PART II. (continued 6)

“Upon reflection, I saw how exactly, in this also, we had copied after the primitive church. What were the ancient deacons? What was Phœbe, the deaconess, but such a visitor of the sick?”

Four rules were to be observed:—

“1. Be plain and open in dealing with souls. 2. Be mild, tender, patient. 3. Be cleanly in all you do for the sick. 4. Be not nice.”

Wesley adds, five years afterwards:—

“We have ever since had great reason to praise God for His continued blessing on this undertaking. Many lives have been saved, many sicknesses healed, much pain and want prevented or removed. Many heavy hearts have been made glad, many mourners comforted; and the visitors have found, from Him whom they serve, a present reward for all their labour.”[512]

The two thousand members of the London society contributed about £400 a year, or, at the rate of a shilling per member per quarter. The Bristol society consisted of seven hundred members, and, after the same ratio, would contribute £140 per year. Eight hundred members at Newcastle would raise £160; and the societies at Kingswood and other places might give £100 additional: thus making the Methodist income, for 1743, something like £800. Out of this, all chapel expenses had to be defrayed; a large proportion was given to the afflicted poor; something was necessary for the contingent expenses of Wesley’s helpers; and the remainder,—how much was it?—was perhaps given to the two Wesleys to meet some of their own necessary wants. These were the men preying upon the pockets of the poor, and making themselves a fortune out of other people’s money! Such falsehoods were current, and were not entirely disbelieved even by some of Wesley’s own relatives.

Poor Emily Wesley, a classical scholar, and no mean poet,—after teaching in a boarding school where she was ill used and worse paid, and after marrying a poor Quaker, who did little for her, and soon left her—was now a penniless and dependent widow, maintained entirely by her two brothers, and living at the Foundery. Emily, in a petulant humour, wrote to her brother John, accusing him of the want of kindness and of natural affection, notwithstanding his reputed riches. John, in reply, wrote one of his most pungent letters, of which the following is a copy:—

“Newcastle, June 30, 1743.

“Dear Emily,—Once, I think, I told you my mind freely before; I am constrained to do so once again. You say, ‘From the time of my coming to London, till last Christmas, you would not do me the least kindness.’ Do I dream, or you? Whose house were you in for three months, and upwards? By whose money were you sustained? It is a poor case, that I am forced to mention these things.

“But, ‘I would not take you lodgings in fifteen weeks.’ No, nor should I have done in fifteen years. I never once imagined, that you expected me to do this! Shall I leave the word of God to serve tables? You should know I have quite other things to mind; temporal things I shall mind less and less.

“‘When I was removed you never concerned yourself about me.’ That is not the fact. What my brother does, I do. Besides, I myself spoke to you abundance of times, before Christmas last.

“‘When I was at preaching, you would scarce speak to me.’ Yes; at least as much as to my sister Wright, or, indeed, as I did to any else at those times.

“‘I impute all your unkindness to one principle you hold, that natural affection is a great weakness, if not a sin.’ What is this principle I hold? That natural affection is a sin? or that adultery is a virtue? or that Mahommed was a prophet of God? and that Jesus Christ was a son of Belial? You may as well impute all these principles to me as one. I hold one just as much as the other. O Emmy, never let that idle, senseless accusation come out of your mouth.

“Do you hold that principle, ‘that we ought to be just (i. e. pay our debts) before we are merciful’? If I held it, I should not give one shilling for these two years, either to you or any other. And, indeed, I have, for some time, stayed my hand; so that I give next to nothing, except what I give to my relations. And I am often in doubt with regard to that, not whether natural affection be not a sin; but whether it ought to supersede common justice. You know nothing of my temporal circumstances, and the straits I am in, almost continually; so that were it not for the reputation of my great riches, I could not stand one week.

“I have now done with myself, and have only a few words concerning you. You are of all creatures the most unthankful to God and man. I stand amazed at you. How little have you profited under such means of improvement! Surely whenever your eyes are opened, whenever you see your own tempers, with the advantages you have enjoyed, you will make no scruple to pronounce yourself, (whores and murderers not excepted,) the very chief of sinners.—I am, etc.,

“John Wesley.”[513]

This is a caustic letter; and yet John Wesley was a loving brother. For nearly thirty years afterwards, Emily Harper was a resident in the preachers’ house at West Street, was a constant attendant on the ministry of her brothers, and died in peace, at the age of eighty, about the year 1772.

Much has been already related respecting the Methodist persecutions of 1743; but the whole has not been told. At Newcastle, three Dissenting ministers agreed together to exclude all from the holy communion, who would not refrain from attending Wesley’s ministry. One of them publicly affirmed, that the Methodist preachers were all papists, and that their doctrine was Popery. Another preached against them, and said, “Many texts in the Bible are for them; but you ought not to mind these texts; for the papists have put them in.” At Cowbridge, in Wales, when Wesley attempted to preach, the mob shouted, cursed, blasphemed, and threw showers of stones almost without intermission. At Bristol, a clergyman preached, in several of the city churches, against the upstart Methodists; and was about to do so in the church of St. Nicholas, when, after naming his text, he was seized with a rattling in his throat, fell backward against the pulpit door, and, on the Sunday following, expired. At Egham, Wesley went to church, and listened to one of the most miserable sermons he ever heard; stuffed with dull, senseless, improbable lies against those whom the parson complimented with the title of “false prophets.”

At Sheffield, the ministers of the town so inflamed the people, that they were ready to tear the Methodists to pieces. An army officer drew his sword, and presented it at Charles Wesley’s breast. The meeting-house was ruthlessly demolished, and the mob encouraged by the constable. The windows of Mr. Bennett’s house, in which Charles Wesley lodged, were smashed to atoms; and stones flew thick and fast in all directions. Near Barley Hall, a few miles from Sheffield, Charles Wesley and David Taylor were assaulted with a storm of stones, eggs, and dirt; David was wounded in the head and lost his hat; and the clothes of his companion were besmeared with filth.[514]

At Hampton, in Gloucestershire, the mob threatened to make aprons of Whitefield’s gown; broke a young lady’s arm; threw Mr. Adams twice into a pool of water; seized Whitefield for the purpose of casting him into a pit of lime;[515] and, from four in the afternoon till midnight, continued rioting, and declaring that no Anabaptists, etc., should preach there, upon pain of being first put into a skin-pit, and afterwards into a brook. Women were pulled down the stairs by the hair of their heads; Mr. Williams was twice thrown into a hole full of noisome reptiles and stagnant water, and was beaten, and dragged along the kennel; while the Methodists, in general, were mobbed to such an extent, that many expected to be murdered, and hid themselves in holes and corners, to avoid their enemies.

All this was bad enough; but there was something else, perhaps, quite as painful. The press, in its attacks, became as virulent as ever. Among other publications issued, was the following: “The Notions of the Methodists fully disproved, with a Vindication of the Clergy of the Church of England from their Aspersions. In two Letters to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley. Newcastle: 1743.” In this precious morsel, of near a hundred pages, the Methodists are branded as “conceited, vain boasters,” and “ignorant, giddy, presumptuous enthusiasts.” Wesley is accused of “compassing sea and land to gain proselytes”; of “making unwarrantable dissensions in the Church”; and of “prejudicing the people, wherever he came, against his brethren the clergy.” “You are,” writes this northern pamphleteer, “guilty both of schism and rebellion, which are two very grievous and damnable sins. You are the sower and ringleader of dissension, endeavouring with unwearied assiduity to set the flock at variance with their ministers and each other. You assume to yourself great wisdom and high attainments in all spiritual knowledge; but it requires no depth of understanding, to judge whether your character and conduct suit that of the spiritually or carnally wise man in St. James. You scruple not to accuse the clergy of almost universally teaching devilish doctrine, and of being deceitful workers; but, however you may boast of your conversions, you will in the end render yourselves the ridicule of mankind. You go from one end of the nation to another, lamenting the heresies of your brethren, and instilling into the people’s minds, that they are led into errors by their pastors; when the truth is, you are perverting them with solifidian and antinomian blasphemies. Consider, sir, how wicked and abominable in the sight of God it is for you to misrepresent your brethren to the people, in this scandalous manner. The mischief is, the giddy multitude, like the Athenians, love to spend their time in nothing else but hearing some new thing. They are tired with the solid, plain, and rational way of preaching they have been accustomed to in the Church, and think it dry and insipid in comparison of the powerful charms of that ecstatic eloquence, those highflown metaphors, those pretty rhymes, those taking gestures, with which you tickle and bewitch them. You give a deplorable account of the debt you have contracted by the building of your meeting-houses; but unless you can bring better proof than you have hitherto done, of the necessity there is to give yourself all this trouble and expense, all wise and considerate men, without any breach of charity, will look upon subscriptions for carrying on your designs, as little less than picking the poor people’s pockets, and robbing them of that which should maintain their families.”

Such is a specimen of the malignant slanders cast upon Wesley by this northern clergyman.

It has been already stated, that the Rev. Henry Piers preached, in 1742, before the clergy of the deanery of Shoreham, a visitation sermon, which Wesley revised, and which, at the time of its delivery, gave great offence. The preacher chosen for this office, in 1743, was of another stamp; and his sermon also was published, with the following title: “Of Speaking as the Oracles of God. A Sermon, preached before the Reverend the Clergy of the Deanery of Shoreham, at the Visitation, held in the Parish Church of Farningham, on Thursday, May 19, 1743. By John Andrews, M.A., Vicar of that Church.” 8vo, 30 pages. The world would have sustained no loss, if Mr. Andrews’ sermon had not been printed. The preacher sneers at the fancies of theological empirics, in one paragraph, and, in the next, speaks of the doctrines of “justification and regeneration as questions and strifes of words, which profit not.” Mr. Piers’ visitation sermon is attacked on the subject of faith; and the assembled clergy of the deanery of Shoreham are officially informed, that “every one, that is rightly and duly baptized, not only receives the outward ordinance, but the inward and spiritual grace annexed to it.”

Another pamphlet, published at this period, was, “A Fine Picture of Enthusiasm, chiefly drawn by Dr. Scott; with an application to our modern Methodists.” 40 pages. Dedicated to the Bishop of London. In this miserable morceau, we are told, that “there are thousands flocking after those enthusiasts, Whitefield and Wesley, who appear to be deluding crowds of people into a passionate, mechanical religion.” One of them, at least, is suspected to be a masked Jesuit; and both have courted persecution, but have had a mortifying disappointment. The singing of the Methodists is enchanting, and their tunes the most melodious that ever were composed for church music; but their hymns are irrational, and, like their prayers, dwell upon a word, or are immediate addresses to the Son of God, and represent Him as much more compassionate to the human race than God the Father ever was. “One of these artful teachers,” says the writer, “has ordered the tickets for his people to be impressed with the crucifix; and this, with their confessions and other customs, intimates a manifest fondness for the orthodox institutions of the Church of Rome. These modest teachers have not failed to trumpet their own extraordinary piety and holiness, as well as their extraordinary knowledge and illumination; and this has been done with great effect among the people. Their doctrine has very generally occasioned disorder in the passions of their hearers; the screamings and convulsions common among them, in their public assemblies, being called convictions. Vast numbers have gone melancholy among them. Many have been led to quit their lawful and necessary employment; to neglect their husbands, children, and families; and from useful members in society have become mopes and visionaries, incapable of pursuing their proper business, or of supporting themselves with decency.”

A fourth publication, belonging to the year 1743, was “The Progress of Methodism in Bristol; or, the Methodist Unmasked: wherein the doctrines, discipline, policy, divisions, and successes of that novel sect are fully detected and properly displayed in Hudibrastick verse, by an Impartial Hand. To which is added, by way of appendix, the Paper-Controversy between Mr. Robert Williams, supported by Thomas Christie, Esq., Recorder of Savannah, and the Rev. Mr. Wesley, supported only by his own integrity and assurance. Together with authentic extracts, taken from a late narrative of the state of Georgia, relating to the conduct of that gentleman during his abode in that colony. Bristol: 1743.” 16mo, 72 pages.

Among other things, this mendacious pamphlet contains an affidavit, sworn by Robert Williams before Stephen Clutterbuck, Mayor of Bristol, to the effect, that two freeholders at Savannah became bail for Wesley’s appearance at the sessions to take his trial, and that he dishonourably escaped from the colony and left his bondsmen in the lurch. To this Wesley replied: “Captain Robert Williams, you know in your own soul, that every word of this is a pure invention, without one grain of truth from the beginning of it to the end. What amends can you ever make, either to God, or to me, or to the world? Into what a dreadful dilemma have you brought yourself! You must either openly retract an open slander, or you must wade through thick and thin to support it, till that God, to whom I appeal, shall maintain His own cause, and sweep you away from the earth.”[516]

Whitefield and Wesley, in this scurrilous production, are accused of preaching to get money, and of placing men with plates at each gate and stile of the fields in which they harangued the people, to gather collections for the Orphan House in Georgia and the Room in Bristol. Wesley is charged with pretending to work miracles; for, upon a company of women falling down before him, he first of all prays over them, then sings a hymn, and then exorcises devils. In the midst of a most severe winter, he had taken his converts, early in the morning, through frost and snow, to the river Froom, at Baptist Mills, where, on the ice being broken, he and they went into the water, where, with “limbs shuddering and teeth hackering,” he baptized or dipped them. Class-meetings are described, the leaders of which note the sins of those who confess to them, register them in a book, and, in due season, “report them to John, who admonishes one, reprimands another, and expels a third.” At first, each member gave a penny, but now the lowest payment was twopence weekly. At present there were forty-eight classes in Bristol, each class containing “an even dozen.” After the watchnight meetings at Kingswood,

and at the nightly lovefeasts, “the ghostly father and all his sons draw near—

But enough of this. What did Wesley himself publish in 1743?

1. “Nature, Design, and General Rules of the United Societies, in London, Bristol, Kingswood, and Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: printed by John Gooding, on the Side. Price one penny. 1743.” Twelve pages.

This, the first edition of the “Rules,” is signed by John Wesley only, and bears date February 23, 1743. A second edition was issued, signed by both John and Charles Wesley, and dated May 1, 1743. The first edition has annexed “A Prayer for those who are convinced of Sin,” consisting of eighteen stanzas of four lines each, and from which is taken the beautiful hymn, numbered 462, in the Wesleyan Hymn-Book, and beginning with the line, “O let the prisoners’ mournful cries”; a production admirably appropriate to the circumstances in which the members of the first Methodist societies were placed.

Societies cannot exist without rules. Up to the present, Wesley had regulated his societies by vivâ voce instructions and direct authority; but, as the Methodists increased and multiplied, this became more difficult, and hence the publication now mentioned. The Rules were both written and published at Newcastle upon Tyne. Eleven days after the date they bear, Wesley read them to the Newcastle society, and desired the members seriously to consider whether they were willing to observe them. The careful reader will remark the designation which Wesley gives to his societies, as well as his description of their “nature and design.” They are not “Wesleyan,” or “Methodist,” but “United Societies.” As compared with the rules now in use, there are a few variations in the original edition deserving of being noticed. For instance, in the list of the leader’s duties, the first in order was, to receive from each person in his class, once a week, what the members were willing to give toward the relief of the poor. This is now altered thus: “to receive what they are willing to give for the support of the gospel.” The present rule forbidding “brother going to law with brother,” in the first and several subsequent editions, simply read, “going to law.” To the original rule, “the giving or taking things on usury,” has been added the words, “that is, unlawful interest;” and to the rule prohibiting “uncharitable or unprofitable conversation,” there was added, in the fourth edition, published in 1744, “especially, speaking evil of ministers or those in authority,” words now changed for “magistrates or ministers.” In the list of things forbidden in the present Rules, is the important one, “borrowing without a probability of paying; or taking up goods without a probability of paying for them;” this is not in the first editions. And among the duties enjoined is “family and private prayer”; but in the first edition the word family is not found, though, in the fourth edition, published twelve months afterwards, it was inserted.

The curious reader will forgive these trifles. They are all the variations found in the first edition of the Rules, as compared with the Rules now in use. The Rules themselves are too well known to require insertion.

2. Another of Wesley’s publications, in 1743, was “A Word in Season; or, Advice to a Soldier.” 12mo, six pages. This is a model tract, and shows that, from the first, soldiers excited Wesley’s sympathy.

3. “Thoughts on Marriage and Celibacy.” 12mo, twelve pages. A strange production, substantially embodied in the piece in Wesley’s collected works, entitled, “Thoughts on a Single Life” (see vol. xxiv., page 252, orig. edit.). What shall we say of this? Wesley admits, that the popish doctrine forbidding to marry is a doctrine of devils, and that a person may be as holy in a married as in a single state; but he proceeds to show, that the happy few who have power to abstain from marriage are free from a thousand nameless domestic trials which are found sooner or later in every family. They are at liberty from the greatest of all entanglements, the loving one creature above all others; they have leisure to improve themselves; and, having no wife or children to provide for, may give all their worldly substance to God. Those highly favoured celibates are exhorted to prize the advantages they enjoy, and to be careful to keep them; they are to avoid all needless conversation, much more all intimacy with those of the other sex; all softness and effeminacy; all delicacy and needless self indulgence; and all sloth, inactivity, and indolence. They are to sleep no more than nature requires; to use as much bodily exercise as they can; to fast, and practise self denial; to wait upon the Lord without distraction; and to give all their time and their money to God. On the whole, without disputing whether the married or single life is the more perfect state. Wesley concludes by adding, “We may safely say, Blessed are they who abstain from things lawful in themselves, in order to be more devoted to God.”

Thirty years afterwards, when Wesley was twitted for marrying, after expressing such opinions, he averred, that his opinions with regard to the advantages of a single life were still unchanged; and that he entered the married state “for reasons best known to himself.”[517] This was a lame reply to a reasonable reflection on inconsistency. Wesley’s tract was a mistake; or, if not, Wesley ought to have adopted his own principles, and have lived and died a celibate.

4. In July, 1743, Wesley wrote his “Instructions for Children,” which reached a second edition in 1745, 12mo, 38 pages. Prefixed, was a preface, addressed “to all parents and schoolmasters,” stating, that a great part of the tract was translated from the French, and that it contained “the true principles of the Christian education of children,” and that these “should in all reason be instilled into them, as soon as they can distinguish good from evil.”

The first twelve lessons are a catechism, respecting God, the creation and the fall of man, man’s redemption, the means of grace, hell, and heaven. Then follow lessons how to regulate our desires, understanding, joy, and practices.

Repenting is defined as “being thoroughly convinced of our sinfulness, guilt, and helplessness”; faith in Christ, as “a conviction that Christ has loved me and given Himself for me;” holiness, as “the love of God and of all mankind for God’s sake.” Wesley asserts that “they who teach children to love praise, train them for the devil”; and that “fathers and mothers who give children everything they like, are the worst enemies they have.”

Wesley considered these “Instructions for Children,” extracted from Abbé Fleury and M. Poiret, superior, “for depth of sense and plainness of language, to anything in the English tongue.”[518] The Church Catechism he declared to be “utterly improper for children of six or seven years old,” and thought “it would be far better to teach them the short catechism, prefixed to the ‘Instructions.’”[519] Accordingly, he requested all his preachers to give children the “Instructions,” and to encourage them in committing the book to memory; while they themselves were to make it the subject of special study.[520]

Wesley’s attention to children is proverbial. “When I was a child,” said Robert Southey, “I was in a house, in Bristol, where Wesley was. On running downstairs before him, with a beautiful little sister of my own, he overtook us on the landing, when he lifted my sister in his arms and kissed her. Placing her on her feet again, he then put his hand upon my head, and blessed me; and I feel,” continued the bard, his eyes glistening with tears, and yet in a tone of grateful and tender recollection, “I feel as though I had the blessing of that good man upon me still.”[521]

In Wesley’s well known sermon on “Family Religion,” he lays it down that “the wickedness of children is generally owing to the fault or neglect of their parents.” The souls of children ought to be fed as often as their bodies. Methodists are exhorted not to send their sons “to any of the large public schools (for they are nurseries of all manner of wickedness), but to a private school, kept by some pious man, who endeavours to instruct a small number of children in religion and learning together.” He raises the same objection to “large boarding schools” for girls; for “in these seminaries, the children teach one another pride, vanity, affectation, intrigue, artifice, and, in short, everything which a Christian woman ought not to learn.” He adds: “I never yet knew a pious, sensible woman, that had been bred at a large boarding school, who did not aver, one might as well send a young maid to be bred in Drury Lane.”[522]

This is sweeping language; but at that period it was not without truth.

5. Another of Wesley’s publications, in 1743, was, “A Practical Treatise on Christian Perfection. Extracted from a late author.” 12mo, 115 pages. This was an abridgment of William Law’s pungent book, published in 1726.

6. Another was an abridgment of Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress,” 12mo, 49 pages, price fourpence. Little did Wesley think that, within a hundred years, the whole of the glorious dreamer’s immortal work would be sold for a fourth of the price charged for his own fragment.

7. Wesley’s last, and most important work, which reached a second edition in the year it was published, was “An Earnest Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion,” 12mo, 53 pages.[523]

This was a clarion cry which created greater consternation than ever in the camp of Wesley’s enemies. First of all, he describes religion—the faith by which it is attained—and its reasonableness. Then, turning from those who do not receive the Christian system to those who say they do, he charges them, in the name of God, either to profess themselves infidels, or to be Christians; either to cast off the Bible, or their sins. “A common swearer, a sabbath breaker, a whoremonger, a drunkard, who says he believes the Scripture is of God, is a monster upon earth, the greatest contradiction to his own, as well as to the reason of all mankind.” After this, Wesley replies to the objections raised against Methodist doctrines, and to the calumny, that he and his coadjutors were papists in disguise, undermining the Church, and making preaching the means of replenishing their purses. It had been reported, that he received £1300 a year at the Foundery only, over and above what he received from Bristol, Kingswood, Newcastle, and other places. To this he answers, that the moneys given by the Methodists never come into his hands at all; but are received and expended by the stewards, in relieving the poor, and in buying, erecting, or repairing chapels; and that, so far from there being any overplus when this was done, he himself, at this moment, was in debt to the amount of £650, on account of the meeting-houses in London, Bristol, and Newcastle. He had “deliberately thrown up his ease, most of his friends, his reputation, and that way of life which of all others was most agreeable both to his natural temper and education; he had toiled day and night, spent all his time and strength, knowingly destroyed a firm constitution, and was hastening into weakness, pain, diseases, death,—to gain a debt of six or seven hundred pounds.” Then addressing himself to his brother clergy, he asks:—

“For what price will you preach eighteen or nineteen times every week; and this throughout the year? What shall I give you to travel seven or eight hundred miles, in all weathers, every two or three months? For what salary will you abstain from all other diversions than the doing good, and the praising God? I am mistaken if you would not prefer strangling to such a life, even with thousands of gold and silver.

“I will now simply tell you my sense of these matters, whether you will hear or whether you will forbear. Food and raiment I have; such food as I choose to eat, and such raiment as I choose to put on: I have a place where to lay my head: I have what is needful for life and godliness: and I apprehend this is all the world can afford. The kings of the earth can give me no more. For as to gold and silver, I count it dung and dross; I trample it under my feet; I esteem it just as the mire of the streets. I desire it not; I seek it not; I only fear lest any of it should cleave to me, and I should not be able to shake it off before my spirit returns to God. I will take care (God being my helper), that none of the accursed thing shall be found in my tents when the Lord calleth me hence. Hear ye this, all you who have discovered the treasures which I am to leave behind me; if I leave behind me £10,—above my debts and my books, or what may happen to be due on account of them,—you and all mankind bear witness against me, that I lived and died a thief and a robber.”

Wesley kept his word; for, within twelve months of his decease, he closed his cash-book with the following words, written with a tremulous hand, so as to be scarcely legible:—“For upwards of eighty-six years, I have kept my accounts exactly; I will not attempt it any longer, being satisfied with the continual conviction, that I save all I can, and give all I can; that is, all I have.”

1744.

1744 Age 41

WESLEY spent more than half of the year 1744 in London and its immediate neighbourhood. He made about half-a-dozen visits to Bristol; and three months were occupied in a tour to Cornwall, thence to Yorkshire and Newcastle, and thence to London.

Charles Wesley spent the year in London, Bristol, Cornwall, Staffordshire, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, at Newcastle, Nottingham, Sheffield, and other intervening places.

Whitefield commenced the year with rejoicing over the birth of his firstborn,—a boy expected to be a minister, and publicly baptized in the Tabernacle, where thousands, on the occasion, joined in singing a doggrel hymn, written by an aged and doting widow. On the 8th of February, this infant prodigy suddenly expired in the Bell Inn, Gloucester, where Whitefield himself was born; and, after being taken to the church in which Whitefield was baptized, first communicated, and first preached, was then buried, Whitefield returning to London deeply pondering the meaning of what he calls “this blessed riddle.” The next four months were chiefly spent in the metropolis; after which he and his wife repaired to Plymouth for the purpose of sailing to America. Here they were detained for several weeks, waiting for the convoy in whose company the voyage was to be attempted. During the interval, Whitefield preached in the town and neighbourhood with great success, and was nearly murdered by a villain, who beat him most unmercifully with his golden-headed cane. At length, he set sail in company with nearly one hundred and fifty ships; and, after not a few adventures, landed in New England, at the end of October, but was so extremely ill, that, for several weeks, he was almost incapable of preaching. In point of fact, Whitefield preached but very little, during the year 1744, except in London and in Plymouth, and in their respective vicinities.

One of the chief events of 1744 was the threat of a French invasion. On the 15th of February, the king sent a message to the houses of parliament, to the effect, that he had received undoubted intelligence, that the eldest son of the pretender to his crown was arrived in France, and that preparations were being made to invade England.

Parliament replied, that they looked upon such a design with the greatest indignation and abhorrence, and would use every effort to frustrate and defeat so desperate and insolent an attempt.

Great excitement followed. The coast was watched with the utmost care. A double guard was mounted at the Tower, and also at St. James’s. All military officers were ordered to their posts of duty. Workmen in the king’s yards were directed to wear arms and accoutrements, and to be exercised every morning; and instructions were given to the militia of the county of Kent, to assemble at the earliest notice.[524] The Habeas Corpus act was suspended, and a proclamation was issued for a general fast. All papists and reputed papists were forbidden to remain within ten miles of the cities of Westminster and London. The Earl of Barrymore was arrested and committed to the Tower, on the charge of enlisting men for the Pretender. Loyal addresses were presented to the king by the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, by the merchants of London, by the convocation of the province of Canterbury, by the Quakers, by the Protestant Dissenters, and by many others. The city of Dublin offered a reward of £6000 for apprehending the Pretender, or his son, either alive or dead, should they attempt to land in Ireland; and sixty thousand fire arms and accoutrements were seized in suspected houses in the southern parts of that island. War was declared against France on the 29th of March, and the whole kingdom seemed to be inflamed with martial ardour.

How did this affect Wesley? Two days after the king informed parliament of the threatened invasion, Wesley and his London society held a day of solemn fasting and prayer. When the proclamation was published requiring all papists to leave London, though he had appointed to go out of town, he determined to stay, so as to cut off all occasion of reproach; but on the 2nd of March (the last day mentioned in the proclamation), while he was at a house in Spitalfields, a magistrate and the parish officers came in search of papists. Wesley was glad of the opportunity to explain the principles and the practices of the Methodists. The searchers were satisfied, and Wesley was allowed to depart in peace, a large mob merely gaping, staring, and hallooing as loud as they were able. Some of his friends pressed him to write an address to the king, on behalf of the Methodists. He did so, and described them as “a people scattered and peeled, and trodden underfoot; traduced as inclined to Popery, and consequently disaffected to his majesty.” They were, however, “a part of the Protestant Church established in these kingdoms; they detested the fundamental doctrines of the Church of Rome; and were steadily attached to his majesty’s royal person and illustrious house, and ready to obey him to the uttermost, in all things which they conceived to be agreeable to the written word of God.” “Silver and gold,” he adds, “most of us must own, we have none; but such as we have we humbly beg your majesty to accept, together with our hearts and prayers.” Charles Wesley objected to the sending of this address in the name of the Methodists, because it would constitute them a sect, or at least would seem to allow that they were a body distinct from the national Church. He wished his brother to guard against this, and then, in the name of the Lord, to address the king.[525] Upon further consideration the address was laid aside.

Wesley’s troubles were not ended. On the 20th of March, he received a summons from the Surrey magistrates, to appear at the court at St. Margaret’s Hill. He did so, and asked, “Has any one anything to lay to my charge?” None replied; but, at length, one of the magistrates said, “Sir, are you willing to take the oaths to his majesty, and to sign the declaration against Popery?” Wesley replied, “I am”; which he did accordingly, and was permitted to depart in peace.

Why was this? Besides the general calumny cast upon the Methodists, that they were papists, it was at this time currently reported, that Wesley had recently been seen with the Pretender in France. Might not this be the reason of the unnecessary and annoying summons to appear at St. Margaret’s Hill?

In the same month, a warrant was issued, by a magistrate of the west riding of Yorkshire, to compel the attendance of five witnesses to give evidence at Wakefield, that they had heard Charles Wesley speak “treasonable words, as praying for the banished, or for the Pretender.” At the time appointed, March 15, Charles himself appeared in the magisterial court, and engaged to prove, that all the Methodists, “to a man, were true members of the Church of England, and loyal subjects of his majesty, King George”; and then desired their worships to administer to him the oaths. All the summoned witnesses retracted their accusations; and yet the Methodist itinerant was insulted at the door of the magistrates’ room, for eight long hours, when Mr. justice Burton, with consummate coolness, told him he might go, for they had nought against him. “Sir,” said Charles, “that is not sufficient: I cannot depart till my character is cleared. It is no trifling matter. Even my life is concerned in the charge.” At length, their worships reluctantly acknowledged, in explicit terms, that his “loyalty was unquestionable”; and he took his leave for Birstal, where the Methodists of the neighbourhood met him on a hill, and joined him in singing “praises lustily, and with a good courage.” All this arose out of one of the witnesses having heard him praying, on the 12th of February, that “the Lord would call home His banished”; the words being used, of course, in a sense purely spiritual.

Other inconveniences and acts of violence arose out of the threatened invasion of the French. John Slocomb, a poor baker’s boy, who was now one of Wesley’s preachers in Cornwall, was arrested, under a press warrant, and taken by his own uncle to prison, where he was kept a week, and then brought before the commissioners, who, finding no cause to punish or detain him, were obliged, at last, notwithstanding all their threatenings, to let him go. In Nottingham, two other preachers, John Healey and Thomas Westall, were similarly arrested, the magistrates demanding their horses for the king’s service, and refusing to believe they had none till they sent and searched. The case of John Nelson is known to every one, and will ever stand as one of the most sublime and tragic chapters in Methodistic history. John Downes, another itinerant, while preaching at Epworth, was seized and pressed for the king’s service, and sent as a prisoner to Lincoln gaol. And then, to all these must be added the mournful case of Thomas Beard, a quiet and peaceable man, who was torn from his trade, and wife and children, in Yorkshire, and sent away as a soldier, for no other crime, either committed or pretended, than that of calling sinners to repentance; and who, while lodged in the hospital at Newcastle, died; and, as one of the first martyrs among the Methodists, escaped from his cruel enemies on earth, to the company of the beatified in heaven.

Thus did the hot-headed friends of King George II. do their utmost to make leal Methodists disloyal to the throne and house of Hanover; but the effort failed; for, from first to last, more faithful subjects than Wesley’s followers the throne of England has never had. “It is my religion,” wrote Wesley, more than thirty years after this, “which obliges me to put men in mind to be subject to principalities and powers. Loyalty is with me an essential branch of religion, and which I am sorry any Methodist should forget. There is the closest connection, therefore, between my religious and political conduct; the selfsame authority enjoining me to fear God, and to honour the king.”[526]

Two events occurred, in the year 1744, which deserve special mention: the first Methodist conference, and Wesley’s last university sermon.

The conference began on Monday, June 25, and continued the five following days. It was held at the Foundery, London; and consisted of the two Wesleys, and four other clergymen, namely, John Hodges, Henry Piers, Samuel Taylor, and John Meriton; also of four lay preachers—Thomas Richards, Thomas Maxfield, John Bennet, and John Downes.[527]

Mr. Hodges was the rector of Wenvo, in Wales, a good man, who, from the first, was friendly to the Methodists, and who showed his love for Wesley, in 1758, by writing him a reproof for the tartness of some of his controversial writings, and which Wesley had the honest manliness to publish in his Arminian Magazine.

Mr. Piers has been already noticed. Samuel Taylor was the great great grandson of the celebrated Dr. Rowland Taylor, of Hadleigh, in Suffolk, who was forcibly ejected from his church; whom Gardiner, from the woolsack, addressed as “a knave, a traitor, and a villain”; whom Bonner was about to strike with his crosier, and was only hindered by Taylor telling him he would strike again; and who, amid the tears and prayers of his afflicted flock, was put into a pitch barrel, by the bloodthirsty papists, on the 9th of February, 1555, and was set on fire, one zealous vagabond flinging a fagot at his head, and another impatient ruffian cleaving his skull with a halbert, while he was singing in the flames, “In God have I put my trust, I will not fear what man can do unto me.” The descendant of this brave-hearted martyr partook of his ancestor’s zealous and heroic spirit. He was vicar of Quinton in Gloucestershire; but his heart was larger than his parish. Like Wesley, he went out into the highways and hedges, and was a sharer in the brutal persecutions of Wednesbury, Darlaston, and other places. Richard Whatcoat, one of the first Methodist bishops in America, when a child, sat under his ministry, and received impressions which he never lost.[528] As a preacher, Mr. Taylor was zealous, pathetic, and powerful. He died about the year 1750.[529]

Mr. Meriton had been educated in one of the universities, and was now a clergyman from the Isle of Man.[530] The last years of his life seem to have been chiefly spent in accompanying the two Wesleys in their preaching excursions, and in assisting them in the chapels they had built. He died in 1753.

Of the four lay members of the first Methodist conference, three afterwards left Wesley, and became ministers of other churches. John Downes was the only one who lived and died a Methodist.

The day before the conference commenced was one to be remembered. Besides the ordinary preaching services, a lovefeast was held, at which six ordained ministers were present; and, during the day, the sacrament was administered to the whole of the London society, now numbering between two and three thousand members. At this grand sacramental service five clergymen assisted.

On the day following, the conference was opened, with solemn prayer, a sermon by Charles Wesley, and the baptism of an adult, who there and then found peace with God.[531] The three points debated were:—1. What to teach. 2. How to teach. 3. How to regulate doctrine, discipline, and practice.

In reference to the first point, it was settled that, to be justified is to be pardoned, and received into God’s favour; that faith, preceded by repentance, is the condition of justification; that repentance is a conviction of sin; that faith, in general, is a Divine, supernatural elenchos of things not seen; and that justifying faith is a conviction, by the Holy Ghost, that Christ loved me, and gave Himself for me; that no man can be justified and not know it; that the immediate fruits of justifying faith are peace, joy, love, power over all outward sin, and power to keep down inward sin; that wilful sin is inconsistent with justifying faith; that no believer need ever again come into condemnation; that works are necessary for the continuance of faith, which cannot be lost but for want of them; and that St. Paul and St. James do not contradict each other, when one says Abraham was not justified by works, and the other that he was, because they do not speak of the same justification, and because they do not speak of the same works,—St. Paul speaking of works that precede faith, and St. James of works that spring from it.

The Conference further agreed, that Adam’s sin is imputed to all mankind in the sense, that in consequence of such sin—(1) our bodies are mortal; (2) our souls disunited from God, and of a sinful, devilish nature; and (3) we are liable to death eternal. It was further agreed, that the Bible never expressly affirms, that God imputes the righteousness of Christ to any, but rather, that faith is imputed to us for righteousness. At the same time, the Conference conceived that, by the merits of Christ, all men are cleared from the guilt of Adam’s actual sin; that their bodies will become immortal after the resurrection; that their souls receive a capacity of spiritual life, and an actual spark or seed thereof; and that all believers are reconciled to God and made partakers of the Divine nature.

Sanctification was defined, a renewal in the image of God, in righteousness and true holiness; to be a perfect Christian is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, implying the destruction of all inward sin; and faith is the condition and instrument by which such a state of grace is obtained.

Proceeding to other matters, the Conference resolved to defend the doctrine of the Church of England both by their preaching and living; to obey the bishops in all things indifferent, and to observe the canons as far as they could with a safe conscience; and, finally, to exert themselves to the utmost not to entail a schism in the Church, by their hearers forming themselves into a distinct sect; though they agreed that they must not neglect the present opportunity of saving souls, for fear of consequences which might possibly or probably happen, after they were dead.

The belief was expressed, that the design of God in raising up the preachers, called Methodists, was to reform the nation, more particularly the Church; and to spread scriptural holiness through the land. It was decided that, wherever they preached, they ought to endeavour to form societies, because where societies were not formed, the preacher would not be able to give proper instructions to them that were convinced of sin; nor the people to watch over one another in love, bear one another’s burdens, and build up each other in faith and holiness. It was stated, that the Methodists were divided into four sections; namely, the united societies, the bands, the select societies, and the penitents. The united societies, who were the most numerous, consisted of awakened persons. The bands were selected from these, and consisted of those who were supposed to have remission of sins. The select societies were taken from the bands, and were composed of those who seemed to walk in the light of God’s countenance. The penitents were those who, for the present, were fallen from grace. After this, the rules of the united societies, and of the bands, were read. The rules of the select societies were the same as those of the bands, with three additions:—1. That nothing spoken in their meetings be spoken again. 2. That every member submit to his minister in all indifferent things. 3. That, till they could have all things common, every member should bring, once a week, all he could spare toward a common stock. The penitents were left without rules.

It was agreed, that lay assistants were allowable only in cases of necessity. They were to expound every morning and evening; to meet the united societies, the bands, the select societies, and the penitents, once a week; to visit the classes once a quarter; to hear and decide all differences; to put the disorderly back on trial, and to receive on trial for the bands or society; to see that the stewards, the leaders, schoolmasters, and housekeepers faithfully discharged their several offices; and to meet the leaders and the stewards weekly, and to examine their accounts. They were to be serious; to converse sparingly and cautiously with women; to take no step towards marriage without first acquainting Wesley or his brother clergymen; and to do nothing as a gentleman, for they had no more to do with this character than with that of a dancing master. They were to be ashamed of nothing but sin; not of fetching wood, or drawing water; not of cleaning their own shoes, or their neighbour’s. They were to take no money of any one, and were to contract no debts without Wesley’s knowledge; they were not to mend the rules, but keep them; to employ their time as Wesley directed, and to keep journals, as well for Wesley’s satisfaction as for profit to themselves.[532]

It was decided, that they should preach most, where those of them who were clergymen could preach in a church; where they could get the greatest number of quiet and willing hearers; and where they had most success. It was agreed, that field preaching had been used too sparingly; that every alternate meeting of the society, in every place, should be strictly private; and that at the other meeting strangers might be admitted with caution, but not the same person above twice or thrice. To improve the usefulness of classleaders, it was resolved that each leader should be diligently examined, concerning his method of meeting a class; that all of them should converse with the preachers, as frequently and as freely as possible; that they should attend the leaders’ meeting every week, bringing notes of all sick persons in their classes; and that none should speak in the leaders’ meeting but the preacher or the steward, unless in answer to a question. The members were to be more closely examined, at the general visitation of the classes; the married men and married women, and the single men and single women were to be met apart once a quarter; and all the members were to be visited at their own houses, at times fixed for such a purpose. Tickets were to be given to none, till they were recommended by a leader with whom they had met three months on trial; and new members were to be admitted into the society only on the Sunday following the quarterly visitation, their names being read on the Sunday night previous. It was agreed, also that it was lawful for Methodists to bear arms; and that they might use the law as defendants, and perhaps in some cases as plaintiffs.[533]

Other regulations were adopted, either at this or ensuing conferences, as follows: preachers were to meet the children in every place, and give them suitable exhortations; they were to preach expressly and strongly against sabbath breaking, dram drinking, evil speaking, unprofitable conversation, lightness, gaiety, or expensiveness of apparel, and contracting debts without sufficient care to discharge them; they were to recommend to every society, frequently and earnestly, the books that Wesley published, as preferable to any other; they were to use their best endeavours to extirpate smuggling, and also bribery at elections; they were to speak to any that desired it, every day after the morning and evening preaching. As often as possible, they were to rise at four o’clock; to spend two or three minutes every hour in earnest prayer; to observe strictly the morning and evening hour of retirement; to rarely employ above an hour at a time in conversation; to use all the means of grace; to keep watchnights once a month; to take a regular catalogue of the societies once a year; to speak freely to each other, and never to part without prayer. They were never to preach more than twice a day, unless on Sundays or extraordinary occasions; to begin and end the service precisely at the time appointed; to always suit their subject to their congregations; to choose the plainest texts possible, and to beware of allegorizing and rambling from their texts. They were to avoid everything awkward or affected, either in phrase, gesture, or pronunciation; to sing no hymns of their own composing; to choose hymns proper for the congregation; not to sing more than five or six verses at a time, and to suit the tune to the nature of the hymns. After preaching, they were recommended to take lemonade, candied orange peel, or a little soft, warm ale; and to avoid late suppers, and egg and wine, as downright poison.[534]

Here we find six clergymen and four lay preachers, not elaborating an ecclesiastical structure, but carefully considering the greatest truths of the Christian religion, and investigating the duties of its preachers. Six days were spent in this important work. They desired nothing, said Wesley, but to save their own souls and those that heard them. Their doctrines, so simple and encouraging, were not the popular theology of the age; but they were in the Scriptures, and what every sinner needed. They little thought, that they were constructing a platform which would survive their times, and originating a long series of annual conferences which would become one of the most important institutions in the world; a central power, conveying religious benefits to every quarter of the globe, and serving as a model for framing other similar institutions both at home and abroad. The doctrines agreed upon are still the staple doctrines of the Methodist communities, and the elements of Methodist discipline may be found in the minutes of this the first Methodist conference.

Leaving Wesley’s first conference, we pass to his last sermon before the university of Oxford.

The day appointed for the sermon was Friday, August 24, the anniversary of St. Bartholomew, and occurred in Oxford race week. The duty came to Wesley by rotation; and had he declined it, he must have paid three guineas for a substitute. We have three accounts of this celebrated sermon. From Charles Wesley we learn, that he and Mr. Piers and Mr. Meriton were present at its delivery; that the audience was a large one, and much increased by the racers; that the congregation gave the utmost attention; that some of the heads of colleges stood during the whole service, and fixed their eyes upon the preacher; and that, after the sermon, the little band of four Methodist clergymen walked away in form, none daring to join them.[535]

Wesley’s own account is as follows:—

“I preached, I suppose the last time, at St. Mary’s. Be it so. I am now clear of the blood of these men. I have fully delivered my own soul. The beadle came to me afterwards, and told me the vice-chancellor had sent him for my notes. I sent them without delay, not without admiring the wise providence of God. Perhaps few men of note would have given a sermon of mine the reading, if I had put it into their hands; but, by this means, it came to be read, probably more than once, by every man of eminence in the university.”[536]

“I am well pleased that the sermon was preached on the very day on which, in the last century, near two thousand burning and shining lights were put out at one stroke. Yet what a wide difference is there between their case and mine! They were turned out of house and home, and all that they had; whereas I am only hindered from preaching, without any other loss; and that in a kind of honourable manner; it being determined that, when my next turn to preach came, they would pay another person to preach for me; and so they did, twice or thrice, even to the time that I resigned my fellowship.”[537]

The third account is by the celebrated Dr. Kennicott, who was, at this period, in the twenty-fifth year of his age, and an undergraduate of Wadham College. He had no sympathy with the Methodists, and yet he appears to have been deeply impressed with Wesley’s sermon. He writes:—

“All that are masters of arts, and on the foundation of any college, are set down in a roll, as they take their degree; and, in that order, preach before the university, or pay three guineas for a preacher in their stead; and as no clergyman can avoid his turn, so the university can refuse none; otherwise Mr. Wesley would not have preached. He came to Oxford some time before, and preached frequently every day in courts, public houses, and elsewhere. On Friday morning, having held forth twice in private, at five and at eight, he came to St. Mary’s at ten o’clock. There were present the vice-chancellor, the proctors, most of the heads of houses, a vast number of gownsmen, and a multitude of private people, with many of Wesley’s own people, both brethren and sisters. He is neither tall nor fat; for the latter would ill become a Methodist. His black hair, quite smooth, and parted very exactly, added to a peculiar composure in his countenance, showed him to be an uncommon man. His prayer was soft, short, and conformable to the rules of the university. His text was Acts iv. 31. He spoke it very slowly, and with an agreeable emphasis.” [Here follows a description of the sermon.] “When he came to what he called his plain, practical conclusion, he fired his address with so much zeal and unbounded satire as quite spoiled what otherwise might have been turned to great advantage; for, as I liked some, so I disliked other parts of his discourse extremely. I liked some of his freedom, such as calling the generality of young gownsmen ‘a generation of triflers,’ and many other just invectives. But, considering how many shining lights are here, that are the glory of the Christian cause, his sacred censure was much too flaming and strong, and his charity much too weak in not making large allowances. But, so far from allowances, he concluded, with a lifted up eye, in this most solemn form, ‘It is time for Thee, Lord, to lay to Thine hand;’ words full of such presumption and seeming imprecation, that they gave an universal shock. This, and the assertion that Oxford was not a Christian city, and this country not a Christian nation, were the most offensive parts of the sermon, except when he accused the whole body (and confessed himself to be one of the number) of the sin of perjury; and for this reason, because, upon becoming members of a college, every person takes an oath to observe the statutes of the university, and no one observes them in all things. Had these things been omitted, and his censures moderated, I think his discourse, as to style, and delivery, would have been uncommonly pleasing to others as well as to myself. He is allowed to be a man of great parts, and that by the excellent Dean of Christ Church (Dr. Conybeare); for the day he preached, the dean generously said of him, ‘John Wesley will always be thought a man of sound sense, though an enthusiast.’ However, the vice-chancellor sent for the sermon, and I hear the heads of colleges intend to show their resentment.”[538]

This obnoxious sermon was published a few weeks after it was preached, and was advertised in the October magazines, price sixpence.[539] Another edition was issued in the same year, at Newcastle on Tyne, 12mo, eighteen pages.

In a preface to the reader, Wesley says, that he never intended to print the latter part of the sermon; but “the false and scurrilous accounts of it which had been published, almost in every corner of the nation, now constrained him to publish the whole, just as it was preached, that men of reason might judge for themselves.”

The sermon has three divisions, and considers Christianity under three distinct aspects—(1) As beginning to exist in individuals. (2) As spreading from one to another. (3) As covering the earth. Of these nothing need be said. That which gave offence was the “plain, practical application,” which is quite one third of the entire discourse. The following extracts will show what it was that gave the offence which Oxford authorities never pardoned; and also the fidelity and Christian courage of the preacher in uttering such sentiments before such a congregation.

“I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, if ye do account me a madman or a fool, yet as a fool bear with me. It is utterly needful, that some one should use great plainness of speech towards you. It is more especially needful at this time; for who knoweth but it is the last? And who will use this plainness, if I do not? Therefore I, even I, will speak. And I adjure you, by the living God, that ye steel not your hearts against receiving a blessing at my hands.

“Let me ask you then, in tender love, and in the spirit of meekness, Is this city a Christian city? Is Christianity, scriptural Christianity, found here? Are we, considered as a community of men, so filled with the Holy Ghost as to enjoy in our hearts, and show forth in our lives, the genuine fruits of that Spirit? Are all the magistrates, all heads and governors of colleges and halls, and their respective societies, (not to speak of the inhabitants of the town,) of one heart and soul? Is the love of God shed abroad in our hearts? Are our tempers the same that were in Christ? And are our lives agreeable thereto?

“In the fear, and in the presence of the great God, before whom both you and I shall shortly appear, I pray you that are in authority over us, whom I reverence for your office sake, to consider, Are you filled with the Holy Ghost? Are ye lively portraitures of Him whom ye are appointed to represent among men? Ye magistrates and rulers, are all the thoughts of your hearts, all your tempers and desires, suitable to your high calling? Are all your words like unto those which come out of the mouth of God? Is there in all your actions dignity and love?

“Ye venerable men, who are more especially called to form the tender minds of youth, are you filled with the Holy Ghost? with all those fruits of the Spirit, which your important office so indispensably requires? Do you continually remind those under your care, that the one rational end of all our studies is to know, love, and serve the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He hath sent? Do you inculcate upon them, day by day, that without love all learning is but splendid ignorance, pompous folly, vexation of spirit? Has all you teach an actual tendency to the love of God, and of all mankind for His sake? Do you put forth all your strength in the vast work you have undertaken—using every talent which God hath lent you, and that to the uttermost of your power?

“What example is set them” [the youth] “by us who enjoy the beneficence of our forefathers,—by fellows, students, scholars,—more especially those who are of some rank and eminence? Do ye, brethren, abound in the fruits of the Spirit,—in lowliness of mind, in self denial and mortification, in seriousness and composure of spirit, in patience, meekness, sobriety, temperance, and in unwearied, restless endeavours to do good, in every kind, unto all men? Is this the general character of fellows of colleges? I fear it is not. Rather, have not pride and haughtiness of spirit, impatience and peevishness, sloth and indolence, gluttony and sensuality, and even a proverbial uselessness, been objected to us, perhaps not always by our enemies, nor wholly without ground?

“Many of us are more immediately consecrated to God, called to minister in holy things. Are we then patterns to the rest, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity? From what motives did we enter upon this office? Was it with a single eye to serve God? Have we clearly determined to give ourselves wholly to it? Do we forsake and set aside, as much as in us lies, all worldly cares and studies? Are we apt to teach? Are we taught of God, that we may be able to teach others also? What are the seals of our apostleship? Who, that were dead in trespasses and sins, have been quickened by our word? Have we a burning zeal to save souls from death; so that, for their sake, we often forget even to eat our bread?

“Once more, What shall we say concerning the youth of this place? Have you either the form or the power of Christian godliness? Are you humble, teachable, advisable? or stubborn, self willed, heady, and high-minded? Are you obedient to your superiors as to parents? Or do you despise those to whom you owe the tenderest reverence? Are you diligent in pursuing your studies with all your strength, crowding as much work into every day as it can contain? Rather, do you not waste day after day, either in reading what has no tendency to Christianity, or in gaming, or in—you know not what? Do you, out of principle, take care to owe no man anything? Do you remember the sabbath day to keep it holy? Do you know how to possess your bodies in sanctification and in honour? Are not drunkenness and uncleanness found among you? Yea, are there not of you, who glory in their shame? Do not many of you take the name of God in vain, perhaps habitually, without either remorse or fear? Yea, are there not a multitude of you that are forsworn? Be not surprised, brethren; before God and this congregation, I own myself to have been of that number; solemnly swearing to observe all those customs, which I then knew nothing of; and those statutes, which I did not so much as read over, either then or for some years after. What is perjury, if this is not?

“May it not be one of the consequences of this, that so many of you are a generation of triflers? triflers with God, with one another, and with your own souls? How few of you spend, from one week to another, a single hour in private prayer? How few have any thought of God in the general tenour of your conversation? Can you bear, unless now and then, in a church, any talk of the Holy Ghost? Would you not take it for granted, if one began such a conversation, that it was either hypocrisy or enthusiasm? In the name of the Lord God almighty, I ask, What religion are you of? Even the talk of Christianity ye cannot, will not bear. O my brethren! What a Christian city is this? It is time for Thee, Lord, to lay to Thine hand.

“For indeed, what probability, what possibility is there, that Christianity, scriptural Christianity, should be again the religion of this place? that all orders of men among us should speak and live as men filled with the Holy Ghost? By whom should this Christianity be restored? By those of you that are in authority? Are you desirous it should be restored? And do ye not count your fortune, liberty, life, dear unto yourselves, so ye may be instrumental in restoring it? But suppose ye have this desire, who hath any power proportioned to the effect? Perhaps some of you have made a few faint attempts, but with how small success? Shall Christianity then be restored by young, unknown, inconsiderable men? I know not whether ye yourselves would suffer it. Would not some of you cry out, ‘Young man, in so doing thou reproachest us’? But there is no danger of your being put to the proof; so hath iniquity overspread us like a flood. Whom then shall God send? The famine, the pestilence, or the sword, the last messengers of God to a guilty land? The armies of the Romish aliens, to reform us into our first love? Nay, rather, let us fall into Thy hand, O Lord, and let us not fall into the hand of man!”

This is not only the substance, but nearly the whole of the “plain, practical application,” that created so much offence. Who can find fault with it? Rather, who will not commend the bold preacher, who, in such yearning accents, gave utterance to truths of the highest consequence, but which perhaps no one but himself, in such a congregation, durst have uttered? Would to God that pulpits had more of this courageous, pitying fidelity, at the present day! Is it not a fact, that preaching now-a-days consists so much of polite and pious platitudes, that, so far from saving souls, it is almost powerless? The age is too refined to tolerate preachers of the stamp of Luther, Knox, and Wesley. The words of the prophets are, in this pretentiously polite period of the church’s history, well worth pondering: “They have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.” “This is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the Lord; which say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things; speak unto us smooth things; prophesy deceits.”

It was Wesley’s fidelity, far more than the novelty of his doctrines and proceedings, that brought upon him the persecutions he encountered. Of these, he and the Methodists had already had their share; but the vials of the people’s wrath were far from being emptied. The outrages in Staffordshire and other places have been already mentioned. “In Cornwall,” says Wesley, “the war against the Methodists was carried on with far more vigour than that against the Spaniards.” “At St. Ives,” writes Henry Millard, “the word of God runs and is glorified; but the devil rages horribly.” At Camborne, Thomas Westall was pulled down while preaching in Mr. Harris’s house; was carried to Penzance, where Dr. Borlase wrote a “mittimus” committing him to the house of correction at Bodmin as a vagrant; and here he was kept till the next quarter sessions, when the justices, then assembled, knowing a little more of the laws of God and man than Dr. Borlase and his Penzance confrères, declared his commitment to be illegal, and set him at liberty. “For what pay,” asks Wesley, justly proud of his preachers, “could we procure men to do this service,—to be always ready to go to prison or to death?” Dr. Borlase was a man of unquestioned sense and learning; but he was a bigot of the purest water. On his asking Jonathan Reeves to point him out a man who had been the better for hearing the Methodists, Jonathan pointed to John Daniel, then before him. “Get along,” cried the doctor. “Get along; you are a parcel of mad, crazy headed fellows;” and taking them by the shoulders, he thrust them to the doors. After this, we find him issuing warrants for the apprehension of Methodists; sending Thomas Maxfield to be a soldier; and signing a warrant for the arrest of Wesley himself; yet all this was not sufficient to prevent Wesley rendering to the Cornish bigot his due share of literary praise. “I looked over,” writes Wesley, in 1757, “Dr. Borlase’s Antiquities of Cornwall. He is a fine writer, and quite master of his subject. He has distinguished, with amazing accuracy, the ancient Saxon monuments from the more ancient Roman, and from those of the Druids, the most ancient of all.”[540] The doctor died in 1772.

Dr. Borlase was not alone; for his brother clergymen raged against the Methodists without measure, and, in their sermons, retailed the grossest lies concerning them. A poor woman complained to the mayor of St. Ives of some one throwing a huge stone into her house, which fell on a pillow within a few inches of her suckling child. His worship damned her, and said she might go about her business. One of the clergy told Jonathan Reeves, he wished the Bible were in Latin only, so that none of the common people could read it.[541] The mob at St. Ives saluted Wesley with stones and dirt; and pulled down the meeting-house, “for joy that Admiral Matthews had beat the Spaniards.” It was a gratifying fact, however, that, notwithstanding the fierceness of the Cornish persecution, not more than three or four of the Methodists turned cowardly deserters, while the rest, instead of being shaken, were confirmed in their principles by the violence of their enemies.

The press was still vigorously employed. An anonymous pamphlet, entitled “Observations upon the Conduct and Behaviour of a certain Sect usually designated by the name of Methodists,” 4to, pages 24, was written by Dr. Gibson, and obtained considerable approval from his brother bishops.[542] In this prelatical publication, the Methodists are charged with setting government at defiance, by appointing public places of religious worship, and by preaching in the open air, without taking the prescribed oaths, and subscribing the declaration against Popery. They broke the rules of the church of which they professed themselves members, by going to other than their own parish churches to receive the sacrament. Their doctrines and practices were a dis-service to religion—1. Because they set the standard of religion so high, that some were led to disregard religion altogether. 2. Because they carried the doctrine of justification by faith alone to such a height, as not to allow that the observance of moral duties is a condition of being justified. 3. Because a due attendance on the public offices of religion answered the purposes of devotion better than the “sudden agonies, roarings, screamings, tremblings, ravings, and madness of the Methodists.” 4. Because their exalted strains of religion led to spiritual pride, and to contempt of their superiors. In short, the irregular practices of the Methodists were of the like nature as those which had so great a share in bringing in the religious confusions of the last century.

Whitefield replied to this pamphlet in two small quarto tracts, of fourteen and twenty-four pages respectively. This evoked “A Serious and Expostulatory Letter,” by the Rev. Thomas Church, M.A., vicar of Battersea, and prebendary of St. Paul’s;[543] and also another letter, of fifty pages, “by a Gentleman of Pembroke College, Oxford.” In the latter production, the Methodists are censured for “suffering their heated imaginations to mount to such an exalted pitch, that it hurries them out of their senses, evaporates the religious spirit, and leaves nothing but sensuality in the heated machine.” Whitefield’s answer to “Observations on the Conduct and Behaviour of the Methodists” is politely said to be “stuffed with the coaxing and wheedling of the woman, the daring of the rebel, the pertness of the coxcomb, the evasions of the jesuit, and the bitterness of the bigot.” It is unblushingly affirmed, that the Methodists “can curse, rail, and berogue their antagonists, though in Scripture language, so as hardly to be exceeded by any pope, or spiritual bully, that ever yet appeared in Christendom.” They are a “rag-tag mob,” using “lascivious and blasphemously languishing expressions when they talk of the Redeemer’s love.” “They cant and blaspheme the Holy Spirit, and appeal to starts and sallies of flesh and blood for the inspiration of the Holy One.” They are “a set of creatures of the lowest rank, most of them illiterate, and of desperate fortunes; cursing, reviling, and showing their teeth at every one that does not approve of their frenzy and extravagance.” Whitefield was “crafty and malicious enough to be suspected of any wicked enterprise,—a person of wicked principles, travelling over all counties, to establish newfangled societies”; and he and his friends were “heads and spiritual directors of hot-brained cobblers, all big with venom against the clergy of the Established Church.” The author “trembles and shudders,” lest the Methodists should be “betrayed, by their feelings and stretchings, into a bed of eternal fire and brimstone, appointed for the reception of the lewd, the concupiscent, and the blasphemous.”

These are fair specimens of the foul foamings of this valiant defender of Church and state.

Another pamphlet, published in 1744, was “A Charge against Enthusiasm,” delivered, in several parts of his diocese, by the Bishop of Lichfield; and the object of which was to prove that “the indwelling and inward witnessing of the Spirit in believers’ hearts, as also praying and preaching by the Spirit, are all the extraordinary gifts and operations of the Holy Ghost, belonging only to the apostolical and primitive times, and that, consequently, all pretensions to such favours in these last days are vain and enthusiastical.”

Another, published at a shilling, was “Remarks on Mr. J. Wesley’s last Journal, by Thomas Church, A.M.,”[544] the prebendary of St. Paul’s already mentioned. Mr. Church sums up his charges against Wesley thus: “It is impossible for you to put an entire stop to the enormities of the Moravians, while you still (1) too much commend these men; (2) hold principles in common with them, from which these enormities naturally follow; and, (3) maintain other errors more than theirs, and are guilty of enthusiasm to the highest degree.” Mr. Church’s “Remarks,” however, will have to be noticed in the next chapter.

In addition to all this foam and fury against the Methodists, must be mentioned an equally vile attack of another kind. At the Brecon assizes, held in the month of August, the grand jury deemed it their duty to make a presentment to the presiding judge to the following effect: “that the Methodists held illegal meetings,” and that their “preachers pretended to expound the Scriptures by virtue of inspiration”; that, by this means, “they collected together great numbers of disorderly persons, very much endangering the peace of our sovereign lord the king; and that, unless their proceedings were timely suppressed, they might endanger the peace of the kingdom in general.” At all events, “the pretended preachers, or teachers, at their irregular meetings, by their enthusiastic doctrines, very much confounded and disordered the minds of his majesty’s good subjects”; and this, “in time, might lead to the overthrowing of our good government, both in Church and state.” Finally, the judge is requested, if the authority of the present court was not sufficient for the purpose, to apply to some superior authority, in order to put an end to the “villainous scheme” of “such dangerous assemblies.”[545]

Thus had Methodism to make its way through the opposition of vulgar mobs, fiery priests, lampooning pamphleteers, unjust magistrates, and grand juries. Gamaliel’s advice was set aside: “Refrain from these men, and let them alone; for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought: but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.”

Wesley’s longest journey, in 1744, was from London to Cornwall, thence to Newcastle, and thence to London. Nearly three months were spent upon this evangelistic tour: many hundreds of miles were traversed, not by rail, or even in stage coaches, but on horseback, over the most miserable roads, the rider sometimes battered with rain and hail for hours together, and at others plunging through drifts of snow enough to engulf both man and beast. About a hundred sermons were preached: some, at Gwennap and at St. Stithian, to thousands upon thousands of attentive hearers; some in public houses; some on village greens; and a few in parish churches.

One of the churches Wesley was permitted to occupy was at Laneast, in Cornwall, of which Mr. Bennett was the aged clergyman. Another was at Landau, in Wales. “Such a church,” says Wesley, “I never saw before. There was not a glass window belonging to it; but only boards, with holes bored here and there, through which a dim light glimmered. Yet even here the light of God’s countenance has shone on many hearts.” In the former of these churches a strange scene was witnessed in the month of August. Charles Wesley was preaching “against harmless diversions,” having three clergymen, Messrs. Meriton, Thompson, and Bennett, among his auditors. “By harmless diversions,” exclaimed the preacher, “I was kept asleep in the devils arms, secure in a state of damnation, for eighteen years.” No sooner were the words uttered than Meriton added aloud, “And I for twenty-five!” “And I,” cried Thompson, “for thirty-five!” “And I,” said Bennett, the venerable minister of the church, “and I for above seventy.”

Strange and stirring incidents came across Wesley’s path. In his father’s church, at Epworth, he heard Mr. Romley preach two of the bitterest and falsest sermons he ever listened to. On proceeding to Syke House, some of his friends met him and said a drunken mob was awaiting his arrival, who would press all the men in the congregation for soldiers. Others declared, the mob was just about to fire the meeting-house, or pull it to the ground. Wesley calmly answered, “Our only way is to make the best use of it while standing;” and, accordingly, he entered it at once, and expounded the tenth chapter of Matthew. At Durham, he met John Nelson and Thomas Beard, at that time with their regiment, and took them to his inn, and said, “Brother Nelson, lose no time; speak and spare not, for God has work for you to do in every place where your lot is cast; and when you have fulfilled His good pleasure, He will burst your bonds asunder, and we shall rejoice together.”[546] At Chinley, in Derbyshire, lived a poor widow, of the name of Godhard, with a family of four small children. At her request, Wesley made Chinley a resting place, and preached. Finding the widow’s house too small, he stood upon a chair near to a miller’s dam. The miller, enraged at Wesley and his congregation daring to worship in such proximity to his premises, let off the water for the purpose of drowning Wesley’s voice. The effort was a failure; truth triumphed; Chinley became a Methodist preaching place; and, in order to provide the preachers when they called with a cup of tea, the poor widow and her children set apart the whole of every Friday night for winding bobbins, depositing the earnings, as a sacred treasure, in an old pint mug, and never touching them except to meet the necessities of Wesley’s itinerants when paying their gospel visits.[547]

Already Wesley’s lay preachers had become a considerable host. In different parts of the kingdom there were, at least, forty of these devoted evangelists.[548] Some of them, as John Brown, of Newcastle, David Taylor, John Downes, John Nelson, William Shepherd, John Slocomb, Thomas Westall, Thomas Beard, John Haime, Thomas Richards, John Bennet, and Thomas Maxfield, have been already mentioned. Besides these, there were—John Haughton, originally a weaver, who, whilst the mob, in the city of Cork, were burning Wesley in effigy, threw up the window and began to preach to the people in the street; and who, afterwards, obtained episcopal ordination and settled in the sister country;—Jonathan Reeves, who was with Wesley when he laid the first stone of the Orphan House at Newcastle, and who, after passing through a great amount of persecution, became an ordained minister of the Church of England, preached in London, and died in 1778, testifying that all his hope was in Christ Jesus;—Enoch Williams, pious, deeply devoted to his work, faithful and successful, and brought to an untimely grave in 1744;—Thomas Williams, extremely popular as a preacher; but haughty, revengeful, headstrong, and unmanageable; a great favourite among the London young ladies; but a maligner of the two Wesleys; expelled in 1744, but taken back on declaring, before many witnesses, that the slanders he had propagated against Wesley and his brother were grossly false; the man who introduced Methodism into Ireland in 1747, but who was again expelled from the Methodist society in 1755; and then, through the Countess of Huntingdon, obtained episcopal ordination, and for several years acted as a clergyman in the neighbourhood of High Wycombe;—Thomas Meyrick, a native of Cornwall, educated for the law, a poet, but expelled from the Methodist connexion in 1750, after which he became a clergyman of the Established Church, and died, we fear, a drunkard, at Halifax, in 1770;—John Trembath, one of Wesley’s most courageous preachers, though somewhat vain and stubborn; then a farmer and a fibber; and, for a long series of years, an impoverished vagabond, who died about 1794;—Alexander Coates, a poor Scotch “laddie,” fond of books, who could speak in Gaelic, read with fluency in Dutch and Danish, and had some acquaintance with Hebrew, Greek, and Latin; the honoured instrument in the conversion of Mr. Crosse, the well known Bradford vicar; one of the best of men, and a most useful preacher, who died, at Newcastle, in 1765, in perfect peace;—William Darney, another Scotchman, honest, bold, impetuous, a rhymer, and painfully eccentric, but who was used by Providence in converting Grimshaw, and who prided himself upon never “dabbing people with untempered mortar”;—Nicholas Gilbert, a man of deep piety, and of great simplicity, possessed of considerable talents, and pronounced by Wesley “an excellent preacher”;—Samuel Larwood, who in 1754 became a Dissenting minister in the borough of Southwark;—James Jones, one of the first fruits of Wesley’s ministry in Staffordshire, as bold as a lion, and who built, at his own expense, the first Methodist chapel at Tipton Green;—Joseph Jones, who left the itinerancy in 1760, became a farmer in the county of Somerset, and acted as a local preacher to the end of life;—Herbert Jenkins, who afterwards became one of Whitefield’s preachers, and laboured in the Tabernacle connexion;—John Maddern, a man of genuine piety, and a lively, zealous preacher;—Henry Millard, who, after narrowly escaping a violent death at the hands of a Cornish mob, fell a victim to an attack of small pox, in 1746;—William Prior, of whom Charles Wesley, in a manuscript letter now before us, dated 1755, writes: “William Prior is ordained, without learning, interest, or aught but Providence to recommend him”;—Robert Swindells, a man of great benevolence, who was never heard to speak an unkind word of any one, had no enemy, and died full of days, riches, and honour in 1783;—James Wheatley, of Norwich notoriety, where he was often dragged by the hair of his head through the streets of the city, built a large chapel, and became immensely popular, but who ultimately died, beneath a cloud, in Bristol;—Francis Walker, a native of Tewkesbury, pious, honest, and upright, his talents small, but his preaching lively, zealous, and useful, an instrument of great good to souls wherever he went, and who settled in the city of Gloucester, where he died in peace. And to all these must be added William Biggs, Thomas Crouch, John Hall, Thomas Hardwick, Francis Scott, David Tratham, Thomas Willes, and William Holmes.

Little more remains to be related concerning the year 1744. The Newcastle society was increasingly earnest, there hardly being a trifler left. The society at Bristol was not so perfect as it should have been, many of the members crying out, “Faith, faith! Believe, believe!” but making little account of the fruits of faith, either of holiness or good works. The London society was poor, but generous. At a single collection, in the month of February, they contributed nearly fifty pounds to relieve the destitute around them, and which Wesley at once laid out in buying clothes for those whom he knew to be diligent and yet in want. A month later, they made a second collection of about thirty pounds. A month later still, a third collection of about six-and-twenty pounds; and to these three collections were added ninety pounds more in the shape of private subscriptions; making altogether £196 raised by the poor London Methodists, and employed in providing clothing for three hundred and sixty persons.

Already some of Wesley’s people began to profess Christian perfection; but he was extremely cautious in receiving their testimony. At the end of the year, he writes:—

“I was with two persons who believe they are saved from all sin. Be it so, or not, why should we not rejoice in the work of God, so far as it is unquestionably wrought in them? For instance, I ask John C——, ‘Do you always pray? Do you rejoice in God every moment? Do you in everything give thanks? In loss? In pain? In sickness, weariness, disappointments? Do you desire nothing? Do you fear nothing? Do you feel the love of God continually in your heart? Have you a witness in whatever you speak or do, that it is pleasing to God?’ If he can solemnly and deliberately answer in the affirmative, why do I not rejoice and praise God on his behalf? Perhaps, because I have an exceeding complex idea of sanctification, or a sanctified man. And so, for fear he should not have attained all I include in that idea, I cannot rejoice in what he has attained.”

This is significant language. Wesley preached the doctrine; but he was slow to believe those who professed to experience it; and it is a fact more remarkable, that, so far as there is evidence to show, Wesley never, to the day of his death, professed as much as this himself. Hundreds, if not thousands, of his followers did; perhaps he himself was restrained from doing so, by a dislike to high profession, or by a conscientious fear, that he hardly reached the standard above set up.

The thing occasioned him great anxiety. A short time before his death, he wrote as follows:—

“Four or five and forty years ago, I had no distinct views of what the apostle meant by exhorting us to ‘leave the principles of the doctrine of Christ, and go on to perfection;’ but two or three persons in London, whom I knew to be truly sincere, desired to give me an account of their experience. It appeared exceeding strange, being different from any that I had heard before. The next year, two or three more persons at Bristol, and two or three at Kingswood, coming to me severally, gave me exactly the same account of their experience. A few years after, I desired all those in London who made the same profession, to come to me all together at the Foundery, that I might be thoroughly satisfied. I desired that man of God, Thomas Walsh, to give us the meeting there. When we met, first one of us, and then another, asked them the most searching questions we could devise. They answered every one without hesitation, and with the utmost simplicity, so that we were fully persuaded, they did not deceive themselves. In the years 1759 to 1762 their numbers multiplied exceedingly, not only in London and Bristol, but in various parts of Ireland as well as England. Not trusting to the testimony of others, I carefully examined most of these myself; and, in London alone, I found 652 members of our society who were exceeding clear in their experience, and of whose testimony I could see no reason to doubt. I believe no year has passed since that time, wherein God has not wrought the same work in many others; and every one of these (without a single exception) has declared, that his deliverance from sin was instantaneous; that the change was wrought in a moment. Had half of these, or one third, or one in twenty, declared it was gradually wrought in them, I should have believed this, with regard to them, and thought that some were gradually sanctified and some instantaneously. But as I have not found, in so long a space of time, a single person speaking thus, I cannot but believe, that sanctification is commonly, if not always, an instantaneous work.”[549]

This is a subject of vast importance, and will often recur in future pages. Meanwhile, all will give Wesley credit for the utmost sincerity, though some may doubt whether human experience is, in itself, sufficient to settle and decide Christian doctrine.

Wesley’s pen was, if possible, more busily employed than ever; not so much in composing original productions, as in abridging and revising the works of others. During the year 1744, he published the following:—

1. The sermon preached before the Oxford university on August 24.

2. An Extract from his Journal, from November 1, 1739, to September 3, 1741. With prefatory Letter to the Moravian Church, dated June 24, 1744; and two hymns annexed, on “The Means of Grace,” and “The Bloody Issue,” both having reference to the Moravian controversy.

3. The Rules of the Band Societies. These, as we have already seen, were read at the conference held in June. During the year, they were published in the form following:—“The Nature, Design, and General Rules of the United Societies, in London, Bristol, Kingswood, and Newcastle upon Tyne. The fourth edition. To which are subjoined the Rules of the Band Societies. London: printed by William Strahan. 1744.” 12mo, twelve pages. The Rules of the band societies were the same as those which Wesley had drawn up for the Moravian bands, in 1738. The band society members were composed, as previously stated, of persons who professed to have obtained the forgiveness of sins. They were middle class Methodists; that is, in a more advanced state than the members of the “United Societies,” but not so advanced as the “Select Societies.” The questions to be proposed to every one before he was admitted were to the following effect:—1. Have you forgiveness of sins? 2. Peace with God? 3. The witness of the Spirit? 4. Is the love of God shed abroad in your heart? 5. Has no sin dominion over you? 6. Do you desire to be told of your faults? 7. Do you desire we should tell you whatsoever we think, fear, or hear concerning you? 8. Is it your desire and design, on this and all other occasions, to speak everything that is in your heart, without exception, without disguise, and without reserve?

The propriety of such questions will be doubted, and especially of other five which had to be proposed at every meeting, and which have been given in a previous chapter. (See page 210.) It would have been no loss to Methodism or to the religious world, if these queries, first drawn up by Wesley on Christmas day, 1738, had been allowed to slumber in the shades of Moravian oblivion. At present, they are never used; and though, in the first instance, they might be adapted to the Moravian brotherhood, they are far too inquisitorial for Methodists.