Wesley and Methodism

Preface

What has been attempted in the present work ? Certainly, not a full and particular biography of John Wesley. He, it is true, is the central figure, and it is hoped that sufficient heed has been given to his personal actions and qualities to ensure a distinct, a recognisable, and — if only it might be ! — vivid portrait of that king of men. But a full and particular biography would call for more pages than go to compose the entire work.

On the other hand, the aim has been something other than to string together a series of essays on various aspects of Methodism. While the writer has avoided Tyerman's method of strict chronological order — excellent though it is for some purposes — as involving broken lights and insecure perspective, he has striven to mark the stages of Methodist evolution by treating in successive chapters characteristics of the movement, as they assumed exceptional importance at successive periods of Wesley's life.

Naturally, however, my first care has been to provide a fitting introduction for the man with whom the movement is inseparably associated. It may be, as Southey suggests, that, if Wesley had not existed, vi PREFACE

another prophet would have arisen, that Methodism was in the air, and certain to take shape one way or another. That may be, but he who shaped Methodism was John Wesley ; and if the movement was not an accident, neither was the man. Personalities are of secular growth. Long before Wesley appeared in the flesh, a thousand influences had been working to fashion his character and to steel his nerve. A biographer, however, can trace back those influences only a very little way.

Wesley steps out of boyhood into University life, into the life of the world. His path is still dark. He has not found his mission. There follows an era of perturbation, which Bohler nearly but not quite ends, and Wesley begins to have inklings of his destiny. At this point it is natural to survey the spiritual conditions of his age and country. The remedy is next dealt with, and, after that, the scandal caused by its application. Then comes a statement of Wesley's special beliefs and of sundry controversies, occupying the early and middle periods of his larger ministry. The subject of organisation is reserved to the last, the matter having acquired peculiar interest in Wesley's age in relation to the Church of England, from which Methodism was slowly but surely drifting. If I have not been fastidious about the exact sequence of events, I have endeavoured to attain something like sequence of ideas — in other words, to record history philosophically.

I cannot lay claim to much original research, but, by way of preparation, I studied for myself the fourteen tomes of Wesley's Works, besides plentiful odd volumes of miscellaneous Methodist literature.

PREFACE vii

Recent numbers of the Wesleyan Methodist Magazine contain interesting and valuable papers by Mr. Telford and Mr. M'Cullagh, and I have to thank those very competent writers for more than one useful hint. I have, of course, laid under contribution the stock biographies of Wesley, as is shown by frequent references in the text ; and, lastly, I have drawn on my own general reading for the purpose of illumination.

F. J. SNELL.

Contents

PAOK

Preface V

Chapter I

Epworth — Intellectual Parity — Puritan Antecedents — Dr. Annesley — John Wesley on the Puritans — The Enlistment of Samuel "Wesley — Aristocratic Connections — The Annesleys — Lord Mornington and Charles Wesley — ' ' Cyrus " and " Aspasia "—Family Pride— "Old Jeffrey "—Samuel Wesley as Parish Priest — The New Generation .... 1

Chapter II

Boyhood — At the Charterhouse— Interview with Dr. Sacheverell — Fellow of Lincoln — University Manners — The Name "Methodist" — The Holy Club — A Family Difference- Colonisation of Georgia — The Wesleys' Missionary Enterprise — A Great Storm — Intercourse with the Moravians — Rough Quarters — The Hopkey Affair 24

Chapter III Apostlbship

The Fear of Death— Peter Bohler — Justification by Faith — John Gambold — Hell — Methodist Type of Conversion — Wesley and Manzoni Compared — 24th May 1738 — Rudeness to William Law — Montaigne's Three Orders — The Church of England — Adventures of Bishop Wilson — Non-Residence — Dissent — Religion at Zero — The Apostle of England — Visit to Germany 49 x CONTENTS

Chapter IV Pao«

Glad Tidings — Love-Feasts — Suggestions of the Enemy — Real Methodist Love — George Whitefield — Girl's Clothes — Glamour of the Stage — Whitefield as Servitor — Conversion — Ordination — At dimmer — Popularity — Embarkation for America — Bishop Lavington — Cant — Methodist "Brides" — Elisabeth Wallbridge — Sydney Smith on Methodism — The Methodist " Confessional " 82

Chapter V

Difficulties and Dangers — Harmless Bishops — Field-Preaching — At Kingswood — " Extraordinary Circumstances" — Causes — Posture of the Clergy — A Sermon and its Effects — Wesley's "Journalese" — Fury of Dissent — Brutal Conduct to Methodist Women — Methodist Valour — "No Popery!" — Methodism and the Fashionable World — Humphry Clinker —The King of Bath 107

Chapter VI

Middleton's Free Enquiry— A Mediaeval Miracle — An Eighteenth- Century Miracle — "Methodism Displayed" — Wesley on Miracles — Wesley on Enthusiasm — A Parallel from Plato — Sortilege — Karlstadt and Bell — Quietism and Methodism — Christian Perfection — Renan's Philosophy — Amusements- - Collision with the Moravians — Courtships — Marriage . . 151

Chapter VII

Out of Place — Charity — Principles of Methodism and tho Reformation Contrasted — Wesley no Sectary — Early Aspirations — Character and Constituents of Methodism — Origin of the Class-Meeting — Precedents — Lay-Preachers — Education — Hymnolo<;y — Methodism in America — Ordinations — Episcopal Resentment — Wesley in Old Age — Death and Burial— A Man 193

Chapter I

Epworth — Intellectual Parity — Puritan Antecedents — Dr. Annesley — John Wesley on the Puritans — The Enlistment of Samuel Wesley — Aristocratic Connections — The Annesleys — Lord Mornington and Charles Wesley — " Cyrus " and "Aspasia" — Family Pride — "Old Jeffrey "—Samuel Wesley as Parish Priest— The New Generation.

Lincolnshire, that paradise of graziers, owns no more fertile region than the "low levels," with their rich brown loam, of the Isle of Axholme. The word " isle " in this, as in other English place-names, — the Isle of Athelney, the Isle of Dogs, etc., — is reminiscent of earlier times and -vanished conditions. Already in the seventeenth century the skill and patience of a Danish financier had succeeded in transforming the king's chase. The malarial swamp had been witched into smiling pastures. The country had ceased to be "drowned" by the swelling Trent. Axholme, however, was still an isle. It was a river-isle, a Mesopotamia, moated (as the Laureate has it) by Idle, and

Don, and Torn, and Trent, — quite comedy names, when you think of it, — and the old Bykers dyke, knitting stream to stream.

The metropolis of the isle is the little market-town of Epworth, peopled by some two thousand souls, and perched on a gentle slope. The church — nave, aisle, chancel, tower — is a cynosure for neighbouring eyes, but the representative pilgrim will turn, perhaps, first of all to the parsonage, the cradle of Methodism, the home of a family of genius.

'Twas in 1696 that the Rev. Samuel Wesley entered on the living of Epworth, — given to him posthumously, as it were, by good Queen Mary, — and took possession of the rectory house. Not an imposing structure, it was built throughout of wood and plaster, had a thatch roof, and contained only seven rooms of any size. But, poor as it was, the house may have been an improvement on the mean cot, composed of reed and clay, wherewith Samuel Wesley and Susanna, his wife, had been forced to content themselves at South Ormsby.

It may be questioned if in all Lincolnshire there could have been found an instance of more perfect mating than was offered by this worthy pair, and that whether we think of taste and mental vigour, or simply of family tradition and inherited station. Wife and husband drew their chief, and well-nigh their sole, happiness from the rigid performance of duty. That may stand for taste. Duty is to some minds what art or music is to others — the object of warm devotion and of infinite refinements.

The rector of Epworth was at once a wit, a poet, and a scholar. His versified " Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ" pleased Queen Mary amazingly, or Epworth would never have acquired Samuel Wesley. Pope knew him well, and Pope, writing to Swift, observes, " I call him what he is — a learned man." Earlier he had honoured Wesley by coupling him with Watts in the Dunciad. Pope, however, became sensible of the injustice, and in the revised edition of the poem the names of both divines were discreetly expunged.

Mrs. Wesley was not a classic, but on her devolved the education, in the widest sense, of her many children. For her own purpose she raised ipedagogy to a science; and her methods of instruction were brilliantly reflected in the careers of, at least, two of her sons. Nevertheless, there was something odd, something casual, something uncanny in her methods.

Samuel, the eldest-born, never spoke till he was five. He " found his tongue " suddenly. Sam had behaved like most boys. He had got lost. His mother searched for him, and forgetting that he was dumb, kept calling on him to answer. All at once he replied, " Here I am, mother ! " From that hour Sam displayed aptitude in learning, as well as a singularly retentive memory ; and Mrs. Wesley, regarding him as a proof of the wisdom of not " forcing " her children, refrained, except in the case of the youngest, from teaching them even the alphabet till they were jive. She was a capable schoolmistress, however. " It is almost incredible," she says, " what a child may be taught in a quarter of a year by a vigorous application."

Mrs. Wesley aimed not only at moulding the mind, but at forming the character ; and it is easy to trace in the ethics of the parsonage a distinct vein of Puritanism. To the horror of the modern Methodist, though not to the horror of John Wesley — filially inconsistent in this point alone — card-playing was admitted. But masquerades, balls, plays, operas, and similar diversions, were held as among the pomps and vanities of this wicked world, and accordingly tabooed.

This view of amusements was natural enough. Both Samuel and Susanna were of Puritan descent. Samuel's grandfather, Bartholomew Wesley (or Westley), had been ejected from his Dorsetshire living under the provisions of the Act of Uniformity. His father, John Wesley, had not only been ejected, but imprisoned four times for preaching the doctrines of the Gathered Church. Impatient of the gag — " Woe is me," said he, " if I preach not the gospel ! " — he contemplated a voyage to Maryland or Surinam, but finally settled down as minister of a conventicle at Poole.

Mrs. Wesley's father, Dr. Samuel Annesley, was also of the Puritan way. He has been held a republican among republicans, and not without reason, if we are to judge from a sermon published by order of the Commons. But, according to his own statement, he had publicly expressed detestation of the "horrid murder" of the king. He had refused a horse for service at the battle of Worcester, and his disparagement of Cromwell had driven him from a fat living to the smallest parish in London. The Act of Uniformity drove him out of that. Annesley, however, did not lack means. He was able to support his large family — " two dozen or a quarter of a hundred " — in comfort, and to relieve his less fortunate brethren. " How many ministers had starved," says Williams, in his funeral sermon, " if Dr. Annesley had died thirty- four years since ! "

This staunch Puritan was of fine presence and eloquent speech, and the graces of his style were celebrated in pleasing verse by the author of Robinson

Crusoe :

" The Sacred Bow he so divinely drew, That every shaft both hit and overthrew. His native candour and familiar style, Which did so oft his hearers' hours beguile, Charmed us with godliness ; and while he spake, We loved the doctrine for the teacher's sake. While he informed us what those doctrines meant, By dint of practice more than argument, Strange were the charms of his sincerity, Which made his actions and his words agree."

There has always been a prejudice among Churchfolk against those whom Dr. Johnson, himself as prejudiced as any, calls " sectaries." Devoted to the Church of England, and opposed to schism, if not to schismatics, John Wesley was never ashamed of his Puritan connections. He regarded the pick of the party as victims of oppression. Going back to the days of the Reformation, he says of Cartwright, "I look upon him and the body of Puritans in that age (to whom the German Anabaptists bore small resemblance) to have been both the most learned and most pious men that were then in the English nation. Nor did they separate from the Church, but were driven out, whether they would or no." In his Farther Appeal he writes with sturdy approbation of " that venerable man," Philip Henry. In his Thoughts upon Liberty, he dilates indignantly on the penalties inflicted on the heroes of Nonconformity.

It may be well to mention how Samuel Wesley turned Churchman. As a youth, he studied at a

Stepney Dissenting academy, and, whilst thus engaged, enjoyed the by no means contemptible privilege of listening to a homely divine, whom he calls, with loving familiarity, " Friend Bunyan." Wesley, however, was more than a student. He was " a dabbler in rhyme and faction," and applauded by his elders, sharpened his wit at the expense of Church and State. On that account he was chosen to answer some severe invectives against Dissent.

This apparently congenial task led to an unexpected result. The political Dissenter saw the error of his ways. Saul became Paul, and the Anglican ministry gained a valuable recruit in the person of Samuel Wesley. Neither Samuel nor John was inclined to spare an antagonist, and to enter the lists against either was a prospect sufficiently terrible. The Wesley intellect was acutely logical ; and satire was their native element, from which, at the height of evangelical fervour, they escaped with difficulty.

Samuel Wesley's inclination for polemics probably reached its acme during a fierce Lincolnshire election, in which he was compelled to " rat," in order to preserve a larger consistency and maintain inviolate his loyalty to the Church. The " Isle people " went the other way and revenged themselves on the parson by drumming, shouting, and firing off" pistols and guns, under the window of the room in which his wife lay after a recent confinement. This may be termed mob-argument, and it contradicted, in every particular, the methods and manners of the inmates.

The rector's children were carefully trained in the duties of their station and — please, remark ! — were taught politeness towards inferiors no less than towards their equals. In Susanna Wesley's girlhood, when the traditions of university education and State patronage still lingered in Nonconformist circles, the social disparity between the Anglican clergy and their rivals was hardly perceptible ; and, in point of fact, the names of both husband and wife — the former slightly modified — adorn the pages of Burke. Rather curiously, the aristocratic connection is, in each case, Hibernian.

Mrs. Wesley was related, though not in any near degree, to the Earl of Anglesey, a statesman whom Bishop Burnet describes as " a man of grave deportment," but who, in spite of gravity, " stuck at nothing, and was ashamed of nothing." The common ancestor of this nobleman and Dr. Samuel Annesley was Robert Annesley, Esq., of Newport-Pagnell, who, in the reign of Elizabeth, aided in suppressing the rebellion of the Earl of Desmond. Rewarded with lands in Ireland, he settled in that country as an "undertaker," i.e. as a coloniser. His son, Francis Annesley, was created by Charles 1. Baron Mountnorris and Viscount Valentia in the peerage of Ireland.

On the outbreak of the Civil War, Arthur, Robert Annesley's grandson, first took the side of the king, but afterwards passed over to the Parliament. At the critical juncture of the Restoration, he not only supported Monk, but was his principal coadjutor in the House of Commons. For this important and dangerous service — he had succeeded to the Irish titles and estates in 1660 — he was created Baron Annesley and Earl of Anglesey in the peerage of England.

Bishop Burnet notwithstanding, Lord Anglesey was no worthless renegade. As Arthur Annesley he had obtained possession of the original MS. of the " Eikon

Basilike," and, what was more, had enjoyed the friendship of him who answered it. When Milton, "fallen on evil days," published his History of England, the public licenser cut out the portion relating to the Long Parliament. The author applied to Lord Anglesey, who exerted his influence, and with such effect that the description was reinserted, and the work published entire.

Thus the former Commonwealth man did not forget old friends. Indeed, Lord Anglesey is said to have chosen his domestic chaplains from the ranks of the ejected. Nor was he indifferent to his cousin, Dr. Annesley, whom he advised, but advised in vain, to conform. Financially, the point was of small consequence. Annesley, says one of his sons-in-law, " had a good estate and scorned to be rich while any man was poor." Neither peer nor preacher, however, appears to have done anything for the Wesleys — a circumstance, to a biographer, very odd.

When the Wesleys had been for some years at Epworth, a Mr. Garrett Wesley, who had landed estates in Ireland, sent to inquire of the rector whether among his sons there was any of the name of Charles. Should that be so, he was willing to adopt him and appoint him his heir. The decision was referred to Charles Wesley, then a Westminster scholar, by whom the offer was declined. Mr. Garrett Wesley chose in his stead a scion of the house of Colley, and a maternal relation of his own. This Richard Colley Wesley became Barron Mornington, and his son, Garrett, advanced to the dignity of an earldom, was the well-known composer.

In his old age Charles Wesley, who had made, as his brother thought, such a fair escape, came to know the second Lord Mornington; and the peer-musician used to engage in weekly practices at his friend's house with Wesley's talented sons, Charles and Samuel. He both loved and revered their father, and, writing to him, observes, " I can with truth say that I esteem the commencement of your acquaintance one of the happiest moments of my life."

Even this coincidence does not exhaust the network of relationships. The Earl of Mornington's godmother was a Mrs. Delany, who had been Mrs. Pendarvis. The lady's maiden name was Granville, and she was a niece of the first Lord Lansdowne. Now the " Cyrus " of her Correspondence, which was published, with her Autobiography, in 1862, has been ascertained to have been John Wesley, the collegian. Her own pseudonym, as Mrs. Pendarvis, was " Aspasia."

In 1733 she wrote from Dangan, one of the Mornington estates: "As to the ridicule that Cyrus has been exposed to, I do not at all wonder at it. Religion in its plainest dress suffers daily from the insolence and ignorance of the world. How much, then, can that person escape who appears openly in its cause ? " " Aspasia's " last letter to " Cyrus " is dated 1734. The year after, Wesley departed for Georgia, and " Cyrus " and " Aspasia " corresponded no more.

The Earl of Mornington, it is hardly necessary to recall, was the father of the Marquess Wellesley and the Duke of Wellington. The Marquess rid himself of the Wesley name and the Wesley estates. The younger and more famous brother continued to be known as " Arthur Wesley " till he was thirty. Afterwards he appears to have acquiesced in the change of io WESLEY AND METHODISM

nomenclature ; and in the Army List of 1801 his name is given, for the first time, as " Wellesley." It would be of some interest to learn the motive of the change. Was the name " Wesley," the condition of fortune, too mean in itself, or had it become debased by its associations? Wellesley is certainly the more sounding patronymic.

The Epworth family was miserably poor. The head of the house was imprisoned for debt, and owed his release from severe difficulties to public subscription organised by Archbishop Sharp. But, in the midst of their troubles, the Wesleys preserved their self-respect, and even indulged a little pride. This was especially the case with reference to matrimonial alliances.

" My brother Charles," says John Wesley, " had an attachment in early youth to an amiable girl of inferior birth. This was much opposed by my mother and her family, who mentioned it with concern to my uncle. Finding from my father that this was the chief objection, my uncle only replied, ' Then there is no family blood ? I hear the girl is good, but of no family.' ' Nor fortune either,' said my mother. He made no reply, but sent my brother a sum of money as a wedding-present, and, I believe, sincerely regretted that he was ultimately crossed in his inclination." *■

1 Charles, however, duly profited by the lesson. When his brother John was old enough to know better, he conceived the idea of uniting himself in the bands of matrimony to a Mrs. Grace Murray, described as a "very pious and respectable woman," but not his equal in rank. Mr. Charles took the matter adroitly in hand, and, with Mr. Whitefield as an ally, effected the marriage of the lady with a Mr. Bennett, one of the preachers, during her lover's absence. On being informed of his fate, the disappointed swain ruefully confessed that "the sons of Zeruiah were too strong for him. "

Probably it was pride, quite as much as politics, that rendered the Wesleys unpopular in Lincolnshire. Their most reputable neighbours — small landowners or yeomen of parsimonious habits — were not of the class the clergy prefer to visit with ; and it is clear that on social matters the Wesleys (or, perhaps, the Annesleys) had very positive notions. When the burning of the rectory caused a temporary separation of the family, Mrs. Wesley regretted the associations amongst which her children were thrown, and which led, among other disasters, to the acquisition of a faulty accent. The regret was intelligible enough in a careful mother, but such fastidiousness could not, in the nature of things, ingratiate her with the uneducated and scornful boors, who drummed, and shouted, and fired off pistols and guns.

The fire itself, preceded by a rehearsal, was, there is good reason to believe, the work of an incendiary. John Wesley, then a child of five, always regarded it as one of the capital events of his life, and well he might, seeing that he narrowly escaped an untimely end.

" God saved him," says his father, " by almost a miracle. He only was forgot by the servants in the hurry. He ran to the window towards the yard, stood upon a chair, and cried for help. There were now a few people gathered, one of whom, who loves me, helped another up to the window. The child, seeing a man come into the window, was frightened, and ran away to get to his mother's chamber. He could not open the door, so ran back again. The man was fallen down from the window, and all the bed and hangings in the room where he was were blazing.

They helped up the man the second time, and poor Jacky leaped into his arms, and was saved. I could not believe it till I had kissed him two or three times."

When, in later life, Wesley became saturated with the idea of hell, he looked back to this incident as emblematical of another conflagration and another escape. Under one of his portraits is engraved a house in flames, and beneath that a motto, to Wesley endlessly suggestive — " Is not this a brand plucked out of the burning ? "

The restoration of the parsonage brought with it, outwardly, an almost idyllic change. Instead of " foul beasts " and " Erymanthean boars," we hear of fronts planted with wall-fruit; of mulberry trees, cherry trees, and pear trees set in the garden, and of walnuts in the adjoining croft. The sequel, however, was not quite in accord with the tranquillity that " the purest of all human pleasures " might seem to promise. On December 1, 1716, twenty years after the first arrival of the Wesleys at Epworth, the peace of the new home was effectually broken by the inauguration of a series of disturbances supposed to be supernatural.

The noises — there was more hearing than seeing — were multiform, or, at least, sounded differently to different ears. Sometimes they resembled " the dismal groans of one in extremes, at the point to die." At other times, the gobblings of a turkey-cock furnished a more accurate simile. When the visitant approached, the air was charged with iEolian music. The observers attained to a remarkable degree of precision in defining their impressions. A vivid description was that of a man mounting the stairs in jackboots, and trailing a nightgown after him.

To recount all the phenomena would be pleasant, but unscrupulous. Hardly any trick or device that could mystify the mind or work upon the feelings was omitted. The rector's characteristic knock "threetimes-three " was mimicked, and one Sunday at dinner his trencher frolicked on the table. His daughter Nancy was sitting on a bed, when it was lifted repeatedly to a considerable height. Jumping off, she exclaimed, " Surely Old Jeffrey won't run away with me ! "

" Old Jeffrey " was the nickname bestowed on the ghost, and, in course of time, when it was found that no harm resulted, the expression passed into a term of endearment. The younger children are in bed. They hear the soft tapping. But they are not frightened. They only say to each other, " Old Jeffrey is coming ; it is time to go to sleep." And, to beat all, little Kezzy amuses herself by chasing the strange noises from room to room and stamping with her childish foot in order to attract a response.

Altogether, it was an extraordinary affair, and one that cannot be explained by credulity or superstition in the Wesleys. The rector began by scolding his children, but afterwards, by dint of experience, succumbed to their belief. The strong-minded Emilia, in a letter, delivers herself of the following remarks : —

" I am so far from being superstitious that I was too much inclined to infidelity, so that I heartily rejoice at having such an opportunity of convincing myself, past doubt or scruple, of the existence of some things besides those we see. A whole month was sufficient to convince anybody of the reality of the thing, and to try all ways of discovering any trick, had it been possible for any such to have been used."

What interpretation can be given of the events ? To this question several answers have been returned. Southey very properly rejects ordinary and obvious explanations — rats, collusion, or legerdemain — as inadequate to the circumstances, and seeks repose in the famous intimation to Horatio — "There's more in heaven and earth than is dreamed of in your philosophy." Isaac Taylor favours the belief that the actors were neither good angels nor evil angels, but silly elemental spirits, like Queen Titania or Queen Mab, holding high holiday.

This is certainly a bold attempt to dispose of a problem that arises in connection with so many wellauthenticated ghost stories — their apparently motiveless character. What is the use of ghosts " hanging around " in the way they so often do ? Southey hints, to convince materialists of the existence of an invisible world. Perhaps. Emilia Wesley was " inclined to infidelity." On this assumption the Epworth fairies did their work well, and need not be called silly.

Coleridge takes quite another line, and interprets after this fashion. " What was it ? Why, a contagious nervous disease, the acme or intensest form of which is catalepsy." Coleridge's opinion is entitled to profound respect, but this particular view strikes one as more feasible than probable, as an anodyne to lull perplexity and save trouble. It is very well to talk of catalepsy, but there could not have been much of catalepsy in Kezzy hilariously pursuing Mr. Ghost. Truly, it is a great crux.

The episode of Old Jeffrey's antics has been referred to at some length, because it helps to account for a notable trait in the character of John Wesley. The eighteenth century prided itself on being an age of reason, and yet whole pages of John Wesley's Journal are filled with reports of special providences, apparitions, magic mirrors, and the like. Wesley was savingly convinced of witchcraft. With him, not to believe in witchcraft was to count yourself out of the number of true believers in the Bible.