1757.
1757Age 54
IN 1757, Charles Wesley seems to have ceased, to a great extent, to itinerate as a Methodist preacher. His journeys became less frequent and extensive, till his ministrations were chiefly confined to Bristol and London, with occasional visits to some intermediate and surrounding places. Why was this? The answer must be conjectural. It is a curious fact, that no document in his handwriting, bearing the date of 1757, is known to be in existence; nor even the fragment of a letter, of the same period, addressed to him by his brother. Some have attributed the cessation of his itinerancy to his marriage; and there is doubtless some truth in this. A regard for the feelings and society of his noble wife, with the care of his infant children, probably contributed to the change which now took place;[298]but the principal cause of his settling down was, unquestionably, the state of feeling which existed in many of the societies and preachers with regard to the Established Church. His brother thought, that separation wasinexpedient, but could not regard it in the heinous light in which it appeared to Charles. Wesley was inclined to treat the disaffected with gentleness and persuasiveness; Charles was for the adoption of strong and compulsory measures. Their policy was different, and this was an obvious difficulty. Charles could not visit the societies as a mere friend, or as one of the ordinary preachers. He must appear as possessing a co-ordinate authority with his brother; and, their views being so widely different, it became impossible for them to regulate the societies in perfect concert. Hence, he doubtless thought it best to exercise a more settled ministry, and toleave the people and the preachers generally in the hands of John. Still, to the end of life, he retained his union with the Methodists, and rendered important service, though in a more limited sphere than he had been wont to occupy. The effect of his retirement, so far as he was personally concerned, was the reverse of favourable. His mind was naturally of a somewhat melancholy cast; but, amid the excitement of the itinerancy, he had no time to indulge in morbid feeling. When he ceased to travel, he was at leisure to cherish his gloomy forebodings. Croakers and busybodies tormented him with letters, complaining of the ambition of the preachers, and of the alienation of the people from the Church. Often was he in agonies of fear lest the Methodists should become Dissenters; while his brother was as happy as an angel, flying through the three kingdoms, sounding the trumpet of the world’s jubilee, and joyfully witnessing, every successive year, the steady advancement of the work of God.[299]
Whitefield spent about half of the year 1757 in the metropolis, and the remainder in evangelistic tours in England, Scotland, and Ireland. He preached fifty times, in twenty-five days, in the city of Edinburgh; attended the sittings of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland; and, by invitation, dined with the lord high commissioner. In Dublin he was well-nigh murdered. Attended by a soldier and four Methodist preachers, he repaired to Oxmanton Green, near the barracks, and sang, prayed, and preached, with no further molestation than the throwing of a few stones and clods. It being a time of war, he exhorted the people “not only to fear God, but to honour the best of kings, and then prayed for success to thePrussian arms.” On leaving the ground, “hundreds and hundreds of papists” surrounded him; volleys of stones were thrown at him; and, at every step he took, a fresh stone struck him, till he was red with blood. For a while, his strong beaver hat served to protect his head; but this, at last, was lost in the affray. Blows and wounds were multiplied; and, every moment, he expected, like Stephen, “to go off in this bloody triumph to the immediate presence of his Master.” Providentially, the door of a minister’s housewas opened, and here he found a temporary refuge. On entering, he was speechless, but gradually revived, when the minister’s wife desired his absence, fearing that his presence would lead to the destruction of her dwelling. What to do he knew not, being nearly two miles from Wesley’s home for preachers. At length, a carpenter offered him his wig and coat to disguise himself; but, just at the same moment, a Methodist preacher and two other friends, brought a coach. “I leaped into it,” he writes, “and rode in gospel triumph, through the oaths, curses, and imprecations of whole streets of papists. The weeping, mourning, but now joyful Methodists received me with inconceivable affection; a Christian surgeon dressed my wounds; and then I went into the preaching place, and joined in a hymn of praise and thanksgiving to Him, who stills the noise of the waves, and the madness of the most malignant people. Next morning, I set out for Portarlington, and left my persecutors to His mercy, who out of persecutors hath often made preachers.”[300]
This was barbarous treatment, and suggests a sad idea of the political and religious bitterness of Irish papists a hundred years ago. Poor Ireland! Whitefield declares, that, so far as he could learn, there was not a single minister in the whole of Ireland, either among Churchmen or Dissenters, who was faithfully and boldly witnessing for God and Christ.[301]
Wesley spent the first two months of 1757 in London, where, including the sacrament, one of his sabbath services usually lasted for about five successive hours. In fact, he considered his sabbath work, in London, equal to preaching eight sermons.
At the end of February, he paid a brief visit to Norwich, and made arrangements for the rebuilding of the Foundery, which the Norwich Methodists were using as a meeting-house, an unknown friend having given him money enough for that purpose.
After returning to London, he and Thomas Walsh visited the Methodist soldiers at Canterbury; and also made a preaching excursion to Beaconsfield and to High Wycombe. On Monday, the 11th of April, he held a covenant service atSpitalfields, at which twelve hundred Methodists met him, and which lasted for above five hours. Next morning, he set out on a four months’ tour to the north of England.
His first halting place was Bedford; where the mayor of the town, Mr. Parker, was his host. Mr. Parker, we believe, was the first Methodist that ever filled the chair of a chief magistrate. Wesley writes: “Mr. Parker hath not borne the sword in vain. There is no cursing or swearing heard in the streets of Bedford; no work done on the Lord’s day; indeed, no open wickedness of any kind.” For about forty years this mayor of Bedford was an “artless,” but useful local preacher. He was a nursing father to the Bedford Methodists; a fine example of good works to all who knew him; and triumphantly went to heaven, in 1785, at the age of eighty.
From Bedford, Wesley proceeded to Leicester, Birmingham, Dudley, Nantwich, Chester, and Liverpool. At the last mentioned town, James Scholefield, an expelled itinerant, had swept away half the society by telling “lies innumerable.” It was probably this first Liverpool division which induced Wesley to spend nearly a fortnight in the town and neighbourhood. He was introduced to Mr. Peter Whitefield, a man of strong understanding, whose “Dissertation in Defence of the Hebrew Points” Wesley considered the best that he ever read. He also had an interview with a novel kind of husband, “who, by the advice of his pastor, had, very calmly and deliberately, beaten his wife with a large stick, till she was black and blue, almost from head to foot.” The man insisted, that it was his duty to do this, because his wife “was surly and ill natured; and, that he was full of faith all the time he was doing it, and had been so ever since.”
From Liverpool, Wesley went to Warrington and to Manchester. He then rode over the mountains to Huddersfield, and says: “A wilder people I never saw in England. The men, women, and children filled the street as we rode along, and appeared just ready to devour us. They were, however, tolerably quiet while I preached; only a few pieces of dirt were thrown, and the bellman came in the middle of the sermon. I had almost done when they began to ring the bells.” The next few days were spent at Bradford, Birstal, Halifax, Heptonstall, Ewood, and Gawksham.
Gawksham was “a lone house, on the side of an enormous mountain, where the congregation stood and sat, row above row, in the sylvan theatre.” “I believe,” says Wesley, “nothing on the postdiluvian earth can be more pleasant than the road from hence, between huge, steep mountains, clothed with wood to the top, and washed at the bottom by a clear, winding stream.” At the “lone house,” in this grandly picturesque region, there was, in 1763, a society of forty-seven members, one of whom was David Lacy, who, as a young man, had been turned out of doors by his father, for becoming a Methodist, and, who, in his leisure hours, made besoms in order to save money to pay his pence at class. David became a leader, retained his Christian simplicity to the end, and died, possessed of considerable wealth, in 1803, at the advanced age of eighty-three.[302]
Leaving Gawksham, Wesley went to Padiham, and preached to “a large, wild congregation.” One of his wild auditors was Robert Worsick, whose grandmother ran after Wesley, brandishing an axe, and threatening she would kill him. A chapel was built the year after, the trustees of which were Grimshaw, the incumbent of Haworth, and James Hunter and Jonas Moor, who were weavers.[303]
At Bingley, Wesley had the genteelest congregation he had lately seen. At Haworth, he had to preach in the churchyard, the congregation being three times larger than the church would hold; while, at the sacramental service following, he and Grimshaw had nearly a thousand communicants. After this, he hurried off to Whitehaven, Cockermouth, and Wigton. In a letter to his friend Blackwell, he writes:—
“Whitehaven,May 28, 1757.“Dear Sir,—In every place, people flock about me for direction in secular as well as spiritual affairs; and I dare not throw even this burden off my shoulders, though I have employment enough without it. But it is a burden, and no burden; it is no incumbrance, no weight upon my mind. If we see God in all things, and do all for Him, then all things are easy. I think it is fourteen or fifteen days since my wife wrote to me. I am afraid she is not well.“I am, dear sir, your most affectionate servant,“John Wesley.”[304]
“Whitehaven,May 28, 1757.
“Dear Sir,—In every place, people flock about me for direction in secular as well as spiritual affairs; and I dare not throw even this burden off my shoulders, though I have employment enough without it. But it is a burden, and no burden; it is no incumbrance, no weight upon my mind. If we see God in all things, and do all for Him, then all things are easy. I think it is fourteen or fifteen days since my wife wrote to me. I am afraid she is not well.
“I am, dear sir, your most affectionate servant,
“John Wesley.”[304]
Wesley now proceeded to Glasgow, where he was welcomed by Mr. Gillies, and preached in the yard of the poorhouse. He “met the members of the praying societies, and earnestly advised them to meet Mr. Gillies every week; and, at their other meetings, not to talk loosely and generally (as their manner had been) on some head of religion, but to examine each other’s hearts and lives.”
At Musselburgh, he was the guest of Bailiff Lindsey, and preached in the poorhouse; two thirds of the society “knew in whom they had believed”; and between forty and fifty dragoons were present.
He found a small society at Dunbar, and went into the street, “and began speaking to a congregation of two men and two women,” which was “soon joined by about twenty little children, and, not long after, by a large number of young and old.”
At Kelso, he and William Coward, “a wise and good man,” who died in 1770, and for whom Wesley preached a funeral sermon, went to the market-house, but “neither man, woman, nor child came near them.” At length, Wesley began singing a Scotch psalm; in due time, a congregation gathered; Wesley used “keen and cutting expressions,” and says: “I believe many felt, for all their form, they were but heathens still.”
He now made his way towards Newcastle. He writes: “About noon, I stood in the street at Wooler; and I might stand; for no creature came near me, till I had sung part of a psalm. Then a row of children stood before me; and, in some time, about a hundred men and women. I spoke full as plain as I did at Kelso; and pharisees themselves are not out of God’s reach.”
At Alnwick, the courthouse was too small for his congregation, and he was obliged to go into the market-place. “O what a difference,” he remarks, “between these living stones, and the dead, unfeeling multitudes in Scotland!”
Coming to Placey, he writes: “The society of colliers here may be a pattern to all the societies in England. No person ever misses his band or class; they have no jar of any kind among them; but, with one heart and one mind, provoke one another to love and to good works. After preaching, I met the society in a room as warm as any in Georgia.”
At Sunderland, he told the society “none could stay with us, unless he would part with all sin; particularly robbing the king, selling or buying smuggled goods; which he could no more suffer, than robbing on the highway.” “A few would not promise to refrain”; these were expelled; “but about two hundred and fifty were of a better mind.”
At Chester-le-street, observing “some very fine, but not very modest, pictures, in the parlour” where he supped, he desired his companion to put them where they could do no hurt; and, accordingly, they were “piled on a heap in a corner of the room.”
Having spent three weeks at Newcastle and in the neighbourhood, he started on the 4th of July for London.
At Durham, he preached in a meadow, near the river, to a congregation “large and wild.” At Hartlepool, he found, that the Rev. William Romaine “had been the instrument of awakening several; but, for want of help, they soon slept again.” At Stockton, he preached in the street, and “none but two or three gentlemen seemed unconcerned.” At Yarm, he preached near the market-place. “Many gentry were there, and all serious.” “I find,” says he, “in all these parts, a solid, serious people, quite simple of heart, strangers to various opinions, and seeking only the faith that worketh by love.” On July 6, he preached at Osmotherley, where the rustic society, according to their old account book, were put to the enormous expense of half-a-crown “for Mr. John Wesley, William Fugill, and Michael Fenwick.” From Osmotherley, he “rode through one of the pleasantest parts of England to Hawnby,” where the zealous landlord had turned all the Methodists out of their houses. “This,” says he, “proved a singular kindness; for they built some little houses at the end of the town, in which forty or fifty of them live together.” One of these was William Hewgill, the grandfather of the eloquent and popular Rev. John Bumby; a most worthy man, who with a few of the ostracised Methodists walked sixty miles to Newcastle to hear Wesley preach, and at whose invitation he now came to the moorland village in which they dwelt.
Proceeding to Robinhood’s Bay, Wesley preached to “the greatest part of the town; and all, except one or two, whowere very wise in their own eyes, seemed to receive the truth in love.” The next three days were the hottest he ever knew in England. At Slingsby, he met with a clergyman, an old acquaintance of his father’s; the congregation was attentive, none making disturbance, except one poor drunkard. At York, he set a subscription on foot for building a more commodious room in Peasholm Green, which he afterwards opened, in April, 1759, Dr. Cockburn, an old schoolfellow, residing in Aldwark, but not a Methodist, giving £100.[305]At Pocklington, he preached in the street; a large mob assembled; and, for “fear they should not make noise enough, the good churchwarden hired men to ring the bells.” At Epworth, he “preached in the market-place to a listening multitude;” at Laceby, in a meadow; and, at Grimsby, in the new meeting-house just finished. At Misterton, he preached to the largest congregation he had seen since he left Newcastle; and “all behaved with deep seriousness, except a baptist preacher.” At Clayworth, “none were unmoved, but Michael Fenwick; who fell fast asleep under an adjoining hayrick.” At Rotherham, he addressed the largest congregation that Rotherham had ever witnessed. At Sheffield, he wrote: “How quiet is this country now, since the chief persecutors are no more seen! How many of them have been snatched away in an hour when they looked not for it! Some time since, a woman of Thorpe often swore she would wash her hands in the heart’s blood of the next preacher that came. But, before the next preacher came, she was carried to her long home. A little before John Johnson settled at Wentworth, a stout, healthy man, who lived there, told his neighbours: ‘After May-day we shall have nothing but praying and preaching; but I will make noise enough to stop it.’ But before May-day he was silent in his grave. A servant of Lord R—— was as bitter as he, and told many lies purposely to make mischief: but, before this was done, his mouth was stopped. He was drowned in one of the fishponds.”
On reaching London, Wesley at once held his annual conference, which continued from the 4th to the 11th of August. “From the first hour to the last,” says he, “there was nojarring string, but all was harmony and love.” This is all that is known of the conference of 1757, except that the Church question was again discussed. Hence the following letters, written soon after. The first was addressed to the Rev. Mr. Walker, of Truro, “on his advising Wesley to give up the Methodist societies to their several ministers.”
“Helstone,September 16, 1757.“Reverend and dear Sir,—Nothing can be more kind than the mentioning what you think is amiss in my conduct. The more freedom you use in doing this, the more I am indebted to you.“Two years since, eleven or twelve persons of Falmouth were members of our society. Last year, I was informed, that a young man there had begun to teach them new opinions, and that, soon after, offence and prejudice crept in, and increased till they were all torn asunder. What they have done since I know not; for they have no connection with us. I do ‘exert myself’ so far, as to separate from us those that separate from the Church. But, in a thousand other instances, I feel the want of more resolution and firmness of spirit. I exercise as little authority as possible, because I am afraid of the people depending upon me too much, and paying me more reverence than they ought.“You say, ‘If you believed Mr. V——[306]to be a gracious person and a gospel minister, why did you not, in justice to your people, leave them to him?’“There are several reasons why I did not do this. 1. No one mentioned or intimated any such thing, nor did it once enter into my thoughts. But if it had,—2. I do not know, that every one who preaches the truth has wisdom and experience to guide and govern a flock. 3. I do not know, whether Mr. V—— would or could give that flock all the advantages for holiness which they now enjoy; and to leave them to him, before I was assured of this, would be neither justice nor mercy. 4. Unless they also were assured of this, they could not in conscience give up themselves to him; and I have neither right nor power to dispose of them contrary to their conscience.“‘But they are already his by legal establishment.’ If they receive the sacrament from him thrice a year, and attend the ministrations on the Lord’s day, I see no more which the law requires. But, to go a littledeeper into this matter oflegal establishment—does Mr. Canon or you think, that the king and parliament have a right to prescribe to me what pastor I shall use? If they prescribe one which I know God never sent, am I obliged to receive him? If he be sent of God, can I receive him, with a clear conscience, till I know he is? And even when I do, if I believe my former pastor is more profitable to my soul, can I leave him without sin? Or has any man living a right to require this of me? Before I could, with a clear conscience, leave the Methodist society even to such an one, all these considerations must come in.“And with regard to the people,—far from thinking, that ‘the withdrawing our preachers’ from such a society, without their consent, would prevent a separation from the Church, I think, it would be the direct way to cause it. While we are with them, our advice has weight, and keeps them to the Church. But were we totally to withdraw, it would be of little or no weight. Nay, perhaps, resentment of our unkindness (as it would appear to them) would prompt them to act in flat opposition to it.“‘And will it not be the same at your death?’ I believe not: for I believe there will be no resentment in this case. And the last advice of a dying friend is not likely to be soon forgotten.“At our late conference, I proposed the question, ‘What can be done, in order to a close union with the clergy, who preach the truth?’ We all agreed, that nothing could be more desirable. I, in particular, have long desired it; not from any view to my own ease or honour, or temporal convenience of any kind; but, because I was deeply convinced, it might be a blessing to my own soul, and a means of increasing the general work of God.“But you say, ‘Really, before it can be effected, something must be done on your part.’ Tell me what, and I will do it without delay; however contrary it may be to my ease, or natural inclination: provided only, that it consists with my keeping a good conscience toward God and toward man.“But you add, ‘Paying us visits can serve no other purpose, than to bring us under needless difficulties.’ But what difficulties are those? All that are the necessary consequence of sharing our reproach. And what reproach is it which we bear? Is it the reproach of Christ, or not? It arose first, while my brother and I were at Oxford, from our endeavouring to be real Christians. It was increased abundantly when we began to preach repentance and remission of sins; and insisting, that we are justified by faith. For this cause, were we excluded from preaching in the churches; and this exclusion occasioned our preaching elsewhere, with the other irregularities that followed. Therefore, all the reproach consequent thereon is no other than the reproach of Christ.“And what are we the worse for this? It is not pleasing to flesh and blood; but is it any hindrance to the work of God? Did He work more by us when we were honourable men? By no means. God never used us to any purpose, till we were a proverb of reproach. Nor have we now jot more of dishonour, of evil report, than we know is necessary, both forus and for the people, to balance that honour and good report, which otherwise could not be borne. You need not, therefore, be so much afraid of, or so careful to avoid this. It is a precious balm: it will not break your head, neither lessen your usefulness. And, indeed, you cannot avoid it, any otherwise than by departing from the work. You do not avoid it by standing aloof from us; which you callChristian,—Iworldly, prudence. Perhaps when the time is slipped out of your hands, when I am no more seen, you may wish that you had not rejected the assistance of even“Your affectionate brother,“John Wesley.”[307]
“Helstone,September 16, 1757.
“Reverend and dear Sir,—Nothing can be more kind than the mentioning what you think is amiss in my conduct. The more freedom you use in doing this, the more I am indebted to you.
“Two years since, eleven or twelve persons of Falmouth were members of our society. Last year, I was informed, that a young man there had begun to teach them new opinions, and that, soon after, offence and prejudice crept in, and increased till they were all torn asunder. What they have done since I know not; for they have no connection with us. I do ‘exert myself’ so far, as to separate from us those that separate from the Church. But, in a thousand other instances, I feel the want of more resolution and firmness of spirit. I exercise as little authority as possible, because I am afraid of the people depending upon me too much, and paying me more reverence than they ought.
“You say, ‘If you believed Mr. V——[306]to be a gracious person and a gospel minister, why did you not, in justice to your people, leave them to him?’
“There are several reasons why I did not do this. 1. No one mentioned or intimated any such thing, nor did it once enter into my thoughts. But if it had,—2. I do not know, that every one who preaches the truth has wisdom and experience to guide and govern a flock. 3. I do not know, whether Mr. V—— would or could give that flock all the advantages for holiness which they now enjoy; and to leave them to him, before I was assured of this, would be neither justice nor mercy. 4. Unless they also were assured of this, they could not in conscience give up themselves to him; and I have neither right nor power to dispose of them contrary to their conscience.
“‘But they are already his by legal establishment.’ If they receive the sacrament from him thrice a year, and attend the ministrations on the Lord’s day, I see no more which the law requires. But, to go a littledeeper into this matter oflegal establishment—does Mr. Canon or you think, that the king and parliament have a right to prescribe to me what pastor I shall use? If they prescribe one which I know God never sent, am I obliged to receive him? If he be sent of God, can I receive him, with a clear conscience, till I know he is? And even when I do, if I believe my former pastor is more profitable to my soul, can I leave him without sin? Or has any man living a right to require this of me? Before I could, with a clear conscience, leave the Methodist society even to such an one, all these considerations must come in.
“And with regard to the people,—far from thinking, that ‘the withdrawing our preachers’ from such a society, without their consent, would prevent a separation from the Church, I think, it would be the direct way to cause it. While we are with them, our advice has weight, and keeps them to the Church. But were we totally to withdraw, it would be of little or no weight. Nay, perhaps, resentment of our unkindness (as it would appear to them) would prompt them to act in flat opposition to it.
“‘And will it not be the same at your death?’ I believe not: for I believe there will be no resentment in this case. And the last advice of a dying friend is not likely to be soon forgotten.
“At our late conference, I proposed the question, ‘What can be done, in order to a close union with the clergy, who preach the truth?’ We all agreed, that nothing could be more desirable. I, in particular, have long desired it; not from any view to my own ease or honour, or temporal convenience of any kind; but, because I was deeply convinced, it might be a blessing to my own soul, and a means of increasing the general work of God.
“But you say, ‘Really, before it can be effected, something must be done on your part.’ Tell me what, and I will do it without delay; however contrary it may be to my ease, or natural inclination: provided only, that it consists with my keeping a good conscience toward God and toward man.
“But you add, ‘Paying us visits can serve no other purpose, than to bring us under needless difficulties.’ But what difficulties are those? All that are the necessary consequence of sharing our reproach. And what reproach is it which we bear? Is it the reproach of Christ, or not? It arose first, while my brother and I were at Oxford, from our endeavouring to be real Christians. It was increased abundantly when we began to preach repentance and remission of sins; and insisting, that we are justified by faith. For this cause, were we excluded from preaching in the churches; and this exclusion occasioned our preaching elsewhere, with the other irregularities that followed. Therefore, all the reproach consequent thereon is no other than the reproach of Christ.
“And what are we the worse for this? It is not pleasing to flesh and blood; but is it any hindrance to the work of God? Did He work more by us when we were honourable men? By no means. God never used us to any purpose, till we were a proverb of reproach. Nor have we now jot more of dishonour, of evil report, than we know is necessary, both forus and for the people, to balance that honour and good report, which otherwise could not be borne. You need not, therefore, be so much afraid of, or so careful to avoid this. It is a precious balm: it will not break your head, neither lessen your usefulness. And, indeed, you cannot avoid it, any otherwise than by departing from the work. You do not avoid it by standing aloof from us; which you callChristian,—Iworldly, prudence. Perhaps when the time is slipped out of your hands, when I am no more seen, you may wish that you had not rejected the assistance of even
“Your affectionate brother,
“John Wesley.”[307]
Further correspondence followed; hence the ensuing extract from another letter sent to Mr. Walker.
“October, 1757.“Reverend and dear Sir,—I return you many thanks for the welcome letter from Mr. Adam, as well as for your own. I have answered his, and now proceed to consider yours.“Two of our preachers are gone from us; but none of these remaining, to my knowledge, have, at present, anydesireor design of separating from the Church.“Yet I observe—1. Those ministers, who truly feared God near a hundred years ago, had undoubtedly much the same objections to the liturgy which some have now. And I myself so far allow the force of several of those objections, that I should not declare my assent and consent to that book in the terms prescribed. Indeed, they are so strong, that I think they cannot safely be used, with regard to any book but the Bible. Neither dare I confine myself wholly to forms of prayer, not even in the church. I use indeed all the forms; but I frequently use extemporary prayer, either before or after sermon.“2. In behalf of many of the canons, I can say little; of the spiritual courts, nothing at all. I dare not, therefore, allow the authority of the former, or the jurisdiction of the latter.“I am still desirous of knowing, in what particular manner you think the present work of God could be carried on, without the assistance of lay preachers. This I will fairly weigh, and give you my thoughts upon it. Assist, both with your advice and prayers, dear sir, your very affectionate brother and servant,“John. Wesley.”[308]
“October, 1757.
“Reverend and dear Sir,—I return you many thanks for the welcome letter from Mr. Adam, as well as for your own. I have answered his, and now proceed to consider yours.
“Two of our preachers are gone from us; but none of these remaining, to my knowledge, have, at present, anydesireor design of separating from the Church.
“Yet I observe—1. Those ministers, who truly feared God near a hundred years ago, had undoubtedly much the same objections to the liturgy which some have now. And I myself so far allow the force of several of those objections, that I should not declare my assent and consent to that book in the terms prescribed. Indeed, they are so strong, that I think they cannot safely be used, with regard to any book but the Bible. Neither dare I confine myself wholly to forms of prayer, not even in the church. I use indeed all the forms; but I frequently use extemporary prayer, either before or after sermon.
“2. In behalf of many of the canons, I can say little; of the spiritual courts, nothing at all. I dare not, therefore, allow the authority of the former, or the jurisdiction of the latter.
“I am still desirous of knowing, in what particular manner you think the present work of God could be carried on, without the assistance of lay preachers. This I will fairly weigh, and give you my thoughts upon it. Assist, both with your advice and prayers, dear sir, your very affectionate brother and servant,
“John. Wesley.”[308]
Walter Sellon, a Methodist clergyman, was addressed as follows.
“London,December 1, 1757.“My dear Brother,—Only prevail upon John Brandon to spend a month or two in London, or any other part of England, and I will immediately send another preacher to Leicester, Ashby, and the adjacentplaces; but, during the present scarcity of labourers, we cannot spare a second for that small circuit, till you spare us the first.“It is surprising that, from one end of the land to the other, so little good is done in aregular way. What have you to do, but to follow that way which the providence of God points out? When they drive you from Smithsby, you know where to have both employment and the things needful for the body. I think, also, it will be highly profitable for your soul, to be near those who have more experience in the ways of God.“I am your affectionate brother,“John Wesley.”[309]
“London,December 1, 1757.
“My dear Brother,—Only prevail upon John Brandon to spend a month or two in London, or any other part of England, and I will immediately send another preacher to Leicester, Ashby, and the adjacentplaces; but, during the present scarcity of labourers, we cannot spare a second for that small circuit, till you spare us the first.
“It is surprising that, from one end of the land to the other, so little good is done in aregular way. What have you to do, but to follow that way which the providence of God points out? When they drive you from Smithsby, you know where to have both employment and the things needful for the body. I think, also, it will be highly profitable for your soul, to be near those who have more experience in the ways of God.
“I am your affectionate brother,
“John Wesley.”[309]
The following letter was written, to a friend, on “public worship”; but has an important bearing on the question of the Methodists continuing to exist as a distinct society.
“September 20, 1757.“Dear Sir,—The longer I am absent from London, and the more I attend the service of the Church in other places, the more I am convinced of the unspeakable advantage which the Methodists enjoy—I mean, even with regard to public worship, particularly on the Lord’s day. The church where they assemble is not gay or splendid; which might be a hindrance on the one hand: nor sordid or dirty; which might give distaste on the other: but plain as well as clean. The persons who assemble there, are not a gay, giddy crowd, who come chiefly to see and be seen; nor a company of goodly, formal, outside Christians, whose religion lies in a dull round of duties; but a people most of whom know, and the rest earnestly seek, to worship God in spirit and in truth. Accordingly, they do not spend their time there in bowing and curtseying, or in staring about them; but in looking upward and looking inward, in hearkening to the voice of God, and pouring out their hearts before Him.“It is also no small advantage, that the person who reads prayers, though not always the same, yet is always one whose life is no reproach to his profession; and one who performs that solemn part of Divine service, not in a careless, hurrying, slovenly manner; but seriously and slowly, as becomes him who is transacting so high an affair between God and man.“Nor are their solemn addresses to God interrupted either by the formal drawl of a parish clerk, the screaming of boys, who bawl out what they neither feel nor understand, or the unseasonable and unmeaning impertinence of a voluntary on the organ. When it is seasonable to sing praise to God, they do it with the spirit and with the understanding also: not in the miserable, scandalous doggrel of Hopkins and Sternhold, but in psalms and hymns which are both sense and poetry; such as would sooner provoke a critic to turn Christian, than a Christian to turn critic. What they sing is selected for that end, not by a poor humdrum wretch, who can scarce read what he drones out with such an air of importance, butby one who knows what he is about, and how to connect the preceding with the following part of the service. Nor does he take just ‘two staves’; but more or less as may best raise the soul to God; especially when sung in well composed and well adapted tunes; not by a handful of wild, unawakened striplings, but by a whole serious congregation; and then not lolling at ease, or in the indecent posture of sitting, drawling out one word after another; but all standing before God, and praising Him lustily and with a good courage.“Nor is it a little advantage, as to the next part of the service, to hear a preacher, whom you know to live as he speaks, speaking the genuine gospel of present salvation, through faith wrought in the heart by the Holy Ghost; declaring present, free, and full justification, and enforcing every branch of inward and outward holiness. And this you hear done in the most clear, plain, simple, unaffected language; yet with an earnestness becoming the importance of the subject, and with the demonstration of the Spirit.“With regard to the last and most awful part of Divine service, the celebration of the Lord’s supper, although we cannot say, that either the unworthiness of the minister, or the unholiness of some of the communicants, deprives the rest of a blessing from God, yet do they greatly lessen the comfort of receiving. But these discouragements are removed from you. You have proof, that he who administers fears God; and you have no reason to believe, that any of your fellow communicants walk unworthy of their profession. Add to that, the whole service is performed in a decent and solemn manner, is enlivened by hymns suitable to the occasion, and is concluded with prayer that comes not out of feigned lips.“Surely then, of all the people of Great Britain, the Methodists would be the most inexcusable, should they let any opportunity slip of attending that worship which has so many advantages; should they prefer any before it; or not continually improve by the advantages they enjoy! What can be pleaded for them, if they do not worship God in spirit and in truth; if they are still outward worshippers only; approaching God with their lips while their hearts are far from Him? Yea, if having known Him, they do not daily grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.“John Wesley.”[310]
“September 20, 1757.
“Dear Sir,—The longer I am absent from London, and the more I attend the service of the Church in other places, the more I am convinced of the unspeakable advantage which the Methodists enjoy—I mean, even with regard to public worship, particularly on the Lord’s day. The church where they assemble is not gay or splendid; which might be a hindrance on the one hand: nor sordid or dirty; which might give distaste on the other: but plain as well as clean. The persons who assemble there, are not a gay, giddy crowd, who come chiefly to see and be seen; nor a company of goodly, formal, outside Christians, whose religion lies in a dull round of duties; but a people most of whom know, and the rest earnestly seek, to worship God in spirit and in truth. Accordingly, they do not spend their time there in bowing and curtseying, or in staring about them; but in looking upward and looking inward, in hearkening to the voice of God, and pouring out their hearts before Him.
“It is also no small advantage, that the person who reads prayers, though not always the same, yet is always one whose life is no reproach to his profession; and one who performs that solemn part of Divine service, not in a careless, hurrying, slovenly manner; but seriously and slowly, as becomes him who is transacting so high an affair between God and man.
“Nor are their solemn addresses to God interrupted either by the formal drawl of a parish clerk, the screaming of boys, who bawl out what they neither feel nor understand, or the unseasonable and unmeaning impertinence of a voluntary on the organ. When it is seasonable to sing praise to God, they do it with the spirit and with the understanding also: not in the miserable, scandalous doggrel of Hopkins and Sternhold, but in psalms and hymns which are both sense and poetry; such as would sooner provoke a critic to turn Christian, than a Christian to turn critic. What they sing is selected for that end, not by a poor humdrum wretch, who can scarce read what he drones out with such an air of importance, butby one who knows what he is about, and how to connect the preceding with the following part of the service. Nor does he take just ‘two staves’; but more or less as may best raise the soul to God; especially when sung in well composed and well adapted tunes; not by a handful of wild, unawakened striplings, but by a whole serious congregation; and then not lolling at ease, or in the indecent posture of sitting, drawling out one word after another; but all standing before God, and praising Him lustily and with a good courage.
“Nor is it a little advantage, as to the next part of the service, to hear a preacher, whom you know to live as he speaks, speaking the genuine gospel of present salvation, through faith wrought in the heart by the Holy Ghost; declaring present, free, and full justification, and enforcing every branch of inward and outward holiness. And this you hear done in the most clear, plain, simple, unaffected language; yet with an earnestness becoming the importance of the subject, and with the demonstration of the Spirit.
“With regard to the last and most awful part of Divine service, the celebration of the Lord’s supper, although we cannot say, that either the unworthiness of the minister, or the unholiness of some of the communicants, deprives the rest of a blessing from God, yet do they greatly lessen the comfort of receiving. But these discouragements are removed from you. You have proof, that he who administers fears God; and you have no reason to believe, that any of your fellow communicants walk unworthy of their profession. Add to that, the whole service is performed in a decent and solemn manner, is enlivened by hymns suitable to the occasion, and is concluded with prayer that comes not out of feigned lips.
“Surely then, of all the people of Great Britain, the Methodists would be the most inexcusable, should they let any opportunity slip of attending that worship which has so many advantages; should they prefer any before it; or not continually improve by the advantages they enjoy! What can be pleaded for them, if they do not worship God in spirit and in truth; if they are still outward worshippers only; approaching God with their lips while their hearts are far from Him? Yea, if having known Him, they do not daily grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
“John Wesley.”[310]
These are important letters, fully showing that Wesley had not the least intention of giving up the Methodist societies, and that he considered their religious services far superior to the general services of the Church of England.
It was about this period, Wesley commenced a correspondence with Martin Madan, who afterwards made himself painfully notorious, and concerning whom we have to say something at another time. This remarkable man, a cousinto the poet Cowper, and possessed of a private fortune of £1800 a year, had recently been converted under Wesley’s ministry, had renounced his profession of a barrister, and was now an ordained clergyman of the Church of England, and fast becoming one of the most popular preachers in the land. Extracts from two of his earliest letters to Wesley may be welcome.
“Chancery Lane,May 18, 1756.“Dear Sir,—My father’s death has indeed made a considerable alteration in my worldly affairs, by adding, to what I had before, a plentiful estate; but, blessed be God, I can still cry out, with more and more earnestness, ‘Like as the hart panteth after the water brooks,’ etc. O sir! I desire, notwithstanding all my worldly wealth, to be little and vile in my own eyes, and that Christ may be all in all. The only true riches are those of His grace; all things else, when compared to these, are dung and dross.“My dear mother was with me, when your kind letter came, and she desired me to send her love and best wishes to you, when I answered it. She longs much, as well as myself and the rest of your friends, to see you once more in England.“Adieu, dear sir. May the God of all peace and consolation be with you always! Amen, amen.“I remain,“Your truly affectionate servant and son in the gospel,“Martin Madan.”[311]“Cheltenham,August 6, 1757.“Dear Sir,—I received the favour of yours, and thank you much for the kind advice it contained, and hope God will give me grace to follow it.“I have been a month at Cheltenham, to drink the waters, and have preached every Sunday. Some of the company are much offended; others very thankful. The poor people of the place are desirous to hear, and those of all persuasions flock to listen to the word of life. Last time, the quakers and baptists made no inconsiderable part of the congregation; and this confirms me in an opinion I have long had, that, if the truth was preached in the Church, few, if any, would separate from it.“I propose to be in Bristol about the 17th inst., and about a week after that to be in London, where I hope to meet you in perfect health. My love attends Mrs. Wesley; pray accept the same yourself, etc.“Martin Madan.”[312]
“Chancery Lane,May 18, 1756.
“Dear Sir,—My father’s death has indeed made a considerable alteration in my worldly affairs, by adding, to what I had before, a plentiful estate; but, blessed be God, I can still cry out, with more and more earnestness, ‘Like as the hart panteth after the water brooks,’ etc. O sir! I desire, notwithstanding all my worldly wealth, to be little and vile in my own eyes, and that Christ may be all in all. The only true riches are those of His grace; all things else, when compared to these, are dung and dross.
“My dear mother was with me, when your kind letter came, and she desired me to send her love and best wishes to you, when I answered it. She longs much, as well as myself and the rest of your friends, to see you once more in England.
“Adieu, dear sir. May the God of all peace and consolation be with you always! Amen, amen.
“I remain,
“Your truly affectionate servant and son in the gospel,
“Martin Madan.”[311]
“Cheltenham,August 6, 1757.
“Dear Sir,—I received the favour of yours, and thank you much for the kind advice it contained, and hope God will give me grace to follow it.
“I have been a month at Cheltenham, to drink the waters, and have preached every Sunday. Some of the company are much offended; others very thankful. The poor people of the place are desirous to hear, and those of all persuasions flock to listen to the word of life. Last time, the quakers and baptists made no inconsiderable part of the congregation; and this confirms me in an opinion I have long had, that, if the truth was preached in the Church, few, if any, would separate from it.
“I propose to be in Bristol about the 17th inst., and about a week after that to be in London, where I hope to meet you in perfect health. My love attends Mrs. Wesley; pray accept the same yourself, etc.
“Martin Madan.”[312]
Alas! poor Martin Madan! He was now a young man of thirty, full of vigour, and, for years afterwards, was of great service to the church of Christ. His brother became successivelybishop of Bristol, and Peterborough; but he himself died in 1790, beneath the dark cloud of his chimerical and mischievous “Thelyphthora.”
In the same year, 1757, Wesley began a remarkable correspondence with Sarah Ryan, the wisdom of which may be fairly doubted.
Sarah Ryan, the offspring of poor parents, was born in 1724. From childhood she was, according to her own confession, excessively vain, and fond of praise. “As she grew in years, her ill tempers gathered strength; and she became artful, subtle, cunning; often loved and made lies; and had little regard either to justice, mercy, or truth.” To obtain food and clothing, she went into domestic service. At the age of nineteen, she was married to a corkcutter, who pretended he had £150 a year; but who turned out to be a profligate, impoverished scamp. He was already married to another woman; he proposed to Sarah Ryan to stoop to infamy to obtain him money; he ran away; and the bailiff sold his goods to pay his debts. About a year subsequent to this, Sarah Ryan engaged herself to Solomon Benreken, an Italian; but, before she married him, Ryan, an Irish sailor, feigned illness, got her to sit up with him, and actually married her. Ryan’s life was most profligate; and his treatment of his young wife abominably cruel. He went to sea; during his absence, Benreken, the Italian, renewed his proposals; and, for the third time, this worthless woman went to the hymeneal altar, and was actually married to a third husband, though the other two, to whom she had been already married, were still alive. The Italian seemed to be the best of the trio. For two months, he treated her with great kindness; but, belonging to the navy, he was then obliged to leave her. After his departure, Ryan returned, and claimed her; and, though he treated her with great barbarity, she considered herself his lawful spouse, lived with him, and maintained herself by washing. Ryan again left her, and set sail for America. Once more, she became a domestic servant. While in service, the Italian, having returned to England, wished her to live with him; but to this she objected. She had now arrived at the age of thirty; she was seized with illness in the family where she was a servant;and was sent to the hospital. On her dismissal, she found herself in the greatest straits; and had, by her own labour, to maintain both herself and her mother. This was in 1754. She went to Spitalfields church, and professed to find peace with God, while Wesley was administering the sacrament. Ryan wrote to her, wishing her to join him in America; but, though she had three husbands living, she now preferred not to live with any of them. Her early religious experience, as published by Wesley in theMagazinefor 1779, is wild and whimsical, rather than intelligent and devout.
Sarah Ryan was now resident with Mary Clarke, in a small house, in Christopher Alley, Moorfields. Here a select few of the more lively London Methodists held their meetings. Among others, Miss Bosanquet, afterwards Mrs. Fletcher, now a young girl of about sixteen years of age, was accustomed to make this her home. Here she met with Sarah Ryan and Sarah Crosby, both of them boarders with Mary Clarke. Such a conclave of Methodist females attracted Wesley’s notice; and, about two years after her conversion, that is in 1757, he made Sarah Ryan, the wife of three living husbands, at the age of thirty-three, his Bristol and Kingswood housekeeper.
With the utmost respect for Wesley, we cannot but consider this an exceedingly hasty and imprudent act. Perhaps Sarah Ryan was converted; but naturally, she was vain, flippant, giddy, and far from being what a Methodist housekeeper ought to be. In addition to this, though her sin of marrying three men in succession, without any of them dying, might be pardoned by the God whose commands she had so grossly broken, yet, all will admit, that a foolish young servant woman, who had so flagrantly transgressed the laws of her country, and, for her crimes, could, at any moment, be sent to prison, was not exactly the woman to be the matron of Kingswood school, and the favourite correspondent of Wesley in the years 1757 and 1758. No wonder that Wesley’s naturally jealous wife was fired with indignation; and that, at one of the Bristol conferences, when Sarah Ryan was sitting at the head of a table, where sixty or seventy of the preachers were dining, Wesley’s irritated spouse rushed into the room, and pointing to the presiding matron, shrieked,
“The —— now serving you has three husbands living.” For about four years, Sarah Ryan held her situation; and met a hundred persons every week in class or band, and also made excursions to the country societies around Bristol. In 1762, she returned to London, and became the guest of Miss Bosanquet, at Leytonstone, having told the young lady, that she needed a friend like herself. Here they held meetings, read and expounded the Scriptures, formed a society, and made their home into an orphanage. In June, 1768, they removed their family of orphans to Yorkshire; and, on the 17th of August following, Sarah Ryan died, in the forty-fourth year of her age, and was buried in Leeds old churchyard; where to her name and age were added only these words;—“who lived and died a Christian.”[313]Some of her last utterances were: “I am dying. Glory be to God! Cut, cut, cut the thread, sweet Jesus! cut the thread!”
Part of this account is taken from an unpublished manuscript memoir, in the handwriting of Mrs. Fletcher, who regarded Sarah Ryan as one of the holiest of saints, and as her nearest and dearest friend. Judging from her own private diaries and letters, the present writer cannot dispute her piety; but, at the same time, he thinks that the eulogies by Wesley and by Mrs. Fletcher are excessive. Her career was a strangely chequered one, but her end was peace. We rejoice over her as a converted magdalen; but we cannot commend her being appointed as Wesley’s housekeeper, and her being made Wesley’s confidant concerning his wife’s jealousy and unkind behaviour.
In theArminian Magazine, for 1782, Wesley published eleven of her letters addressed to himself, and eight of his own addressed to her, written at different dates, extending from August 10, 1757, to March 20, 1758. Wesley tells her he had been censured for making her his housekeeper; but he could not repent of it. He gives her the rules of the family, which he wishes to be strictly kept; namely—“1. The family rises, part at four, part at half an hour after. 2. They breakfast at seven, dine at twelve, and sup at six. 3. They spend the hour from five to six in the evening, after a little joint prayer,in private. 4. They pray together at nine, and then retire to their chambers; so that all are in bed before ten. 5. They observe all Fridays in the year as days of fasting, or abstinence.” He adds:—
“You, in particular, I advise,—Suffer no impertinent visitant, no unprofitable conversation in the house. It is a city set upon a hill; and all that is in it should be ‘holiness to the Lord.’ On what a pinnacle do you stand! You are placed in the eye of all the world, friends and enemies. You have no experience of these things; no knowledge of the people; no advantages of education; not large natural abilities; and are but a novice, as it were, in the ways of God! It requires all the omnipotent love of God to preserve you in your present station; but, if you continue teachable and advisable, I know nothing that shall be able to hurt you.”[314]
“You, in particular, I advise,—Suffer no impertinent visitant, no unprofitable conversation in the house. It is a city set upon a hill; and all that is in it should be ‘holiness to the Lord.’ On what a pinnacle do you stand! You are placed in the eye of all the world, friends and enemies. You have no experience of these things; no knowledge of the people; no advantages of education; not large natural abilities; and are but a novice, as it were, in the ways of God! It requires all the omnipotent love of God to preserve you in your present station; but, if you continue teachable and advisable, I know nothing that shall be able to hurt you.”[314]
At the end of 1757, Wesley, and it would seem his wife, went to Bristol. While there, conjugal unpleasantness occurred, of which Mrs. Wesley’s jealousy of Sarah Ryan appears to have been the cause. The housekeeper says, she “dealt faithfully with both of them,” and adds, “I will not despair of Mrs. W——.”[315]Within a month, Wesley’s wife left him, vowing she would not return. Wesley informed Sarah Ryan of this distressing fact. She advised him, “not to depend too much upon any creature; and to use much private prayer;” and assured him, that “much good would come out of this.”
Perhaps the reader will complain of so much being said concerning Ryan. The writer’s apology is this,—though Sarah Ryan was unquestionably a converted woman, and though the correspondence between her and Wesley was, in the highest degree, pure and pious, there can be little doubt, it was the appointment of this converted magdalen to be his housekeeper, that led Wesley’s jealous wife to the first conjugal separation which has been recorded in Wesley’s history. Sarah Ryan went to Bristol in October, 1757; and, within three months afterwards, Wesley’s wife, though she had often played the termagant, for the first time left him. Wesley’s intention, in making the appointment, was benevolent; but, considering the antecedents of the woman, considering the importance of the office, considering the dutyof consulting the feelings and prejudices of the parents and children committed to the housekeeper’s care, and considering the morbid jealousy of his own uneducated and common minded wife, we are persuaded the appointment was a great mistake. From her conversion in 1754 to her death in 1768, Sarah Ryan conducted herself as a Christian; but no one will say that, because of this, she was a fit and proper person to be the manager of Wesley’s house at Bristol. Her letters, wrote Wesley in 1782, “breathe deep, strong sense and piety. I know few like them in the English tongue.”[316]Quite correct. And yet, was it not because her husband had chosen for his housekeeper a woman who had been so thoughtless, that Mrs. Wesley’s unfounded, jealous bitterness, which had long been smouldering, now, not unnaturally, burst into a furious flame?
Before proceeding to trace Wesley’s steps during the subsequent part of 1757, it may be added, that Miss Bosanquet’s home, at Leytonstone, sheltered not only Sarah Ryan, but two other Methodist females, of great repute. One of them was Ann Tripp, who was born in 1745, and died at Leeds, in 1823, after being a member of the Methodist society more than sixty years. At the time of her decease, she was one of the oldest leaders in the Leeds society.[317]The other was the celebrated Sarah Crosby, who, in 1757, became a widow at the age of twenty, and continued such until her triumphant death in 1804.[318]She will be frequently mentioned in succeeding pages.
Having concluded his conference in London, Wesley set out, on August 22, 1757, for Cornwall, where he spent the next six weeks. At Camelford, he cured his toothache, by rubbing his cheek with treacle. At St. Agnes, he was the welcome guest of Mrs. Donythorne, a widow lady, ninety years old, of unimpaired understanding, almost without a wrinkle, who read without spectacles, and walked without a staff. At St. Just, he opened the new meeting-house, “the largest and most commodious” in Cornwall. At Gwennap, it rained all the time he preached; but he characteristically observes, “a shower of rain will not frighten experienced soldiers.” At Bezore, finding that he would have to sleep inthe same room as a man and his wife, he preferred to walk to Truro. At Grampound, “a mean, inconsiderable, dirty village,” the mayor sent two constables, saying: “Sir, the mayor says you shall not preach within his borough.” Wesley answered: “The mayor has no authority to hinder me; but it is a point not worth contesting. So,” he adds, “I went about a musketshot farther, and left the borough to Mr. mayor’s disposal.” At St. Austle, where he attended church, the whole service was performed by Mr. Hugo, who was almost a centenarian, and had been vicar of St. Austle nearly threescore years and ten. At Liskeard, which he pronounces “one of the largest and pleasantest towns in Cornwall,” every one in the society had found peace with God. He got back to Bristol on October 8.
Here, and in the immediate neighbourhood, he spent the next four weeks. Part of the time he was disabled by a swelling in his face, which he cured by the application of boiled nettles. The Kingswood society was standing still. That at Bristol was reduced from nine hundred members to little more than half the number. That at Coleford was the most numerous and also the liveliest society in the county of Somerset. He opened the new meeting-house at Pill, lately an almost unparalleled “sink of sin”; but now a place where many were rejoicing in God their Saviour.
The chief event, however, which happened, during his Bristol sojourn, was an alarming fire at Kingswood school. On October 24, while Wesley was absent at Bath, about eight o’clock at night, a boy opened the staircase door, but was driven back by smoke. The lad shouted, “Fire! murder! fire!” Terrible alarm sprung up, and all in the house seemed paralysed. At length, John How, a neighbour, mounted a rotten ladder; and, with an axe, broke through the leaden roof. The suffocating smoke found vent; water was brought, and the fire quickly quenched. John How, under God, saved Kingswood school. Let his name be honourably borne in mind. Wesley first heard of the event the day after it occurred, when a man met him, and told him “the school was burned.” Wesley says: “I felt not a moment’s pain, knowing that God does all things well.” This was a rough beginning for Sarah Ryan.
On November 9, Wesley returned to London. A few days later, he set out for Norwich, where he was shown the unitarian chapel, occupied by Dr. Taylor—octagon in shape, built of the finest brick, with thirty-two windows, and eight skylights in the dome—the whole finished in the highest taste, and as clean as a nobleman’s saloon—the communion table of fine mahogany, and the pew door latches of polished brass. “How can it be thought,” he asks, “that the old coarse-gospel should find admission here?” Query, what would Wesley have said concerning some of the highly ornamentedMethodistchapels of the present day?
Returning to London, he found much confusion occasioned by certain imprudent words spoken by one who seemed to be strong in faith. He heard all who were concerned, face to face; but what one side flatly affirmed, the other flatly denied; and he found himself utterly bewildered among the wilful lies or human infirmities of high professors. “For the present,” he writes, “I leave it to the Searcher of hearts, who will bring all things to light in due season.”
Having baptized a Jew of more than sixty years of age, he returned to Lewisham, to write his “Preservative against unsettled Notions in Religion”; and here he remained till Christmas, when he again returned to Bristol, where he witnessed the close of the year 1757.
Compared with former years, this was a period of peace. It is true, that persecution still dogged the steps of the poor Methodists; but it was not so violent as in days gone past. In Ireland, Whitefield was all but murdered by a mob of Irish papists. At Norwood, near London, a gang of godless rioters surrounded the house of Samuel Cole, and, because the Methodists held their meetings in it, threatened to burn it to the ground; for which threat Edward Frost, the leader of the rioters, was sent to Newgate prison.[319]Pamphleteers, also, were not idle; but almost all were ashamed to affix their names to their paltry publications. One of these anonymous attacks was entitled, “An Expostulatory Letter to the Rev. Mr. Wesley.” Another was “A Short Examen of Mr. John Wesley’s System.” A third, the most enigmatical, was: “Methodism Displayedand Enthusiasm Detected; intended as an antidote against, and a preservative from, the delusive principles and unscriptural doctrines of a modernsettof seducing preachers, and as a defence of our regular and orthodox clergy, from their unjust reflections.” 8vo, 36 pages. The reader is told, that the poor have become a prey to “ignorant, enthusiastic preachers”; and, that it is because of this, that “novel doctrines, extravagant follies, and destructive errors” are now so prevalent. Virtue was reclining her fainting head; morality, except in name, was almost banished; and vice, like a torrent, was deluging the land. While the infidel, on the one hand, was proud, presumptuous, and God-resisting; the enthusiast, on the other, was credulous, unscriptural, and unmeaning, deceiving himself and others by his mere pretences to inspiration, and all for the sake of making gain by his godliness. Methodist preachers sing “sweet syren songs”; they are “new doctors and modern teachers tickling the ears, pleasing the pride, and flattering the vanity of the human mind”; they are “quacks in divinity,” using “unedifying jargon, unscriptural harangues, and false encomiums on the virtue and dignity of man”; they are “flatterers of human nature, sleek divines, downy doctors, velvet mouthed preachers, miserable daubers, and soul deceivers.”
It is a strange fact, that the author of this pamphlet avows his firm belief in nearly all the doctrines that specially characterized Wesley’s ministry; and yet, these are some of the spicy appellatives applied to Methodist preachers. It is difficult to divine the writer’s object. At the beginning, he seems to belabour the poor Methodists; at the end, he defends and praises them.
The most malignant onset, however, during the year 1757, was published in theLondon Magazine, with the title, “A Dozen Reasons why the Sect of Conjurors, called Fortune Tellers, should have at least as much liberty to exercise their admirable art, as is now granted to Methodists, Moravians, and various other sorts of Conjurors.” Dr. Faustus, the writer, accuses the Methodists of defrauding “both men and women out of their lands, tenements, and money”; of “terrifying many of their followers out of their little wits, as Bedlam, and every private madhouse, about London, couldtestify”; of “very lately inducing a poor woman to literally fulfil the Scripture, by pulling out one of her eyes, because she had looked upon a handsome young fellow with a longing look”; and, finally, as being disturbers of public government. These silly calumnies, falsehoods of the first magnitude, were vigorously refuted, in three succeeding numbers of theLondon Magazine, by one who signed himself “A Methodist.”
Wesley’s publications in 1757 were few in number, but one was of great importance.
1. “A Sufficient Answer to ‘Letters to the Author of Theron and Aspasio,’ in a Letter to the Author.” 12mo, 12 pages. The supposed author, to whom Wesley addressed his answer, was John Glass, an expelled minister of the Church of Scotland, or Robert Sandeman, a Scotch elder, the founder of a sect sometimes called Sandemanians, and sometimes Glassites. Wesley’s tract was really a defence of his friend, Hervey, on the subject of saving faith, in opposition to the Glassite or Sandemanian notion, that faith is a mere assent to the truthfulness of the gospel history. Wesley’s answer was short, apposite, indignant, almost savage. He told Glass, or Sandeman, that he had “a peculiar pertness, insolence, and self sufficiency, with such an utter contempt of mankind, as no other writer of the present age had shown.” His letter to Hervey was “full of slander.” His notions of justifying faith were “stark, staring nonsense”; for, if true, “every devil in hell will be justified and saved.” He evinced “such hatred, malevolence, rancour, and bitterness to all” who dissented from his opinions, as was “scarce ever seen in a Jew, a heathen, or a popish inquisitor”; and, were it in his power, he “would make more bonfires in Smithfield than Bonner and Gardiner put together.” This is pretty strong; perhaps it was not undeserved. It was replied to in a threepenny pamphlet, entitled, “Remarks on the Rev. Mr. John Wesley’s Sufficient Answer to the author of the Letters on Theron and Aspasio. By J. D.” The writer was as great an adept in using strong expressions as Wesley was. Hence, he told his readers, that Wesley had “crowded more scandal, insolence, self sufficiency, hatred, malevolence, rancour, bitterness, and uncharitableness” into his penny tract than Herveyhad into his five shillings book; with this difference, Hervey’s was “sarcastical, lively, volatile, and pungent as the ether;” Wesley’s “dense and dull as lead.”
2. “The Doctrine of Original Sin; according to Scripture, Reason, and Experience.” 8vo, 522 pages.
Wesley’s work on original sin was one which he had purposed publishing for the last six years, ever since his visit to Shackerley in 1751. Dr. Taylor was, perhaps, the most eminent Socinian minister of his age, and, in 1740, had published his “Scripture Doctrine of Original Sin proposed to free and candid examination. In three parts.” This was the work which Wesley answered. It had done immense mischief, not only in England, but even on the continent. Taylor was no ordinary antagonist. Wesley says: “He is a man of unusually strong understanding, joined with no small liveliness of imagination, and a good degree of various learning. He has an admirable command of temper, and a smooth and pleasing, yet a manly and nervous style.” Wesley believed Taylor’s system to be nothing but “old deism in a new dress.” “The deadly poison,” he writes, “has been diffusing itself for several years, through our nation, our Church, and even our universities. One father of the Church has declared, that he knows ‘no book more proper than this, to settle the principles of a young clergyman.’”
It is utterly impossible, in space so limited, to convey an adequate idea of Wesley’s vigorous and triumphant answer. In the first part, he reviews, in most trenchant language, “the past and present state of mankind.” Part second is “the scriptural method of accounting for this defended.” Part third is “an answer to Mr. Taylor’s supplement.” The remainder of the work consists of extracts from the writings of Dr. Watts, the Rev. Samuel Hebden, minister at Wrentham, in Suffolk, and Boston, the author of the “Four-fold State of Man.”
Is it too much to say, that Wesley’s book is the ablest refutation of the Socinian errors respecting original sin, to be found in the English language? Throughout, he treats Dr. Taylor with the utmost respect, but, at the same time, utterly demolishes his system. Two years afterwards he wrote to him as follows.