The living Wesle

Preface

Under the title, The Living Wesley, as ha was in his Youth and in Ms Prime, a considerable portion of this volume was published some years ago, first in this country, and, somewhat later, in the United States, the American edition being graced by an introduction from the pen of my friend Dr. Hurst, now Bishop Hurst, of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The special purpose of the book was described in the Preface as being " to do something towards furnishing a true portraiture of John Wesley, in his human affections, in his intellectual character, and in his gifts and power as a preacher." At the same time I expressed my opinion that " even after Mr. Tyerman's diligence there is yet room for an original and standard life of the Methodist Eeformer, at once shorter and in some respects more satisfactory, clearer and more discriminating as to some matters of primary importance."

vi PREFACE.

I intimated that I felt myself obliged, through increasing pressure of work, to relinquish the hope I had long cherished of being able, in some degree, to supply this want, but offered The Living Wesley as a contribution towards what I felt to be needful. Since that time I have published a volume on The Churchmanship of John Wesley, which may perhaps be regarded as another contribution towards the same object.

I have, in the meantime, been frequently solicited to enlarge my study of The Living Wesley into a duly proportioned biography, embracing not only the youth and prime of Wesley, but his whole course and life-work. The continued pressure of other work, from which there has been no escape, has prevented me from doing this. The call for a new edition of The Living Wesley, however, coinciding with the centenary year of Wesley's death, has led to the suggestion being urged upon me, so to enlarge the new edition as to make it a study of Wesley in all the great phases and stages of his life-development and of his characteristic work, as a national evangelist and as the founder of Methodism, and specially to connect it at the same time with the centenary epoch which just now is

PREFACE. vii

recalling public attention to his life and work. I have attempted to do this in the pages which follow. Narrow limits both of space and of time — for the volume must still be small, and the weeks available for accomplishing my task have been few — have not allowed me to do all that I could have wished. I have, however, extended the scope and much enlarged the contents of the original volume. Throughout, it has been closely revised ; some portion has been not only enlarged, but in part rewritten ; several new chapters have been added ; and to the whole there has been appended a Supplementary Chapter, making Part Y of the volume, in which a sketch is riven of " The Progress of Universal Methodism since the death of Wesley."

I am aware that, since the publication of The Liviny Wesley in its original form, more than one valuable biography of Wesley has been published, and in particular two by Wesleyan ministers. Neither the small biography by the Eev. E. Green, however, nor the larger and fuller one by the Eev. J. Telford, resembles in scope or character the present volume. No other book exhibits in all its stages, as distinctly as this does, the singulaily interesting development of viii PREFACE.

character and opinion in the case of Wesley, by which, under Divine influence, he came to be the revivalist of evangelical doctrine, the great awakener of souls, the master-theologian, and the founder of a new religious community. No other book shows, with equal distinctness and completeness of outline, what Wesley was in his proper idiosyncrasy, with his bright gifts and faculties, but also with his weaknesses of temperament — these weaknesses being some of them what would have been least expected ; or how the natural, Collegebred Wesley was strengthened and spiritualised, was quickened and inspired, so as to become the hero, sage, and saint of his ripe maturity and glorious later years. In no other book is his special character as a preacher, and the secret of his awakening power, often so overwhelming, made the subject of so careful and complete an analysis. Nor is there any other in which his intellectual characteristics are the subject of so detailed and comprehensive a study. In respect of these important particulars, this volume stands alone as a portraiture of The Living Wesley as his contemporaries saw and felt him. With the study thus furnished of his living and moving self, there is in the present volume incorporated and interlaced such a sketch of his

PREFACE. ix

history and life-work as, though comparatively slight, may, I hope, entitle this book, as a whole, to be regarded as, in its kind and degree, not unworthy to take its place among the shorter biographies of Wesley, as his ' Centenary Life.' The Supplementary Chapter, compendious and brief as it necessarily is, yet furnishes such a view of the progress of universal Methodism during the last hundred years as is not elsewhere to be found.

JAMES H. RIGG.

New Year's Day, 189].

Part I. Paoe

INTRODUCTORY — WESLEY'S BIOGRAPHERS AND

CRITICS, 1

Part II

WESLEY'S CHARACTER AND OPINIONS IN HIS EARLIER LIFE TO THE PERIOD OF HIS EVANGELICAL CON- VERSION

CHAP.

I. HIS CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH, 23

II. THE COLLEGIAN AT OXFORD, 31

III. JOHN WESLEY, MISS KIRKHAM, AND MRS. PENDARVES

(AFTERWARDS MRS. DELANY), 44

IY. WESLEY'S THEOLOGICAL VIEWS AND RELIGIOUS CHARACTER

V. WESLEY IN GEORGIA — MISS HOPKEY, 75

•ft. WESLEY'S RELIGIOUS OPINIONS AND CHARACTER IN

GEORGIA, 82 xii CONTENTS.

Part III. Wesley's Conversion And His Life-wokk As An Evangelist

THAP. VAC.E

T. WESLEY'S RITUALISM AMI MYSTICISM BEFORE HIS EVAN- GELICAL CONVERSION, 87

II. WESLEY'S EVANGELICAL CONVERSION, 101

III. WESLEY THE PREACHER, 124

iv. wesley's itinerancy and persecutions, 150

v. wesley's dealing with antinomian perversions of

evangelical doctrine, 167

vi. wesley as the organiser of a new evangelical

community, 174

Part IV

WESLEY'S INTELLECTUAL POWERS, HIS DISPOSITION AND CHARACTER, AND HIS LATER LIFE.

I. WESLEY AS A THINKER, 183

II. WESLEY'S DISPOSITION AND CHARACTER, 193

III. WESLEY'S LATER LIFE AND LAST DAYS, 208

Part V Supplementary - The Progpess Of Universal

METHODISM SINCE THE DEATH OF AVESLEY, 21 fi

THE LIVING WESLEY.

Part I. Inteoductoey

IVESLEY'S BIOGRAPHERS AND CRITICS.

THEEE are some questions as to Wesley's character and the nature of his influence still unsettled ; indeed, as I shall show, he is imperfectly understood as yet. But there can be no question as to the immense spread and depth of the motive energies which he has been the means of originating within the nationalities of England, with all her Colonies, and of the United States, not to speak of the critical and determinative influence which has been exercised by Methodism upon the Protestant thought and life of France, and even of Germany. No single man for centuries has moved the world as Wesley has moved it ; since Luther, no man. No Protestant Church at this day counts so many adherents as the Methodist family of Churches ; no Church has operated so powerfully as a ferment of life among all the other Churches.

If these things are so — and now-a-days hardly any

A

2 THE LIVING WESLE V

man will venture to deny the truth, at least in general, of what I have stated — it is no wonder that the present age has waked up to an eager curiosity as to the character of the man, the secret of his power, the meaning of his work, the history of his life. Long ago Dr. Southey perceived the capabilities of this theme ; historian, man of letters, and poet-laureate as he was, he treated the character and life of Wesley with a respect and ability worthy alike of the subject and the writer. It was inevitable that such a philosophic Churchman as Southey, such a semi-rationalistically-orthodox Anglican, should commit serious errors in his attempt to portray and estimate such a character as that of Wesley. It was equally inevitable, with scarcely any other sources of information in addition to Wesley's works than the Arminian Magazine and the very imperfect Lives of Wesley which had been published by some of his over-worked, hurried and driven, and, as literary men and historians, untrained itinerant helpers, the best Life which Southey or any other writer could produce at that time should be defective and incorrect. He had no access whatever to the special sources of information without which no Life of such a man could be justly or adequately written, and which it was as yet too soon after the death of Wesley to expect to be given to the world. But, with all its faults, the work produced by Southey was so beautiful in its style, and so skilful in its use of the materials at his disposal, that almost up to this day it has remained — now for much more than half a century — the one biography by which Wesley has been known to the world. Men have not read the Lives written by Whitehead, Coke, and Moore, — for many years, indeed, these have been out of print, and it would be an injustice to the name and memory of Wesley to reprint any of them, — but Southey's Life of the Methodist reformer has been in every important and well-chosen library, whether of a public institution or of a private mansion ; and its fascination has not failed to secure for it successive generations of readers.

Wesley's Life, indeed, as written by the Tory historian, reviewer, biographist, and poet, as written in the best style of one who was a master both of the . English language and of the biographer's art — became at once an English classic, and, what is much more, raised the character and memory of Wesley at once, in the circles of men of high and thoughtful culture, to a place of eminence and respect often rising to veneration. Nor was it only to Wesley that Southey did, according to his light, generous justice ; he did justice also to the humble but great and noble men, such as John Nelson and the soldier Haime, who were Wesley's early and chief lay-helpers. He showed these men in their true light, as manliest among men and saintliest among saints ; as men of no less steadfast power than fervid zeal ; as among the heroes of the holy Christian warfare. Thus the total effect of Southey's Life of Wesley was to elevate the Methodism of Wesley and his followers to a place of permanent interest and honour before their countrymen, and, we may say, before the world.

Southey, indeed, as I have intimated, misapprehended some leading particulars in Wesley's character, and accordingly misconstrued broadly, in certain directions, his motives and his conduct. He conceived ambition to be the leading natural feature of his

4 THE LIVING IVESLE Y

character, and to have powerfully prompted and controlled him through life — the ambition of the ruler and the statesman ; he resolved, moreover, the wonderful effects of his preaching into the natural results of potent and penetrating oratory, managed with consummate skill, by a master alike of speech and of the art of turning circumstances and situations to account. For these fundamental errors he was most ably and severely searched and called to account by the Eev. Richard "Watson, in his well-known Observations on Southey's Life of Wedey ; and his misconceptions in this respect have also been effectually disposed of very recently by Miss Wedgwood, in her essay on Wesley, — Miss Wedgwood having, apparently, never read Mr. Watson's Observations} Still, with all its errors, and notwithstanding its necessary defects — notwithstanding its evident Anglican prejudices and its pervasive taint of rationalistic sensedogmatism and spiritual insusceptibility — Southey's work is so interesting, so genial, so candid, so evidently sincere, and even generous, in its spirit, that it ought ever to be regarded by the followers of Wesley as the work, not of an enemy, but of one who meant honestly and kindly, and who has really, on the whole, done the office of a friend. Southey himself, indeed, became convinced that he had wronged Wesley's memory and misunderstood his character ; and if he had lived to bring out the new edition which he had in contemplation, he would have made a correction of his leading errors. "Whether Mr. Watson's criticism had any share in bringing about this change, I know not. Southey's

1 John W<:s/ey and the Etruige/icut Reaction of the 18th Century. By Julia Wedgwood. London : Macnrillan.

own account of it, given to the late learned and amiable James Nichols, litterateur and printer, of Hoxton Square, in an autograph letter, of which a facsimile, very interesting to look at, if it were only for the elegance and neatness of the writing, is engraved in Dr. Smith's History of Methodism,1 states that Mr. Alexander Knox, in " a long and admirable paper " (which is printed at length in the recent editions of Southey's biography), had " convinced him that he was mistaken " in charging Wesley with personal ambition. The date of this letter was 17th August, 1835. He was at that time making some preparations for a new edition of the Life, and he stated that it was " his intention to incorporate in it whatever new information has been brought forward by subsequent biographers, and, of course, to correct every error that had been pointed out, or that he himself could discover." More than twelve months later, in December, 1836, being on a visit to Penzance, he in substance repeated to the late Mr. Carne, of that town, the same statement which he had made in writing to Mr. Nichols. Unfortunately, the new edition was never prepared by him ; and when, after his death, his son edited a new edition, in which Mr. Knox's observations were printed, as well as some notes by Coleridge, he seems to have been ignorant that his father had been convinced by Mr. Knox, or had intended to rectify his error. He leaves it, indeed, distinctly to be inferred that the text, as originally printed, expressed his father's settled judgment on the matter in question.

Southey's biography was published early in 1820. Before the end of the same year, Mr. Watson published

1 Wesley and Ids Times, vol. i. p. 634. Longmans & Co.

his Observations. It was not, however, until 1825 that the Methodists themselves put forth a new Life of their founder, such as might be regarded as a corrective to that of Southey. This was the Eev. H. Moore's Life in two volumes, published at the Conference Office. Mr. Moore was one of Wesley's trustees, the other two being Dr. Coke, and the physician, Dr. Whitehead. Of these, the last had got hold, in the first instance, of Wesley's papers, and had published, very unfairly, by means of these, a separate and an ex parte Life of Wesley, as regarded chiefly from the point of view of an English Churchman, although Whitehead himself was in principle a thorough Dissenter. To anticipate this publication, the other two trustees, by the help of Wesley's own publications, and of such papers as they were able to command the use of, published very hastily a joint Life of Wesley. Malice, however, had been beforehand, and Hampson's Life (Hampson had formerly been a Methodist preacher, but was then a clergyman of the Church of England) had been published even earlier than that by Coke and Moore. The latter, though it sold largely, was too hurried a composition (to a large extent, indeed, it was a mere compilation) to hold its rank as a biography of Wesley Moore's Life, published in 1825, was more carefully prepared and fuller than either of its Methodist predecessors, and was intended to serve as an antidote both to Whitehead's and to Southey's Life. It was far, however, from being really adequate to the claims of Wesley's history, notwithstanding its genuine interest and its real value. It never for a moment was likely to supersede that of Southey with the general reading world. Watson, at the request of the Conference, undertook to prepare, and published in the year 1831, a short Life of Wesley for popular use and extensive circulation. But Watson was in failing health, and greatly over-worked. His little volume is valuable for its observations on certain points especially connected with the relations between Wesley and the Church of England ; but, regarded as a consecutive biography, it was altogether too slight, and left far too many blanks in the narrative. It was far from being even a tolerably complete epitome of Wesley's crowded and momentous history.

Since Watson's Life of Wesley, no English biography of the founder of Methodism had been published, until the Eev. Luke Tyerman published his elaborate work. The first volume of Dr. Smith's History of Methodism was, however, virtually a biography of Wesley, for the most part correct and judicious, although slight and incomplete. Though slight, it contributed some new and important information on the subject. The first volume of Dr. Stevens's able History of Methodism furnished a fuller and more vivid account of the chief figure among the leaders of " Methodism " — using that word in its wider sense. It was not, however, and could not be, a complete biography, nor did it stand apart. It was intermingled with the sketches and episodes of an eloquent and stirring history. The Life of Wesley was but the chief among several biographical lines of narrative which were interwoven in that history.

Southey's Life was very likely to suggest the history and character of Wesley as a theme for philosophical students of religious movements and ecclesiastical history. It was not, however, till thirty years after the first publication of his work, that the first essay on Wesley, in a separate volume, made its appearance. This was by Isaac Taylor, and was entitled Wesley and Methodism. The author of Essays on Enthusiasm, on Fanaticism, on Spiritual Despotism, on Ignatius Loyola, could hardly have refrained from working out a study in his own line of composition on the character and life of Wesley. Taylor's Wesley and Methodism is not less faulty than might have been expected from such a writer, but it possesses at the same time considerable merits, and some parts of it are written in Taylor's best manner. Dr. Dobbin, somewhere near the same time, published a warmly appreciative sketch of Wesley. A few years earlier, the late Dr. James Hamilton, in the North British Review, had published an article on Wesley, which, although brilliantly written, and conceived in a kindly spirit, showed that the writer knew very little of the real character or of the labours of the founder of Methodism. After this period, nearly twenty years passed away before much was written again respecting Wesley. Some years ago, however, the gifted author of the Schonberg - Cotta Family series of stories, in her Diary of Mrs. Kitty Trevelyan, brought the life of early Methodism, according to her conception of it, vividly before a large circle of readers. Meanwhile, the public interest in Wesley, and in the history and position of Methodism, was at once shown and stimulated in England by discussions, year after year, in Convocation ; by those reports of the proceedings of the annual Wesleyan

Conferences which, within the last few years, have become a striking feature in the leading newspapers of the country, both metropolitan and provincial ; by discussions relating to Methodism in clerical meetings ; by correspondence in the religious newspapers ; by letters in the public journals, and by pamphlets relating to the subject, and chiefly bearing upon the question of reunion with the Church of England ; and by certain tracts which are extensively circulated by clergymen of the Church of England. Within the last five-and-thirty years, two articles on the relations between Wesleyan Methodism and the Church of England have been published in the London Quarterly Revievj, — the former from the pen of Rev. W Arthur ; the latter, which has been since published in a separate form, by myself.1 The public mind in England has thus, within the last twenty years, become much more widely interested, and somewhat better informed, respecting Wesley and his work than formerly. Doubtless, also, the publication (in thirteen volumes), under the able editorship of Dr. Osborn, of the whole of the Wesley poetry, by which, for the first time, the world has been made aware of the wealth and variety, as well as the intensity and brilliancy, of the poetic power with which the two brothers, but especially Charles, were endowed, has contributed to the general feeling of interest with which the career of the Wesleys is now regarded — of Charles, as the Methodist poet, and otherwise his brother's faithful coadjutor ; of John Wesley, as the leading mind, whose character and convictions gave law to the whole Wesleyan move-

1 My own article has finally been incorporated as part of a volume on The Churchman-ship of John Wesley.

io THE LIVING WESLEY

ment. One further element I must name as contributing largely to the recent growth of interest in Wesley and Methodism ; it is that which, indeed, has been already in part indicated in my reference to the space recently accorded to the Wesleyan Conference in the public papers — I mean the manifest, and the manifestly growing, power of Methodism. With this element in the case, the extension of the franchise, the spread of anti-State-Church principles, and the precedent, as many regard it, of the Irish Church disestablishment, distinctly connect themselves.

It is no wonder, accordingly, if Mrs. Oliphant, in her series of papers in Blackicood's Magazine for 1870, concerning the England of the Eighteenth Century, found herself brought face to face with John Wesley as " The Eeformer " of his age. Her paper is clever, frank, and genial, but, as was to be expected, full of misconceptions. Southey would seem to have been her one source and authority, and it is something if she detects some of his fundamental mistakes.

Since Mrs. Oliphant wrote, Miss Wedgwood has published her very candid and thoughtful essay on Wesley. It is to be regretted that Miss Wedgwood had not read some of the most important authorities on her subject. She, also, seems to have relied chiefly on Southey. In her list of authorities we find Whitehead's Life of Wesley, and that by Coke and Moore ; but not the more authentic and important biography of 1825, by Moore alone ; nor (very important for Miss Wedgwood's purpose in her study of Wesley) Watson's Observations, nor Watson's Life (by no means unimportant), nor Dr. Stevens's very able and valuable volume, the first of his History of

WESLEY'S BIOGRAPHERS AND CRITICS. n

Methodism, nor the biography of Wesley, which constitutes the first volume of the late Dr. George Smith's History of Methodism, nor even Isaac Taylor's Wesley and Methodism, a book most germane to her purpose. Neither of the articles in the London Quarterly to which I have referred seems to have come in her way. If they had, they might at least have cleared up some points of misconception or obscurity, or have served as an index to sources of information.

It is all the more satisfactory and noteworthy, however, on this account, that Miss Wedgwood, from her own independent study, has been enabled to refute the most fundamental errors in Southey's representation of Wesley's character. With a quiet grasp of the subject, with easy acuteness and insight, she disposes of the charge of ambition, as easily as she exposes the inconsistent and untenable naturalism which lies at the basis of Southey's resolution of religious phenomena into their supposed constituents, and of most of his criticisms of Wesley's " credulity " and " enthusiasm." Her views, indeed, appear to be strongly tinctured with Maurician mysticism, and she repeats, in substance, some of the criticisms on the evangelical Arminianism of Wesley which are contained in Coleridge's notes to Southey's biography. But her main lines of thought are admirably laid out ; her grouping of facts is very skilful ; her general handling of the subject is simple and masterly. It is to be regretted, indeed, that what we have is only a study of the man as he was when he first set forth on his evangelical work ; or, at the utmost, of his moral and spiritual qualifications as a reformer, and of the position to which he advanced in the opening campaigns of his life's warfare : consequently the volume gives us the impression of being merely an introduction or a fragment. Wesley the preacher is scarcely sketched at all ; his intellectual characteristics as a thinker or writer are scarcely touched upon ; his evangelical itinerancy is not represented to our view ; his ripe manhood and his old age are passed by ; of the organisation and the wide-spread work and influence of his later years next to nothing is said, except only so far as relates to the American ordinations. In short, just as misconceptions have been cleared away, as his position has been distinctly defined, as the nature of his work in general has been explained, and its need and vast importance been established ; just when his disinterestedness, his magnanimity, his bravery and gentleness in peril and in controversy, have been beautifully shown ; just as the general characteristics of his mission, his purpose, his faith, have been set forth, and we are waiting to see what are his actual powers for work and service, for preaching and counselling, for moulding the faith and the theology of a community, for saturating a nation with his influence, for consolidating and governing a Christian Church or family of Churches — we find that the essay breaks off, and all is over. Perhaps Miss Wedgwood acted wisely, perhaps she knew best her own compass of power — but I confess to have experienced a feeling of disappointment.

Miss Wedgwood has admirably delineated the circumstances which surrounded Wesley at the beginning of his work, and she has effectually refuted Southey's errors as to his character and motives ; but the living man himself, as preacher, as ruler, as companion or friend, she has left quite in the shadow. She has done justice to the living Wesley only as a controversialist. Indeed, it is plain that she has, so far as she has conceived his living and social humanity at all, in part, at least, misconceived it. She can appreciate the character of his writing, so far as she has studied it, and has also fine glimpses of insight into his public character and his gifts as a ruler ; but of Wesley as a friend and companion she evidently has no sort of just conception ; otherwise she would not have characterised as devoid of all sense of humour one of the pleasantest and brightest of men, of whose remarkable vein of humour, indeed, she must have read some instances in Southey's Life, and would have found others in Stevens's History ; neither would she, notwithstanding the apparent inhumanness of Wesley's school arrangements at Kingswood, and the reticence as to domestic details in his letters, of which his brother Charles pleasantly complained in their college days, have really concluded that Wesley was defective in human sympathy, had she mastered the details of his many-sided life and character. Wesley, as will presently be shown, was perhaps as susceptible a man in regard to all the charms and attractions of social character and intercourse, especially in the case of women, as can easily be found among the saints of history.

But the most elaborate work which has appeared on Wesley is the Life, in three volumes, from the pen of the Kev. Luke Tyerman, to which I have referred. This work embodies the results of very great research, the fruit of years of industrious reading and collection. Mr. Tyerman prepared himself for his work by writing his biography of the father of the "Wesley s — Samuel Wesley, the rector of Epworth. He seems also to have collected and studied — or at least to have carefully read, if he was not able to purchase — almost every book, pamphlet, broadsheet, and periodical, in which there is any reference whatever to Wesley : so that he writes with hitherto unequalled fulness of material and knowledge so far as respects the facts of Wesley's life. Being thus furnished and prepared, he has set himself to search out and set forth in order the whole history of Wesley from his cradle to his grave. His boyhood, so far as anything can be learned about it ; his school and college life ; his home relations ; his early personal friends, including not only university chums but well-beloved ladies ; his religious history, minutely traced in all its stages, especially his changes of opinion and feeling as these gradually declared themselves, until in the end a complete revolution had been consummated, and the academical High Churchman had become the father of the Methodist revival and transformation ; his preachings and journeyings ; his organisations ; his controversies ; the persecutions he endured ; the slanders in full tale and in all their baseless enormity, which were continually invented and circulated against him, however miserable and short dived such slanders may have been ; his love-affairs and his married life ; his almost innumerable publications ; his conferences and his helpers, ordained and unordained ; his " ordinations " and his relations with the Church of England ; his co-operation and his disagreements with the Moravians, with Whitefield, and " the Countess ; " his loving concord and co-working, and his no less loving differences and contentions, with his Church-satirising but Church-idea-loving brother Charles ; the peaceful labours and the wide-spread love and honour which marked the protracted years of his wonderful old age; — all these matters, and a world of things besides, belonging to the infinitely busy and varied life of Wesley, Mr. Tyerman has made known to the world in these large and closely-printed volumes. The world, by the help of Mr. Tyerman, may now know all about John Wesley ; may know much more, indeed, about the mere facts and consecutive history of his life, in its various fields and departments, than was ever known of him in his lifetime by his closest friends. The record may be read and pondered in all its breadth, and from beginning to end. We may study the man as he hardly could have studied himself.