired with the praises of God upon his lips, In his 79th year, September 13, 1762.”[182]
1753.
[Sidenote: 1753 Age 50]
As usual, Wesley began the new year by preaching, in the Foundery, at four o’clock in the morning, when a large congregation met to praise the God of providence and grace with “joyful hearts and lips.” On the same day, his old friend Howel Harris wrote him a long letter, from which the following is an extract:—
“_January 1, 1753._
“DEAR BROTHER JOHN WESLEY,— ... Shall I speak freely to you, as I am going to that dear Man, who has indeed honoured you, and whom I believe you wish to honour, for you live on His bloody sweat and passion? I wish your ministry and that of the Moravians were united. It would be for the public good. I have fought a good fight, and have, through millions of infirmities, kept the faith. You and your brother Charles have ever been dear to me; but I have often feared, that your wisdom and popularity would be injurious to you, and turn you from the true simplicity of the gospel. I send this, as my dying and loving request, for the Lord’s sake, for your own sake, and for the sake of thousands that attend your ministry, that you would direct their eye to the Saviour, and suffer them not to idolize you. Let nothing fall from your lip or pen, but what turns the soul from self to the Saviour. To deny ourselves is a difficult lesson, and there are but few that learn it. I have written some things, in the time of my confinement, which I have ordered the bearer to show you, and which you will perhaps correct and publish, if you have time, and think they would be of service to the cause of Christ. Hearty salutation to your brother Charles, and all who love Jesus Christ in sincerity. I have been laid aside from public service for some months. I am weary of nothing here but the body of sin in my flesh. I rejoice in you, and the large field that is before you. Though I know not how to give over, I must conclude.
“HOWEL HARRIS.”[183]
Whitefield spent the year in a glorious itinerancy throughout the kingdom. On the 1st of March, the first brick of his new Tabernacle was laid, on the site of his old wooden one, he having collected £1100 towards defraying the expense of its erection. He published several sermons, and also a small collection of hymns for public worship. “I and the Messrs. Wesley,” he writes, “are very friendly.” The Wesleys, during the erection of his Tabernacle, allowed him the use of their London chapels,—an act of courteous kindness which he gratefully acknowledges. In a three months’ summer tour, he travelled about twelve hundred miles, and preached a hundred and eighty times. In Grimshaw’s church, at Haworth, thirty-five bottles of wine were used at a single sacrament. The year throughout was a year of triumph and of joy,—with one exception, which we are bound in honesty to mention.
Moravianism was increasingly a bone of contention. Two years before, Zinzendorf had purchased, of Sir Hans Sloane, an old family mansion with adjoining grounds, situated on the banks of the Thames at Chelsea. The mansion was turned into a congregation house; a chapel was fitted up; a burial ground was laid out; and gardens, and a terrace, facing the Thames, were formed. The money expended was more than £11,000. In April, 1753, the whole establishment of the _Unitas Fratrum_ removed into the newly acquired premises; and Lindsey House, Chelsea, was henceforth “the disciple house,”—the head quarters of the English Moravians. All bishops and elders were subordinate to Zinzendorf, who, under the name of “papa,” was exclusively the ruler of the church.
Meantime, an enormous debt had been incurred. Parliamentary negotiations, sending brethren and sisters to the American colonies, maintaining the preachers of country congregations, sustaining boarding schools, and meeting the large expenses of Lindsey House,—created pecuniary liabilities which the _Unitas Fratrum_ found it difficult to meet. During the year 1749, and the first half of the year 1750, the managers of the “diaconies” had advanced £13,000, and clamoured for repayment. Zinzendorf tried to raise a loan of £30,000 for the English Moravians, from the nobility of Upper Lusatia; but his effort failed. A few of the London Brethren lent, from their own resources, nearly £15,000, which merely met present wants. Zinzendorf and others were in danger of arrest for debt. A crop of lawsuits sprung up. Thomas Hankey was a creditor to the amount of nearly £19,000; and the Moravian liabilities, ecclesiastical and trading, were altogether more than £130,000. Affairs appeared to be involved in inextricable confusion. Bankruptcy was imminent; disgrace was great. Peter Bohler, at the time, was the minister in London, and did his utmost to calm the troubled waters. Scandals of all kinds were rife; and even Bohler himself was not exempt from the general censure,—a fact which led him, in March, 1753, to refuse to join with the Brethren in the holy communion, and which probably had something to do with his leaving London for America in the month of June ensuing.[184]
In the midst of all this, a terrible onslaught was made upon the Moravians, and upon Zinzendorf in particular, by Henry Rimius, “Aulic Counsellor to his late majesty the King of Prussia,” in an octavo pamphlet of 177 pages, dedicated to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and entitled, “A Candid Narrative of the Rise and Progress of the Herrnhuthers, commonly called Moravians, or _Unitas Fratrum_.” In one place, he charges Zinzendorf with flagrant falsehood. He states, that in his book, “Natural Reflections,” the count asserts that “he had been examined by the Theological Faculty at Copenhagen.” Upon inquiry, this was found to be an absolute untruth, and had been positively contradicted by a public act of the said faculty, signed with their corporate seal.
Wesley read Rimius’s narrative as soon as it was published, and wrote: “It informed me of nothing new. I still think several of the inconsiderable members of that community are upright; but I fear their governors wax worse and worse, having their conscience seared as with a hot iron.”
Whitefield, in a letter dated March 21, 1753, observed:—“What is happening to the Moravians is no more than I have long expected, and spoken of to many friends. Their scheme is so antichristian in almost every respect, that I am amazed the eyes of the English Brethren have not long since been opened.”
Whitefield tried to open them. He published a pamphlet, entitled, “An Expostulatory Letter, addressed to Nicholas Lewis, Count Zinzendorf, and Lord Advocate of the _Unitas Fratrum_.” The letter, dated April 24, 1753, in whole or in part, was reprinted in the magazines and newspapers of that period, and produced a great sensation.
Zinzendorf and his friends are charged with “misguiding many honest hearted Christians; with distressing, if not ruining, numerous families; and with introducing a whole farrago of superstitions, not to say idolatrous fopperies, into the English nation.” The _Unitas Fratrum_ are accused of “walking round the graves of their deceased friends on Easter day, attended with hautboys, trumpets, french horns, and violins.” Zinzendorf had suffered incense to be “burnt for him, in order to perfume the room before he made his entrance among the brethren”; and had allowed a picture to be exhibited in a lovefeast, “representing him handing a gentleman and lady up to the side of Jesus Christ.” It was alleged, that the married women were “ordered to wear blue knots; the single women, pink; those that were just marriageable, pink and white; widows that were past childbearing, white; and those that were not so, blue and white.” Hannah Nitschmann, the general eldress of the Fetter Lane congregation, wore “the episcopal knot,” and might be seen sitting at the head of a table, surrounded with eldresses and deaconesses, covered with artificial flowers, and bearing a small altar on which stood a cross composed of glittering stones, and environed with wax tapers. On Hannah’s birthday, the floor of one of the rooms in the house of the single brethren was covered with sand and moss, amid which a star was made of coloured pebbles. Upon the star was placed a gilded dove, spouting water from its mouth. The room was curiously decked with moss and shells; and here Zinzendorf, Hannah Nitschmann, Peter Bohler, and other labourers sat, in high dignity, beneath an alcove made of pasteboard. Upon a table was an altar covered with shells, and, on each side of the altar, a bloody heart emitting flames. The place was illuminated with wax candles; and musicians were fixed in an adjacent room, while Zinzendorf and his company performed their devotions, and regaled themselves with sweetmeats, coffee, tea, and wine.
Zinzendorf is said to be over head and ears in debt; and many of the English Brethren, by signing bonds for more than they had means to pay, had exposed themselves to bankruptcy and prison. Peter Bohler, to comfort one of the creditors, William Bell, had sent for him to his house in Neville’s Alley, Fetter Lane; where an artificial mountain had been erected in the hall, which, upon the singing of a particular verse, was made to fall flat down, and then behind it appeared a representation of Mr. Bell and the blessed Saviour embracing each other, while the clouds above were raining money most gloriously. Mr. Freeman and Mr. Grace had found bills drawn in their names, unknown to them, to the amount of £48,000; and Mr. Rhodes had been prevailed upon to sell his estate, of above £400 per annum, to meet the necessities of the _Unitas Fratrum_; and, to avoid further payments, for which he had made himself responsible by signing bonds, had fled to France, leaving behind him a destitute mother, who since had died.[185]
Such is the substance of Whitefield’s letter. What were its effects? Wesley writes:—
“July, 1753.—I found the town much alarmed with Mr. Rimius’s narrative, and Mr. Whitefield’s letter to Count Zinzendorf. It seems, indeed, that God is hastening to bring to light those hidden works of darkness. Mr. Whitefield showed me the letters he had lately received from the count, P. Bohler, and James Hutton. I was amazed. Either furious anger or settled contempt breathed in every one of them. Were they ashamed after all the abominations they had committed? No; they were not ashamed: they turned the tables upon Mr. Whitefield. The count blustered, like himself, and roundly averred, he could say something if he would. James Hutton said flat, ‘You have more than diabolical impudence; I believe the devil himself has not so much.’”
Wesley has not recorded the sentiments of his old friend Peter Bohler; but Whitefield states, that Bohler availed himself of the pulpit to declare, that his letter “was all a lie.”[186] It so happens, however, that, since then, the letters of the count, of Bohler, and of Hutton have been published. Zinzendorf says: “_As yet_, I owe not a farthing of the £40,000 you are pleased to tell me of;” and concludes thus: “As your heart is not prepared to love me, nor your understanding to listen to my reasons” (which he declines to give) “I wish you well, sir, and am your loving friend, LOUIS.”
Peter Bohler, in his letter of May 4, begins: “Sir, I pity you very much, that you suffer yourself to be so much imposed upon, and to print your impositions so inconsiderately. You have now attempted a second time to ruin my character.” He then denies, that he was the _inventor_ of the _artificial mount_, but does not affirm that it was not employed. He concludes as follows: “Dear Mr. Whitefield, when the secret intentions of man, together with all his unjust deeds, will be judged, how glad would you be then, not to have treated our society in general, and, in particular, that venerable person against whom your letter is chiefly levelled, and poor _I_, in so injurious, yea, I may say, impudent and wicked a manner. PETER BOHLER.”
Hutton’s letter eulogizes the count in the highest terms. “When he awakes in the morning, he is all sweetness, calmness, tender harmoniousness with those about him; and, all the day long, he is busied in doing and contriving the kindest offices for mankind.” He is “usefully employed constantly eighteen hours in twenty-four, and very frequently more; and is a man of no expense at all upon his person, so that any one receiving £50 a year to find him in all necessaries, to his satisfaction, would certainly be no loser by the bargain.” And yet, “many bulls of Bashan round about, as brute beasts without understanding, roared madly against him; and, by daubings and grotesque paintings, described him as a Mahommed, a Cæsar, an impostor, a Don Quixote, a devil, the beast, the man of sin, the whore, the antichrist.”
It is right to add, that Thomas Rhodes, whose case Whitefield had quoted, says, in a letter dated October 21, 1733: “what Mr. Whitefield has written concerning the United Brethren and me, is, the greatest part, entire falsities, and the remainder are truths set in a false light.” He admits, however, the sale of his estate.
Far from pleasant is the task of raking into dunghills such as this; but history cannot afford to forget unpleasant facts. Whitefield’s letter, perhaps, was obtrusive, and officious, and, to some extent, incorrect; but there can be no doubt, that its leading allegations were founded upon truth.
Happily for himself, Wesley was not an actor in this humbling fracas; and yet, before the year was ended, he was involved within its meshes. In October, he spent four days at Bedford, where a Moravian congregation had been founded in 1744, and where, in 1747, “the chief labourer” startled some of the Brethren by announcing: “My brethren, we have received new orders. In London, Yorkshire, and all other places, no person is to go out of the town without the leave of the chief labourer. So it must be here. Observe, no one must go out of town, no not a mile, without leave from me.” In 1750, they built a chapel; squabbles followed; and Wesley, apparently by request, went, at the time above stated, to visit them. He writes: “I met the little society, just escaped with the skin of their teeth. From the account which each of these gave, it appeared clear to a demonstration—(1) That their elders usurped a more absolute authority over the conscience, than the Bishop of Rome himself does. (2) That, to gain and secure this, they used a continued train of guile, fraud, and falsehood of every kind. (3) That they scrape their votaries to the bone as to their worldly substance, leaving little to any, to some nothing, or less than nothing. (4) That still they are so infatuated as to believe, that theirs is the only true church upon earth.”
But leaving the Moravians, let us track Wesley’s footsteps during the year 1753.
The first two months were spent in London. He visited “the Marshalsea prison, a nursery of all manner of wickedness.” “O shame to man,” he writes, “that there should be such a picture of hell upon earth! And shame to those who bear the name of Christ, that there should need any prison at all in Christendom.”
He visited many of the sick and poor, and writes: “Who could see such scenes unmoved? There are none such in a pagan country. If any of the Indians in Georgia were sick, those that were near them gave them whatever they wanted. Oh who will convert the English into honest heathen? I found some in their cells underground; others in their garrets, half starved both with cold and hunger; but I found not one of them unemployed, who was able to crawl about the room. So wickedly, devilishly false is that common objection, ‘They are poor, only because they are idle.’ If you saw these things with your own eyes, could you lay out money in ornaments and superfluities?”
Just at this juncture, Wesley began to turn his attention to a subject, which afterwards became one of the greatest discoveries of the age.
A year previous to this, Benjamin Franklin had established the important fact of the identity of lightning and the electric fluid. From time to time, he had sent accounts of his experiments to the Royal Society of England; but the communications were not admitted into the printed transactions of that learned body. They were given, however, to Mr. Cave, the editor of the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, who had sense enough to see their superlative importance, and who published them in a pamphlet, with a preface written by Dr. Fothergill. By additions subsequently made, the pamphlet grew into a quarto volume; was translated into French, German, and Latin; and attracted the attention of all the philosophers in Europe. The result was, that even the Royal Society began to reconsider the very experiments which they had treated with ridicule; and admitted Franklin, in 1753, into their honourable corporation, bestowing upon him the Copley medal, and all without solicitation, and without the payment of the customary fees.
With his characteristic keenness, Wesley laid hold of Franklin’s facts as soon as they were published. They were new and startling; but he saw, that they were most momentous, and evidently entertained the hope, that they would be turned to practical account, in a way which would excite the amazement and gratitude of the human race. Hear what he says:—
“1753, February 17.—From Dr. Franklin’s letters, I learned,—1. That electrical fire is a species of fire, infinitely finer than any other yet known. 2. That it is diffused, and in nearly equal proportions, through almost all substances. 3. That, as long as it is thus diffused, it has no discernible effect. 4. That, if any quantity of it be collected together, whether by art or nature, it then becomes visible in the form of fire, and inexpressibly powerful. 5. That it is essentially different from the light of the sun; for it pervades a thousand bodies which light cannot penetrate, and yet cannot penetrate glass, which light pervades so freely. 6. That lightning is no other than electrical fire, collected by one or more clouds. 7. That all the effects of lightning may be performed by the artificial electric fire. 8. That anything pointed, as a spire or tree, attracts the lightning, just as a needle does the electrical fire. 9. That the electrical fire, discharged on a rat or fowl, will kill it instantly; but discharged on one dipped in water, it will slide off, and do it no hurt at all. In like manner, the lightning, which will kill a man in a moment, will not hurt him, if he be thoroughly wet. What an amazing
## scene is here opened, for after ages to improve upon!”
Wesley’s concluding sentence is remarkable; but even he had no idea that, in little more than a hundred years, electric fire would become the means of sending, almost instantaneously, its wondrous messages from England to India, and from shore to shore of the great Atlantic Ocean. Wesley, however, was one of the first to take an interest in the science of electricity. Six years before this, in 1747, he wrote: “I went to see what are called the electrical experiments. How must these also confound those poor half thinkers, who will believe nothing but what they can comprehend! Who can comprehend how fire lives in water, and passes through it more freely than through the air? How flame issues out of my finger,—real flame, such as sets fire to spirits of wine? How these, and many more as strange phenomena, arise from the turning round of a glass globe? It is all mystery; if haply, by any means, God may hide pride from man!” In 1756, he began to turn the discovery to practical account. Having procured an apparatus, he commenced electrifying persons for various disorders, and soon found his patients so numerous, that an hour every day had to be devoted to trying “the virtue of this surprising medicine.” Moorfields, Southwark, St. Paul’s, and the Seven Dials were the places of rendezvous; and here thousands resorted to avail themselves of Wesley’s remedy. He writes: “Hundreds, perhaps thousands, have received unspeakable good; and I have not known one man, woman, or child, who has received any hurt thereby; so that, when I hear any talk of the danger of being electrified (especially if they are medical men who talk so), I cannot but impute it to great want either of sense or honesty.” “We know it is a thousand medicines in one; in particular, that it is the most efficacious medicine in nervous disorders of every kind, which has ever yet been discovered.”
On February 26, Wesley left London for Bristol, reading on the road Mr. Prince’s “Christian History,” concerning which he makes the following remarks:—
“What an amazing difference is there in the manner wherein God has carried on His work in England and in America! There, above a hundred of the established clergy, men of age and experience, and of the greatest note for sense and learning in those parts, are zealously engaged in the work. Here, almost the whole body of the aged, experienced, learned clergy, are zealously engaged against it; and few, but a handful of raw young men, engaged in it, without name, learning, or eminent sense. And yet, by that large number of honourable men, the work seldom flourished above six months at a time, and then followed a lamentable and general decay, before the next revival of it; whereas, that which God hath wrought, by these despised instruments, has continually increased for fifteen years together; and, at whatever time it has declined in any one place, has more eminently flourished in others.”
In the same month, Wesley wrote concerning these “raw young men,” as follows:—
“LONDON, _February 6, 1753_.
“MY DEAR BROTHER,—It is a constant rule with us, that no preacher should preach above twice a day, unless on Sunday or some extraordinary time; and then he may preach three times. We know nature cannot long bear the preaching oftener than this, and, therefore, to do it is a degree of self murder. Those of the preachers, who would not follow this advice, have all repented when it was too late.
“I likewise advise all our preachers not to preach above an hour at a time, prayer and all; and not to speak louder than the number of hearers require.
“You will show this to all our preachers, and any that desire it may take a copy of it.
“I am your affectionate brother,
“JOHN WESLEY.”[187]
Such was Wesley’s advice; his example, however, was often widely different.
On March 19, Wesley and his wife set out from Bristol for the north of England.
At Evesham, he preached in the town hall, where most of the congregation were still and attentive, excepting some at the lower end, who, he says, “were walking to and fro, laughing and talking, as if they had been in Westminster Abbey.”
At Birmingham, he talked with Sarah B——, one of six wild enthusiasts, who had disturbed the society, and, by their antinomian blasphemy, shown themselves fit for Bedlam.
At Nantwich, he was “saluted with curses and hard names;” and soon afterwards, the mob pulled down the chapel.[188]
At Davyhulme, he found, what he had never heard of in England, a clan of infidel peasants. He writes: “a neighbouring alehouse keeper drinks, and laughs, and argues into deism all the ploughmen and dairymen he can light on. But no mob rises against him; and reason good: Satan is not divided against himself.”
In the Manchester society, he found seventeen dragoons, who had been in the same regiment with John Haime in Flanders; but they utterly despised both John and his Master till they came to Manchester, where they were “now a pattern of seriousness, zeal, and all holy conversation.”
At Chipping, when he was about to go into the pulpit of his friend, the Rev. Mr. Milner, a man thrust himself before him, and said, “You shall not go into the pulpit;” and by main strength pushed him back. Eight or ten noisy men joined the belligerent, and Wesley thought it best to desire Mr. Milner to read the prayers himself.
At Kendal, he preached in the chapel used by Benjamin Ingham’s society; but was disgusted at the people coming in and sitting down, without any pretence to any previous prayer. They let him sing the first hymn solely by himself; but God spake to them in His word, and in the singing of the hymn after the sermon most of them united; while the greatest part of them followed him to his inn, and conversed with him till he went to bed.
He now made his way to Scotland. Dumfries had two of the most elegant churches he had ever seen. Glasgow he took to be as large as Newcastle. The students of the university wore scarlet gowns, reaching only to their knees, very dirty, very ragged, and of very coarse materials. Here he was the guest of the Rev. John Gillies, the minister of the College kirk, at whose invitation he had come. Mr. Gillies was now preparing his Historical Collections, which, in the year following, he published, in two large octavo volumes. Wesley spent nearly a week with this devout and distinguished man. He assisted him in his “Collections,” preached in his kirk, and seems to have been the means of introducing a novelty in the public worship of the Scots—the singing of hymns as well as doggerel versions of the Book of Psalms. At all events, on the first day of his visit, he observes: “After the sermon, Mr. Gillies concluded with the blessing. He then gave out, one after another, four hymns, which about a dozen young men sung. He had before desired those who were so minded to go away; but scarce any stirred till all was ended.” This, however, was a serious innovation, and soon after Wesley left, Mr. Gillies wrote to him as follows: “The singing of hymns here meets with greater opposition than I expected. Serious people are much divided. Those of better understanding and education are silent; but many others are so prejudiced, that they speak openly against it, and look upon me as doing a very sinful thing. I beg your advice, whether to answer them only by continuing in the practice of the thing, or whether I should also publish a sheet of arguments from reason, and Scripture, and the example of the godly. Your experience of dealing with people’s prejudice, makes your advice of the greater importance. I bless the Lord for the benefit and comfort of your acquaintance; for your important assistance in my Historical Collections; and for your edifying conversation and sermons in Glasgow.”[189]
The friendship thus commenced with Mr. Gillies was continued for many years. Both Wesley and Grimshaw rendered great assistance to Gillies in his valuable book on revivals, and were consulted as to the time of its being published. Mr. Gillies was an eminently devout and pious man and minister, but was living without the evidence of his adoption into the family of God. Hence the following to Wesley, under the date of September 5, 1753.
“O when shall I get that Divine _elenchos_ you mention, in my own soul! The other day I fasted and prayed all day in the fields; but a body of death still cleaves to me. I fear I have not yet the gift of the Holy Ghost. I know not what to do. I sometimes think I should be happy to be in some wilderness in America; to forget and be forgotten; to have none but God to converse with; digging for my daily bread. But is not this desire of solitude a vain thought, unless I could fly from my own vile and wretched self? O that the Lord would show me what it is that separates my soul from Him, that it might be destroyed, and, that I might know, He is my God in Christ! This, this is all I want. Dear Mr. Wesley, continue to pray for your most unworthy, but affectionate brother and servant,
“JOHN GILLIES.”[190]
Such was the religious experience of the author of the “Historical Collections of the Success of the Gospel,” at the very time when that important book was being published.
On leaving Glasgow, Wesley proceeded direct to Newcastle, preaching on the way at Berwick and at Alnwick. He reached the latter town on April 25, the day on which those who had finished their apprenticeship, during the previous year, were made free of the corporation. This was done by the young fellows having to walk through a bog, purposely preserved for the occasion, and which took many of them up to the breast, and even to the neck in passing. Sixteen or seventeen, during Wesley’s visit, thus waded their way to Alnwick dignity through Alnwick dirt. The Alnwick society had been split asunder by presbyterians, of whom good Jeannie Keith was one. Wesley writes: “a few violent presbyterians had, at length, separated themselves from us. It was well they saved me the trouble; for I can have no connection with those who will be contentious. These I reject, not for their opinion, but for their sin; for their unchristian temper and unchristian practice; for being haters of reproof, haters of peace, haters of their brethren, and consequently of God.”
While at Newcastle, Wesley presided at the first general quarterly meeting of Methodist stewards that was held in the north of England. He also preached in a chapel recently erected at Gateshead Fell, the second chapel built for the Methodists in the neighbourhood of Newcastle.
Wesley left Newcastle on the 7th of May, and, after preaching at Durham, Stockton, and Robin Hood’s Bay, came, two days afterwards, to York, where he met with a rough salute, and preached in a room “hot as an oven.”
On May 22, he met his conference at Leeds, there being present, besides himself, two clergymen, Grimshaw and Milner; twenty-five itinerant, and sixteen local preachers.
It was determined that, in future, the conferences should be held at London, Bristol, and Leeds, by turns. As a testimony against the corruptions of the Moravians, it was suggested, that it might be proper to reprint Wesley’s “Letter to the Church at Herrnhuth,” with some additions, and a dedication to the count. It was resolved to behave towards Mr. Ingham with all tenderness and love, and to unite with him when he returned to the old Methodist doctrine. The predestinarian preachers having done much hurt to the societies, it was agreed—“(1) That none of them should preach any more in our societies. (2) That a loving and respectful letter should be written to Mr. Whitefield, desiring him to advise his preachers, not to reflect (as they had done continually, and that both with great bitterness and rudeness) either upon the doctrines, discipline, or person of Mr. Wesley, among his own societies; to abstain himself (at least when he was among Mr. Wesley’s people) from speaking against either his doctrines, rules, or preachers; and not to declare war anew, as he had done by a needless digression in his late sermon.”
In accordance with this resolution, Wesley addressed to Whitefield the following letter, which, up to the present, has been unpublished:—
“_May, 1753._
“MY DEAR BROTHER,—Between forty and fifty of our preachers lately met at Leeds, all of whom, I trust, esteem you in love for your work’s sake. I was desired by them to mention a few particulars to you, in order to a still firmer union between us.
“Several of them had been grieved at your mentioning, among our people (in private conversation, if not in public preaching), some of those opinions which we do not believe to be true;—such as ‘a man may be justified and not know it;’ that, ‘there is no possibility of falling away from grace;’ and that, ‘there is no perfection in this life.’ They conceived, that this was not doing as you would be done to, and that it tended to create not peace but confusion.
“They were likewise concerned at your sometimes speaking lightly of the discipline received among us, of societies, classes, bands, and of our rules in general, of some of them in particular. This they apprehended to be neither kind nor just, nor consistent with the profession which you at other times make.
“Above all, they had been troubled at the manner wherein your preachers (so I call those who preach at the Tabernacle) had very frequently spoken of my brother and me, partly in the most scoffing and contemptuous manner, relating a hundred shocking stories as unquestionable facts, and propagating them with diligence, and with an air of triumph, wherever they came.
“These things I was desired by all our brethren to mention. Two or three of them, afterwards, desired me, in private, to mention further, that when you were in the north your conversation was not so useful as was expected; that it generally turned not upon the things of God, but on trifles and things indifferent,—that your whole carriage was not so serious as they could have desired, being often mixed with needless laughter,—and that those who scrupled any levity of behaviour, and endeavoured always to speak and act as seeing God, you rather weakened than strengthened, intimating that they were in bondage, or weak in faith.
“I am persuaded you will receive these short lines in the same love wherein I write them. That you may prosper more and more, both in your soul and in your labours, is the hearty desire of, my dear brother,
“Your affectionate fellow labourer,
“JOHN WESLEY.”
This is a fine specimen of brotherly fidelity. Whitefield was misrepresented. Wesley has endorsed his copy of this manuscript letter with the words, “He denies all;” and this is partially confirmed by the following extract from a letter written some time before, and addressed to Mr. M——.
“LONDON, _March 10, 1753_.
“MY DEAR MR. M——,—I have preached at Spitalfields chapel twice. Both the Mr. Wesleys are agreed. Let brotherly love continue! I do not like writing against anybody, but I think that wisdom, which dwells with prudence, should direct you not to fill Mr. Wesley’s people (who expect you will serve them) with needless jealousies. I hope to see the time, when you will talk less of persons and things, and more of Him who is the common head of His whole mystical body. This, and this alone, can make and keep you steady in yourself, and extensively useful to others. I am glad you know when persons are justified. It is a lesson I have not yet learnt. There are so many stony ground hearers, that receive the word with joy, that I have determined to suspend my judgment till I know the tree by its fruits.
“I am, etc.,
“GEORGE WHITEFIELD.”[191]
At the same conference of 1753, it was asked, “Does every one know the exact time when he was justified?” Answer: “It is possible he may not know what to call it, when he experiences this; especially if he has not been accustomed to hear the scriptural doctrine concerning it. And the change then wrought in some may not be so sudden, or so observable, as it is in others. But, generally, wherever the gospel is preached in a clear and scriptural manner, more than ninety-nine in a hundred do know the exact time when they are justified.”
It was agreed, that they had not preached concerning both inward and outward holiness so strongly and closely as they ought. Many of the Methodists having lately married with unbelievers, it was resolved, that those who did this in future should be expelled from the society; and, that it should be a general rule, that no Methodist should marry without consulting the most serious of his brethren. It was ascertained, that sabbath breaking, dram drinking, evil speaking, unprofitable conversation, lightness, and contracting debts without sufficient care to discharge them, extensively prevailed; and it was determined, that none, who hereafter were guilty of such things, would be permitted to remain members of the society. Some of the married preachers were suffering great hardships, through no provision being made for the sustenance of their wives; and it was agreed that, in future, preachers ought to be careful in marrying “hand over head”; that they ought first to consult their brethren; and that, if they neglected this, they must not take it amiss if left to provide for themselves and their wives in the best way they could; and that, if they did consult with their brethren first, and still married wives without anything, they must be content to return to their temporal business, and again become local preachers. The circuits were twelve in number, namely—London, Bristol, Devonshire, Cornwall, Staffordshire, Cheshire, Leeds, Haworth, Lincolnshire, Newcastle, Wales, and Ireland; and the preachers appointed to supply them, including the two Wesleys, were thirty-nine.[192]
The conference being ended, Wesley proceeded to Birstal, Haworth, Keighley, Heptonstall, and Todmorden; preaching, in three days, ten or eleven sermons, and meeting the societies, till his voice began to fail, though at Birstal it had been sufficiently powerful, and so exerted, that those who sat in John Nelson’s windows, at a distance of a hundred yards, heard every word he uttered. Writing to his friend, Mr. Ebenezer Blackwell, on May 28, he says: “The harvest has not been so plenteous for many years as it is now, in all the north of England; but the labourers are few. I wish you could persuade our friend” [probably his brother] “to share the labour with me. One of us should, in anywise, visit both the north and Ireland every year. But I cannot do both; the time will not suffice, otherwise I would not spare myself. I hope my life, rather than my tongue, says, I desire only to spend and be spent in the work.”[193]
On his way to London, Wesley paid his first visit to the town of Leicester. He writes: “June 10, Whit-Sunday:—After dinner, a gentleman who came from Leicester, eight miles off,” [Markfield] “invited me thither. About eight I preached there, in a place near the walls, called the Butt-close. The people came running together from all parts, high and low, rich and poor; and their behaviour surprised me; they were so serious and attentive, not one offering any interruption.”
Soon after this, a society was gathered, and was placed under the care of John Brandon, a dragoon, who subsequently became one of Wesley’s itinerant preachers; and an old thatched building, in Milstone Lane, which had been successively used as a tithe barn, a theatre, a riding school, and a coal depot, was now turned into a Methodist chapel.
Wesley reached London, after a four months’ absence, on the 12th of June. A month later, he started for the Isle of Wight, where one of his preachers had been already labouring.[194] Calling at Portsmouth, he writes: “I was surprised to find so little fruit here, after so much preaching. That accursed itch of disputing had well-nigh destroyed all the seed which had been sown. And this ‘vain jangling’ they called ‘contending for the faith.’ I doubt the whole faith of these poor wretches is but an opinion.”
The society here mentioned was not Wesley’s, but one belonging to the preachers of the Countess of Huntingdon. Immediately after this visit, however, a small class was formed by Wesley’s itinerants, one of the members of which was John Mason, an orphan child now approaching manhood, and who, in 1764, became an itinerant preacher, and died in peace in 1810.
Leaving Portsmouth, Wesley, after a three hours’ voyage, landed at Cowes, in the Isle of Wight; which he says “as far exceeds the Isle of Anglesey, both in pleasantness and fruitfulness, as that exceeds the rocks of Scilly.” He rode straight to Newport, where he “found a little society in tolerable order.” He preached in the market-place to a large but noisy congregation. He walked to Carisbrook castle, and tells of the deep well, from which water was then drawn by an ass sixty years old.
Newport was the only place in the island at which Wesley preached. On July 12, he started thence for Cornwall. On reaching Bristol, he performed a service worth mentioning. At the end of May, hundreds of colliers, on account of the dearness of corn, had risen in riot; had smashed the windows of the council house; and forcibly boarded a vessel laden with grain for exportation. They had pelted the constables and city guards with stones, and committed other outrages, when a troop of the Scots Greys arrived, who killed four of the rioters, and took thirty prisoners.[195] At Wesley’s coming, they were still in gaol; and he writes: “July 17.—At their earnest desire, I preached to the poor colliers confined in Newgate on account of the late riot. They would not hear the gospel while they were at liberty. God grant they may profit by it now!”
He spent three weeks in Cornwall; met the stewards; examined the societies; and told the Methodists of St. Ives, that they must cease smuggling, or he would not visit them again. Here he was seized with illness,—a flux, a continual headache, violent and frequent vomitings, and cramp in his feet and legs. By this he was made a prisoner for a week, when he recommenced preaching, and, on August 21, got back to Bristol.
Kingswood school, as usual, required attention. He writes: “Surely the importance of this design is apparent, even from the difficulties that attend it. I have spent more money, and time, and care, on this, than almost any design I ever had; and still it exercises all the patience I have. But it is worth all the labour.”
On September 3, he “began visiting the little societies in Somersetshire and Wiltshire;” and, at Paulton, had an encounter with Stephen Plummer, a quondam Methodist, but now an insane Quaker. Wesley preached, and, as soon as he had done, Stephen began an outpouring. Wesley listened for half an hour; but, finding that his old acquaintance was no nearer the end of his discourse, he rose up to leave. Stephen’s “sister then begged him to suspend his oration; on which he flew into a violent rage, and roared louder and louder, till an honest man took him in his arms, and gently removed him.” Wesley adds: “What a wise providence was it, that this poor young man turned Quaker some years before he ran mad! So the honour of turning his brain now rests upon them, which otherwise must have fallen upon the Methodists.”
Taking the Isle of Wight on his way, Wesley arrived in London, on October 9.
Almost for the first time, an estrangement now sprang up between Wesley and his brother. Their friendship, hitherto, had been of the most tender and confidential kind; but, for some reason, Charles began to be reserved, and, to some extent, restive. He was a married man, and had a happy home; and children were being born, whose claims were scarcely compatible with the domestic absences occasioned by his itinerant life. Added to this, Wesley’s wife was perpetually brewing mischief. Towards Charles and his “dear Sally,” she entertained and cherished feelings of strong aversion, which she was seldom backward to express. All this may help to explain the following extracts from two letters, from Wesley to his brother, and dated respectively October 20, and October 31.
“I came back from Bedford last night. I know not whether it was your will or no (I believe not), but I am sure it was God’s will for you, to call there. How do you judge whether a thing be God’s will or no? I hope not by inward impressions. Let us walk warily. I have much constitutional enthusiasm; and you have much more. I give you a dilemma. Take one side or the other. Either act readily in connection with me, or never pretend it. Rather disclaim it; and openly avow you do and will not. By acting in connection with me, I mean, take counsel with me once or twice a year as to the places where you will labour. Hear my advice before you fix whether you take it or no. At present you are so far from this, that I do not even know when and where you intend to go. So far are you from following any advice of mine; nay, even from asking it. And yet I may say, without vanity, that I am a better judge of this matter than either Lady Huntingdon, Sally, Jones, or any other: nay than your own heart, that is, will. You told William Briggs, that you never declined going to any place because my wife was there. I am glad of it. If so, I have hope we may sometime spend a little time together. Why do you omit giving the sacrament in Kingswood? What is reading prayers at Bristol, in comparison of this? I am sure, in making this vehement alteration, you never consulted me.
“My love to my sister. Adieu!”[196]
His brother was not the only one, among his friends, that gave Wesley trouble. Hence the following extracts from two other letters.
“You give five reasons why the Rev. Mr. P—— will come no more among us:—1. ‘Because we despise the ministers of the Church of England.’ This I flatly deny; I am answering letters this very post, which bitterly blame me for just the contrary. 2. ‘Because so much backbiting is suffered amongst our people.’ It is not _suffered_: all possible means are used, both to prevent and remove it. 3. ‘Because I, who have written so much against hoarding up money, have put out £700 to interest.’ I never put sixpence out to interest since I was born; nor had I ever £100 together, my own, since I came into the world. 4. ‘Because our lay preachers have told many stories of my brother and me.’ If they did, I am sorry for them: when I hear the particulars, I can answer, and perhaps make those ashamed who believed them. 5. ‘Because we did not help a friend in distress.’ We did help him as far as we were able. You conclude with praying, that ‘God would remove pride and malice from amongst us.’ Of pride I have too much; of malice I have none: however, the prayer is good, and I thank you for it.”
In the other letter, Wesley writes:—
“Some time since, I was considering what you said, concerning the want of a plan in our societies. There is a good deal of truth in this remark. Though we have a plan, as to our spiritual economy, it is certain, we have barely the first outlines of a plan with regard to our temporal concerns. The reason is, I had no design for several years, to concern myself with temporals at all; and when I began to do this, it was solely with a view to relieve, not to employ, the poor; except now and then, with respect to a small number; and even this I found was too great a burden for me, as requiring more money, more time, and more thought, than I could possibly spare. I say, than I could possibly spare; for the whole weight lay on me. If I left it to others, it surely came to nothing. They wanted either understanding, or industry, or love, or patience, to bring anything to perfection.
“With regard to myself, you do well to warn me against ‘popularity, a thirst of power, and of applause; against envy, producing a seeming contempt for the conveniences or grandeur of this life; against an affected humility; against sparing from myself to give to others, from no other motive than ostentation.’ I am not conscious to myself, that this is my case. However, the warning is always friendly; and it is always seasonable, considering how deceitful my heart is, and how many the enemies that surround me.”[197]
For months Wesley’s health had been feeble and failing. On November 12, he preached at Leigh, in Essex, where he caught cold. On his return to London, two days after, he “had a settled pain in his left breast, a violent cough, and a slow fever.” At this period, Dr. John Fothergill, a Quaker, and the son of Yorkshire Quakers, was the most popular of all the metropolitan physicians, and, soon afterwards, attained a practice the profits of which amounted to £7000 a year. Like many of his sect, he had a dash of extravagant eccentricity in his mental constitution; but his heart was benevolent and good. While at Edinburgh, he gave great offence by walking up the High Street, naked to the waist, denouncing God’s vengeance on the inhabitants of _auld Reekie_; but, excepting occasional aberrations of this description, his habits were singularly temperate and discreet; and to him Methodism owes an incalculable debt, for, under God, he saved the life of Methodism’s founder in 1753. Wesley writes: “Dr. Fothergill told me plain, I must not stay in town a day longer; adding, ‘If anything does thee good, it must be the country air, with rest, asses’ milk, and riding daily.’”
Accordingly, Wesley was, at once, removed to the country house of his friend, Mr. Ebenezer Blackwell, at Lewisham, where he was kindly tended for the next five weeks. On the evening of his arrival, he wrote his epitaph. “Not knowing,” he remarks, “how it might please God to dispose of me, to prevent vile panegyric, I wrote as follows.”
Here lieth the Body of JOHN WESLEY, A Brand plucked out of the burning; Who died of a Consumption in the Fifty-first Year of his Age, not leaving, after his Debts are paid, Ten Pounds behind him: Praying, God be merciful to me, an unprofitable Servant! He ordered, that this, if any, inscription should be placed on his tombstone.
The news of Wesley’s dangerous illness, caused deep and wide spread sympathy. Charles Wesley hurried up from Bristol, and though, he says, he found his brother considerably better, he was “still in imminent danger, being far gone, and very suddenly, in a consumption.” Charles fell on his neck and wept. Wesley requested his wife and his brother to forget their past differences, and to be reconciled to each other. They readily agreed to this; and, for a time, confidence seemed to be restored between Wesley and his brother, and friendship, or something like it, appeared to be created between Charles and Wesley’s wife. Charles preached at the Foundery on the power of prayer, and declared it to be his opinion, that, if the life of his brother was prolonged, it would be in answer to the prayer of faith. Whitefield was penetrated with the profoundest sorrow. He was in the west of England at the time, and wrote as follows to his old and faithful friend.
“BRISTOL, _December 3, 1753_.
“REV. AND VERY DEAR SIR,—If seeing you so weak when leaving London distressed me, the news and prospect of your approaching dissolution have quite weighed me down. I pity myself and the church, but not you. A radiant throne awaits you, and ere long you will enter into your Master’s joy. Yonder He stands with a massy crown, ready to put it on your head amidst an admiring throng of saints and angels; but I, poor I, that have been waiting for my dissolution these nineteen years, must be left behind. Well! this is my comfort, it cannot be long ere the chariots will be sent even for worthless me. If prayers can detain them, even you, reverend and very dear sir, shall not leave us yet: but if the decree is gone forth, that you must now fall asleep in Jesus, may He kiss your soul away, and give you to die in the embraces of triumphant love! If in the land of the dying, I hope to pay my last respects to you next week. If not, reverend and very dear sir, F-a-r-e-w-e-l-l! _Præ sequar, etsi non passibus æquis._ My heart is too big; tears trickle down too fast; and you, I fear, are too weak for me to enlarge. Underneath you may there be Christ’s everlasting arms! I commend you to His never failing mercy, and am, reverend and very dear sir, your most affectionate, sympathising, and afflicted younger brother, in the gospel of our common Lord,
“G. WHITEFIELD.”[198]
This is beautiful. Differences of opinion had not been few between Whitefield, and his now, as he thought, dying friend. Only a few months previous to this, Wesley, at the request of his conference, had written him a letter painfully faithful; but the two friends knew and loved each other far too well for the least leaven of unkindly feeling to find a lodgment in the heart of either. Whitefield’s grief was on his own account and that of the church apparently about to be bereaved; on Wesley’s account, he was full of joy, and wished to exchange places with him. On the same day as the above was written, he addressed another friend as follows:—“The physicians think Mr. John Wesley’s disease is a galloping consumption. I pity the church, I pity myself, but not him. We must stay behind in this cold climate, whilst he takes his flight to a radiant throne. Lord, if it be Thy blessed will, let not Thy chariot wheels be long in coming. Even so, come Lord Jesus, come quickly! Poor Mr. Charles will now have double work.”[199]
Leaving Wesley and his friends in the midst of this deep sorrow, we conclude the present chapter with the customary review of Wesley’s publications, during the year 1753. Before proceeding to do this, however, there is one affair, which was arranged in 1753, in reference to Wesley’s book concern, which must not be overlooked. In his Journal, on February 8, 1753, Wesley wrote:—“A proposal was made for devolving all temporal business, books and all, entirely on the stewards; so that I might have no care upon me (in London at least) but that of the souls committed to my charge. O when shall it once be! From this day? _In me mora non erit ulla._”
Wesley, apparently, was incredulous, and yet this proposal, to a great extent at least, was carried out. We have now before us a printed folio circular, with the autograph signatures of T. Butts and W. Briggs, which must have attention. The first four paragraphs contain nothing but Christian sentiment, and, for want of space, are here omitted. The rest of the circular is as follows.
“LONDON, FOUNDERY, _April 20, 1753_.
“_To the Stewards at_ [_Manchester_].[200]
“BELOVED BRETHREN IN CHRIST,—Our minister, Mr. John Wesley, for good cause, and upon mature consideration, has entrusted the management of his books to the stewards of this society, and to us in particular whose names are hereunto subscribed. He has, by a proper power of attorney, invested in us the whole care of printing, publishing, and dispersing them; and has likewise given us full authority to receive all their produce, and settle all accounts with booksellers or others, who are entrusted with the sale of them.
“Having undertaken this great concern, we are obliged, for our own security, and in order to prevent, if possible, all further inconveniences to our ministers, to use our utmost diligence, that, for the future, the book accounts in the country societies be kept with great exactness, and returns made with greater regularity than in times past. And, after seriously weighing various methods, we have come to this agreement,—to beg the stewards of each society, in the country, to take upon themselves the care of the book accounts; and we do hereby beseech you, dear brethren, for the love of Christ and His ministers, that you would be pleased to take upon yourselves the care of this article, and to observe the following regulations with the nicest punctuality:—
“1. Look upon yourselves, for the future, as the stewards of the _books_, as well as of the _other_ temporal affairs of the society.
“2. Appoint one among yourselves, or see that a _proper_ person be appointed, to take charge, and dispose, of the books under your direction.
“3. Be very careful, that he keeps an exact account of all things relating to the books; and that he keeps all the books in a clean, convenient place, and in good order.
“4. Let exact accounts be kept with all the country societies round about you, that have their books from your stock; and desire the stewards of those societies to take the care of those books they receive from you upon themselves, and to engage for punctual returns of money, or an account of the books unsold being safe in their hands.
“5. We here beg leave to intreat you, that the produce of the books, from the societies about you, may be brought into your hands, at least, _once a quarter_, and also, that you would send that, and the produce of your own stock, to us _once a quarter_, by a bill from some trader near you, who can draw on his correspondent here, or by some other safe method; and, with the money, we would beg of you to send up clear accounts of the state of your stock, at the time of your sending, that is, what books you have any call for, and what books you have not, or are wanting.
“6. Be pleased to note this well, that not one penny of the _book money_ is, for the future, to be laid out in anything but with our knowledge and consent; and, that none of it, at any time or upon any occasion whatever, is to be given to the preachers, or any one else, but to _us only_, who have a power of attorney to receive it, and who are absolutely accountable for all the books we let go out of our hands.
“7. And that the above article may be observed without any exception or deviation, our ministers, the Mr. Wesleys, have agreed with us, that all the produce of the books shall come into our hands, and be sent to us _quarterly_; and that they themselves will, upon no account whatever, take up any of the book money in any of the country societies throughout England: and, accordingly, you are to observe, that we most earnestly desire, that you would do your utmost, that this agreement be exactly fulfilled.
“8. And we, moreover, seriously wish, that you would so take upon yourselves the management of the books, as to look upon yourselves as debtors to the book accounts; for, as we cannot carry on so large a concern without good security for punctual returns _every quarter_, so having your word for the security of such payments, we should cheerfully hope, for the future, by the blessing of God, that no confusion or irregularities would fall out in the progress of our undertaking.
“9. Having taken upon ourselves to manage this great concern, we find it impossible to do it effectually, unless you act heartily and zealously in connection with us; and, for this reason it is, that we have proposed the foregoing regulations, and do seriously hope, that you will comply with them in every point.
“10. We beg that you would, by one of your members, keep up a frequent correspondence with us, and send your orders for books to _us only_ (directing for _Mr. Briggs, in Hoxton Square, London_); at the same time giving us clear directions how, and to whom, we should direct, that letters or parcels may the most speedily reach you.
“Thus, dear brethren, we have, with the utmost freedom, delivered our sentiments to you on this important article, to which we desire, your speedy answer, stating how far you can comply with the foregoing regulations, and how far not. And we further beg of you to send us what money you have in hand, with all speed, having printers and bookbinders to pay to a considerable amount. We beg also, that you would send us as exact an account as possible (from the time, of your last settling accounts with Mr. Butts) of what cash you have received for books, how much of it you have sent to London, or paid elsewhere; and also, a general account of your stock, and an exact account of your wants to Ladyday last.
“These things being undertaken by you, as the labour of love, and for the benefit of our ministers (_we_ ourselves having _no_ profit from it, but the profits that will meet us in eternity), we are persuaded great good will follow; and, all things being done orderly and without confusion, our societies, we trust, will continue the great blessings of God upon our nation.
“Commending you and ourselves to the grace and influence of the Spirit of Christ Jesus our Head, we subscribe ourselves, in truth, dear brethren, your most affectionate brethren, and hearty well wishers in the Lord,
T. BUTTS, W. BRIGGS.”
Such was the first circular of Wesley’s first book stewards. Our information concerning Mr. Butts is scanty; but he was as honest as honesty itself; and, in that respect, was admirably fitted for his office. At an early period, he was the travelling companion of the two Wesleys; and in 1744 was employed by Charles Wesley to carry, to Wednesbury, the sum of £60, which had been collected for the relief of the persecuted Methodists in that town and neighbourhood.[201] Our best glimpse of him, however, is in a letter which he addressed to Wesley, in 1750, on “the duty of all to pay their debts.” He writes:—
“One of the greatest evils, in the society, is the disregard of some persons to pay their just debts. I would not take upon me to say, that Christianity requires persons enthralled in debt to live upon bread and water; but can honest persons indulge themselves in strong beer and tea, when small beer and water gruel are much cheaper, and full as wholesome? Or, can they justly deck themselves in any other than the very coarsest apparel? Not long ago, I sent to a man for some money he has owed these three or four years; he sent me for answer—‘that as cambrics were now forbidden, he wanted his money to buy muslin for his wife’s caps; and therefore could not pay me.’ I called upon a widow for a debt that had been owing long; she sent me word, ‘she had nothing to do with her husband’s debts’; and yet, some time after, I saw this member of our society dressed in the attire of a lady, in her silk gown and capuchin, her hair flowing down her neck, and her ruffles dangling to her knees. You have justly discouraged the society from going to law with each other; but, unless you, at the same time, take great care that dishonest members be expelled thence, the society will be a sanctuary for them.”[202]
No wonder that Wesley chose such a man for his book steward.
William Briggs, for a time, was one of Wesley’s preachers, or, at least, one whom he employed in visiting his societies,[203] and was present at the conference of 1748. On January 28, 1749, he was married, by Charles Wesley,[204] to Miss Perronet, daughter of the vicar of Shoreham.[205] Mr. Briggs, like Mr. Butts, was a man of uncompromising integrity; and who, while loving, honouring, and reverencing Wesley in a high degree, had honesty enough to tell him of what he conceived to be his faults. In a letter, written about the same time as Thomas Butts’, after eulogizing Wesley for his many excellencies, he continues—
“But I think your experience is buried in your extensive knowledge. I think you feel not, abidingly, a deep sense of your own spiritual weakness, the nearness of Christ to save, nor a sweet communion with God by the Holy Ghost. You have the appearance of all Christian graces, but they do not, I think, spring from a deep experience. A good nature, with great abilities, will mimic grace; but grace is more than outward; it brings the soul to a deep union with God, and its fellow Christians; but there is a want of sympathy in your discourses and conversation;” etc.[206]
This was bold language to employ, and was unauthorised by facts; but it was the language of an honest, though mistaken, friend; and, three years afterwards, that friend was one of Wesley’s book stewards.
The only tract of any consequence, published against the Methodists, in 1753, was “A serious Address to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley, in relation to the principal doctrine advanced and maintained by him and his assistants. By John Parkhurst, M.A.” 8vo, 31 pages. The doctrine referred to was the witness of the Spirit. The writer was the celebrated author of the well known Hebrew and Greek lexicons which bear his name. Parkhurst was a Rugby scholar, a fellow of Cambridge university, and the possessor of large estates. His “serious address” to Wesley, written in the twenty-fifth year of his age, was his first publication. He professes to examine the texts adduced by Wesley in support of the doctrine of the Spirit’s witness, and, in a friendly spirit, endeavours to refute Wesley’s interpretation of them.
Perhaps we ought to mention another pamphlet, upon whose friendliness, or hostility, it would be difficult to pronounce an opinion. Its title was, “The Principles and Preaching of the Methodists considered. In a letter to the Rev. Mr. ——” 8vo, 44 pages. In one page the author abuses the Methodists; in another he praises them. He tells his readers, that the masses, among whom the Methodists were labouring, were “honest souls, happily destitute of a taste for those modern embellishments, which enervate the word of God, and render it of no effect. In the simplicity of their hearts, they wanted no kickshaws to recommend a gospel entertainment; and found nourishment from the sincere milk of the word without its being converted into whipped syllabub.”
Wesley’s publications, in 1753, were the following.
1. Fourteen volumes of the “Christian Library,” namely, Vol. XX. to Vol. XXXIII. inclusive, and making altogether more than four thousand and three hundred printed 12mo pages. This was no trifle to be undertaken and accomplished by a clergyman without money, and who was always traveling; but Wesley did more than this. Hence the additional publications belonging to this period, one of which had an enormous circulation, and was of great service to the Methodists, in their public and private meetings.
2. “Hymns and Spiritual Songs, intended for the use of real Christians of all Denominations.” 12mo, 124 pages. For many years, this was _the_ hymn-book of the Methodist meeting-houses. In thirty-three years, twenty-four editions were issued. The first edition, now before us, has no author’s name, but that the work was Wesley’s there can be no mistake. Besides the evidence arising from its being “printed by William Strahan; and sold at the Foundery in Upper Moorfields, and in the Horsefair, Bristol,” we have Wesley’s own statement, made in 1779, that he himself made the compilation “several years ago from a variety of hymn-books.”[207] The hymns are eighty-four in number, but some are divided into as many as half-a-dozen parts. The first is the well known paraphrase on Isaiah lv., beginning with the line—
“Ho! every one that thirsts, draw nigh.”
The last is a long hymn of twenty-six stanzas of eight lines each, entitled “The Communion of Saints,” and beginning—
“Father, Son, and Spirit hear Faith’s effectual fervent prayer; Hear, and our petitions seal, Let us now the answer feel.”
3. “An Extract of the Reverend Mr. John Wesley’s Journal, from October 27, 1743, to November 17, 1746.” 12mo, 160 pages.
4. “The Complete English Dictionary, explaining most of those hard words which are found in the best English writers. By a Lover of Good English and Common Sense. N.B.—The Author assures you he thinks this is the best English dictionary in the world.” Such is Wesley’s title page. The book is 12mo, and consists of 144 pages. The preface is in perfect keeping with the title page.
“As incredible as it may appear, I must avow, that this dictionary is not published to get money, but to assist persons of common sense and no learning, to understand the best English authors; and that, with as little expense of either time or money, as the nature of the thing would allow. To this end, it contains, not a heap of Greek and Latin words, just tagged with English terminations (for no good English writers, none but vain or senseless pedants, give these any place in their writings); not a scroll of barbarous law expressions, which are neither Greek, Latin, nor good English; not a crowd of technical terms, the meaning whereof is to be sought in books expressly wrote on the subjects to which they belong; not such English words as _and_, _of_, _but_, which stand so gravely in Mr. Bailey’s, Pardon’s, and Martin’s dictionaries; but ‘most of those hard words which are found in the best English writers.’”
To rightly appreciate this curious publication, it must be borne in mind, that Wesley was now putting into the hands of thousands of the common people extracts from “the best English writers,” in the numerous volumes of his “Christian Library.” Hence the necessity he felt of giving to the same readers a compendious dictionary explaining words in that Library, which many, at least, were not likely to understand.
In reference to his egotistic title page, Wesley waggishly continues—
“I have often observed, the only way, according to the modern taste, for any author to procure commendation to his book, is vehemently to commend it himself. For want of this deference to the public, several excellent tracts, lately printed, but left to commend themselves by their intrinsic worth, are utterly unknown or forgotten. Whereas, if a writer of tolerable sense will but bestow a few violent encomiums on his own work, especially if they are skilfully arranged in the title page, it will pass through six editions in a trice; the world being too complaisant to give the gentleman the lie, and taking it for granted, he understands his own performance best. In compliance, therefore, with the taste of the age, I add, that this little dictionary is not only the shortest and the cheapest, but likewise, by many degrees, the most correct which is extant at this day. Many are the mistakes in all the other English dictionaries which I have yet seen. Whereas, I can truly say, I know of none in this; and I conceive the reader will believe me; for if I had, I should not have left it there. Use then this help, till you find a better.”
This is hardly egotism, so much as satire; or, perhaps, both united. Be that as it may, there can be no question, that Wesley’s little, though pretentious, dictionary was calculated to be of great service in assisting the poor, unlettered Methodists in understanding even the hardest words in his “Christian Library.”
Wesley was a lover of plainness—plain food, plain clothing, plain truth, and plain language. “What is it,” he wrote in 1764, “that constitutes a good style? Perspicuity, purity, propriety, strength, and easiness joined together. When any one of these is wanting, it is not a good style. As for me, I never think of my style at all; but just set down the words that come first. Only when I transcribe anything for the press, then I think it my duty to see every phrase be clear, pure, and proper. Conciseness, which is now, as it were, natural to me, brings _quantum sufficit_ of strength. If, after all, I observe any stiff expression, I throw it out, neck and shoulders. Clearness, in particular, is necessary for you and me; because we are to instruct people of the lowest understanding. We should constantly use the most common, little, easy words (so they are pure and proper) which our language affords. When I had been a member of the university about ten years, I wrote and talked much as you do now. But when I talked to plain people in the castle, or the town, I observed they gaped and stared. This quickly obliged me to alter my style, and adopt the language of those I spoke to. And yet there is a dignity in this simplicity, which is not disagreeable to those of the highest rank.”[208]
Holding such views, no wonder that Wesley compiled a dictionary to explain “the hard words in the English writers.”
1754.
[Sidenote: 1754 Age 51]
Wesley began the year 1754, as an invalid, at the Hotwells, Bristol. On the first Sunday of the year, he commenced writing his “Notes on the New Testament,”—“a work,” says he, “which I should scarce ever have attempted, had I not been so ill as not to be able to travel or preach, and yet so well as to be able to read and write.” With the exception of the time prescribed for his taking exercise on horseback, two hours for meals, and one for private prayer, he spent sixteen hours a day on this,—the greatest work which he had yet attempted. For a few days, his brother assisted him in comparing the translation of the evangelists with the original, and in reading Dr. Heylyn’s Lectures, and Dr. Doddridge’s Expositor. In ten weeks, his _rough draft_ of the translation, and the notes on the four gospels, was completed.
He now returned to London, and, retiring to the village of Paddington, he spent nearly the whole of the next three months in writing, with the exception of coming to town on Saturday evenings for the purpose of taking part in Sunday services.
Thus half of the year 1754 was spent in needed retirement, and in comparative silence. After an intermission of four months, Wesley preached, for the first time, at Bristol, on March 26. On Easter Sunday, he preached a sermon in West Street chapel, Seven Dials, which was the means of the conversion of Alexander Mather, who then, for the first time, saw and heard him, but afterwards became one of his chief counsellors.[209] A month later, he preached to a densely crowded congregation, in what had been Sadlers Wells theatre; and, with less or more frequency, in other places in the metropolis until Whit Sunday, when he once more took the evening service at the Foundery; but writes, “I have not recovered my whole voice or strength; perhaps I never may; but let me use what I have.”
In this way were spent his convalescent months of enforced retirement. Wesley found it impossible to live a life of inactivity.
Whitefield was off to America, having embarked in the month of March. Where Charles Wesley was employed we have no means of knowing. Of Wesley himself a few glimpses will be obtained in the following extracts from letters written during his seclusion.
Three days after his arrival at Bristol Hotwells, he wrote as follows to his friend Blackwell.
“BRISTOL, _January 5, 1754_.
“DEAR SIR,—If I write to my best friends first, I must not delay writing to you, who have been the greatest instruments, in God’s hands, of my recovery thus far. The journey hither did not weary me at all; but I now find the want of Lewisham air. We are (quite contrary to my judgment, but our friends here would have it so) in a cold, bleak place, and in a very cold house. If the Hotwell water make amends for this, it is well. Nor have I any place to ride, but either by the river side, or over the downs, where the wind is ready to carry me away. However, one thing we know,—that whatsoever is, is best. My wife joins me in tender love both to Mrs. Blackwell, Mrs. Dewall, and yourself.”[210]
A fortnight after this, Whitefield addressed his old friend thus.
“LONDON, _January 19, 1754_.
“DEAR MR. WESLEY,—As my embarking for America seems to be very near at hand, your question must necessarily be answered in the negative. However, I thank you for your kind offer, and earnestly pray, that, wherever you are called to labour, you may find the work of the Lord prospering in your hands. I did not know, that there was any demur between you and those with whom you have been for some time connected; and I am sure, God is my witness, that I want to draw no man from them. People, money, power, are not my objects. We have blessed seasons here; the glory of the Lord fills our new Tabernacle. I hope you find your present illness sanctified. That is a sign of special love. Adieu, I am in great haste. But with greater love, I subscribe myself, dear Mr. Wesley, yours most affectionately in our common Lord,
“GEORGE WHITEFIELD.”[211]
For four years past, Henry Venn had been curate of St. Matthew’s church, in Friday Street, London. Twelve years before, he had entered St. John’s College, Cambridge, where he was reckoned one of the best cricket players in the university. His last game was in 1747, in a match between Surrey and All England, and was played a week before his ordination. As soon as it was over, he announced his intention not to play again. His friends asked him why. He answered, “Because I am to be ordained on Sunday; and I will never have it said of me, ‘Well struck, parson!’” He now began to read Law’s “Serious Call”; kept frequent fasts; and abandoned his gay companions.[212] In 1754, he wrote the following to Wesley.
“LONDON, _March 21, 1754_.
“DEAR SIR,—I have often experienced your words to be as thunder to my drowsy soul, I presume, though a stranger, to become a petitioner, begging you would send me a personal charge, to take heed to feed the flock committed unto me. If you consider the various snares to which a curate is exposed—either to palliate the doctrines of the gospel, or to make treacherous allowances to the rich and great, or, at least, to sit down satisfied with doing the least, more than the best, among the idle shepherds,—you will not, I hope, condemn this letter, as impertinently interrupting you in your noble employment, or think one hour lost in complying with its request. It is the request of one, who though he differs from you, and possibly ever may in some points, yet must ever acknowledge the benefit and light he has received from your works and preaching; and, therefore, is bound to thank the Lord of the harvest, for sending a labourer among us, so much endued with the spirit and power of Elias; and to pray for your long continuance among us, to encourage me and my brethren, by your example, while you edify us by your writings. I am, sir, your feeble brother in Christ,
“HENRY VENN.”[213]
One of Venn’s acquaintance, at Cambridge, was Mr. Samuel Furley. He it was who recommended Venn to read Law’s “Serious Call,” which led to his adopting a new mode of life. Furley was still at college, and was only twenty-two years of age. Like Venn, he also wrote to Wesley for advice, and received the following answer.
“BRISTOL, _March 30, 1754_.
“DEAR SIR,—I received your letter, and rejoiced to find, that you are still determined to save yourself, by the grace of God, from this perverse generation. But this cannot possibly be done at Cambridge (I speak from long experience), unless you can make and keep one resolution, to have no acquaintance but such as fear God. I know it may be some time before you will find any that truly bear this character. If so, it is best to be alone till you do, and to converse only with your absent friends by letter. But if you are carried away with the stream into frequent conversation with harmless, good natured, honest triflers, they will soon steal away all your strength, and stifle all the grace of God in your soul.
“With regard to your studies, I know no better method you could pursue, than to take the printed rules of Kingswood school, and to read all the authors therein mentioned, in the same order as they occur there. The authors set down for those in the school, you would probably read in about a twelvemonth; and those afterwards named, in a year or two more: and it will not be lost labour. I suppose you to rise not later than five; to allow an hour in the morning and another in the evening for private exercises; an hour before dinner, and one in the afternoon for walking; and to go to bed between nine and ten. I commend you to Him who is able to carry you through all dangers, and am, dear sir, your affectionate brother and servant,
“JOHN WESLEY.”[214]
In the fourth week of the month of May, Wesley held his annual conference. He writes: “The spirit of peace and love was in the midst of us. Before we parted, we all willingly signed an agreement, not to
## act independently of each other; so that the breach lately made has
only united us more closely together than ever.”
The breach, here referred to, was the withdrawal from the itinerant work of Samuel Larwood (whom Wesley buried two years afterwards), Charles Skelton, John Whitford, and one or two others, who had become dissatisfied with the itinerant plan, and with their position as mere evangelists. Wesley hoped that the evil was ended; but it was spread more widely than he imagined, as will be seen hereafter.
The appointments of the conference week will throw some light on the state of Methodism in London, in 1754; and it may gratify the curious reader to see a copy of the plan for the week beginning May 20, and to learn how often, and in what places, public services were held. The following is a literatim copy from Wesley’s manuscript, with the exception of the figures for the appended notes.
┌───────┬─────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┐ │ │ THE F.^1 │ SP.^2 │ SN.^3 │ WAP.^4 │ ├───────┼─────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────┤ │^8M. M.│ Jo. Fen.^9 │ │ │ │ │ E.│ │ │Ja. Jo.^{13}│Ja. De.^{12}│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ Tu. M.│Jo. Ed.^{15} │ │ │ │ │ E.│ C. W.^{16} │{Deptf. │ │ │ │ │ │{C. P.^{17} │ │ │ │ W. │ R. Sw.^{10} │ │ │ │ │ E.│ │C. Hr.^{14} │ │ │ │ Th. │ C. Hr.^{14} │ │ │ │ │ E.│Jos. Co.^{21}│ │Jo. Jo.^{11}│ │ │ Fr. │T. Mitc.^{22}│ │ │ │ │ E.│ │Jo. Jo.^{11}│ │ │ │ S. │ Jo. Jones │ │ │ │ │ E.│ │{Deftf. │J. W.^{24} │ │ │ │ │{T. Mi.^{23}│ │ │ │ Su. M.│ Jo. Jo.^{11}│ │T. Wa.^{25} │ │ │ E.│ C. W.^{16} │ │T. Mi.^{22} │W. Rob.^{19}│ └───────┴─────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┘ ┌───────┬─────────────┬──────────────┬──────────────┐ │ │ WELLS.^5 │ CHAP.^6 │| WESTMR.^7 │ ├───────┼─────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────┤ │^8M. M.│R. Swin.^{10}│Jo. Jon.^{11} │Ja. Deav.^{12}│ │ E.│C. Hor.^{14} │{Jo. Edw.^{15}│ │ │ │ │{Jo. Jon.^{11}│ │ │ Tu. M.│ │ │ │ │ E.│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ W. │ │ C. W.^{16} │ │ │ E.│Jo. Ha.^{18} │ W. Rob.^{19} │ │ │ Th. │ │ │ {C. H. or │ │ E.│ │ │ {W. Ro.^{20} │ │ Fr. │ │ C. W.^{16} │ │ │ E.│ │ │ │ │ S. │ │ │ │ │ E.│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ Su. M.│J. Row.^{26} │ │ │ │ E.│ │ │ │ └───────┴─────────────┴──────────────┴──────────────┘
NOTES:—^1 Foundery. ^2 Spitalfields. ^3 Snowsfields. ^4 Wapping. ^5 Sadler’s Wells. ^6 The chapel in West Street, Seven Dials. ^7 Westminster. ^8 Days of week. ^9 John Fenwick. ^{10} Robert Swindells. ^{11} Joseph or John Jones. ^{12} James Deaves. ^{13} Perhaps James Jones. ^{14} Christopher Hopper. ^{15} John Edwards. ^{16} Charles Wesley. ^{17} Deptford, Charles Perronet. ^{18} John Haime, or John Haughton, or John Hampson. ^{19} William Roberts. ^{20} Christopher Hopper, or William Roberts. ^{21} Joseph Cownley. ^{22} Thomas Mitchel. ^{23} Deptford, Thomas Mitchel. ^{24} John Wesley. ^{25} Thomas Walsh. ^{26} Jacob Rowell. (See _Methodist Magazine_, 1855, p. 224.)
We thus find seven preaching places in London, of which Sadler’s Wells theatre was one; sixteen preachers were employed, and thirty-seven sermons preached during the week the conference held its sittings.
The writer cannot refrain from giving another Methodist curiosity belonging to 1754. In his nearly complete set of society tickets, many are remarkable; but one, issued in the present year, is without a fellow. The ticket was given, by John Hampson, senior, to Otiwell Higginbotham, a man of considerable property, who lived at Marple, near Stockport, and, evidently, was intended to serve, not for one quarter merely, but for four. With the exception of a single line being substituted for a plainly ornamented border, the following is a copy:—
┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ _“To him that overcometh will I grant │ │ to sit down with Me on My throne, even │ │ as I also overcame, and am set down │ │ with My Father in His throne.”_ │ ├────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ _March_ 25, 1754. _Otw^{ll.} Higginbottom. J. H._ │ ├────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ _June_ 25. │ ├────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ _September_ 29. │ ├────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ _December_ 25. │ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
On the 8th of July, Wesley, though still in enfeebled health, set out, for the first time, to Norwich, accompanied by his brother, by Charles Perronet, and by Robert Windsor. The whole city was in an uproar respecting the infamous conduct of James Wheatley. The mayor was employed in taking the affidavits of the women whom Wheatley had endeavoured to corrupt. The people were so scandalized and exasperated, that they were ready to rise, and tear the poor wretch to pieces. For four days, the Wesley brothers remained, in retirement, at the residence of Captain Gallatin, transcribing the “Notes on the New Testament.” On the 14th, Charles ventured to preach in the open street, and the congregation was “tolerably quiet, all things considered.” Five days later, his brother returned to London—being so seriously unwell as to necessitate his again taking the advice of Dr. Fothergill. Charles continued at Norwich some weeks longer. His congregations became large; and, on one occasion, he had three magistrates and nine clergymen among his auditors. He received the sacrament from the hands of the bishop; and took a lease for seven years, of a large old brewhouse, to serve as a place for preaching. A little society of eighteen members was instituted. Wheatley’s people were furious and abusive. The city swarmed with papists, antinomians, and Socinians. The opposition was fierce, and, in some instances, brutal; but Charles Wesley was thoroughly aroused; became as courageous as ever; and preached with amazing power, and with great success. Methodism was now fairly started in the city of Norwich.
On his return to London, Wesley was ordered, by Dr. Fothergill, to repair to the Hotwells, at Bristol, without delay. He did so; but such was his restless activity, that, within three weeks, he started on a preaching tour to Taunton, Tiverton, and other places. On September 5, he held the quarterly meeting of the Cornish stewards at Launceston. At Plymouth, he preached in the new chapel, recently erected, but which, though three or four times the size of the old one, was not large enough to contain the congregation. On September 10, he got back to Bristol, “at least as well as when” he left it. In eight days, he had preached eight times, besides travelling, visiting, and meeting his societies.
He now spent three weeks more at Bristol, during which he opened the first Methodist chapel at Trowbridge, a chapel built by Lawrence Oliphant, who, while a soldier, had been converted under the preaching of John Haime, in Flanders. Wesley writes: “September 17.—I rode to Trowbridge, where one who found peace with God while he was a soldier in Flanders, and has been much prospered in business since his discharge, has built a preaching house at his own expense. He had a great desire that I should be the first who preached in it; but, before I had finished the hymn, it was so crowded, and consequently so hot, that I was obliged to go out and stand at the door; there was a multitude of hearers, rich and poor.”
About the time that Wesley preached at the opening of Trowbridge chapel, Samuel Bowden, M.D., bespattered the Wiltshire Methodists by the publication of a satirical poem, entitled “The Mechanic Inspired; or, the Methodist’s Welcome to Frome,” dedicated to Lord Viscount Dungarvan. A few of the first lines of this scurrilous production will suffice as a specimen of all the rest:
“Ye vagabond Levites, who ramble about, To gull with your priestcraft an ignorant rout, Awhile your nonsensical canting suspend, And now to my honester ballad attend. The dupes of sly, Romish, itinerant liars, The spawn of French Prophets, and mendicant friars; Ye pious enthusiasts! who riot, and rob, With holy grimace, and sanctified sob.”[215]
Such were some of the choice epithets heaped upon Wesley and his helpers by this refined and accomplished son of Æsculapius.
On September 27, Wesley thought he “had strength enough to keep a watchnight, which he had not done before for eleven months;” but, at eleven o’clock, he almost lost his voice; and, the next evening, at Weavers’ Hall, Bristol, it entirely failed. He now set out for London, halting at Salisbury on the way. While here, he walked to Old Sarum, “which,” says he, “in spite of common sense, without house or inhabitants, still sends two members to the parliament.”
On October 4, he arrived in London, where he seems to have continued during the remainder of the year. It was a year of great feebleness and affliction; but Wesley, though an invalid, crowded into it as much work as would have been done by any ordinary man in the best of health. What were the works he published?
1. “An Extract of the Rev. John Wesley’s Journal, from November 25, 1746, to July 20, 1749.” 12mo, 139 pages.
2. “An Answer to all which the Rev. Dr. Gill has printed on the Final Perseverance of the Saints.” 12mo, 12 pages.
This is a poem of thirty-seven stanzas of eight lines each, many of which are scorchingly sarcastic. The tract is now extremely scarce, and hence we give the following lengthened quotations. The devil, addressing the elect, is made to say—
“God is unchangeable, And therefore so are you, And therefore they can never fail, Who once His goodness knew.
In part perhaps you may, You cannot wholly fall, Cannot become a castaway, Like non-elected Paul.
Though you continue not, Yet God remains the same, Out of His book he cannot blot Your everlasting name.
* * * * *
God’s threatenings all are vain, You fancy them sincere; But spare yourself the needless pain, And cast away your fear.
He speaks with this intent, To frighten you from ill, With sufferings which He only meant The reprobate to feel.
He only cautions all Who never came to God, Not to depart from God, or fall From grace, who never stood.
‘Gainst those that faithless prove, He shuts His mercy’s door, And whom He never once did love Threatens to love no more.
For them He doth revoke The grace they did not share, And blot the names out of His book That ne’er were written there.
* * * * *
Cast all your fears away, My son, be of good cheer, Nor mind what Paul and Peter say, For you _must_ persevere.
And did they fright the child, And tell it it might fall? Might be of its reward beguiled, And sin and forfeit all?
* * * * *
What naughty men be they, To take the children’s bread, Their carnal confidence to slay, And force them to take heed!
Ah, poor misguided soul! And did they make it weep? Come, let me in my bosom lull Thy sorrows all to sleep.
They shall not vex it so, By bidding it take heed; You need not as a bulrush go, Still bowing down your head
Your griefs and fears reject, My _other_ gospel own, Only believe yourself Elect, And all the work is done.”
The above will give the reader an idea of this rare and curious tract.
3. During the year 1754, Wesley also published eight additional volumes of his “Christian Library,” from Vol. XXXIV. to Vol. XLI. inclusive, and containing invaluable extracts from the works of Dr. Goodman, Archbishop Leighton, Dr. Isaac Barrow, Dr. Samuel Annesley, Dr. Henry More, Dr. Stephen Charnock, Dr. Edmund Calamy, Dr. Richard Lucas, Bishop Reynolds, Richard Baxter, Madame Bourignon, and others.
1755.
[Sidenote: 1755 Age 52]
At the commencement of 1755, Wesley complied with the wish of his old friend, the Rev. James Hervey, and began a revision of Hervey’s greatest work, which, soon after, was published, in three octavo volumes, with the title “Theron and Aspasio; or, a Series of Dialogues and Letters upon the most important and interesting subjects.” Wesley’s revision, however, was not to Hervey’s taste. The manuscript of the first three dialogues (which make 129 printed pages) was sent, and was returned “with a few inconsiderable corrections.” Hervey was not satisfied with this, and told Wesley, that he was not acting the part of a friend unless he took greater liberties in literary lopping. On Wesley promising that he would, the manuscript was a second time submitted for the purpose of being pruned. Wesley’s alterations were now of a more important character; and Hervey was as much dissatisfied with the excessive as he had been with the insufficient parings. Wesley’s work was ended. He was not again consulted. He had revised only 129 pages out of more than 1300; but even that was more than he got thanks for doing.[216] Hence the following, which Hervey addressed to Lady Frances Shirley, to whom the book was dedicated.
“WESTON, _January 9, 1755_.
“... Mr. John Wesley takes me very roundly to task, on the score of predestination; at which I am much surprised. A reader, ten times less penetrating than he is, may easily see that this doctrine (be it true or false) makes no part of my scheme; never comes under consideration; is purposely and carefully avoided. I cannot but fear, he has some sinister design. Put the wolf’s skin on the sheep, and the flock will shun him; the dogs will worry him. I do not charge such an artifice, but sometimes I cannot help forming a suspicion. If I live to do myself the honour of writing again to your ladyship, I hope you will give me leave to relate the whole affair, as it stands between Mr. Wesley and myself.”[217]
On the 1st of April, Wesley set out, from Bristol, on a three months’ journey to the north of England. Birmingham is described as “a barren, dry, uncomfortable place. Most of the seed,” he writes, “which has been sown for so many years, the ‘wild boars’ have rooted up; the fierce, unclean, brutish, blasphemous antinomians have utterly destroyed it. And the mystic foxes have taken true pains to spoil what remained, with their new gospel.”
At Ashbourne, in Derbyshire, he formed a society of eighteen persons, one of whom was “Miss Beresford,—a sweet, but short lived flower,” who, two years afterwards, exchanged earth for heaven.
At Hayfield, Wesley was the guest of the Rev. William Baddiley,—a sort of second Grimshaw,—a clergyman, who had formed a number of _irregular_ societies, and who had committed the audacious act of employing laymen to assist him.[218] A few hours before Wesley’s arrival, Mr. Baddiley’s favourite daughter died, and it was Wesley’s task to bury her, and to preach to such a congregation as could scarcely have been expected in the Peak of Derbyshire. In the course of his sermon, Wesley had occasion to refer to the text in Ecclesiastes, stating that there is “a time to dance,” and observed, “I know of no such time, except it be a time analogous to that in which David danced before the ark.” “Be careful,” he added, “that you don’t dance yourselves into hell.” This gave great offence to some of his auditors, who had dancing proclivities; and, as if to defy the itinerant parson, a dancing master was immediately engaged, and a school opened for teaching Mr. Baddiley’s parishioners the art of gracefully tripping, on light fantastic toe, the downward path to the place of horrors with which Wesley had dared to threaten them. The dancing was in an alehouse. The alehousekeeper had an only child, whom the fiddling and the dancing exceedingly distressed. The child cried, and said, “I’ll not stay here: I’ll go home.” He ran into the fields, and, being asked by some one whither he was going, answered, “Home.” At the next dancing party, he was put for safety into a back kitchen, but escaped, and, when discovered, was found dead in a neighbouring river.[219]
From Hayfield, Wesley proceeded to Manchester, where he wrote as follows to his friend Blackwell.
“MANCHESTER, _April 9, 1755_.
“DEAR SIR,—I have another favour to beg of you,—to procure Mr. Belchier’s leave for me to enclose my proof sheets to him. Mr. Perronet sends them down to me in franks; then I correct and send them back to him. The next week I am to spend at Liverpool; toward the end of the week following, I hope to be at Haworth. God has blessed me with a prosperous journey hither, though the roads and the weather were rough.”[220]
There can be no question, that the above relates to the _proof sheets_ of his “Notes on the New Testament,”—sheets now in the possession of Mr. Bate, of Sittingbourne, and which have been kindly lent to the present writer.
On the 15th of April, Wesley paid his first visit to the town of Liverpool, where he spent the next five days. “It is,” says he, “one of the neatest, best built towns I have seen in England: I think it is full twice as large as Chester; most of the streets are quite straight. Two thirds of the town, we were informed, have been added within these forty years. If it continue to increase, in the same proportion, in forty years more, it will nearly equal Bristol. The people in general are the most mild and courteous I ever saw in a seaport town; as, indeed, appears by their friendly behaviour, not only to the Jews and papists who live among them, but even to the Methodists. The preaching house is a little larger than that at Newcastle.” He adds: “every morning, as well as evening, abundance of people gladly attended the preaching. Many of them, I learned, were dear lovers of controversy; but I had better work—I pressed upon them all ‘repentance toward God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.’”
Wesley’s description of a town, now, in point of size, the second city in the kingdom, is not without interest. We have before us a map of Liverpool, published in 1754, which represents the town as merely skirting the Mersey; while Everton and other places, now engulfed in the vast Liverpool population, are represented as somewhat distant villages, surrounded with fields and woods. At that period, there were only three churches—St. Nicholas’s, St. Peter’s, and St. George’s; and two of these had been built within the last half century.
The first Methodist preaching place in Liverpool was a small, dingy, and inconvenient room in Cable Street. A society being formed, a piece of ground was purchased for the erection of a chapel,—the same as the site of the present Pitt Street chapel, and here was built the meeting-house, which Wesley describes as being a little larger than the Orphan House at Newcastle. The neighbourhood was unoccupied and dirty. At the front of the chapel was a large pool of water, through which the Methodists had to pass by the help of stepping stones.[221] Nearly forty years after the time of Wesley’s first visit, the chapel was flanked by a large brickfield; and Adam Clarke, who was then the resident preacher, describes his house as being “neither in hell nor purgatory, yet in a place of torment.” “But where is it?” asked his friend. “You must go,” answered the warm-hearted Hibernian, “down Dale Street, then along East Street, and when you are up to the middle in clay and mud, call out lustily for Adam Clarke.”[222]
One of the first worshippers in the first Pitt Street chapel was a diminutive tailor, whose Christian name was Timothy, and who had a spouse as great corporeally as he was little. Timothy’s wife helped to maintain his family by washing, but this was the only sense in which she was a helpmeet to him. She hated the Methodists, and did her utmost to make the life of poor Tim a scene of purgatorial misery. The little tailor, however, continued faithful; and one night, when he had gone to chapel, his persecuting queen engaged the services of a number of ragged boys to assist her in driving a herd of pigs into the Pitt Street meeting-house for the purpose of disturbing its congregation. Again and again the pigs were got to the chapel door, but as often they revolted, to the termagant’s great vexation. Finding her toil fruitless, and seeing a seat, at the entrance of the chapel, vacant, she seated herself, and, for the first time, listened to the ministry of truth. She was convinced of sin, and went home in deep distress. On poor Tim’s arrival, he was much surprised to see his wife in tears, and asked the reason of such a phenomenon. She related what had happened; Tim found it difficult to believe that the change was genuine; and yet so it was, for, henceforth, she became a sincere penitent; she soon found peace with God; and was as valiant a champion in the service of her Saviour as she had ever been in that of Satan. For sixteen years, she lived the life of a faithful Methodist, and then died happy in God, and went triumphantly to heaven.[223]
From Liverpool, Wesley went to Bolton, Todmorden, Heptonstall, Haworth, Keighley, Bradford, and Birstal, at which last mentioned place his brother met him. The next few days were spent in reading together, “A Gentleman’s Reasons for his Dissent from the Church of England,” the author of which was a Dissenting minister at Exeter. Wesley writes: “It is an elaborate and lively tract, and contains the strength of the cause; but it did not yield us one proof, that it is lawful for us (much less our duty) to separate from the Church. In how different a spirit does this man write from honest Richard Baxter! The one dipping, as it were, his pen in tears, the other in vinegar and gall. Surely one page of that loving, serious Christian, weighs more than volumes of this bitter, sarcastic jester.”
The reading of this treatise was a preparation for the chief business of the ensuing conference, which began at Leeds, on the 6th of May. Wesley says: “The point on which we desired all the preachers to speak their minds at large was, ‘Whether we ought to separate from the Church.’ Whatever was advanced, on one side or the other, was seriously and calmly considered; and, on the third day, we were all fully agreed in that general conclusion,—that, whether it was lawful or not, it was no ways expedient.”
This was by far the largest conference that had yet been held, there being not fewer than sixty-three preachers present, being seventeen more than the entire number of itinerants then employed. Twelve are designated “half itinerants,” namely, William Shent, William Roberts, Jonathan Jones, Jonathan Maskew, James Rouquet, John Fisher, Matthew Lowes, John Brown, Charles Perronet, Enoch Williams, John Haime, and John Furz. Fifteen are named as “our chief local preachers,” namely, John Jones, Thomas Maxfield, Thomas Westall, J. Haughton, Francis Walker, Joseph Tucker, William Tucker, Thomas Colbeck, Titus Knight, John Slocomb, James Morris, Eleazer Webster, Michael Calender, John Bakewell, and Alexander Mather.
“At the close of the conference,” says Wesley, “I spoke thus:—It has been affirmed, that none of our itinerant preachers are so much alive as they were seven years ago. I fear many are not. But if so, they are unfit for the work, which requires much life. Otherwise your labour will be tiresome to yourself, and of little use to others. Tiresome, because you will no longer serve Christ and the people willingly and cheerfully. Of little use, because you will no longer serve them diligently, doing it with your might. I have several reasons to fear it is so with many of you; but let your own conscience be the judge. Who of you is exemplarily alive to God, so as to carry fire with him wherever he goes? Who of you is a pattern of self denial even in little things? Who of you drinks water? Why not? Who rises at four? Why not? Who fasts on Friday? Why not? Who has not four meals a day? Who goes through his work willingly and diligently? never on any account disappoints a congregation? Who has every part of the plan at heart? always meets society, bands, leaders? Who visits in Mr. Baxter’s method? Who preaches the old thundering doctrine, no faith without light? Who constantly and zealously enforces practical religion? relative duties? recommends books? Kingswood school? Who is never idle? What assistant enforces uniformly every branch of the Methodist plan on the preachers and people? visits all the societies regularly? Do you see every preacher observe the rules? Do you reprove, and, if need be, send me word of the defaulters? Do you send me a regular account quarterly? Is your whole heart in the work? Do not you give way to unconcern, indolence, and fear of man? Who will join heart and hand, according to the twelve rules? particularly the twelfth?”[224]
This was faithful dealing with a vengeance. Probably, it was not unneeded; but none but a man of Wesley’s courage would have dared to use it. Affairs, however, were becoming desperate, and a strong hand was necessary to put them right. Some of the preachers had lost their zeal, and others were wishful to become Dissenters. The year 1755 was a crisis. It was an infinite mercy that Methodism was not dashed to pieces.
The great question was the necessity or propriety of the Methodists separating from the Established Church, and of the Methodist itinerant preachers administering the Christian sacraments. For years, there had been dissatisfaction and grumbling. The people, in many instances, had been repelled from the sacramental table in the church, and had been driven to the alternative, of either receiving the Lord’s supper in Dissenting chapels (where such an irregularity might be permitted), or of absolutely committing sin by neglecting one of the most important ordinances of the Christian system. No wonder, that the Methodists were uneasy, and dissatisfied. No wonder, that not a few of Wesley’s preachers, embracing nearly all the most pious and gifted, sighed for some arrangement to meet the emergency created by their own success. Among these were the two Perronets—Edward and Charles—men of education, talent, and piety. Another was Thomas Walsh, pronounced by Wesley the best biblical scholar he ever knew. The leader of the dissentient band was Joseph Cownley, whom Wesley considered one of the best preachers in England. These were men of mark and influence among their less cultured brethren. They were as capable of forming correct opinions as the two Wesleys were. They had a right to be heard; and it was hardly fair to denounce them because they thought that the Methodists were entitled to the sacraments of the Christian church; and that they, as divinely called preachers of Christ’s religion, might be _permitted_ to administer ordinances which that religion solemnly enjoined. Cownley, Walsh, and the Perronets were right; but the time was scarcely come for this to be acknowledged. To a great extent, the Church of England was corrupt; it was also persecuting and repelling. What was there in such a church to make Methodists and Methodist preachers long for continued union with it?
Charles Wesley was irritated and fidgety to a most extraordinary extent. With all the bigotry of the high churchmanship of the present day, he seemed to think, and speak, and act as though salvation, out of the Church of England, was impossible. This may be forgiven, but it cannot be commended. He was unquestionably sincere; but his action, in this affair, was intolerant and absurd. His brother, with a mind far more equable, would probably have acted very differently from what he did, if he had been unfettered, and uninfluenced by his friends. But Charles worried him, and others puzzled him; and the result, as we have already seen, was the agreement come to, after a three days’ discussion by the conference of 1755, that, whether it was _lawful_ or not, it was not _expedient_ for the Methodists to separate from the Established Church.
This was a matter of high importance; and, as it will, ever and anon, present itself throughout the whole of Wesley’s subsequent career, we shall be excused for giving further details respecting it at this period of its history. The following are extracts from unpublished letters written by Charles Wesley to the Rev. Walter Sellon, formerly a Methodist preacher, and master of Kingswood school, but now an ordained clergyman of the Church of England, and settled at Smithsby, near Ashby-de-la-Zouch.
“MY DEAR BROTHER,—I have seen your honest, friendly letter to Charles Perronet, for which I thank you, both in behalf of myself, and the Church of England. You see through him and his fellows. Pride,—cursed pride has perverted him and them; and, unless the Lord interpose, will destroy the work of God, and scatter us all as sheep upon the mountains. In your fidelity to my old honoured mother, you are a man after my own heart. I always loved you, but never so much as now. How unlike the spirit of poor Perronet and his associates! What a pity, that such spirits should have any influence over my brother! They are continually urging him to a separation; that is, to pull down all he has built, to put a sword in our enemies’ hands, to destroy the work, scatter the flock, disgrace himself, and go out—like the snuff of a candle.
“May I not desire it of you, as a debt you owe the Methodists and me, and the Church, as well as him, to write him a full, close, plain transcript of your heart on the occasion? Charles Perronet, you know, has taken upon him to administer the sacrament, for a month together to the preachers, and twice to some of the people. Walsh and three others have followed his vile example.[225] The consequence you see with your own eyes. O that my brother did so too! Our worthy friend [Lady Huntingdon?] at Clifton could not but believe, my brother had _laid on hands_, or they would not have dared to act thus. You have her thoughts in mine. Write to my lady, that you may have her mind from herself. You must make one of our conference in Leeds, which will be in May. I give you timely notice. Pray for us. I stand alone, as the preachers imagine. Nevertheless the Lord stands by me. Fain would they thrust me out, that they may carry all before them. The Lord bless and keep you!
“C. WESLEY.”[226]
“LONDON, _December 14, 1754_.
“MY DEAR BROTHER AND FRIEND,—Write again and spare not. My brother took no notice to me of your letter. Since the Melchisedechians have been taken in, I have been excluded his cabinet council. They know me too well to trust him with me. He is come so far as to believe a separation quite lawful, only not yet expedient. They are indefatigable in urging him to go so far, that he may not be able to retreat. He may _lay on hands_, say they, without separating. I charge you, keep it to yourself, that I stand in doubt of him; which I tell you, that you may pray for him the more earnestly, and write to him the more plainly. Our conference is in May. You must be there, if alive. The Methodist preachers must quickly divide to the right or left, the church or meeting. God be praised for this, that Satan is dragged out to do his worst, while we are yet living to look him in the face. I know none fitter for training up the young men in learning than yourself or J. Jones. We must, among us, get the sound preachers qualified for orders.
“You are a poor writer of shorthand. Perhaps I may teach you better when we meet.
“My partner salutes you in increasing love. Many thousands, besides her, shall prosper, because they love our Jerusalem. Farewell in Christ!
“C. WESLEY.”[227]
“LONDON, _February 4, 1755_.
“MY DEAR BROTHER,—There is no danger of my countenancing them, but rather of my opposing them too fiercely. ‘Tis pity a good cause should suffer by a warm advocate. If God gives me meekness, I shall, at the conference, speak and not spare. Till then, it is best the matter should sleep, or we should make the delinquents desperate, and their associates, among the preachers, hypocrites. My brother purposely holds his peace, that he may come to the bottom of them. Your letters, and some others wrote with the same honesty, have had due effect upon him; and made him forget he was ever inclined to their party. He has spoken as strongly of late, in behalf of the Church of England, as I could wish, and everywhere declares he never intends to leave her. This has made the Melchisedechians draw in their horns, and drop their design. _Sed non ego credulus illis._ We _must_ know the heart of every preacher, and give them their choice of church or meeting. The wound can no longer be healed slightly. Those who are disposed to separate had best do it while we are yet alive. Write to my brother again, and urge it upon his conscience, whether he is not bound to prevent a separation both before and after his death. Whether, in order to do this, he should not take the utmost pains to settle the preachers, discharging those who are irreclaimable, and never receiving another without this previous condition, ‘that he will never leave the Church.’ He is writing an excellent treatise on the question, whether it is expedient to separate from the Church of England, which he talks of printing. Be very mild and loving in your next, lest he should still say, ‘The separatists show a better spirit than their opposers.’ You may _honestly suppose_ him now of our mind. I will answer for your admission to the conference at Leeds in the beginning of May. My brother says, his book will be out next summer. I will allow him till next winter. Is not Nicholas Norton under the influence of Charles Perronet? Keep copies of yours to my brother. J. Jones will thank you for a title. I suppose you know, W. Prior is ordained, without learning, interest, or ought but Providence to recommend him. The Lord of the harvest is thrusting out labourers in divers places. Mr. Romaine, Venn, Dodd, Jones, and others here are much blessed. Pray for them as well as us. The Lord be your strength. Farewell in Christ!
“C. WESLEY.”[228]
These letters are not worthy of the man who wrote them. The scruples of men like Cownley, Walsh, and the two Perronets deserved respect, instead of being denounced as “pride,—cursed pride.” “The men,” says Mr. Jackson, “were not children, either in years, understanding, or piety. They were rebuked, but not convinced; and were left to utter their complaints in all directions. To treat them in this manner was only to restrain the evil for a time. It was not removed.”
As already stated, Charles Wesley met his brother at Birstal previous to the opening of the conference. While there, he wrote to his wife as follows.
“My time is chiefly spent with my brother in reading the Dissenter’s book. He found and showed me many flaws in his arguments against the Church, which he interweaves and answers in his excellent treatise on that question. Mr. Grimshaw, whom the separatists claimed for their own, designed coming to the conference, only to take his leave of us, if we did of the Church. All the preachers in the north are unanimous for it. Satan has done his worst, and confirmed us in our calling.”[229]
Early in the morning of the day after the debate in conference was ended, Charles Wesley took his departure, without even informing his brother of his intention; and, on his way to London, composed a poetical “epistle to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley,” which he read, to a “crowded audience,” at the Foundery, and printed in a 12mo tract of 16 pages, four thousand copies being immediately put into circulation. He speaks of his brother as his “first and last, unalienable friend”; and denounces in withering language the unfaithful clergy,
“Who not for souls, but their own bodies care, And leave to underlings the task of prayer.”
After describing the true members of the Church of England, he proceeds:—
“Yet, while I warmly for her faith contend, Shall I her blots and blemishes defend? Inventions _added_ in a fatal hour, Human appendages of pomp and power Whatever shines in outward grandeur great, I give it up—_a creature of the State_! Nor would I e’er disgrace the Church’s cause, By penal edicts, and compulsive laws. Let others for the shape and colour fight, Of garments short or long, or black or white; Or, fairly matched, in furious battle join For and against the sponsors and the sign; Copes, hoods, and surplices _the Church_ miscall, And fiercely run their heads against the wall; Far different care is mine; o’er earth to see Diffused her true essential piety.”
He then refers to the great revival of religion within the Church, and adds:—
“For her, whom her apostate sons despise, I offer up my life in sacrifice, My life in cherishing a parent spend, Fond of my charge, and faithful to the end. Thrust out as from her pale, I gladly roam, Banished myself, to bring her wanderers home. Yet well content, so I my love may show, My friendly love, to be esteemed her foe, Foe to her order, governors, and rules: The song of drunkards, and the sport of fools; Or, what my soul doth as hell fire reject, A pope—_a count_—and leader of a sect.“
The battle was not ended. A month subsequent to the Leeds conference, the following letter was addressed to Wesley, by his clerical friend, the Rev. Mr. Baddiley.
“HAYFIELD, _June 7, 1755_.
“DEAR SIR,—I would speak with regard to the case debated in your last conference at Leeds. Some of your lay itinerant preachers had a desire, as such, to administer the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s supper. Now might it not be justly said unto them, ‘_Seemeth it but a small thing unto you, that God hath separated you from among the congregation, to bring you near to Himself, that ye thus seek the priesthood also? Alas! alas! ye take too much upon you, ye sons of Levi._’
“What can the event be, but settling in such places as seem most commodious to them, and then settling upon their lees? Has not this been the general bane of scriptural Christianity? Has it not eaten out the life of religion, and caused the power of godliness to dwindle in Dissenters of every denomination? For who—who can bear ease and fulness of bread?
“Be not, dear sir, estranged in your affection, nor straitened in your bowels of love to the mother that bare you, and still continues, notwithstanding small irregularities in you, to dandle you on her knees. O! labour, watch, and pray, with all your might, that no such breach be made. Wherefore should the pickthank heathen have cause to say, ‘Where is now their God?’ I query much, if, upon dissenting from the Established Church, the divisions and subdivisions of the Methodists among themselves would not exceed those of the anabaptists in Germany.”[230]
Before leaving the subject, a few more letters must be added. The following were addressed by Wesley to his brother.
“LONDON, _June 20, 1755_.
“DEAR BROTHER,—Did not you understand, that they all promised, by Thomas Walsh, not to administer, even among themselves? I think that a huge point given up; perhaps more than they could give up with a clear conscience. They showed an excellent spirit. When I (not to say you) spoke once and again—spoke _satis pro imperio_, when I reflected on their answers, I admired their spirit, and was ashamed of my own. The practical conclusion was, ‘Not to separate from the Church.’ Did we not all agree in this? Surely either you or I must have been asleep, or we could not differ so widely in a matter of fact! Here is Charles Perronet raving ‘because his friends have given up all’; and Charles Wesley, ‘because they have given up nothing’; and I, in the midst, staring and wondering both at one and the other. I do not want to do anything more, unless I could bring them over to my opinion; and I am not in haste for that. Joseph Cownley says, ‘For such and such reasons, I dare not hear a drunkard preach, or read prayers’; I answer, I dare—but I cannot answer his reasons. Adieu!
“JOHN WESLEY.”[231]
“LONDON, _June 28, 1755_.
“DEAR BROTHER,—Go to Ireland, if you think so, and save Ireland. Wherever I have been in England, the societies are far more firmly and rationally attached to the Church than ever they were before. I have no fear about this matter. I only fear the preachers’ or the people’s leaving, not the Church, but the love of God, and inward or outward holiness. To this I press them forward continually. I dare not, in conscience, spend my time and strength on externals. If, as my lady says, all outward establishments are Babel, so is this establishment. Let it stand for me. I neither set it up nor pull it down. But let you and I build up the city of God. I have often desired our preachers to bury a corpse at Wapping; I mean, to give an exhortation closed with prayer. I do not know, that this is any branch of the sacerdotal office. Thomas Walsh (I will declare it on the housetop) has given me all the satisfaction I desire, and all that an honest man could give. I love, admire, and honour him; and wish we had six preachers in all England of his spirit. But enough of this. Let us draw the saw no longer, but use all our talents to promote the mind that was in Christ. We have not one preacher, who either proposed, or desires, or designs (that I know) to separate from the Church at all. Their principles, in this single point of ordination, I do not approve; but I pray for more and more of their spirit (in general) and practice. Driving me may make me fluctuate; though I do not yet. ‘When the preachers in Ireland set up for themselves, must you not disown them?’ I answer, ‘When.’ Adieu.
“JOHN WESLEY.”[232]
At this period the Rev. Samuel Walker was a zealous and useful clergyman in Cornwall. Born in Exeter, he had become a graduate of Exeter College, Oxford, and, for fourteen years, had been a minister of the Church of England. His labours had been greatly blessed at Truro. At least, eight hundred persons had repaired to him with the gaoler’s question, “What must I do to be saved?” Within the last twelve months, he had formed his converts into societies, and had drawn up rules for their regulation. He was a deeply devoted man, and finished a laborious and useful life within six years after the time of which we are now writing. He was one of the friends of Wesley, who wrote to him as follows.
“BRISTOL, _September 24, 1755_.
“REVEREND DEAR SIR,—You greatly oblige me by speaking your thoughts so freely. All that you say concerning the inexpediency of a separation from the Church, I readily allow; as, likewise, that the first and main question must be, is it _lawful_ to separate? Accordingly, this was debated first, and that at large, in seven or eight long conversations. And it was then only, when we could not agree concerning this, that we proceeded to weigh the _expediency_ of it.”
Wesley then proceeds to state the reasons assigned by his preachers, why they ought to separate from the Established Church, namely:—1. Though the liturgy is, in general, possessed of rare excellence, “it is both absurd and sinful, to declare such an assent and consent, to any merely human composition,” as is required to it. 2. Though they did not “object to the use of forms,” they durst “not confine themselves to them.” 3. Because they considered the decretals of the Church as “the very dregs of popery,” and “many of the canons as grossly wicked as absurd. The spirit which they breathe is throughout popish and antichristian. Nothing can be more diabolical than the _ipso facto_ excommunications so often denounced therein. While the whole method of executing these canons, in our spiritual courts, is too bad to be tolerated, not in a Christian, but in a Mahommedan or pagan nation.” 4. Because they feared that many of the Church of England ministers neither _lived_ the gospel, _taught_ it, nor _knew_ it; and because they doubted “whether it was lawful to attend the ministrations of those whom God had not sent to minister.” 5. Because the doctrines preached by these clergymen were “not only wrong, but fundamentally so, and subversive of the whole gospel.”
Having stated these as the reasons assigned for separation, Wesley proceeds.
“I will freely acknowledge that I cannot answer these arguments to my own satisfaction; so that my conclusion, which I cannot yet give up, ‘that it is lawful to continue in the Church,’ stands almost without any premises that are able to bear its weight.
“My difficulty is very much increased by one of your observations. I know the original doctrines of the Church are sound; and I know her worship is, in the main, pure and scriptural; but, if ‘the essence of the Church of England, considered as such, consists in her orders and laws; (many of which I, myself can say nothing for) ‘and not in her worship and doctrines,’ those who separate from her have a far stronger plea than I was ever sensible of.
“At present, I apprehend those, and those only, to separate from the Church, who either renounce her fundamental doctrines, or refuse to join in her public worship. As yet, we have done neither; nor have we taken one step further than we were convinced was our bounden duty. It is from a full conviction of this, that we have—(1) preached abroad; (2) prayed extempore; (3) formed societies; and (4) permitted preachers who were not episcopally ordained. And were we pushed on this side, were there no alternative allowed, we should judge it our bounden duty, rather wholly to separate from the Church, than to give up any one of these points. Therefore, if we cannot stop a separation without stopping lay preachers, the case is clear: we cannot stop it at all.
“‘But if we permit them, should we not do more? Should we not appoint them? Since the bare permission puts the matter out of our hands, and deprives us of all our influence?’ In great measure it does; therefore, to appoint them is far more expedient, if it be lawful. But is it lawful for presbyters, circumstanced as we are, to appoint other ministers? This is the very point wherein we desire advice, being afraid of leaning to our own understanding.
“It is undoubtedly needful, as you observe, to come to some resolution on this point, and the sooner the better. I, therefore, rejoice to hear that you think, ‘this matter may be better, and more inoffensively ordered; and that a method may be found, which, conducted with prudence and patience, will reduce the constitution of Methodism to due order, and render the Methodists, under God, more instrumental to the ends of practical religion.’ This, sir, is the very thing I want. I must, therefore, beg your sentiments on this head; and that as particularly as your other engagements will allow. I remain, reverend dear sir,
“Your obliged and affectionate brother and servant,
“JOHN WESLEY.”[233]
All must admit, that this is a most important letter. It proves three momentous facts. 1. That the conference of 1755 could not come to an agreement as to the _lawfulness_ of separating from the Church of England; and that the only point settled was as to the present _expediency_ of such a separation. 2. That the arguments used, in favour of a separation, were arguments which Wesley was not able to answer to his own satisfaction. And, 3. That rather than give up open air preaching, extemporaneous prayer, forming societies, and permitting men not episcopally ordained to preach, Wesley would wholly separate himself from the Established Church.
Wesley’s position was peculiar. Of all the Methodist clergymen then existing, he was the only one who evinced a willingness to look the difficulties of the situation fairly in the face. His brother was furious. Grimshaw threatened to leave the Methodists if the Methodists left the Church. Baddiley unworthily taunted the lay preachers with aspiring after priestly honours. Walker evidently held strong opinions against the contemplated movement. And Whitefield wrote to Lady Huntingdon as follows.
“NEWCASTLE, _September 24, 1755_.
“Oh, how hath my pleasure been alloyed at Leeds! I rejoiced there with trembling; for, unknown to me, they had almost finished a large house in order to form a separate congregation. If this scheme succeeds, an awful separation, I fear, will take place among the societies. I have written to Mr. Wesley, and have done all I could to prevent it. Oh this self love, this self will! It is the devil of devils.”[234]
Another clergyman, who was consulted in this emergency, was the Rev. Thomas Adam, rector of Wintringham, near Malton, in Yorkshire, two years older than Wesley, born and educated in Leeds, a graduate of Christ’s College, Cambridge, who obtained the Wintringham living at the age of twenty-three, and retained it for about sixty years, until his death in 1784. Mr. Adam wrote to Wesley as follows.
“WINTRINGHAM, _October 10, 1755_.
“REVEREND SIR,—As you are pleased to desire my opinion on ‘a formal separation of the Methodists from the Church of England,’ I shall make no apology for giving it to you in as explicit a manner as I can.
“As you are not satisfied, in your conscience, of the lawfulness of a separation in form, but, on the contrary, have advanced many reasons against it, methinks your way is plain before you. If any considerable number of the Methodists should persist in carrying their design of separation into execution, you and others, your present scruples subsisting, will be obliged in conscience to disavow, and declare openly against it. Your present embarrassments are very great, and should be a warning to all how they venture upon a revolt from the authority and standing rules of the church to which they belong. I fear, sir, that your saying, you do not appoint, but only approve of the lay preachers, from a persuasion of their call and fitness, savours of disingenuity. Where is the difference? Under whose sanction do they act? Would they think their call a sufficient warrant for commencing preachers without your approbation, tacit or express? And what is their preaching upon this call, but a manifest breach upon the order of the Church, and an inlet to confusion? Upon the whole, therefore, I submit to your serious consideration, whether the separation is not wide enough already, particularly in the instance of unordained persons preaching, and gathering societies to themselves wherever they can; and whether all the Methodists might not serve the interests of Christ better, by returning to a closer union with the Church, and repairing the breach they have made, than by making it still wider, and separating, what they think, the gospel leaven from the lump?”[235]
The following is Wesley’s answer.
“LONDON, _October 31, 1755_.
“REVEREND SIR,—You have much obliged me by your clear and friendly answer; with the main of which I fully agree: for I am still in my former sentiment—‘We will not _go out_; if we are _thrust out_, well.’ And of the same judgment are, I believe, nineteen in twenty of our preachers, and an equal majority of the people. We are fully convinced, that, to separate from an established church is never lawful but when it is absolutely necessary; and we do not see any such necessity yet. Therefore, we have, at present, no thoughts of separation.
“With regard to the steps we have hitherto taken, we have used all the caution which was possible. We have done nothing rashly, nothing without deep and long consideration, and much prayer. Nor have we taken one deliberate step, of which we, as yet, see reason to repent. It is true, in some things, we vary from the rules of the Church; but no further than we apprehend is our bounden duty. It is from a full conviction of this, that we preach abroad, use extemporary prayer, form those who appear to be awakened into societies, and permit laymen, whom we believe God has called, to preach.
“I say _permit_, because we ourselves have hitherto viewed it in no other light. This we are clearly satisfied we _may_ do; that we _may do more_, we are not satisfied. It is not clear to us, that presbyters, so circumstanced as we are, may _appoint_ or _ordain_ others; but it is, that we may _direct_, as well as _suffer_ them to do, what we conceive they are _moved to by the Holy Ghost_. It is true, that, in _ordinary_ cases, both an _inward_ and an _outward_ call are requisite. But we apprehend there is something far from _ordinary_ in the present case; and, upon the calmest view of things, we think, they, who are only called of God, and not of man, have _more_ right to preach than they who are only called of man, and not of God. Now that many of the clergy, though called of man, are not called of God to preach His gospel is undeniable: 1. Because they themselves utterly disclaim, nay, and ridicule the inward call. 2. Because they do not know what the gospel is: of consequence, they _do not_ and _cannot_ preach it.
“This, at present, is my chief embarrassment. That I have not gone too far yet, I know; but whether I have gone far enough, I am extremely doubtful. I see those running whom God hath not sent; destroying their own souls, and those that hear them. Unless I warn, in all ways I can, these perishing souls of their danger, am I clear of the blood of these men? Soul damning clergymen lay me under more difficulties than soul saving laymen!
“Those among ourselves, who have been in doubt, whether they ought so to beware of these false prophets, as not to hear them at all, are not men of a ‘forward, uncharitable zeal;’ but of a calm, loving, temperate spirit. They are perfectly easy as to their own call to preach; but they are sometimes afraid, that the countenancing these blind guides is a dead weight even on those clergymen who are really called of God. ‘Why else,’ say they, ‘does not God bless their labours?’ We know several regular clergymen who preach the genuine gospel, but to no effect at all. There is one exception in England: Mr. Walker, of Truro. We do not know one more, who has converted one soul in his own parish. If it be said, ‘Has not Mr. Grimshaw and Mr. Baddiley?’ No, not one, till they were _irregular_: till both the one and the other formed _irregular_ societies, and took in laymen to assist them. Can there be a stronger proof that God is pleased with _irregular_, even more than with _regular_ preaching?”[236]
No apology is needed for the insertion of these long extracts. In these days,—when the reunion, amalgamation, or absorption of the Methodists with the Church of England, is exciting so much attention, they deserve to be read with more than ordinary interest. A recurrence to the subject will often be necessary; but, for the present, we must leave it, and track the footsteps of Wesley during the remainder of the year 1755.
The conference at Leeds being concluded, he left that town, on the 12th of May, for Newcastle, where he found some of the Methodists had left the Church already, and others were on the point of doing so, and all, “as they supposed, on his authority!” Three weeks were spent in the Newcastle circuit. He then set out for London, and, at the end of the first day’s journey, reached Osmotherley.[237]
Here he made strict inquiry concerning an event of recent occurrence, and which at the time excited great attention. Osmotherley lies nestled nearly at the foot of a long mountain range, known by the name of Black Hambleton. A few weeks before, a part of the mountain consisting of a vast ridge of rock, called Whiston Cliff, was split asunder, amid a sound as of rolling thunder. On March 25, there was a loud noise issuing from the mountain, but nothing more. Next day, a huge piece of the rocky precipice, fifteen yards thick, ten high, and above twenty broad, was torn from the mountain side and thrown into the valley. The ground shook, and immense stones, of several tons weight, rose like giants out of the ground below, and rolled to and fro with marvellous velocity. On the three succeeding days, the ground continued trembling; in many places the earth clave asunder; and huge rocks turned upside down and moved in all directions. Patches of ground, as much as fifty yards in diameter, were lifted bodily, and, burdened with rocks and even trees, were removed to a considerable distance, without the least fissure being created by the transit. In a space of about forty acres, the earth was cleft in a thousand places, while the cliff, from which the rest was torn, was white as snow, and, glittering in the sunlight, was visible at a distance of many miles.
Wesley, at all times keenly alive to the supernatural, took the deepest interest in this phenomenon. At Osmotherley, he met with eye and ear witnesses of this strange occurrence. He went with one of them, Edward Abbot, a weaver, to the spot, and “walked, crept and climbed, round and over great part of the ruins.” He wrote a description of what he saw, which was published in the _London Magazine_, the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, the _Public Advertiser_, and other periodicals. He endeavoured to account for the phenomenon, and came to the conclusion, that it was not produced by any “merely natural cause,—fire, water, or air, but by God Himself,” who arose to shake terribly the earth; and who purposely chose such a place, where there was so great a concourse of nobility and gentry every year.[238] This excited the ire of an anonymous contributor to the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, who declared that he had “caused an inquiry to be made into the fact, at no small trouble and expense; and found the whole to be a falsehood, without the least degree of truth for its foundation.” A more audacious lie than this, it is difficult to imagine; and yet it was published. A few months later, Wesley wrote as follows to the editor of that periodical.
“BRISTOL, _March 8, 1756_.
“MR. URBAN,—I have met with many persons in my life, who did not abound with modesty; but I never yet met with one who had less of it than your anonymous correspondent. The whole account of Whiston Cliff, inserted in one of your magazines, I aver to be punctually true, having been an eye witness of every particular of it. And if F. D. will set his name, and aver the contrary, I will make him ashamed, unless shame and he have shook hands, and parted.
“Yours, etc.,
“JOHN WESLEY.”
The editor adds, that, if his anonymous correspondent does not make good his assertion, he is treated in Wesley’s letter with less severity than he deserves. This evoked a communication from a man who afterwards rose to fame in the literary world. John Langhorne, who, besides numerous other works, became the well known translator of Plutarch’s Lives, was now in his twentieth year, and a private tutor in the neighbourhood of Thirsk. Having read the impudent mendacity of F. D., he wrote to _Mr. Urban_, stating that he himself had visited the scene of this strange upheaving, and fully confirmed Wesley’s statement. Thus terminated this earthquake episode in Wesley’s history.
From Whiston Cliff, Wesley went to Thirsk, and then to York, the society at the latter place being, number for number, the richest he had in England. “I hope,” says he, “that York will not prove, as Cork has done, the Capua of our preachers.” He reached London on the 16th of June, and wrote:—
“From a deep sense of the amazing work which God has of late years wrought in England, I preached, in the evening, on those words (Psalm cxlvii. 20), ‘He hath not dealt so with any nation;’ no, not even with Scotland or New England. In both these, God has indeed made bare His arm; yet not in so astonishing a manner as among us. This must appear to all who impartially consider—(1) The numbers of persons on whom God has wrought. (2) The swiftness of His work in many, both convinced and truly converted in a few days. (3) The depth of it in most of these, changing the heart, as well as the whole conversation. (4) The clearness of it, enabling them boldly to say, ‘Thou hast loved me, Thou hast given Thyself for me.’ (5) The continuance of it. God has wrought in Scotland and New England, at several times, for some weeks or months together; but, among us, He has wrought for near eighteen years together, without any observable intermission. Above all, let it be remarked, that a considerable number of the clergy were engaged in that great work in Scotland; and, in New England, above a hundred, perhaps as eminent as any in the whole province, not only for piety, but also for abilities, both natural and acquired; whereas, in England, there were only two or three inconsiderable clergymen, with a few young, raw, unlettered men; and those opposed by well-nigh all the clergy, as well as laity, in the nation. He that remarks this must needs own, both that this is a work of God, and that He hath not wrought so in any other nation.”
Immediately after his return to London, Wesley entered into an important correspondence, which lasted for the next nine months, and which, in 1760, was published in an octavo pamphlet of 52 pages, with the title, “Original Letters between the Reverend Mr. John Wesley, and Mr. Richard Tompson, respecting the Doctrine of Assurance, as held by the former: Wherein that Tenet is fully examined. With some Strictures on Christian Perfection.” Richard Tompson was no ordinary man. He makes no pretension to any knowledge of the learned languages; but he was unquestionably well acquainted with his own. Without the advantages of early education, he had, by great assiduity in reading, mastered the science of divinity, and was a respectable proficient in the study of literature in general. He was evidently a man of powerful mind, and there is the greatest fairness in his reasoning. Wesley wrote: “Of all the disputants I have known, you are the most likely to convince me of any mistakes I may be in; because you have found out the great secret of speaking the truth in love.” This was praise which Tompson well merited. From first to last, there is nothing in his letters but what is consonant with the highest respect and sincerest love. And yet, he pins his opponent with consummate skill, states his objections in the clearest light, and deduces his conclusions with a power which Wesley found it difficult to resist. In former years, he had been a Methodist; at present he was not. Still, he was a man of enlightened and earnest piety, and of a sober and exemplary life. All his letters, except the last, were anonymous; not because he was doubtful of his tenets, or ashamed of the doctrines he was endeavouring to defend, but because he not unreasonably apprehended, that, if his name was given, his letters might not be read, nor receive the attention which, he knew their intrinsic worth deserved. When he divulged his name, Wesley, like a Christian gentleman, instead of being annoyed at being betrayed into a correspondence with one of whom he had spoken in his Journal somewhat disparagingly, addressed him with brotherly affection, and concluded this remarkable and able correspondence thus: “Your reasons for concealing your name were good: we cannot too carefully guard against prejudice. You have no need of any excuse at all. For you have done no wrong, but rather a pleasure, to your affectionate brother, JOHN WESLEY.”
Wesley’s letters are published in his collected works; but, of course, unaccompanied by Tompson’s; and, without the latter, no one can form a correct opinion concerning this courteous and loving contest. Our own honest conviction is, that Tompson is the master. It is true that, in the main matter of dispute, the difference between the two was more imaginary than real,—more in words than fact; but we feel bound to say, that, in _managing_ the argument, Wesley, either for want of time or want of something else, is worsted.
The subject of Christian perfection is summarily dismissed. Tompson quotes texts of Scripture, and appeals to history, and concludes with an argument which has been elaborated in modern days: “Suppose that two persons, _absolutely free from the corruption of human nature_, should marry and have children, it is very evident, that they could convey no corruption of nature to their offspring, nor they to theirs, even to the remotest generations: and, therefore, this _new species_ of mankind would stand in no need of a Saviour; that is, in no need of Christ’s righteousness to justify them; in no need of His Spirit to enable them to do their duty, they being possessed of that rectitude of nature which will enable them to act entirely for themselves.”
This is quoted, not for its soundness, but, merely to show how feebly one of the ablest logicians of his age confronted it. The following is the whole of Wesley’s answer: “As to Christian perfection, I believe two, who were made perfect in love, never did, or will, marry together.” This was not argument, but assumption; and Tompson was not slow to avail himself of his advantage. In his next communication he asks, “Why is the marriage state proper for those only who are tainted with sin and corruption?” He reminds his opponent, that two persons, Adam and Eve, absolutely free from sin, have been married, and that by the express command of God Himself. Besides, he asks, “Suppose that two persons, already married, should attain to such a state,—the very same consequences would inevitably follow; and, I suppose, you will hardly venture to affirm, that God will never make any married couple (capable of having children) perfect. If you did, I should ask you first, what ground you had for such an arbitrary hypothesis? and secondly, how you came to marry yourself, when you judged it would be an infallible means of keeping either yourself, or your wife, from that state which is of all others the most desirable?” Wesley, like a prudent man, attempted no reply to this; and so the matter ended.
It will thus be seen, that the doctrine of Christian perfection was not fairly and fully discussed by the two friendly antagonists. Their main subject of dispute was this: “that no person is a true believer in Christ, but he who either certainly knows, or has known, by the immediate revelation of the Holy Ghost, that his sins are forgiven.” Tompson argues, that the definition of faith given by the Church of England,—“a sure trust or confidence in God that my sins are forgiven,” applies not to that faith “which is the immediate proximate cause of justification,” but to that faith which follows after justification. Wesley’s reply to this, in brief, was: “I agree with you, that justifying faith cannot be a conviction that I am justified; but still, I believe that it _implies_ such a conviction.” Further correspondence followed, and Wesley’s opinion, just given, was modified to this extent: “I believe there are some instances of a man who has not a _clear assurance_ that his sins are forgiven, being in a state of justification.” This, in substance, was all that Tompson contended for; and so terminated one of the most friendly controversies in Wesley’s history. No man was more open to conviction than Wesley was; no man was more sincerely in search of truth; no man met a reasonable opponent in a more loving spirit. “If,” said he, in his first reply to Tompson, “if you have observed anything in any of the tracts I have published, which you think is not agreeable to Scripture or reason, you will oblige me by pointing out, and by communicating to me any remarks you have occasionally made. I seek two things in this world—truth and love; whoever assists me in this search is a friend indeed.”
While on the subject of controversy, it may be added, that during the year 1755 a furious attack was made upon the Methodists, in an octavo pamphlet of 37 pages, entitled, “An Apology for the Clergy; with a view to expose the groundless assertions of a late Commentator on the 107th Psalm; and to undeceive the admirers of certain popular declaimers, by showing the dangerous consequences of their manner of preaching.” In this precious _morceau_, the Wesleys and their fellow Methodists are spoken of as “giving vent to the rankest enthusiasm,”—as captivating the people “with unintelligible jargon,” and “importing contraband doctrines into pulpits” which they had no right to enter. These were hard words, but hardly worth answering.
Another kindred publication was issued, with the title, “A Dissertation on Enthusiasm, showing the danger of its late increase. By Thomas Green, M.A., vicar of Wymeswould, Leicestershire.” 8vo, 219 pages. In this, the Methodists were likened, not only to papists, but to Mahommedans, and fanatics of all descriptions. It was too late for scurrilous publications like these to obtain, or to deserve an answer. Like their authors, they soon sank into well merited oblivion.
On the 30th of June, Wesley set out for Norwich, where he spent the next four days, and spoke personally to each member of the society. On returning to London, at the request of “a friendly gentlewoman,” he became a witness to her will, wherein she bequeathed part of her estates to charitable uses; and part, during his natural life, to her dog Toby. “I suppose,” says he, “her legacy to Toby may stand good; but that to the poor is null and void, by the statute of mortmain!” He dined with one who, for many years, was one of the most celebrated beauties in Europe; but who, suffering from a painful and nauseous disease, was now literally rotting. He called upon an old friend, after a separation of sixteen years, found him a beggar, forsaken by all his old acquaintance, and offered him all the assistance in his power. He held the first Methodist covenant service, at the French church in Spitalfields, above eighteen hundred persons standing up in testimony of their assent to the tenor of the covenant, still in use among the Methodist societies.
On the 18th of August, he started for Cornwall. On the way, he preached to “sleepy congregations” at Reading and at Salisbury. At Shaftesbury, he found a more lively people. In Cornwall, his congregations were large and attentive. Even at Helstone, all were quiet, except two drunken men, one of whom soon walked away, and the other fell asleep on his horse’s neck. At Breage, the lions were now changed into lambs, though their wretched minister had told them, from the pulpit, a few years before, that John Wesley was expelled from the Oxford university for being the father of a bastard child; and that all the Methodists, at their private meetings, put out the lights. In the interval, this mendacious priest had grown thoughtful and melancholy, and had hanged himself. At St. Ives, Wesley visited a young attorney, who had attended the Methodist preaching, but who now sung, and swore, and screamed, and cursed, as if possessed by legion; now, however, after prayer, he sunk down into a state of quietude. At St. Just, Wesley preached on the foundation stone of the new Methodist meeting-house; and, at Launceston, in a gentleman’s dining room, capable of containing a congregation of some hundreds.
Having spent three weeks in Cornwall, he returned to Bristol to finish his “Notes on the New Testament.” During this Cornish tour, he was accompanied by Michael Fenwick, whom he pronounces to be “an excellent groom, _valet de chambre_, nurse, and, upon occasion, a tolerable preacher.”[239] He wrote to his friend Blackwell as follows.
“REDRUTH, _August 31, 1755_.
“DEAR SIR,—In my last journey into the north, all my patience was put to the proof again and again, and all my endeavours to please; yet without success. In my present journey, I leap, as broke from chains. I am content with whatever entertainment I meet with, and my companions are always in good humour, ‘because they are with me,’ This must be the spirit of all who take journeys with me. If a dinner ill dressed, a hard bed, a poor room, a shower of rain, or a dirty road, will put them out of humour, it lays a burden upon me, greater than all the rest put together. By the grace of God, I never fret; I repine at nothing; I am discontented with nothing. And to have persons at my ear, fretting and murmuring at everything, is like tearing the flesh off my bones. I see God sitting upon His throne, and ruling all things well. Peace be with you all.
“I am, etc.
“JOHN WESLEY.”[240]
At the end of October, he returned to London, and, on the first Sunday after his arrival, read prayers, preached, and gave the sacrament, at Snow’s Fields, in the morning; preached and gave the sacrament at noon in West Street chapel; met the leaders at three; buried a corpse at four; preached at five; and afterwards met the society, and concluded the day with a general lovefeast.
Whitefield had returned from America in the month of May, and wrote: “The poor despised Methodists are as lively as ever; and, in several churches, the gospel is now preached with power. Many, in Oxford, are awakened to a knowledge of the truth, and I have heard almost every week of some fresh minister or another that seems determined to know nothing but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. The greatest venom is spit out against Mr. Romaine, who, having been reputed a great scholar, is now looked upon and treated as a great fool.”[241]
On November 5, after a long separation, Wesley and Whitefield met in London. “Disputings,” writes the former, “are now no more: we love one another, and join hand in hand to promote the cause of our common Master.” The remainder of the year was spent in the metropolis and its immediate vicinity.
At this period, John Fletcher, afterwards vicar of Madeley, was a young man, twenty-six years of age, and officiated as private tutor to the two sons of Thomas Hill, Esq., at Tern Hall, in Shropshire. He had recently been converted, principally by the instrumentality of the Methodists, and had already formed a warm attachment to Wesley, which continued to increase until his death, in 1785. One of his first letters to the great Methodistic leader, perhaps the very first, was dated “London, November 29, 1755,” and is, in all respects, a remarkable production. He expresses a conviction that the end of the world is near at hand, and adduces elaborated reasons for this opinion. He confesses his belief in the second coming of our Saviour; in His making war among His enemies; and in His personal reign on earth for a thousand years. Fletcher’s millenarian letter is far too long to be inserted here; it may be read in the _Methodist Magazine_ for 1793; and is of some importance, as showing, that the millenarian theory, which is now attracting so much attention, found considerable favour among some of the most distinguished of the first Methodists. We shall have to recur to this important subject at a future period.
Before leaving the year 1755, it only remains to review Wesley’s publications.
At the commencement of the year, an anonymous octavo pamphlet, of 32 pages, was published, entitled “Queries humbly proposed to the Right Reverend and Right Honourable Count Zinzendorf.” James Hutton, who was Zinzendorf’s chief disciple, believed this to be the work of Wesley;[242] and, after a careful examination, we are bound to say, that we concur in this belief;[243] and as the pamphlet is extremely rare and also curious, a brief analysis of its contents may not be unacceptable. The Queries are arranged under ten divisions, and the writer hopes the count will give “speedy, plain, positive, categorical answers.” He also states, that, in these Queries, he has “summed up, as briefly as possible, the most material parts of the charges against the Moravians.” Viewed in such a light, the pamphlet is of great importance. The following are specimens.
“I. With regard to yourself and your community. 1. Do you permit the Brethren to style you ‘The angel of the church of Philadelphia’? 2. Do not they almost implicitly believe your assertions, and obey your directions? 3. Do not you think yourself, as a teacher, equal to any of the apostles? 4. Do not you believe your doctrinal writings are of equal authority with the Bible? 5. Do not you judge your church to be the only true church under heaven; and the members of it the only true Christians on earth? 6. Are the Brethren the 144,000 mentioned in the Revelation? 7. Is it honest to term yourselves the Moravian church, when you know you are not the Moravian church? 8. Do you yourself expect to be judged at the last day? 9. Do you believe a thousand souls of the wicked will be saved in that day at your intercession?
“II. With respect to your doctrines concerning the Trinity. Have you spoken these words, or anything to the same effect, ‘Praying to God the Father is not a whit better than praying to a wooden or stone God? The preachers of God the Father are Satan’s professors? The Father and the Holy Ghost minister to Christ in all things? The Holy Ghost is the wife of God, the mother of Christ, and of the church?’
“III. With regard to the Son of God. Do you affirm, that He sometimes gave answers to people that are not fit to be examined according to logic; and, that He had nothing extraordinary in His turn of mind or gifts?
“IV. With regard to the apostles and Scriptures. Do you affirm, that the apostles, except St. Paul and John, did not know so much of the blood theology as the Brethren? Were these your words, ‘I have ever, and still do protest, that the first Christians cannot properly be called a church, being no more than a troop of legalists’? Did you affirm, that there are more than six hundred blunders in the four gospels? Have you left out the whole epistle of St. James in your edition of the New Testament? Are there any persons among you who boast that they never read the Bible in their lives? Have you used it as a term of reproach, to have ‘heads full of _Biblish_ lumber’? Did any of the Brethren say, ‘The Bible is dung, fit only to be spit upon’?
“V. With regard to the moral law of God. Are these your own words, ‘There is but one duty, which is that of believing’? ‘Our method is to preach no commandment but that of believing’? Is it true that, at some of the merry meetings of the Brethren, there was an uproar as if a madhouse had broken loose? that the Brethren threw one another on the floor, and struggled, with many gross indecencies? Is it true, that your son vindicated all this? And that you yourself said, it was blasphemy to censure it?
“VI. With regard to idolatry and superstition. Have you not hymns directed to angels, and the Virgin Mary? Has not a large image of our Saviour been placed in the midst of the Brethren met together? Has not incense been burnt for you?
“VII. With regard to your manner of conversation. Are not you of a close, dark, reserved temper and behaviour? Is not the spirit of secrecy the spirit of your community? Do not you, in many cases, use cunning, guile, dissimulation? Was not Mr. Gambold guilty of a calm, deliberate lie, in publicly affirming, you had not so much as seen those hymns, some of which you had not only seen but composed?
“VIII. With regard to moral honesty. Have you not distressed, if not totally ruined, numerous families?
“IX. With regard to your manner of answering for yourselves. Have you ordered the Brethren to give no answer to any accusation, but the general one, ‘It’s all a lie’? Do you still deem those who blame your hymns worthy of having their tongues plucked out, or their hands chopped off?”
The above are fair specimens of all the Queries proposed by the writer of this curious pamphlet.[244] The conclusion is as follows.
“But I have done. I have proposed the Queries which you desired, and have endeavoured therein to come to the point. Permit me now to remind your lordship of the assurance given to the public, ‘As soon as these Queries are finished, the Moravians, who expect them with earnest longing, will lose no time in answering them.’ If your lordship is inwardly and deeply convinced, that the bulk of the preceding objections are just, and if you are determined to amend whatsoever is capable of amendment, then silence may be a sufficient answer. I am, my lord, your lordship’s real well wisher, and humble servant.”
What gave birth to this publication? Was Wesley justified in writing it? The following facts will help to answer these questions.
The reader has already seen that the eccentricities of the Moravian brotherhood had occasioned a large amount of public scandal. This, unfortunately, increased, rather than diminished; and, hence, on the last day of the year 1754, James Hutton published an advertisement in the _London Daily Advertiser_, calling for “Queries” to be proposed in reference to the charges publicly circulated against the Brethren; and indicating that answers to the Queries would be furnished.[245]
What was the result? Seven days after the appearance of Hutton’s advertisement, Wesley’s Queries were published;[246] but we can hardly say that they were answered. It is true, that an octavo volume was issued soon after; but the jejuneness, irrelevance, and confusion of the answers to the Queries may be guessed from the cumbrous title of the book, which was as follows: “An Exposition, or True State of the Matters objected to in _England_ to the people known by the name of _Unitas Fratrum_: in which _facts_ are related as they are; the true _readings_ and sense of _books_, said to be his, (which have been laid to his charge sometimes without sufficient proof that they were so, and been moreover perverted and curtailed) are restored; _principles_ are laid down as they ought, fairly; the _practice_, as it has been, is at present, and is intended for the future, is owned. By the Ordinary of the Brethren. The notes and additions by the editor,”—that is, by Count Zinzendorf and James Hutton.
Passing to other publications. It was in 1755, that Wesley completed his “Christian Library,” by the issue of ten additional 12mo volumes, containing more than 3000 printed pages. One of these was in the form of an index to the whole of the fifty volumes published; the others consisted of extracts from the writings of Reynolds, South, Flavel, Annesley, Nelson, Beveridge, Howe, and other distinguished authors.
Another of Wesley’s publications, in 1755, arose out of one of the most fearful events of modern times. On November 1, occurred the great earthquake at Lisbon, a city containing 36,000 houses, 350,000 inhabitants, a cathedral, forty parish churches, as many monasteries, and a royal palace. In six minutes, the greatest part of the city was destroyed, and not less than 60,000 persons met with an untimely death. The same earthquake was severely felt in almost the whole of Europe.
In 1754, Whitefield visited Lisbon, on his way to America, and spent nearly a month in that ill fated city. Early in 1755, he published a 12mo pamphlet of 29 pages, giving an account of what he witnessed, little thinking that the scene of so much sin would soon become the graveyard of tens of thousands of its inhabitants. He found crucifixes, and images of the Virgin, and of other real or reputed saints, in almost every street, lamps hanging before them, and the people rendering them obeisance as they passed. Processions of priests and friars, with lighted wax tapers, were almost of daily occurrence. One of these was led by three popish dignitaries in scarlet clothes, followed by two little boys with wings fixed on their shoulders to make them resemble angels. Then came several images of St. Francis; then an image of our Saviour, with long black hair, and dressed in a purple gown; and then the virgin mother, to whom St. Francis rendered homage. After this, followed a mitred cardinal gaudily attired; a gorgeous friar under a splendid canopy; and then a long train of fat Franciscans. Another procession consisted of nearly two hundred penitents, all clothed in white, their faces veiled, their feet bare, and chains fastened to their ankles; some having on their backs great stones; others carrying in their hands dead men’s bones and skulls; some bearing upon their shoulders a heavy cross; and most lashing themselves with cords, or beating themselves with iron rods. In one of the churches, Whitefield found a solid silver altar of several yards circumference, and about twelve steps high. In another, he met with a golden altar, of nearly the same dimensions, its base studded with precious stones, each step lit up with large lighted silver candlesticks, and the top adorned with silver images of angels. In a large church, belonging to the convent of St. De Beato, he mingled with many thousands in witnessing what was meant to be a representation of the crucifixion of the Son of God. Upon a high scaffold were three full-sized figures of the blessed Saviour and of the crucified malefactors. At a little distance, was the holy Virgin, in long ruffles and widow’s weeds, her face veiled with purple silk, and her head encircled with a crown of glory. At the foot of the Saviour’s cross, lay, in a mournful posture, a living man, dressed in woman’s clothes, personating Mary Magdalene; while near at hand was a younger man, arrayed in a bob-wig and a green silk vesture, representing the apostle John. On each side, stood two sentinels in buff, with formidable caps and beards; and, directly in front, a personation of the Roman centurion, with a large target in his hand. From behind the purple hangings came twenty purple-vested boys, all wearing golden caps, and adorned with wings, and each one bearing a lighted taper in his hand. Opposite to the stage, a black friar, mounted in a pulpit, preached a sort of fifteen minutes’ sermon. Then came four long-bearded men, two of them carrying a ladder, and the other two, as the representatives of Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathæa, bearing large gilt dishes filled with spices. Amid great ceremony, the body of the Saviour was taken down; Mary Magdalene wrapped the feet in her widespread handkerchief; the beloved disciple clasped the corpse to his loving heart; shrouded in linen, it was carried round the churchyard in grand procession; and then, followed by the Virgin, Mary Magdalene, and St. John, and by a whole troop of friars, bearing wax tapers in their hands, was conducted to an open sepulchre, and buried. Thus ended the Good Friday’s superstitious tragedy in the far famed Lisbon. A year and a half afterwards, Lisbon was a heap of ruins.
Under the date of November 26, Wesley says: “Being much importuned thereto, I wrote ‘Serious Thoughts on the Earthquake at Lisbon;’ directed, not as I designed at first, to the small vulgar, but the great; to the learned, rich, and honourable heathens, commonly called Christians.”
This was published in an octavo pamphlet of 34 pages; and, within a month, passed through two editions. Perhaps none of Wesley’s publications contain so much fiery eloquence as this. The reader must peruse it for himself.
Another of Wesley’s publications, in 1755, though small, was important—“Catholic Spirit. A Sermon on 2 Kings x. 15.” 12mo, 31 pages. It contains the principles of an evangelical alliance, namely, belief in the Holy Trinity in Unity, love to God and man, and the practice of good works. Wherever he found a man answering to this description, he was ready to recognise a Christian and a brother. He would not urge him to entertain his opinions, or to embrace his modes of worship. The presbyterian, the independent, the baptist, and even the quaker, had as much right to their opinions and preferences as he had to his. All he asked was this, If thine heart be as my heart, in the three great points already named, give me thine hand. In this respect, as in many others, Wesley was far in advance of the age in which he lived; and, more than a hundred years ago, was quite prepared for the Evangelical Alliance that has since been organised.
Wesley’s principal publication, in 1755, was his “Explanatory Notes on the New Testament” (with a portrait), quarto, 762 pages.
Concerning the portrait, Wesley himself gives the following information, in his account of the death of John Downes, one of his untaught itinerants. “In 1744, while I was shaving, John Downes was whittling the top of a stick; I asked, ‘What are you doing?’ He answered, ‘I am taking your face, which I intend to engrave on a copper plate.’ Accordingly, without any instruction, he first made himself tools, and then engraved the plate. The second picture which he engraved was that which was prefixed to the ‘Notes on the New Testament.’ Such another instance, I suppose, not all England, or perhaps Europe, can produce.”[247]
We believe this was the first instance in which Wesley’s portrait was prefixed to any of his works. John Hampson pronounced it one of the best that he had seen.[248]
In his preface, Wesley tells the reader that, for many years, he had contemplated such a work as this; and that the Notes are written “chiefly for plain, unlettered men, who understand only their mother tongue, and yet reverence and love the word of God, and have a desire to save their souls.”
In reference to his new translation of the text, he remarks that he has never altered the authorised version for altering’s sake; but only where, first, the sense was made better, stronger, clearer, or more consistent with the context; and, secondly, where, the sense being equally good, the phrase was better or nearer the original.
He made the notes as short as possible, that the comment might not obscure or swallow up the text. Many of them were translations from Bengelius’s “Gnomon Novi Testamenti;” many more were abridgments from the same learned and invaluable work. He also acknowledges himself largely indebted to the writings of Dr. Heylin, Dr. Guyse, and Dr. Doddridge.
A second edition of Wesley’s Notes was published in 1757. In 1759, he and his brother carefully compared the translation with the original, and corrected and enlarged the Notes for a new edition, which was issued in 1760.[249]
It is a fact worth mentioning, that, before Wesley’s Notes were put to press, he sent the manuscript to his old friend, the Rev. James Hervey, at that time one of the most popular writers of the day, and received the following answer.
“WESTON, _June 29, 1754_.
“DEAR SIR,—I have read your Notes, and have returned them, with such observations as occur to my mind. I think, in general, you are too sparing of your remarks and improvements. Many expositions are too corpulent, yours are rather too lean. May the good hand of the Lord be with them and their author.”[250]
As a set off to this, Dr. Adam Clarke observes: “Though short, the notes are always judicious, accurate, spiritual, terse, and impressive; and possess the happy and rare property of leading the reader immediately to God and his own heart.”[251]
1756.
[Sidenote: 1756 Age 53]
Whitefield began the year 1756 with quinsy. A physician prescribed a perpetual blister; but Whitefield says, he found that a better remedy was perpetual preaching.[252] In February, he commenced preaching in a Dissenting chapel, in Long Acre. The bishop of the diocese sent him a prohibition.[253] Whitefield persisted. A mob, belonging to the bishop’s vestry, assembled, with “bells, drums, clappers, marrow bones, and cleavers,” and made the most hideous noises, to hinder Whitefield being heard. The chapel windows were smashed with stones, levelled at Whitefield in the pulpit. Anonymous letters were sent to him, full of the most fearful threats. One of these was forwarded to the government; who, at once, offered a reward and his majesty’s pardon to any one who would detect the writer. This, together with steps taken to bring such an ecclesiastical outrage into a court of law, stopped the evil.
The annoyances at Long Acre led Whitefield to commence the erection of Tottenham Court chapel. The sabbath after he took possession of the ground, he obtained nearly £600 towards the expense of building. It was begun in May, and opened in November, 1756, and was called, by a neighbouring doctor, “Whitefield’s Soul Trap.”[254]
During the present year, an octavo volume, of 229 pages, was published, with the title, “The History of Modern Enthusiasm, from the Reformation to the present Times.” A long list of subscribers’ names is given, including dukes, earls, lords, knights, members of parliament, bishops, deans, prebends, fellows of colleges, and rectors, vicars, and curates without number. In the preface, it is alleged that, “though Methodism is now almost quite extinct, yet several of its direful consequences still remain,—as, that sin is _no sin_ in the elect; that faith can never be finally lost; and that _once_ a saint, _for ever_ a saint. The most zealous of the party now, in a great measure, wallow in lust and sensuality, and never stick at anything, be it ever so heinous.” The Moravians are said to be, “in principle and practice, a scandal to Christianity. Inward experiences, dispensations, manifestations, discoveries, improvements, pledges, privileges, and prerogatives; out-goings, in-goings, and returns,—all this glorious apparatus had ended in fulfilling the lusts of the flesh!” Whitefield is accused of reviving antinomianism, of vain glory and boasting, of self conceit, self applause, and self sufficiency, of Luciferian pride, and of intolerably profaning Scripture. Wesley is equally abused. “The petty exhorters” are said to “ramble from place to place, venting crude, nonsensical, heretical, and blasphemous opinions, which are swallowed by the gaping multitude.” “Most of their first admirers and followers were perfectly bewildered, and, having deserted both Wesley and Whitefield, had turned Moravians, or libertines, or deists, or papists, or quakers.” The itinerant preachers and exhorters were “mechanics and illiterate vagrants, pretending to expound by inspiration, and fathering all their crude conceptions on the dictates of the Holy Spirit.”
These are mild specimens of the rabid production of the Rev. Theophilus Evans, vicar of St. David’s, Brecon. Is it necessary to apologise for the reproduction of such mendacious scurrility? We think not; for, without this, the reader cannot form an adequate conception of the gross abuse poured upon Wesley and his friends, and of the terrific difficulties which the first Methodists had to meet.
Another attack, of a different kind, must be mentioned: “The Use and Extent of Reason in Matters of Religion. A Sermon preached before the University of Oxford, at St. Mary’s, June 8, 1756. By Thomas Griffith, M.A., Fellow of Pembroke College. Published at the request of the Vice-Chancellor and Heads of Houses. Oxford, 1756.” 8vo, 25 pages. Of course, Mr. Griffith eschews Mr. Evans’s vulgarities, and it is fair to add, that the Methodists are hardly _named_; but it is also undeniable, that it was against them that he was chiefly preaching.
Wesley began the new year by writing his “Address to the Clergy,” which will be noticed hereafter. He was, also, not forgetful of his own itinerants. Joseph Cownley had had a fever in 1755, which had left a permanent pain in his head, and from which he suffered until his death, thirty-seven years afterwards. After consulting the principal physicians in Ireland, he consulted Wesley, who wrote thus.
“LONDON, _January 10, 1756_.
“MY DEAR BROTHER,—I have no objection to anything but the blister. If it does good, well. But if I had been at Cork, all the physicians in Ireland should not have put it upon your head. Remember poor Bishop Pearson. An apothecary, to cure a pain in his head, covered it with a large blister. In an hour, he cried out, ‘O my head, my head!’ and was a fool ever after, to the day of his death. I believe cooling things (if anything under heaven), would remove that violent irritation of your nerves, which probably occasions the pain. Moderate riding may be of use; I believe, of more than the blister. Only do not take more labour upon you than you can bear. Do as much as you can, and no more. Let us make use of the present time. Every day is of importance. We know not how few days of peace remain.
“I am, dear Joseph, your affectionate friend and brother,
“JOHN WESLEY.”[255]
On January 26 and three following days, Wesley paid a visit to Canterbury, where he had a congregation containing “abundance of soldiers, and not a few of their officers.” Some might think, that a city like Canterbury, with its magnificent cathedral, its numerous parish churches, and giving its name to the primate of all England, would have had no need of the services of a man like Wesley; and, perhaps, if special circumstances had not existed here, Wesley would not have come. But it was here that Edward Perronet resided, in a part of the old archbishop’s palace. In the suburbs, Vincent Perronet, Wesley’s confidential friend, the archbishop of Methodism as he was sometimes called, was the proprietor of a farm. Above all, Canterbury was a great military depot, and such was the interest which Wesley felt in the welfare of soldiers, that this fact, in itself, was enough to bring him to this far famed city. Love begets love: large numbers of these brave defenders of the country’s rights and honour were converted, and became deeply attached to the few Canterbury Methodists who had shown them kindness. It is said, that on one occasion, when certain regiments were on their way to Holland, and had to pass through the city, such was their grateful remembrance of bygone days, that the Methodists, in the regiments, determined to avail themselves of the opportunity of meeting in class with their former leader; and this they did in such numbers, that the military class-meeting lasted for nine successive hours.[256] No wonder that Wesley loved men like these. He came in January, and again a month afterwards, when he dined with one of the colonels, who said: “No men fight like those who fear God; I had rather command five hundred such, than any regiment in his majesty’s army.”
At this period, the unfortunate Dr. Dodd was struggling into notoriety and fame. Such were his application and talents, that, though only a sizar of Cambridge university, he had, five years before, taken the degree of B.A. with distinguished credit. Leaving Cambridge, he came to London, depending for support solely upon his pen. Here he followed every species of amusement with dangerous avidity. Though only a little past twenty-one, he married the daughter of one of Sir John Dolben’s domestics, and immediately took and furnished a large house in Wardour Street, which, however, at his father’s remonstrance, he soon relinquished. He then obtained ordination, and had now the lectureship of St. Olave, Hart Street; and was also the preacher of Lady Moyer’s lectures at St. Paul’s. He quickly distinguished himself as one of the most popular of the metropolitan preachers. Of his subsequent career we shall have to speak hereafter.
Dodd was now a young man in the twenty-seventh year of his age,—wild and extravagant, but sincere, earnest, and greatly beloved by the crowds that flocked to hear him. In the month of January, he wrote to Wesley on the subject of Christian perfection. Wesley, twice as old as himself, and in all respects his superior, had no personal acquaintance with him, but replied as follows.
“_February 5, 1756._
“REVEREND SIR,—I am very willing to consider whatever you have to advance on the head of Christian perfection. When I began to make the Scriptures my study (about seven and twenty years ago), I began to see, that Christians are called to _love God with all their heart_, and to _serve Him with all their strength_; which is precisely what I apprehend to be meant by the scriptural term, ‘_perfection_.’ After weighing this for some years, I openly declared my sentiments before the university, in the sermon on _the Circumcision of the Heart_. About six years after, in consequence of an advice I received from Bishop Gibson, ‘Tell all the world what you mean by perfection,’ I published my coolest and latest thoughts, in the sermon on that subject. I therein build on no authority, ancient or modern, but the Scripture. If this supports any doctrine, it will stand: if not, the sooner it falls, the better. Neither the doctrine in question, nor any other, is anything to me, unless it be the doctrine of Christ and His apostles. If, therefore, you will please to point out to me any passages in that sermon, which are either contrary to Scripture, or not supported by it, and to show that they are not, I shall be full as willing to oppose, as ever I was to defend them. I search for truth—plain Bible truth, without any regard to the praise or dispraise of men. If you will assist me in this search, more especially by showing me where I have mistaken my way, it will be gratefully acknowledged by, reverend sir, your affectionate brother and servant,
“JOHN WESLEY.”[257]
This noble letter was followed by further correspondence, showing that, instead of being wedded to his own peculiar doctrines, Wesley’s supreme anxiety was to know, what is truth. The following is an extract from a letter which fills nearly seven printed pages of the _Arminian Magazine_.
“KINGSWOOD, _March 12, 1756_.
“REVEREND SIR,—You and I the more easily bear with each other, because we are both of us _rapid_ writers, and, therefore, the more liable to mistake. I will thank you for showing me any mistake I am in; being not so tenacious of my opinions now, as I was twenty or thirty years ago. Indeed, I am not fond of any opinion as such. I read the Bible with what attention I can, and regulate all my opinions thereby, to the best of my understanding. But I am always willing to receive more light: particularly with regard to any less common opinions; because the explaining and defending them takes up much time, which I can ill spare from other employments. Whoever, therefore, will give me more light with regard to Christian perfection, will do me a singular favour. The opinion I have concerning it, at present, I espouse merely because I think it is scriptural; if, therefore, I am convinced it is not scriptural, I shall willingly relinquish it. I have no particular fondness for the term. It seldom occurs either in my preaching or writings. It is my opponents who thrust it upon me continually, and ask me what I mean by it.
“That the term ‘perfection’ is a scriptural term, is undeniable. Therefore, none ought to object to the use of the _term_, whatever they may do to this or that _application_ of it. I still think, that perfection is only another term for holiness, or the image of God in man. God _made man perfect_, I think, is just the same as He made him _holy_, or in _His own image_. You are the very first person I ever read of or spoke with, who made any doubt of it. Now _this perfection_ does certainly admit of degrees. Therefore, I readily allow the propriety of that distinction, perfection of kinds, and perfection of degrees. Nor do I remember one writer, ancient or modern, who excepts against it.
“I never meant any _more_ by perfection than the loving God with all our heart, and serving Him with all our strength. But I dare not say _less_ than this. For it might be attended with worse consequences than you seem to be aware of. If there be a mistake, it is far more dangerous on the one side than on the other. If I set the mark too high, I drive men into needless fears: if you set it too low, you drive them into hell fire.
“With regard to fathers in Christ, you say, I ‘set aside the experience of the best Christians.’ I did not tell you so: I say nothing about them. In a sermon of a single sheet, I had no room for anything but plain arguments from Scripture. I have somewhat to say, if need should be, from the head of authority likewise: yea, and abundantly more than you seem to apprehend. My father gave me, thirty years ago, to reverence the ancient church and our own. But I try every church and every doctrine by the Bible. This is the word by which we are to be judged in that day. Whatever further thoughts you are pleased to communicate, will be seriously considered by, reverend and dear sir, your affectionate brother and fellow labourer,
“JOHN WESLEY.”[258]
Thus, for the present, ended his correspondence with William Dodd.
The year 1756 opened under a cloud of gloom. “Men,” says Wesley, “were divided in their expectations concerning the ensuing year. Some believed it would bring a large harvest of temporal calamities; others, that it would be unusually fruitful of spiritual blessings.”[259]
Nine months before, the government had announced, that war with France was inevitable. Fears were felt for Ireland, which was dissatisfied and turbulent. A million of money was voted for the defence of our American possessions. The French ambassador at London, and the English ambassador at Paris, were recalled, and a war commenced which cost millions of human lives, devastated no inconsiderable part of Europe, and carried carnage into all the four quarters of the globe. Even before the end of 1755, three hundred French merchant ships, many of them extremely rich, and about eight thousand French seamen, were brought into English ports. Still great alarm existed. There were hostile preparations in the channel; and a descent of the French upon England and Ireland was feared. On February 6, a national fast was observed, throughout the kingdom, with unusual seriousness. Such a fast in London had not been seen since the Restoration. Business was suspended, and churches and meeting houses were more than full.[260] Charles Wesley reprinted the “Hymns for Times of Trouble.” George Whitefield published an “Address to persons of all Denominations,” in which he spoke of “an insulting, enraged, and perfidious enemy advancing nearer and nearer to the British borders,” “accompanied with a popish Pretender, and thousands of Romish priests, to invade, subdue, and destroy the bodies and substance, and to blind, deceive, and tyrannise over the souls and consciences of the people belonging to this happy isle.”[261]
All this was right, and deserves to be commended; but, as usual, Wesley was more practical than either his friend Whitefield, or than his brother Charles. On the 1st of March, he addressed the following communication to the Hon. James West, Esq.
“SIR,—A few days since, Mr. Whitefield and I desired a friend to ask your advice,—to whom it would be proper to make an offer of raising a company of volunteers for his majesty’s service. We apprehended the number would be about five hundred. Finding Mr. Whitefield has since been persuaded, that such an offer is premature, I am constrained to make the following, independently of him: To raise, for his majesty’s service, at least two hundred volunteers, to be supported by contributions among themselves; and to be ready, in case of invasion, to act for a year, if needed so long, at his majesty’s pleasure: only within —— miles of London.
“If this be acceptable to his majesty, they beg to have arms out of the Tower, giving the usual security for their return; and some of his majesty’s sergeants, to instruct them in the military exercise.
“I am now hastening to Bristol, on account of the election; but if my return to London would be of any service, you may command, sir,
“Your obedient servant,
“JOHN WESLEY.”[262]
Wesley arrived in Bristol on the 3rd of March, and found “voters and non-voters ready to tear each other in pieces.” The two candidates were Jarrit Smith, Esq., and John Spencer, Esq. Wesley, having lost his voice, was not able to preach or to speak to the whole society; but desired those members who were freemen to meet him privately. The result is given in the following letter to Mr. Blackwell, written the day after.
“BRISTOL, _March 4, 1756_.
“DEAR SIR,—If the election of Mr. Spencer be a thing of any consequence, then it was extremely ill judged to prevent his coming down. He ought to have been here at all hazards, if he were not very dangerously ill. His absence will probably turn the scale; and, if the Jacobites gain one member now, they will have two the next time. Whereas there is reason to believe, had Mr. Spencer appeared, there would have been no opposition.
“Last night, I desired all the freemen of our society to meet me after preaching, and enlarged a little upon his majesty’s character, and the reasons we had to spare no pains in his service, I believe all who had been wavering were fully convinced. But some had absolutely promised to vote for Mr. Smith; it having been confidently reported, that both the candidates were equally acceptable to his majesty.
“The whole city is in confusion. Oh what a pity there could not be some way of managing elections of every sort, without this embittering of Englishmen against Englishmen, and kindling fires which cannot be quenched in many years!
“I remain, dear sir, yours most affectionately,
“JOHN WESLEY.”[263]
The poll at Bristol ended on the 16th of March, when the numbers stood: for Mr. Smith, 2418; for Mr. Spencer, 2347; majority for Mr. Smith, 71.[264]
Wesley spent nearly a month in Bristol and its neighbourhood, and in the principality of Wales. While preaching at Pill, a press-gang landed from a man-of-war, and came to the place of meeting, but, after listening awhile, quietly departed. At Coleford, the little society had been harassed by disputatious baptists and quakers, but was now united and loving. He visited Howel Harris, at Trevecca, and met with a hearty welcome. “I wondered,” says he, “that Howel Harris did not go out and preach as usual; but he now informed me, he preached till he could preach no longer, his constitution being entirely broken. While he was thus confined, he was pressed in spirit to build a large house; though he knew not why, or for whom. But as soon as it was built, men, women, and children, without his seeking, came to it from all parts of Wales; and, except in the case of the Orphan House at Halle, I never heard of so many signal interpositions of Divine providence.”
On the 29th of March, Wesley embarked at Holyhead for Ireland. On landing, he was surprised to “find all Ireland in perfect safety. None had any more apprehension of an invasion, than of being swallowed up in the sea.”
Wesley employed a month in Dublin; during which he met about a hundred children, whom the Methodist preachers catechized publicly twice a week he conducted the first covenant service in Ireland, in which nearly four hundred of the Dublin society united; and he held a conference of the Irish preachers. He writes: “I never before found such unanimity among them. They appeared now to be not only of one heart, but likewise of one mind and judgment.”
He wrote as follows to his friend Blackwell.
“DUBLIN, _April 19, 1756_.
“DEAR SIR,—While you, in England, are under I know not what apprehensions, all here are as safe as if they were already in paradise. We have no fortifying of seaports; no military preparations; but all is in absolute peace and safety. Both high and low seem fully persuaded, that the whole talk of an invasion is only a trick to get money.
“I purpose going to Cork directly; and, after two or three weeks, turning back toward the north of Ireland. If it please God that troublous times come between the design and the execution, I shall go as far as I can, and no farther. But I take no thought for the morrow. To-day I am determined, by His grace, to do the work of Him that sent me. I find encouragement so to do; for all the people here are athirst for the word of life.
“Do you, at London, believe that the danger of an invasion is over?
“I am, dear sir, your affectionate servant,
“JOHN WESLEY.”[265]
Wesley set out for Cork on April 26. On his way, he preached at Edinderry, where the little society had built a commodious preaching house. At Tullamore, he preached in the market-place, and spent an hour with certain military officers in the barracks. At Kilkenny, he found a number of soldiers meeting in class; and preached in one of the officers’ rooms. “Still,” he writes, “in Ireland, the first call is to the soldiery.” At Waterford, he had to remove “misunderstandings and offences.” The society was split asunder, and was reduced to six-and-twenty members; but he succeeded in winning one-and-thirty back. At Clonmel, which he pronounces the pleasantest town he had seen in Ireland, he preached once in a large loft, capable of containing five or six hundred people; and once in the open street. At the latter service, the mayor of the town, and a number of soldiers and officers, were present, and gave great attention; but, in the midst of the sermon, a drunken man came marching down the street, attended by a popish mob, with a club in one hand, and a large cleaver in the other, grievously cursing and blaspheming, and swearing he would cut off the preacher’s head. The soldiers were for punishing the man, and Wesley had difficulty in hindering them. The brute began to strike the congregation; and wounded a constable in the wrist. He himself was then knocked down, and the mayor and constables marched him away to gaol.
Wesley arrived at Cork on the 12th of May, and preached in the new chapel, which he describes as being “very near as large as that in Dublin; and far better finished in every respect, though at £400 less expense.” This, like the chapel at Dublin, had apartments for the preachers. It stood till 1826, when it was rebuilt, and again opened for Methodist services in 1827.
Having spent three weeks in Cork and its immediate neighbourhood, Wesley, on the 7th of June, turned his face northwards.
He came to Ballygarrane, a town of Palatines, who “retain,” says he, “much of the temper and manners of their own country, having no resemblance of those among whom they live. I found much life among this plain, artless, serious people. The whole town came together in the evening, and praised God for the consolation. Many of those, who are not outwardly joined with us, walk in the light of God’s countenance; yea, and have divided themselves into classes, in imitation of our brethren, with whom they live in perfect harmony. In examining the society, I was obliged to pause several times. The words of the plain, honest people came with so much weight, as frequently to stop me for a while, and raise a general cry among the hearers.”
The Palatines, as previously intimated, were refugees from the Palatinate of the Rhine, in Germany, and were driven from their homes for having embraced the principles of Luther and of the Reformation. Thousands fled to the camp of the Duke of Marlborough; and seven thousand were brought to England in 1709. Of these, three thousand were sent to America; a few remained in England; and the rest were removed to Ireland, and settled principally on the estate of Lord Southwell, in the neighbourhood of Ballingran, where each man was supplied with a musket, called “a Queen Anne,” to protect himself and family; while for every man, woman, and child, eight acres of ground were leased, at the annual rental of five shillings per acre, which the government, who wished to encourage the protestant interest, engaged to pay for the first twenty years. Having no gospel minister, these fugitive Germans soon became “eminent for drunkenness, cursing, swearing, and an utter neglect of religion.” Now they were again reformed; “an oath was rarely heard among them, or a drunkard seen”; they had built a preaching house; numbers were Methodists; and those that were not imitated the Methodists, by forming themselves into classes, and by holding meetings for Christian fellowship. They continued to be a serious, thinking people. “By their diligence,” says Wesley, “they turned all their land into a garden.” Days of darkness, however, soon came. Rents were so raised, that tenants were starved, and obliged to emigrate. In 1760, a company of these, now oppressed, Irish Palatines embarked at Limerick, as Christian emigrants, for America. The crowd who saw them leave little thought that two of that small band on board—Philip Embury, the local preacher, and Barbara Heck, the honest Methodist—were destined, in the mysterious providence of God, to influence for good countless myriads of human beings, and that their names would live as long as the sun and moon endure. That little and unpretending ship contained the germ of all the Methodist churches of the United States; churches which have now more or less beneath their influence about eight millions of the population of that prosperous hemisphere.
Leaving the Palatines, Wesley and Thomas Walsh proceeded to Limerick. At Ennis, he preached in the “courthouse, to a huge, wild, unawakened multitude, protestants and papists, many of whom would have been rude enough if they durst.”
Riding through the counties of Galway and Connaught, Wesley and Walsh came to Castlebar, in the county of Mayo. For ten days, this was the centre of their operations. Wesley preached repeatedly in the churches at Castlebar, Hollymount, and Ballyheen, to large and attentive congregations.
On the 19th of July, he first set foot in the province of Ulster, though his preachers had been labouring there, for several years, with great success. Many had been converted, and a considerable number united together in Christian fellowship.[266] At Lisburn, he preached in the market-house. The rector and his curate called upon him, and “spent two hours in free, serious, friendly conversation.” The society was small, and their preaching house, either now or soon after, was the shop of a stocking weaver, named William Black; his stocking frames filling a large portion of the place.[267] He spoke “plain,” he says, “both to the great vulgar and the small. But between Seceders, old, self conceited presbyterians, new-light men, Moravians, Cameronians, and formal churchmen, it is a miracle of miracles, if any here bring forth fruit to perfection.”
He proceeded to Belfast, where the great proportion of the population were presbyterians. There were four places of worship belonging to the body, two of which were Socinian or Arian. The parish church, in Donegall Street, was the only one then belonging to the Establishment, with the Rev. William Bristow for its vicar,—an able, orthodox, and liberal Christian.
At Carrickfergus, he preached in the session house to most of the inhabitants of the town. Here he was opposed by the notorious James Relly, who “begun a dull, pointless harangue, about hirelings and false prophets.” “He cawed, and cawed,” says Wesley, “but could utter nothing, hardly three words together.” Wesley preached, at the desire of the prisoners, near the prison door, so that the inmates might hear him. He went to church, and heard “a lively, useful sermon”; but, naturally enough, shocked one of the Methodists who asked him “to go to the meeting,” by saying, “I never go to a meeting.” “He seemed,” says he, “as much astonished as the old Scot, at Newcastle, who left us because we were Church of England men. We are so; although we condemn none who have been brought up in another way.” So Wesley salved his conscience, and feebly tried to free himself from the charge of bigotry.
On the 4th of August, he got back to Dublin, and, on the 10th, set sail, with three of his preachers, Walsh, Haughton, and Morgan, for England, having spent nineteen weeks in the sister island.
Preaching, on his way, at Chester, Bolton, Manchester, Chelmerton, Wednesbury, and other places, he arrived in Bristol on August 25, and held a conference with about fifty of his preachers. The rules of the society were “read, and carefully considered one by one; and all agreed to abide by them all, and to recommend them with all their might.” The rules of the bands were similarly considered, and, after making some verbal alterations, all consented to observe and to enforce them. The rules of Kingswood school were also reviewed, and were pronounced “agreeable to Scripture and reason.” It was also determined to begin a subscription for the school in every place; and, if needful, to make a collection every year.
The principal point discussed was the same as that which occupied so much of the time and attention of the conference of 1755. Wesley writes: “We largely considered the necessity of keeping in the Church, and using the clergy with tenderness; and there was no dissenting voice. God gave us all to be of one mind and of one judgment. My brother and I closed the conference by a solemn declaration of our purpose never to separate from the Church; and all our brethren concurred therein.”
This, among the Methodists, was the great question of the day, and deserves the reader’s best attention. “The attempt to force the Methodists to an attendance upon the services of the Church, by refusing to them the sacraments from their own preachers, and by closing their chapels during the sabbath, except early in the morning, and in the evening, drove many of them into a state of actual separation both from the Church and their own societies, and placed them in the hands of Dissenters. At Leeds, Mr. Edwards had assumed the character of an independent minister, as Charles Skelton had done in London, and had drawn away the greater part of the society with him.”[268]
Besides this, Edward Perronet, a man of great wit, had published a withering satire on the national Establishment, entitled “The Mitre,” 12mo, 279 pages. As the book was suppressed by Wesley,[269] and is now so extremely scarce, that perhaps not more than a dozen copies can be found,[270] the following selection, from the concluding verses of the first canto, may be acceptable, and may serve to suggest an idea of all the others. They are intended to describe the Established Church.
“To what compare thy fertile womb? A den, a cavern, or the tomb? Why not compare to all? Dark, hollow, teeming, large and deep; Or wild, or dead, or fast asleep; And stubborn as a wall.
Or like a _mart_, high vending place; Open for every age and face, Who loiter, steal, or range: Or, like the common road or street, Where knaves, as honest, walk or meet; As _Albion’s_ grand _Exchange_.
In short, thou’rt like a common shore, Filling and emptying, never pure From pride, or pomp, or sin: That, (speak they truth who say they know,) With all thy _scavengers_ can do, They cannot keep thee clean.”
The second canto, which consists of 363 stanzas, is devoted to the Church’s “Divine right” to take tithes, and to enact, and to enforce laws, in reference to Easter dues, leases, etc.; to impose creeds; to preach; and to give sacraments. The following are the second and third verses.
“This _sprite_ unseen, whence does it spring? Is it a beggar or a king? Or vile hermaphrodite? To me _this_ seems to be its sex; It sometimes asks, and sometimes takes, Careless of _wrong_ or _right_.
I think its source is easy traced, As are its claims in order placed, Its furniture and crests; A blended spawn of Church and State, Its father—_Constantine_ the _Great_, Its dam—the pride of priests.”
The third canto is principally devoted to preachers and preaching; the fourth to christenings, confirmations, Church emoluments, the Lisbon earthquake, and England’s danger. No one will agree with all the author’s sentiments; but all must admit the pungency and power of his withering wit.
Space forbids the insertion of lengthened extracts from Edward Perronet’s suppressed production; but the following are fair specimens of its style and spirit. To express the indignation and disgust of a Churchman at the thought of receiving the sacrament from a lay preacher, whose call to preach is as much Divine as is that of the preacher episcopally ordained, the poet writes,—
“What, take the ordinance from them! O, what a frenzy of a dream! Nor _deacon_ nor a priest! Sooner renounce our _grace_ or friends, Than take it from _their_ fingers’ ends! A lay, unhallowed beast!”
Perronet, in a note, denounces the doctrine of the Lord’s supper being “a sacrifice”; and says, so long as this delusion is maintained, the sacrament must be administered by priests, and by priests only. He writes: “only reduce this _simple_ institution to its _primitive_ and _scriptural_ standard, and then, a handful of _private_ individuals, or a single family, may communicate, as the Christians did of old, and the _sacrament_ (so called) become, once more, _literally_, a daily sacrifice of _prayer_ and _thanksgiving_.” (Page 128.)
In another note (page 235), after referring to a book entitled, “The Dissenting Gentleman’s Answer to the Rev. Mr. White,” he says: “I was born, and am like to die in the tottering _communion_ of the Church of England; but I despise her nonsense; and thank God, that I have once read a book, that no fool _can_ answer, and that no _honest_ man _will_.” He then proceeds to pronounce the Church’s doom. The reader must be satisfied with two stanzas only.
“Permit me to foretell thy _doom_, (Which has in _part_ been that of _Rome_,) Thou wilt be clean abhorred: The _nation_ will expose thy shame, Cast out as dung thy putrid name, The vengeance of the Lord!
For while her _orders_, and her _rules_, Are made the _standard_ of thy _schools_, And all beside of blame: What other portion canst thou hope, But that the wise should give thee up, Her _ape_—without her _name_?”
The book throughout is written in the same severe,—almost savage style. Remembering this; and also remembering, that numbers of Methodists had already turned Dissenters; and that separation from the Church of England was still the great question agitating the Methodistic mind; no wonder that the subject was re-discussed in the conference of 1756, and that a most important correspondence followed.
While in Ireland, Wesley wrote to a clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Clark, of Hollymount,[271] in the following terms.
“CASTLEBAR, _July 3, 1756_.
“REVEREND SIR,—I still believe the episcopal form of church government to be scriptural and apostolical. I mean, well agreeing with the practice and writings of the apostles. But, that it is _prescribed_ in Scripture, I do not believe. This opinion, which I once zealously espoused, I have been heartily ashamed of, ever since I read Bishop Stillingfleet’s ‘Irenicon.’ I think he has unanswerably proved, that neither Christ nor His apostles _prescribe_ any particular form of church government; and, that the plea of _Divine right_ for diocesan episcopacy was never heard of in the primitive church.
“As to _heresy_ and _schism_, I cannot find one text in the Bible, where they are taken in the modern sense. I remember no one scripture, wherein _heresy_ signifies ‘error in opinion,’ whether fundamental or not; nor any, wherein _schism_ signifies a ‘separation from the church,’ whether with cause or without. I wish, sir, you would reconsider this point, and review the scriptures wherein those terms occur.
“I would take some pains to recover any one from error, or to reconcile him to our church, I mean, to the Church of England; from which I do not separate yet, and probably never shall; but I would take much more pains to recover any one from sin. One who lives and dies in error, or in dissent from our church, may yet be saved: but one who lives and dies in sin, must perish. I would to God, we could all agree both in opinions and outward worship; but, if this cannot be, may we not agree in holiness? This is the great desire of, reverend sir, your very humble servant,
“JOHN WESLEY.”[272]
Nineteen days before the Bristol conference was opened, Charles Wesley addressed the following to the Rev. Samuel Walker, of Truro.
“BRISTOL, _August 7, 1756_.
“REVEREND AND DEAR SIR,—My brother is coming hither to a conference with his preachers. Another letter from you might, by the blessing of God, confirm him in his calling. He seems resolved to temporize with them no longer. Mr. Grimshaw is coming to strengthen his hands. We shall have a private conference before the general one.
“I should have broken off from the Methodists and my brother, in 1752, but for the agreement.[273] I think every preacher should sign that agreement, or leave us. What I desire of my brother is:—1. That the unsound, unrecoverable preachers should be let depart just now. 2. That the wavering should be confirmed, if possible, and established in their calling. 3. That the sound ones should be received into the strictest union and confidence, and, as soon as may be, prepared for orders.
“To this end, my brother ought, in my judgment, to declare and avow, in the strongest and most explicit manner, his resolution to live and die in the communion of the Church of England. (1) To take all proper pains to instruct and ground both his preachers and his flock, in the same: a treatise is much wanting on this subject, which he might write and spread through all his societies. (2) To wait with me on the archbishop, who has desired to see him, and tell him our whole design. (3) To advise, as far as they think proper, with such of our brethren the clergy as know the truth, and do nothing without their approbation.
“I was advised long ago, by Lady Huntingdon, to write you on this subject, but could not do it till now. Your concern for the cause of God will, I doubt not, induce you to do all you can to promote it, and to hinder the work from being destroyed; although it would not be destroyed (as I often tell the Methodists) even if they all desert it, and turn aside to vain sectarian janglings. Remember at the throne of grace, dear sir, your meanest fellow servant,
“CHARLES WESLEY.”[274]
The above was confidential. Mr. Walker treated it as such; and, nine days afterwards, not only wrote a long letter to Wesley himself, which will be noticed shortly, but also a long reply to Charles. The following are extracts.
“_August 16, 1756._
“REVEREND AND DEAR SIR,—I am greatly concerned about the issue of the conference your brother is to have with his lay preachers. We had a short correspondence on that head last winter, wherein I saw he was greatly pushed by his preachers, unwilling to part with them, and yet not caring to part from the Church of England.
“Lay preachers, being contrary to the constitution of the Church of England, are, as far as that point goes, a separation from it. It is quite another question, whether lay preachers be agreeable to the appointment of the Spirit respecting the ministry. The matter is not, whether lay preachers be needful, or what their calling may be. Be the one and the other as it will, the thing is plainly inconsistent with the discipline of the Church of England; and so, in one essential point, setting up a church within her, which cannot be of her. When, therefore, it is asked, shall we separate from the Church of England? it should rather be asked, shall we make the separation, we have begun, a separation in all forms? And if we do not think ourselves allowed to do this, shall we unite with her? We do not, unless lay preaching is laid aside.
“Yourselves must judge of the call and necessity of lay preachers, and whether that, or anything beside, may justify a separation. Meantime, there is a continual bar kept up between you and any regular clergyman, who cannot in conscience fall in with this measure. The most he can do is not to forbid them; he cannot take them by the hand. And so there must be two disunited ministrations of the word in the same place, by people who yet do call themselves of the Church of England.
“After all these considerations, might not an expedient be found out which might correspond with the word of God and the Church of England; and, at the same time, both remove all objections, and render the body of Methodists more useful? I have long and often thought of such a thing. My scheme is this. 1. That as many of the lay preachers as are fit for, and can be procured, ordination, be ordained. 2. That those who remain be not allowed to preach, but be set as inspectors over the societies, and assistants to them. 3. That they be not moved from place to place, to the end they may be personally acquainted with all the members of such societies. 4. That their business may be to purge and edify the societies under their care, to the end that no person be continued a member, whose conversation is not orderly and of good report.
“If this should be made an objection, that hereby lay preachers would be prevented from preaching abroad, and so much good be put a stop to, I would suggest it to be inquired into, whether this lay preaching hath been so much to the honour or interest of religion or Methodism as may be supposed? I remember, when it first began, I said and thought lay preaching would be the ruin of Methodism.
“The archbishop is greatly to be commended for his labours after peace; and, without question, if the measures are obtained which you desire, it will be very desirable he be waited on, and informed of them. But this must be done with fear, lest the leaders among you, being taken notice of by such great ones, do abate their zeal. Especially, it would be capable of a very bad interpretation, should any of them be advanced to considerable preferment.
“To my thinking, you will not gain much by getting the preachers to subscribe the agreement of March 10, 1752. If things are left as they are, they will break out at last, nor can anything less be expected at your brothers death, which is an event at no great distance, in all human appearance. Or should he live, still the evil is unremoved.
“I am yours, etc.,
“SAMUEL WALKER.”[275]
In his letter to Wesley himself, Mr. Walker urges him to do something decisive in the way of putting Methodism on a footing that will “render it more serviceable to the church of Christ, and the Church of England.” He propounds the plan detailed in his letter to Charles Wesley. He wishes him, at the approaching conference: (1) To declare himself as satisfied concerning the _unlawfulness_ of separation from the Church of England, and as fully determined to dispute that matter no more with any who dissented from his opinion; (2) to act with vigour, in requiring his preachers to declare themselves, suffering such to depart as declined to concur with him, and to make all his societies acquainted with the action he had taken. He adds: “Delays will make matters worse. The disaffected will grow upon you, corrupt others, and imagine you are afraid of them; while also, in so unsettled a state of things, nothing can go forward; the enemy has advantage; and the interests of vital religion must suffer.” He concludes by requesting that the business “be so conducted as to give no offence to Dissenters of any denomination, lest unadvisedly old disputes and party heats should be revived.”[276]
Before his brother’s arrival in Bristol, Charles Wesley replied to Mr. Walker, as follows.
“BRISTOL, _August 21, 1756_.
“DEAR SIR,—Your last brings a blessing with it. I hope to consider it fully with my brother, who is expected every hour.
“Lay preaching, it is allowed, is a partial separation, and may, but _need_ not, end in a total one. The probability of it has made me tremble for years past, and kept me from leaving the Methodists. I stay not so much to do good, as to prevent evil. I stand in the way of my brother’s violent counsellors, the object of both their fear and hate.
“The regulations you propose are the same in substance which I have been long contending for in vain. I know my brother will not hear of laying aside his lay preachers in so many words. All I can desire of him, to begin, is: (1) To cut off all their hopes of his leaving the Church of England; (2) to put a stop to any more new preachers, till he has entirely regulated, disciplined, and secured the old ones. If he wavers still, and trims between the Church and them, I know not what to do. As yet, it is in his power, if he exert himself, to stop the evil. But I fear he will never have another opportunity. The tide will be too strong for him, and bear him away into the gulf of separation. Must I not, therefore, enter my protest and give up the preachers formally to him? _Hoc Ithacus volit_, and they impatiently wait for it. The restless pains of bad men, to thrust me out from the Methodists, seem a plain argument for my continuing with them. I want light, and would have no will of my own, but prove what is that good and perfect will of God. Continue your prayers for, dear sir, your sincere, though weak and despised brother,
“CHARLES WESLEY.”[277]
Wesley arrived; the conference was held; and, a few days afterwards, the following sensible and Christian letter was sent to Mr. Walker.
“KINGSWOOD, _September 3, 1756_.
“REVEREND AND DEAR SIR,—I have one point in view, to promote, so far as I am able, vital, practical religion. On this single principle, I have hitherto proceeded, and taken no step but in subservience to it. With this view, when I found it to be absolutely necessary for the continuance of the work which God had begun in many souls, and which their _regular pastors_ generally used all possible means to destroy, I permitted several of their brethren, whom I believed God had called thereto, and qualified for the work, to comfort, exhort, and instruct those who were athirst for God, or who walked in the light of His countenance. But, as the persons so qualified were few, and those who wanted their assistance very many, it followed, that most of these were obliged to travel continually from place to place; and this occasioned several regulations from time to time, which were chiefly made in our conferences.
“So great a blessing has, from the beginning, attended the labour of these itinerants, that we have been more and more convinced, every year, of the more than lawfulness of this proceeding. And the inconveniences, most of which we foresaw from the very first, have been both fewer and smaller than were expected. Rarely two in one year, out of the whole number of preachers, have either separated themselves or been rejected by us. A great majority have all along behaved as becometh the gospel of Christ; and, I am clearly persuaded, still desire nothing more than to spend and be spent for their brethren.
“‘How these may be settled on such a footing, as one might wish they might be after my death,’ is a weighty point, and has taken up many of my thoughts for several years; but I know nothing yet. The steps I am now to take are plain. I see broad light shining upon them; but the other part of the prospect I cannot see; clouds and darkness rest upon it. ‘To follow my own conscience, without any regard to consequences, or prudence, so called,’ is a rule which I have closely followed for many years, and hope to follow to my life’s end.
“The first of your particular advices is, ‘to keep in full view the interest of Christ’s church in general, and of practical religion; not considering the Church of England, or the cause of Methodism, but as subordinate thereto.’ This advice I have punctually observed from the beginning, as well as at our late conference. You advise, (2) ‘to keep in view the unlawfulness of a separation from the Church of England.’ To this likewise I agree. It cannot be lawful to separate from it, unless it be unlawful to continue in it. You advise, (3) ‘fully to declare myself on this head, and to suffer no dispute concerning it.’ The very same thing I wrote to my brother from Ireland. And we have declared ourselves without reserve. Nor was there any at the conference otherwise minded; those who would have aimed at dispute had left us before. All our preachers, as well as ourselves, purpose to continue in the Church of England. Nor did they ever before so freely and explicitly declare themselves on this subject.
“Your last advice is, ‘that as many of our preachers as are fit for it, be ordained; and that the others be fixed to certain societies, not as preachers, but as readers or inspectors.’
“You oblige me by speaking your sentiments so plainly: with the same plainness I will answer. So far as I know myself, I have no more concern for the reputation of Methodism, than for the reputation of Prester John.
“Is that which you propose a better way? This should be coolly and calmly considered.
“If I mistake not, there are now in Cornwall about four and thirty of these societies, part of whom now experience the love of God; part are more or less earnestly seeking it. Four preachers,—Peter Jaco, Thomas Johnson, W. Crabb, and William Allwood,—design, for the ensuing year,
## partly to call other sinners to repentance, but chiefly to guide and
feed those few feeble sheep.
“Now suppose, that we can effect, that Peter Jaco and Thomas Johnson be ordained and settled in the curacies of Buryan and St. Just; and suppose William Crabb and William Allwood fix at Launceston and the Dock, as readers and exhorters; will this answer the end I have in view, so well as travelling through the county?
“It will not answer it so well, even with regard to those societies with whom Peter Jaco and Thomas Johnson have settled. Be their talents ever so great, they will, ere long, grow dead themselves, and so will most of those that hear them. I know, were I myself to preach one whole year in one place, I should preach both myself and most of my congregation asleep. Nor can I ever believe, it was ever the will of our Lord, that any congregation should have one teacher only. We have found, by long and constant experience, that a frequent change of teachers is best. This preacher has one talent, that another. No one, whom I ever knew, has all the talents which are needful for beginning, continuing, and perfecting the work of grace in a whole congregation.
“But suppose this would better answer the end with regard to those two societies, would it answer in those where William Allwood and William Crabb were settled as inspectors or readers? First, who shall feed them with the milk of the word? The ministers of their parishes? Alas, they cannot: they themselves neither know, nor live, nor teach the gospel. These readers? Can then either they, or I, or you, always find something to read our congregation, which will be as exactly adapted to their wants, and as much blessed to them, as our preaching? And here is another difficulty still: what authority have I to forbid their doing what I believe God has called them to do? I apprehend, indeed, that there ought, if possible, to be both an outward and inward call to this work; yet, if one of the two be supposed wanting, I had rather want the outward than the inward call. I rejoice, that I am called to preach the gospel both by God and man. Yet, I acknowledge, I had rather have the Divine without the human, than the human without the Divine call.
“But waiving this, and supposing these four societies to be better provided for than they were before, what becomes of the other thirty? Will they prosper as well when they are left as sheep without a shepherd? The experiment has been tried again and again, and always with the same event; even the strong in faith grew weak and faint; many of the weak made shipwreck of faith; the awakened fell asleep; and sinners, changed for a while, returned as a dog to the vomit. And so, by our lack of service, many of the souls perished for whom Christ died. Now, had we willingly withdrawn our service from them, by voluntarily settling in one place, what account of this could we have given to the great Shepherd of all our souls?
“I cannot, therefore, see how any of those four preachers, or any others in like circumstances, can ever, while they have health and strength, ordained or unordained, fix in one place, without a grievous wound to their own conscience, and damage to the _general_ work of God. Yet, I trust, I am open to conviction; and your further thoughts on this, or any subject, will be always acceptable to, reverend and dear sir, your very affectionate brother and fellow labourer,
“JOHN WESLEY.”[278]
Such a letter ought to have been conclusive. By its practical common sense, it demolishes the fanciful theory of Charles Wesley and his friend Walker. The matter, however, was far from being settled. Walker accused Wesley of timidity. “He is,” says he, in a letter to Charles Wesley, “hindered by his own fears, which give the preachers an advantage they could not otherwise possibly have. He sees the necessity of either laying the preachers aside, or making them a separate church; while also, on the one hand, his conscience will not digest separation; and, on the other, he has had too great a hand in setting them up, to think of pulling them down. It has been a great fault all along, to have made the low people of your council; and, if there be not power enough left in your brother’s hands to do as he sees fit, they will soon show him they will be their own masters.”[279]
Mr. Walker, on September 2, wrote to the Rev. Thomas Adam, rector of Wintringham, telling him that the affair had become exceedingly serious; and that, in his opinion, unless the lay preachers were laid aside, it would end in separation. He adds, that Charles Wesley might consent to their dismissal; but Wesley himself would not.[280]
Three weeks later, Adam replied to Walker in the following, not over charitable, terms.
“_September 21, 1756._
“DEAR SIR,—Methodism, as to its external form, is such a deviation from the rule and constitution of the Church of England, that all attempts to render it consistent must be in vain. Lay preaching is a manifest irregularity, and would not be endured in any Christian society. To salve this sore, you say, _let some of their lay preachers be ordained_. But suppose they were, to what end would they be ordained? That they might still go on to preach in fields, or private houses, and hold separate meetings? This would be as great a breach upon the order of the Church as ever, and perhaps attended with greater inconveniences than their present practice. J. Wesley will not, cannot give up the point of lay preaching; it will be giving up all; he must cry _peccavi_, and his heart will hold him a tug before it comes to that. Upon the whole, my judgment is, that they have embarrassed themselves past recovery; and must either go on in their present form, or separate totally and openly. The latter, many think, would be more ingenuous than an underhand separation. I think you must e’en let the Methodists alone. I do not see what help you can afford them, consistently with their principles and your own. ‘Every plant,’ etc., should make us tremble on one side and the other.
“I am, reverend and dear sir,
“Your unworthy brother,
“THOS. ADAM.”[281]
Amid such difficulties, such friends, and such opponents, poor perplexed Wesley had to grope his way as he best could. For a time, the feverish anxiety of his brother somewhat subsided. Within a week after the conference, he wrote to Mr. Walker, his confidential, if not wise, adviser, as follows.
“BRISTOL, _September 6, 1756_.
“DEAR SIR,—Between forty and fifty, or almost all, our itinerant preachers were present at our conference. I have talked largely with each, some of whom I had not known before so much as by name. Mr. Venn, a clergyman, was with us the whole time. Since our last conference at Leeds, two or three of our preachers, of a froward unhumbled spirit, have left us. The rest, except two here and two in Ireland, are, I have good reason to believe, men of a single eye, and humble, teachable spirit. My brother seems farther from a separation than ever. This morning, he set out for London, to print a new edition of his Notes. He has also undertaken to write a treatise, to confirm the Methodists in the Church. Next Monday, I expect to set out for the north on the same errand. Continue your prayers for, dear sir, your weakest brother,
“CHARLES WESLEY.”[282]
On September 17, Charles Wesley started upon his northern mission. At Walbridge, he exhorted the forty-three members of the Methodist society “to continue steadfast in the communion of the Church of England.” At Cheltenham, he writes: “I did not forget to confirm the brethren in their calling; that is, to live and die in the Church of England.” At Sheffield, he “spake plainly and lovingly to the society of continuing in the Church; and, though many of them were Dissenters and predestinarians, none were offended.” At Rotherham, he says: “I plainly told the society, that ‘there is no salvation _out of the church_,’ that is, out of the mystical body of Christ, or the company of faithful people.” At Leeds, he tells us, the society “were unanimous to stay in the Church, because the Lord stays in it, and multiplies His witnesses therein, more than in any other church in Christendom.” At York, he writes: “I exhorted them to go to church, that they might be found of Jesus in the temple.” At Seacroft, where Grimshaw joined him, he “strongly exhorted the society to continue stedfast in fellowship with each other, and the whole Church of England.” At Heptonstall, he “warned them of the wiles of the devil, whereby he would draw them away from the church, and the other means of grace.” At Manchester, he challenged them “to show him one Methodist who had ever prospered by turning Dissenter.” While here, he also addressed his brother as follows.
“One thing might prevent, in great measure, the mischiefs which will probably ensue after our death; and that is, _greater, much greater deliberation and care in admitting preachers_. Ought any new preacher to be received before we know, that he is grounded, not only in the doctrines we teach, but in the discipline also, and, particularly, in the communion of the Church of England? Ought we not to try what he can answer a baptist, a quaker, a papist, as well as a predestinarian or Moravian? If we do not insist on that στοργη for our desolate mother as a pre-requisite, yet should we not be well assured, that the candidate is no enemy to the Church? Is it not our duty to stop J. C.” [Joseph Cownley?] “and such like, from railing and laughing at the Church? Should we not now, at least, shut the stable door? The short remainder of my life is devoted to this very thing, to follow our sons with buckets of water, to quench the flame of strife and division, which they have or may kindle.”
He also wrote, from the same place, to his friend Grimshaw, under date of October 29: “I could not leave this poor shattered society so soon as I proposed. They have not had fair play from our treacherous sons in the gospel. I have once more persuaded them to go to church and sacrament, and stay to carry them thither the next Lord’s day. Nothing but grace can keep our children, after our departure, from running into a thousand sects, a thousand errors.”
He likewise wrote to his “beloved brethren at Leeds, etc.,” as follows: “I knew beforehand, that the Sanballats and Tobiahs would be grieved when they heard there was a man come to seek the welfare of the Church of England. I expected they would pervert my words, as if I should say, ‘_The Church could save you_.’ But let not their slanders move you. Continue in the old ship. Jesus hath a favour for our Church, and is wonderfully visiting and reviving His work in her.”[283]
On November 6, he got back to Bristol, and, ten days later, sent the following furious letter to his brother—a letter now for the first time published.
“BRISTOL, _November 16, 1756_.
“Doubtless you guard in your ‘Preservative’ against that levelling, devilish, root and branch, spirit, which breathes in every line of the ‘Mitre.’ I kept my own thoughts till you imparted yours, with which I entirely agree. Only you do him too much honour by naming him with the _Independent Whig_. The religion of both is equal, but Ted exceeds in bitterness and malice beyond all comparison. Much wit I can see in the _Independent Whig_; but in the ‘Mitre’ none at all. Such insufferable dulness would surfeit every reader, but those whose hearts are as thoroughly corrupted as the writer’s. I marvel how he can look you or me in the face, after writing and propagating such a book; how he can pretend to be our fellow labourer! Notwithstanding his promise to us, at J. Jones’, he continues to spread his notions with his book. He does not sell, but gives it to _our_ preachers and friends. One he made me the bearer of to York. I have heard none commend its wit, but Mrs. James, and Christopher Hopper, which convinces me nothing is too stupid to do hurt. Is it right or fair, that he should go on to poison our children, and wound us through the influence which we lend him? I love both him and Charles and the whole family. So you do, as we have abundantly shown. But must we, therefore, suffer this madman to cast firebrands, and to tear our flock to pieces? I know he is totally fallen from grace; and _can_ I, _ought_ I, ever to trust him till he is sensible of his fall? In my private capacity, I show him what love and civility I can, and intend to continue his friend, as far as he is capable of receiving good from me; but, as ministers of Christ, as guardians of this particular church, as fathers of the poor Methodists, what ought we to do? Let us first agree betwixt ourselves, and cut off all his hopes of ever coming between us. Then, whatever you say, or do, or judge, I say, do, and judge the same. Only, what we do, we must do quickly. You can better write than speak your mind. He stays here another week. Suppose you wrote him a letter (for me also to subscribe and deliver), and set before him some of the things which he hath done.
“1. He has set himself against us, almost from the beginning, counteracting us with our preachers, spiriting them up, poisoning, proselyting them to his own wretched notions.
“2. He has withstood the utmost efforts both you and I have used to make him our friend.
“3. He has stirred up persecution against us, and given such a wound to the cause as may never be healed. For of all the prejudices, bitterness, disaffection of both preachers and people, he is _et caput et frons_. Unless he says Joseph Cownley corrupted him, and he his brother Charles.
“4. To sum up all, and perpetuate his evil, he has sent forth his ‘Mitre,’ in open contradiction of all we have said, wrote, done from the beginning. If we say, the Church of Christ and England are but one, he says, the Church of Rome and England are but one. If we condemn lay administering, he attempts to justify and prove it. What Charles told Dr. Tucker, that he had not one sentiment in common with the Church of England, Ted might say with equal truth.
“At Canterbury, I saw our Sacrament Hymns, which Ted has scratched out and blotted, hardly leaving twenty entire lines. How can two walk together except they be agreed? How can he pretend to labour with us? He has no power over his own will or words. If, in a relenting fit, he promises us to be quiet, his vanity soon betrays him again into his old spirit and conversation.
“Let us try, with the help of God, whether we cannot hinder his doing further mischief. Things are come to this, that we must conquer or be conquered. My advice is: 1. That you write and insist upon his keeping his promise to us, by calling in and destroying his book. If he will part with that right eye, we may have some hope of him. 2. That he settle to _something_. He is unwilling to break with us—(1) Because he still in some sort loves us; (2) because he comes recommended by us to all our friends. But his own soul can never recover while he wanders from house to house in such a lounging way of life. Therefore, let him go home to his wife, and do as much good and as little harm as he can at Canterbury. Poor Mr. Lepine he had almost assimilated. I hope your late visit has set him right. I will join you in your _kindest_ treatment of him; but make him not your companion or counsellor. Keep your absolute superiority, by steady, serious love. The same behaviour might suit his brother also. I have much more to say, but time and paper fail. When do you expect that your Notes will be out? I am half choked with a cold, yet setting out for the country. Farewell!
CHARLES WESLEY.”
“To Mr. Windsor, in King Street, Tower Hill, London, for J. W. with speed.”
Thus was Wesley badgered. It certainly was strange, that one of the fiercest attacks upon the Church of England, ever published, should be written by a Methodist itinerant preacher; and that the preacher should be the son of a man, who, at one time at least, was Wesley’s most confidential friend, Vincent Perronet; and further, that the writer should have lived on terms of the greatest intimacy with both Wesley and his brother. The book contains not a little which cannot be commended; but Charles Wesley’s opinion of its dulness and want of wit is preposterously opposed to fact. Charles was in a terrible fever of Church of England excitement; and all that he said and did, at this momentous period of Methodistic history, must be taken _cum grano salis_. Why Vincent Perronet was not consulted in these grave affairs we are left to guess.
Charles Wesley was most anxious to have the present preachers ordained, or otherwise attached to settled societies; and also to stop the employment of additional itinerants, or, at all events, without subjecting them to a most searching ordeal. On the other hand, his brother continued to employ them as usual; and, during this very year of 1756, called to the itinerant work five fresh labourers—William Allwood, John Catermole, Robert Gillespy, Thomas Greaves, and Matthew Lowes; while the only ones who left him were John Haughton, John Maddern, and James Morris.[284] Many, indeed most, of his preachers were without learning, but not without sense. They were thoroughly converted; and, though destitute of other knowledge, knew the Scriptures, and how to teach the gospel plan of salvation. In a letter, written at the close of the Bristol conference, Wesley says:—
“BRISTOL, _August 31, 1756_.
... “A careless reader of the Address may think I make it necessary for a minister to have much learning; and, thence, imagine I act inconsistently; seeing many of our preachers have no learning at all. But the answer is easy. First, I do not make any learning necessary even for a minister,—the minister of a parish, who, as such, undertakes single to guide and feed, to instruct and govern, that whole flock,—but the knowledge of the Scriptures; although many branches of learning are highly expedient for him. Secondly, these preachers are not ministers; none of them undertakes single the care of a whole flock; but ten, twenty, or thirty, one following and helping another; and all, under the direction of my brother and me, undertake jointly what (as I judge) no man in England is equal to alone.”[285]
In another letter, to Mr. Norton, he writes thus.
“KINGSWOOD, _September 3, 1756_.
“MY DEAR BROTHER,—In your letters of July, and August 27, you charge me first with _self inconsistency_, in tolerating lay preaching, and not lay administering; and, secondly, with showing a spirit of _persecution_, in denying my brethren the liberty of _acting_, as well as _thinking_, according to their own _conscience_.
“As to the former charge, the fact alleged is true; but it is not true, that I am _self inconsistent_ in so doing. I tolerate lay preaching, because I conceive there is an absolute necessity for it, inasmuch as, were it not, thousands of souls would perish everlastingly; yet I do not tolerate _lay administering_, because I do not conceive there is any such necessity for it; seeing it does not appear, that, if this is not at all, one soul will perish for want of it.
“As to the latter charge, I again allow the fact; but deny the consequence. I mean, I allow the fact thus far; some of our preachers, who are not ordained, think it quite right to administer the Lord’s supper, and believe it would do much good. I think it quite wrong, and believe it would do much hurt. Hereupon I say: ‘I have no right over your conscience, nor you over mine; therefore, both you and I must follow our own conscience. You believe it is a duty to administer do so; and therein follow your own conscience. I verily believe it is a sin; which consequently I dare not _tolerate_; and herein I follow mine,’ Yet, this is no _persecution_, were I to separate from our society, (which I have not done yet,) those who practise what I believe is contrary to the word, and destructive of the work, of God.
“If John Jones, my brother, or any other preacher, has preached sharply on this head, I certainly am a stranger to it, and therefore not answerable for it. I persecute no man on this account, or any other; and yet, I cannot _consent_, that any of our lay preachers should either preach predestination, or administer the sacraments, to those who are under my care.
“But after all this pother, What is this persecution, concerning which you make so loud an outcry? Why, some of our lay preachers did what we thought was both ill in itself, and likely to do much harm among the people. Of this, complaint was made to me. And what did I do? Did I expel those preachers out of the community? Not so. Did I forbid them to preach any more? Not so neither. Did I degrade them from itinerant to local preachers? Not so much as this. I told them, I thought the thing was wrong, and would do hurt, and therefore _advised_ them to do it no more. Certainly this is a _new_ species of _persecution_! You might as well call it _murder_. I have used no _arbitrary_, no _coercive_ power; nay, no power at all in this matter, but that of love. I have given no man an ill word or an ill look on that account. I have not withdrawn my confidence or my conversation from any. I have dealt with every man as, if the tables were turned, I should desire he would deal with me.
“I am, your affectionate brother,
“JOHN WESLEY.”[286]
We add only one more extract on this subject.
“LONDON, _September 10, 1756_.
“REVEREND SIR,—Concerning diocesan episcopacy, there are several questions I should be glad to have answered. 1. Where is it prescribed in Scripture? How does it appear, that the apostles settled it in all the churches they planted? How does it appear, that they settled it in any, as to make it of perpetual obligation? It is allowed, ‘Christ and His apostles did put the churches under some form of government or other’; but, (1) Did they put all churches under the same precise form? If they did, (2) Can we prove this to have been the very same which now remains in the Church of England?
“I am very far from being ‘quite indifferent to any man’s opinions in religion’; neither do I ‘conceal my sentiments.’ Few men less. I have written severally, and printed, against deists, papists, mystics, quakers, anabaptists, presbyterians, Calvinists, and antinomians. An odd way of ingratiating myself with them! Nevertheless, in all things indifferent, but not at the expense of truth, I rejoice to please all men for their good to edification.
“I have humoured you, so as to dispute with you a little; but with what probability of success? What man of threescore (unless perchance one in an age) was ever _convinced_ of anything? Is not an old man’s motto, _Non persuadebis etiamsi persuaseris_? When we are past middle age, does not a kind of stiffness and inflexibility steal upon the mind as well as the body? And how does this bar the gate against all conviction! O sir, what an idle thing is it for you to dispute about lay preachers! Is not a lay preacher preferable to a drunken preacher? to a cursing, swearing preacher?
“Yours, etc.,
“JOHN WESLEY.”[287]
These are long extracts; perhaps, in the opinion of some, too long; but it must be borne in mind, that the subject of lay preaching, and of separation from the Established Church, was one of the weightiest questions with which Wesley had to deal. For nearly fifty years, it occasioned him the utmost anxiety. Besides, there is no point upon which he has been more misunderstood than this. It is one which excites more interest now than it did even a century ago. It is high time that the controversy was settled. To help in doing this, we have collected all the facts with which we are acquainted. They have been stated with the utmost honesty. Comment would be easy; it is even tempting; but the reader can form his own opinions on the facts presented, and can comment for himself. All must agree, however, that Wesley was very far from being as rigid a Churchman as was his brother Charles, and as the clergy of the present day wish us to believe. This is a subject which will, again and again, demand attention.
On September 6, Wesley left Bristol for London, where he continued reading, writing, publishing, and preaching till the year was ended. Two days were spent in, what he calls, “settling his temporal business,” the result of which was the following entry in his journal: “It is now about eighteen years since I begun writing and printing books; and how much in that time have I gained by printing? Why, on summing up my accounts, I found that, on March 1, 1756, I had gained, by printing and preaching together, a debt of £1236.”
On September 10, he writes: “I preached at a famous place, commonly called ‘The Bull and Mouth meeting’; which had belonged, I suppose, near a hundred years, to the people called Quakers. As much of real religion as was ever preached there, I trust will be preached there still; and perhaps in a more rational, scriptural, and intelligible manner.”
A month later, he says: “I preached to a huge multitude in Moorfields, on ‘Why will ye die, O house of Israel?’ It is field preaching which does the execution still; for usefulness there is none comparable to it.”
Among other books, he read the following: “The case of Marriages between near Kindred particularly considered, with respect to the Doctrine of Scripture, the Law of Nature, and the Laws of England.” By John Fry. 8vo, 146 pages. “It is,” says he, “the best tract I ever read upon the subject; I suppose the best that is extant. And two points, I think, he has fully proved: (1) That many marriages, commonly supposed to be unlawful, are neither contrary to the law of nature, nor the revealed law of God, nor the law of the land. (2) That ecclesiastical courts have no right to meddle with any case of this kind.” Twenty-nine years afterwards, Wesley read the same work again, and wrote: “I wonder it is not more known, as there is nothing on the head like it in the English tongue. I still think, he has proved, to a demonstration, that no marriages are forbidden, either by the law of God or of England, but those of brothers and sisters, and those in the ascending and descending line.” Wesley’s opinion on this subject is not without interest, especially at the present day, when discussion is rife respecting the propriety of repealing the law of the land which renders null and void the marriage of a man to his deceased wife’s sister. Fry was strongly in favour of such marriages, and Wesley endorsed the soundness of his arguments. In doing that, Wesley showed that, rather than sacrifice what he considered right and true, he was willing to be branded as a heterodox son of that church, which, by “the most reverend father in God, Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury,” had issued an “Admonition,” prohibiting all matrimonial alliances of this description.
Another book he read was Voltaire’s “Henriade.” He remarks: “Voltaire is a very lively writer, of a fine imagination; and allowed, I suppose, by all competent judges, to be a perfect master of the French language; and, by him, I am more than ever convinced, that the French is the poorest, meanest language in Europe; that it is no more comparable to the German or Spanish, than a bagpipe is to an organ; and that, with regard to poetry in particular, considering the incorrigible uncouthness of their measure, and their always writing in rhyme, it is as impossible to write a fine poem in French, as to make fine music upon a jew’s harp.”
Wesley also read a “Dissertation in Defence of the Hebrew Points,” by Leusden, the eminent professor of Hebrew and Jewish antiquities at Utrecht, and says: “I was fully convinced, there is, at least, as much to be said on this as on the other side of the question. But how is it, that men are so positive on both sides, while demonstration is to be had on neither?”
The reading of Leusden was, doubtless, intended as a preparation for the reading of another author, whose works were then attracting great attention. John Hutchinson was born at Spennythorn, in Yorkshire, in 1674. He was a man of undoubted genius; and, among other things, invented a chronometer, for the discovery of the longitude at sea, an instrument which obtained the approbation of Sir Isaac Newton. He is chiefly known, however, as the founder of a system of theology and philosophy, based on a fanciful etymology of Hebrew words. He held, that the Old Testament Scriptures were written in Hebrew without points; that this was the language of paradise; and that every Hebrew root has some important meaning, and is designed to signify spiritual and mental things. In this way, Hutchinson turned history into prophecy, and made Scripture sentences to mean what they were never meant to mean, and what they were incapable of meaning. He died in 1737; and, in 1748, his ingenious but fanciful productions were published in twelve volumes octavo, and obtained not a few admirers, including, among others, Dr. Samuel Clarke and Bishop Horne.
For some reason, Wesley began to read Mr. Hutchinson’s philosophy with all the itinerant preachers at that time assembled in London; but says, he was not able to admire either “his sense or his spirit. His hypothesis was unsupported by Scripture; very ingenious, but quite precarious. When Dr. Bentley published his Greek Testament, one remarked: ‘Pity but he would publish the Old; then we should have two New Testaments!’ It is done. Those who receive Mr. Hutchinson’s emendations certainly have two New Testaments! In order to learn all I could from his works, I read over the Glasgow abridgment with Mr. Thomas Walsh, the best Hebrean I ever knew. I never asked him the meaning of a Hebrew word but he would tell me how often it occurred in the Bible, and what it meant in each place! We both observed, that Mr. Hutchinson’s whole scheme is built upon etymologies; the most uncertain foundation in the world. We observed, secondly, that, if the points be allowed, all his building sinks at once; and, thirdly, that, setting them aside, many of his etymologies are forced and unnatural. Mr. Hutchinson affirms, the points were invented by the Masorites, only thirteen or fourteen hundred years ago, in order to destroy the sense of Scripture. I doubt this: who can prove it? Who can prove they were not as old as Ezra, if not coeval with the language? Let any one give a fair reading only to what Dr. Cornelius Bayley has offered in the preface to his Hebrew Grammar, and he will be as sick of reading without the points as I am.”[288]
During his autumnal sojourn in the metropolis, Wesley took to task the editor of the _Monthly Review_, for “jumbling together, and condemning by the lump, the whole body of people called Methodists,” the Moravians being bound up in the branded bundle. He also wrote a long letter, under the date of October 15, to his old friend Mr. Hervey, pointing out the excellencies and defects of his “Dialogues between Theron and Aspasio.” “In the first dialogue, there are several just and strong observations, which may be of use to every serious reader.” “The description in the second is often too laboured, and the language too stiff and affected; but the reflections on the creation make abundant amends for this.” “The third and fourth dialogues contain an admirable illustration and confirmation of the great doctrine of Christ’s satisfaction; yet there are a few passages liable to exception.” In the fifth and sixth dialogues, the author unnecessarily contends for the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. “The seventh and eighth are full of important truths”; but contain sentiments and expressions to which Wesley cannot yield assent. “The ninth proves excellently well, that we cannot be justified by our works.” The tenth contains several passages to which he takes exception. The eleventh proves, by irrefragable arguments, the doctrine of original sin, and has not a single sentence liable to objection. “The twelfth, likewise, is unexceptionable; and contains,” says he, “such an illustration of the wisdom of God in the structure of the human body, as, I believe, cannot be paralleled in either ancient or modern writers.” “The former part of the thirteenth dialogue is admirable;” to the latter he had some objection.
In the same style and spirit, he criticises the “Letters,” and thus concludes his critique, which fills eighteen printed pages.
“Upon the whole, I cannot but wish, that the plan of these dialogues had been executed in a different manner. Most of the grand truths of Christianity are herein both explained and proved with great strength and clearness. Why was anything intermixed which could prevent any serious Christian’s recommending them to all mankind? anything which must necessarily render them exceptionable to so many thousands of the children of God? In practical writings, I studiously abstain from the very shadow of controversy. Nay, even in controversial, I do not willingly write one line, to which any but my opponent would object. For opinions, shall I destroy the work of God? Then am I a bigot indeed. Much more, if I would not drop any mode of expression rather than offend either Jew, or Gentile, or the church of God.
“I am, with sincerity, dear sir,
“Your affectionate brother and servant,
“JOHN WESLEY.”[289]
Hervey did not reply to this, but, a few years later, Wesley’s letter led to great unpleasantness, which will have to be introduced hereafter. Hervey died in 1758. Wesley lost one friend, but gained another, in some respects his superior. John Fletcher wrote to him, on November 24, 1756, as his “spiritual guide,” asking his advice respecting his entering into orders. He tells him that, seven years ago, when first converted, he resolved to dedicate himself to the service of the church, and prosecuted study with that design. Feeling himself, however, unequal to the burden of ministerial responsibilities, and “disgusted by the necessity he should be under to subscribe to the doctrine of predestination, he yielded to the desire of his friends, who wished him to go into the army.” The disappointments with which he met occasioned his leaving Switzerland, and coming to England. “Here he was thrice called outwardly to enter into orders”; but had hitherto been prevented. Six weeks ago, a gentleman had offered him a living, and a clergyman a title. The living he intended to decline, as, he thought, he “could preach with more fruit in his own country and in his own tongue”; but he wishes Wesley to decide for him, “whether he can and must make use of the offered title to go into orders. I know,” says he, “how precious is your time. I desire no long answer; _persist_, or _forbear_, will satisfy and influence, sir, your unworthy servant, JOHN FLETCHER.”[290]
Wesley said, “Persist,” and, within four months afterwards, the young Swiss, in the twenty-eighth year of his age, was ordained, at Whitehall, London; and, “on the same day, being informed that Wesley had no one to help him at West Street chapel, he left as soon as the ordination was over, and assisted him in the administration of the Lord’s supper.”[291] Wesley writes: “How wonderful are the ways of God! When my bodily strength failed, and none in England were able and willing to assist me, He sent me help from the mountains of Switzerland; and a helpmeet for me in every respect: where could I have found such another?”
Thus began the lifelong friendship of these distinguished men; and thus commenced the renowned ministry of the vicar of Madeley.
On the 13th of December, 1756, young Fletcher sent to Wesley a most interesting letter, of which the following is an extract.
“SIR,—Whenever I have received the sacrament in your chapels, though I admired the order and decency observed, I thought there was something wanting, which might make that awful part of the Divine worship still more profitable and solemn.
“As the number of communicants is generally very great, the time spent in receiving is long enough for many to feel their devotion languish for want of outward fuel. In order to prevent this, you interrupt, from time to time, the service of the table, to put up a short prayer, or to sing a verse or two of a hymn; and I do not doubt but many have found the benefit of that method. But as you can spare very little time, you are obliged to be satisfied with scattering these few drops, instead of a continual rain. Sir, would not this want be easily supplied, if you were to appoint the preachers, who may be present, to do what you cannot possibly do yourself, to pray and sing without interruption, as at a watch night?
“I take the liberty of giving you this hint, because you said lately in the society, that you heard willingly the observations of your people, and were ready to follow or improve them, if they were just or reasonable.
“I am, sir, your unworthy servant,
“JOHN FLETCHER.”[292]
Nothing now remains but to briefly notice Wesley’s publications in 1756. They were as follows.
1. “An Extract of the Rev. Mr. John Wesley’s Journal, from July 20, 1749, to October 30, 1751.” 12mo, 107 pages.
2. “A Treatise on Baptism,” dated November 11, 1756. This was his father’s “Short Discourse on Baptism,” published in 1700. It is true, that Wesley has _slightly_ abridged and verbally altered his father’s work, but that is all; and yet he makes not the least reference whatever to its original author. In these days of sacramental controversy, it is only fair to give an extract.
“By baptism, we, who were ‘by nature children of wrath,’ are made the children of God. And this regeneration, which our Church, in so many places, ascribes to baptism, is more than barely being admitted into the church, though commonly connected therewith; being ‘grafted into the body of Christ’s church, we are made the children of God by adoption and grace.’ This is grounded on the plain words of our Lord: ‘Except a man be born again of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.’ By water then, as a means, the water of baptism, we are regenerated or born again. Herein a principle of grace is infused, which will not be wholly taken away, unless we quench the Holy Spirit of God by long continued wickedness.”
This is strong, and somewhat startling language, and yet not really stronger than Wesley uses in his sermon on the New Birth: “It is certain our Church supposes, that all who are baptized in their infancy are, at the same time, born again; and it is allowed, that the whole Office for the Baptism of Infants proceeds upon this supposition. Nor is it an objection of any weight against this, that we cannot comprehend how this work can be wrought in infants. For neither can we comprehend how it is wrought in a person of riper years.”[293] It is true, that, in the same sermon, Wesley lays it down, that “baptism and the new birth are not one and the same thing, the one being an external, and the other an internal work”; and he also asserts, that “it is sure all of riper years who are baptized are not at the same time born again”; but, in reference to infants, he unquestionably held the high church doctrine of his father. It is no part of our proposed task either to justify or to condemn this opinion; our sole object is honestly to relate facts.
3. “The Good Soldier, extracted from a Sermon preached to a company of volunteers raised in Virginia, August 17, 1755.” 12mo, 16 pages. The publication was doubtless occasioned by the threatened invasion of England, by the French, at the beginning of the year, when Wesley himself proposed to raise “for his majesty’s service a body of at least two hundred volunteers.”
4. “A Letter to the Rev. Mr. Law, occasioned by some of his late writings.” 8vo, 102 pages. This has never been entirely reprinted, an extract only being given in Wesley’s collected works.
Strangely enough, William Law,—a man of almost unequalled power and eloquence,—had become a Behmenite. Jacob Behmen, the “German theosophist,” was born of poor parents, in 1575. At the age of ten, he was apprenticed to a shoemaker; at nineteen, he became a master, and was married. At twenty-five, he fell into a trance, which lasted for seven days, and afforded him an intuitive vision of God. This was followed by others, in which his spirit was carried to the inmost world of nature, and was enabled to penetrate through the outward forms of bodies into their inward essences. At the age of thirty-seven, he began to publish his mysteries. He died in 1624, aged forty-nine. It is impossible, in a work like this, to give even the merest outline of the enthusiastic conceptions, visions, and revelations of this inventive German genius,—a motley mixture of mystical jargon, a jumble of astrological, philosophical, chemical, and theological extravagances, which he himself acknowledges no one can understand except those who have obtained illumination like his own. William Law was one of his warmest admirers, and had already published an English edition of his works in two vols., quarto.
This melancholy fact will account for the severity of Wesley’s language in the letter he addressed to Law in 1756. Wesley begins by stating, that “there are few writers in the present age, who stand in any comparison with Mr. Law, as to beauty and strength of language; readiness, liveliness, and copiousness of thought; and, in many points, accuracy of sentiment.” He acknowledges, that Law had “long employed his uncommon abilities, not to gain either honour or preferment, but to promote the glory of God, and peace and goodwill among men.” “Several of his treatises, particularly his ‘Christian Perfection,’ and ‘Serious Call,’ must remain, as long as England stands, almost unequalled standards of the strength and purity of the English language, as well as of sound, practical divinity”; and had been of immense service “in reviving and establishing true, rational, scriptural religion” among the people. Some of his late writings, however, were not of this meritorious order; and these Wesley proceeds to criticise. Law once said to Wesley, “You would have a philosophical religion; but there can be no such thing. Religion is the most plain, simple thing in the world. It is only, ‘We love Him, because He first loved us.’ So far as you add philosophy to religion, just so far you spoil it.” Wesley now retorts, and tells him there is no “writer in England, who so continually blends philosophy with religion” as himself; and, to make things worse, his philosophy is “uncertain, dangerous, irrational, and unscriptural.” “Bad philosophy, by insensible degrees, paves the way for bad divinity.” He had also done Jacob Behmen “an irreparable injury by dragging him out of his awful obscurity, and by pouring light upon his venerable darkness. Men,” says he, “may admire the deepness of the well, and the excellence of the water it contains; but, if some officious person puts a light into it, it will appear to be both very shallow and very dirty.” He concludes:—
“I have now delivered my own soul. And I have used great plainness of speech; such as I could not have prevailed on myself to use to one whom I so much respect, on any other occasion. Oh that your latter works may be more and greater than your first! Surely they would, if you could ever be persuaded to study, instead of the writings of Tauler and Behmen, those of St. Paul, James, Peter, and John; to spew out of your mouth and out of your heart that vain philosophy, and speak neither higher nor lower things, neither more nor less, than the oracles of God; to renounce, despise, abhor all the highflown bombast, all the unintelligible jargon of the mystics, and come back to the plain religion of the Bible, ‘We love Him, because He first loved us.’”
This was strong language to employ to a man like William Law, who held Jacob Behmen, the Crispin theosophist, in amazing admiration; but it was not unmerited. Whitefield pronounced Wesley’s letter “a most ungentlemanlike, injudicious, unchristian piece”;[294] but Whitefield was not so well acquainted with the Behmenite fooleries as Wesley was. Law himself was annoyed and angry, but declined to answer Wesley’s critique, on the ground, that it did “not admit of a serious answer, because there was nothing substantial or properly argumentative in it; and to answer it, in the way of ridicule,” was a thing to which he was unconquerably averse. “Mr. Wesley,” says he, “is an ingenious man, and the reason why his letter to me is such a juvenile composition of emptiness and pertness, is because it was not ability, but necessity, that put his pen into his hand. He had condemned my books, preached much against them, and forbad his people the use of them. And, for a cover to all this, he promised, from time to time, to write against them. Therefore, an answer was to be made at all adventures.[295] I was once a kind of oracle with him; and I never suspected anything bad of him, or ever discovered any kind or degree of falseness in him; but, during all the time of his intimacy with me, I judged him to be much under the power of his own spirit. Still, whatever you hear of Mr. John Wesley concerning me, or my books, let it die with you; and wish him God speed in everything that is good.”[296]
Here the controversy between Wesley and this exceedingly able and godly, though mistaken, man terminated. Five years afterwards, Mr. Law exchanged this world, where the wisest sees “through a glass, darkly,” for a higher world, where all “see face to face.”
5. The last of Wesley’s publications, in 1756, which we have to notice, was not the least important, though an octavo tract of only thirty pages. The title was, “An Address to the Clergy.” While addressed to the clergy of the Church of England especially, it was also addressed to all of every denomination, whom God had “called to watch over souls, as they that must give account.” First of all, Wesley considers what ministers ought to be, in gifts as well as in grace, 1. A minister ought to have a good understanding. 2. Some liveliness and readiness of thought. 3. A good memory. 4. Knowledge of his own office; of the Scriptures; of Hebrew and Greek; of profane history; of the sciences, including logic; of metaphysics; of natural philosophy; of geometry; of the fathers. 5. Common sense. 6. Good breeding. 7. A strong, clear, musical voice, and a good delivery. In reference to grace, Wesley contends that a minister must have: (1) A single intention to glorify God, and to save souls; (2) an eminent measure of love to God, and to all his brethren; (3) he must be an example to his flock, in his private and public character.
The second part of the pamphlet is devoted to the inquiry, Are ministers what they ought to be? Wesley strongly denounces the old adage: “The boy, if he is fit for nothing else, will do well enough for a parson.” Acting upon this had introduced “dull, heavy, blockish ministers; the jest of every pert fool, and of every airy coxcomb that they met.” Men entering the ministry for honour, or for income, are pronounced many degrees beneath Simon Magus, who instead of seeking the gift of God to get money, offered money to obtain the gift. “What a creature,” he writes, “is a covetous, an ambitious, a luxurious, an indolent, a diversion loving clergyman! Is it any wonder that infidelity should increase, where any of these are found?”
In the publication of this pamphlet, Wesley probably aimed at a twofold object:—1. To give a new impulse to the Church of England, to awaken its dormant zeal, to infuse life into its lifeless ministers; and thus prevent the necessity of a separation. 2. To curb the ambition of his own lay preachers, by setting before them a ministerial standard, of which, in some respects, most of them fell immeasurably short. Was this object realised? This is a question which succeeding chapters will help to answer. At present, it is only fair to add, that it is somewhat difficult to reconcile Wesley’s pamphlet with Wesley’s letter already given, bearing date, August 31, 1756.
Wesley’s “Address to the Clergy” was not left to pass unchallenged.
William Law, still smarting from Wesley’s castigation, remarks in a letter, dated April 10, 1757: “Wesley’s Babylonish ‘Address to the Clergy’ is empty babble, fitter for an old grammarian, who has grown blear eyed in mending dictionaries, than for one who has tasted the powers of the world to come, and has found the truth as it is in Jesus.”[297] Alas! William Law!
An unknown clergyman also issued a sixpenny pamphlet, entitled, “A Letter to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley, occasioned by his Address to the Clergy. By one of the Clergy.” The writer accuses Wesley of spiritual pride and presumption, and adduces extracts to support his charge; but, in all other respects, the production is unimportant. Another tract, however, of the same size, was published a few months later, and is more puzzling. “An Expostulatory Letter to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley, occasioned by his Address to the Clergy,” begins thus:—“We, W. B., G. C., J. M., etc., do, in behalf of ourselves and many others, who, by your appointment, instigation, or encouragement, have undertaken to preach the gospel of Christ, beg leave, in the spirit of meekness and love, to expostulate with you.” And then these pretending disciples proceed very shrewdly to attack, not only the “Address,” but likewise Wesley’s late translation of the New Testament. Was this a genuine production? We cannot tell. If not spurious, it was of great importance.
1757.
[Sidenote: 1757 Age 54]
In 1757, Charles Wesley seems to have ceased, to a great extent, to itinerate as a Methodist preacher. His journeys became less frequent and extensive, till his ministrations were chiefly confined to Bristol and London, with occasional visits to some intermediate and surrounding places. Why was this? The answer must be conjectural. It is a curious fact, that no document in his handwriting, bearing the date of 1757, is known to be in existence; nor even the fragment of a letter, of the same period, addressed to him by his brother. Some have attributed the cessation of his itinerancy to his marriage; and there is doubtless some truth in this. A regard for the feelings and society of his noble wife, with the care of his infant children, probably contributed to the change which now took place;[298] but the principal cause of his settling down was, unquestionably, the state of feeling which existed in many of the societies and preachers with regard to the Established Church. His brother thought, that separation was _inexpedient_, but could not regard it in the heinous light in which it appeared to Charles. Wesley was inclined to treat the disaffected with gentleness and persuasiveness; Charles was for the adoption of strong and compulsory measures. Their policy was different, and this was an obvious difficulty. Charles could not visit the societies as a mere friend, or as one of the ordinary preachers. He must appear as possessing a co-ordinate authority with his brother; and, their views being so widely different, it became impossible for them to regulate the societies in perfect concert. Hence, he doubtless thought it best to exercise a more settled ministry, and to leave the people and the preachers generally in the hands of John. Still, to the end of life, he retained his union with the Methodists, and rendered important service, though in a more limited sphere than he had been wont to occupy. The effect of his retirement, so far as he was personally concerned, was the reverse of favourable. His mind was naturally of a somewhat melancholy cast; but, amid the excitement of the itinerancy, he had no time to indulge in morbid feeling. When he ceased to travel, he was at leisure to cherish his gloomy forebodings. Croakers and busybodies tormented him with letters, complaining of the ambition of the preachers, and of the alienation of the people from the Church. Often was he in agonies of fear lest the Methodists should become Dissenters; while his brother was as happy as an angel, flying through the three kingdoms, sounding the trumpet of the world’s jubilee, and joyfully witnessing, every successive year, the steady advancement of the work of God.[299]
Whitefield spent about half of the year 1757 in the metropolis, and the remainder in evangelistic tours in England, Scotland, and Ireland. He preached fifty times, in twenty-five days, in the city of Edinburgh; attended the sittings of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland; and, by invitation, dined with the lord high commissioner. In Dublin he was well-nigh murdered. Attended by a soldier and four Methodist preachers, he repaired to Oxmanton Green, near the barracks, and sang, prayed, and preached, with no further molestation than the throwing of a few stones and clods. It being a time of war, he exhorted the people “not only to fear God, but to honour the best of kings, and then prayed for success to the _Prussian arms_.” On leaving the ground, “hundreds and hundreds of papists” surrounded him; volleys of stones were thrown at him; and, at every step he took, a fresh stone struck him, till he was red with blood. For a while, his strong beaver hat served to protect his head; but this, at last, was lost in the affray. Blows and wounds were multiplied; and, every moment, he expected, like Stephen, “to go off in this bloody triumph to the immediate presence of his Master.” Providentially, the door of a minister’s house was opened, and here he found a temporary refuge. On entering, he was speechless, but gradually revived, when the minister’s wife desired his absence, fearing that his presence would lead to the destruction of her dwelling. What to do he knew not, being nearly two miles from Wesley’s home for preachers. At length, a carpenter offered him his wig and coat to disguise himself; but, just at the same moment, a Methodist preacher and two other friends, brought a coach. “I leaped into it,” he writes, “and rode in gospel triumph, through the oaths, curses, and imprecations of whole streets of papists. The weeping, mourning, but now joyful Methodists received me with inconceivable affection; a Christian surgeon dressed my wounds; and then I went into the preaching place, and joined in a hymn of praise and thanksgiving to Him, who stills the noise of the waves, and the madness of the most malignant people. Next morning, I set out for Portarlington, and left my persecutors to His mercy, who out of persecutors hath often made preachers.”[300]
This was barbarous treatment, and suggests a sad idea of the political and religious bitterness of Irish papists a hundred years ago. Poor Ireland! Whitefield declares, that, so far as he could learn, there was not a single minister in the whole of Ireland, either among Churchmen or Dissenters, who was faithfully and boldly witnessing for God and Christ.[301]
Wesley spent the first two months of 1757 in London, where, including the sacrament, one of his sabbath services usually lasted for about five successive hours. In fact, he considered his sabbath work, in London, equal to preaching eight sermons.
At the end of February, he paid a brief visit to Norwich, and made arrangements for the rebuilding of the Foundery, which the Norwich Methodists were using as a meeting-house, an unknown friend having given him money enough for that purpose.
After returning to London, he and Thomas Walsh visited the Methodist soldiers at Canterbury; and also made a preaching excursion to Beaconsfield and to High Wycombe. On Monday, the 11th of April, he held a covenant service at Spitalfields, at which twelve hundred Methodists met him, and which lasted for above five hours. Next morning, he set out on a four months’ tour to the north of England.
His first halting place was Bedford; where the mayor of the town, Mr. Parker, was his host. Mr. Parker, we believe, was the first Methodist that ever filled the chair of a chief magistrate. Wesley writes: “Mr. Parker hath not borne the sword in vain. There is no cursing or swearing heard in the streets of Bedford; no work done on the Lord’s day; indeed, no open wickedness of any kind.” For about forty years this mayor of Bedford was an “artless,” but useful local preacher. He was a nursing father to the Bedford Methodists; a fine example of good works to all who knew him; and triumphantly went to heaven, in 1785, at the age of eighty.
From Bedford, Wesley proceeded to Leicester, Birmingham, Dudley, Nantwich, Chester, and Liverpool. At the last mentioned town, James Scholefield, an expelled itinerant, had swept away half the society by telling “lies innumerable.” It was probably this first Liverpool division which induced Wesley to spend nearly a fortnight in the town and neighbourhood. He was introduced to Mr. Peter Whitefield, a man of strong understanding, whose “Dissertation in Defence of the Hebrew Points” Wesley considered the best that he ever read. He also had an interview with a novel kind of husband, “who, by the advice of his pastor, had, very calmly and deliberately, beaten his wife with a large stick, till she was black and blue, almost from head to foot.” The man insisted, that it was his duty to do this, because his wife “was surly and ill natured; and, that he was full of faith all the time he was doing it, and had been so ever since.”
From Liverpool, Wesley went to Warrington and to Manchester. He then rode over the mountains to Huddersfield, and says: “A wilder people I never saw in England. The men, women, and children filled the street as we rode along, and appeared just ready to devour us. They were, however, tolerably quiet while I preached; only a few pieces of dirt were thrown, and the bellman came in the middle of the sermon. I had almost done when they began to ring the bells.” The next few days were spent at Bradford, Birstal, Halifax, Heptonstall, Ewood, and Gawksham.
Gawksham was “a lone house, on the side of an enormous mountain, where the congregation stood and sat, row above row, in the sylvan theatre.” “I believe,” says Wesley, “nothing on the postdiluvian earth can be more pleasant than the road from hence, between huge, steep mountains, clothed with wood to the top, and washed at the bottom by a clear, winding stream.” At the “lone house,” in this grandly picturesque region, there was, in 1763, a society of forty-seven members, one of whom was David Lacy, who, as a young man, had been turned out of doors by his father, for becoming a Methodist, and, who, in his leisure hours, made besoms in order to save money to pay his pence at class. David became a leader, retained his Christian simplicity to the end, and died, possessed of considerable wealth, in 1803, at the advanced age of eighty-three.[302]
Leaving Gawksham, Wesley went to Padiham, and preached to “a large, wild congregation.” One of his wild auditors was Robert Worsick, whose grandmother ran after Wesley, brandishing an axe, and threatening she would kill him. A chapel was built the year after, the trustees of which were Grimshaw, the incumbent of Haworth, and James Hunter and Jonas Moor, who were weavers.[303]
At Bingley, Wesley had the genteelest congregation he had lately seen. At Haworth, he had to preach in the churchyard, the congregation being three times larger than the church would hold; while, at the sacramental service following, he and Grimshaw had nearly a thousand communicants. After this, he hurried off to Whitehaven, Cockermouth, and Wigton. In a letter to his friend Blackwell, he writes:—
“WHITEHAVEN, _May 28, 1757_.
“DEAR SIR,—In every place, people flock about me for direction in secular as well as spiritual affairs; and I dare not throw even this burden off my shoulders, though I have employment enough without it. But it is a burden, and no burden; it is no incumbrance, no weight upon my mind. If we see God in all things, and do all for Him, then all things are easy. I think it is fourteen or fifteen days since my wife wrote to me. I am afraid she is not well.
“I am, dear sir, your most affectionate servant,
“JOHN WESLEY.”[304]
Wesley now proceeded to Glasgow, where he was welcomed by Mr. Gillies, and preached in the yard of the poorhouse. He “met the members of the praying societies, and earnestly advised them to meet Mr. Gillies every week; and, at their other meetings, not to talk loosely and generally (as their manner had been) on some head of religion, but to examine each other’s hearts and lives.”
At Musselburgh, he was the guest of Bailiff Lindsey, and preached in the poorhouse; two thirds of the society “knew in whom they had believed”; and between forty and fifty dragoons were present.
He found a small society at Dunbar, and went into the street, “and began speaking to a congregation of two men and two women,” which was “soon joined by about twenty little children, and, not long after, by a large number of young and old.”
At Kelso, he and William Coward, “a wise and good man,” who died in 1770, and for whom Wesley preached a funeral sermon, went to the market-house, but “neither man, woman, nor child came near them.” At length, Wesley began singing a Scotch psalm; in due time, a congregation gathered; Wesley used “keen and cutting expressions,” and says: “I believe many felt, for all their form, they were but heathens still.”
He now made his way towards Newcastle. He writes: “About noon, I stood in the street at Wooler; and I might stand; for no creature came near me, till I had sung part of a psalm. Then a row of children stood before me; and, in some time, about a hundred men and women. I spoke full as plain as I did at Kelso; and pharisees themselves are not out of God’s reach.”
At Alnwick, the courthouse was too small for his congregation, and he was obliged to go into the market-place. “O what a difference,” he remarks, “between these living stones, and the dead, unfeeling multitudes in Scotland!”
Coming to Placey, he writes: “The society of colliers here may be a pattern to all the societies in England. No person ever misses his band or class; they have no jar of any kind among them; but, with one heart and one mind, provoke one another to love and to good works. After preaching, I met the society in a room as warm as any in Georgia.”
At Sunderland, he told the society “none could stay with us, unless he would part with all sin; particularly robbing the king, selling or buying smuggled goods; which he could no more suffer, than robbing on the highway.” “A few would not promise to refrain”; these were expelled; “but about two hundred and fifty were of a better mind.”
At Chester-le-street, observing “some very fine, but not very modest, pictures, in the parlour” where he supped, he desired his companion to put them where they could do no hurt; and, accordingly, they were “piled on a heap in a corner of the room.”
Having spent three weeks at Newcastle and in the neighbourhood, he started on the 4th of July for London.
At Durham, he preached in a meadow, near the river, to a congregation “large and wild.” At Hartlepool, he found, that the Rev. William Romaine “had been the instrument of awakening several; but, for want of help, they soon slept again.” At Stockton, he preached in the street, and “none but two or three gentlemen seemed unconcerned.” At Yarm, he preached near the market-place. “Many gentry were there, and all serious.” “I find,” says he, “in all these parts, a solid, serious people, quite simple of heart, strangers to various opinions, and seeking only the faith that worketh by love.” On July 6, he preached at Osmotherley, where the rustic society, according to their old account book, were put to the enormous expense of half-a-crown “for Mr. John Wesley, William Fugill, and Michael Fenwick.” From Osmotherley, he “rode through one of the pleasantest parts of England to Hawnby,” where the zealous landlord had turned all the Methodists out of their houses. “This,” says he, “proved a singular kindness; for they built some little houses at the end of the town, in which forty or fifty of them live together.” One of these was William Hewgill, the grandfather of the eloquent and popular Rev. John Bumby; a most worthy man, who with a few of the ostracised Methodists walked sixty miles to Newcastle to hear Wesley preach, and at whose invitation he now came to the moorland village in which they dwelt.
Proceeding to Robinhood’s Bay, Wesley preached to “the greatest part of the town; and all, except one or two, who were very wise in their own eyes, seemed to receive the truth in love.” The next three days were the hottest he ever knew in England. At Slingsby, he met with a clergyman, an old acquaintance of his father’s; the congregation was attentive, none making disturbance, except one poor drunkard. At York, he set a subscription on foot for building a more commodious room in Peasholm Green, which he afterwards opened, in April, 1759, Dr. Cockburn, an old schoolfellow, residing in Aldwark, but not a Methodist, giving £100.[305] At Pocklington, he preached in the street; a large mob assembled; and, for “fear they should not make noise enough, the good churchwarden hired men to ring the bells.” At Epworth, he “preached in the market-place to a listening multitude;” at Laceby, in a meadow; and, at Grimsby, in the new meeting-house just finished. At Misterton, he preached to the largest congregation he had seen since he left Newcastle; and “all behaved with deep seriousness, except a baptist preacher.” At Clayworth, “none were unmoved, but Michael Fenwick; who fell fast asleep under an adjoining hayrick.” At Rotherham, he addressed the largest congregation that Rotherham had ever witnessed. At Sheffield, he wrote: “How quiet is this country now, since the chief persecutors are no more seen! How many of them have been snatched away in an hour when they looked not for it! Some time since, a woman of Thorpe often swore she would wash her hands in the heart’s blood of the next preacher that came. But, before the next preacher came, she was carried to her long home. A little before John Johnson settled at Wentworth, a stout, healthy man, who lived there, told his neighbours: ‘After May-day we shall have nothing but praying and preaching; but I will make noise enough to stop it.’ But before May-day he was silent in his grave. A servant of Lord R—— was as bitter as he, and told many lies purposely to make mischief: but, before this was done, his mouth was stopped. He was drowned in one of the fishponds.”
On reaching London, Wesley at once held his annual conference, which continued from the 4th to the 11th of August. “From the first hour to the last,” says he, “there was no jarring string, but all was harmony and love.” This is all that is known of the conference of 1757, except that the Church question was again discussed. Hence the following letters, written soon after. The first was addressed to the Rev. Mr. Walker, of Truro, “on his advising Wesley to give up the Methodist societies to their several ministers.”
“HELSTONE, _September 16, 1757_.
“REVEREND AND DEAR SIR,—Nothing can be more kind than the mentioning what you think is amiss in my conduct. The more freedom you use in doing this, the more I am indebted to you.
“Two years since, eleven or twelve persons of Falmouth were members of our society. Last year, I was informed, that a young man there had begun to teach them new opinions, and that, soon after, offence and prejudice crept in, and increased till they were all torn asunder. What they have done since I know not; for they have no connection with us. I do ‘exert myself’ so far, as to separate from us those that separate from the Church. But, in a thousand other instances, I feel the want of more resolution and firmness of spirit. I exercise as little authority as possible, because I am afraid of the people depending upon me too much, and paying me more reverence than they ought.
“You say, ‘If you believed Mr. V——[306] to be a gracious person and a gospel minister, why did you not, in justice to your people, leave them to him?’
“There are several reasons why I did not do this. 1. No one mentioned or intimated any such thing, nor did it once enter into my thoughts. But if it had,—2. I do not know, that every one who preaches the truth has wisdom and experience to guide and govern a flock. 3. I do not know, whether Mr. V—— would or could give that flock all the advantages for holiness which they now enjoy; and to leave them to him, before I was assured of this, would be neither justice nor mercy. 4. Unless they also were assured of this, they could not in conscience give up themselves to him; and I have neither right nor power to dispose of them contrary to their conscience.
“‘But they are already his by legal establishment.’ If they receive the sacrament from him thrice a year, and attend the ministrations on the Lord’s day, I see no more which the law requires. But, to go a little deeper into this matter of _legal establishment_—does Mr. Canon or you think, that the king and parliament have a right to prescribe to me what pastor I shall use? If they prescribe one which I know God never sent, am I obliged to receive him? If he be sent of God, can I receive him, with a clear conscience, till I know he is? And even when I do, if I believe my former pastor is more profitable to my soul, can I leave him without sin? Or has any man living a right to require this of me? Before I could, with a clear conscience, leave the Methodist society even to such an one, all these considerations must come in.
“And with regard to the people,—far from thinking, that ‘the withdrawing our preachers’ from such a society, without their consent, would prevent a separation from the Church, I think, it would be the direct way to cause it. While we are with them, our advice has weight, and keeps them to the Church. But were we totally to withdraw, it would be of little or no weight. Nay, perhaps, resentment of our unkindness (as it would appear to them) would prompt them to act in flat opposition to it.
“‘And will it not be the same at your death?’ I believe not: for I believe there will be no resentment in this case. And the last advice of a dying friend is not likely to be soon forgotten.
“At our late conference, I proposed the question, ‘What can be done, in order to a close union with the clergy, who preach the truth?’ We all agreed, that nothing could be more desirable. I, in particular, have long desired it; not from any view to my own ease or honour, or temporal convenience of any kind; but, because I was deeply convinced, it might be a blessing to my own soul, and a means of increasing the general work of God.
“But you say, ‘Really, before it can be effected, something must be done on your part.’ Tell me what, and I will do it without delay; however contrary it may be to my ease, or natural inclination: provided only, that it consists with my keeping a good conscience toward God and toward man.
“But you add, ‘Paying us visits can serve no other purpose, than to bring us under needless difficulties.’ But what difficulties are those? All that are the necessary consequence of sharing our reproach. And what reproach is it which we bear? Is it the reproach of Christ, or not? It arose first, while my brother and I were at Oxford, from our endeavouring to be real Christians. It was increased abundantly when we began to preach repentance and remission of sins; and insisting, that we are justified by faith. For this cause, were we excluded from preaching in the churches; and this exclusion occasioned our preaching elsewhere, with the other irregularities that followed. Therefore, all the reproach consequent thereon is no other than the reproach of Christ.
“And what are we the worse for this? It is not pleasing to flesh and blood; but is it any hindrance to the work of God? Did He work more by us when we were honourable men? By no means. God never used us to any purpose, till we were a proverb of reproach. Nor have we now jot more of dishonour, of evil report, than we know is necessary, both for us and for the people, to balance that honour and good report, which otherwise could not be borne. You need not, therefore, be so much afraid of, or so careful to avoid this. It is a precious balm: it will not break your head, neither lessen your usefulness. And, indeed, you cannot avoid it, any otherwise than by departing from the work. You do not avoid it by standing aloof from us; which you call _Christian_,—I _worldly_, prudence. Perhaps when the time is slipped out of your hands, when I am no more seen, you may wish that you had not rejected the assistance of even
“Your affectionate brother,
“JOHN WESLEY.”[307]
Further correspondence followed; hence the ensuing extract from another letter sent to Mr. Walker.
“_October, 1757._
“REVEREND AND DEAR SIR,—I return you many thanks for the welcome letter from Mr. Adam, as well as for your own. I have answered his, and now proceed to consider yours.
“Two of our preachers are gone from us; but none of these remaining, to my knowledge, have, at present, any _desire_ or design of separating from the Church.
“Yet I observe—1. Those ministers, who truly feared God near a hundred years ago, had undoubtedly much the same objections to the liturgy which some have now. And I myself so far allow the force of several of those objections, that I should not declare my assent and consent to that book in the terms prescribed. Indeed, they are so strong, that I think they cannot safely be used, with regard to any book but the Bible. Neither dare I confine myself wholly to forms of prayer, not even in the church. I use indeed all the forms; but I frequently use extemporary prayer, either before or after sermon.
“2. In behalf of many of the canons, I can say little; of the spiritual courts, nothing at all. I dare not, therefore, allow the authority of the former, or the jurisdiction of the latter.
“I am still desirous of knowing, in what particular manner you think the present work of God could be carried on, without the assistance of lay preachers. This I will fairly weigh, and give you my thoughts upon it. Assist, both with your advice and prayers, dear sir, your very affectionate brother and servant,
“JOHN. WESLEY.”[308]
Walter Sellon, a Methodist clergyman, was addressed as follows.
“LONDON, _December 1, 1757_.
“MY DEAR BROTHER,—Only prevail upon John Brandon to spend a month or two in London, or any other part of England, and I will immediately send another preacher to Leicester, Ashby, and the adjacent places; but, during the present scarcity of labourers, we cannot spare a second for that small circuit, till you spare us the first.
“It is surprising that, from one end of the land to the other, so little good is done in a _regular way_. What have you to do, but to follow that way which the providence of God points out? When they drive you from Smithsby, you know where to have both employment and the things needful for the body. I think, also, it will be highly profitable for your soul, to be near those who have more experience in the ways of God.
“I am your affectionate brother,
“JOHN WESLEY.”[309]
The following letter was written, to a friend, on “public worship”; but has an important bearing on the question of the Methodists continuing to exist as a distinct society.
“_September 20, 1757._
“DEAR SIR,—The longer I am absent from London, and the more I attend the service of the Church in other places, the more I am convinced of the unspeakable advantage which the Methodists enjoy—I mean, even with regard to public worship, particularly on the Lord’s day. The church where they assemble is not gay or splendid; which might be a hindrance on the one hand: nor sordid or dirty; which might give distaste on the other: but plain as well as clean. The persons who assemble there, are not a gay, giddy crowd, who come chiefly to see and be seen; nor a company of goodly, formal, outside Christians, whose religion lies in a dull round of duties; but a people most of whom know, and the rest earnestly seek, to worship God in spirit and in truth. Accordingly, they do not spend their time there in bowing and curtseying, or in staring about them; but in looking upward and looking inward, in hearkening to the voice of God, and pouring out their hearts before Him.
“It is also no small advantage, that the person who reads prayers, though not always the same, yet is always one whose life is no reproach to his profession; and one who performs that solemn part of Divine service, not in a careless, hurrying, slovenly manner; but seriously and slowly, as becomes him who is transacting so high an affair between God and man.
“Nor are their solemn addresses to God interrupted either by the formal drawl of a parish clerk, the screaming of boys, who bawl out what they neither feel nor understand, or the unseasonable and unmeaning impertinence of a voluntary on the organ. When it is seasonable to sing praise to God, they do it with the spirit and with the understanding also: not in the miserable, scandalous doggrel of Hopkins and Sternhold, but in psalms and hymns which are both sense and poetry; such as would sooner provoke a critic to turn Christian, than a Christian to turn critic. What they sing is selected for that end, not by a poor humdrum wretch, who can scarce read what he drones out with such an air of importance, but by one who knows what he is about, and how to connect the preceding with the following part of the service. Nor does he take just ‘two staves’; but more or less as may best raise the soul to God; especially when sung in well composed and well adapted tunes; not by a handful of wild, unawakened striplings, but by a whole serious congregation; and then not lolling at ease, or in the indecent posture of sitting, drawling out one word after another; but all standing before God, and praising Him lustily and with a good courage.
“Nor is it a little advantage, as to the next part of the service, to hear a preacher, whom you know to live as he speaks, speaking the genuine gospel of present salvation, through faith wrought in the heart by the Holy Ghost; declaring present, free, and full justification, and enforcing every branch of inward and outward holiness. And this you hear done in the most clear, plain, simple, unaffected language; yet with an earnestness becoming the importance of the subject, and with the demonstration of the Spirit.
“With regard to the last and most awful part of Divine service, the celebration of the Lord’s supper, although we cannot say, that either the unworthiness of the minister, or the unholiness of some of the communicants, deprives the rest of a blessing from God, yet do they greatly lessen the comfort of receiving. But these discouragements are removed from you. You have proof, that he who administers fears God; and you have no reason to believe, that any of your fellow communicants walk unworthy of their profession. Add to that, the whole service is performed in a decent and solemn manner, is enlivened by hymns suitable to the occasion, and is concluded with prayer that comes not out of feigned lips.
“Surely then, of all the people of Great Britain, the Methodists would be the most inexcusable, should they let any opportunity slip of attending that worship which has so many advantages; should they prefer any before it; or not continually improve by the advantages they enjoy! What can be pleaded for them, if they do not worship God in spirit and in truth; if they are still outward worshippers only; approaching God with their lips while their hearts are far from Him? Yea, if having known Him, they do not daily grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
“JOHN WESLEY.”[310]
These are important letters, fully showing that Wesley had not the least intention of giving up the Methodist societies, and that he considered their religious services far superior to the general services of the Church of England.
It was about this period, Wesley commenced a correspondence with Martin Madan, who afterwards made himself painfully notorious, and concerning whom we have to say something at another time. This remarkable man, a cousin to the poet Cowper, and possessed of a private fortune of £1800 a year, had recently been converted under Wesley’s ministry, had renounced his profession of a barrister, and was now an ordained clergyman of the Church of England, and fast becoming one of the most popular preachers in the land. Extracts from two of his earliest letters to Wesley may be welcome.
“CHANCERY LANE, _May 18, 1756_.
“DEAR SIR,—My father’s death has indeed made a considerable alteration in my worldly affairs, by adding, to what I had before, a plentiful estate; but, blessed be God, I can still cry out, with more and more earnestness, ‘Like as the hart panteth after the water brooks,’ etc. O sir! I desire, notwithstanding all my worldly wealth, to be little and vile in my own eyes, and that Christ may be all in all. The only true riches are those of His grace; all things else, when compared to these, are dung and dross.
“My dear mother was with me, when your kind letter came, and she desired me to send her love and best wishes to you, when I answered it. She longs much, as well as myself and the rest of your friends, to see you once more in England.
“Adieu, dear sir. May the God of all peace and consolation be with you always! Amen, amen.
“I remain,
“Your truly affectionate servant and son in the gospel,
“MARTIN MADAN.”[311]
“CHELTENHAM, _August 6, 1757_.
“DEAR SIR,—I received the favour of yours, and thank you much for the kind advice it contained, and hope God will give me grace to follow it.
“I have been a month at Cheltenham, to drink the waters, and have preached every Sunday. Some of the company are much offended; others very thankful. The poor people of the place are desirous to hear, and those of all persuasions flock to listen to the word of life. Last time, the quakers and baptists made no inconsiderable part of the congregation; and this confirms me in an opinion I have long had, that, if the truth was preached in the Church, few, if any, would separate from it.
“I propose to be in Bristol about the 17th inst., and about a week after that to be in London, where I hope to meet you in perfect health. My love attends Mrs. Wesley; pray accept the same yourself, etc.
“MARTIN MADAN.”[312]
Alas! poor Martin Madan! He was now a young man of thirty, full of vigour, and, for years afterwards, was of great service to the church of Christ. His brother became successively bishop of Bristol, and Peterborough; but he himself died in 1790, beneath the dark cloud of his chimerical and mischievous “Thelyphthora.”
In the same year, 1757, Wesley began a remarkable correspondence with Sarah Ryan, the wisdom of which may be fairly doubted.
Sarah Ryan, the offspring of poor parents, was born in 1724. From childhood she was, according to her own confession, excessively vain, and fond of praise. “As she grew in years, her ill tempers gathered strength; and she became artful, subtle, cunning; often loved and made lies; and had little regard either to justice, mercy, or truth.” To obtain food and clothing, she went into domestic service. At the age of nineteen, she was married to a corkcutter, who pretended he had £150 a year; but who turned out to be a profligate, impoverished scamp. He was already married to another woman; he proposed to Sarah Ryan to stoop to infamy to obtain him money; he ran away; and the bailiff sold his goods to pay his debts. About a year subsequent to this, Sarah Ryan engaged herself to Solomon Benreken, an Italian; but, before she married him, Ryan, an Irish sailor, feigned illness, got her to sit up with him, and actually married her. Ryan’s life was most profligate; and his treatment of his young wife abominably cruel. He went to sea; during his absence, Benreken, the Italian, renewed his proposals; and, for the third time, this worthless woman went to the hymeneal altar, and was actually married to a third husband, though the other two, to whom she had been already married, were still alive. The Italian seemed to be the best of the trio. For two months, he treated her with great kindness; but, belonging to the navy, he was then obliged to leave her. After his departure, Ryan returned, and claimed her; and, though he treated her with great barbarity, she considered herself his lawful spouse, lived with him, and maintained herself by washing. Ryan again left her, and set sail for America. Once more, she became a domestic servant. While in service, the Italian, having returned to England, wished her to live with him; but to this she objected. She had now arrived at the age of thirty; she was seized with illness in the family where she was a servant; and was sent to the hospital. On her dismissal, she found herself in the greatest straits; and had, by her own labour, to maintain both herself and her mother. This was in 1754. She went to Spitalfields church, and professed to find peace with God, while Wesley was administering the sacrament. Ryan wrote to her, wishing her to join him in America; but, though she had three husbands living, she now preferred not to live with any of them. Her early religious experience, as published by Wesley in the _Magazine_ for 1779, is wild and whimsical, rather than intelligent and devout.
Sarah Ryan was now resident with Mary Clarke, in a small house, in Christopher Alley, Moorfields. Here a select few of the more lively London Methodists held their meetings. Among others, Miss Bosanquet, afterwards Mrs. Fletcher, now a young girl of about sixteen years of age, was accustomed to make this her home. Here she met with Sarah Ryan and Sarah Crosby, both of them boarders with Mary Clarke. Such a conclave of Methodist females attracted Wesley’s notice; and, about two years after her conversion, that is in 1757, he made Sarah Ryan, the wife of three living husbands, at the age of thirty-three, his Bristol and Kingswood housekeeper.
With the utmost respect for Wesley, we cannot but consider this an exceedingly hasty and imprudent act. Perhaps Sarah Ryan was converted; but naturally, she was vain, flippant, giddy, and far from being what a Methodist housekeeper ought to be. In addition to this, though her sin of marrying three men in succession, without any of them dying, might be pardoned by the God whose commands she had so grossly broken, yet, all will admit, that a foolish young servant woman, who had so flagrantly transgressed the laws of her country, and, for her crimes, could, at any moment, be sent to prison, was not exactly the woman to be the matron of Kingswood school, and the favourite correspondent of Wesley in the years 1757 and 1758. No wonder that Wesley’s naturally jealous wife was fired with indignation; and that, at one of the Bristol conferences, when Sarah Ryan was sitting at the head of a table, where sixty or seventy of the preachers were dining, Wesley’s irritated spouse rushed into the room, and pointing to the presiding matron, shrieked,
“The —— now serving you has three husbands living.” For about four years, Sarah Ryan held her situation; and met a hundred persons every week in class or band, and also made excursions to the country societies around Bristol. In 1762, she returned to London, and became the guest of Miss Bosanquet, at Leytonstone, having told the young lady, that she needed a friend like herself. Here they held meetings, read and expounded the Scriptures, formed a society, and made their home into an orphanage. In June, 1768, they removed their family of orphans to Yorkshire; and, on the 17th of August following, Sarah Ryan died, in the forty-fourth year of her age, and was buried in Leeds old churchyard; where to her name and age were added only these words;—“who lived and died a Christian.”[313] Some of her last utterances were: “I am dying. Glory be to God! Cut, cut, cut the thread, sweet Jesus! cut the thread!”
Part of this account is taken from an unpublished manuscript memoir, in the handwriting of Mrs. Fletcher, who regarded Sarah Ryan as one of the holiest of saints, and as her nearest and dearest friend. Judging from her own private diaries and letters, the present writer cannot dispute her piety; but, at the same time, he thinks that the eulogies by Wesley and by Mrs. Fletcher are excessive. Her career was a strangely chequered one, but her end was peace. We rejoice over her as a converted magdalen; but we cannot commend her being appointed as Wesley’s housekeeper, and her being made Wesley’s confidant concerning his wife’s jealousy and unkind behaviour.
In the _Arminian Magazine_, for 1782, Wesley published eleven of her letters addressed to himself, and eight of his own addressed to her, written at different dates, extending from August 10, 1757, to March 20, 1758. Wesley tells her he had been censured for making her his housekeeper; but he could not repent of it. He gives her the rules of the family, which he wishes to be strictly kept; namely—“1. The family rises, part at four, part at half an hour after. 2. They breakfast at seven, dine at twelve, and sup at six. 3. They spend the hour from five to six in the evening, after a little joint prayer, in private. 4. They pray together at nine, and then retire to their chambers; so that all are in bed before ten. 5. They observe all Fridays in the year as days of fasting, or abstinence.” He adds:—
“You, in particular, I advise,—Suffer no impertinent visitant, no unprofitable conversation in the house. It is a city set upon a hill; and all that is in it should be ‘holiness to the Lord.’ On what a pinnacle do you stand! You are placed in the eye of all the world, friends and enemies. You have no experience of these things; no knowledge of the people; no advantages of education; not large natural abilities; and are but a novice, as it were, in the ways of God! It requires all the omnipotent love of God to preserve you in your present station; but, if you continue teachable and advisable, I know nothing that shall be able to hurt you.”[314]
At the end of 1757, Wesley, and it would seem his wife, went to Bristol. While there, conjugal unpleasantness occurred, of which Mrs. Wesley’s jealousy of Sarah Ryan appears to have been the cause. The housekeeper says, she “dealt faithfully with both of them,” and adds, “I will not despair of Mrs. W——.”[315] Within a month, Wesley’s wife left him, vowing she would not return. Wesley informed Sarah Ryan of this distressing fact. She advised him, “not to depend too much upon any creature; and to use much private prayer;” and assured him, that “much good would come out of this.”
Perhaps the reader will complain of so much being said concerning Ryan. The writer’s apology is this,—though Sarah Ryan was unquestionably a converted woman, and though the correspondence between her and Wesley was, in the highest degree, pure and pious, there can be little doubt, it was the appointment of this converted magdalen to be his housekeeper, that led Wesley’s jealous wife to the first conjugal separation which has been recorded in Wesley’s history. Sarah Ryan went to Bristol in October, 1757; and, within three months afterwards, Wesley’s wife, though she had often played the termagant, for the first time left him. Wesley’s intention, in making the appointment, was benevolent; but, considering the antecedents of the woman, considering the importance of the office, considering the duty of consulting the feelings and prejudices of the parents and children committed to the housekeeper’s care, and considering the morbid jealousy of his own uneducated and common minded wife, we are persuaded the appointment was a great mistake. From her conversion in 1754 to her death in 1768, Sarah Ryan conducted herself as a Christian; but no one will say that, because of this, she was a fit and proper person to be the manager of Wesley’s house at Bristol. Her letters, wrote Wesley in 1782, “breathe deep, strong sense and piety. I know few like them in the English tongue.”[316] Quite correct. And yet, was it not because her husband had chosen for his housekeeper a woman who had been so thoughtless, that Mrs. Wesley’s unfounded, jealous bitterness, which had long been smouldering, now, not unnaturally, burst into a furious flame?
Before proceeding to trace Wesley’s steps during the subsequent part of 1757, it may be added, that Miss Bosanquet’s home, at Leytonstone, sheltered not only Sarah Ryan, but two other Methodist females, of great repute. One of them was Ann Tripp, who was born in 1745, and died at Leeds, in 1823, after being a member of the Methodist society more than sixty years. At the time of her decease, she was one of the oldest leaders in the Leeds society.[317] The other was the celebrated Sarah Crosby, who, in 1757, became a widow at the age of twenty, and continued such until her triumphant death in 1804.[318] She will be frequently mentioned in succeeding pages.
Having concluded his conference in London, Wesley set out, on August 22, 1757, for Cornwall, where he spent the next six weeks. At Camelford, he cured his toothache, by rubbing his cheek with treacle. At St. Agnes, he was the welcome guest of Mrs. Donythorne, a widow lady, ninety years old, of unimpaired understanding, almost without a wrinkle, who read without spectacles, and walked without a staff. At St. Just, he opened the new meeting-house, “the largest and most commodious” in Cornwall. At Gwennap, it rained all the time he preached; but he characteristically observes, “a shower of rain will not frighten experienced soldiers.” At Bezore, finding that he would have to sleep in the same room as a man and his wife, he preferred to walk to Truro. At Grampound, “a mean, inconsiderable, dirty village,” the mayor sent two constables, saying: “Sir, the mayor says you shall not preach within his borough.” Wesley answered: “The mayor has no authority to hinder me; but it is a point not worth contesting. So,” he adds, “I went about a musketshot farther, and left the borough to Mr. mayor’s disposal.” At St. Austle, where he attended church, the whole service was performed by Mr. Hugo, who was almost a centenarian, and had been vicar of St. Austle nearly threescore years and ten. At Liskeard, which he pronounces “one of the largest and pleasantest towns in Cornwall,” every one in the society had found peace with God. He got back to Bristol on October 8.
Here, and in the immediate neighbourhood, he spent the next four weeks. Part of the time he was disabled by a swelling in his face, which he cured by the application of boiled nettles. The Kingswood society was standing still. That at Bristol was reduced from nine hundred members to little more than half the number. That at Coleford was the most numerous and also the liveliest society in the county of Somerset. He opened the new meeting-house at Pill, lately an almost unparalleled “sink of sin”; but now a place where many were rejoicing in God their Saviour.
The chief event, however, which happened, during his Bristol sojourn, was an alarming fire at Kingswood school. On October 24, while Wesley was absent at Bath, about eight o’clock at night, a boy opened the staircase door, but was driven back by smoke. The lad shouted, “Fire! murder! fire!” Terrible alarm sprung up, and all in the house seemed paralysed. At length, John How, a neighbour, mounted a rotten ladder; and, with an axe, broke through the leaden roof. The suffocating smoke found vent; water was brought, and the fire quickly quenched. John How, under God, saved Kingswood school. Let his name be honourably borne in mind. Wesley first heard of the event the day after it occurred, when a man met him, and told him “the school was burned.” Wesley says: “I felt not a moment’s pain, knowing that God does all things well.” This was a rough beginning for Sarah Ryan.
On November 9, Wesley returned to London. A few days later, he set out for Norwich, where he was shown the unitarian chapel, occupied by Dr. Taylor—octagon in shape, built of the finest brick, with thirty-two windows, and eight skylights in the dome—the whole finished in the highest taste, and as clean as a nobleman’s saloon—the communion table of fine mahogany, and the pew door latches of polished brass. “How can it be thought,” he asks, “that the old coarse-gospel should find admission here?” Query, what would Wesley have said concerning some of the highly ornamented _Methodist_ chapels of the present day?
Returning to London, he found much confusion occasioned by certain imprudent words spoken by one who seemed to be strong in faith. He heard all who were concerned, face to face; but what one side flatly affirmed, the other flatly denied; and he found himself utterly bewildered among the wilful lies or human infirmities of high professors. “For the present,” he writes, “I leave it to the Searcher of hearts, who will bring all things to light in due season.”
Having baptized a Jew of more than sixty years of age, he returned to Lewisham, to write his “Preservative against unsettled Notions in Religion”; and here he remained till Christmas, when he again returned to Bristol, where he witnessed the close of the year 1757.
Compared with former years, this was a period of peace. It is true, that persecution still dogged the steps of the poor Methodists; but it was not so violent as in days gone past. In Ireland, Whitefield was all but murdered by a mob of Irish papists. At Norwood, near London, a gang of godless rioters surrounded the house of Samuel Cole, and, because the Methodists held their meetings in it, threatened to burn it to the ground; for which threat Edward Frost, the leader of the rioters, was sent to Newgate prison.[319] Pamphleteers, also, were not idle; but almost all were ashamed to affix their names to their paltry publications. One of these anonymous attacks was entitled, “An Expostulatory Letter to the Rev. Mr. Wesley.” Another was “A Short Examen of Mr. John Wesley’s System.” A third, the most enigmatical, was: “Methodism Displayed and Enthusiasm Detected; intended as an antidote against, and a preservative from, the delusive principles and unscriptural doctrines of a modern _sett_ of seducing preachers, and as a defence of our regular and orthodox clergy, from their unjust reflections.” 8vo, 36 pages. The reader is told, that the poor have become a prey to “ignorant, enthusiastic preachers”; and, that it is because of this, that “novel doctrines, extravagant follies, and destructive errors” are now so prevalent. Virtue was reclining her fainting head; morality, except in name, was almost banished; and vice, like a torrent, was deluging the land. While the infidel, on the one hand, was proud, presumptuous, and God-resisting; the enthusiast, on the other, was credulous, unscriptural, and unmeaning, deceiving himself and others by his mere pretences to inspiration, and all for the sake of making gain by his godliness. Methodist preachers sing “sweet syren songs”; they are “new doctors and modern teachers tickling the ears, pleasing the pride, and flattering the vanity of the human mind”; they are “quacks in divinity,” using “unedifying jargon, unscriptural harangues, and false encomiums on the virtue and dignity of man”; they are “flatterers of human nature, sleek divines, downy doctors, velvet mouthed preachers, miserable daubers, and soul deceivers.”
It is a strange fact, that the author of this pamphlet avows his firm belief in nearly all the doctrines that specially characterized Wesley’s ministry; and yet, these are some of the spicy appellatives applied to Methodist preachers. It is difficult to divine the writer’s object. At the beginning, he seems to belabour the poor Methodists; at the end, he defends and praises them.
The most malignant onset, however, during the year 1757, was published in the _London Magazine_, with the title, “A Dozen Reasons why the Sect of Conjurors, called Fortune Tellers, should have at least as much liberty to exercise their admirable art, as is now granted to Methodists, Moravians, and various other sorts of Conjurors.” Dr. Faustus, the writer, accuses the Methodists of defrauding “both men and women out of their lands, tenements, and money”; of “terrifying many of their followers out of their little wits, as Bedlam, and every private madhouse, about London, could testify”; of “very lately inducing a poor woman to literally fulfil the Scripture, by pulling out one of her eyes, because she had looked upon a handsome young fellow with a longing look”; and, finally, as being disturbers of public government. These silly calumnies, falsehoods of the first magnitude, were vigorously refuted, in three succeeding numbers of the _London Magazine_, by one who signed himself “A Methodist.”
Wesley’s publications in 1757 were few in number, but one was of great importance.
1. “A Sufficient Answer to ‘Letters to the Author of Theron and Aspasio,’ in a Letter to the Author.” 12mo, 12 pages. The supposed author, to whom Wesley addressed his answer, was John Glass, an expelled minister of the Church of Scotland, or Robert Sandeman, a Scotch elder, the founder of a sect sometimes called Sandemanians, and sometimes Glassites. Wesley’s tract was really a defence of his friend, Hervey, on the subject of saving faith, in opposition to the Glassite or Sandemanian notion, that faith is a mere assent to the truthfulness of the gospel history. Wesley’s answer was short, apposite, indignant, almost savage. He told Glass, or Sandeman, that he had “a peculiar pertness, insolence, and self sufficiency, with such an utter contempt of mankind, as no other writer of the present age had shown.” His letter to Hervey was “full of slander.” His notions of justifying faith were “stark, staring nonsense”; for, if true, “every devil in hell will be justified and saved.” He evinced “such hatred, malevolence, rancour, and bitterness to all” who dissented from his opinions, as was “scarce ever seen in a Jew, a heathen, or a popish inquisitor”; and, were it in his power, he “would make more bonfires in Smithfield than Bonner and Gardiner put together.” This is pretty strong; perhaps it was not undeserved. It was replied to in a threepenny pamphlet, entitled, “Remarks on the Rev. Mr. John Wesley’s Sufficient Answer to the author of the Letters on Theron and Aspasio. By J. D.” The writer was as great an adept in using strong expressions as Wesley was. Hence, he told his readers, that Wesley had “crowded more scandal, insolence, self sufficiency, hatred, malevolence, rancour, bitterness, and uncharitableness” into his penny tract than Hervey had into his five shillings book; with this difference, Hervey’s was “sarcastical, lively, volatile, and pungent as the ether;” Wesley’s “dense and dull as lead.”
2. “The Doctrine of Original Sin; according to Scripture, Reason, and Experience.” 8vo, 522 pages.
Wesley’s work on original sin was one which he had purposed publishing for the last six years, ever since his visit to Shackerley in 1751. Dr. Taylor was, perhaps, the most eminent Socinian minister of his age, and, in 1740, had published his “Scripture Doctrine of Original Sin proposed to free and candid examination. In three parts.” This was the work which Wesley answered. It had done immense mischief, not only in England, but even on the continent. Taylor was no ordinary antagonist. Wesley says: “He is a man of unusually strong understanding, joined with no small liveliness of imagination, and a good degree of various learning. He has an admirable command of temper, and a smooth and pleasing, yet a manly and nervous style.” Wesley believed Taylor’s system to be nothing but “old deism in a new dress.” “The deadly poison,” he writes, “has been diffusing itself for several years, through our nation, our Church, and even our universities. One father of the Church has declared, that he knows ‘no book more proper than this, to settle the principles of a young clergyman.’”
It is utterly impossible, in space so limited, to convey an adequate idea of Wesley’s vigorous and triumphant answer. In the first part, he reviews, in most trenchant language, “the past and present state of mankind.” Part second is “the scriptural method of accounting for this defended.” Part third is “an answer to Mr. Taylor’s supplement.” The remainder of the work consists of extracts from the writings of Dr. Watts, the Rev. Samuel Hebden, minister at Wrentham, in Suffolk, and Boston, the author of the “Four-fold State of Man.”
Is it too much to say, that Wesley’s book is the ablest refutation of the Socinian errors respecting original sin, to be found in the English language? Throughout, he treats Dr. Taylor with the utmost respect, but, at the same time, utterly demolishes his system. Two years afterwards he wrote to him as follows.
“HARTLEPOOL, _July 3, 1759_.
“REVEREND SIR,—I esteem you as a person of uncommon sense and learning; but your doctrine I cannot esteem. And some time since, I believed it my duty to speak my sentiments at large, concerning your doctrine of original sin. When Mr. Newton,[320] of Liverpool, mentioned this, and asked, whether you designed to answer, you said, you thought not; for it would only be a personal controversy between John Wesley and John Taylor. How gladly, if I durst, would I accept of this discharge from so unequal a contest! For I am thoroughly sensible, humanly speaking, it is _formica contra leonem_. How gladly, were it indeed no other than a personal controversy! But certainly it is not; it is a controversy _de re_, if ever there was one in the world. Indeed, concerning a thing of the highest importance; nay, all the things that concern our eternal peace. It is, Christianity or heathenism. For take away the scriptural doctrine of redemption, or justification, and that of the new birth; or, which amounts to the same, explain them as you do, suitably to your doctrine of original sin; and what is Christianity better than heathenism? Wherein, except in rectifying some of our notions, has the religion of St. Paul any preeminence over that of Socrates or Epictetus?
“This is, therefore, to my apprehension, the least a personal controversy of any in the world. Your person and mine are out of the question. The point is, are those things that have been believed for many ages throughout the Christian world, real, solid truths; or monkish dreams, and vain imaginations?
“But, farther, it is certain, between you and me there need be no personal controversy at all. For we may agree to leave each other’s person and character absolutely untouched, while we sum up and answer the several arguments advanced, as plainly and closely as we can.
“Either I or you mistake the whole of Christianity from the beginning to the end. Either my scheme or yours is as contrary to the scriptural as the Koran is. Is it mine or yours? Yours has gone through all England, and made numerous converts. I attack it from end to end; let all England judge whether it can be defended or not.
“Earnestly praying, that God may give you and me a right understanding in all things,
“I am, reverend sir, your servant for Christ’s sake,
“JOHN WESLEY.”[321]
This was a manly and respectful challenge; but it was not accepted. Indeed, within two years after it was written, Dr. Taylor died; having, as Wesley thinks, considerably modified his opinions. Hence the following, from one of Wesley’s letters to Sir Harry Trelawney: “For some years, that great man, Dr. Taylor, of Norwich, was an earnest Calvinist; but afterwards, judging he could not get far enough from that melancholy system, he ran, not only into Arianism, but into the very dregs of Socinianism. I have reason, however, to believe he was convinced of his mistake some years before he died; but to acknowledge this publicly was too hard a task for him.”[322]
1758.
[Sidenote: 1758 Age 55]
Whitefield spent about seven months of the year 1758 in London, and the rest in two lengthened journeys, one to Scotland, and the other to the west of England. His health was feeble, on which account, he says, “I have been reduced, for some time, to the short allowance of preaching only once a day, except Sundays, when I generally preach thrice.”[323] He adds: “Though Mr. Wesley and I differ a little in some principles, yet brotherly love continues. I generally, when itinerating, preach among his people, as freely as among those who are called our own.”
On the 13th of January, Wesley returned from Bristol to London, full of joy that, under Sarah Ryan’s management, Kingswood school was, at length, what he had so long wished it to be,—a blessing to all its inmates, and an honour to the Methodists. Four days later he wrote as follows:—
“January 17.—I preached at Wandsworth. A gentleman, come from America, has again opened a door in this desolate place. In the morning, I preached in Mr. Gilbert’s house. Two negro servants of his and a mulatto appear to be much awakened. Shall not His saving health be made known to all nations?”
On the 29th of November following, Wesley says: “I rode to Wandsworth, and baptized two negroes belonging to Mr. Gilbert, a gentleman lately come from Antigua. One of these is deeply convinced of sin; the other rejoices in God her Saviour, and is the first African Christian I have known. But shall not our Lord, in due time, have these heathens also ‘for His inheritance’?”
These seem simple entries; but, as the acorn contains the oak, so they contain the germ of the marvellous Methodist work and successes among the sable sons of benighted and degraded Africa from that day to this. We think not only of thousands of converted Africans in Namaqualand, Kaffraria, Bechuana, Natal, Sierra Leone, on the Gambia and the Gold Coast, in Dahomey and Guinea, but we also think of tens of thousands in the West Indies, and literally of hundreds of thousands in the southern states of America. This wonderful work of God began in the house of Nathaniel Gilbert, a temporary sojourner in the town of Wandsworth.
Who was Mr. Gilbert? A brief notice of himself and his family will not be out of place.
Nathaniel Gilbert was the inheritor of an estate in Antigua, which had been in the possession of his ancestors for several generations. The Gilbert family were among the earliest settlers in the island, and considered themselves descendants of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, the enterprising English navigator, and half brother of Sir Walter Raleigh.[324] Mr. Nathaniel Gilbert was a man of sound understanding, sharpened by a collegiate education, and the admirable training of an English court of law. He was confessedly an able man; and for some years, he had been the speaker of the House of Assembly in Antigua.[325] What brought him to England?
His brother, Francis Gilbert, gay and thoughtless, had been engaged in mercantile pursuits; but was often found in the ballroom when he ought to have been in his place of business, and dancing when he ought to have been balancing accounts. By the fraudulent conduct of his clerk, and his own gay life, he had been reduced to beggary. He sought concealment, first in Jamaica, and then in England. Adversity brought him to repentance. He was introduced to Vincent Perronet, and then to Wesley, of whose society he became a member. He sent to his brother Nathaniel a number of Wesley’s publications, including Wesley’s “Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion.” Nathaniel had always believed Wesley to be an enthusiast, and, for some time, refused to read his books; but, at length, his sister read to him the “Appeal.” This so altered his opinion, that he wished to visit England for the purpose of making Wesley’s personal acquaintance. His wish was realised. He remained two years, and then returned in the autumn of 1759.[326]
Anxious for the conversion of the poor Africans in Antigua, Nathaniel Gilbert proposed to John Fletcher, recently ordained, to return with him; but Fletcher declined the proposal, on the ground that, in his own estimation, he had neither “sufficient zeal, grace, nor talents” for a missionary’s life in the West Indies; and, moreover, he wished “to be certain that he was converted himself before he left his converted brethren, to convert heathens.”[327] Failing in this, Mr. Gilbert turned evangelist himself. He fitted up a room, placed a pulpit in it, and was soon branded as a madman for preaching to his slaves. Meantime, his brother Francis returned, and assisted him in his labours; a society, at St. John’s, was formed; and Methodism, in the West Indian islands, was fairly started. Nathaniel Gilbert died in 1774, eleven years before the appointment of the first Methodist missionaries to Antigua, leaving behind him a Methodist society of about sixty members. “On what do you trust?” asked a friend. “On Christ crucified,” was the quick response. “Have you peace with God?” He answered, “Unspeakable.” “Have you no fear, no doubt?” “None,” replied the dying saint. “Can you part with your wife and children?” “Yes. God will be their strength and portion.” Thus died the first West Indian Methodist. His wife soon followed him. His daughters, Alice and Mary, had victoriously preceded him. His third daughter, Mrs. Yates, died an equally blessed death. His son Nicholas, for years, was a faithful minister of Christ, and, in his last moments, was a happy witness of the power, and blessedness of gospel truth. And, finally, his brother Francis, his faithful fellow labourer, returned to England, and became a member of the Methodist class led by the immortal vicar of Madeley; the first class-paper containing four names, and four only,—John Fletcher, Mary Fletcher, Francis Gilbert, and George Perks; while, as late as the year 1864, Fletcher’s clerical successor, in the Madeley vicarage, was, the great grandson of Nathaniel Gilbert, and testified that he had reason to believe that no child or grandchild of the first West Indian Methodist had passed away without being prepared for the better world; and that almost all of them had been even distinguished among Christians for their earnest devotion to the Divine Redeemer. “Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth” (Psalm xlv. 16).
On February 20, Wesley preached, to a crowded congregation, in the new meeting-house at Maldon, where, amid much opposition, Methodism had been introduced by Mrs. Denny, who died a few months after the place was opened.[328]
Returning to London, he retired to Lewisham, to write his sermon for the Bedford assizes. This was preached, in St. Paul’s church, on Friday, the 10th of March, from the text, “We shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ,” and was published at the request of William Cole, Esq., high sheriff of the county, and others. The sermon is a remarkable production, full of bold thoughts, and fiery eloquence. The judge, Sir Edward Clive, immediately after the service was concluded, forwarded an invitation to Wesley to dine with him; but, having to be at Epworth, a distance of a hundred and twenty miles, the night following, he was obliged to send an excuse; and, at once, set out, amid a piercing storm of wind, snow, sleet, and hail; and, by almost continuous travelling, sometimes on a lame horse, and sometimes in a post chaise, reached Epworth on Saturday night at ten, having, on that day only, travelled ninety miles of execrable roads, in seventeen hours; and yet, he tells us, that he, a man fifty-five years old, was nearly as fresh at the end of his journey as he was at the beginning. The next day, he attended the morning and afternoon services in his father’s church; after which he took his stand in the market-place, and, in the midst of wintry winds and wintry rain, preached to an unflinching multitude, collected together from all the country round about. The day following, March 13, he “preached in the shell of the new meeting-house,” and then set out for York.
Wesley was now on one of the longest journeys that he ever took, extending from the 6th of March to the 21st of October following. Let us hastily endeavour to track his wide wanderings.
After, visiting York, Leeds, Manchester, and Bolton, he preached, on Easter Sunday, at Liverpool, and never “saw the house so crowded, especially with rich and genteel people, whom he did not spare.”
From Manchester to Liverpool, he was accompanied by Francis Okeley. Okeley writes: “during our stay in Liverpool, which was ten days, Mr. Wesley preached morning and evening, to crowded auditories, consisting of all sorts. There is here a large, commodious room, built for the use of the Methodists, but not quite finished.” He proceeds to tell how they dined at the house “of one Mr. Newton,” little thinking, that the same Mr. Newton would develop into the renowned John Newton, curate of Olney.[329] One of the Liverpool Methodists, at this period, was an old woman, who lived upon Wavertree Green, and was known by the name of “Dame Cross.” To obtain a livelihood, she kept a school, but was extremely poor. She was a staunch churchwoman; and had a high veneration for gowns and cassocks, and for those who wore them; but was withal a happy and devoted Christian. One day, John Newton called upon her, and finding her surrounded by a flock of fowls, he asked, “Dame Cross, are these fowls yours?” “Not one of them,” the octogenarian answered, “they are all my neighbours’; but I save all my crumbs and scraps for them; for I love to feed them, for the sake of Him who made them.”[330]
On March 28, Wesley set sail for Dublin. When about eight miles from Liverpool, a boat overtook them, bringing him letters from London. Some of these earnestly pressed him to return to the metropolis, but, while consulting his travelling companions, the wind changed, and the boat left, and he had no choice but to proceed to Ireland. He arrived in Dublin on March 31.
Here he spent nearly a month. He found, to his great annoyance, that the five o’clock morning preaching had been discontinued; and that self denial, among the Dublin Methodists, had been a thing almost utterly unknown since Thomas Walsh had left the island. Rigorous discipline was indispensable, for the Irish “people in general were so soft and delicate, that the least slackness” was ruinous. He preached to an unstable people on the character of Reuben. He held a covenant service; and set apart a day for fasting and for prayer. He “met all the married men and women of the society, and brought strange things to their ears respecting the duties of husbands, and wives, and parents.”
Francis Okeley, Wesley’s present travelling companion, was fifteen years his junior, and, like himself, had been educated in the Charterhouse school, London. In 1739, he became B.A. of St. John’s college, Cambridge; and was the intimate friend of the two Wesleys and their associates. His intention had been to become a minister of the Church of England; but, because the Moravians had ordained him deacon, the bishop refused to ordain him priest; and, to the end of life, he officiated in the Brethren’s congregations. He was now Moravian minister at Bedford; but kept Wesley company during the whole of his Irish tour, and even went with him to his conference, at Bristol, in the month of August following.[331] To some extent, he was infected with the Moravian lusciousness then so common; but he was also a man of much learning, of great piety, and of a catholic and Christian spirit. He was well versed in the old German divinity,—was an immense admirer of William Law,—the translator of the life of Jacob Behmen, and the visions of Hiel and Englebretet,—and a strong advocate of the doctrine of universal restoration. He was a frequent and valued correspondent of the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, and the author of other works besides the above mentioned. He died, at Bedford, in 1794.[332]
On April 24, Wesley and Okeley left Dublin, on an excursion through the Irish provinces. At Edinderry, Wesley preached, under the castle wall, to a large congregation, which some of the quakers had used their utmost influence to prevent assembling. At Portarlington, he “was much concerned for his rich, gay hearers.” At Mountmellick, most of the protestants of the town were present, and many papists also skirted the congregation. Bitter contentions, however, had well-nigh torn the society in pieces. At Tullamore, a large number of protestants, many papists, and almost all the troopers in the town attended. At Drumcree, he opened a new chapel, “built in the taste of the country; the roof thatch, and the walls mud.” At Terryhugan, he found a room built purposely for him and his itinerants, “three yards long, two and a quarter broad, and six feet high; the walls, floor, and ceiling mud; and the furniture a clean chaff bed;” but even in this mud-built hut, he found it true,—
“Licet sub paupere tecto Reges et regum vitâ præcurrere amicos.”
All the inhabitants of the village, with many others, were present at the morning five o’clock preaching, including a poor woman, brought to bed ten days before, and who walked seven miles, with her child in her arms, to have it baptized by Wesley. At Newtown, he addressed the largest congregation he had seen since he came to Ireland. At Belfast, he preached in the market-house; and at Carrickfergus in the courthouse. At Larn, his pulpit was a table, and his congregation nearly all the inhabitants of the town, both rich and poor. At Lurgan, he was taken to see the house which an eminent scholar had recently erected for himself,—“part mud, part brick, part stone, and part bones and wood; with four windows, but without glass in any; of two storeys, but without a staircase; on the floor three rooms,—one three square, the second with five sides, and the third with more.” “I give,” says Wesley, “a particular description of this wonderful edifice, to illustrate the truth—There is no folly too great even for a man of sense, if he resolves to follow his own imagination.”
At Coot Hill, he had “a tolerably serious congregation in the open street.” At Granard, he preached in the barrack yard. At Edgeworthtown, his congregation was genteel; but at Longford, where he preached in the yard of the great inn, “the rudest, surliest, wildest people” he had seen in Ireland. At Newport, all the protestants of the town attended. At Hollymount, the churchyard served him as a preaching place. At Minulla, he found the papists unchanged,—retaining the same bitterness and thirst for blood as ever, and as ready to cut the throats of protestants as they were in the former century. He left the place at four o’clock in the morning, riding a horse without either bridle or saddle. At Ahaskra, four fifths of his congregation were papists. At Athlone, a few eggs and stones were thrown. At Coolylough, he held the quarterly meeting. At Limerick, he met Thomas Walsh, “alive, and but just alive,” three of the best physicians attending him, and all agreeing that, “by violent straining of his voice, added to frequent colds, he had contracted a pulmonary consumption, which was now in the last stage, and consequently beyond the reach of any human help.” Here Wesley held his Irish conference, fourteen preachers being present.
At Clare, his congregation in the street consisted of “many poor papists and rich protestants.” At Ennis, “nine in ten” of those who came to hear him were papists. In an island near Limerick, he preached to thousands seated on the grass, row above row. Here he overstrained himself, and next morning began spitting blood, and, for a week, was laid aside. Rest, however, and “a brimstone plaster, and a linctus of roasted lemon and honey,” so far restored him, that, in a week, he resumed his ministry at Cork, and interred James Massiot.
Here, and in the neighbourhood, he remained a month, making a short excursion to Kinsale, where he had a large congregation of soldiers; and to Bandon, where he preached in the shell of a new meeting-house, the foundation of which had been laid only a fortnight previous. On August 8, he set sail, and three days afterwards arrived in Bristol.
A couple of letters, written during this Irish tour, and addressed to Mr. Blackwell, may be interesting.
“CASTLEBAR, _June 5, 1758_.
“DEAR SIR,—I have learned, by the grace of God, in every state to be content. What a peace do we find in all circumstances, when we can say, ‘Not as I will, but as Thou wilt!’
“I have now gone through the greatest part of this kingdom: Leinster, Ulster, and the greater half of Connaught. Time only is wanting. If my brother could take care of England, and give me but one year in Ireland, I think every corner of this nation would receive the truth as it is in Jesus. They want only to hear it; and they will hear me, high and low, rich and poor. What a mystery of Providence is this! In England, they may hear, but will not. In Ireland, they fain would hear, but cannot. So in both, thousands perish for lack of knowledge.
“I hope you find public affairs changing for the better. In this corner of the world, we know little about them; only we are told, that the great, little king in Moravia is not swallowed up yet.
“Till near the middle of next month, I expect to be at Mr. Beauchamp’s in Limerick. My best wishes attend you all.
“I am, dear sir, your affectionate servant,
“JOHN WESLEY.”
“BANDON, _July 12, 1758_.
“In a week or two, I shall be looking out for a ship. You people in England are bad correspondents. Both Mr. Downing, Mr. Venn, and Mr. Madan are a letter in my debt; and yet, I think they have not more business than I have. How unequally are things distributed here! Some want time, and some want work. But all will be set right hereafter. There is no disorder on that shore. I remain, dear sir, yours most affectionately,
“JOHN WESLEY.”[333]
The assembling of Wesley’s conference of preachers made his return to England a necessity.
The conference was opened, at Bristol, on August 12, and continued its sittings until August 16. Besides the two Wesleys, and Mr. Okeley, there were thirty-four preachers present. Fourteen were proposed as candidates for the itinerant work. Samuel Meggot was declined, until he had had further trial; and also William Darney, until he ceased “to rail, to print, and to sell wares without a licence.” Thomas Briscoe, or Joseph Jones, was to be Wesley’s travelling companion during the ensuing year; and Michael Fenwick was recommended to return to business. It was agreed, that many of the preachers were wanting in seriousness; and that, in future, they must be watchful in not conforming to the world in their manner of conversation; and also, that they must fast, as far as health permitted, every Friday. “You must,” said Wesley, “do one of three things; either spend time in chit-chat, or learn Latin or Hebrew, or spend all your time and strength in saving souls. Which will you do?” The response was, “The last, by the grace of God.” Kingswood school was again in difficulty, and the question was discussed, “Shall we drop it?” Answer, “By no means, if a fit master can be procured.” It was found that Wesley’s publications had not been diligently recommended; and, to promote the sale of them, it was agreed to allow one person in every circuit (if he desired it) ten per cent commission upon all he sold. It was asked, if Nicholas Manners had said, “I want no more grace for a year and a day.” The reply was, “Ask himself. If he has, and will not be convinced of his fault, let him be publicly disowned.” Another question of some importance was, “Ought any tickets to be given to children?” Answer, “Not to the unawakened; it makes them too cheap.” To preach most profitably in the morning, it was recommended frequently to read and explain half a chapter in the Bible; and sometimes to read and enlarge upon one of the tracts in the “Christian Library.” Except once a year, none but members of the bands were to be admitted into lovefeasts; and, in order to purge the bands, and leave none in them but those living in the enjoyment of conscious pardon, it was resolved, that each assistant, at the next quarterly visitation, should take two or three sensible men with him (either preachers, stewards, or leaders), and should closely examine every person in the band societies, and expel all, even if it should be two thirds of the entire number, who were not exercising the faith by which a man is justified and finds peace with God. Such persons might be fit for penitential classes, but were not for the private bands.
Besides discipline, the conference also discussed doctrine. When in Dublin, four months before, Wesley had been drawn into a controversy by Miss H——, on the doctrine of perfection. The lady complained, that some of his preachers placed the doctrine “in a dreadful light; one of them affirming, that a believer, till perfect, is under the curse of God, and in a state of damnation”; and another saying, “If you die before you have attained it, you will surely perish.” Wesley replied to this in a long letter, dated Dublin, April 5, 1758, in which he repudiates such sentiments.[334] He admits, that “young men” may have said these things, but their doctrines were not his. To settle the matter, he brought it before the Bristol conference as follows:—
_Question._—“Do you affirm, that perfection excludes all infirmities, ignorance, and mistake?
_Answer._—“We continually affirm just the contrary.
_Q._—“Do you say, ‘Every one who is not saved from all sin is in a state of damnation?’
_A._—“So far from it, that we will not say any one is in a state of damnation, that fears God and really strives to please Him.
_Q._—“In what manner would you advise those who think they have attained, to speak of their own experience?
_A._—“With great wariness, and with the deepest humility and self abasement before God.
_Q._—“How should young preachers, especially, speak of perfection in public?
_A._—“Not too minutely or circumstantially, but rather in general and scriptural terms.
_Q._—“What does Christian perfection imply?
_A._—“The loving God with all the heart, so that every evil temper is destroyed, and every thought, and word, and work springs from, and is conducted to the end by the pure love of God and our neighbour.”
It is a curious fact, that, while Wesley and eight other preachers were appointed to the London circuit, Charles Wesley had Bristol wholly to himself; three preachers, however, having charge of the adjoining country, under the technical denomination of the “Wiltshire” circuit. This shows, that Charles had now substantially relinquished the itinerant ministry, and had made Bristol his principal place of residence. The circuits into which the United Kingdom was divided, were, including London and Bristol, thirteen in number; one of these, however, being “Wales,” with two itinerants, and another “Ireland,” with ten. “Cornwall” had seven; “Staffordshire” two; “Cheshire” three; “Leeds,” “Haworth,” and “York,” had eight; “Lincolnshire” three; and “Newcastle” four.[335]
From the above condensed account of the proceedings of the conference of 1758, it will be seen, that Wesley was exceedingly anxious, and, in fact, resolved, at all hazards, to maintain the purity of his preachers and societies. “Are our societies,” he asked, “in general as godly, and as serious, as the old Puritans? Why should they not? What means can we use to effect it?” Then follows the answer, to “enforce family discipline,” and to “closely examine the state of every soul, not only at stated times, but in every conversation.”[336] In accordance with this was a laconic letter, which, at the beginning of the year, Wesley wrote to Mr. Merryweather, of Yarm.
“LONDON, _January 16, 1758_.
“MY DEAR BROTHER,—No person must be allowed to preach or exhort among our people, whose life is not holy and unblamable; nor any who asserts anything contrary to the gospel which we have received. And, if he does not own his fault and amend it, he cannot be a leader any longer.
“I am your affectionate brother,
“JOHN WESLEY.”[337]
The day after the Bristol conference closed its sittings, Wesley attended a performance of Handel’s “Messiah” in Bristol cathedral; and, on August 21, set out on a tour in Wales, from which he returned to Bristol on September 2. Here he spent a considerable time, with the Rev. John Fletcher and other preachers, in discussing the doctrine of Christian perfection, and wrote down the general propositions in which they were all agreed.
On October 2, he started for London. At Bradford he met the stewards of the Wiltshire and Somersetshire societies. At Warminster, he preached in a good man’s yard, his congregation being numerous, and consisting of “saints and sinners, rich and poor, churchmen, quakers, and presbyterians.” “Some disturbance,” says he, “was expected, but there was none. The whole assembly behaved well; and, instead of curses or stones, we had many blessings as we rode through the town for Salisbury.” Strangely enough, this was Wesley’s first and last visit to the town of Warminster. Some time afterwards, however, a class was formed; and, amid the bitterest persecutions, held on its way. Men would often enter the preaching house, and remain, during the whole service, covered with their slouching hats, cursing the preacher and his friends, and even smoking vile tobacco. Sometimes they would challenge the Methodists to fight; and, at others, sing profane songs while the Methodists sang sacred ones. In one instance, they smashed the seats, and windows, and pulpit of the meeting-house in Back Street; threw John Spicer into a deep ditch; and so injured Caleb Daniel that he died soon after.[338]
From Warminster, Wesley proceeded to Portsmouth, where he preached in Whitefield’s Tabernacle. At Newport, in the Isle of Wight, he found the town filled with soldiers, “the most abandoned wretches he ever saw,” and used the corn-market as his preaching place. At Gosport, he occupied the Tabernacle; at Fareham, “a wild multitude” was his congregation; at Rye, he had “a crowded audience”; at Rolvenden, a “serious congregation,” skirted with “a few drunkards”; at Northjam, “the house was stowed as full as possible,” and many stood in the rain outside; at Canterbury, he had a dangerous fall from his horse, but found “the little society free from all divisions and offences.” On October 21, after an absence of near eight months, he again reached London.
Four days later, he set out for Norwich. At Colchester, he preached on St. John’s Green, and found that, in three months, a society of one hundred and twenty persons had been gathered. At Norwich, James Wheatley called upon him, and offered him his Tabernacle. Here he spent a week among “a settled and well united society.” In returning, he visited, by request, the famous vicar of Everton.
John Berridge is too notable a man to be passed in silence. He was the son of a wealthy farmer, and was now forty-two years of age. Having taken degrees at the Cambridge university, he, in 1749, accepted the curacy of Stapleford, which he served for the next six years. In 1755, he removed to the vicarage of Everton, where he continued to reside until his death. The epitaph on his tomb, excepting the date of his death, was written by himself, and is as follows:—
“Here lie the earthly remains of John Berridge, late vicar of Everton, and an itinerant servant of Jesus Christ: who loved his Master and His work; and, after running His errands many years, was called up to wait on Him above. Reader, art thou born again? No salvation without the new birth! I was born in sin, February, 1716. Remained ignorant of my fallen state till 1730. Lived proudly on faith and works for salvation till 1754. Admitted to Everton vicarage, 1755. Fled to Jesus alone for refuge, 1756. Fell asleep in Christ, January 22, 1793.”
This is a truthful outline of the history of this remarkable man. To fill it up would require a volume. His preaching, up to the time of his conversion, had been useless; since then, it had been full of power. Three months before Wesley’s visit, his ministry had been blessed to the Rev. Mr. Hicks, a clergyman at Wrestlingworth, about four miles from Everton, who became his companion in his itinerant tours, and was greatly useful. In learning, Berridge, it is said, was inferior to very few of the most celebrated sons of science and literature in the Cambridge university. From his entrance at Clare Hall to his acceptance of the vicarage of Everton, a period of twenty-one years, he regularly studied fifteen hours a day. His understanding was strong; his wit almost without parallel. In stature, he was tall, but not awkward; lusty, but not corpulent. His voice was deep, but not hoarse; strong, but not noisy; his pronunciation distinct, but not broad. In his countenance there was gravity, without grimace: his address was solemn, but not sour; easy, but not careless; deliberate, but not drawling; pointed, but not personal; affectionate, but not fawning. He would often weep, but never whine. His sentences were short, but not ambiguous; his ideas collected, but not crowded. His itinerant circuit embraced the counties of Bedford, Cambridge, Essex, Hertford, and Huntingdon. In this circuit, for more than twenty years, he preached, upon an average, from ten to twelve sermons every week, and frequently rode a hundred miles. In some places, from ten to fifteen thousand persons composed his congregations. People came to hear him from a distance of twenty miles, and were at Everton by seven o’clock in the morning, at which early hour he preached. Four sermons on a Sunday were his regular work. His usefulness was great. During the first year after his conversion, he was visited by a thousand persons, under serious impressions; and it was computed, that, during the same space of time, about four thousand were awakened to a concern for the welfare of their souls, under his own and the joint ministry of Mr. Hicks. Magistrates, country squires, and others, furiously opposed him. The _old devil_ was the only name by which he was distinguished among them for above twenty years; but, in the midst of all, the brave hearted, eccentric vicar steadily pursued his work. Houses and barns were rented for preaching; lay preachers were employed and maintained; his church income and the fortune inherited from his father were appropriated to the support and extension of his work; and even his family plate was converted into clothing for his itinerant preachers. For nearly thirty years, he spent about three months annually in London, preaching in Whitefield’s Tabernacle, in Tottenham Court chapel, and in other places. At his funeral, six neighbouring clergymen attended to bear his pall, while an immense concourse, from all parts of the country, by their undissembled grief and falling tears, paid a just eulogium to his character and worth. As he was never married, he left no widow to deplore his death, nor children to perpetuate his memory; but he long lived in the grateful remembrance of thousands, who had been benefited by his ministry; and, by his “Christian World Unmasked” and his “Sion’s Songs” (the only books he ever published), he is known to myriads who never saw him.[339] He was a high Calvinist, but a devoted Christian. _Requiescat in pace!_ Hundreds of racy anecdotes might be told concerning him, and well-nigh thousands of his pungent and witty sayings might be quoted; but it is time to return to Wesley.
Berridge had told the mayor of Bedford, that he wished an interview with Wesley, as soon as possible; and accordingly, on November 9, Wesley went to Everton. The two clerical itinerants started off to Wrestlingworth, to visit Hicks, a third. The same night Wesley preached in Mr. Hicks’s well filled church; lodged in the vicarage; and preached in the church again next morning, of course having both Hicks and Berridge as his hearers. In the midst of his sermon, a woman dropped down as dead, “deeply sensible of her want of Christ.” The clerical trio then rode to Everton, where Wesley preached in Berridge’s church at six in the evening, and at five next morning; and where some were struck just as the woman at Wrestlingworth. One was brought into the vicarage, with whom the three clergymen spent a considerable time in prayer.
This was Wesley’s first interview with Berridge. “For many years,” he writes, “Mr. Berridge was seeking to be justified by his works; but, a few months ago, he was throughly convinced, that ‘by grace’ we ‘are saved through faith.’ Immediately, he began to proclaim aloud the redemption that is in Jesus; and God confirmed His word exactly as He did at Bristol, at the beginning, by working repentance and faith in the hearers, and with the same violent outward symptoms.”
This is a remarkable fact. At the commencement of Wesley’s itinerant ministry, _stricken cases_ were frequent and numerous; but, for the last fifteen years, they had been of rare occurrence. In Wesley’s experience, they had principally happened, not in churches, but in barns, fields, and private meeting-rooms. Though the same puzzling phenomena had been witnessed in the great revivals in America and in Scotland, they had not been general in England, but had been chiefly confined to Kingswood, Bristol, and Newcastle upon Tyne. At the time, they created great commotion, but, for years, they had disappeared. Now, however, in 1758, under the ministry of Berridge and of Hicks, and even in parish churches, they again occurred. On one occasion, while Berridge was preaching, several persons fainted, and many in agony cried out. A little girl was thrown into violent contortions, and wept aloud incessantly. The church was crowded, the windows filled within and without, and also the pulpit steps up to the pulpit door. Three fourths of the congregation were men. Thirty of them had come thirteen miles, and, in order to be in time, had started at two o’clock in the morning. Some shrieked, others roared, but the most general sound was a loud breathing, like that of people half strangled. Numbers fell down as dead; some sinking in silence, and some in the utmost agitation.
On another occasion, when Mr. Hicks was preaching at Wrestlingworth, fifteen persons fell prostrate on the ground, a few, for hours, crying out with the greatest violence, and the rest more silently struggling, as in the pangs of death.
These were novel scenes to be witnessed in a church; but besides these, occurring in sacred buildings, there were others in public roads, in the vicar’s garden, in fields, and in private houses, where men, women, and children were found prostrate on the ground; and great numbers were filled with peace and joy, by believing in Christ Jesus. Faces, which had been almost black with terror, now beamed with happiness. “Jesus,” cried one, “has forgiven all my sins! I am in heaven! I am in heaven! O how He loves me! And how I love Him!” Another, bathed in perspiration, and with every muscle quivering, clapped his hands, and with a smile exclaimed, “Jesus is mine! He is my Saviour!” Some burst into strange, involuntary laughter; others roared, as if possessed by demons; most were, at length, made happy. In one instance, two hundred persons, chiefly men, were, at the same time, in Everton church, crying aloud for mercy. The groans, lamentations, prayers, and roars, were indescribable; as, also, were the shouts and the songs of praise after the penitents found peace with God.
Wesley’s first visit to Mr. Berridge was on November 9. Within six weeks, on December 18, he went again; and, while preaching in the church at Everton, witnessed another scene like those that have been described; for “many,” says he, “not able to contain themselves, cried aloud for mercy.”
Wesley was now on his way to Norwich, where he spent the next six days, and where, besides preaching, he completed the purchase of the chapel, which had been built by the notorious James Wheatley.
On his return to London, he called at Colchester, and makes the following important entry in his Journal: “1758, December 29—I found the society had decreased since Laurence Coughlan went away; and, yet, they had had full as good preachers. But that is not sufficient; by repeated experiments, we learn that, though a man preach like an angel, he will neither collect, nor preserve a society which is collected, without visiting them from house to house.“
We have reached the end of the year 1758; but some other matters, belonging to this period, must have attention.
It was in 1758, that Wesley formed an acquaintance, not only with Berridge, but with another distinguished man. John Newton was the son of a shipmaster, and was born in 1725. The chief part of his boyhood and youth was spent at sea. His life, up to the age of five and twenty, was a painfully chequered scene. Soon after the year 1750, he obtained the post of tidewaiter at Liverpool; where, by dint of severe application, he rapidly acquired a considerable knowledge of Greek and Hebrew. He now made some unsuccessful attempts to become the pastor of a Dissenting congregation. He then applied to the Archbishop of York for episcopal ordination; but was refused, on the ground that he had been preaching, without authority, among Dissenters. On his way to Ireland, in the spring of the present year, Wesley paid him a visit, during his ten days’ stay in Liverpool. Mr. Newton was now thirty-eight years old; and, a few months later, wrote to Wesley as follows.
“LIVERPOOL, _August 29, 1758_.
“DEAR AND REVEREND SIR,—I am informed of your arrival at Bristol, which I much rejoice in, and desire to praise the Lord for. I hope He has yet much service for you to do; and, till your work is done, I know your life is secured. When it is fully accomplished, I think, I can give my consent, that you should be released from hence, and removed to that kingdom of love, and joy, and peace, where none of the evils of mortality can find admittance.
“I wait your directions where to send you the paper you left with me, and hope it will not be long, for it will give me double satisfaction to hear of your welfare, _propria manu_. Mrs. Newton concurs with me in tendering our sincerest respects, and requesting a remembrance in your prayers, and a share in your correspondence. I am, with respect and affection, reverend sir, your obliged friend and servant,
“JOHN NEWTON.”[340]
Six years after this, Mr. Newton, through the interest of Lord Dartmouth, obtained ordination, and the curacy at Olney, where, from 1764 to 1779, lived in the closest friendship with the poet Cowper and the Olney circle. He then removed to the rectory of St. Mary Woolnoth, Lombard Street, London, where he continued until his death in 1807. Like Berridge, he wrote his own epitaph, which was as follows:—
“John Newton, clerk: once an infidel and a libertine, a servant of slaves in Africa, was, by the rich mercy of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, preserved, restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach the faith he had long laboured to destroy, near sixteen years at Olney, in Bucks, and twenty-eight years in this church.”[341]
In the same year, 1758, Wesley entered into correspondence with another man of distinguished talent, who afterwards became the bitterest opponent he ever had.
Augustus Montague Toplady was the son of a major in the army, and was born at Farnham, in Surrey, in the year 1740. He received the rudiments of his education at Westminster school; and thence went, with his widowed mother, to Ireland, to pursue claims to an estate which belonged to her in that island. Here, a little before he was sixteen years of age, he heard James Morris, one of Wesley’s itinerants, preach in a barn at Codymain, and was converted. Soon after, he entered Trinity college, Dublin; and wrote to Wesley as follows.
“DUBLIN, _September 13, 1758_.
“REVEREND SIR,—I thank you for your satisfactory letter; particularly for your kind caution against trifling company. I do not visit three persons in the college, except one or two of the fellows. It is indeed Sodom epitomized; for I do not believe there is one that fears God in it.
“Your remarks on Mr. Hervey’s style are too just; and I think a writer would be much to blame for imitating it; or indeed the style of any other; for if he has abilities of his own, he ought to use them; if he has not, he would be inexcusable for writing at all. I believe Mr. Hervey’s mentioning the active, exclusive from the passive, obedience of Christ, is rather a casual than intentional omission; but an author cannot be too careful how he expresses himself on a point of so much importance. I have long been convinced, that self righteousness and antinomianism are equally pernicious; and that to insist on the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, as alone requisite to salvation, is only strewing the way to hell with flowers. I have myself known some make shipwreck of faith, and love, and a good conscience, on this specious quicksand.
“My heart’s desire, and prayer is, that Christ would grant to keep me close to Him, with meek, simple, steady love. I think, of late, the studies I am unavoidably engaged in have done me some harm; I mean have abated that fervency with which I used to approach the throne of grace; and this, by insensible degrees. My chariot wheels have drove heavily for a month past; but I have reason to hope I am recovering my usual joy. I can attribute its declension to nothing else but assiduous application to my college business; which prevents my attending the preaching so often as I would. I depend on your candour to excuse this trouble given you, by, reverend sir, your most dutiful, humble servant,
“AUGUSTUS TOPLADY.”[342]
This was an admirable letter, to be written by a youth not yet eighteen years of age. A year later, Toplady published a 12mo book of his poetic pieces; and, in 1762, was ordained, and inducted into the living of Blagdon in Somersetshire. In 1768, he obtained the vicarage of Broadhembury, which he held until his decease in 1778. Three years before he died, he removed to London, and became the preacher of the French church, in Orange Street, Leicester Fields. His death was very beautiful. “The sky,” said he, “is clear; there is no cloud: come, Lord Jesus, come quickly!” Thus died Augustus Toplady, on the 11th of August, aged thirty-seven. He was buried in a grave, which, by his own request, was thirteen feet deep, beneath the gallery in Tottenham Court chapel.
It is extremely difficult to form an estimate of Toplady’s life and character. He was unquestionably a man of great talent, of extensive knowledge, and of burning zeal. His discourses were extemporary; his language eloquent; his voice melodious; his delivery and action engaging, elegant, and easy.[343] His private diary breathes with the richest piety; and yet, in the _Gospel Magazine_, of which he was the chief editor, and in his controversial works, his abuse of Wesley is rancorous to a degree which is almost without parallel, and is expressed in terms far more nearly allied to the slang of Billingsgate than to the language of a Christian and a gentleman.
Wesley, in 1758, was not without his troubles. Among other matters, the leaders of the Leeds society began to exercise prerogatives to which he had the strongest objection. Hence the following characteristic letter.
“LONDON, _December 9, 1758_.
“MY DEAR BROTHER,—From time to time, I have had more trouble with the town of Leeds than with all the societies in Yorkshire. And I now hear, that the leaders insist, that such and such persons be put out of the society! I desire the leaders may know their places, and not stretch themselves beyond their line. Pray let me judge who should be put out of the Methodist society, and who should not. I desire Faith and Ann Hardwick may not be put out of the society, unless some matter appear against them; and, if any new matter does appear, let it be laid before me. He shall have judgment without mercy who hath shown no mercy.
“I am your affectionate brother,
“J. WESLEY.”[344]
Another annoyance was the publication of a sermon, preached against the Methodists, by the Rev. Mr. Potter, at Reymerston, in Norfolk. This was answered by Cornelius Cayley, jun., in an octavo pamphlet of 41 pages. In itself it was hardly worth Wesley’s notice; but, having been preached and circulated in the neighbourhood of Norwich, where Methodism had to encounter difficulties of no ordinary kind, Wesley deemed it his duty to dissect it, which he did in a long “Letter to the Reverend Mr. Potter,” 12mo, 11 pages.
During the year 1758, he also published “A short Account of the Life and Death of Nathaniel Othen, who was shot in Dover Castle, October 26, 1757.” 12mo, 12 pages. This was the romantic history of a common soldier, who was executed for deserting the army.
Another of his publications was, “A Letter to a Gentleman at Bristol,” dated January 8, 1758: 12mo, 24 pages. Wesley says, that this was written at the request of several of his friends, “in order to guard them from seeking salvation by works on one hand, and from antinomianism on the other.”[345]
Another work of Wesley’s, published in 1758, was entitled, “Reasons against a Separation from the Church of England.” 12mo, 22 pages. This was an abstract from a larger work, which Wesley wrote, but never published, and which remains in manuscript to the present day. Wesley meant it for publication; but the Rev. Samuel Walker, of Truro, to whose friendly inspection it was submitted, advised that it should not be printed. The fact is, in this treatise against separation from the Church, Wesley conceded points, which Walker thought might be used as reasons _for_ a separation rather than _against_ it. The objections of Dissenters to some parts of the liturgy and canons, to the spiritual courts, and to the character of too many of the clergy, were acknowledged to be just; but Wesley argued, that these objections did not form a sufficient ground for separation. Walker was afraid that, if the premises were admitted, Wesley’s readers might draw a conclusion opposite to what Wesley did; and hence the treatise was withdrawn;[346] with the exception that, in 1758, Wesley published an extract from it, with the title already given. The reasons are twelve in number. 1. Because, it would be a contradiction to the solemn and repeated statements of his brother and himself. 2. Because, it would give huge occasion of offence. 3. Because, it would prejudice many good Christians against being benefited by Wesley’s preaching. 4. Because, it would hinder multitudes of the unconverted from hearing him at all. 5. Because, it would cause many hundreds, if not some thousands, to leave the Methodist societies. 6. Because, it would produce inconceivable strife and contention. 7. Because, it would engage him in a thousand controversies, both in public and private, and so divert him from useful labours. 8. Because, to form the plan of a new church would require more time, care, thought, and wisdom than any of them possessed. 9. Because, barely entertaining a distant thought of it had already produced evil fruits. 10. Because, though the experiment of separation had been frequently tried by others, the success had never answered the expectation. 11. Because, melancholy instances of failure might now be witnessed. 12. Because, to separate would be to
## act in direct contradiction to the very end for which, he believed, the
Methodists had been raised up by Providence.
Such were Wesley’s reasons. He allows, that the _lawfulness_ of the Methodists to separate from the Church of England is a point which may fairly be debated; but he has no doubt, that for them to separate is not _expedient_. He replies to the objections that, till they separate, they cannot be a compact, united body; and that it is mere cowardice, fear of persecution, that makes them desire to remain in union. He asserts, that the Methodists are not a party, but living witnesses, raised up by God, for the benefit of all. He suggests, that it should be a sacred rule with all the preachers, to evince “no contempt, no bitterness to the clergy,” and also, “to frequent no Dissenting meeting”; for, if the preachers did this, the people would imitate their example; and this, in point of fact, would be separation. Many of the Dissenting ministers were “new-light men, denying the Lord that bought them, and overturning His gospel from the very foundations”; or they were predestinarians, whose doctrines were not wholesome food, but deadly poison. The singing at Dissenting meetings was slow, and drawling; and the prayers were objectionable in tone, language, and length. He concludes, by expressing a wish, that all the Methodist preachers, except those who have scruples concerning it, would attend the services of the Church as often as they conveniently could; and that they would prepare themselves to answer the arguments usually employed in favour of separation.
To this notable pamphlet, Charles Wesley appended seven “Hymns for the Use of the Methodist Preachers;” and says: “I subscribe to the twelve reasons of my brother with all my heart. I am quite clear, that it is neither expedient, nor _lawful_, for _me_ to separate. I never had the least inclination or temptation so to do. My affection for the Church is as strong as ever. Would to God, that all the Methodist preachers were, in this respect, likeminded with—CHARLES WESLEY.”
In the year 1758, Wesley issued a remarkable 12mo volume of 246 pages, entitled “A Preservative against unsettled Notions in Religion.” In his Journal he says: “I designed it for the use of all those who are under my care, but chiefly of the young preachers.” In his brief preface he observes: “My design, in publishing the following tracts, is not to reclaim, but to preserve: not to convince those who are already perverted, but to prevent the perversion of others. I do not, therefore, enter deep into the controversy even with deists, Socinians, Arians, or papists: much less with those who are not so dangerously mistaken, mystics, quakers, anabaptists, presbyterians, predestinarians, or antinomians. I only recite, under each head, a few plain arguments, which, by the grace of God, may farther confirm those who already know the truth as it is in Jesus.”
The first piece in the volume is “An extract of A Short and Easy Method with the Deists,” by the celebrated Charles Leslie. The second, “A treatise concerning the Godhead of Jesus Christ, translated from the French.” The third, Wesley’s own production, is entitled, “The Advantage of the members of the Church of England over those of the Church of Rome.” The fourth is, “An extract of a letter to the Rev. Mr. Law, occasioned by some of his late writings:” the letter here, in part, republished, was the one which Wesley addressed to Law in 1756. The fifth piece is “A letter to a Person lately joined with the People called Quakers,” which Wesley first wrote in 1748. The sixth is “A treatise on Baptism,”—a treatise really written by his father, though published as his own in 1756. The seventh is “A letter to the Rev. Mr. Towgood, of Exeter; occasioned by his ‘Dissent from the Church of England fully justified,’”—the object of Wesley’s letter being “to show that a dissent from the Church of England is not the genuine and just consequence of the allegiance which is due to Christ as the only lawgiver in the church.” The eighth, entitled “Serious Thoughts concerning Godfathers and Godmothers,” was first published in 1752. The ninth, “The Scripture Doctrine of Predestination, Election, and Reprobation,” was extracted from a late author, and published, in the first instance, by Wesley in 1741. The tenth, “An extract from A Short View of the Difference between the Moravian Brethren, and the Rev. Mr. John and Charles Wesley:” the eleventh, “An extract from A Dialogue between an Antinomian and his Friend”: both issued in 1745. The twelfth, “A letter to the Rev. Mr. Hervey,” written in 1756, and which Hervey said was “palpably weak,” and dealt “only in positive assertions and positive denials.”[347] The last, his “Reasons against a Separation from the Church of England.”
This was an important work, comprising, as it did, in a single volume, the opinions of Wesley on all the subjects which, at that time, excited the attention of the Methodists.
Two more publications, belonging to the year 1758, remain to be noticed.
1. “The Great Assize; a sermon preached at the assizes, in St. Paul’s church, Bedford, on March 10, 1758.” 8vo, 36 pages.
2. Two separate letters to the Rev. Dr. Free,[348] an everlasting pamphleteer, of the most scurrilous genus. Free was a native of Oxford, and was now forty-seven years of age, and vicar of East Coker, in the county of Somerset; also Thursday lecturer of St. Mary-Hill, London, and lecturer at Newington, Surrey. He lived long enough to be senior doctor of the Oxford university, and died in distress and poverty in 1791.[349] His publications against the Methodists were: 1. “A Display of the Bad Principles of the Methodists,” 1758. 2. “Rules for the Discovery of False Prophets; or, the dangerous impositions of the people called Methodists, detected at the bar of Scripture and reason. A sermon preached before the university at St. Mary’s, in Oxford, on Whit Sunday, 1758.” 3. His “Edition of the Rev. Mr. Wesley’s Penny Letter.” 4. His “Edition of Mr. Wesley’s Second Letter.” 5. His “Speech to the London Clergy, at Sion College.” All these were published during the years 1758 and 1759. The following are spicy specimens of the style adopted by this clerical reviler. There is, says he, “in Mr. Wesley’s second letter, such a strange mixture of sanctity and prevarication, such praying, sneering, canting, and recanting, expunging and forging, that I no longer feel bound to give him a civil answer.” Again: “Wesley raves, and rants, and domineers, and scolds.” He is, in the estimation of this Oxford doctor, a perfect “weathercock.” He has “the itch of fame and popularity; and the romantic project of being the founder of a sect has prompted him to go a _madding_ himself wherever he could find people likeminded.” For their benefit, he has “extracted near fourteen volumes, all quintessences, from the fanaticism of the Germans, the English, and other nations.” He “prints and distributes gratis his lying, and blasphemous, and delusive pamphlets, to the remotest corners of the land.” Free informs his readers, that the name of Methodists was first given to Wesley and his friends, at Oxford, because they affected to be so “uncommonly methodical, as to keep a diary of the most trivial
## actions of their lives,—such as, how many dishes of tea they drank, and
how many slices of bread and butter they eat, how many country dances they called for at their dancing club, and how many pounds of a leg of mutton they might devour after practising a fast.”
No wonder that we find the following entries in Wesley’s Journal for 1758. “May 2.—I wrote a short answer to Dr. Free’s weak, bitter, scurrilous invective against the people called Methodists. But I doubt whether I shall meddle with him any more: he is too dirty a writer for me to touch.” Again: “August 24.—I wrote a second letter to Dr. Free, the warmest opponent I have had for many years. I leave him now to laugh, and scold, and witticise, and call names, just as he pleases; for I have done.”
1759.
[Sidenote: 1759 Age 56]
Wesley begun the year 1759 at Bristol. On January 10, he left for London, where he continued the next six weeks. At this period, the nation was in great excitement, arising from the threatened invasion of the French; and the 16th of February was appointed to be observed as a public fast. On that day, Wesley preached, at five in the morning, at Wandsworth; at nine and at three, in the church at Spitalfields; and at half-past eight, in the Foundery. At the last mentioned service, Lady Huntingdon was present.
Her ladyship, feeling the peril of the country, instituted a series of prayer-meeting in her own mansion, which were conducted by Whitefield, by the two Wesleys, and by Messrs. Venn, Romaine, Madan, Jones, Fletcher, Downing, and Maxfield; and at which, among others, there were present the Earl and Countess of Dartmouth, the Earl and Countess of Chesterfield, Sir Charles and Lady Hotham, Mrs. Carteret, Mrs. Cavendish, and other persons of distinction.[350] This, to Wesley, was a new kind of congregation; but he writes: “O what are the greatest men to the great God? As the small dust of the balance.” Charles Wesley says of the service, which was principally conducted by his brother: “All the ministers prayed in turn. It was a most blessed time of refreshment. My brother preached, and won all our hearts. I never liked him better, and was never more united to him, since his unhappy marriage.”[351]
On the 1st of March, Wesley set out for Norwich, taking Everton and Colchester on his way. He wrote to Lady Huntingdon as follows.
“The agreeable hour, which I spent with your ladyship, the last week, recalled to my mind the former times, and gave me much matter of thankfulness to the Giver of every good gift. I have found great satisfaction in conversing with those instruments whom God has lately raised up. But still, there is I know not what in them whom we have known from the beginning, and who have borne the burden and heat of the day, which we do not find in those who have risen up since, though they are of upright heart. Perhaps too, those who have but lately come into the harvest are led to think and speak more largely of justification, and the other first principles of the doctrine of Christ. And it may be proper for _them_ so to do. Yet _we_ find a thirst after something farther. We want to sink deeper and rise higher in the knowledge of God our Saviour. We want all helps for walking closely with Him whom we have received, that we may the more speedily come to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.
“Mr. Berridge seems to be one of the most simple, as well as most sensible, men of all whom it pleased God to employ in reviving primitive Christianity. They come now twelve or fourteen miles to hear him. His word is with power: he speaks as plain and home as John Nelson, but with all the propriety of Mr. Romaine, and the tenderness of Mr. Hervey.
“At Colchester, likewise, the word of God has free course—only no house will contain the congregation. On Sunday, I was obliged to preach on St. John’s Green; the people stood on a smooth sloping ground, sheltered by the walls of an old castle, and behaved as men who felt that God was there.
“I am persuaded your ladyship still remembers, in your prayers, your willing servant, for Christ’s sake,
“JOHN WESLEY.”[352]
Such was Wesley’s critique upon the converted clergymen with whom he had been recently associated. One of them, a young man, died three years after this, and deserves a passing notice.
The Rev. Thomas Jones, A.M., of St. Saviour’s, Southwark, was now in the thirtieth year of his age. Eight years before, he had been converted, and had begun to preach, with great eloquence and power, the truth which he himself had been brought to experience. His health was feeble; but his ministry was mighty. His zeal was greater than his strength, and frequently provoked the opposition of his enemies. He began to read prayers and to expound the Scriptures, in the chapel of an almshouse in his parish; but the chapel was closed against him. He set up a weekly lecture in his church; but, before long, the use of the pulpit, for that purpose, was denied to him. He carried religious tracts and books to all his parishioners; and catechized children once a week, in his own private residence. In his thirty-third year, a fever seized him; and, after seven days’ illness, he died triumphantly on the 6th of June, 1762, leaving a young widow to bewail her loss. As a preacher, he was too earnest to be polished, and was far more wishful, that his hearers should be benefited by the demonstration of the Spirit and of power, than that they should be merely pleased with the excellency of speech or wisdom. He writes: “I seldom begin to compose my sermons till Saturday in the afternoon, and often not till late in the evening. I have such a variety of business on my hands, that I can never find time to smooth my language, nor to embellish my discourses with pretty conceits, but am obliged to send them abroad into the world _in puris naturalibus_.”[353]
The following is an extract from a letter, written to Wesley, by this young clergyman, three weeks after the holding of the intercession meetings in the house of the Countess of Huntingdon.
“CASTLE STREET, SOUTHWARK, _March 21, 1759_.
“DEAR AND HONOURED SIR,—I wish I knew how to express the sense I have of your kind and obliging notice of me. I can hardly expect a greater blessing, as to this world, than the offer you make me of your acquaintance. I hope the same gracious Father of all, who has induced you to make the proposal, will also enable you to give me such instructions as my youth and inexperience need. Let me beg all friendly admonition, all brotherly, yea fatherly, freedoms from you. I crave your fervent prayers, that I may be daily more humble, _unaffectedly humble_, dead to the world and self, and alive unto our dear redeeming God.
“I am, with many thanks, and great respect, dear and honoured sir, your affectionate and obliged brother in Christ Jesus,
“THOMAS JONES.”[354]
On the 6th of March, Wesley came to Norwich, where he continued until April 2. Norwich had become a Methodist station of great importance. Already, Wesley had converted an old foundery into a meeting-house, and now he occupied James Wheatley’s chapel. Wheatley’s society, once consisting of hundreds of members, had mouldered into nothing. Of the fifteen or sixteen hundred persons who had been _paying_ seatholders, not one was left; but every one that pleased went into the seats without any questions asked. “Everything,” says Wesley, “was to be wrought out of the ore, or rather out of the cinders.”
Difficulties never discouraged, but rather made Wesley daring. He preached morning and evening in the Foundery; and, in less than a week, gathered a society of one hundred; and, in less than a month, by one means and another—by the recovery of Wheatley’s lost sheep, and by fresh conversions—that society was increased to nearly six hundred persons; and Wesley believed that, if he could have remained a fortnight longer, it would have become a thousand.[355] He instituted classes, and did his best to discipline the members. At society meetings, he required every one to show his ticket on entering. He insisted, that the men and women should sit apart, a regulation that appeared novel, if not harsh, among those who had been the loving lambs of James Wheatley’s flock. He also found that, from the first, it had been a custom, in Wheatley’s chapel, to have the galleries full of spectators while the Lord’s supper was administered. This he judged to be highly improper; and, therefore, ordered that none should be admitted, but those who desired to communicate. The only concession which he made to existing prejudices was this. He writes: “as a considerable part of them were Dissenters, I desired every one to use what posture he judged best. Had I required them to kneel, probably half would have sat: now all but one kneeled down.” Such was the beginning of Wesley’s society at Norwich. It will often require notice in succeeding pages. Wesley wrote as follows to his friend, Mr. Ebenezer Blackwell.
“NORWICH, _March 12, 1759_.
“DEAR SIR,—I know not, if, in all my life, I have had so critical a work on my hands, as that wherein I am now engaged. I am endeavouring to gather up those who were once gathered together, and afterwards scattered, by James Wheatley. I have reunited about seventy of them, and hope this evening to make up a hundred. But many of them have wonderful spirits; having been always accustomed to teach their teachers; so that how they will bear any kind of discipline, I cannot tell.
“At Colchester, the case is far otherwise. About a hundred and sixty simple, upright people are there united together, who are as little children, minding nothing but the salvation of their souls; only, they are greatly distressed for a larger house. I desired them to look out for a piece of ground. It is true, they are poor enough; but, if it be God’s work, He will provide the means.
“I remain, dear sir, your very affectionate servant,
“JOHN WESLEY.”[356]
Colchester was evidently a favourite place; but it is only fair to add, that many of the hundred and sixty Methodists were either expelled, or seceding, Dissenters. Some of them had never had the rite of baptism administered; and it is a fact worth noticing, that, during this very visit, Wesley baptized seven of them, all adults, and two of them by dipping.
Having spent a month at Norwich, Wesley, on April 2, set out on his long journey to the north.
At Boston, in Lincolnshire, he found a small society, and a more unawakened and rude congregation than he had seen for years. From Boston, he “rode over the fens, fifteen miles broad, and near thirty miles long,” to Coningsby, where he had “a numerous congregation, of a far different spirit.” At Horncastle, he was roughly saluted by a mob. At Grimsby, he preached in the old churchyard; at Epworth, in the new chapel, and in the market-place; and at Selby, in a garden. At York, he opened the new unfinished chapel in Peasholm Green, and visited two prisoners in the castle, “the most commodious prison in Europe.” At Tadcaster, he had a well behaved congregation in a garden. At Stainland, he preached in a handsome chapel, “near the top of a mountain,” his friend Grimshaw reading prayers. At Manchester, “wretched magistrates, by refusing to suppress, had encouraged the rioters, and had long occasioned tumults: but some were now of a better spirit.” At Maxfield, “abundance of people ran together, but wild as colts untamed. Before he had done, all but four or five lubberly men seemed almost persuaded to be Christians.” At Stockport, where Methodist meetings were held in a thatched shed belonging to William Williamson, Wesley preached on Pettycar Green, the shed being far too small to contain his congregation. The society was small, and could send only half a sovereign as its quarterage to the Manchester circuit meeting; but, soon afterwards, Matthew Mayer and other persons of respectability were converted; and old Hillgate chapel was erected, the pulpit of which James Chadwick carried upon his shoulders, a distance of nine miles, from a place near Altrincham. This humble edifice, without gallery and without pews, was opened by Grimshaw of Haworth; and Methodism in Stockport was permanently founded.[357]
From Stockport, Wesley proceeded to Northwich, Chester, and Mold in Wales. At Liverpool, the congregations were exceeding large; but many of the people “seemed to be like wild asses’ colts.” He made his way to Wigan, Bolton, Lancaster, Whitehaven, Cockermouth, Wigton, Dumfries, and Glasgow. At the last mentioned place, he found the little society, which he had formed, two years ago, all split to pieces. He tried to reorganise the members, and left about forty, who agreed to meet Mr. Gillies weekly. “If this be done,” says Wesley, “I shall try to see Glasgow again: if not, I can employ my time better.”
Leaving Glasgow, he went to Edinburgh, Musselburgh, and Dunbar. At Berwick, he preached to “a drowsy congregation” in the town hall; at Alnwick, in the court house, to a congregation “having the power as well as the form of godliness.” On reaching Newcastle, June 5, he wrote: “Certainly, if I did not believe there was another world, I should spend all my summers here; as I know no place in Great Britain comparable to it for pleasantness. But I seek another country, and, therefore, am content to be a wanderer upon earth.” Concerning Gateshead, he says: “In earnestness, the colliers of Gateshead utterly shame the colliers of Kingswood; scarce thirty of whom think it worth while to hear the word of God on a weekday, not even when I preach: and here the house will scarce contain the weekday congregation of a local preacher.”
It was during this northern visit, that Wesley opened the first Methodist chapel in Sunderland. He writes: “Saturday, June 9—“I rode to Sunderland, and preached in the shell of their house. The people are hungry for the word, and receive it with all gladness.” Hitherto, the Sunderland Methodists had worshipped in a small room at the top of Swine Alley; and then in a house in Ettrick’s Garth, where, for the first time, they had space enough to set up a lilliputian pulpit, which, with the benches of the place, was threatened to be sold by auction for an arrear of rent, amounting to about £3, and was only saved by the prompt interference of Charles Askell, one of the first leaders, who advanced the sum out of his own pocket, though, by doing so, he deprived himself of the means of setting up housekeeping with Ann Lightfoot, whom he was about to marry, and who, with her mother, resided in a small cottage (Wesley’s home in Sunderland), in Playhouse Lane, maintaining themselves by sewing and by knitting.[358]
Wesley spent a month at Newcastle and in the immediate neighbourhood. At Chester-le-street, he “preached in Mr. Tinker’s yard, to a crowded audience,” says _Lloyd’s Evening Post_; “and after that made an oration at the meeting-house.” At Morpeth, he had a congregation of “officers, gentlemen, and common people, in the market-place, such as was never seen there before.” At North and at South Shields, the lions were become lambs. At Swalwell, he preached in a Dissenters’ chapel, with him a thing of rare occurrence. He held the quarterly meeting of the stewards, and found that there were in the Newcastle circuit about eighteen hundred members. In Newcastle itself, he not only preached in the Orphan House, but frequently out of doors, where his congregations were twice as large as the Orphan House could hold. He writes: “What marvel the devil does not love field preaching! Neither do I. I love a commodious room, a soft cushion, and a handsome pulpit. But where is my zeal, if I do not trample all these under foot, in order to save one more soul!” It was on one of these occasions, when preaching on the Exchange steps, that some of his congregation began to pelt him with mud and rotten eggs; but, at length, a fishwoman, big, burly, and drunken, and the terror of the neighbourhood in which she lived, ran up the steps, and threw one of her arms round Wesley’s neck, and shook the fist of the other in the face of Wesley’s cowardly assailants, and cried, “If ony yen o’ ye lift up another hand to touch ma canny man, ayl floor ye direckly.” The fishwife’s menace was quite enough, and Wesley was allowed to conclude in peace.[359]
On the 2nd of July, Wesley left Newcastle for London. On his way, he preached at Hartlepool, all the inhabitants of the town being present, either in the street or the adjoining houses, though “a queer, dirty, clumsy man, a country wit, took a great deal of pains to disturb the congregation.” At Stockton, in the midst of his service in the market-place, the press-gang came and seized his travelling companions, Joseph Jones and William Alwood, but afterwards released them, the mob, however, having, in the meanwhile, broken the lieutenant’s head and so stoned both him and his men, that, to save themselves from further injury, they ignominiously decamped. At Hutton-Rudby, he found that they had just built a preaching house. At Stokesley, he preached on the green; at Guisborough, in a meadow; at Robinhood’s Bay, on the quay; and at Scarborough, in the street. Thence, he went to York, Pocklington, and Hull. He writes: “I had a fine congregation at Hull. For once, the rich have the gospel preached.” On his way back to York, he preached in Mr. Hilton’s yard, at Beverley. At Tadcaster, distant thunder did not lessen the number of his congregation. At Otley, he preached to an immense multitude at the foot of a high mountain. At Guiseley, he was entertained at Mr. Marshal’s, “the Capua of Yorkshire.” At Keighley, he found “a loving, earnest, well established people.” He then proceeded to Colne, Heptonstall, and Haworth. At the last mentioned place, Mr. Milner read prayers, and Wesley preached, standing on a scaffold close to the church, and the congregation standing in the churchyard. After the service, “the communicants alone filled the church.” At a place near Huddersfield, he preached to “the wildest congregation he had seen in Yorkshire;” at Halifax, “the preaching house was like an oven”; at Bradford, he preached, not in the house, but at its door, “as it could not contain one half of the congregation”; at Morley, “a flame had suddenly broken out, where it was least of all expected, and was spreading wider and wider”; and at Birstal, the congregation nearly filled a field. At Sheffield, he was “desired to visit Mr. Dodge, curate of the new church, and found him on the brink of eternity, rejoicing in God his Saviour.” At Rotherham, he conversed with eleven persons who believed themselves to be entirely sanctified. At Gainsborough, he preached to “a rude, wild multitude, in Sir Nevil Hickman’s great hall,” and was thanked by Sir Nevil for his sermon. At North Scarle, he had a great multitude to hear him; but, though he “spoke as plainly as he could, on the first principles of religion, many seemed to understand him no more than if he was talking Greek.”
On Sunday, August 5, he reached Everton, “faint and weary”; attended the morning and afternoon services in Mr. Berridge’s church, where several “cried out aloud, not from sorrow or fear, but love and joy.” At night, he preached in Mr. Hicks’s church, at Wrestlingworth, and “two or three fell to the ground, and were extremely convulsed; while one or two were filled with strong consolation.” He “talked with Ann Thorn, and two others, who had been several times in trances”; and Berridge took him to Alice Miller, a girl fifteen years of age, whom he found “sitting on a stool, and leaning against a wall, with her eyes open and fixed upward.” He made a motion as if about to strike her, but her eyes remained unmoved. Tears stole down her cheeks; her face was stamped with reverence and love; her lips were open, but not a word was uttered. In about half an hour, her countenance changed into the form of fear, pity, and distress; she burst into a flood of tears, and cried, “They will all be damned!” In five minutes, her smiles returned; this was followed by an exhibition of distress, when she again exclaimed, “They will go to hell! Cry aloud! Spare not!” After remaining in this state for some hours, “her senses returned.” Wesley asked, “Where have you been?” She answered, “With my Saviour.” “Why did you cry?” “Not for myself, but for the world; for I saw they were on the brink of hell.” This is a strange story, which Wesley leaves, as he leaves many more, without comment. On August 7, he got back to London.
Before proceeding farther, the following extract from a letter, which Berridge wrote to Wesley three weeks before his visit, will not be out of place, and will furnish the reader with “an idea of the wonderful work and scenes witnessed at Everton, and in the surrounding country.”
“_July 16, 1759._
“DEAR SIR,—Mr. Hicks and myself have been preaching in the fields for this month past, and the power of the Lord is wonderfully present with the word. Near twenty towns have received the gospel in a greater or less degree; and we continually receive fresh invitations, whenever we go out. The word is everywhere like a hammer, breaking the rock in pieces. People fall down, cry out most bitterly, and struggle so vehemently, that five or six men can scarce hold them. It is wonderful to see how the fear of the Lord falls even upon unawakened sinners. When we enter a new village, the people stare, and laugh, and rail abundantly; but when we have preached night and morning, and they have heard the outcries of wounded sinners, they seem as much alarmed as if the French were at their doors. As soon as three or four receive convictions in a village, they are desired to meet together two or three nights in a week, which they readily comply with. At first, they only sing; afterwards they join reading and prayer to singing; and the presence of the Lord is greatly with them. Let me mention two instances. At Orwell, ten people were broken down in one night, only by hearing a few people sing hymns. At Grandchester, a mile from Cambridge, seventeen people were seized with strong convictions last week, only by hearing hymns sung. When societies get a little strength and courage, they begin to read and pray, and then the Lord magnifies His love as well as power amongst them by releasing souls out of bondage.
“Of late, there has been a wonderful outpouring of the spirit of love among believers; insomuch, that they have fainted under it, fallen down, and lain upon the ground, as dead, for some hours; their bodies being so weakened by these transports of joy, that they have not been able to endure hard labour for days afterwards.
“I would not have you publish the account of A. T. It might only prejudice people against the Lord’s work in this place. I find our friends in town begin to be in great pain about the work. They are very slow of heart to believe what they do not see with their own eyes. Give my love to Mr. Grimshaw, and John Nelson; and believe me your affectionate servant for Christ’s sake,
“JOHN BERRIDGE.”[360]
The work and its accompaniments at Everton created anxiety in London. No wonder. Twenty years previously, the same sort of scenes had been witnessed at Bristol, Kingswood, and Newcastle. Thoughtful and even religious people disliked them; but what then? Were they altogether fanatical, the work of the devil, and intended to injure the work of God? Many thought so; but Wesley did not. After narrating what he saw at Everton, he writes: “I have generally observed more or less of these outward symptoms to attend the beginning of a general work of God; so it was in New England, Scotland, Holland, Ireland, and many parts of England; but, after a time, they gradually decrease, and the work goes on more quietly and silently. Those whom it pleases God to employ in His work ought to be quite passive in this respect; they should choose nothing, but leave entirely to Him all the circumstances of His own work.”
On the 8th of August, the day after his arrival in London, Wesley opened the annual conference of his preachers, which lasted the next three days. Almost the whole time was spent “in examining whether the spirit and lives of the preachers were suitable to their profession.” The conference throughout was marked with great unanimity and love.
Three weeks were spent in London and its neighbourhood; and then Wesley set out for Norwich, taking Everton on his way. He again preached in the church of his friend Berridge. He writes: “I went to the church unusually heavy, and hardly expecting to do any good. I preached on these words in the second lesson, ‘We know that we are of God.’ One sunk down, and another, and another. Some cried aloud in agony of prayer. I would willingly have spent some time in prayer with them; but my voice failed, so that I was obliged to conclude the service, leaving many in the church, crying and praying, but unable either to walk or stand.”
Arriving at Norwich, Wesley found that, in taking Wheatley’s chapel and congregation, he had not taken an unmixed comfort. He says: “August 30—I preached to a large, rude, noisy congregation. I took knowledge what manner of teachers they had been accustomed to, and determined to mend them or end them. Accordingly, the next evening, after sermon, I reminded them of two things: the one, that it was not decent to begin talking aloud as soon as service was ended, and hurrying to and fro, as in a bear garden; the other, that it was a bad custom to gather into knots just after sermon, and turn a place of worship into a coffee house. I, therefore, desired that none would talk under that roof, but go quietly and silently away. And on Sunday, September 2, I had the pleasure to observe, that all went as quietly away, as if they had been accustomed to it for many years.”
So far, so good. Having mended the bad manners of the Norwich congregation, his next effort was to mend the society. He found, that there were about five hundred members; but a hundred and fifty of those did not even pretend to meet in class at all; and the rest were very far from being what they ought to be. “I told them,” says he, “in plain terms, that they were the most ignorant, self conceited, self willed, fickle, untractable, disorderly, disjointed society, that I knew in the three kingdoms. And God applied it to their hearts; so that many were profited; but I do not find that one was offended.” Such was Wesley’s method of mending or ending James Wheatley’s “lambs” at Norwich.
Having spent eleven days at Norwich, Wesley returned to London, preaching at Colchester on his way, where, for the first time, since he was six years old, he had a sleepless night. “But,” he writes, “it is all one: God is able to give strength, either with sleep or without it. I rose at my usual time, and preached at five, without any faintness or drowsiness.”
At the commencement of his ministry, Wesley and his Oxford friends seemed ostracised. All the clergy shunned them, and not a few railed against, and censured them. Now it began to be otherwise: Venn, Romaine, Madan, Jones, Walker, Milner, Grimshaw, Berridge, Hicks, and others were zealously and successfully preaching their grand old doctrine of justification by faith _only_; and every year added to the number of their clerical adherents. During his northern journey, in 1759, Wesley formed a friendship with two who deserve a notice.
One of them was the Rev. Thomas Goodday, of Sunderland, in whose church, at Monkwearmouth, Wesley preached more than once in after years. The following extract from one of Mr. Goodday’s letters to Wesley will afford a glimpse of his religious character.[361]
“MONKWEARMOUTH, _July 13, 1759_.
“REVEREND AND DEAR SIR,—Your kind letter reached me at a critical hour; and another favour, of the same nature, would be as refreshing to my soul as the dew of heaven to the parched glebe. Your seasonable hints are judicious and pertinent, and I shall endeavour to make them the rule of my future conduct. Your harmless, inoffensive, and good natured men are a very dangerous set of creatures; and such were most of my former associates. I have had enough to do also with the _prudent_ children of this generation. They are perpetually pestering my ears with the _rational scheme_, and would fain persuade me, that it can in no way conduce to the glory of God, nor my own interest, to deviate, in the least, from the old beaten track I have been so long accustomed to, both in thinking, preaching, and praying. They are often whispering, ‘The world will call you a fool.’ O when will it once be, that, in the cause of God, I can set my face as a flint against those two busy demons, false shame, and the fear of man? I would be a Christian; but I know I am a fool, a babe, a mere novice in the faith; and yet, if another should tell me so, I have so much of the old tinder left in me, as to take fire immediately. Whenever my wife and myself put up our petitions to the God of all mercy, it is our bounden duty never to leave out this,—that He would be pleased to preserve the life of Mr. John Wesley long, as a blessing to the nation.
“I am, dear sir, your sincere and affectionate brother,
“THOMAS GOODDAY.”[362]
Another clergyman, between whom and Wesley a friendship sprung up, was the Rev. Richard Conyers, LL.D., at this time thirty-four years of age, and vicar of Helmsley, where he diligently devoted himself to the work of improving the morals of his extensive parish. He instituted female schools, and began himself to instruct young men in arithmetic and the lower branches of the mathematics. He habituated the people to an attendance upon Divine service, in which they had been exceedingly remiss; and, for this purpose, introduced singing, which he encouraged by personal example. He adopted the practice of catechizing children and young people in the church; and, though his parish was ten miles wide, he left no part of it neglected, but regularly visited the most indigent and illiterate. He assembled, at his own house, companies of young men for prayer and religious improvement; and yet, all the while, he was not converted, and was in the greatest danger of becoming a Socinian. All men praised him, but he was not happy. To obtain peace of conscience, he fasted more frequently than had been his wont, and sometimes, at the altar in his church, signed, with his own blood, solemn covenants to devote himself to the service of his Maker, and to render himself acceptable to heaven by his sanctity. Still he was unhappy; but, at length, by reading the Scriptures, he was led to see the gospel plan of salvation, and, on Christmas day, 1758, trusted in Christ, and found peace. “I went up stairs and down again,” said he, “backwards and forwards in my room, clapping my hands for joy, and crying, ‘I have found Him; I have found Him, whom my soul loveth’; and, for a little time, whether in the body or out of it, I could hardly tell.” On the ensuing sabbath, Mr. Conyers publicly related his conversion in his parish church; and, at once, began to preach, “By grace are ye saved, through faith, not of works, lest any man should boast.” His preaching was now attended with marvellous success. The converts in the hamlets, in his widely extended parish, he formed into classes, men by themselves, women by themselves; and these into married and unmarried classes. At appointed times, he met them for spiritual communion; and, every day, at eleven o’clock, preached in some part of his parish. He erected a room, adjoining the parsonage, which was open every morning and evening for all who thought proper to attend his domestic worship; and the greater part of his personal and parochial income was devoted to the relief of poverty.
Such was good Dr. Conyers. Six months after his conversion, he wrote to Wesley as follows.
“HELMSLEY, _July 9, 1759_.
“REVEREND SIR,—I received your obliging letter yesterday, and sincerely thank you for your affectionate prayers to God for me. He has been pleased, I believe, to make you a noble instrument of promoting His glory; and great, I doubt not, will be your reward in heaven. May He still enable you to spread through all your societies the gospel of the blessed Jesus! May they all, like their great Master, be meek and lowly, humble, inoffensive; laying aside all warm disputations, which gender strife; all railings, bitterness, and false accusations! O sir, these rank weeds grow very fast, even in religious hearts. Let us watch and be sober. The fruits of God’s blessed Spirit will grow apace in a heart thus guarded by watchfulness and prayer. Humility and love, peace and joy, will be its constant visitants; it will be preserved from the power of sin, from the author of sin, from the consequences of sin; and will be carried on, under the protection of an almighty arm, step by step, through all difficulties and dangers, into the possession of an eternal life.
“I am, dear sir, your affectionate friend and fellow servant,
“RICHARD CONYERS.”[363]
A third clergyman, with whom Wesley commenced a correspondence in 1759, must be mentioned. The Hon. and Rev. Walter Shirley was a first cousin of the Countess of Huntingdon, in whose London mansion he became acquainted with the Methodistic leaders of the day. He was converted by the ministry of Venn, and held a Church living in Ireland. He was now thirty-three years old; his preaching was richly evangelical; and to convert sinners was the one object of his life. Cope, bishop of Clonfert, warned him to “lay aside his exceptionable doctrines,” and threatened to “proceed in the most effectual manner to suppress them.” “Menaces, my lord,” said Shirley, “between gentlemen, are illiberal; but when they cannot be put into execution, they are contemptible.” The Archbishop of Tuam knew how to respect him, and, more than once, treated the charges brought against him with well merited contempt. On one occasion, the curate of Loughrea came with an air of great importance, and with a certainty of ruining the intractable Methodist. “Oh, your grace,” exclaimed this weak headed curate, “I have such a circumstance to communicate to you, one that will astonish you!” “Indeed,” replied the archbishop, “what can it be?” “Why, my lord,” rejoined the curate with a solemn air, “Mr. Shirley wears white stockings.”[364] “Very anti-clerical, and very dreadful,” responded the waggish prelate: “does Mr. Shirley wear them over his boots?” “No, your grace.” “Well, sir,” added the archbishop, “the first time you find him with his stockings over his boots, pray inform me, and I shall deal with him accordingly.”[365]
The following is an extract from Shirley’s letter to Wesley in 1759.
“LOUGHREA, _August 21, 1759_.
“REVEREND AND DEAR SIR,—Your obliging and truly Christian letter was welcome to my soul, ten thousand, thousand times; and brought a satisfaction, which could only be exceeded by the pleasure of a personal conversation with you. I am not without hope, that, when you shall think fit to visit those blessed seminaries of vital religion in this kingdom, of your own planting, you will take an opportunity of honouring this place, and more particularly my house, with the presence of one, whose labours in the gospel of my dear Master are so eminent. I highly honour and love Mr. Berridge, and Mr. Grimshaw. May God bless them with increasing success! And may He endue me with the same noble courage! What will you say, dear sir? Will you not give up every favourable opinion of so unworthy a minister as I am, when I inform you, that, though there are many under my charge, who confess they have been awakened, yet I dare not boast of any confirmed converts, through my preaching and ministry. I am now about to leave them for two or three months; being in a very bad state of health, and advised to go to Bath. Let me entreat your earnest prayers.
“I am your affectionate brother,
“WALTER SHIRLEY.”[366]
We must now come back to Wesley. On his return to London from Norwich, on September 14, he gave orders for the immediate repairing of West Street chapel, the main timbers of which were actually rotten. He rode to Canterbury, where his congregation included “two hundred soldiers, and a whole row of officers.” At Dover, he found a new chapel just finished, and opened it.
Returning to London, he preached, on September 23, to a vast congregation in Moorfields, and wrote: “Who can say the time for field preaching is over, while—(1) greater numbers than ever attend; (2) the converting, as well as convincing, power of God is eminently present with them?”
He then set out for Bristol. At Basingstoke, he preached “to a people slow of heart and dull of understanding.” He opened a new chapel at Whitchurch; and pronounced another at Salisbury “the most complete in England.” Here large numbers of the Hampshire militia attended preaching; but, he says, “it was as music to a horse; such brutish behaviour have I seldom seen.” At Bristol, he employed his leisure time in finishing the fourth volume of his sermons, “probably,” says he, “the last which I shall publish.” He walked to Knowle, a mile from Bristol, to see the French prisoners, eleven hundred of whom were lying on beds of straw, covered with thin rags, and in danger of dying. He went back, and the same night preached on, “Thou shalt not oppress a stranger; for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt”; he made a collection of £24; and, out of this, bought some dozens of stockings, shirts, waistcoats, and breeches for the poor captives. Wesley was not content with this; but wrote the following letter, which was published in _Lloyd’s Evening Post_, of October 26.
“BRISTOL, _October 20, 1759_.
“SIR,—Since I came to Bristol, I heard many terrible accounts concerning the French prisoners at Knowle: as, ‘That they were so wedged together, that they had no room to breathe; that the stench of the rooms where they lodged was intolerable; that their food was only fit for dogs; that their meat was carrion, their bread rotten and unwholesome; and that, in consequence of this inhuman treatment, they died in shoals.’
“Desiring to know the truth, I went to Knowle, and was showed all the apartments there. But how was I disappointed? 1. I found they had large and convenient space to walk in, if they chose it, all the day. 2. There was no stench in any apartment I was in, either below or above. They were all sweeter and cleaner than any prison I have seen either in England or elsewhere. 3. Being permitted to go into the larder, I observed the meat hanging up, two large quarters of beef. It was fresh and fat, and I verily think as good as ever I desire to eat. 4. A large quantity of bread lay on one side. A gentleman took up and cut one of the loaves. It was made of good flour, was well baked, and perfectly well tasted. 5. Going thence to the hospital, I found that, even in this sickly season, there are not thirty persons dangerously ill, out of twelve or thirteen hundred. 6. This hospital was sweeter and cleaner throughout, than any hospital I ever saw in London. I think it my duty to declare these things, for clearing the innocent, and the honour of the English nation.
“Yet one thing I observed with concern. A great part of these poor men are almost naked: and winter is now coming upon them in a cold prison, and a colder climate than most of them have been accustomed to. But will not the humanity and generosity of the gentlemen of Bristol prevent or relieve this distress? Did they not make a noble precedent during the late war? And surely they are not weary of well doing. Tuesday night, we did a little according to our power; but I shall rejoice, if this be forgotten through the abundance administered by their liberality, in a manner which they judge most proper. Will it not be, both for the honour of the city and country, for the credit of our religion, and for the glory of God, who knows how to return it sevenfold into their bosom?
“I am your humble servant,
“JOHN WESLEY.”
Wesley’s effort was not without results: “Presently after, the corporation of Bristol sent a large quantity of mattresses and blankets; and it was not long before contributions were set on foot in London, and in various parts of the kingdom,” for the selfsame object as that for which Wesley preached his impromptu sermon, and wrote his letter.
On October 26, he returned to London, where he remained until November 22, when he again set out for Everton, at which place he had to officiate for Berridge, who had gone to preach before the university at Cambridge.
On his way, Wesley stopped at Bedford, and writes: “We had a pretty large congregation; but the stench from the swine under the room was scarce supportable. Was ever a preaching place over a hogstye before? Surely they love the gospel, who come to hear it in such a place.” This garret to a pigstye was an upper room, used for spinning, in a yard leading from the High Street. The room was bad enough, the stye was worse, and Alderman Parker’s nephew was worst of all; for the young fellow always took care to arrange that the feeding of the pigs and the din consequent thereon, should be contemporaneous with his uncle’s preaching. At length, however, the spinning room and the swinish residence underneath were taken down; a small chapel was erected on the site; and an adjoining workhouse was converted into the home of itinerant Methodist preachers.[367]
At Everton, Wesley observed a remarkable difference, in the manner of the work, since his previous visit. “None now were in trances, none cried out, none fell down or were convulsed; only some trembled exceedingly, a low murmur was heard, and many were refreshed.” He continues: “the danger _was_, to regard such extraordinary circumstances too much, as if they were essential to the inward work. Perhaps the danger _is_, to regard them too little; to condemn them altogether; to imagine they had nothing of God in them, and were an hindrance to His work. Whereas the truth is: (1) God suddenly and strongly convinced many, that they were lost sinners; the natural consequences whereof were sudden outcries and strong bodily convulsions. (2) To strengthen and encourage them that believed, and to make His work more apparent, He favoured several of them with Divine dreams, others with trances and visions. (3) In some of these instances, after a time, nature mixed with grace. (4) Satan likewise mimicked this work of God, in order to discredit the whole work; and yet, it is not wise to give up this part, any more than to give up the whole. At first, it was, doubtless, wholly from God. It is partly so at this day; and He will enable us to discern how far, in every case, the work is pure, and where it mixes or degenerates. The shadow is no disparagement of the substance, nor the counterfeit of the real diamond.”
Wesley returned to London on November 28; and on December 9, “for the first time, held a lovefeast for the whole society.” Hitherto, none had been admitted to Methodist lovefeasts except the members of the bands, that is, persons who were _justified_; now the members of the classes, that is, persons who were _penitent_, were allowed to join in the same privilege of Christian fellowship, and to evince brotherly affection by taking together “a little plain cake and water.”
December 12, he spent part of the afternoon in the British Museum, recently instituted. On the 14th, he was at, what he calls, “a Christian wedding, two or three relatives and five clergymen” forming the company. On the 19th, he read over a chancery bill, in a suit to recover £10, which filled a hundred and ten sheets of paper. He desired the plaintiff and defendant to meet him, and settled the matter by arbitration. On the 23rd, he opened the new chapel at Colchester, which he describes as “twelve square,” and as “the best building, of the size, for the voice, that he knew in England.” The end of the year he spent at Norwich, where he found the society “fewer in number, but of a teachable spirit, willing to be advised, and even reproved.”
We have tracked the steps of Wesley during the year 1759. Before closing the chapter, two or three other matters must be noticed.
One was a savage onslaught, made upon Methodism, by the Rev. John Downes, rector of St. Michael, Wood Street, and lecturer of St. Mary-le-bow, London. This was a large pamphlet entitled, “Methodism Examined: being the substance of four discourses from Acts xx. 28-30.” The reader must be troubled with a few selections from this malignant _morceau_, especially as Wesley condescended to notice it.
The founders of Methodism, in 1734, were “two bold, though beardless divines, so young, that they might rather be called wolflings than wolves, novices in divinity, and lifted up with spiritual pride. They were ambitious of being accounted ministers of greater eminence and authority than either bishops or archbishops; missionaries immediately delegated by heaven, to correct the clergy in the true nature of Christianity, and to caution the laity not to venture their souls in any such unhallowed hands as refused to be initiated into all the mysteries of Methodism. Their Journals were ostentatious trash, filled with jargon, that passed for inspiration. Their followers seem to look upon every place upon which they tread, as holy ground; they are comforted and refreshed with their very shadows passing over them; and they follow in crowds, wherever it is noised about, that they are to vociferate.”
“The Methodists deny the necessity of good works; they make their boast, that they are the only persons who know the truth as it is in Jesus Christ, and that all others are unenlightened, and uninformed, interpreting the Scriptures according to the letter which killeth, but ignorant of the Spirit which giveth life. They endeavour to support their weak and wild notions by the abuse and perversion of Scripture, and talk as proudly as the Donatists of their being the only true preachers of gospel truth. They insult the Established Church, despise dominions, speak evil of dignities, and trample all rule and authority beneath their feet. Their doctrines or notions coincide with many of the oldest and rankest heresies, that ever defiled the purity and disturbed the peace of the Christian church; particularly those of the Simonians, the Gnostics, the Valentinians, the Donatists, the predestinarians, the Montanists, and the antinomians. They treat Christianity as a wild, enthusiastical scheme, which will bear no examination; they will have it, that we may be saved by faith in Christ, without any other requisite on our part; they consider man as a mere machine, unable to do anything towards his own salvation; they represent faith as a supernatural principle, altogether precluding the judgment and understanding, and discerned by internal signs and operations; and they build all their notions upon Scripture authority, putting sacred texts to the torture, and racking them till they speak to their purpose. The whole strength of their cause lies in the perversion of the Scriptures, and the abuse of the clergy. By the most peevish and spiteful invectives, the most rude and rancorous revilings, the most invidious calumnies, they strive to poison the minds of the people against their true and rightful pastors.”
Such are extracts from what Mr. Downes designates “the full portrait of that frightful monster called Methodism.” The following is a sort of summing up.
“These new gospel preachers are close friends to the Church of Rome, by harmonizing or agreeing with her in almost everything except the doctrine of merit; they are no less kind to the cause of infidelity, by making the Christian religion a light and airy phantom, which one single breath of the most illiterate freethinker can easily demolish; they cut up Christianity by the roots, by insinuating that a good life is not necessary to justification; they are enemies, not only to the Christian, but to every religion whatsoever, in which reason or common sense hath any share, by labouring to subvert the whole system of morality, and by erecting a proud and enthusiastic faith upon the ruins of practical holiness and virtue.”
Poor Mr. Downes—fiery, furious, and false, but not foolish—died soon after this; and his widow published, by subscription, in 1761, two volumes of his sermons, to illustrate and confirm his anti-Methodistic principles, the list of subscribers including the Archbishop of Canterbury, several bishops, and, marvellously enough, two of Wesley’s old friends at Manchester, the Rev. John Clayton, and Dr. Byrom. The sermons are marked by the same bitterness as the pamphlet. Methodist preachers are designated “canting zealots,” and Methodists themselves are “crazy converts.” They are “dirty dabblers,” “conveying to the world a foul torrent of falsehood and infamy, through the pure channel of the holy Scriptures.” “From every pulpit, into which the new style preachers can by any means thrust their heads, they bellow vile and clamorous reflections.” “Methodism is the greatest tax upon ignorance and superstition, that this kingdom perhaps ever knew.” Its preachers “choose rather to talk than to work for their bread, to get their living rather by their lungs than by their labour.” “They turn religion into riot, prayer into strife, themselves into wolves, and the temple of the Lord into a den of devils.”
But enough of the trenchant railings of the Rev. Mr. Downes,—a man possessed of talents that ought to have been devoted to a better cause. Let us see how Wesley dealt with him, in his letter, dated November 17, 1759. He correctly accuses him of uttering “many senseless, shameless falsehoods,” but, as an excuse for him, adds: “I hope you know nothing about the Methodists, no more than I do about the Cham of Tartary; that you are ignorant of the whole affair, and are so bold, only because you are blind. Bold enough! Throughout your whole tract, you speak _satis pro imperio_,—as authoritatively as if you were, not an archbishop only, but apostolic vicar also; as if you had the full papal power in your hands, and fire and fagot at your beck! And blind enough; so that you blunder on, through thick and thin, bespattering all that come in your way, according to the old laudable maxim, ‘Throw dirt enough, and some will stick.’” Wesley tells him that, if he can prove any one of the charges he has advanced against him, he may call him not only a wolfling or a wolf, but an otter, if he pleases. He then, in pungent, pointed sentences, replies to his reviler’s accusations, and concludes thus.
“If you fall upon people that meddle not with you, without either fear or wit, you may possibly find, that they have a little more to say for themselves than you were aware of. I ‘follow peace with all men’; but if a man set upon me without either rhyme or reason, I think it my duty to defend myself, so far as truth and justice permit. Yet still I am (if a poor enthusiast may not be so bold as to style himself your brother),
“Reverend sir, your servant for Christ’s sake,
“JOHN WESLEY.”[368]
Before proceeding to notice Wesley’s publications, in 1759, it may be interjected that, in the month of November in this year, “faithful Sam Francks,” as Charles Wesley calls him,[369] became Wesley’s book steward,[370] an office which he continued to hold till 1773, when, in a fit of despair, he hung himself, in the old Foundery; and, strange to say, a fortnight afterwards, Matthews, the Foundery schoolmaster, copied his mad example.[371]
1. “An Extract of the Rev. Mr. John Wesley’s Journal, from November 2, 1751, to October 28, 1754.” 12mo, 90 pages.
2. “A short Exposition of the Ten Commandments. Extracted from Bishop Hopkins.” 12mo, 96 pages.
3. “Advices with respect to Health. Extracted from a late Author.” 12mo, 218 pages.
The “late author” was Dr. Tissot. Wesley, in his preface pronounces the opinion that Tissot’s work was “one of the most useful books of the kind that had appeared in the present century. His descriptions of diseases were admirable; his medicines few, simple, cheap, and safe.” He deprecates, however, “his violent fondness for bleeding, his love of glysters, his uncleanly ointment for the itch, and his vehement recommendation of the Peruvian bark, as the only infallible remedy either for mortifications or intermittent fevers.” In reference to the bark, he says, that he himself “took some pounds of it when he was young, for a common tertian ague,” but without any good effect, and that he “was cured unawares by drinking largely of lemonade.”
Wesley appends to Tissot’s advices a number of his own prescriptions, in the form of notes, some of which are curious enough, as that “a poultice of boiled nettles” will cure the pleurisy, and the quinsy; that erysipelas in the head or face will be remedied by applying “warm treacle to the soles of the feet”; and that “electrifying cures all sorts of sprains”; but, being on such subjects profoundly ignorant, we forbear from further extracts.
4. “Thoughts on Christian Perfection.” 12mo, 30 pages. This, at the time, was an important publication. The doctrine of Christian perfection was obtaining great attention, and the sentiments of the Methodists respecting it were not harmonious. At the conference of 1758, it had been earnestly considered; and again at the conference of 1759. Wesley saw that there was a danger of a diversity of opinions insensibly stealing in among the Methodists and their preachers; and hence the publication of his tract;—not to prove the doctrine, nor to answer the objections against it; but simply to declare his own views concerning it. He affirms that, on this subject, his thoughts are just the same as he had entertained for above twenty years. His sentiments had been controverted, and lampooned, but they were not altered. All sorts of constructions had been put upon his doctrine, but very rarely the right one. “What,” he asks, “is Christian perfection?” Answer—“The loving God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. This implies that no wrong temper remains in the soul; and that all the thoughts, words, and actions are governed by pure love.”
The controversy, just at present, was chiefly on the point whether a man, who had attained Christian perfection, was still liable to ignorance and mistake, and needed Christ in His priestly office. Wesley’s opinion was the affirmative of this; but some of his followers were evidently disposed to hold the negative, and thereby to set the doctrine of perfection far too high. Some talked about their attainments too much; some thought it best not to talk at all: Wesley, advised those who had obtained the blessing to speak of it to their fellow Christians, but not to the unconverted; and he requested his preachers to prevent such from being unjustly or unkindly treated by their religious associates who were less advanced in grace. He specifies the proofs whereby it may be known whether an entirely sanctified man’s profession is correct. Taking pleasant in preference to unpleasant, though equally wholesome, food; smelling a flower, eating a bunch of grapes, marriage, attention to worldly business, were all of them things perfectly compatible with Christian perfection.
The mentioning of such matters may seem somewhat frivolous; but, in reality, it is not so. These were things seriously discussed by earnest, if not well informed, Methodists in 1759; and these and kindred questions agitated the Methodist societies for some years afterwards.
Some were disposed to doubt the high profession of their sanctified brethren, because they did nothing except what was done by “common believers”; others because they felt “no power in their words and prayers”; and others, because, notwithstanding their profession, they failed to “come up to their idea of a perfect Christian.” These were objections which Wesley had to meet. His task was delicate and difficult; but he lays it down, that no one ought to believe that he is fully sanctified, till he has “the testimony of the Spirit, witnessing his entire sanctification, as clearly as his justification”; and that all ought to wait for this great change, “not in careless indifference, or indolent inactivity; but in vigorous, universal obedience, in a zealous keeping of all the commandments, in watchfulness and painfulness, in denying ourselves, and taking up our cross daily; as well as in earnest prayer and fasting, and a close attendance on all the ordinances of God.” He adds: “If any man dream of attaining it any other way, yea, or of keeping it when it is attained, he deceiveth his own soul. It is true, we receive it by simple faith; but God does not, will not, give that faith, unless we seek it with all diligence, in the way which He hath ordained.”[372]
From the above brief notices, the reader will form an idea of the excitement created in the Methodist societies, in 1759, by the doctrine of Christian perfection. The subject will have to be repeatedly introduced in succeeding years.
1760.
[Sidenote: 1760 Age 57]
Wesley began the year 1760 at Norwich, by holding a service at four o’clock in the morning. On January 7, he returned to London, and preached in West Street chapel, now enlarged and thoroughly repaired.
Wesley was a philanthropist; hence the following letter, published in _Lloyd’s Evening Post_, of February 22, 1760.
“WINDMILL HILL, _February 18, 1760_.
“SIR,—On Sunday, December 16 last, I received a £20 bank bill, from an anonymous correspondent, who desired me to lay it out, in the manner I judged best, for the use of poor prisoners. I immediately employed some in whom I could confide, to inquire into the circumstances of those confined in Whitechapel and New prison. I knew the former to have very little allowance, even of bread, and the latter none at all. Upon inquiry, they found one poor woman in Whitechapel prison, very big with child, and destitute of all things. At the same time, I casually heard of a poor man, who had been confined for nine months in the Poultry Compter, while his wife and three children (whom he before maintained by his labour) were almost perishing through want. Not long after, another poor woman, who had been diligent in helping others, was herself thrown into Whitechapel prison. The expense of discharging these three, and giving them a few necessaries, amounted to £10 10_s._ One pound and fourteen shillings I expended in stockings and other clothing, which was given to those prisoners who were in the most pressing want. The remainder, £7 16_s._ was laid out in bread, which was warily distributed thrice a week. I am, therefore, assured that the whole of this sum was laid out in real charity. And how much more noble a satisfaction must result from this, to the generous benefactor, than he could receive from an embroidered suit of clothes, or a piece of plate, made in the newest fashion! Men of reason, judge!
“I am, sir, your humble servant,
“JOHN WESLEY.”
On the 3rd of March, Wesley left London, on a tour which occupied the next six months.
At Towcester, he found one converted person; and at Birmingham, a society of a little more than fifty. At Wednesbury, he preached in the new chapel, whose congregation, either in number or seriousness, had few superiors. In fact, the five o’clock morning congregation exceeded that of the Foundery in London. Here, also, he found two females professing to have received the blessing of entire sanctification, and prayed, “May God increase the number a thousand fold!” At Burslem, “a scattered town, inhabited almost entirely by potters,” he preached thrice. Some of his congregation “seemed quite innocent of thought; five or six laughed and talked nearly all the time; and one threw a clod of earth, which struck his head, but which neither disturbed him nor his congregation.” At Congleton, he preached from a scaffold, fixed in the window of the chapel, to a crowd assembled in an adjoining meadow. In making his way from Stockport to Leeds, his horse was “embogged,” on the top of a high mountain; he was thrown into the morass; and then had a walk which, “for steepness, and bogs, and big stones intermixed,” was such as even he had not before encountered.
From Leeds, Wesley proceeded to Liverpool, where he had a lengthened interview with John Newton. “His case,” says he, “is very peculiar. Our Church requires that clergymen should be men of learning, and, to this end, have a university education. But how many have a university education, and yet no learning at all! Yet these men are ordained! Meantime, one of eminent learning, as well as unblamable behaviour, cannot be ordained, _because he was_ not at the university! What a mere farce is this! Who would believe that any Christian bishop would stoop to so poor an evasion!”
At this period, there existed between Newton and Wesley the sincerest friendship. Hence the following letter, written a few months after.
“_September 9, 1760._
“REVEREND AND DEAR SIR,—I have taken a double journey since I saw you, to London and to Yorkshire. I had a very agreeable progress, found a happy revival in several places, and made many valuable acquaintance,
## particularly among the clergy. It gave me much pleasure to see the
same work promoted by very different instruments; all contentions laid aside; and the only point of dispute, amidst some variety of sentiments, seeming to be this, who should labour most to recommend and to adorn the gospel.
“It was with some regret, I heard you were so near as at Parkgate, without coming over to us at Liverpool. Had I known it in time, I would gladly have met you there, but you were gone. Our next pleasure will be to hear from yourself of your welfare. I inquired several times after Mr. Charles Wesley, when in London, but he was in the country, and out of the reach of a stranger’s importunity; though, had he been in health, I believe the distance would not have secured him from a visit. I should be glad to hear the Lord has restored him to his former strength and usefulness.
“I hope, dear sir, you will still allow me a place in your friendship, correspondence, and prayers; and believe me to be your obliged and affectionate servant in our dear Lord,
“JOHN NEWTON.”[373]
On March 30, Wesley embarked for Ireland, and, on April 6, Easter Sunday, introduced, at Dublin, the English custom of beginning religious service at four o’clock in the morning. The Dublin society was larger now than it had been for several years, consisting of more than five hundred members.
After three weeks’ labour in Dublin, he started for the provinces. At Terryhugan, he “spent a comfortable night in the prophet’s chamber, nine feet long, seven broad, and six high, the ceiling, floor, and walls all made of clay.” At Moira, his pulpit was a tombstone near the church. At Lisburn, the people were “all ear.” Newtown had usually the largest Methodist congregation in Ulster. At Belfast, he preached in the market-place “to a people who cared for none of those things.”
On the 5th of May, he came to Carrickfergus. Some months before, John Smith, one of Wesley’s itinerants, was preaching in an inland town, in the north of Ireland, when he made a sudden pause, and then exclaimed, “Ah! the French have just landed at Carrickfergus!” The mayor heard this, and, sending for the preacher, reprimanded him for exciting a needless alarm and disturbing the public tranquillity. Strangely enough, however, Smith’s utterance was correct; and, in a few hours, an express arrived with the intelligence, that Thurot had landed a thousand soldiers, commanded by General Cavignac, and that they had taken possession of the town.[374] Thurot had been tossed about by storms, till he and all his men were almost famished, having only an ounce of bread per man daily. Their object in landing was chiefly to obtain provisions; but fighting followed; the garrison was conquered; and articles of capitulation were signed. Five days afterwards, Thurot set sail again, and was met by three English frigates. A battle ensued (February 28), and three hundred of the enemy were killed and wounded, Thurot himself being shot through the heart.[375]
General Cavignac was at Carrickfergus at the time of Wesley’s visit, and was resident in the house of Mr. Cobham, who also invited Wesley to be his guest. The following letter, to Mr. Blackwell, refers to these events.
“CARRICKFERGUS, _May 7, 1760_.
“DEAR SIR,—I can now give you a clear and full account of the late proceedings of the French here; as I now lodge at Mr. Cobham’s, under the same roof with Monsieur Cavignac, the French lieutenant-general. When the people here saw three large ships anchor near the town, they took it for granted they were English; but, in an hour, the French began landing their men. The first party came to the north gate. Twelve soldiers, planted on the wall, fired on them as they advanced, wounded the general, and killed several. But when they had fired four rounds, having no more ammunition, they were obliged to retire. The French then entered the town, keeping a steady fire up the street, till they came near the castle. The English then fired hotly from the gates and walls, and killed their second general, who had burst open the gate, and gone in, sword in hand, with upwards of fourscore men. Having no more cartridges, the English soldiers thought it best to capitulate. They agreed to furnish, in six hours, a certain quantity of provisions, on condition that the French should not plunder. But they began immediately to serve themselves with meat and drink, and took all that they could find, chiefly from the houses where the inhabitants had run away. However, they neither hurt nor affronted man, woman, or child, nor did any mischief for mischief’s sake; though many of the inhabitants affronted them, cursed them to their face, and even took up pokers and other things to strike them.
“I have had much conversation with Monsieur Cavignac, and have found him not only a very sensible man, but thoroughly instructed even in heart religion. After one general was killed, and the other wounded, the command devolved on him. I asked him, if it was true that they had a design to burn Carrick and Belfast. He cried out, ‘_Jesu, Maria!_ we never had such a thought. To burn, to destroy, cannot enter into the head or heart of a good man.’ One would think, the French king sent these men on purpose to show what officers he has in his army. I hope there are some such in the English army; but I never found them yet.
“I am, dear sir, your affectionate servant,
“JOHN WESLEY.”
Wesley further tells us, that his host, Mr. Cobham, was sent to Belfast, to obtain the provisions for the French that had been promised, and had to leave his wife with General Cavignac, as an hostage for his return. During his absence, Thurot himself entered Mr. Cobham’s house, and stated that he had neither ate nor slept for eight and forty hours. The commodore was hospitably entertained; and, after six hours of rest, he politely thanked his Irish hostess, and went aboard his ship.
Wesley had lengthened conversations with Cavignac, not only on affairs in general, but on religion. “He seemed,” says he, “to startle at nothing; but said more than once, and with emotion, ‘Why, this is my religion; there is no true religion besides it!’”
The following is an extract from another letter to Mr. Blackwell, and, though written some days previous to the former one, refers to the same subject.
“NEWRY, _April 26, 1760_.
“DEAR SIR,—Hitherto I have had an extremely prosperous journey; and all the fields are white unto the harvest. But that the labourers are few, is not the only hindrance to the gathering it in effectually. Of these few, some are careless, some heavy and dull; scarce one of the spirit of Thomas Walsh. The nearest to it is Mr. Morgan; but his body too sinks under him, and probably will not last long.
“In a few days, I expect to be at Carrickfergus, and to hear from those on whose word I can depend, a full account of that celebrated campaign. I believe it will be of use to the whole kingdom. Probably, the government will at last awake, and be a little better prepared against the next encounter.
“I am, dear sir, your ever affectionate servant,
“JOHN WESLEY.”[376]
Leaving Carrickfergus, Wesley proceeded to Larn, where he had “a very large, as well as serious congregation.” At Garvah, he preached in the house of Mr. Burrows to a “well behaved audience of churchmen, papists, presbyterians, and Cameronians.” At Ballymena, he had “a large concourse of people.” At Coot Hill, he preached to “most of the protestants in the town.” At Belturbet, there was neither papist nor presbyterian in the place; but there were “abundance of sabbath breakers, drunkards, and common swearers.” At Sligo, “the congregation was a little disturbed, by two or three giddy officers.” At Newport, “all the protestants of the town were present, and many of the papists, notwithstanding the prohibition and bitter curses of their priests.” At Castlebar, all the gentlemen of the surrounding country were assembled to hear a trial about the plunder of a Swedish ship. “It was to be heard,” says Wesley, “in the court house, where I preached; so they met an hour sooner, and heard the sermon first.”
Having been to the extreme west of Ireland, Wesley was now returning to the east, accompanied by William Ley and James Glasbrook, two of his itinerants. On reaching Carrick upon Shannon, he had no sooner begun to preach, than a magistrate came with a mob and a drum to silence him. While the magistrate harangued the mob in the street, Wesley quietly removed his congregation into the garden behind the house. William Ley was standing at the door. The magistrate, armed with a halbert and a sword, ran at him, and, striking him, broke his halbert upon William’s wrist. The mobmaster pushed along the passage to the other door, but found James Glasbrook holding it so firmly on the outer side, that egress into the garden was impossible. Not to be foiled, the magistrate and his minions ran round the house, climbed over the garden wall, and, with a volley of oaths and curses, rushed up to Wesley, bawling, “You shall not preach here to-day.” “Sir,” said Wesley, with the most provoking calmness, “I don’t intend it; for I have preached already.” The man now foamed more furiously than ever. He belaboured poor James Glasbrook with the truncheon of his halbert till it snapped asunder; and then took vengeance on Wesley’s hat, which, says Wesley, “he beat and kicked most valiantly; but a gentleman rescued it out of his hands, and we rode quietly out of the town.”
Wesley now made his way to Tyrrell’s Pass, where “a heap of fine, gay people came on Sunday in their postchaises to the preaching.” At Portarlington, he preached at five o’clock in the morning; and again “at ten, for the sake of the gentry: but,” he adds, “even that was too early, they could not rise so soon.” At Coolylough, he “found a congregation gathered from twenty miles round; and held the quarterly meeting of the stewards, a company of settled, sensible men. Nothing,” says he, “is wanting in this kingdom but zealous, active preachers, tenacious of order and exact discipline.” At Sligo, “a large, commodious” preaching room had been procured since his previous visit, and here he spent five days, preaching in the market, the barrack yard, and other places.
Preaching daily, and riding long journeys over the roughest roads, and on all kinds of horses down to one “about the size of a jackass,” Wesley came to Limerick on July 4, where he held a three days’ conference with ten of his Irish preachers. He then proceeded to the settlements of the Palatines at Ballygarrane, Killeheen, and Court Mattrass, three towns scarcely to be equalled; for there was “no cursing or swearing, no sabbath breaking, no drunkenness, no alehouse, in any of them.” At Clare, he preached in the new chapel; and at Clonmel, near the barracks, “to a wild, staring people,” whom the soldiers present kept quiet. At Bandon, he found a new meeting-house, “very neat and lightsome.” At Kinsale, his congregation consisted of “a multitude of soldiers, and not a few of the dull careless townsfolk.” “Surely,” says he, “good might be done here, would our preachers always preach in the Exchange, as they might without any molestation, instead of a little, ugly, dirty garret.”
After a tour of thirteen weeks, Wesley got back to Dublin on the 20th of July. He had preached scores of sermons, travelled many hundreds of miles, been subjected to great hardships, and sometimes to serious danger; but, in the midst of all, God was with him, and he was happy and prosperous in his glorious work. In making up the numbers, he found that there were, in Connaught, a little more than two hundred members; in Ulster, about two hundred and fifty; in Leinster, a thousand; and in Munster, about six hundred.
Wesley was now obliged to leave Ireland for the purpose of attending the Bristol conference, which was to open on July 25. Five days only were left to make the journey,—ample time as things are now, but not so in the days of Wesley. Then there were no steamers crossing the channel daily; and even sailing vessels then were remarkable for nothing except their want of punctuality. Wesley had been advised, that Captain Dansey would sail on the 19th or 20th; but, on arriving at Dublin, he found he would not start, at the earliest, before the 25th, on which day Wesley had arranged to begin his conference in Bristol. He then inquired for a Chester ship, and found one was expected to sail on the 22nd; but, in the morning of that day, the captain sent him word he had to wait for General Montague. Such delays were trying; but Wesley calmly writes: “So we have one day more to spend in Ireland. Let us live this day as if it were our last.” At length, on July 24, he and forty or fifty other passengers embarked for Chester, and, after a two days’ voyage, during which there were two dead calms, and Wesley preached two good sermons, they landed at Parkgate, thirty-six hours after Wesley ought to have been in Bristol. For nothing was Wesley more famed than for his strictness in fulfilling his appointments. The passengers were landed at Parkgate, but, it being the time of low water, Wesley’s horses could not be landed. To wait for high water and his horses was out of question; hence, he bought one and hired another, and set out for Bristol with the utmost speed. At Wolverhampton, his new horses failed and were unable to proceed farther. Fresh ones were hired, and the others left behind; but no sooner had Wesley and his companion started on their newly acquired nags, than one fell lame, and the other, which Wesley rode, tumbled, and gave its rider a most serious shock. At length, with great difficulty, they got to Newport; and there, abandoning their horses, they took a chaise, and reached Bristol a little before midnight on July 28. He writes: “I spent the two following days with the preachers, who had been waiting for me all the week; and their love and unanimity were such as soon made me forget all my labour.”
This is all we know concerning the conference of 1760. It began on July 29, and ended on July 30. Wesley had been six months from London and his wife; and yet, on the very next day but one after his conference concluded, he set out on another month’s tour to Cornwall. But here we must make a pause, to insert some of Wesley’s letters.
We have seen that a year and a half previous to this, Wesley had become acquainted with Berridge, a devoted Christian and an able and useful minister; but an eccentric genius, and sometimes conceited and somewhat obstinate. Wesley, in more respects than one, was a most _faithful_ friend. Hence the letter following.
“DUBLIN, _April 18, 1760_.
“DEAR SIR,—_Disce, docendus adhuc quo censet amiculus_; and take it in good part, my mentioning some particulars which have been long on my mind: and yet, I knew not how to speak them. I was afraid it might look like taking too much upon me, or assuming some superiority over you. But love casts out, or, at least, overrules that fear. So I will speak simply, and leave you to judge.
“It seems to me, that, of all persons I ever knew, save one, you are the _hardest to be convinced_. I have occasionally spoken to you on many heads; some of a speculative, others of a practical nature; but I do not know that you were ever convinced of one, whether of great importance or small. I believe you retained your own opinion in every one, and did not vary a hair’s breadth.
“I have likewise doubted whether you were not full as _hard to be persuaded_, as to be convinced: whether your will do not adhere to its first basis, right or wrong, as strongly as your understanding. I mean with regard to any impression, which another may make upon them. For, perhaps, you readily—too readily change of your own mere motion; so that it is not easy to please you long, but exceeding easy to offend you. I have frequently observed great _fickleness_ and great _stubbornness_ meet in the same mind.
“Does not this imply the _thinking_ very _highly_ of _yourself_? Does it not imply something of _self_ sufficiency? ‘You can stand alone; you care for no man. You need no help from man.’ It was not so with my brother and me, when we were first employed in this great work. We were deeply conscious of our own insufficiency; and though, in one sense, we trusted in God alone, yet we sought help from all His children, and were glad to be taught by any man. And this, although we were really alone in the work; for there were none that had gone before us therein. There were none then in England, who had trod that path, wherein God was leading us. Whereas _you_ have the advantage which we had not; you tread in a beaten path. Others have gone before you, and are going now in the same way, to the same point. Yet it seems you _choose_ to stand alone; what was necessity with _us_, is choice with _you_. You like to be unconnected with any, thereby tacitly condemning all. But possibly you go farther yet. Do not you explicitly condemn all your fellow labourers, blaming one in one instance, one in another, so as to be thoroughly pleased with the conduct of none? Does not this argue a very high degree of censoriousness? Do you not censure even _peritos in sua arte_?
“Permit me to relate a little circumstance to illustrate this. After we had been once singing a hymn at Everton, I was just going to say, ‘I wish Mr. Whitefield would not try to _mend_ my brother’s hymns. He cannot do it. How vilely he has murdered that hymn! _weakening_ the sense, as well as _marring_ the poetry!’ But how was I afterwards surprised to hear it was not Mr. Whitefield but Mr. Berridge! In very deed, it is not easy to _mend_ his hymns, any more than to imitate them.
“Has not this aptness to find fault frequently shown itself in abundance of other instances? Sometimes with regard to Mr. Parker, or Mr. Hicks; sometimes with regard to me. And this may be one reason why you take one step which was scarce ever before taken in Christendom: I mean the discouraging of the new converts from reading, at least, from reading anything but the Bible. Nay, but get off the consequence who can: if they ought to _read_ nothing but the Bible, they ought to _hear_ nothing but the Bible; so away with sermons, whether spoken or written! I can hardly imagine, that you discourage reading even our little tracts out of jealousy, lest we should undermine you, or steal away the affections of the people. I think you cannot easily suspect this. I myself did not desire to come among them; but you desired me to come. I should not have obtruded myself either upon them or you; for I have really work enough; full as much as either my body or mind is able to go through; and I have (blessed be God!) friends enough, I mean as many as I have time to converse with; nevertheless, I never repented of that I spent at Everton: I trust it was not spent in vain.
“I have not time to throw these thoughts into a smoother form. May the God, whom you serve, give you to form a right judgment concerning them, and give a blessing to the rough sincerity of, dear sir, your affectionate servant,
“JOHN WESLEY.”[377]
Seven months elapsed before Wesley received an answer, which was as follows.
“EVERTON, _November 22, 1760_.
“DEAR SIR,—I received your letter from Ireland, and purposely delayed my answer till your return to England, that I might not write in a spirit unbecoming the gospel. I wish all that love the Lord Jesus Christ were perfectly agreed in their religious sentiments; but this, I find, is a matter rather to be wished than expected. Perhaps a little disagreement, in non-essentials, may be designed as one part of our trial, for the exercise of our candour and patience.
“I discourage the reading of any books, except the Bible and the Homilies, not because of the jealousy mentioned by you, but because I find they, who read many books, usually neglect the Bible, and soon become eager disputants, and in the end turn out predestinarians. At least, this has so happened with me. If my sentiments do not yet altogether harmonise with yours, they differ the least from yours of any others. And as there is nothing catching or cankering in those sentiments of yours which are contrary to mine, I am not only willing but desirous you should preach at Everton, as often as you can favour us with your company.
“Last week, I was at Bedford, and preached to your society; from whom I heard you were returned from the west, and purposed to come amongst us soon. Will you call at Everton, as you go to, or return from Bedford? You will be welcome. My invitation is sincere and friendly: accept of it. I send my love to your brother, and to all that labour among you. May grace, mercy, and peace be multiplied on you, and your affectionate servant,
“JOHN BERRIDGE.”[378]
Charles Wesley was an itinerant preacher no longer. He preached at London and at Bristol, and wrote invaluable hymns; but the whole of the rough work of the Methodist movement now devolved upon his brother. This was not fair. Both were married; and, on that ground, both had an equal claim to remain at home. One, however, was happy in his married life; the other not. The following letter to Charles Wesley is characteristic.
“COOLYLOUGH, _June 23, 1760_.
“DEAR BROTHER,—Where you are I know not; and how you are, I know not; but I hope the best. Neither you nor John Jones has ever sent me your remarks upon that tract in the late volume of sermons. You are not kind. Why will you not do all you can to make me wiser than I am? Samuel Furley told me his objections at once: so we canvassed them without loss of time. Do you know what is done, anything or nothing, with regard to the small edition of the Notes?
“Mr. I’anson writes me a long account of the Sussex affair. It is of more consequence than our people seem to apprehend. If we do not exert ourselves, it must drive us to that bad dilemma, leave preaching, or leave the Church. We have reason to thank God, it is not come to this yet. Perhaps it never may.
“In this kingdom, nothing is wanting but a few more zealous and active labourers. James Morgan, John Johnson, and two or three more do their best: the rest spare themselves.
“I hope Sally and your little ones are well. Where and how is my wife? I wrote to her on Saturday last. Adieu!
“Where must the conference be? at Leeds or Bristol? If we could but chain or gag the blatant beast, there would be no difficulty.
“I am, etc.,
“JOHN WESLEY.”[379]
What Wesley calls “the Sussex affair” was probably[380] a trial at the sessions held at Maidstone. On the 13th of March, fifteen Methodists, including the family, met in the house of Thomas Osborne, at Rolvenden, for religious worship. Information of this being given to a neighbouring magistrate, he thought proper to put into execution the law made in the reign of Charles II., to prevent and suppress conventicles; and, accordingly, summoned what was called “the vagrant itinerant Methodist preacher,” who exhorted in the meeting, to appear before him; and then convicted him in the sum of £20. Besides this, Thomas Osborne, the master of the house, was also fined £20; and fourteen hearers five shillings each. All these penalties, amounting to £43 10_s._, were paid to the magistrate on March 29. The parties, however, appealed to the next quarter sessions, which were held on April 15, Charles Whitworth, Esq., M.P. for Minehead, in the chair, and a whole bevy of magistrates on the bench. These illustrious worthies confirmed the convictions. Upon this the appellants applied to the court of King’s Bench for writs of _certiorari_, to remove the convictions and appeals to that court of justice, and to have the judgment of the court thereupon. Accordingly, in Trinity term, 1760, the writs were granted, and, on the 3rd of June, the case was argued. After hearing counsel on both sides, the court quashed the convictions of the magistrate and of the sessions, and so the matter ended.[381]
Another letter, though not by Wesley, but addressed to him, deserves insertion here. The necessity for a Methodist training college for young evangelists, and for provision for superannuated preachers and preachers’ widows, was felt long before funds for such purposes were raised.
“SNISBY, _July 12, 1760_.
“REVEREND AND DEAR SIR,—I would have done myself the pleasure to have met you at your conference, but, having two churches to supply, and none at that time to assist me, I must lay aside all thoughts of it.
“I need not tell you what Mr. Tizzard has been doing in these parts, as he is with you to give you an account himself. But as his labours are a good deal intermixed with mine, I take the liberty to offer my advice concerning carrying on the work hereabouts. W. Kendrick is expelled from his societies for his adulteries; his people are in great confusion; and it is generally thought, that the sincere part of them will renounce their errors, and come over to us. Some have done so already; and others say, ‘We have been deceived: we have been mumbling the shell, while those whom we have despised have been eating the kernel.’ R. Gillespy, for the same crime, is expelled from among the baptists. Through the offence occasioned by these two poor wretches, the minds of many of the people are rendered sore; and some are wavering. Excepting Markfield, and two or three other places, all your societies here are in their infancy; and, because of all this, I think it would not be amiss if Mr. Tizzard were continued another quarter in this round, as he seems to be pretty well received in most places. But if it be thought proper to remove him, I must advise you to send a picked man,—a man of gifts, of grace, of prudence, of seriousness, and of a tender, healing spirit; for such an one is necessary for the people he will have to deal with.
“What say you to an hospital for poor superannuated Methodist preachers, and for travelling preachers’ wives; together with a college for a master and four fellows, and a certain number of students, to be chosen from Kingswood school, or elsewhere? To build and endow such a place would be a very great expense; yet, I am persuaded, not too great for the Methodists to bear, if they had only a willing mind. To make a beginning, I will promise to subscribe £20 down, as soon as such an undertaking shall be agreed upon. I will not say how much more at present. How many have you in society that can afford to give £1 apiece? How many that can and will give that and more? How many, that are much more able than I, that will give but half as much? If the ends proposed be thought worth obtaining, consider at your conference what can be done in it. Make an estimate of what you think can be raised. I apprehend such an undertaking would free the preachers from many fears and cares, which must now almost necessarily attend them. Under God, it would be a sure means of perpetuating the work for ever, which you have begun, as there would be from hence a constant supply of travelling preachers to spread abroad the doctrine you have revived. It would ease the societies of considerable expense hereafter; and would be the means of causing the gospel to keep a footing in some of our churches for ever, beside other good ends that might be mentioned. May the Lord be with you, and direct you in your consultations, and prosper all your undertakings, for His glory and the good of mankind!
“I am, dear sir, your unworthy brother in Christ,
“WALTER SELLON.”[382]
Such was the noble scheme of good Walter Sellon, more than seventy years before the first Methodist theological institution was opened. Wesley answered the letter on September 4; but unfortunately his answer has not been found.
After the Bristol conference, Wesley set out, on September 1, for Cornwall. At Launceston, he found “the small remains of a dead, scattered society”; and was not surprised, as they “had scarce any discipline, and only one sermon in a fortnight.” He found another such society at Camelford; “but their deadness was owing to bitterness against each other.” At Port Isaac, the society “diligently observed all the rules, with or without a preacher. They constantly attended the church and sacrament, and met together at the times appointed.” Thirty out of the thirty-five members were walking in the light of God’s countenance. At St. Agnes, he was “surprised and grieved to find, that, out of ninety-eight members, all but three or four had forsaken the Lord’s table.” At St. Ives, a rock served him as “a very convenient pulpit; and nearly all the town, high and low, rich and poor, assembled together.” At St. Just, “abundance of backsliders were present, ten of whom he rejoined to the society, and also added new members.”
Some idea of Wesley’s labours may be formed from the fact that, during his Cornish visit, besides visiting the societies and travelling, he preached thirty times in eleven days. This is not an unfair specimen of his ministerial labours, all over the United Kingdom.
On his return from Cornwall, he found the society at Plymouth reduced from seventy members to thirty-four; and even these were as “dead as stones.” He preached in the church of Maryweek, also at Collumpton, Halberton, Tiverton, and other places, and got back to Bristol on October 3.
During this interval, Wesley wrote as follows to his brother Charles, who was out of health.
“PLYMOUTH, _September 28, 1760_.
“DEAR BROTHER,—I care not a rush for ordinary means; only that it is our duty to try them. All our lives, and all God’s dealings with us, have been extraordinary from the beginning. We have reason, therefore, to expect, that what has been will be again. I have been preternaturally restored more than ten times. I suppose you will thus be restored for the journey; and that, by the journey, as a natural means, your health will be re-established; provided you determine to spend all the strength which God shall give you in this work.
“Cornwall has suffered miserably by my long absence, and the unfaithfulness of the preachers. I left seventeen hundred in the societies, and I find twelve hundred. If possible, you should see Mr. Walker. He has been near a month at the Hot Wells. He is absolutely a Scot in his opinions, but of an excellent spirit. My love to Sally. Adieu.
“JOHN WESLEY.”[383]
Wesley spent a month at Bristol, and in its vicinity. He preached a charity sermon in Newgate for the use of poor prisoners. He visited again the French captives at Knowle; and, “in hope of provoking others to jealousy, made another collection for them, and ordered the money to be expended in linen and in waistcoats.” Three days were employed in speaking “severally” to the members of the Bristol society, of whom he writes: “As many of them increase in worldly goods, the great danger I apprehend now is, their relapsing into the spirit of the world; and then their religion is but a dream.” He also took another step of vast importance. He requested the children of the members of society to meet him. Eighty came. Half of these he divided into two classes, two of boys, and two of girls; and appointed proper leaders to meet them separate; he himself meeting them all together twice a week. Were not these Methodism’s first _catechumen_ classes? We think so.
It was during Wesley’s present visit to the city of Bristol, that George II. suddenly expired, in his palace at Kensington, in the seventy-seventh year of his age, and the thirty-fourth of his reign. Wesley writes, perhaps with more loyalty than discrimination: “October 25—King George was gathered to his fathers. When will England have a better prince?” The following Friday was set apart by Wesley and the Bristol society, “as a day of fasting, and prayer for the blessing of God upon the nation, and, in particular, on his present majesty. They met at five, at nine, at one, and at half past eight.”
On November 8, after an eight months’ absence, Wesley got back to London, where, with the exception of a visit to Canterbury and Dover, he continued during the remainder of the year. At the latter place, he found “a serious, earnest people, and some of the best singers in England.” He visited the sick in London, and met the penitents, “a congregation which,” he says, “he wished always to meet himself.” He preached, he prayed, and, as we shall see shortly, wrote letters to the newspapers. The year, from first to last, was full of labour.
Before proceeding to less pleasant topics, the introduction of another letter to Wesley from the pious John Newton may not be deemed an intrusion. Newton had preached for the Dissenters, but was dissatisfied with their ecclesiastical economy. He wished to become a clergyman, but the bishop refused to ordain him. Wesley seems to have proposed to him to join the ranks of the Methodist itinerant preachers. The following is his answer.
“_November 14, 1760._
“REVEREND AND DEAR SIR,—How shall I thank you for the obliging notice you take of me? I wonder you can find time, in the midst of so many more important concerns, to encourage so poor a correspondent. In one sense only, I think myself not altogether unworthy your friendship; that is, I am not ungrateful. I honour and esteem you; I pray for your success, and sincerely rejoice in it. I know no one to whom my heart is more united in affection, nor to whom I owe more, as an instrument of Divine grace.
“I am at some seasons impatient enough to be employed; but I am really afraid of setting myself to work. It appears, by the event, that, in the attempts I have already made, I have mistaken, either the place, or the manner, in which I am to appear.
“I forgot to tell you in my last, that I had the honour to appear as a Methodist preacher. I was at Haworth; Mr. Grimshaw was pressing, and prevailed. I spoke, in his house, to about one hundred and fifty persons; a difficult auditory in my circumstances, about half Methodists, and half Baptists. I was afraid of displeasing both sides; but my text, John 1. 29, led me to dwell upon a point in which we were all agreed; and, before I had leisure to meddle with doctrines (as they are called), the hour was expired. In short, it was a comfortable opportunity.
“Methinks here again, you are ready to say, Why not go on in the same way? what more encouragement can you ask, than to be assisted and accepted? My answer is, I have not either strength of body or mind sufficient for an itinerant preacher. My constitution has been broken for some years. To ride an hour in the rain, or more than thirty miles in a day, usually unfits me for everything. You must allow me to pay some regard to flesh and blood, though I would not consult them. Besides, I have a maintenance now in my hands,[384] the gift of a kind Providence; and I do not see that I have a call to involve myself, and a person who has entrusted all her concerns to me, in want and difficulties. I have likewise an orphan sister, for whom it is my duty to provide; consequently, it cannot be my duty to disable myself from fulfilling what I owe to her. The weightiest difficulty remains; too many of the preachers are very different from Mr. Grimshaw; and who would wish to live in the fire? So, though I love the Methodists, and vindicate them from unjust aspersions upon all occasions, and suffer the reproach of the world for being one myself, yet, it seems not practicable for me to join them farther than I do. For the present, I must remain as I am, and endeavour to be as useful as I can in private life.
“Have there been any more prosecutions upon the Conventicle Act? I have been informed, that a bill is in embryo to restrain the clergy to their own parishes.
“Pray for me, dear sir. Mrs. Newton sends her love, and will rejoice to see you. Will you permit me to subscribe myself, your unworthy but affectionate and obliged brother in the gospel hope,
“JOHN NEWTON.”[385]
The year 1760 was full of varied, anxious, and painful interest.
One matter must be mentioned, though Wesley himself was not concerned in it, except as he deeply sympathised with the noble and afflicted family. Earl Ferrars, cousin of Lady Huntingdon, and brother of the Hon. and Rev. Walter Shirley, at the commencement of the year, deliberately shot Mr. Johnson, his steward, who had been a servant in the family for thirty years. Horace Walpole’s version of the matter is, that Earl Ferrars’ wife was the fortuneless sister of Sir William Meredith; and that the earl maintained, that she trepanned him into marriage while he was in a state of drunkenness. Before his marriage, Mrs. Clifford was his mistress, by whom he had several children; and, from the first, his wife was hated. He always carried pistols to bed with him, and often threatened to kill her before morning. By an act of parliament, she obtained a divorce, and an allowance out of his estates; one of the receivers for that purpose being his steward, Mr. Johnson. Finding that Johnson had paid Lady Ferrars £50 without his knowledge, the earl resolved to murder him, and shot him accordingly. He was arrested, and lodged in the Tower of London. The trial, in Westminster Hall, in the month of April, lasted for three days, the sentence being, that the earl be hanged, and his body delivered to Surgeons’ Hall, to be dissected and anatomized. Charles Wesley attended the trial, and tells us “most of the royal family, the peeresses, the chief gentry of the kingdom, and the foreign ambassadors were present.” A plea of lunacy was set up. Walter Shirley and Dr. Munro were the best witnesses; but their testimony failed to prove his madness. One hundred and six of the peers of England, including Lord Talbot, his friend, and Lord Westmoreland, his father-in-law, pronounced the prisoner guilty, and his doom was fixed. The execution took place on the 5th of May; the unhappy culprit having spent the night previous in playing at piquet with the warders of the prison. He rode to Tyburn in his own landau and six, wearing his wedding clothes, and chewing pigtail tobacco; his mistress throwing a letter into his carriage, telling him that the crowd was so enormous she was unable to meet him at a certain place as she had promised. A mourning coach and six, with some of his lordship’s friends, and a hearse and six, to carry his corpse to Surgeons’ Hall, followed in a procession, which took two hours and three quarters in making its way through the streets of London, from the Tower to the place of execution. After hanging an hour and five minutes, the body was dissected; and then the mangled remains of the highborn murderer were delivered to his friends, and interred in Leicestershire. On the table in his room, just before he went to execution, he wrote:
“In doubt I lived, in doubt I die, Yet stand prepared the vast abyss to try, And undismayed expect eternity.”[386]
Such was the end of this godless noble, the near relative of some of the best Christians then living. Their distress was indescribable. His broken hearted brother (Walter Shirley), his cousin (Lady Huntingdon), and others, all endeavoured to effect his conversion, but without success. Prayer was made for him in the closet, in the family, and in public congregations; special meetings of intercession were held in his behalf; Charles Wesley evinced the tenderest concern for the wretched culprit; and the Methodists in London generally followed his example; a day of fasting and prayer was kept at the Foundery: but all to no effect.
Three weeks after the execution, the Hon. and Rev. Mr. Shirley wrote to Wesley as follows.
“_May 27, 1760._
“REVEREND AND VERY DEAR BROTHER,—I bear in mind, with all thankfulness, the tender love and charitable prayers, with which God was pleased to inspire your heart, and the hearts of His dear children in Ireland, for my unhappy brother, myself, and our afflicted family. I have reason to bless God for the humbling lessons He has taught me, through these His awful visitations. O sir, is there much danger now, that I should pride myself upon my family? I doubt not, but that your labours in Ireland have been amply paid in their success. Earnest desires draw me towards you, but I am detained here, very much against my will, by a trust reposed in me by my late brother, to see his debts discharged, and other matters properly settled, that no further dishonour may be reflected on his memory. I would to God, I may meet you in Connaught, and give you a poor but hearty welcome at Loughrea; but fear that I cannot possibly be there before you leave. Let me entreat you, however, to pay a visit to my poor flock, for whom I am sorely grieved in my absence from them; and can only be comforted in the sweet hope, that you will not neglect them in your travels. You are heartily welcome to my church, if you please to make use of it; and I hope you will be truly welcome to the ears and hearts of all the people.
“Your most unworthy, yet ever affectionate brother in the Lord,
“WALTER SHIRLEY.”[387]
Another unpleasantness, belonging to the year 1760, was a most foul and dastardly attack on Whitefield, and, through him, upon the Methodists in general.
At this period, Samuel Foote, the inimitable zany, was at his zenith. He was born of highly respectable parents, at Truro, about the year 1720, and was educated at Worcester college, Oxford. He entered himself of the Temple, with a view of being called to the bar; but, instead of studying law, plunged into all the gaieties and dissipation of fashionable life; losing at the gaming table what his extravagance in living was not sufficient to consume. He married in 1741; but his conduct, as a husband, was far from affectionate; and, soon after his marriage, he was arrested for debt, and sent to gaol. Having squandered his fortune, he turned to the stage as a means of support, and made his theatrical _debut_, in the Haymarket, at the age of twenty-four. His success was great, but his prodigality was greater. In 1766, a fall from his horse rendered it necessary to amputate his leg. He died in 1777, and was buried by torchlight in Westminster Abbey. His character, as delineated by his biographers, presents scarcely one amiable or respectable feature; and, indeed, considered apart from his peculiar and almost unequalled abilities for mimicking the foibles and faults of others, he was in all respects contemptible.
Such was the man who attacked Whitefield and Methodism in 1760. For ninety years, the execrable comedies, acted in English theatres, had been the bane and the reproach of the English nation. Comic poets had been the unwearied ministers of vice, and had done its work so thoroughly, that there was hardly a single virtue which had not been sacrificed at its polluted shrine. Innocence had been the sport of abandoned villainy, and religion made the jest of the licentious. In 1760, Samuel Foote crowned the whole, by “The Minor; a Comedy acted in the Haymarket theatre:” 8vo, 91 pages. Its professed object was to expose the absurdity, and to detect the hypocrisy, of Methodism; the author holding the idea, that ridicule was the only way of redressing an evil which was beyond the reach of law, and which reason was not able to correct. On the principle, that a man cannot touch pitch without defiling his fingers, we refrain from giving even the barest outline of Foote’s disgraceful comedy. Thousands applauded the inimitable actor, and laughed at Mrs. Cole and Dr. Squintum; all of them forgetting, that religion is too sacred to become the butt of theatrical buffoonery and of public mockery. The indignation of religious people was aroused; letters were written to newspapers; articles were published in magazines; and a whole swarm of pamphlets were given to the excited public; the most able of which were two by “A Minister of the Church of Christ,” one of them being entitled—“Christian and Critical Remarks on ‘The Minor’; in which the blasphemy, falsehood, and scurrility of that piece, are properly considered, answered, and exposed:” 8vo, 41 pages. Foote himself replied to this, in his own bantering and obscene style, telling the author that, from the title he assumes, “it is impossible to determine whether he is an authorised pastor, or a peruke maker; a real clergyman, or a corncutter.” He also published, but durst not act, another comedy, entitled “The Methodist; being a continuation and completion of the plan of ‘The Minor.’” The buffoon tells his readers, that Whitefield’s “countenance is not only inexpressive, but ludicrous; his dialect is not only provincial, but barbarous; his deportment not only awkward, but savage.” His mother, during her pregnancy, “dreamt that she was brought to bed of a tinder box, which, from a collision of the flint and steel, made by the midwife, conveyed sparks to Gloucester cathedral, and soon reduced it to ashes.” Whitefield himself, in his boyhood, “was dull, stupid, and heavy, totally incapable of attending to the business of his mother’s public house, though he had the credit of inventing the practice of soaping the tops of the pewter pots to diminish the quantity of liquor, and to increase and sustain the froth.”
This is too mild to be given as a fair _specimen_ of Foote’s disgusting ribaldry; but it is almost fouler than we like to print. Suffice it to remark further, that, though “The Minor” was performed before crowded London audiences for several months, such was the outcry raised against its profanity, that in November, 1760, Foote himself introduced several alterations, which he thought were less objectionable than the original terms and sentences.
But enough of the profligate Samuel Foote, who (according to the testimony of a person who knew the particulars of the case) was seized at Dover, with his mortal illness, while mimicking religious characters in general, and the Methodists in particular,[388] and almost immediately expired.
Other attacks were made upon Methodism, in 1760, though none so vulgar as Foote’s. One of these was “A Friendly and Compassionate Address to all serious and well disposed Methodists; in which their principal Errors concerning the doctrine of the new birth, their election, and the security of their salvation, and their notion of the community of Christian men’s goods, are largely displayed and represented. By Alexander Jephson, A.B., rector of the parish of Craike, in the county of Durham.” 8vo, 80 pages. Mr. Jephson tells the Methodists, that they have “fallen into fatal and dangerous errors, which may be of pernicious consequence to them both in this life and the next.” He affirms that, “when any persons are duly baptized into the Church, there is no doubt but that all their sins are immediately forgiven, and a new principle of piety and virtue is directly instilled into their minds by the grace of God’s Holy Spirit.” He exhorts the Methodists not to forsake the pastors of the Church of England, by giving up themselves “to the direction of guides who have nothing to recommend them, but vain and idle pretences to inspiration, and intimate conversations with God, and such immediate and powerful effects of their preaching as have caused, in some of their hearers, the most dreadful shriekings and groanings, convulsions and agitations.” Methodist itinerants are described as “an enthusiastical set of preachers, who are wandering up and down, through the whole nation, to destroy and unsettle all the reasonable notions of religion, and to throw men into the utmost distraction and confusion.” These are fair cullings from Mr. Jephson’s “_friendly_ and compassionate address.” Wesley says concerning it: “the tract is more considerable for its bulk, than for its matter, being little more than a dull repetition of what was published some years ago in ‘The Enthusiasm of the Methodists and Papists Compared.’”[389]
Another hostile publication was, “A Genuine Letter from a Methodist Preacher, in the country, to Laurence Sterne, M.A., prebendary of York. 1760.” 8vo, 22 pages. The letter pretends to rebuke Sterne for writing “Tristram Shandy,” and says the prebend has “studied plays more than the word of God, and takes his text generally from the writings of Shakspeare” rather than from the writings of the apostles. Altogether, it was a meaningless and profane performance, whose only object seems to have been to create a laugh.
Another publication, belonging to the same year, was, “A Vindication of the Seventeenth Article of the Church of England, from the Aspersions cast on it in a Sermon lately published by Mr. John Wesley. By John Oulton.” 8vo, 55 pages. This was intended to be a refutation of Wesley’s sermon on free grace, preached from Romans viii. 32, and deserves no further notice.
Another was entitled, “The Principles and Practices of the Methodists considered, in some Letters to the Leaders of that Sect.” 8vo, 78 pages. The writer, who signed himself “Academicus,” was a man of mark, the Rev. John Green, D.D.,[390] born at Beverley about 1706; a sizar in St. John’s college, Cambridge; then an usher in a school at Lichfield; then domestic chaplain of the Duke of Somerset; then rector of Borough Green; then regius professor of divinity, and one of his majesty’s chaplains; then, in 1756, dean of Lincoln; and, in 1764, bishop of Lincoln; a liberal prelate,—the only one who voted for the bill for the relief of protestant Dissenters; and who died suddenly, at Bath, in 1779. The pamphlet of Dr. Green is addressed to Mr. Berridge, of Everton. The author speaks of Berridge’s “graceless fraternity”; and warns him against being “led away by the vain presumption of extraordinary illuminations,” and against “contracting one of the most dangerous and deceitful of all religious maladies, the tumour of spiritual pride.” He tells him, that “he makes lofty pretensions, and assumes confident airs to amuse the vulgar.” He speaks of “the mysteries of Methodism, its conceits and inadvertencies, its foibles and failings, being cruelly exposed to the laughter of the incredulous, and the scoff of the profane.” He says, “elocution from a stool, or vociferation from a hillock, will act with much more effect, upon the multitude, than any kind of sober instruction given from that old fashioned eminence, the pulpit”; and describes, as the result of “Methodistical oratory, a number of groaners, sighers, tumblers, and convulsionists, breaking out into a dreadful concert of screams, howlings, and lamentations.” In succession, Whitefield, Wesley, Hervey, Zinzendorf, and others come under the writer’s lash. The “fraternity” are charged with “dealing in all the little tricks of calumny and misrepresentation”; with endeavouring “to raise their own reputation by attempts to undermine that of others”; with “playing the droll, and enlivening their popular harangues with occasional diversions, and strokes of humour”; and with having “recourse to obscure and mystical language, which none but the elect can understand.”
Dr. Green was not content with this priestly onslaught. Immediately after, he published a second pamphlet of seventy-four pages, with the same title, but addressed, in this instance, to Whitefield, who is, not too politely, reminded of his “blue apron and snuffers at the Bell inn, in Gloucester”; and is told, that his “pretensions are weakly supported, though set off with so much pomp of expression,—like some aqueous plants, which spread a broad and stately leaf on the surface of the water, while the fibre, on which they depend for their support, is slenderer than a thread.” His Journal is called, “that curious repository of religious anecdotes,—that profound repertory of private reflections, exhibiting a medley of seeming pride and affected lowliness, of immoderate conceit and excessive humility.” These must serve as samples. Dr. Green, bishop of Lincoln, was an able man, and a vigorous writer; but he might have employed his learning and his talents to better purpose than in bantering the poor Methodists. On receiving his pamphlet, Wesley wrote: “in many things, I wholly agree with him; but there is a bitterness in him, which I should not have expected in a gentleman and a scholar.”[391]
Another unfriendly pamphlet, issued in 1760, was entitled, “A Fragment of the true Religion. Being the substance of two Letters from a Methodist Preacher in Cambridgeshire, to a Clergyman in Nottinghamshire.” 8vo, 25 pages. The “Methodist Preacher” was Berridge of Everton, and the first letter was one in which Berridge gave an account of his conversion and subsequent course of action; and was intended, by its writer, to be strictly private and confidential. The clergyman, however, to whom it was addressed, dishonourably allowed copies to be taken and circulated; and, moreover, commenced railing against the man who had written to him as a friend. Upon this, Berridge wrote to him a second letter, remonstrating with him on account of his treacherous behaviour; and, this also being copied and circulated, both the letters were surreptitiously published, with a scurrilous introduction, dated, “Grantham, February 2, 1760,” and signed “Faith Workless.”
In his second letter, Berridge, with righteous indignation, remarks:
“You charge me with being a Moravian. Credulous mortal! Why do you not charge me with being a murderer? You have just as much reason to call me one as the other. If you had lived in this neighbourhood, you would have known that I am utterly detested and continually reviled by the Moravians. And no wonder; for I warn all my hearers against them, both in public and private. Nay, I have been to Bedford, where there is a nest of them, to bear a preaching testimony against their corrupt principles and practices. However, since you are determined to call me a Moravian, and Mr. Wheeler is pleased to call me a madman, I think myself obliged to come down into the country, as soon as I can, to convince my friends, and your neighbours, that I am neither the one nor the other. I shall go round the neighbourhood, and preach twice a day. If your brethren will allow me the use of their pulpits, they shall have my thanks: if they will not, the fields are open, and I shall take a mountain for my pulpit, and the heavens for my sounding board. My blessed Master has set me the example; and, I trust, I shall neither be ashamed nor afraid to tread in His steps.”
Brave old Berridge! and yet, in the introduction to this very pamphlet, the Everton vicar is represented as “traveling round the country, attended by several idle sluts, who will neither mend his clothes nor wash his linen,” the result being that he had “preached many a discourse when he was sadly out at the elbows, and when his shirts were almost as black as the chimney.”
Another infamous production of the year 1760 must be noticed,—an octavo pamphlet of forty-eight pages, with the title, “The Crooked Disciple’s Remarks upon the Blind Guide’s Method of Preaching for some years; being a collection of the principal words, sayings, phraseology, rhapsodies, hyperboles, parables, and miscellaneous incongruities of the sacred and profane, commonly, repeatedly, and peculiarly made use of by the Reverend Dr. Squintum, delivered by him _viva voce, ex cathedra_, at Tottenham Court, Moorfields, etc. A work never before attempted; taken verbatim from a constant attendance. By the learned Mr. John Harman, Regulator of Enthusiasts.” John Harman was a whimsical watchmaker, who was at the pains of taking down a number of Whitefield’s peculiarities, in shorthand.[392] The pamphlet which bears his name is one of the basest, coarsest, and most profane, published in the early days of Methodism. It professes to give a prayer and a sermon by Whitefield, with Whitefield’s action and intonation, and the people’s responses; and finishes with a postscript, informing the reader, that Whitefield’s “hummers, sighers, and weepers are hireling hypocrites, at two shillings and sixpence per week, and are the approbatives to his doctrine.”
Besides the above pamphlets, all published in England, there was another, larger than any yet mentioned, which was published in Ireland, in 1760, with the title, “Montanus Redivivus; or Montanism Revived, in the Principles and Discipline of the Methodists (commonly called Swaddlers): Being the substance of a sermon upon 1 John iv. 1, preached in the parish church of Hollymount, in the Diocese of Tuam, in the year 1756. To which are added several letters, which passed between the Rev. John Wesley and the Author. Also an Appendix. By the Rev. Mr. James Clark, a Presbyter of the Diocese of Tuam.” 8vo, 100 pages.
In this Irish effusion, the Methodists are described as “a set of enthusiastic pharisees in practice, but perfect latitudinarians in principle; quite indifferent as to any form of church government, whether presbyterian, independent, or episcopal, and looking upon the latter in no other light than that of some human law or constitution, subject to be changed at pleasure.” In accordance with this, they had “acted in a barefaced defiance to the authority and jurisdiction of the bishops; and, without their consent, had formed societies or conventicles, under certain rules of discipline and government, of their own invention, appointing leaders, directors, and superintendents over them. They had set up a new ministry of their own, contrary to the ministry of the Church, committing the preaching of the word of reconciliation, and the exercise of the power of the keys, to mere laymen and mechanics; and, though they occasionally came to church and sacrament, yet they plainly enough insinuated to the world, that they only waited for a seasonable opportunity, and more able heads, to form a new church, and make a total separation.” Mr. Clark proceeds to show, that, in their principles, practices, and pretences, the Methodists are the counterpart of the Montanists, “enthusiastic sectaries who make the way to heaven much more narrow and difficult than either Jesus Christ or His apostles have made it; and requiring such degrees of perfection as are not in the power of human nature, in its present state of infirmity, to attain to; the natural consequence of which is, that such as find themselves unable to arrive at such perfection grow desperate, and give themselves over to all manner of licentiousness; and such as, through a heated and enthusiastic imagination, fancy that they either actually do or can attain to such perfection, are filled with all manner of spiritual pride, blasphemy, and arrogance.” Mr. Clark’s readers are exhorted “never to give ear to the vain and fantastical flights of crazy pated enthusiasts, schismatical, unauthorised, illegal lay preachers, whose discourses are stuffed with praises and panegyrics of their own righteousness and holiness.”
Wesley had recently published his sermon, entitled “Catholic Spirit,” in which he stated, that he once zealously maintained the opinion, that every one born in England ought to be a member of the Church of England, and, consequently, to worship God in the manner which that Church prescribes. This opinion he could maintain no longer. He believed his own mode of worship to be “truly primitive and apostolical”; but acknowledges that his “belief is no rule for another.” He believed the episcopal form of church government to be scriptural and apostolical; but, he adds, “if you think the presbyterian or independent is better, think so still, and act accordingly.” Wesley sent this celebrated sermon to Mr. Clark, and this led to the correspondence between Clark and Wesley, published in “Montanus Redivivus.”[393] Mr. Clark, in his first letter, informs Wesley that, when he preached his sermon on 1 John iv. 1, Mr. Langston, said to be one of Wesley’s lay preachers, was present; and, taking offence, wrote him an epistle, in which “the Spirit forgot to direct him to write common sense, orthography, or English”; and that he suspects Langston’s representations to Wesley had induced the latter to send him the sermon on “Catholic Spirit,” as “a genteel and tacit reproof, for making any inquiry into the religion and principles of the Methodists.” He states that Langston had publicly declared “himself to be as righteous and as free from sin as Jesus Christ; and that it was impossible for him to sin, because the Spirit of God dwelt bodily in him.” Mr. Clark further states, that he has read Wesley’s sermon, and asserts that Wesley’s “propositions and observations have no more foundation in the text, than in the first chapter of Genesis.” It is right to add, that Langston was not one of Wesley’s preachers, and that Wesley thought the man an enthusiast.
Another publication, belonging to the year 1760, must have a passing notice,—“Scriptural Remedies for Healing the unhappy Divisions in the Church of England, particularly of those People called the Methodists. By Edward Goldney, sen., gent., widower.” 8vo, 64 pages. The intention of the eccentric author was good; but that is the highest, indeed, the only, praise we can render him. He finds fault with the clergy, who only visit those of their parishioners who “give them a jugg of good smooth ale, or a mugg of strong October, a bottle of wine, or a bowl of punch”; and then, in his own way and style, argues that, if the clergy would only become what they ought to be, “both high and low, rich and poor would soon be cured of itching ears. Then cobblers and shoemakers, tinkers and braziers, blacksmiths and farriers, tailors and staymakers, barbers and periwig makers, carpenters and joiners, masons and bricklayers, bakers and butchers, farmers and cowkeepers, maltsters and brewers, combers and weavers, plumbers and glaziers, turners and cabinet makers, hedgers and ditchers, threshers and thatchers, colliers and carriers, carmen and scavengers, coopers and basket makers, would have no hearers.” With this enumeration of the trades and calling of the Methodist itinerants, we make our _congé_ to hairbrained Edward Goldney.
These were the principal anti-Methodistic pamphlets published in 1760; but, besides these, there was scrimmaging in newspapers and magazines, which deserves attention. An anonymous writer, in the _London Magazine_, attacked the Methodists, as “a restless, turbulent people, remarkable for nothing, but their abusive language and uncharitable sentiments”; and described Methodism as “a spurious mixture of enthusiasm and blasphemy, popery and quakerism”; and the teaching of its preachers as “gross, personal abuse; vague, incoherent reasoning; and loose, empty declamation.”[394] A writer, who signed his letter “Hermas,” replied to this stale balderdash; and rejoinder after rejoinder followed. Grave objection was raised to the name of Methodist, as a misnomer, because the Methodists were utterly without _method_.[395] A classleader was described as “an illiterate hog, a feeder of swine, presiding at the holy rites of confession, as spiritual pastor and father confessor.” “Old as I am,” wrote the nameless soothsayer, “I make not the least doubt but, with these eyes, I shall see, that this imaginary candle of the Lord, which the Methodists have set up, will soon dwindle into a snuff, and expire in a stink.”[396] In a base inuendo, he insinuated that some of the mysterious meetings of the Methodists were “in dark rooms, with naked figures, typical fires, and rattling chains.”[397]
In the same periodical,[398] Stephen Church proposed to Wesley twenty queries, in which he coarsely assailed him as “the first protestant pope; a cunning quaker in disguise, acting the second edition of Friend Barclay, and privately betraying the Church, as Judas did his Master, with a kiss.” Another correspondent, signing his letter “R.,” remarked: “the present troublers of our Israel are that heterogeneous mass, the Methodists; who, whatever they may pretend, are avowed enemies to the doctrine and discipline of our Church, and have faithfully copied the worst men in the worst times. If such men’s enthusiastical notions be the true doctrine of Jesus Christ, better it would be to be a Jew, a Turk, an infidel, than to be a Christian; for it is much better not to believe in Jesus Christ, than to believe such doctrines to be His, as are against common reason and common sense, and are repugnant to the first principles of truth and equity.”[399]
In _Lloyd’s Evening Post_ the same paper war was waged. “Philodemus” wished for “a court of judicature, to detect the cunning cant and hypocrisy of all pretenders to sanctity and devotion;” and depicted the Methodists in colours not the brightest. Wesley replied to him as follows.
“_November 17, 1760._
“SIR,—In your last paper, we had a letter, from a very angry gentleman, who _personates_ a clergyman, but is, I presume, a retainer to the theatre. He is very warm against the people vulgarly termed Methodists, ‘ridiculous impostors,’ ‘religious buffoons,’ as he styles them; ‘saint errants’ (a pretty and quaint phrase), full of ‘inconsiderateness, madness, melancholy, enthusiasm’; teaching ‘a knotty and unintelligible system of religion,’ yea ‘a contradictory or self contradicting,’ nay ‘a mere illusion,’ a ‘destructive scheme, and of pernicious consequence.’
“Methinks the gentleman has a little mistaken his character: he seems to have exchanged the sock for the buskin. But, be this as it may, general charges prove nothing; let us come to particulars. Here they are.”
Wesley then proceeds to answer the remarks of “Philodemus” concerning “the grace of assurance, good works,” etc., and continues:
“This is the sum of your correspondent’s charge, not one article of which can be proved. But whether it can or no, ‘we have made them,’ says he, ‘a theatrical scoff, and the common jest and scorn of every chorister in the street.’ It may be so; but whether you have done well herein, may still admit of a question. However, you cannot but wish, ‘we had some formal court of judicature erected to take cognisance of such matters.’ Nay, _cur optas quod habes_? Why do you wish for what you have already? The court is erected; the holy, devout playhouse is become the _house of mercy_; and does take cognisance ‘of all pretenders to sanctity, and happily furnishes us with a discerning spirit to distinguish between right and wrong.’ But I do not stand to their sentence; I appeal to Scripture and reason; and, by these alone, consent to be judged.
“I am, sir, your humble servant,
“JOHN WESLEY.”[400]
“Philodemus” pretended to answer Wesley’s letter, under another alias, “Somebody;” but was obliged to have recourse to blustering abuse, telling Wesley that “every serious protestant despises the enthusiastic madness of Methodism, and rejects him and his followers as members of that community”; and then politely adding, that “arguing with Methodists is like pounding fools in a mortar.”
In the next issue of _Lloyd’s Evening Post_, November 24, Wesley referred to this and other attacks as follows.
“_November 22, 1760._
“SIR,—Just as I had finished the letter published in your last Friday’s paper, four tracts came into my hands: one written, or procured to be written, by Mrs. Downes;[401] one by a clergyman in the county of Durham;[402] the third by a gentleman of Cambridge;[403] and the fourth by a member (I suppose, dignitary) of the Church of Rome.[404] How gladly would I leave all these to themselves, and let them say just what they please! as my day is far spent, and my taste for controversy is utterly lost and gone. But this would not be doing justice to the world, who might take silence for a proof of guilt. I shall therefore say a word concerning each.”
After doing this, he concludes thus:
“Is it possible any protestants, nay, protestant clergyman, should buy these tracts to give away? Is then the introducing popery the only way to overthrow Methodism? If they know this, and choose popery as the smaller evil of the two, they are consistent with themselves. But if they do not intend this, I wish them to consider more seriously what they do.
“I am, sir, your humble servant,
“JOHN WESLEY.”
The correspondence between Wesley and “Philodemus,” who changed his signature every time he wrote a new letter, was continued until Christmas. The anonymous slanderer accused Wesley of plundering the poor; and, in proof, referred to the meeting-houses he had built. Wesley replied:
“Don’t you know, sir, those houses are none of mine? I made them over to trustees long ago. I have food to eat, and raiment to put on; and I _will have no more_, till I turn Turk or pagan.
“I am, sir, in very good humour, your well wisher,
“JOHN WESLEY.”[405]
Wesley suspected “Philodemus” to be a friend of Foote’s; or, at all events, a patron of the theatre; but this the fighter in ambush positively denied, and said he was a constant attender at church, had read the Bible in four different languages, and was personally known to some of the best theologians in the nation. The man, however, lost his temper. His letters evinced considerable ability; but Wesley’s answers stung him to the quick. He was wounded, and could not avoid wincing. In his last lucubration, published December 10, he observed: “I shall not give myself the trouble to write to you any more, as it is only wasting paper to cavil with shuffling controvertists;” and then he finished by proposing to hold a personal discussion with Wesley, at which “a dignified clergyman of the Church of England should preside, and be the umpire of the debate.” On December 24, Wesley replied as follows.
“_For the Editor of ‘Lloyd’s Evening Post.’_
“To Mr. T. H., _alias_ E. L., etc., etc.
“What my good friend again? only a little disguised with a new name, and a few scraps of Latin? I hoped, indeed, you had been pretty well satisfied before; but, since you desire to hear a little further from me, I will add a few words, and endeavour to set our little controversy in a still clearer light.
“Last month you publicly attacked the people called Methodists, without either fear or wit. I considered each charge, and, I conceive, refuted it, to the satisfaction of all indifferent persons. You renewed the attack, not by _proving_ anything, but by _affirming_ the same things over and over. I replied, and, without taking notice of the dull, low scurrility, either of the first or second letter, confined myself to the merits of the case, and cleared away the dirt you had thrown.
“You now heap together ten paragraphs more, most of which require very little answer.”
After answering nine of them, Wesley continues:
“In the last, you give me a fair challenge to a ‘personal dispute.’ Not so: you have fallen upon me in public; and to the public I appeal. Let all men, not any single umpire, judge, whether I have not fully refuted your charge, and cleared the people called Methodists from the foul aspersions, which, without why or wherefore, you had thrown upon them. Let all of my countrymen judge, which of us have spoken the words of truth and soberness, and which has treated the other with a temper suitable to the gospel.
“If the general voice of mankind gives it against you, I hope you will be henceforth less flippant with your pen. I assure you, as little as you think of it, the Methodists are not such fools as you suppose. But their desire is to live peaceably with all men; and none desires this more than
“JOHN WESLEY.”[406]
Mob persecution was bad enough; but persecution like this was worse. No wonder that Wesley felt, that his “taste for controversy was utterly lost and gone.” His one object was to preach Christ and to save souls; but, despite himself, large portions of his time were most vexatiously occupied in defending himself and his societies from the malignant and unscrupulous attacks of his enemies. He was a match for the most trenchant of his foes; but preaching, not fighting, was the work to which he wished to devote his talents, his energies, and his life.
Besides this annoyance from the public press, Wesley had great anxiety from his own societies. The question of separation from the Established Church was still, among the Methodists, the great topic of the time. The agitation existed not in England only; but had spread to Ireland also. At Athlone, for instance, some of the Methodists went to church and sacrament; but others absolutely refused to go, because the minister was not a child of God, nor a preacher of sound doctrine. The Hon. and Rev. Walter Shirley wrote to Wesley, in great alarm, concerning this, and, in conclusion, said: “I have hitherto learnt to consider the Methodists, not as any sect, but as the purer part of the Church of England; but, if any of them grow so wantonly fond of division as to form a schism, I foresee they will lose much of the gospel meekness, humility, and love; and a party zeal will take place, instead of a zeal according to knowledge.”[407]
In London, the same subject created great excitement. A week after Wesley left the metropolis for his tour to the north and to Ireland, Thomas Maxfield wrote to him as follows: “The affair of leaving the Church has hurt the minds of many, on both sides. I hope it will be fully settled at conference. I endeavour, as far as I can safely, to be on neither side.”[408]
The preachers at Norwich—Paul Greenwood, Thomas Mitchell, and John Murlin, without Wesley’s permission, or consulting any of their coadjutors, began to administer the sacrament to the somewhat mongrel society in that city. Charles Wesley was enraged, and, early in March, wrote to his brother thus.
“DEAR BROTHER,—We are come to the Rubicon. Shall we pass, or shall we not? In the fear of God, and in the name of Jesus Christ, let us ask, ‘Lord, what wouldest _Thou_ have us to do?’ The case stands thus. Three preachers, whom we thought we could have depended upon, have taken upon them to administer the sacrament, without any ordination, and without acquainting us, or even yourself, of it beforehand. Why may not all the preachers do the same, if each is judge of his own right to do it? And every one _is_ left to act as he pleases, if we take no notice of them that have so despised their brethren. That the rest will soon follow their example I believe; because (1) They think they may do it with impunity. (2) Because, a large majority imagine they have a right, as preachers, to administer the sacraments. So long ago as the conference at Leeds, I took down their names. (3) Because, they have betrayed an impatience to separate. The preachers in Cornwall, and others, wondered it had not been mentioned at our last conference. Jacob Rowell’s honesty I commend. Christopher Hopper, Joseph Cownley, John Hampson, and several more, are ripe for a separation. Even Mr. Crisp says, he would give the sacrament if you bade him. The young preachers, you know, are raw, unprincipled men, and entirely at the mercy of the old. You could persuade them to anything; and not you only, but Charles Perronet could do the same, or any of the preachers that have left us, or any of the three at Norwich. Upon the whole, I am fully persuaded, almost all our preachers are corrupted already. More and more will give the sacrament, and set up for themselves, even before we die; and all, except the few that get orders, will turn Dissenters before or after our death. You must wink very hard not to see all this. You have connived at it too, too long. But I now call upon you to consider with me what is to be done; first, to prevent a separation; secondly, to save the few uncorrupted preachers; thirdly, to make the best of those that are corrupted.”[409]
Charles Wesley’s terms were far too strong. To say that “almost all the preachers were _corrupted_,” because they wished to separate from a _corrupted_ church, and because they were desirous that their societies and congregations generally should have the same advantages which the Methodists in London and Bristol had,—namely, the Lord’s supper in their own chapels, and Divine service there on the forenoon of the sabbath day,—was to employ language either unmeaning, or unauthorised; either extravagantly foolish, or something worse. Charles Wesley’s temper was warm; his spirit was impetuous; and, had it not been for John’s more calm and sober action, his impulsiveness would, more than once, have shaken Methodism to its centre, if not absolutely have shivered it into a thousand atoms. No wonder, that while he speaks of the influence of his brother, and even of Charles Perronet, he makes no mention of his own. The truth is, by his extreme churchism, his influence among the preachers was almost _nil_; and, to the day of his death, he never recovered the position in which he stood when Methodism was first begun.
The action taken by the itinerant triumvirate at Norwich thoroughly alarmed him. On the 6th of March, he wrote to Nicholas Gilbert, one of the oldest preachers, saying:—
“You have heard of Paul Greenwood, John Murlin, and Thomas Mitchell’s presuming to give the sacrament at Norwich. They never acquainted their fellow labourers, no, not even my brother, of their design. They did it without any ordination, either by bishops or elders; upon the sole authority of a sixpenny licence: nay, all had not that. Do you think they acted right? If the other preachers follow their example, not only separation, but general confusion, must follow. My soul abhors the thought of separating from the Church of England. You and all the preachers know, if my brother should ever leave it, I should leave him, or rather he me. You would rather waive your right, if you had it (which I absolutely deny), of ordaining yourselves priests, than occasion so great an evil. You must become at last either Church ministers or Dissenting. Such as addict themselves thereto, God will make a way for their regular ordination in the Church. With these I desire to live and die. If you are of the number, I look upon you as my brother, my son, and owe you all I can do for you, as to soul, body, and estate. Now consider, and speak your mind. Will you take me for your father, brother, friend? or will you not?”[410]
What was this but an attempt to divide the Methodist itinerants, and to place himself at the head of one party, while his brother was left as the leader of the other?
A day later, he wrote to the same effect to John Johnson, an itinerant of five years’ standing, and added:—
“Things are come to a crisis. Every preacher must consider now what will become of him. My brother and I have almost finished our course. After our departure, you _must_ become either Dissenting or Church ministers. To which have _you_ addicted yourself? If to the meeting, let us part friends. If your conscience suffers you to accept of orders in the Church of England, I nothing doubt your admission. If you love the Church, you are nearer and dearer to me than all my natural relations. All I can do for you, as to soul, body, and estate, I ought and will do, the Lord being my helper.”[411]
Three weeks after, he wrote as follows to John Nelson.
“LONDON, _March 27, 1760_.
“MY DEAR BROTHER,—I think you are no weathercock. What think you then of licensing yourself as a protestant Dissenter, and baptizing and administering the Lord’s supper, and all the while calling yourself a Church of England man? Is this honest? consistent? just? Yet this is the practice of several of our sons in the gospel, even of some whom I most loved, and most depended on. My brother suffers them. Will not all the rest follow their example? and will not general separation ensue? John, I love thee from my heart; yet rather than see thee a Dissenting minister, I wish to see thee smiling in thy coffin.”[412]
He had already written to Christopher Hopper, and Christopher had answered him. The following was a rejoinder.
“LONDON, _March 27, 1760_.
“MY DEAR BROTHER,—You justly observe, it is not my way to hear one side only. You have not been suffered to speak; your complaints have been slighted; your reasons not attended to; your old worn out brethren left, to the parish. What must be your end? This question ought to be asked, considered, urged, insisted on, till it be answered to your full satisfaction.
“Here is a poor Methodist preacher, who has given up his business for the sake of preaching the gospel. Perhaps he has got a wife, and children, and nothing to keep them. By labouring like a horse, and travelling like a postboy, for ten or a dozen years, his strength is exhausted; yet he is able, and quite willing, to do what he can still. But how shall he get bread for his family? That Mr. Superintendent will look to.
“Well; be it so. But what will become of this old, faithful preacher, when my brother and I are dead. ‘He must turn Dissenting or Church minister.’ I grant it; there is no medium.
“‘But will you,’ you ask us, ‘now use all your interest to get him ordained?’ I answer for myself, yes; and will begin to-morrow; or never blame him for turning Dissenter. If any of you prefer the service of the Dissenters, I would let you depart in peace. If your heart is as my heart, and you dare venture in the same bottom, then am I your faithful servant for the residue of my days, and bound to do all I can for you, as to soul, body, and estate.”[413]
On the same day, he wrote the following to Grimshaw, of Haworth.
“LONDON, _March 27, 1760_.
“MY DEAR BROTHER,—Our preaching houses are mostly licensed, and so are proper meeting-houses. Our preachers are mostly licensed, and so are Dissenting ministers. They took out their licences as protestant Dissenters. Three of our steadiest preachers give the sacrament at Norwich, with no other ordination or authority than a sixpenny licence. My brother approves of it. All the rest will most probably follow their example. What then must be the consequence? Not only separation, but general confusion, and the destruction of the work, so far as it depends upon the Methodists.
“My brother persuades himself, that none of the other preachers will do like those at Norwich; that they may all license themselves, and give the sacraments, yet continue true members of the Church of England; that no confusion or inconvenience will follow from these things; that we should let them do as they please till conference: where, I suppose, it must be put to the vote, whether they have not a right to administer the sacraments; and they themselves shall be the judges.
“I cannot get leave of my conscience, to do nothing in the meantime towards guarding our children against the approaching evil. They shall not be trepanned into a meeting-house, if I can hinder it. Every man ought to choose for himself. I am convinced things are come to a crisis. We must now resolve either to separate from the Church, or to continue in it the rest of our days.”[414]
On March 31, Grimshaw replied, stating:-
“This licensing the preachers, and preaching houses, is a matter that I never expected to have seen or heard of among the Methodists. If I had, I dare say I had never entered into connection with them. I am in connection, and desire to continue so: but how can I do it consistently with my relation to the Church of England? What encouragement was given to the preachers at the last conference to license themselves, God and you best know; but, since then, many of the preachers in these parts have got licensed at the quarter sessions. Several of the preaching houses and other houses also are licensed. The Methodists are no longer members of the Church of England. They are as real a body of Dissenters from her as the presbyterians, baptists, quakers, or any body of independents.
“I little thought, that your brother approved or connived at the preachers’ doings at Norwich. If it be so, ‘to your tents, O Israel!’ it is time for me to shift for myself; to disown all connection with the Methodists; to stay at home, and take care of my parish; or to preach abroad in such places as are unlicensed, and to such people as are in connection with us. I hereby, therefore, assure you, that I disclaim all further and future connection with the Methodists. I will quietly recede, without noise or tumult.
“As to licensing of preachers and places, I know no expedient to prevent it. The thing is gone too far. It is become inveterate. It has been gradually growing to this ever since erecting preaching houses was first encouraged in the land; and if you can stem the torrent, it will be only during your lives. As soon as you are dead, all the preachers will then do as many have already done. Dissenters the Methodists will all shortly be: it cannot, I am fully satisfied, be prevented.
“Nor is this spirit merely in the preachers. It is in the people also. There are so many inconveniences attend the people, that in most places they all plead strenuously for a settled ministry. They cannot, they say, in conscience, receive the sacraments as administered in our Church. They cannot attend preaching at eight, twelve, and four o’clock, on the Lord’s days, and go to church. They reason these things with the preachers, and urge upon them ordination and residence. They can object little against it; therefore they license. I believe the Methodists (preachers and members) have so much to say for their separation from our Church, as will not easily, in a conference or otherwise, be obviated.”[415]
There can be no doubt, that Charles Wesley and Grimshaw were technically right. The act of toleration, under which Methodist preachers, and Methodist meeting-houses, were licensed, was an act passed in the first year of the reign of William and Mary, and was intended, not for churchmen, but “for exempting their majesties’ protestant subjects _dissenting from the Church of England_, from the penalties of certain laws.” Before the licences could be granted, the oaths must be taken, and the persons taking them must declare themselves Dissenters.
What induced the Methodists and the Methodist preachers to take such a step as this? Was it because the persecuting spirit of magistrates and others began to put in force, at Rolvenden and other places, the old “conventicle act,” and the “five mile act,” passed in the reign of Charles II.? Or, was it because the Methodists and their preachers began to be impatient of their present anomalous position, and wished to avow themselves to be what they really were,—Dissenters from the Church of England? Or rather, was not the step they took, and which so alarmed Charles Wesley and his clerical friend Grimshaw, induced by both the reasons just mentioned? We think it was; indeed, there can be little doubt of it.
No wonder that Charles Wesley thought the crisis had arrived! From the beginning, the Methodists, if members of the Church of England at all, had been _irregulars_. Many of them, for various reasons, had long refused to go to church and sacrament; and now, by availing themselves of an act of parliament, they openly, in courts of law, avowed themselves to be Dissenters.
Charles, the high churchman, was wroth to the uttermost; John, the zealous evangelist, was calmly pursuing his great mission in Staffordshire, Yorkshire, and Lancashire. The one was preaching, the other plotting: both equally sincere, and well intentioned; but one
## acting much more wisely than the other.
Charles Wesley’s private correspondence with the preachers was scarcely fair to his absent brother, and cannot be commended as honourable. John was the real, almost the only, leader of the Methodists; and to tamper with his preachers, by offering them episcopal ordination and family support, was not brotherly behaviour; neither was the offer one which was likely to be realised. True, he wrote as if he was authorised to say, that those itinerants who wished might certainly obtain orders in the Church of England. He was a friend of Lady Huntingdon’s; and, perhaps, her ladyship’s encouragement was his assumed authority; but who believes that Charles Wesley could have obtained, for any considerable number of the Methodist itinerants, ordination by bishops? His scheme was visionary, and ended in nothing. Joseph Cownley wrote to him as follows.
“There are several of my brethren, who have no thoughts of fleeing to the gown or cloak for succour, unless they could do it, and be Methodist preachers still. I can easily believe, that many, if not most, of those who shall survive you, will separate from the Church, except, as my friend Hopper says, you get them fastened where they are by prevailing on one or more of the bishops to ordain them. But then what bishop, either in England or Ireland, will ever do this? will ordain a Methodist preacher, to be a Methodist preacher? For my part, as poor and worthless a wretch as I am, I could not submit to it on the terms on which most of my brethren have hitherto got it.”
Cownley then adds a significant paragraph, showing that Charles Wesley’s influence among the Methodists was waning. “Give me leave now to press you to do what I think is your bounden duty: I mean, to visit the north this summer. We have excused you to the poor people, till we can do it no longer. If you refuse to come now, we can say neither more nor less about it, than, that you cannot, because you will not. If you could not preach at all, it would do them good only to see your face.”[416]
An extract from another letter, by Charles Wesley to his wife, may be added.
“SPITALFIELDS CHAPEL, _April 13, 1760_.
“Poor Mr. I’anson is in great trouble for our people. A persecuting justice has oppressed and spoiled them by the conventicle act. We have appealed. I am fully persuaded God has suffered this evil, to reprove our hypocrisy, and our mistrust of His protection.
“I met all the leaders, and read them my brother’s and Mr. Grimshaw’s letters. The latter put them in a flame. All cried out against the licensed preachers; many demanded, that they should be silenced immediately; many, that they should give up their licences; some protested against ever hearing them again. Silas Told and Isaac Waldron, as often as they opened their mouths, were put to silence by the people’s just complaints and unanswerable arguments. The lay preachers pleaded my brother’s authority. I took occasion from thence to moderate the others, to defend the preachers, and desired the leaders to have patience till we had had our conference; promising them to let them know all that should pass at it. They could trust me. I added, that I would not betray the cause of the Church, or deceive them; that I was resolved no one of them all should be ensnared into a meeting-house. If they chose to turn Dissenters, they should do it with their eyes open. My chief concern upon earth, I said, was the prosperity of the Church of England; my next, that of the Methodists; my third, that of the preachers: that, if their interests should ever come in competition, I would give up the preachers for the good of the Methodists, and the Methodists for the good of the whole body of the Church of England; that nothing could ever force me to leave the Methodists, but their leaving the Church. You cannot conceive what a spirit rose in all that heard me. They all cried out, that they would answer for ninety-nine out of a hundred in London, that they would live and die in the Church. My business was to pacify and keep them within bounds. I appointed another meeting on this day fortnight, and Friday seven-night as a fast for the Church.”[417]
This wonderful leaders’ meeting, strangely enough, was held on a Sunday. Unfortunately, no report of the discussions of the ensuing conference now exists; but this is certain, that the agitation of the Methodists was not smothered. In the month of December, the following puzzling queries were proposed to Charles Wesley, in _Lloyd’s Evening Post_.
“1. Are you not a sworn member and minister of the Church of England?
“2. Are you not bound, as such, to discountenance and prevent, as far as lies in you, every schism and division in the Church, or separation from it?
“3. Do not you countenance and support this by administering the sacrament at Kingswood, near Bristol, and other places in London, not licensed by the bishop, in time of Divine service at the parish churches?
“4. Is not the attending such meetings at such time an actual separation from the Church of England, according to the doctrine laid down in a small tract lately published by you?
“5. Are not such assemblies contrary to the laws of the land, when the places and the persons officiating are not licensed by the bishop of the diocese where such meetings are held, or at the quarter sessions of the peace?
“6. Is it honest to call yourself a member and minister of the Church of England, when it appears from your own confession you are not?
“7. Are you not bound to submit to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake?
“8. Should you not, therefore, submit to the authority of the Church of England, or qualify yourself as the law enjoins?
“9. Is not your late incapacity to preach, and the distractions among you, a judicial stroke, for your gross disingenuity, and sin against God?
“I am yours, etc.,
“LOVE TRUTH.”
This was turning the tables upon the vehement churchman; and with this we, for the present, leave the question, whether, in 1760, the Methodists were Dissenters or were members of the Church of England.
Wesley was at this period too much occupied with other matters, to have time to devote to literary pursuits; and yet the year 1760 was not, even in this respect, altogether barren.
For instance, he published a 12mo pamphlet of 72 pages, entitled, “The Desideratum: or Electricity made plain and useful. By a Lover of Mankind, and of Common Sense.” In his preface, he states, that he has endeavoured to “comprise in his tract the sum of all that had hitherto been published on this curious and important subject.” Electricity he considered “the noblest medicine yet known.”
The only other publication which he issued, in 1760, was a 12mo volume of more than three hundred pages, with the title, “Sermons on Several Occasions. By John Wesley, M. A.” The title was imperfect, for in the same volume, and continuously paged, there are the following additional pieces: namely, “Advice to the Methodists, with regard to Dress,” 20 pages; “The Duties of Husbands and Wives,” 70 pages; “Thoughts on Christian Perfection,” 30 pages; and “Christian Instructions, Extracted from a late French Author,” 54 pages.
The sermons are seven in number. The first, on Original Sin; the second, on the New Birth; the third, on the Wilderness State; the fourth, on Heaviness through Temptations; the fifth, on Self Denial; the sixth, on the Cure of Evil Speaking; and the seventh, on the Use of Money.
The last mentioned sermon is pregnant with not a few of Wesley’s most strongly expressed sentiments. Concerning himself, he tells us that, from “a peculiar constitution of soul,” he is “convinced, by many experiments, that he could not study, to any degree of perfection, either mathematics, arithmetic, or algebra, without being a deist, if not an atheist; though others may study them all their lives without sustaining any inconvenience.”
On the payment of taxes, he remarks: “It is, at least, as sinful to defraud the king of his right, as to rob our fellow subjects; the king has full as much right to his customs as we have to our houses and apparel.”
“Drams, or spirituous liquors, are liquid fire,” and all who manufacture or sell them, except as medicine, “are poisoners general. They murder his majesty’s subjects by wholesale. They drive them to hell like sheep. The curse of God is in their gardens, their walks, their groves. Blood, blood is there: the foundation, the floor, the walls, the roof of their dwellings, are stained with blood.”
In the same sermon, he powerfully elaborates his three well known rules,—Gain all you can; Save all you can; Give all you can.
In his “Advice to the Methodists with regard to Dress,” he says: “I would not advise you to imitate the quakers, in those little
## particularities of dress, which can answer no possible end, but to
distinguish them from all other people. To be singular, merely for singularity’s sake, is not the part of a Christian. But I advise you to imitate them, first, in the neatness, and secondly in the plainness, of their apparel.” He continues: “Wear no gold, no pearls or precious stones; use no curling of hair; buy no velvets, no silks, no fine linen; no superfluities, no _mere ornaments_, though ever so much in fashion. Wear nothing which is of a glaring colour, or which is, in any kind, gay, glistering, showy; nothing made in the very height of fashion; nothing apt to attract the eyes of bystanders. I do not advise women to wear rings, earrings, necklaces, lace, or ruffles. Neither do I advise men to wear coloured waistcoats, shining stockings, glittering or costly buckles or buttons, either on their coats or in their sleeves, any more than gay, fashionable, or expensive perukes. It is true these are little, very little things; therefore, they are not worth defending; therefore, give them up, let them drop, throw them away, without another word.” What will the fashionable followers of Wesley say to this? And yet Wesley enforces his advices, and answers objections, in a manner which, we suspect, the devotees of fashion will find it difficult to set aside.
“The Duties of Husbands and Wives” was a republication, in an abridged form, of Whateley’s “Directions for Married Persons,” published, in 1753, in Vol. XXII. of the “Christian Library.”
The “Thoughts on Christian Perfection” have been already noticed; and “Christian Instructions” contains nothing which deserves further mention.
A quarter of a century had elapsed since Wesley set sail for America. With what results? To say nothing of the success of the labours of Whitefield and his coadjutors, Methodism had been introduced into almost every county of England and Ireland; ninety itinerant preachers were acting under Wesley’s direction; also a much larger number of local preachers, leaders, and stewards; chapels had been built in London, Bristol, Kingswood, Newcastle on Tyne, Redruth, St. Just, St. Ives, Whitehaven, Gateshead, Sunderland, Teesdale, Colchester, Portsmouth, Whitchurch, Bacup, Bolton, Flixton, Liverpool, Epworth, Louth, Norwich, Kinley, Misterton, Coleford, Tipton, Wednesbury, Lakenheath, Salisbury, Bradford, Halifax, Hutton Rudby, Haworth, Leeds, Osmotherley, Stainland, Sheffield, York, Cardiff, Bandon, Cork, Dublin, Edinderry, Tullamore, Court Mattrass, Pallas, Castlebar, Waterford, and other places;[418] and to these sacred edifices must be added scores, probably hundreds, of private houses, schools, barns, and rooms, which were regularly used as preaching places. In addition to all this, the Wesley brothers, John and Charles, had published about a dozen volumes and about thirty tracts and pamphlets of hymns and poetry; while Wesley himself had issued nine numbers of his Journal, about one hundred and thirty separate sermons, tracts, and pamphlets, and nearly seventy volumes of books, including his “Notes on the New Testament,” his Sermons, and his “Christian Library.”
Can this be equalled, all things considered, in the same space of time, in the life of any one, in this or in any other age and nation of the world? We doubt it. Wesley began his career as a penniless priest; he was without patrons and without friends; magistrates threatened him; the clergy expelled him from their churches, and wrote numberless and furious pasquinades against him; newspapers and magazines reviled him; ballad singers, in foulest language, derided him; mobs assaulted, and, more than once, well-nigh murdered him; and not a few of his companions in toil forsook him and became his antagonists; and yet, despite all this, such were some of the results of the first five-and-twenty years of his unequalled public ministry.
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