PART II. (continued 4)

Another of Wesley’s publications was a 12mo tract of nineteen pages, with the title, “The Nature and Design of Christianity, extracted from a late author” (Mr. Law); and another was Wesley’s second Journal, extending from February 1 to August 12, 1738. 12mo, pp. 90.

The year 1740, in Wesley’s history, was not marked with great religious success; but it was one of the most eventful years in his chequered life. There was a full and final separation from the Moravians; there was the separate organisation of the Methodist society at Moorfields; and there was the controversy with Whitefield. All these matters will again demand attention.

1741.

1741 Age 38

WITH the exception of a week spent in the midland counties, about a month at Oxford, and three weeks in Wales, Wesley divided the year 1741, in almost equal proportions, between London and Bristol.

Whitefield arrived in England, from America, in the month of March; and, finding his congregations at Moorfields and Kennington Common dwindled down from twenty thousand to two or three hundred, he started off to Bristol, where he remained till the end of May; when he came back to London, and, on July 25, sailed thence to Scotland, writing six-and-twenty pastoralizing letters on the way, and arriving at Leith on July 30. The next three months were spent with the Erskines and others, the leaders of the Seceders, who, in the year preceding, had been solemnly expelled by the General Assembly, and had had their relation to the national church formally dissolved. Whitefield’s career of out-door preaching, and his success in Scotland, were marvellous. All the time, however, he was burdened with an enormous debt, incurred on account of his orphan house in Georgia, and was sometimes threatened with arrest. On leaving Scotland, he proceeded direct to Wales, where, on the 11th of November, he married a widow of the name of James, and set up housekeeping with borrowed furniture, though, according to an announcement in the Gentleman’s Magazine,[384] his wife had a fortune of £10,000. The rest of the year he spent chiefly in Bristol and the west of England.[385]

Charles Wesley, of course, alternated with his brother, though he preached far more at Bristol than in London. Ever and anon he composed one of his grand funereal hymns, and not unfrequently met with amusing adventures. In a Kingswood prayer-meeting, while he and others were praying for an increase of spiritual children, a wild collier brought four of his black-faced little ones, and threw the youngest on the table, saying, “You have got the mother, take the bairns as well.” In another instance, a woman came to him about her husband, who had been to hear the predestinarian gospel, returned home elect, and, in proof of it, beat his wife.

For some months, in the year 1741, Charles Wesley was in danger of subsiding into Moravian stillness; and his brother wrote to him, “The Philistines are upon thee, Samson, but the Lord is not departed from thee.” Gambold also, and Westley Hall, were inoculated with the same pernicious poison. Charles went off to Bristol, and on April 21 Wesley addressed to him the following:—

“I rejoice in your speaking your mind freely. O let our love be without dissimulation!

“As yet, I dare in nowise join with the Moravians: 1. Because their whole scheme is mystical, not scriptural. 2. Because there is darkness and closeness in their whole behaviour, and guile in almost all their words. 3. Because they utterly deny and despise self denial and the daily cross. 4. Because they, upon principle, conform to the world, in wearing gold or costly apparel. 5. Because they extend Christian liberty, in this and many other respects, beyond what is warranted in holy writ. 6. Because they are by no means zealous of good works; or, at least, only to their own people. And, lastly, because they make inward religion swallow up outward in general. For these reasons chiefly, I will rather stand quite alone, than join with them: I mean till I have full assurance, that they will spread none of their errors among the little flock committed to my charge.

“O my brother, my soul is grieved for you; the poison is in you: fair words have stolen away your heart. ‘No English man or woman is like the Moravians!’ So the matter is come to a fair issue. Five of us did still stand together a few months since; but two are gone to the right hand, Hutchins and Cennick; and two more to the left, Mr. Hall and you. Lord, if it be Thy gospel which I preach, arise and maintain Thine own cause! Adieu!”[386]

In the month of May, a reunion of Wesley’s London society with the Moravians at Fetter Lane was solemnly discussed; and all the bands met at the Foundery, on a Wednesday afternoon, to ask God to give them guidance. “It was clear to all,” writes Wesley, “even those who were before the most desirous of reunion, that the time was not come: (1) because the brethren of Fetter Lane had not given up their most essentially erroneous doctrines; and, (2) because many of us had found so much guile in their words, that we could scarce tell what they really held, and what not.”

Wesley entertained no bitterness towards the Moravians. He readily acknowledges, that they had a sincere desire to serve God; that many of them had tasted of His love that they abstained from outward sin; and that their discipline, in most respects, was excellent: but, after reading all their English publications, and “waiving their odd and affected phrases; their weak, mean, silly, childish expressions; their crude, confused, and undigested notions; and their whims, unsupported either by Scripture or sound reason,”—he found three grand, unretracted errors running through almost all their books, namely “universal salvation, antinomianism, and a kind of new, reformed quietism.” No wonder that the thought of reunion was abandoned.

A month after the above meeting, at the Foundery, Wesley made a tour among the Moravians, in the midland counties. Here Ingham had preached with great success; and here Mr. Simpson, one of the Oxford Methodists, had settled as a sort of Moravian minister. During the journey, Wesley made an experiment which he had often been urged to make, namely that of speaking to no one on sacred things, unless his heart was free to it. The result was, that, for eighty miles together, he had no need to speak at all; and he tells us that, instead of having crosses to take up and bear, he commonly fell fast asleep; and all behaved to him, as to a civil, good-natured gentleman. On reaching Ockbrook, where Simpson lived, he found that though, a few months before, there had been a great awakening all round about, three-fourths of the converts were now backsliders. Simpson had drawn the people from the Church, and had advised them to abandon devotion. He said, there was no Church of England left; and that there was no scriptural command for family or private prayer. The sum of his teaching was: “If you wish to believe, be still; and leave off what you call the means of grace, such as prayer and running to church and sacrament.” Mr. Graves, the clergyman of the parish, having offered the use of his church to Wesley, the latter preached two sermons, one on “the true gospel stillness”, and the other from his favourite text—“By grace are ye saved, through faith.”

From Ockbrook, Wesley went to Nottingham, where he found further evidences of backsliding. The room, which used to be crowded, was now half empty; and the few who did attend the services, instead of praying when they entered, sat down without any religious formality whatever, and began talking to their neighbours. When Wesley engaged in prayer among them, none knelt, and “those who stood chose the most easy and indolent posture which they conveniently could.” One of the hymn-books, published by the Wesleys, had been sent from London to be used in the public congregations; but both that and the Bible were now banished; and, in the place of them, lay the Moravian hymns and Zinzendorf’s sixteen sermons. Wesley preached twice in this Moravian meeting; and once in the market place, to an immense multitude, all of whom, with two or three exceptions, behaved with great decorum.

After spending a week at Markfield, Ockbrook, Nottingham, Melbourn, and Hemmington, and also probably becoming acquainted with the Countess of Huntingdon, who lived in this locality, Wesley returned to town, on the 16th of June, and, a fortnight after, went to Oxford, where he met his old friend Mr. Gambold, who honestly told him, he was ashamed of his company, and must be excused going to the Moravian meeting with him.

At the beginning of September, Zinzendorf wished to have an interview, and, at his request, Wesley went to Gray’s-inn Walk, a public promenade, to meet him. Zinzendorf charged him with having changed his religion; with having quarreled with the Brethren; and with having refused to be at peace with them, even after they had asked his forgiveness. In reference to Wesley’s doctrine of Christian perfection, the count became furious. “This,” said he, “is the error of errors. I pursue it through the world with fire and sword. I trample upon it. I devote it to utter destruction. Christ is our sole perfection. Whoever follows inherent perfection, denies Christ. All Christian perfection is faith in the blood of Christ; and is wholly imputed, not inherent.” Wesley asked, if they were not striving about words; and, by a series of questions, got the obfuscated German to admit, “that, a believer is altogether holy in heart and life,—that he loves God with all his heart, and serves Him with all his powers.” Wesley continued: “I desire nothing more. I mean nothing else by perfection, or Christian holiness.” Zinzendorf rejoined: “But this is not the believer’s holiness. He is not more holy if he loves more, or less holy, if he loves less. In the moment he is justified, he is sanctified wholly; and, from that time, he is neither more nor less holy, even unto death. Our whole justification, and sanctification, are in the same instant. From the moment any one is justified, his heart is as pure as it ever will be.” Wesley asked again: “Perhaps I do not comprehend your meaning. Do we not, while we deny ourselves, die more and more to the world and live to God?” Zinzendorf replied: “We reject all self denial. We trample upon it. We do, as believers, whatsoever we will, and nothing more. We laugh at all mortification. No purification precedes perfect love.”[387] And thus the conference ended.

“The count,” said Mr. Stonehouse after reading the conversation, “is a clever fellow; but the genius of Methodism is too strong for him.”[388]

Zinzendorf accused Wesley of refusing to live in peace, even after the Brethren had humbled themselves and begged his pardon. Wesley says there is a mistake in this. Fifty or more Moravians spoke bitterly against him; one or two asked his pardon, but did it in the most careless manner possible. The rest, if ashamed of their behaviour at all, managed to keep their shame a profound secret from him.[389]

As to the count’s theory, that a man is wholly sanctified the moment he is justified—a theory held by the Rev. Dr. Bunting, at all events, at the commencement of his ministerial career[390]—we say nothing; but there can be no question, that his sentiments respecting self denial, and the right of believers to do or not to do what they like, are, in a high degree, delusive and dangerous. We have here the very essence of the antinomian heresy, and are thus prepared for an entry in Charles Wesley’s journal:—

1741. September 6.—“I was astonished by a letter from my brother, relating his conference with the apostle of the Moravians. Who would believe it of Count Zinzendorf, that he should utterly deny all Christian holiness? I never could, but for a saying of his, which I heard with my own ears. Speaking of St. James’s epistle, he said: ‘If it was thrown out of the canon, I would not restore it.’”

The heresy of such a man was of vast importance; for, in this same year and month, September, 1741, Zinzendorf told Doddridge, that he had “sent out, from his own family of Moravians, three hundred preachers, who were gone into most parts of the world; and that he himself was now become the guardian of the Protestant churches in the south of France, sixty of which were assembling privately for worship.”[391]

As already stated, Charles Wesley was in danger of falling into the Moravian heresy. The following is an extract from a letter addressed to Wesley by the Countess of Huntingdon, and dated October 24, 1741.

“Since you left us, the still ones are not without their attacks. I fear much more for your brother than for myself, as the conquest of the one would be nothing in respect to the other. They have, by one of their agents, reviled me very much, but I have taken no sort of notice of it. I comfort myself, that you will approve a step with respect to them, which your brother and I have taken: no less than his declaring open war against them. He seemed under some difficulty about it at first, till he had free liberty given him to use my name, as the instrument, in God’s hand, that had delivered him from them. I rejoiced much at it, hoping it might be the means of working my deliverance from them. I have desired him to enclose to them yours on Christian perfection. The doctrine therein contained, I hope to live and die by; it is absolutely the most complete thing I know. Your brother is also to give his reasons for separating. I have great faith God will not let him fall; for many would fall with him. His natural parts, his judgment, and the improvement he has made, are so very far above the very highest of them, that I should imagine nothing but frenzy had seized upon him.

“We set out a week ago for Donnington, and you shall hear from me as soon as I arrive, and have heard how your little flock goes on in that neighbourhood.”[392]

Methodists will learn, from this interesting letter, that they owe a debt of gratitude to the noble and “elect lady” of the midland counties.

We turn to Whitefield. On his arrival from America, in the month of March, he found his position far from pleasant.

First of all, there was the melancholy death of his friend, William Seward—really Methodism’s first martyr—a man of considerable property, but of meagre education and inferior talent; Whitefield’s travelling companion in his second voyage to Georgia, and who, at the time of his being murdered, in Wales, was itinerating with Howel Harris in Glamorganshire. At Newport, the mob had torn Harris’s coat to tatters, stolen his wig, and pelted him and his companion with apples, stones, and dirt. At Caerleon, rotten eggs were thrown in all directions, Seward’s eye was struck, and, a few days after, he was entirely blind. At Monmouth, their treatment was of the same kind as at Newport and Caerleon; but Seward bravely cried, “Better endure this than hell.” At length, on reaching Hay, a villain hit him on the head; the blow was fatal; and William Seward went to inherit a martyr’s crown, at the early age of thirty-eight, on October 22, 1741.

Besides the death of Methodism’s protomartyr, there were other troubles which Whitefield had to carry. He had an orphan family of nearly a hundred persons to maintain; was above a thousand pounds in debt for them; and was threatened with arrest on account of a bill for £350, drawn, in favour of the orphan house by his dead friend, William Seward, but which had not been met by him. James Hutton, who had been his publisher, refused to have any further transactions with him. “Many of my spiritual children,” he writes, “who, when I last left England, would have plucked out their own eyes to have given me, are so prejudiced by the dear Messrs. Wesleys’ dressing up of election in such horrible colours, that they will neither hear, see, nor give me the least assistance. Yea, some of them send threatening letters, that God will speedily destroy me. As for the people of the world, they are so embittered by my injudicious and too severe expressions against Archbishop Tillotson, the author of the old Duty of Man, that they fly from me as from a viper; and, what is worst of all, I am now constrained, on account of our differing in principles, publicly to separate from my dear, dear old friends, Messrs. John and Charles Wesley.”[393]

During his passage to England, Whitefield wrote to Charles Wesley as follows: “My dear, dear brother, why did you throw out the bone of contention? Why did you print that sermon against predestination? Why did you, in particular, affix your hymn and join in putting out your late hymn-book? How can you say you will not dispute with me about election, and yet print such hymns?” And then he proceeds to state, that he had written an answer to Wesley’s sermon on free grace, and was about to have it printed in Charlestown, Boston, and London.[394]

About six weeks before his arrival in England, some one obtained a copy of the letter he had sent to Wesley, under the date of September 25, 1740,[395] (an extract of which is given in the previous chapter, page 316,) and had printed it without either his or Wesley’s consent, and circulated it gratuitously at the doors of the Foundery. Wesley heard of this; and, having procured a copy, tore it in pieces before the assembled congregation, declaring that he believed Whitefield would have done the same. The congregation imitated their minister’s example, and, in two minutes, all the copies were literally torn to tatters.

Three weeks after this, Wesley had to hurry off to Kingswood to allay the turmoils there. He met the bands, but it was a cold uncomfortable meeting. Cennick and fifteen or twenty of his friends had an interview with Wesley, who accused them of speaking against him behind his back. They replied that they had said nothing behind his back which they would not say before his face; namely, that he preached up the faithfulness of man, and not the faithfulness of God.

After a lovefeast, held in Bristol on Sunday evening, February 22, Wesley related to the Bristol Methodists, that many of their brethren at Kingswood had formed themselves into a separate society, on account of Cennick preaching doctrines different to those preached by himself and his brother. Cennick, who was present, affirmed, that Wesley’s doctrine was false. Wesley charged him with supplanting him in his own house, stealing the hearts of the people, and, by private accusations, dividing very friends. Cennick replied, “I have never privately accused you.” Wesley, who, by some means, was possessed of a letter which Cennick had recently addressed to Whitefield, answered: “My brethren, judge;” and then began to read as follows:—

“January 17, 1741.

“My dear Brother,—That you might come quickly, I have written a second time. I sit solitary, like Eli, waiting what will become of the ark. My trouble increases daily. How glorious did the gospel seem once to flourish in Kingswood! I spake of the everlasting love of Christ with sweet power; but now brother Charles is suffered to open his mouth against this truth, while the frighted sheep gaze and fly, as if no shepherd was among them. O, pray for the distressed lambs yet left in this place, that they faint not! Brother Charles pleases the world with universal redemption, and brother John follows him in everything. No atheist can preach more against predestination than they; and all who believe election are counted enemies to God, and called so. Fly, dear brother. I am as alone; I am in the midst of the plague. If God give thee leave, make haste.”

Cennick acknowledged the letter was his, that it had been sent to Whitefield, and that he retracted nothing in it. The meeting got excited, and Wesley adjourned the settlement of the business to Kingswood on Saturday next ensuing.

Here he heard all that any one wished to say, and then read the following paper:—

“By many witnesses, it appears that several members of the band society in Kingswood have made it their common practice to scoff at the preaching of Mr. John and Charles Wesley; that they have censured and spoken evil of them behind their backs, at the very time they professed love and esteem to their faces; that they have studiously endeavoured to prejudice other members of that society against them; and, in order thereto, have belied and slandered them in divers instances.

“Therefore, not for their opinions, nor for any of them (whether they be right or wrong), but for the causes above mentioned, viz. for their scoffing at the word and ministers of God, for their talebearing, backbiting, and evil speaking, for their dissembling, lying, and slandering:

“I, John Wesley, by the consent and approbation of the band society in Kingswood, do declare the persons above mentioned to be no longer members thereof. Neither will they be so accounted, until they shall openly confess their fault, and thereby do what in them lies, to remove the scandal they have given.”

This is a remarkable document It was hardly two years since Whitefield and Wesley began to preach at Kingswood, and yet here we have a large number of their converts charged with backbiting, lying, slandering, and other crimes. “How is the gold become dim!” Were the former days better than these? We doubt it.

Here we also have the first Methodist expulsion; not for opinions, but for sins; not by the sole authority and act of John Wesley, but “by the consent and approbation” of the society, whose refractory members were to be put away. Such was Methodism, at its beginning.

Cennick, and those who sympathised with his sentiments, refused to own that they had done aught amiss; and declared that, on many occasions, he had heard both Wesley and his brother preach Popery. Wesley gave them another week to think the matter over. They were still intractable; and alleged that the real cause of their expulsion was their holding the doctrine of election. Wesley answered, “You know in your conscience it is not. There are several predestinarians in our societies both at London and Bristol, nor did I ever put any one out of either because he held that opinion.” The result of the whole was, Cennick and fifty-one others at once withdrew, and the remainder, numbering about a hundred, still adhered to Wesley.[396]

Such was the first schism in Methodist history,—John Cennick the leader,—fifty of the Kingswood members its abettors,—and John Wesley and a majority of the Kingswood society, the court enacting their expulsion.

The writer’s chief object is to furnish facts, and therefore he refrains from comment on these transactions. No doubt Cennick was sincere. After the risks he ran in preaching Christ, no one can doubt his Christian earnestness: but, having come to Kingswood at Wesley’s invitation, and having been employed by him as the teacher of his school, and also as an evangelist among the surrounding colliers, it would, at least, have been more courteous to have quietly retired from his present sphere of action, when he found his views different from those of his patron and his friend, than it was for him to pursue the controversial and divisive course he did. John Cennick had a lion’s courage and a martyr’s piety; but his passions sometimes mastered his prudence, and, for want of the serpent’s wisdom, he often failed in exhibiting the meekness of the dove.

Whitefield arrived in London a few days after the Kingswood expulsion; and Wesley, on the 25th of March, hastened off to meet him. Whitefield told him they preached two different gospels, and that he was resolved to preach against him and his brother wherever he preached at all. A weekly publication, of four folio pages, entitled “The Weekly History; or An Account of the most remarkable Particulars relating to the present Progress of the Gospel,” was immediately started by J. Lewis, Whitefield promising to supply him with fresh matter every week. This was really the first Methodist newspaper ever published. Of course, Calvinism was its inspiring genius. The principal contributors were Whitefield, Cennick, Howel Harris, and Joseph Humphreys.

The last mentioned was employed by Wesley as a sort of Moravian lay preacher, as early as the year 1738,[397] and was greatly attached to him. At this period, he was acting as Moravian minister at Deptford, and wrote to Wesley as follows:—

“Deptford, April 5, 1741.

“Dear and reverend Sir,—I think I love you better than ever. I would not grieve you by any means, if I could possibly help it. I think I had never more power in preaching than I had this morning. And, if this is the consequence of electing everlasting love, may my soul be ever filled with it!”[398]

In another letter, of three weeks later date, addressed to “Mr. M——,” he avows his belief in the doctrine of final perseverance, and proceeds to say:—

“The doctrine of sinless perfection in this life, I utterly renounce. I believe the preaching of it has led many souls into darkness and confusion. I believe those that hold it, if children of God at all, are in a very legal state. I believe those who pretend to have attained it are dangerously ignorant of their own hearts. I also see that, if I incline towards universal redemption any longer, I must also hold with universal salvation.”

He then adds: “Last Saturday I sent the following letter to the Rev. Mr. J. Wesley.”

“Reverend Sir,—I would have been joined with you to all eternity if I could; but my having continued with you so long as I have has led me into grievous temptation; and I now think it my duty no longer to join with you, but openly to renounce your peculiar doctrines. I have begun to do it at London; and, as the Lord shall enable me, will proceed to do it here at Bristol. I feel no bitterness in my spirit, but love you, pray for you, and respect you.

“I am, sir, your humble servant and unworthy brother, “Joseph Humphreys.”

The above letter was sent to the editor of the Weekly History by Whitefield, accompanied by the following note:—

“I would have you print this letter with my last. If you think it best, I would also have it printed in the Daily Advertiser. I see the mystery of iniquity, that is working, more and more.

“Ever yours, “G. Whitefield.“[399]

Humphreys and Cennick were now both at Kingswood, which was, for the time being, the head quarters of the Calvinistic schism. Here, in the month of April, the separatists got, from an old man, his copy of Wesley’s treatise against predestination, and burnt it.[400] About the same time, however, Wesley distributed a thousand copies among Whitefield’s congregation, and a thousand more at the Foundery;[401] and, in the same month, addressed the following characteristic letter to his friend.[402]

“April, 1741.

“Would you have me deal plainly with you? I believe you would; then, by the grace of God, I will.

“Of many things I find you are not rightly informed; of others you speak what you have not well weighed.

“‘The society room at Bristol,’ you say, ‘ is adorned,’ How? Why, with a piece of green cloth nailed to the desk; and two sconces for eight candles each in the middle. I know no more. Now, which of these can be spared I know not; nor would I desire more adorning, or less.

“But ‘lodgings are made for me and my brother,’ That is, in plain English, there is a little room by the school, where I speak to the persons who come to me; and a garret, in which a bed is placed for me. And do you grudge me this? Is this the voice of my brother, my son, Whitefield?

“You say further, ‘that the children at Bristol are clothed as well as taught,’ I am sorry for it, for the cloth is not paid for yet, and was bought without my consent, or knowledge. ‘But those at Kingswood have been neglected,’ This is not so, notwithstanding the heavy debt that lay upon it. One master and one mistress have been in the house ever since it was capable of receiving them. A second master has been placed there some months since; and I have long been seeking for two proper mistresses; so that as much has been done, as matters stand, if not more, than I can answer to God and man.

“Hitherto, then, there is no ground for the heavy charge of perverting your design for the poor colliers. Two years since, your design was to build them a school. To this end, you collected some money more than once; how much I cannot say, till I have my papers. But this I know, it was not near one-half of what has been expended on the work. This design you then recommended to me, and I pursued it with all my might, through such a train of difficulties as, I will be bold to say, you have not met with in your life. For many months, I collected money wherever I was, and began building, though I had not then a quarter of the money requisite to finish. However, taking all the debt upon myself, the creditors were willing to stay; and then it was that I took possession of it in my own name; that is, when the foundation was laid; and I immediately made my will, fixing you and my brother to succeed me therein.

“But it is a poor case, that you and I should be talking thus. Indeed, these things ought not to be. It lay in your power to have prevented all, and yet to have borne testimony to what you call ‘the truth.’ If you had disliked my sermon, you might have printed another on the same text, and have answered my proofs, without mentioning my name; this had been fair and friendly.”

The two friends were thus at variance; but every candid reader must honestly acknowledge, that Wesley triumphantly refutes Whitefield’s petulant objections.

Meanwhile, Whitefield’s adherents in the metropolis, within a few days after his arrival, set to work to erect him a wooden building near the Foundery, which they called “a Tabernacle, for morning’s exposition.”[403] On April 25, he went to Bristol, where Charles Wesley was officiating; and, three weeks after, wrote to a friend, saying, “The doctrines of the gospel are sadly run down, and most monstrous errors propagated. They assert, ‘that the very in-being of sin must be taken out of us, or otherwise we are not new creatures,’ However, at Bristol, error is in a great measure put a stop to.”[404]

So Whitefield thought, and yet, at this very time, Charles Wesley was preaching at Bristol and Kingswood, if possible, with greater power than ever. In June, however, Whitefield began to collect money for a rival meeting-house at Kingswood, and wished John Cennick to lay the foundation immediately, but to take care not to make the building either too large or too handsome.[405]

Wesley and Whitefield were divided; but Howel Harris, with his warm Welsh heart, tried to reunite them. In the month of October, Harris had loving interviews with both Wesley and his brother, and wrote to Whitefield, then in Scotland. Whitefield, easily moved in the path of Christian love, immediately addressed to Wesley the letter following:—

“Aberdeen, October 10, 1741.

“Reverend and dear Brother,—This morning I received a letter from brother Harris, telling me how he had conversed with you and your dear brother. May God remove all obstacles that now prevent our union! Though I hold particular election, yet I offer Jesus freely to every individual soul. You may carry sanctification to what degrees you will, only I cannot agree with you that the in-being of sin is to be destroyed in this life. In about three weeks, I hope to be at Bristol. May all disputings cease, and each of us talk of nothing but Jesus and Him crucified! This is my resolution. I am, without dissimulation,

“Ever yours, “G. Whitefield.”[406]

It was nearly two years after this that Wesley wrote the piece, in his collected works, entitled, “Calvinistic Controversy” (vol. xiii., p. 478). He says:—

“Having found for some time a strong desire to unite with Mr. Whitefield, as far as possible, to cut off needless dispute, I wrote down my sentiments, as plain as I could, in the following terms:—

“There are three points in debate: 1. Unconditional election. 2. Irresistible grace. 3. Final perseverance.”

With regard to the first, Wesley expresses his belief, that God has unconditionally elected certain persons to do certain work, and certain nations to receive peculiar privileges; and allows, though he says he cannot prove, that God “has unconditionally elected some persons, thence eminently styled ‘the elect,’ to eternal glory;” but he cannot believe, that all those, not thus elected to glory, must perish everlastingly; or, that there is a soul on earth but what has the chance of escaping eternal damnation.

With regard to irresistible grace, he believes, that the grace which brings faith, and, thereby, salvation, is irresistible at that moment; and, that most believers may remember a time when God irresistibly convinced them of sin, and other times when He acted irresistibly upon their souls; but he also believes, that the grace of God, both before and after these moments, may be, and hath been resisted; and that, in general, it does not act irresistibly, but we may comply therewith, or may not. In those eminently styled “the elect” (if such there be), the grace of God is so far irresistible, that they cannot but believe, and be finally saved; but it is not true, that all those must be damned in whom it does not thus irresistibly work, or, that there is a soul living who has not any other grace than such as was designed of God to increase his damnation.

With regard to final perseverance, he believes, “that there is a state attainable in this life, from which a man cannot finally fall; and that he has attained this, who can say, ‘Old things are passed away; all things in me are become new;’ and, further, he does not deny, that all those eminently styled ‘the elect’ will infallibly persevere to the end.”[407]

In reference to “the elect,” Henry Moore adds, that Wesley told him, that, when he wrote this, he believed, with Macarius, that all who are perfected in love are thus elect.

The document from which the above is taken, was written in 1743. As Mr. Jackson says, it “evidently leans too much towards Calvinism.” It is valuable chiefly because it shows Wesley’s anxiety to be at peace with Whitefield. The latter writes as though all the blame, in reference to the rupture in their friendship, lay with Wesley; whereas this was far from being true. Wesley honestly and firmly believed the doctrine of general redemption; and, because he preached it, and published a sermon in condemnation of the doctrines opposed to it, Whitefield worked himself into a fume, and wrote his pamphlet, in which he not only tries to refute Wesley’s teaching, but unnecessarily makes a personal attack on Wesley’s character, and taunts him about casting lots,—a wanton outrage, for which, in October, 1741, he humbly begged his pardon.[408] The intolerant, excessive zeal was altogether on the side of Whitefield. Wesley believed and preached general redemption; but raised no objection to Whitefield believing and preaching election and final perseverance. Instead of reciprocating this, Whitefield, in his pamphlet, blustered; and, in his letters, whined, until the difference of opinion disturbed their friendship, and led them to build separate chapels, form separate societies, and pursue, to the end of life, separate lines of action. One of Wesley’s friends wished him to reply to Whitefield’s pamphlet. Wesley answered, “You may read Whitefield against Wesley; but you shall never read Wesley against Whitefield.”[409] In private, Wesley opposed Whitefield, but in public never. On one occasion, when the two friends met in a large social gathering, Whitefield mounted his hobby, and spoke largely and valiantly in defence of his favourite system. Wesley, on the other hand, was silent till all the company were gone, when, turning to the spurred and belted controversial knight, he quietly remarked, “Brother, are you aware of what you have done to-night?” “Yes,” said Whitefield, “I have defended truth.” “You have tried to prove,” replied Wesley, “that God is worse than the devil; for the devil can only tempt a man to sin; but, if what you have said be true, God forces a man to sin; and therefore, on your own system, God is worse than the devil.”[410]

Thus the gulf between Wesley and Whitefield was immense. “It was undesirable—indeed, it was impossible—that they should continue to address, in turn, the same congregations; for such congregations would have been kept in the pitiable condition of a ship, thrown on its beam ends, larboard and starboard, by hurricanes driving alternately east and west.”[411]

Being separated from Whitefield and the Moravians, Wesley began to purge and to organise the societies, which were now purely and properly his own. At Bristol, he took an account of every person—(1) to whom any reasonable objection was made; and (2) who was not known to and recommended by some, on whose veracity he could depend. To those who were sufficiently recommended, he gave tickets. Most of the rest he had face to face with their accusers; and such as appeared to be innocent, or confessed their faults and promised better behaviour, were then received into the society. The others were put upon trial again, unless they voluntarily expelled themselves. By this purging process, about forty were excluded.[412] He also appointed stewards, to receive and expend what was contributed weekly; and, finding the funds insufficient, he discharged two of the Bristol schoolmasters, retaining still, at Kingswood and Bristol unitedly, three masters and two mistresses for the two schools respectively.

In London, he adopted the same process, and set apart the hours from ten to two, on every day but Saturday, for speaking with the bands and other persons, that no disorderly walker, nor any of a careless or contentious spirit, might remain among them; the result of which was the society was reduced to about a thousand members.[413] Ascertaining that many of the members were without needful food, and destitute of convenient clothing, he appointed twelve persons to visit every alternate day, and to provide things needful for the sick; also to meet once a week to give an account of their proceedings, and to consult what could be done further. Women, out of work, he proposed to employ in knitting, giving them the common price for the work they did, and then adding gratuities according to their needs. To meet these expenses, he requested those who could afford it, to give a penny weekly, and to contribute any clothing which their own use did not require.

Here we have a new Methodist agency employed. Wesley had already permitted laymen to exhort and preach; he now authorised them to pay pastoral visits among his people. At present, they were mere visitors, and meetings analogous to the class-meetings of the present day did not exist. The two Wesleys often addressed the societies apart, after they had dismissed the general congregation. They also fixed certain hours for private conversation; and now they appointed visitors to visit those who through sickness, poverty, or other causes, were not able to avail themselves of such assistance. This, as yet, was all. In the present sense, bands and classes there were none, except that each society, after the manner of the Moravians, was divided into male and female, and, perhaps, married and unmarried, bands, all of them watched over by Wesley or by his brother; and the sick and poor among them visited by persons appointed to that office. In Bristol, several members applied to Wesley for baptism, and he gave the bishop notice to that effect, adding, that they desired him to baptize them by immersion.[414] The Kingswood society, having been repelled from the sacramental table at Temple church, Charles Wesley gave them the sacrament in their own humble school; and, notwithstanding his high churchism, declared that, under the circumstances, if they had not had the school, he should have felt himself justified in administering it in the wood. In London, some of the members communicated at St. Paul’s, or at their own parish churches; but, during the autumn, on five successive Sundays, Wesley availed himself of the offer of Mr. Deleznot, a French clergyman, and used his small church, in Hermitage Street, Wapping, in administering the Lord’s supper to five successive batches of about two hundred members of his society (as many as the place could well contain), until all the society, consisting of about a thousand persons, had received it.[415]

To the members at Bristol, and doubtless also at London, Wesley gave tickets. On every ticket he wrote, with his own hand, the member’s name, “so that,” says he, “the ticket implied as strong a recommendation of the person to whom it was given as if I had wrote at length, ‘I believe the bearer hereof to be one that fears God and works righteousness.’”

Wesley regarded these tickets as being equivalent to the επιστολαι συστατικαι, “commendatory letters,” mentioned by the apostle, and says they were of use: (1) because, wherever those who bore them came, they were acknowledged by their brethren, and received with all cheerfulness; (2) when the societies had to meet apart, the tickets easily distinguished who were members and who were not; (3) they supplied a quiet and inoffensive method of removing any disorderly member; for, the tickets being changed once a quarter, and, of course, no new ticket being given to such a person, it was hereby immediately known that he was no longer a member of the community.[416]

The writer is possessed of nearly a complete set of these society tickets, from the first, issued about 1742, to those given a hundred years afterwards. Many of them bear the autographs of John and Charles Wesley, William Grimshaw, and other old Methodist worthies. The earliest are wood and copper-plate engravings, printed on cardboard, without any text of Scripture: some bearing the emblem of an angel flying in the clouds of heaven, with one trumpet to his mouth, and a second in his hand; and others of the Sun of Righteousness shining on a phœnix rising out of fire. Some have a dove encircled with glory; and others have no engraving whatever, but simply an inscription, written by Charles Wesley, “August, 1746.” Some merely have the word “Society” imprinted, with the member’s name written underneath; others have a lamb carrying a flag; and others a tree with a broken stem, Jehovah as a sun shining on it, and at its foot two men, one planting a new cutting, and the other watering one already planted. Some represent Christ in the clouds of heaven, with the cross in one hand and a crown in the other; and others represent the Christian kneeling before an altar, inscribed with the words, “Pray always and faint not.” One represents Christ as washing a disciple’s feet; and another, with a text of Scripture at the top, has four lines below, in which are printed, “March 25, June 25, September 29, December 25,” with space left opposite to each for writing the member’s name, and so making one ticket serve for the four quarters of a year. One bears the impress of an anchor and a crown; and another the image of old father Time, hurrying along, with a scroll in his hand, inscribed with “Now is the accepted time.” Some are printed with black ink, some with red, and some with blue. About 1750, emblems gave place to texts of Scripture, which have been continued from that time to this.

The Methodist societies, as organised by Wesley, were thus fairly started in 1741. Meanwhile, Methodism on earth began to swell the inhabitants of heaven. At the very commencement of the year, Elizabeth Davis, of London, after she was speechless, being desired to hold up her hand if she knew she was going to God, immediately held up both. Anne Cole, on being asked by Wesley, whether she chose to live or die, answered: “I choose neither, I choose nothing. I am in my Saviour’s hands, and I have no will but His.” Another of the London members, when visited by Wesley, said: “I am very ill,—but I am very well. O, I am happy, happy, happy! My spirit continually rejoices in God my Saviour. Life or death is all one to me. I have no darkness, no cloud. My body indeed is weak and in pain, but my soul is all joy and praise.” Jane Muncy exclaimed: “I faint not, I murmur not, I rejoice evermore, and in everything give thanks. God is ever with me, and I have nothing to do but praise Him.” In Bristol, a woman in her dying agonies cried out: “O, how loving is God to me! But He is loving to every man, and loves every soul as well as He loves mine.” The last words of another were, “Death stares me in the face, but I fear him not.” Hannah Richardson, who was followed to her grave by the whole of the Bristol society, the procession being pelted in the streets with dirt and stones, said: “I have no fear, no doubt, no trouble. Heaven is open! I see Jesus Christ with all His angels and saints in white. I see what I cannot utter or express.” Sister Hooper cried, “I am in great pain, but in greater joy.” Sister Lillington exclaimed, “I never felt such love before; I love every soul: I am all love, and so is God.” Rachel Peacock sang hymns incessantly, and was so filled with joy that she shouted: “Though I groan, I feel no pain at all; Christ so rejoices and fills my heart.”[417] And to all these may be added Keziah Wesley. In a letter to his brother, dated March 9, 1741, Charles Wesley writes: “Yesterday morning, sister Kezzy died in the Lord Jesus. He finished His work, and cut it short in mercy. Full of thankfulness, resignation, and love, without pain or trouble, she commended her spirit into the hands of Jesus, and fell asleep.”[418]

These were triumphs in the midst of troubles; for, besides the anxiety and pain arising out of the differences with Whitefield and the Moravians, Wesley, in 1741, had to encounter no inconsiderable amount of unprincipled persecution. At Deptford, while he was preaching, “many poor wretches were got together, utterly devoid both of common sense and common decency, who cried aloud, as if just come from ‘among the tombs.’” In London, on Shrove Tuesday, “many men of the baser sort” mixed themselves with the female part of his congregation, and behaved with great indecency. “A constable commanded them to keep the peace, in answer to which they knocked him down.” In Long Lane, while Wesley was preaching, the mob pelted him with stones, one of great size passing close past his head. In Marylebone fields, in the midst of his sermon, out of doors, missiles fell thick and fast on every side. In Charles Square, Hoxton, the rabble brought an ox which they endeavoured to drive through the congregation. A man, who happened to be a Dissenting minister, after hearing him preach at Chelsea, asked, “Quid est tibi nomen?” and, on Wesley not answering his impertinence, the pedantic puppy turned in triumph to his friends, and said, “Ah! I told you he did not understand Latin.” Among other slanders concerning him, it was currently reported that he had paid a fine of £20, for selling Geneva gin; that he kept in his house two popish priests; that he had received large remittances from Spain, in order to make a party among the poor; and that, as soon as the Spaniards landed, he was to join them with twenty thousand men. It was also rumoured, that, in Bristol, he had hanged himself, and had been cut down just in time to save his life. The Scots Magazine, for August, had a scurrilous article to the following effect. Above thirty Methodists had been in Bedlam, and six were there at present. Wesley had set up, at his Moorfields meeting-house, a number of spinning wheels, where girls who had absconded from their homes, and servants who had been discharged for neglecting their master’s business, were set to work, and were allowed sixpence daily, the overplus of their earnings going into Wesley’s pocket. Boys and girls mixed together, and were taught to call each other brother and sister in the Lord. They had to greet each other with a holy kiss, and to show the utmost affection and fondness, in imitation of the primitive Christians. In the rooms adjoining the spinning wheels were several beds, and when persons, in the Foundery congregation, fell into fits, either pretended or real, they were carried out and laid upon these beds, that Wesley might pray the evil spirits out of them, and the good spirit into them, and thus convert them.

In refutation of this tissue of unmingled falsehoods, a writer says, in the same magazine, that he had visited the Foundery, and found it “an old open house, like the tennis court at Edinburgh;” but there were no bedchambers, and no spinning wheels; and, consequently, no runaway girls nor discarded menials. And, so far from above thirty Methodists having been sent to Bedlam, the writer had made inquiry in London, and was unable to hear of one.[419]

The Gentleman’s Magazine, for the same year (page 26), has a ridiculous letter, purporting to be from a Methodist to a clergyman, in which the clergyman is charged with turning “the Scripters upside down,” and with calling the Methodists “expownding infildelfels.” Appended to the letter are annotations, stating that, in a certain barn, twenty or thirty Methodists rendezvous to hear a young schoolmaster preach, pray, and sing Wesley’s hymns; and that, recently, a mob of juveniles had chastised his ambition by throwing snowballs at him; but the preaching pedagogue, instead of ceasing, had cheered himself by singing hymns suitable to such adventurers; and a cobbler’s wife had been so excited by his dissertations upon the pangs of the new birth, that she imagined herself pregnant with devils, had been delivered of two or three, but still felt others struggling within her.

The Weekly Miscellany tells its readers that, in the assemblies of the expounding houses, lately erected in the outskirts of London by the Methodists, any one, who conceits himself inwardly moved, immediately sets up for a Scripture expounder. In a long article, it pretends to show that the Methodist preachers are like the German Anabaptists—1. Because they act contrary to the oaths they have taken. 2. Because of their invectives against the clergy. 3. Because they are against all rule and authority. 4. Because they let laymen and also women preach. 5. Because they preach in the streets. 6. Because they denounce vengeance and damnation against sinners. 7. Because they contend for absolute perfection in this life. 8. Because they pretend to be always guided by the Holy Ghost. And, 9. Because they hold the doctrine of community of goods.

The same abusive but vigorously written paper contains an attack upon the poor Methodists, by Hooker, the editor, begun in the number for March 14, and continued weekly until June 27, when this scolding periodical came to a well deserved termination. The following are a few selections:—

March 28.—Wesley pretends to cast out spirits from those whom he declares possessed of them; but he is “a grand, empty, inconsistent heretic; the ringleader, fomenter, and first cause of all the divisions, separations, factions, and feuds that have happened in Oxford, London, Bristol, and other places where he has been.”

April 25.—Wesley rebaptizes adults, on the ground that, really they have never been baptized before, the baptism of infants by sprinkling being no true baptism in his esteem. When Whitefield returned from Georgia, he preached at the Foundery, taking for his text, “O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you?” For this he was immediately excommunicated from the Foundery pulpit, lest the people should think that Wesley was a conjuror. “Everybody allows that there are above twenty, and some say forty, spinning wheels at the Foundery.” “Wesley well knows how to breakfast with one of his devotees, dine with another, and sup with a third, all of which retrenches the charges of housekeeping at home. Those who sit in his gallery must subscribe five shillings a quarter, and those who stand, a penny a week. He who advances half-a-crown a quarter is admitted into the close society; and he who doubles that amount becomes a member of the bands, where men and women stay all night, but for what purpose is known only to God and to themselves. The price for resolving cases of conscience is threepence each. Wesley makes at least £50 by every edition of the hymns he publishes; and thus, by his preaching, his bookselling, his workhouse, his wheedling, and his sponging, it is generally believed that he gets an income of £700 a year, and some say above £1000. This,” adds the mendacious editor, “is priest-craft in perfection.”

May 9.—The writer speculates concerning what is likely to be the end of the Methodist movement. 1. Some think if the Methodists are let alone, they will, as a matter of course, fall to pieces. 2. Others think that the irreconcilable differences between Wesley and Whitefield will effect their ruin; for Whitefield has set up a conventicle of boards not far from Wesley’s Foundery; and while one calls the other schismatic, the other in requital calls him a heretic. 3. Some think that their congregations, by neglecting their business and their work, will be reduced to beggary, and this, of course, will ruin all. 4. Lastly, others think their conduct will be such that the government will find it necessary to suppress them.

June 13.—Proposes the erection of a Methodist edifice on Blackheath. The foundation stone is to be the tombstone that prevented the resurrection of Dr. Emes, the famous French prophet. The principal entrance is to be adorned with statues of the most eminent field-preachers. The hall is to be decorated with a piece, in which the principal figure is to be Enthusiasm, sitting in an easy chair, and just delivered of two beauteous babes, the one called Superstition, and the other Infidelity. On her right hand must be a grisly old gentleman with a cloven foot, holding the new born children in a receiver, which the Pope has blessed, and gazing upon them with most fatherly affection. The pang room of the building is to be for the accommodation of those seized with the pangs of the new birth. All who run mad about election must be lodged in the predestination room,—which, by the way, is likely to be well peopled, and therefore must be large, as well as dark and gloomy, and must be adorned with the evolutions, intricacies, and involutions of a rusty chain, held at one end by the Methodistic founder, and at the other by the devil. The disputation room is, like a cockpit, to be round as a hoop, so that the disputants may have the pleasure of disputing in a circle. The expounding room is to be adorned with a picture of the founder, with a pair of scissors in one hand and a Bible in the other; a motto over his reverend head, “Dividing the word of God;” and all round about scraps of paper supposed to be texts newly clipped from the sacred Scriptures. The refectory is to have a painting to represent Wesley, Whitefield, and C. Graves at supper, with Madam Bourignon presiding. Near her must be an ass’s head boiled with sprouts and bacon; and, at the other end of the table, a dish of owls roasted and larded. Having already helped Whitefield to the jaw bone of the ass’s head, and Wesley to the sweet tooth, she now gives Mr. Graves a spoonful of the brains and a bit of tongue, which he receives with a grateful bow. The foundation stone is to be laid on the first of April; and the procession to the site are to sing, not the psalms of David, for they are not half good enough, but a hymn of Wesley’s own composing.

Ridicule like this was even worse than being pelted with brickbats and rotten eggs.

The two Wesleys and Whitefield were often roughly treated; and so also was John Cennick, the Methodist Moravian. At Swindon, the mob surrounded his congregation, rung a bell, blew a horn, and used a fire engine in drenching him and them with water. Guns were fired over the people’s heads, and rotten eggs were plentiful.[420] At Hampton, near Gloucester, the rabble, chiefly soldiers, to annoy him, beat a drum and let off squibs and crackers. For an hour and a half, hog’s wash and fœtid water were poured upon him and his congregation, who all the while stood perfectly still, in secret prayer, with their eyes and hands lifted up to heaven.[421] At Stratton, a crowd of furious men came, armed with weapons, clubs, and staves. Cudgels were used most unmercifully. Some of his congregation had blood streaming down their faces; others, chiefly women, were dragged away by the hair of their head. Sylvester Keen spat in the face of Cennick’s sister, and beat her about the head, as if he meant to kill her. The mob bellowed and roared like maniacs; but Cennick kept on preaching and praying till he was violently pulled down; when he and his friends set out for Lineham, singing hymns, and followed by the crowd, who bawled—“You cheating dog, you pickpocketing rogue, sell us a halfpenny ballad!”[422]

In the midst of such treatment, Methodism went on its way, and prospered. It is a remarkable fact, that, during 1741, there were no stricken cases, like those which occurred in 1739, excepting two at Bristol; but there were many signal seasons of refreshing from the presence of the Lord. A man, who had been an atheist for twenty years, came to the Foundery to make sport, but was so convinced of sin, that he rested not until he found peace with God. At Bristol, on one occasion, “some wept aloud, some clapped their hands, some shouted, and the rest sang praise.” In Charles Square, London, while a violent storm was raging, “their hearts danced for joy, praising ‘the glorious God that maketh the thunder.’”

Two or three other important events, occurring in the year 1741, must be noticed.

At midsummer, Wesley spent about three weeks in Oxford. Here he inquired concerning the exercises requisite in order to become a Bachelor in Divinity. The Oxford Methodists were scattered. Out of twenty-five or thirty weekly communicants, only two were left; and not one continued to attend the daily prayers of the Church. Here he met with his old friend, Mr. Gambold, who told him he need be under no concern respecting his sermon before the university, which he had come to preach, for the authorities would be utterly regardless of what he said. Here also he had a conversation with Richard Viney, originally a London tailor, but now the Oxford Moravian minister,—a man, as James Hutton tells us, whose person, delivery, and bearing prevented his sermons being acceptable to many, and yet a man, who, in this same year, was elected president of the society in Fetter Lane. Ultimately he removed to Broad Oaks, Essex, as the superintendent of the Moravian school; then, by casting lots, was condemned as an enemy of the work of God; and then joined Wesley’s society at Birstal, which he so perverted, that they “laughed at all fasting, and self denial, and family prayer,” and treated even John Nelson slightingly.[423]

Wesley preached his sermon at St. Mary’s, on Saturday, July 25, to one of the largest congregations he had seen in Oxford. His text was: “Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian;” and his two divisions, (1) what is implied in being almost; and (2) what in being altogether, a Christian. The sermon is one of the most faithful that Wesley ever preached. It was printed by W. Strahan, 12mo, pages 21, and was sold at twopence.

It is almost certain, however, that this was not the sermon that Wesley meant to preach. After his decease, a mutilated manuscript in English was found among his papers, dated “July 24, 1741” (a month before he preached at Oxford), and also a copy of the same in Latin. This was a discourse on the text, “How is the faithful city become an harlot!” There can be no question that the sermon was written with the design of being delivered before the university, and that, for some reason, the design for the present was abandoned. The sermon, if preached, must inevitably have brought upon the preacher the ire of his hearers. While admitting that the university had some who were faithful witnesses of gospel truth, Wesley alleges that, comparatively speaking, they were very few. To say nothing of deists, Arians, and Socinians, some of the chief champions of the faith were far from being faultless. Tillotson had published several sermons expressly to prove that, not faith alone, but good works, are necessary in order to justification; and the great Bishop Bull had taken the same position. Wesley then proceeds to attack the members of the university in a way, perhaps, not the most prudent. He asks if it is not a fact, that many of them “believe that a good moral man, and a good Christian, mean the same?” He continues:—

“Scarcely is the form of godliness seen among us. Take any one you meet; take a second, a third, a fourth, or the twentieth. Not one of them has even the appearance of a saint, any more than of an angel. Is there no needless visiting on the sabbath day? no trifling, no impertinence of conversation? And, on other days, are not the best of our conversing hours spent in foolish talking and jesting, nay, perhaps, in wanton talking too? Are there not many among us found to eat and drink with the drunken? Are not even the hours assigned for study too commonly employed in reading plays, novels, and idle tales? How many voluntary blockheads there are among us, whose ignorance is not owing to incapacity, but to mere laziness! How few, of the vast number, who have it in their power, are truly learned men! Who is there that can be said to understand Hebrew? Might I not say, or even Greek? O what is so scarce as learning, save religion!”[424]

The remainder of this remarkable sermon is in the same strain. Its allegations, we are afraid, were true; but the sermon was far too personal to be prudent, and Wesley exercised a wise discretion in exchanging it for the other.

During the year 1741, while in Wales, Wesley was seized with a serious illness. Hastening to Bristol, he was ordered, by Dr. Middleton, to go to bed,—“a strange thing to me,” he writes, “who have not kept my bed a day for five-and-thirty years.” A dangerous fever followed, and the Bristol society held a fast and offered prayer. For eight days, he hung between life and death; and, for three weeks, he was kept a prisoner, when, contrary to the advice given him, he resumed his work, and began to preach daily.

This was a long interval of enforced retirement for a man of Wesley’s active temperament; but it was not unprofitably spent. As soon as he could, he began to read, and during his convalescence devoured half-a-dozen works. He read “the life of that truly good and great man, Mr. Philip Henry;” and “the life of Mr. Matthew Henry,—a man not to be despised, either as a scholar or a Christian, though not equal to his father.” He read “Mr. Laval’s ‘History of the Reformed Churches in France;’ full of the most amazing instances of the wickedness of men, and of the goodness and power of God.” He likewise read “Turretin’s ‘History of the Church,’ a dry, heavy, barren treatise.” He gave a second perusal to “Theologia Germanica,” and asks, “O, how was it that I could ever so admire the affected obscurity of this unscriptural writer?” He also “read again, with great surprise, part of the ‘Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius,’” and says, “so weak, credulous, thoroughly injudicious a writer have I seldom found.”

Among the pamphlets published against Wesley, during 1741, was one entitled: “The Perfectionists Examined; or, Inherent Perfection in this Life, no Scripture Doctrine. By William Fleetwood, Gent.” 8vo, 99 pages. Fleetwood asserts that, of all the open and professed enemies of the gospel, the Methodists are the worst; “they are more destructive to religion than the papists or Mahometans;” “by their artful insinuations, and outward sanctity, they have drawn numbers of silly women after them; they plainly show themselves to be some of those of whom the apostle Peter prophesied, ‘Such as bring in damnable heresies, denying the Lord that bought them’”; “and are more like French enthusiasts, or rank papists, than true Christians.” The reader must guess the rest.

Another opponent was Joseph Hart, who published a small work on “The Unreasonableness of Religion, being Remarks and Animadversions on Mr. John Wesley’s Sermon on Romans viii. 32.” Of all the enemies Wesley had, Joseph Hart was one of the most persisting, for he scarcely ever preached without endeavouring, more or less, to explode Wesley’s doctrines, as tending to lead the people into dangerous delusions.[425]

Another pamphlet, octavo, 75 pages, published during the year 1741, was entitled: “The Doctrine of Justification by Faith, stated according to the Articles of the Church of England. By Arthur Bedford, M.A., Chaplain to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.” This was written at the request of “a member of the religious societies in London,” who told the author, that, “there had been great disputes among them lately concerning this doctrine; some having advanced faith so high, as to make no necessity of a good life; and others having advanced works so high, as to make faith to consist only in a general belief, that the New Testament is the word of God.” The pamphlet is an able production, and is temperately written. To most of its sentiments, Wesley himself would have raised no objection.

It only remains to notice Wesley’s own publications during 1741.[426]

Probably the first was his sermon, entitled, “Christian Perfection.” He writes: “I think it was in the latter end of the year 1740, that I had a conversation with Dr. Gibson, then bishop of London, at Whitehall. He asked me what I meant by perfection. I told him without any disguise or reserve. When I ceased speaking, he said, ‘Mr. Wesley, if this be all you mean, publish it to all the world,’ I answered, ‘My lord, I will’; and accordingly wrote and published the sermon on Christian perfection.”[427]

The two divisions of this important sermon are: (1) in what sense Christians are not, and (2) in what sense they are, perfect. Wesley shows that no one is so perfect in this life, as to be free from ignorance, from mistakes, from infirmities, and from temptations. On the other hand, he proves that the perfect Christian is freed from outward sin; from evil thoughts; and from evil tempers. The sermon is elaborate, and has affixed to it Charles Wesley’s hymn on “The Promise of Sanctification,” consisting of twenty-eight stanzas, and beginning with the line,—“God of all power, and truth, and grace.”

Another of Wesley’s publications was, “A Collection of Psalms and Hymns.” Hitherto, all the hymn-books, except the first, had borne, on the title-page, the names of both the brothers; but this has the name of Wesley only.

A third was, “A Dialogue between a Predestinarian and his Friend.” 12mo, eight pages. The object of this short tract is to show, from the writings of Piscator, Calvin, Zanchius, and others, that predestinarianism teaches, that God causes reprobates to sin, and creates them on purpose to be damned.[428]

Besides the above, Wesley published four abridgments from other works.

1. “The Scripture Doctrine concerning Predestination, Election, and Reprobation.” 12mo, 16 pages.

2. “Serious Considerations on Absolute Predestination.” 12mo, 24 pages. The tract proves, that the doctrine of absolute predestination is objectionable: (1) because it makes God the author of sin; (2) because, it makes Him delight in the death of sinners; (3) because, it is highly injurious to Christ our Mediator; (4) because, it makes the preaching of the gospel a mere mock and illusion; etc.

3. “An Extract of the Life of Monsieur De Renty, a late Nobleman of France.” 12mo, pages 67. De Renty usually rose at five o’clock; communicated every day; and spent his time in devotion and doing good. For several years he ate but one meal a day, and even that was scanty and always of the poorest food. He often passed the night in a chair, instead of in bed, or would lie down upon a bench in his clothes and boots. He parted with several books, because richly bound; and carried no silver about him, but for works of charity. When his mother took from him a large portion of his property, he caused the Te Deum to be sung, beginning it himself. He was wont to say, “I carry about with me ordinarily a plenitude of the presence of the Holy Trinity.” In visiting the sick, he would kindle their fires, make their beds, and set in order their little household stuff. His zeal for the salvation of men was boundless. “I am ready,” said he, “to serve all men, not excepting one, and to lay down my life for any one.” He established numbers of societies at Caen and other places, for the purpose of Christians assisting one another in working out both their own and their neighbours’ salvation. He died at Paris, in the thirty-seventh year of his age, on April 24, 1649. De Renty was, in Wesley’s estimation, a model saint.

4. The fourth and last abridgment published, in 1741, was entitled, “Reflections upon the Conduct of Human Life, with reference to Learning and Knowledge.” 12mo, pages 36. This was extracted from a work written by Dr. John Norris, an old friend of Wesley’s father, and one of the principal contributors to the Athenian Gazette.[429]

The tract, throughout, is in a high degree rich and racy, and well worth reading. It unquestionably contains the great principles which guided Wesley in all his reading, writing, publishing of books, and educational efforts in general. He considered all kinds of knowledge useful; but, some being much more so than others, he devoted to them time and attention accordingly; and made the whole subordinate to the great purpose of human existence,—the glory of God, and the happiness of man. We finish the present chapter with a few sentences culled from the conclusion of this threepenny production:—

“I cannot, with any patience, reflect, that, out of so short a time as human life, consisting, it may be, of fifty or sixty years, nineteen or twenty shall be spent in hammering out a little Latin and Greek, and in learning a company of poetical fictions and fantastic stories. If one were to judge of the life of man by the proportion of it spent at school, one would think the antediluvian mark were not yet out. Besides, the things taught in seminaries are often frivolous. How many excellent and useful things might be learnt, while boys are thumbing and murdering Hesiod and Homer? Of what signification is such stuff as this, to the accomplishment of a reasonable soul? What improvement can it be to my understanding, to know the amours of Pyramus and Thisbe, or of Hero and Leander? Let any man but consider human nature, and tell me whether he thinks a boy is fit to be trusted with Ovid? And yet, to books such as these our youth is dedicated, and in these some of us employ our riper years; and, when we die, this makes one part of our funeral eulogy; though, according to the principles before laid down, we should have been as pertinently and more innocently employed all the while, if we had been picking straws in Bedlam. The measure of prosecuting learning is its usefulness to good life; and, consequently, all prosecution of it beyond or beside this end, is impertinent and immoderate. For my own part, I am so thoroughly convinced of the certainty of the principles here propounded, that I look upon myself as under almost a necessity of conducting my studies by them, and intend to study nothing at all but what serves to the advancement of piety and good life. I have spent about thirteen years in the most celebrated university in the world, in pursuing both such learning as the academical standard requires, and as my private genius inclined me to; but I intend to spend my uncertain remainder of time in studying only what makes for the moral improvement of my mind, and the regulation of my life. More particularly, I shall apply myself to read such books as are rather persuasive than instructive; such as warm, kindle, and enlarge the affections, and awaken the Divine sense in the soul; being convinced, by every day’s experience, that I have more need of heat than light; though were I for more light, still I think the love of God is the best light of the soul of man.”

This is a long extract; but it is of some consequence, as furnishing a key to the whole of Wesley’s literary pursuits—from this, the commencement of his Methodist career, to the end of his protracted life. His aim was not to shine in scholarship, but to live a life of goodness.

1742.

1742 Age 39

WESLEY now began to enlarge the sphere of his operations. Hitherto, his only stated congregations had been at Kingswood, at Bristol, and at the Foundery, London. For these, the ministrations of himself and his brother were sufficient; but, as the work increased, new preachers became needful. Cennick and Humphreys had both left him; but others supplied their places. John Nelson came to London, was converted, and, at the end of the year 1740, returned to Birstal in Yorkshire, where, impelled by the love of Christ, and almost without knowing it, he began to preach to his unconverted neighbours. Thomas Maxfield also, one of the first converts in Bristol, and who, for a year or two, seems to have travelled with Charles Wesley, perhaps in the capacity of servant, being left in London, to meet during Wesley’s absence the Foundery society, pray with them, and give them suitable advice, was insensibly led from praying to preaching,—his sermons being accompanied with such power, that numbers were made penitent and were converted. Wesley, hearing of this irregularity, hurried back to London, for the purpose of stopping it. His mother, living in his house, adjoining the Foundery, said: “John, take care what you do with respect to that young man, for he is as surely called of God to preach, as you are. Examine what have been the fruits of his preaching, and hear him yourself.” The Countess of Huntingdon also wrote: “Maxfield is one of the greatest instances of God’s peculiar favour that I know. He is my astonishment. The first time I made him expound, I expected little from him; but, before he had gone over one fifth part of his discourse, my attention was riveted, and I was immovable. His power in prayer, also, is very extraordinary.”[430]

Wesley was convinced, and the Rubicon was passed. “I am not clear,” he writes under the date of April 21, 1741, “that brother Maxfield should not expound at Greyhound Lane; nor can I as yet do without him. Our clergymen” (Stonehouse, Hall, and others) “have miscarried full as much as the laymen; and that the Moravians are other than laymen, I know not.”[431] Wesley wrote again, about four years after employing Maxfield:—

“I am bold to affirm, that these unlettered men have help from God for the great work of saving souls from death. But, indeed, in the one thing which they profess to know, they are not ignorant men. I trust there is not one of them, who is not able to go through such an examination, in substantial, practical, experimental divinity, as few of our candidates for holy orders, even in the university, are able to do. In answer to the objection, that they are laymen, I reply, the scribes of old, who were the ordinary preachers among the Jews, were not priests; they were not better than laymen. Yea, many of them were incapable of the priesthood, being not of the tribe of Levi. Hence, probably, it was, that the Jews themselves never urged it as an objection to our Lord’s preaching, that He was no priest after the order of Aaron; nor, indeed, could be; seeing He was of the tribe of Judah. Nor does it appear that any objected this to the apostles. If we come to later times, was Mr. Calvin ordained? Was he either priest or deacon? And were not most of those whom it pleased God to employ in promoting the Reformation abroad, laymen also? Could that great work have been promoted at all, in many places, if laymen had not preached? In all Protestant churches, ordination is not held a necessary pre-requisite of preaching; for in Sweden, in Germany, in Holland, and, I believe, in every Reformed church in Europe, it is not only permitted, but required, that, before any one is ordained, he shall publicly preach a year or more ad probandum facultatem. And, for this practice, they believe they have an express command of God; ‘let those first be proved, then let them use the office of a deacon, being found blameless’ (1 Tim. iii. 10). Besides, in how many churches, in England, does the parish clerk read one of the lessons, and in some the whole service of the Church, perhaps every Lord’s day? And do not other laymen constantly do the same thing in our very cathedrals? which, being under the inspection of the bishops, should be patterns to all other churches. Nay, is it not done in the universities themselves? Who ordained that singing man at Christ Church; who is likewise utterly unqualified for the work, murdering every lesson he reads; not endeavouring to read it as the word of God, but rather as an old song?”

Where is the priest, pretending that preaching belongs exclusively to those in orders, who can answer such arguments as these? But Wesley’s case was stronger than even this. He proceeds to relate that, after God had used him and his brother clergymen, in several places, in turning many from a course of sin to a course of holiness, the ministers of these places, instead of receiving them with open arms, spoke of them “as if the devil, not God, had sent them; and represented them as fellows not fit to live,—papists, heretics, traitors, conspirators against their king and country;” while the people, who had been converted by their preaching, were “driven from the Lord’s table, and were openly cursed in the name of God.” What could be done in a case like this? “No clergyman would assist at all. The expedient that remained was, to find some one among themselves, who was upright of heart, and of sound judgment in the things of God; and to desire him to meet the rest as often as he could, in order to confirm, as he was able, in the ways of God, either by reading to them, or by prayer, or by exhortation.”

This was done, and God blessed it. “In several places, by means of these unlettered men, not only those who had already begun to run well were hindered from drawing back to perdition; but other sinners also, from time to time, were converted from the error of their ways.”

“This plain account,” continues Wesley, “of the whole proceeding, I take to be the best defence of it. I know no scripture which forbids making use of such help, in a case of such necessity. And I praise God who has given even this help to those poor sheep, when ‘their own shepherds pitied them not.’”

Brave-hearted Wesley! The step he took was momentous; but he was a match for all opposers; and marvellous is the fact that the very Church, which so branded him for such a departure from Church order, is now actually copying his example. Notable, in future years, will be the incident, which has almost passed without being noticed, that, in the month of May, 1869, in his own private chapel, at London House, Dr. Jackson, Bishop of London, formally authorised eight laymen “to read prayers, and to read and explain the Holy Scriptures,” and “to conduct religious services for the poor in schools, and mission rooms, and in the open air,” in the London diocese, with the understanding and agreement that their labours will be rendered gratuitously.[432] Thus are even bishops treading in the once hated footsteps of the great Methodist.

In 1742, Wesley’s itinerating commenced in earnest. During the year, he spent about twenty-four weeks in London and its vicinity; fourteen in Bristol and the surrounding neighbourhood; one in Wales; and thirteen in making two tours to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, taking, on his way, Donnington Park, Birstal, Halifax, Dewsbury, Mirfield, Epworth, Sheffield, and other towns and villages adjoining these.

Whitefield spent the first two months in Bristol, Gloucester, and the west of England, and the three following in London. He then went to Scotland, where he continued until the end of October, when he returned to London for the remainder of the year.

Wesley and he were again friends. On April 23, Wesley writes: “I spent an agreeable hour with Mr. Whitefield. I believe he is sincere in all he says, concerning his earnest desire of joining hand in hand with all that love the Lord Jesus Christ. But if, as some would persuade me, he is not, the loss is all on his own side. I am just as I was. I go on my way, whether he goes with me or stays behind.”

This interview took place at Easter, a season of the year which Moorfields was wont to keep with uproarious hilarity. On this occasion, the spacious rendezvous was filled, from end to end, with mountebanks, players, drummers, trumpeters, merryandrews, and menageries. Whitefield mounted his field pulpit, and from twenty to thirty thousand people flocked around him. He became a target, at which were hurled dirt, dead cats, stones, and rotten eggs. A fool belonging to one of the puppetshows attempted to lash him with a whip; and a recruiting sergeant, with his drum and other musical instruments, marched through his congregation; but Whitefield, for three hours, continued praying, preaching, and singing; and then retired to the Tabernacle, with his pocket full of notes from persons who had been awakened by his sermon, and which were read amid the praises and acclamations of assembled crowds. A thousand such papers had been sent to him; and three hundred and fifty of the inquiring penitents were received into church fellowship in a single day.[433]

Wesley and Whitefield henceforth were divided, and yet united. Each pursued his own separate course; but their hearts were one. Their creeds were different; but not their aims. “Mr. Wesley,” writes Whitefield in 1742, “I think is wrong in some things; but I believe he will shine bright in glory. I have not given way to him, or to any, whom I thought in error, no not for an hour; but I think it best not to dispute, where there is no probability of convincing.”[434] And again, in a letter to Wesley himself, on October 11, 1742, he says: “I had your kind letter, dated October 5. In answer to the first part of it, I say, ‘Let old things pass away, and all things become new.’ I can also heartily say ‘Amen’ to the latter part of it—‘Let the king live for ever and controversy die,’ It has died with me long ago. I thank you, dear sir, for praying for me. I have been upon my knees praying for you and yours, and that nothing but love, lowliness, and simplicity may be among us!”[435]

To the day of his death, Whitefield breathed this loving spirit, and rejoiced to find reciprocal affection in his friend Wesley. After this, we shall refrain from adverting to his history more than we find needful,—not for want of admiration of his character and labours, but because it is impossible, in casual notices, to do him justice. He was still hounded as much as ever by the dogs of persecution. Though he was now in Scotland, where, if anywhere, his Calvinistic doctrines were likely to gain him favour, yet even there he met with virulent opposers. Among other extremely bitter pamphlets published against him, in 1742, was one printed at Edinburgh, “by a true lover of the Church and country,” who represented him as taking upon himself “the office of a thirteenth apostle,” and concluded his courteous outpouring thus: “Let all good people beware of this stroller, for he will yet find a way to wheedle you out of your money. He is as artful a mountebank as any I know.” Another pamphlet, entitled “The Declaration of the True Presbyterians, within the Kingdom of Scotland, concerning Mr. George Whitefield and the work at Cambuslang,” begun as follows:—“The declaration, protestation, and testimony of the suffering remnant of the anti-popish, anti-Lutheran, anti-prelatic, anti-Whitefieldian, anti-Erastian, anti-sectarian, true Presbyterian church of Christ in Scotland;” and then this windy performance, of thirty-two pages, proceeds to say that Whitefield is “an abjured, prelatic hireling, of as lax toleration principles as any that ever set up for the advancing the kingdom of Satan. He is a wandering star, who steers his course according to the compass of gain and advantage.” A third publication, issued in 1742, was, “A Warning against countenancing the ministrations of Mr. George Whitefield, wherein is shown that Mr. Whitefield is no minister of Jesus Christ; that his call and coming to Scotland are scandalous; that his practice is disorderly and fertile of disorder; and that his whole doctrine is, and his success must be, diabolical. By Adam Gib, minister of the gospel at Edinburgh.” In this sweet effusion of seventy-five pages, poor Whitefield is solemnly pronounced to be “one of those false Christs, of whom the church is forewarned, Matt. xxiv. 24.” After reviewing some of Whitefield’s tenets, Mr. Adam Gib deliciously remarks: “in raking through this dunghill of Mr. Whitefield’s doctrine, we have raised as much stink as will suffocate all his followers, that shall venture to draw near without stopping their noses.” “The complex scheme of his doctrine is diabolical; it proceeds through diabolical influence, and is applied unto a diabolical use, against the Mediator’s glory and the salvation of men.” This was pretty strong for a young man, twenty-nine years of age, and who, four years afterwards, became the leader of the party known by the name of Anti-burghers. We are prepared, by such pious venom, for the fact, that, in the year following, when the “associate presbytery met for renewing the national covenant of Scotland, and the solemn league and covenant of the three nations,” they drew up and printed “a confession of the sins of the ministry,” in which they humble themselves before God, for not “timeously” warning the people against Whitefield; for being “too remiss in their endeavours to prevent the sad effects of his ministrations;” for being “too little affected by the latitudinarian principles and awful delusions which he had propagated;” and for not “crying to God, that He would rebuke the devourer, and cast the false prophet and the unclean spirit out of the land.”[436]

Despite all this, Whitefield cheerily pursued the path marked out by Providence. Few men have been more entitled to the last beatitude in our Saviour’s sermon, “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for My sake.”

It was through the timely interposition of Howel Harris, that the friendship between Wesley and Whitefield was resumed. Towards this warm-hearted Welshman Wesley cherished the most sincere affection, and, on the 6th of August, 1742, wrote to him as follows:—

“My dear Brother,—I have just read yours, dated at Trevecca, October 19, 1741. And what is it that we contend about? Allow such a perfection as you have there described, and all further dispute I account vain jangling and mere strife of words. As to the other point, we agree: (1) that no man can have any power except it be given him from above; (2) that no man can merit anything but hell, seeing all other merit is in the blood of the Lamb. For those two fundamental points, both you and I earnestly contend; what need, then, of this great gulf to be fixed between us? Brother, is thy heart with mine, as my heart is with thine? If it be, give me thy hand. I am indeed a poor, foolish, sinful worm; and how long my Lord will use me, I know not. I sometimes think the time is coming when He will lay me aside. For surely never before did He send such a labourer into such a harvest. But, so long as I am continued in the work, let us rise up together against the evil-doers; let us not weaken, but strengthen one another’s hands in God. My brother, my soul is gone forth to meet thee; let us fall upon one another’s neck. The good Lord blot out all that is past, and let there henceforward be peace between me and thee!

“I am, my dear brother, ever yours, “John Wesley.”[437]

Another of Wesley’s friends, at this period, was the Rev. Henry Piers, vicar of Bexley, a devoted man, who, through the instrumentality of Charles Wesley and Mr. Bray, had found peace with God on the 10th of June, 1738. He at once began to preach, with great fidelity, the scriptural method of salvation; and such was his success, that in August, 1739, Whitefield assisted him in administering the sacrament, in Bexley church, to nearly six hundred communicants. Keziah Wesley was an inmate of his house; and Wesley himself was a welcome visitor. He was one of the six persons who composed Wesley’s first Conference, in 1744; and one of the three who publicly walked with Wesley from the church of St. Mary’s, Oxford, when he preached, for the last time, before the university.

In 1742, the vicar of Bexley was appointed to preach at Sevenoaks, “before the right worshipful the Dean of the Arches, and the reverend the clergy of the deanery of Shoreham, assembled in visitation.” The text chosen by Mr. Piers was 1 Corinthians iv. 1, 2; and his object was to show what doctrines ministers ought to preach, and also what ought to be their tempers and behaviour. A letter to Wesley, written May 24, three days after the sermon was delivered, states that, at the beginning of his discourse, Piers was listened to with gravity; but, while dwelling upon the doctrines of the Church, his reverend auditors began to indulge in “shrewd looks and indignant smiles”; this was followed with “laughter and loud whispers,” some of them saying, “Piers is mad, crazy, and a fool.” When he came to the application of his discourse, and asked whether the clergy preached such doctrines, possessed such tempers, and led such lives, the ordinary would endure it no longer, but beckoned to the apparitor to open his pew door, and to the minister of Sevenoaks church to command Piers to stop. The minister made a sign to the preacher, but without effect. The ordinary then publicly desired Piers to pronounce the benediction, as the congregation had already heard quite enough. Piers, however, still went on; all the clergy, except one or two, walked out; and the preacher, without further interruption, finished his discourse to an attentive audience.[438]

The sermon, though written by Mr. Piers, was, previous to its being preached, revised by Wesley;[439] and, in September ensuing, was published, price sixpence,[440] with a list of the books sold by Wesley at the Foundery in Moorfields, inserted. The sermon, in point of fact, was a joint production of Wesley and his friend. Any one, comparing it with other sermons published by Mr. Piers, will perceive an unmistakable difference in style, and force of expression. The sermon was, to a great extent, Wesley’s; and, in this instance, Wesley was almost preaching by proxy.

Wesley longed for helpers; but, conscious that none would be useful unless converted, he was careful in accepting offers. Of his friend Piers he could have no doubt; but it was otherwise with respect to a clergyman from America, who called upon him at the beginning of the year, and “appeared full of good desires.” Wesley writes: “I cannot suddenly answer in this matter; I must first know what spirit he is of; for none can labour with us, unless he ‘count all things dung and dross, that he may win Christ.’” With Wesley, neither learning, nor talent, nor even orders, nor all combined, were sufficient to induce him to accept a helper, unless there was also piety. Purity in preachers is of more importance than either scholarship, or genius, or both united. The former is an essential, without which no man ought to preach; the latter are, at the best, but useful in helping a preacher to preach successfully.

In a certain sense, Methodist societies were begun in 1739; but it was not until 1742 that they were divided into classes. In January, 1739, the London society, which was really Moravian, and not Methodist, consisted of about sixty persons. Three months after that, Wesley went to Bristol, where “a few persons agreed to meet weekly, with the same intention as those in London”; and these were soon increased by “several little societies, which were already meeting in divers parts of the city,” amalgamating with them. About the same time similar societies were formed at Kingswood and at Bath.[441] These religious communities grew and multiplied. At the beginning of 1742, the London society alone, after repeated siftings, numbered about eleven hundred members.[442] Hitherto, Wesley and his brother had been their only pastors; but, on February 15, 1742, an accident led to a momentous alteration. Nearly three years before, Wesley had built his meeting-house in Bristol; but, notwithstanding the subscriptions and collections made at the time to defray the expense, a large debt was still unpaid. On the day mentioned, some of the principal members of the Bristol society met together to consult how their pecuniary obligations should be discharged. One of them stood up and said, “Let every member of the society give a penny a week, till the debt is paid.” Another answered, “Many of them are poor, and cannot afford to do it.” “Then,” said the former, “put eleven of the poorest with me; and if they can give anything, well; I will call on them weekly; and if they can give nothing, I will give for them as well as for myself. And each of you call on eleven of your neighbours weekly; receive what they give, and make up what is wanting.” “It was done,” writes Wesley; “and in a while, some of these informed me, they found such and such an one did not live as he ought. It struck me immediately, ‘This is the thing, the very thing, we have wanted so long.’”